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It’s always good to pause for reflection, and Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports has grouped 27 questions you might ask yourself into thematic categories, along with links to insightful blog posts and articles that address each topic.
Under the heading of coping with increased competition, he poses thought-provoking queries like:
- What do your emails offer that people can’t get from any other email list?
- If a competitor started offering the same content or similar offers, why would subscribers stay with your list?
Moving along to recipient fatigue, he asks questions like these:
- Are you controlling the number of emails your subscribers get (not just from you, but from everyone in the organization)?
- Do you think declining responses are best reversed by sending more emails or by building a better email program?
Later on, under the heading of optimized metrics, he wonders:
- Have you considered the email impacts that don’t show up in standard campaign reports?
- When you get an unusually bad or good result, do you shrug and move on or do you search for the lesson and apply them to future emails?
The self-deprecating Brownlow zeroes in on the bottom line with question number 16. “Are you implementing new tactics because some Englishman in Austria with a blog said they worked or because they make intrinsic sense for your list, audience and email model, or because you tested the ideas and found them beneficial?”
Source: Email Marketing Reports
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In a video post at the Church of the Customer Blog, Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell use the example of a goat-milk carton (that’s right: a goat-milk carton!) to underscore the importance of listening to your customers.
“One thing you have to know about goat’s milk,” explains Huba,” is that the milk solids do go to the bottom and every time you drink it you’ve got to shake it up.” There was, for Huba, only one problem with this procedure—her favored brand used old-fashioned cartons without a screw top, and vigorous shaking sometimes sent milk spraying all over the kitchen. On her last visit to the supermarket, however, she discovered that the dairy not only updated its cartons to the screw top style, it added two words to the packaging: Customer Requested.
“They are basically saying, ‘Hey, we heard you,'” says Huba. “The key is to take those two words, put in on the packaging, and [send the message that] this is a company that really listens to customers.”
According to Huba, there are two ways to listen:
- Passively. This means providing customers with easy ways to give you feedback.
- Actively, by paying attention to what they say in online venues like blogs, forums and tweets.
“Listening is a risk-free strategy overall,” says McConnell in a neat summation of this Marketing Inspiration. “I mean, nothing can harm you by actively listening to what people are saying and feeding that back into the company.”
source: marketingprofs enewsletter
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B
arack Obama wowed the nation with his social media savvy when he won the bid for President on November 4—but he surprised us again when he didn’t stop there.
Just weeks after scoring the title of POTUS (President of the United States, for those who didn’t take poli sci in college), he started airing weekly fireside chats on YouTube, addressing viewers like they were friends in his living room. Then—cherry on the cake—his administration launched Change.gov, a site that lets ordinary citizens tap into the pulse of government.
Following the inauguration, Change.gov began redirecting to WhiteHouse.gov, but quick perusal will prove this ain’t your ordinary government website. It’s updated regularly to keep people abreast of the Administration’s agenda, a separate blog is updated at least once a day, and every week you can watch Obama’s weekly address, filmed in an intimate setting—and hosted by YouTube.
Far from leaning too heavily on its social media roots, WhiteHouse.gov also aspires to demystify the gov. White House 101 is splattered with fun historical trivia, like “First Pets” and presidential bios. And the Contact page makes calling the Administration arguably easier than ringing your local ISP.
Want proof the Obama approach works? Look no further. The President used Change.gov to keep the nation apprised of his transition to President. When last asked, over 80% of citizens polled felt the transition was managed transparently and well: just one indication that keeping a dialogue open with your customers—in this case, the American people—reaps rewards aplenty.
Don’t be afraid to engage your constituency—er, customers—in a two-way conversation. Even the biggest critics can be won over when they realize someone’s listening.
source: marketingprofs enewsletter
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The Shadowbend Studios blog hit 3000 visitors this morning. Thank you to everyone who has dropped by, commented and shared your thoughts and business tips with me.
I hope my posts have been educational, inspirational and/or informative. I look forward to many more interesting posts and even MORE interesting visitors! 🙂
Thank you all once again for your support.
Take care,
Skip
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“[M]any companies hesitate to launch customer case studies because they worry about imposing on their best customers,” say Barbara Bix and Olga Taylor in an article at MarketingProfs. “To their delight, however, companies often discover that decision-makers are happy to discuss their experiences and look forward to being featured in an article that positions them as a leader in their industry.”
If a belief that case studies impose on clients has prevented you from showcasing your best work in public, you’re missing out on a host of benefits that could speed a sale along. These include:
Associating your brand with those of high-profile customers.
Attracting reporters hungry for substantive narratives and sources willing to speak on the record.
Enticing prospects who discover case studies in Google searches.
Bix and Taylor recommend providing at least one case study for each product or service you offer in each industry you serve. “Each satisfied customer is a key to several others who are similar, want to be similar, or simply know of your customers,” they say. “Can you afford to have them keep their story to themselves?”
“Customer success stories work by matching your prospects’ goals, titles, problems, company characteristics, industry buzzwords, and so on to those of your successful customers,” say Bix and Taylor. “That’s because customers believe that their situations are relevant to companies that are just like them.”
Source: MarketingProfs. Click here for the full article.
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Oh, the dreaded negative customer review: shoppers love to read it, and marketers live in fear of it. Marketing teams across the land have been trying to develop strategies for dealing with this new reality. Well, take heart: a recent Forrester Research report called “Myths and Truths About Online Consumer Reviews” offers some good news about the actual impact of negative reviews on customer buying behavior. According to the research, as reported at Internet Retailer:
Consumers consider reviews to be “valuable” when shopping for all kinds of products.
A full 81% of respondents said they do indeed read them.
But here’s where the results get interesting:
- Only 14% of the survey respondents said they always trust a negative review.
- Close to 50% of online shoppers said they have purchased a product despite reading a negative review.
- And 37% said that after reading a negative review, they then turned to “professionally” written reviews.
The lesson for marketers here? While online shoppers will certainly be reading reviews about your products, when it comes down to making a buying decision, they will think for themselves. In other words, a negative review is not a deal-breaker; it’s just a factor in a shopper’s overall consideration of your product.
The decision to buy is personal. While online reviews are a factor in that decision, they won’t necessarily have a stronger impact than your own copy on consumer choice. Keep on writing!
Source: Internet Retailer. Read the full article here.
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“We’re duped into believing that the pretty, the pristine, and the perfect get all the perks, all the breaks, all the glory,” says Vicki Kunkel in her book Instant Appeal. In many cases, she argues, the opposite is actually true. Obvious imperfections have their benefits—whether in your personal or corporate brands.
To make her point, she showed a diverse group of survey participants a series of split-screen images—each with one attractive person and one homely person—and asked questions like:
To which of these two individuals would you feel more comfortable giving the keys to your house?
If you loaned each of these people $50, which one do you feel would be more likely to pay you back?
She found that 67 percent would give their keys to the less attractive person; a whopping 82 percent, meanwhile, considered the homely group more credit-worthy. “Apparently we trust the average-looking among us more than the swans to be moral, helpful and honest.”
According to Kunkel, the same principle applies to various aspects of corporate branding. A CEO who includes some dirty laundry in a speech will seem honest; an ugly Web site like craigslist or eBay will seem straightforward. In other words, ugly can work in your favor.
“We’re most appealing when we’re being ourselves,” says Kunkel, “warts (or moles or gapped teeth or dorkiness or oratorical clumsiness) and all. There is real power and panache in knowing and embracing our shortcomings, our flaws, and ourselves.”
Source: Instant Appeal.
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Some email marketing practices should always be avoided. “There are a hundred ways to skulk around, to collect email addresses, to write clever privacy policies or to argue about whether opt-out (‘you can always unsubscribe!’) is a valid way to build a brand,” says Seth Godin at his eponymous blog. “None of those schemes work.”
To illustrate his point, Godin contrasts some email messages he received in a single week:
- Paul McGowan of PS Audio, sent a highly anticipated newsletter filled with information, reviews and storytelling. “Because I signed up for the newsletter,” notes Godin, “I open it. Because he never abuses my trust, I trust him … When it’s time to buy the sort of thing he sells, I won’t look around much, because I’m already sold.” McGowan’s approach might not generate instant sales, but he’ll see a long-term payoff.
- Another audio company, however, sent a single unsolicited offer twice under different subject lines. Godin suspects the company harvested his address from a source like an old business card. “I get a lot of spam from non-reputable companies,” he says, “but it was surprising to get this html ad via email from a company that used to have a good reputation.” This is not the impression any business wants to create.
The second company probably had a ready argument for the legality of its email campaign, but that isn’t good enough. “[C]onsumers now have rights too,” says Godin. “The right to ignore, to distrust and to choose someone else when it comes time to spend money.”
Source: Seth Godin’s Blog. Click here for the full post
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While you know you shouldn’t measure the success of your email marketing programs against results achieved by other businesses, learning about average open, click-through and conversion rates can be a useful tool. You might identify areas for potential improvement—or get a thrill out of learning you outperform other companies in certain categories.
A short video from The 60 Second Marketer offers some guidelines:
- Though many marketers see an open rate of between 20 percent and 30 percent, there are outliers. For instance, while open rates for email from publishing companies might exceed 40 percent, those from entertainment companies might be closer to 15 percent. “Open rates increase the more you segment your opt-in email distribution list,” notes the video.
- Click-through rates often fall between four percent and five percent.
- Conversion rates can range from 0.1 percent to 1.5 percent.
Take benchmarks like these with a grain of salt. “Of course, the only real way to see if your email marketing is successful is to develop an A/B Split Test for one of your campaigns,” says Jamie Turner. “Once you’ve done one test, you’ll take the winner (i.e. the Control) and test against that one until you find a new winner.”
Source: The 60 Second Marketer. Click here for the full video.
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“Surviving or Escaping? This is a discussion I’ve been having with a lot of my friends in online lead gen and B2B sales,” reports Bill Rice in a recent Better Closer blog. “The survival attitude is definitely in the air. My theory? That is the number one killer of businesses.”
The far better tactic for B2B marketers in tough times, Rice says, is to “escape.” He explains: “Survival is about conserving resources, slowing your movement, and hoping no one notices that you are dieing. Escaping is doing something about it.” He offers a few escape routes:
Take advantage of your free Web 2.0 options. “Are you buzzing through social media? Are you writing about solutions? Are you spitting out positive messages in a ‘doomed’ world?” he asks.
Innovate. Instead of playing it safe, take some chances. “Let your software engineers give a few of their passionate ideas a whirl, let the marketing folks get a little edgy, call a client you think you will never land,” Rice urges his fellow B2B’ers.
Punch a hole. “Escaping is usually finding the simplest, smallest chink in the wall that can weaken the whole [status quo] fortress,” he explains.
He offers examples of escapes from previous dark periods: “Ask Bill Gates about a visual operating system … [and] Michael Dell about building custom computers.”
When times get tough, the tough get an escape route. Brainstorm these suggestions to see where your team might break through the gloom, and strike gold.
Source: Better Closer.
It’s always good to pause for reflection, and Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports has grouped 27 questions you might ask yourself into thematic categories, along with links to insightful blog posts and articles that address each topic.
