The Shelf Chronicles
Okay… two points right off the bat. I have always been drawn to interesting, unusual people, businesses and ways of thinking. I enjoy reading business blogs that offer interesting, out-of-the-box content that gives me a glimpse into who the owner’s are as well as what the company has to offer. The occasional “what I did on my summer vacation” post is a great way to introduce some whimsical content in with the business to business postings.
With that said, I am going to revisit a thread that I had originally started back in February of 2008, the “Shelf Chronicles”. I have always enjoyed watching bonus feature material on any dvd from Pixar Studios as it typically shows employees working in there impossibly cool studios surrounded by all manner of interesting, weird, out-of-the-ordinary toys, decorations etc. I have a corner in my office which is devoted to my “muses” as I call them. They are a collection of things that have special meanings for me; from toys of my childhood to action figures and statues from tv shows, anime and movies that I have enjoyed over the years.
My Office Muses
This particular thread on my blog will be a way for me to introduce them to you and give you the opportunity to get to know the “geekier” side of Shadowbend Studios (whether or not that is a good idea, we’ll soon find out!!). Those of you who may have read my pseudo-bio on the company information page on my website will know that I am no stranger to quirky, odd ramblings 🙂
So, on to the first introductions…. perhaps we should begin with one of the more unique members of my extended family; Tybo the Carrot Man from “Lost In Space”. He was one of the first of my collection and always gets a double take from visitors.
"Tybo" The Carrot Man
Tybo is the main alien character from the Lost In Space episode “The Great Vegetable Rebellion”. For those of you are in the mood, you can view the entire episode on Hulu by following this link. Enjoy! 🙂
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“There are a lot of things that can go wrong with email marketing—broken links, typos, unoptimized images—the list goes on,” writes Magdalena Georgieva at the HubSpot blog. But on the other hand, she notes, marketers shouldn’t focus so intently on small technical details that they lose sight of the big picture—of customer engagement.
Keeping in mind the need to tread the thin line between email right and wrong, Georgieva discusses David Meerman Scott’s deadly sins of email marketing.
Here are four:
Bad marketing automation. The positive benefits of personalization will turn quickly negative if your message begins Dear [blank]. No subscriber thinks you sat down and wrote a personal offer—but she can reasonably expect that you’ll get her non-personal personalization correct.
Boring content. We can’t expect subscribers to share our inherent passion for our products, services and news. So tell a compelling story, and hold their interest with humor, controversy and interesting facts.
Lack of variety. No matter how much customers like a brand, they’ll lose interest if the only thing its messages ever say is please buy this thing. Mix it up with content that educates and builds relationships.
Predictable timing. If you send messages on Tuesday morning because someone said that’s when you should send a message, you’re probably missing big opportunities, Georgieva notes. Find out what works for your company by testing a variety of days and times; you might even discover success with a weekend campaign.
Think communication first. It’s important to cross your t’s and dot your i’s, but don’t get so carried away with the details that you forget to simply engage your subscribers.
Source: HubSpot.
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When David Greiner decided to redesign the Campaign Monitor newsletter—rather than give it a simple facelift—he first studied the advice his company gave to customers. “Turns out we were breaking a number of the recommendations we’d been advocating for so long,” he notes, “and it was time to remedy that.” In a post at the Campaign Monitor blog, Greiner offers an in-depth discussion of his four redesign must-haves. Here’s a snapshot:
The newsletter had to be readable, even with blocked images. Though the previous design already addressed this issue, Greiner took it a step further. “I moved away from the large image-based header graphic at the top of the email and kept every important bit of information as text,” he explains. With the new design—shown in a screen shot at the blog post—a recipient won’t see the image placeholder, and might not even realize that anything has been blocked.
It had to be optimized for preview panes. Again, nothing groundbreaking here, but Greiner also put a spin on this concept by dispensing with a preheader altogether and diving right into a Table of Contents. “My testing showed this key content was now visible in the preview pane of every popular email client I tested,” he says, “even at a very low resolution.”
In its inaugural week, the redesigned newsletter’s click rate improved on the old design’s average by a cool eight percent.
Designer, heal thyself! Are you breaking any of your own newsletter design rules? If so, maybe it’s time for a makeover.
Source: Campaign Monitor
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Successful marketing requires a strong team—whether it’s dealing with customers on the front line, writing copy for email campaigns or developing products. “One way to hire smart is to never do it in a panic,” writes Jennifer Prosek in her book, Army of Entrepreneurs. “This means creating and nurturing a constant pipeline of potential candidates.” And here’s how to do it:
Always be on the lookout for talent. Make a habit of identifying and getting to know potential candidates—even when you don’t have a specific position to fill. “Never get caught in the trap of recruiting only when you need someone to start in two weeks,” she says. “That’s when you’re vulnerable to making a mistake [or] overlooking a weak work ethic.”
Make talent-spotting part of your staff’s job description. “Too often, staffers assume that recruiting happens someplace away from the daily hum of business, in some corner of the HR department,” notes Prosek, who freely admits she isn’t her company’s best talent spotter. She highlights the importance of recruiting in the weekly blog post she writes for employees, and encourages referrals with bonuses for bringing in top talent.
Hire the right person for the right job—even in a downturn. “I have often made strategy hires that at the time raised eyebrows,” she says. “What’s she doing? Hiring this high-priced talent in this economy? But I know what I’m doing. I’m making sure we are bringing in the talent we need to be successful.”
If you want the best employees, never stop looking for them.
Source: Army of Entrepreneurs.
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“Digital marketing has become the way to communicate in the 21st century,” says Elaine Fogel in a premium article at MarketingProfs. “Social media, email, search engine marketing, interactive marketing, blogs, wikis, and knols—the list goes on … to include mobile marketing, podcasting, videos.”
But in your rush to marketing’s online future, you shouldn’t abandon its offline past. Print collateral, argues Fogel, remains relevant.
Despite the seeming ubiquity of Internet access and usage, many people simply don’t go online. She cites a Parks Associates study that found 21 percent of Americans had never visited a Web site, sent an email or used a search engine. Even in highly developed European countries like France, Belgium and Austria, more than 40 percent of the population never uses the Internet; despite high rates of connectivity in countries like Japan and Taiwan, this number jumps—on average—to a whopping 85 percent in Asia.
Some segments prefer print marketing. Hispanic interest in direct mail has spiked in recent years, according to a Vertis survey, and while 85 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 44 read direct mail pieces, only 53 percent read email-marketing messages. “From this,” notes Fogel, “we can conclude that if you target women age 25-44 or Hispanics, print collateral may get your marketing messages through over digital options.”
Don’t neglect traditional marketing collateral. Says Elaine Fogel, “Even though digital marketing is growing with a vengeance, print collateral can still hold its place in an integrated marketing communications mix, at least for now.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
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“If you want to create something very good,” says Tom Peters, “it takes time, energy, and sometimes money.” That, he argues, is exactly why you should give away your finest know-how for free. Before you beg to differ, consider his ten-point business case, which includes reasons like these:
It increases your reach. The marketplace is flooded with mediocre ideas that don’t merit discussion. Excellence, therefore, stands out and takes on a viral quality. “Giving away good stuff for free may be the fastest way to reach a lot of people,” says Peters.
It improves future projects. When smart people notice your ideas, he notes, “They may comment on your work, enhance your work, and maybe even, challenge your work.” It’s the equivalent of a kitchen cabinet making pro bono intellectual contributions.
It lowers the cost of sale. If companies decide to act on the ideas you present, there’s a good chance some will turn to your product or service during the implementation process.
Your Marketing Inspiration, and Peters’ number-one reason to give away the best you have to offer: “They don’t have to guess the quality of your work anymore,” says Peters, “so they will be more open to paying a premium for additional work.”
source: marketingprofs enewsletter
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Ardath Albee often gets questions about appropriate email frequency for B2B nurturing programs. How much is too much? How little is too little? “And, yep, wait for it—the answer is—it depends,” she writes at the Marketing Interactions blog.
So to help a range of B2B marketers find the right frequency for their email programs, Albee offers advice like this:
Accept that the length of the buy cycle is the length of the buy cycle. “If it’s 8 months, trying to increase the frequency to complete the program in 3 months isn’t going to change that,” she argues. “Buyers will move at their own pace.” Attempts to speed things up with additional email messages will likely annoy your leads and cause campaign fatigue.
Plan with a realistic view of your content-producing capabilities. It takes time to research, write, vet, approve and publish high-quality content. “Map your processes to a timeline so that you can meet the frequency schedule you choose to follow,” Albee advises. “Better to space it out and do it well than to rush to publish based on an artificial schedule you cannot maintain over the long haul.”
Coordinate the timing of email campaigns with each of your company’s departments. “Unless you can isolate your targeted lead list,” she says, “you need to look at the entire universe of email that they could be exposed to from your company and plan accordingly.” You might think you’re giving leads plenty of space, but they’ll feel bombarded if they’re also getting product announcements, corporate newsletters and webinar invitations from others in your organization.
Take the time to clearly map things out. There’s no simple formula for correct frequency, and yours depends on a host of variables—internal and external.
Source: Marketing Interactions.
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In a post at Deliverability.com, Dennis Dayman tells the story of receiving a spam message that pitched—ironically enough—anti-spam products. He decided to investigate, and discovered it had come from a familiar email service provider. “I contacted a friend there and asked them to look into how this company [the author of the email] got my email address since it was not an opt-in email or a company I’d ever done business with,” he recounts.
The answer: At an anti-spam conference in 2008, Dayman had entered a contest by putting his business card in a fishbowl. “Yes,” he notes, “it took them three years to send me the first email.” Even without that strange delay, however, he would have taken issue with being added to the list, he says.
“Not once did I hear: ‘By registering for this free item you will get an email from us,'” he explains. “What I heard was: ‘Drop your business card in here to win an iPod.'”
His wife offered an alternative perspective: “You didn’t think they would ever spam you when you tried to win the Apple product by dropping your business card into the fishbowl?” she asked.
This goes to the heart of the opt-in debate. If you add people to your list without their explicit permission, some—like Dayman’s wife—will see it as a natural outcome and opt out if they don’t want your messages. But others won’t be so generous, and they’re rarely shy about hitting the spam button.
Assume permission with care and caution. “[U]nderstand that when I give you my business card, I am giving it to you so you can individually contact me, not so you can spam me,” Dayman advises.
Source: Deliverability.
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“If you bought a nice car two decades ago, would you expect it to still run well if you put in minimal maintenance?” asks Josh Nason in an article at MarketingProfs. “What about that house you bought two years ago? Lots of work, right?”
Well, your email marketing program requires upkeep as well, Nason notes: If you don’t take care of it, it won’t take care of you.
According to Nason, a basic maintenance plan must include action steps like these:
Hire an ESP (email service provider). “If you’re still sending emails from Outlook, give up,” says Nason. “That is the equivalent of using dial-up for your Internet connection—and you’ll deal with all manner of deliverability issues, lack of metrics, and blacklisting problems.” In other words, the cost of an ESP is worth it.
Build a custom template. “Generic templates often look like generic templates, so why are you using them?” he asks. “Your business is unique, so why squeeze yourself inside someone else’s creative box?”
Send messages on a regular basis. People don’t want too much email; nor do they want too little. If you go for weeks or months without sending a newsletter or an offer—something, anything—they might forget who you are and flag you as spam, he warns.
Study your reports. Your ESP can provide an extraordinary amount of data. “Open rates, click-through statistics, number of shares—it goes on and on,” Nason says. “But when was the last time you really delved into your reports to see what’s working and what isn’t?” There’s no time like the present.
If your emails are a flop, take a hard look in the mirror. As Nason puts it, “It’s pretty simple: Your email marketing is insufferable because you don’t care about it.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
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“Today’s online marketing world is full of lovely words like engagement and empowerment, communication and conversation, interaction and integration, friends, fans and followers,” writes Mark Brownlow at Email Marketing Reports. “Many of these keywords go back to the age-old idea of building a strong relationship between your organization and the members of your audience.”
But here’s the problem with that: Marketers spend too much time talking about the relationship, and too little time having a relationship, Brownlow argues. The result, he notes, is common mistakes like these:
Speaking to your subscribers as if they’re all the same person. “I don’t talk to the postman like I do to my wife,” Brownlow says. “And I don’t talk to the postman now like I talked to him five years ago.” In the same way, you should consider various factors when speaking to a subscriber:
- How long has she been on your list?
- What kinds of purchases does she make?
- What does she open and click on?
- How does she browse at your site?
- How likely is she to share your content with others?
Assuming your subscriber considers your brand a BFF. We tend to think of the email marketing relationship as having a far stronger bond than actually exists, Brownlow says. “[F]or most subscribers it’s an extremely tenuous commitment. Marketers who forget this often assume unconditional love, meaning subscribers will always forgive the occasional (or regular) transgression.” Your most loyal customers might forgive you, but the majority of your list won’t have any trouble hitting the unsubscribe button, he cautions.
Come back down to earth. Don’t let all the nice theory about email relationships prevent you from seeing each one for what it really is—and interacting in a way that creates the most value for your customer.
Source: Email Marketing Reports.
