Crumbs from the Scone
“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
Crumbs from the Scone
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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“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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According to Kara Trivunovic and Andrew Osterday, most mom-and-pop businesses can’t do much with email marketing advice that concentrates on sophisticated topics like multivariate testing, dynamic content development and data integration. For those who need entry-level advice, they created a 10-point Do-It-Yourself Primer that includes handy tips in plain English. Among them:
Be yourself. “People frequent your establishment because they enjoy the environment, the way they are treated, the quality of your product,” the authors say. “[W]hatever the reason may be, your recipients need to feel the same emotion when they open your email messages.” Your tone and word choice, for instance, will seem more authentic if they’re similar to those your customers hear in person.
Use what you know. As you’ve built your business, you’ve probably learned more about your customers than any consultant you might hire. “Appealing to the recipient by leveraging information you know about them extends that relationship to the inbox,” they note.
Offer an incentive. “[B]ecause of the relationship most small business owners have with their customer base, the incentive tends to be perceived as a ‘thank you’ to a good customer and not just a ploy to get an email address,” they say. But beware, they warn—the cost of list-building giveaways can add up.
You can do this yourself. One of the joys of email marketing is the fact that, by paying heed to a few insider tips like these, small business owners can see solid results.
Source: MarketingProfs.
Crumbs from the Scone
A recent McDonald’s ad sets a scene many of us see every day, but throws in a twist. Two cultured-looking men are reading at a table in a highbrow coffee house when the first friend—neck wrapped in a scarf—mentions that McDonald’s now sells cappuccino. His goateed compatriot greets the news with an initially dismissive expression, but then smiles broadly and says, “That’s awesome! I can shave this thing off my face!” As the first friend removes his scarf and sweater, they celebrate how they no longer have to call movies “films,” and can now talk about football.
The ad takes pains, though, to soften the stereotype-bashing blow with a concession that these elements aren’t necessarily pretentious affectations:
- Friend #2: “I don’t need these glasses. These are fake.”
- Friend #1: “I do need mine. They’re very real.”
In a post at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog, Ted Mininni distills the humorous ad’s multiple messages: “You don’t have to be a snobbish, artsy type—real or affected—to enjoy a good ‘cultured’ brew. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get great café beverages, either. You can actually be who you are—walk into McDonald’s Café and get a great cup of Joe while being an average Joe.”
The ad becomes Marketing Inspiration by accomplishing all of this and making us laugh—whether at or with the stereotype—in only 30 seconds.
source: marketingprofs enewsletter
Crumbs from the Scone
“Most email marketers do not view soft bounces as being a major cause for concern,” says Dela Quist in the UK DMA Email Marketing Council newsletter, “so rarely, if ever, have any specific strategies been in place for dealing with them.”
According to Quist, this erroneous belief is based on outdated assumptions—namely, that soft bounces are caused by busy servers or full inboxes. The catch: Neither of these is a pressing issue in 2009. “Gmail currently offers 7GB of storage!” Quist says. “I don’t know anyone who has exceeded their Gmail—or for that matter, [their] Yahoo or Hotmail storage limit—and even if there are such people, they are hardly representative of the average consumer.”
Because of this, concludes Quist, a soft bounce is most likely caused by temporary ISP blocking, an action often triggered by:
- A lack of authentication
- A poor IP reputation
- Fluctuations in volume
- Spam complaints
Whatever the reason, it probably isn’t good, but can be addressed in coordination with your ESP.
Heads up! Handle soft bounces with the same attention you give to hard ones. They might not be as harmless as you think: they can, in fact, be a sign of a far more serious situation.
Source: UK DMA.
Crumbs from the Scone
You know you’re on the up-and-up, and that your email messages contain legitimate offers for actual products or services. Unfortunately, though, you’re often sharing inbox space with fraudulent messages that claim to come from popular retailers and banks. Those emails are, in fact, nothing more than phishing scams designed to obtain the personal information crooks need for identity theft. Making everything more complicated, phishers have become more sophisticated over the last few years, swiping graphics taken from actual websites and spoofing URLs that appear legitimate.
Because your more savvy customers will regard any out-of-the-ordinary message with added skepticism, it’s important to avoid anything that might raise a red flag in their minds. Microsoft’s primer on phishing is a great way to identify elements that will make them nervous:
- Requests for the verification of personal information.
- Alerts that an account will be closed unless a customer responds within a certain timeframe.
- Salutations like Dear Valued Customer. “Phishing e-mail messages are usually sent out in bulk and often do not contain [a] first or last name,” notes Microsoft.
- Copy like Click the link below to gain access to your account, particularly if placing the pointer on a link reveals a different address than the one displayed.
Be trustworthy. Learn what puts your customers on guard, and use that information to design emails that heighten their trust.
Source: Microsoft.
Crumbs from the Scone
According to Jorge Aguilar and Andrew Pierce, the Hispanic population in the United States will surpass that of their white non-Hispanic compatriots by 2030. And, argue the pair in an article at MarketingProfs, appealing to this rapidly growing segment is not as simple as hiring a Spanish translator.
“[M]arketers need to incorporate into their perspectives how purchasing decisions are made by Hispanics,” they say. The opinions of family and friends, for instance, weigh heavily in the choices Hispanics make. For this reason, a realtor profiled on HGTV arranged for prospective home buyers to spend an evening entertaining loved ones in a house they were considering. “The family decided to purchase the house after getting positive feedback from the guests,” say Aguilar and Pierce.
They also suggest wooing first-generation customers with brand names they recognize. Colgate-Palmolive imports Suavitel, a fabric softener popular in Latin America; and Blistex has created a lip balm flavored like the ubiquitous soda Jarritos. Once you’ve penetrated the market, meanwhile, they recommend targeting your Hispanic audience with highly tailored messaging. “This likely requires new positioning to differentiate the brand from competitors while earning credibility and relevance,” they note.
One-size-fits-all solutions won’t work for this important segment, claim Aguilar and Pierce. “As the Hispanic population continues to grow larger and more affluent,” they say, “winning marketers will be those who understand brand loyalty cannot be achieved by translating advertisements into Spanish.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
Crumbs from the Scone
You’ve just read the first draft of a press release and you can already see where you want to make a few edits. The lede needs more punch. Your audience might not recognize that industry-specific term. You’ve noticed that your third paragraph fell victim to the passive voice. Once you fix those, you start to see other problems—and pretty soon you’re agonizing over relatively inconsequential issues, like whether to use an em-dash or a semicolon to join a pair of sentences.
According to Dave Fleet, this dogged pursuit of perfection can become counterproductive. “With each subsequent round of editing,” he notes, “the return on your time investment will likely get incrementally smaller. At some point you need to make the call to stop; to accept that it’s just not worth making more edits.”
So how can you tell when enough is enough? Fleet offers this checklist:
- Your copy starts to resemble earlier versions.
- It seems like someone’s been using a thesaurus.
- You’re fine-tuning minor wording deep in the text.
- A rising word count includes new material of questionable relevance.
Whether you’re working alone or with a team, it’s important to recognize when changes are being made for the sake of change. If further edits don’t improve the press release, says Fleet, “It might be time to put the writing to bed and move on.”
Source: Dave Fleet.
Crumbs from the Scone
In a post at the ExactTarget blog, Nate Romance recounts a visit with his tech-savvy mother, a woman who makes frequent online purchases through sites like Craigslist and Amazon. While scanning her email, she became annoyed with a particular message. “If they send me one more stupid email this week,” she said in exasperation, “I’m never going to buy anything from them again.”
According to Romance, his mother shops at this specialty retailer exactly once a year—to buy a birthday gift for his sister. But despite her regular-as-clockwork shopping pattern, she still receives between three and five email messages each week.
The problem, says Romance, is when companies like this place more importance on omnipresence than relevance. “One marketer actually told me that they considered an unopened, unclicked email to be a net positive for their brand,” he says. “Instead of looking at what they are gaining by sending so frequently, this company should probably be looking at what they are losing from this practice.”
He suggests a better practice: “Adjusting frequency based on previous purchase behavior shows that you understand your customers, you respect them, and you’ll be there for them when they’re ready.”
Cool it. Pay close attention to customer preferences. No one benefits from bombarding subscribers with a scattershot email strategy.
Source: ExactTarget.
“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:
