Crumbs from the Scone
On the weekend it launched, Apple sold one million iPhone 3Gs—and not just to early adopters and hipsters: stats from ChangeWave suggest iPhone’s moving in on the smartphone (read: ENTERPRISE!) market, currently dominated by BlackBerry. Already, iPhone’s a fertile ad medium. From MySpace to Stella McCartney to the Associated Press, all industries want in.
Now, here’s more good news: There’s no need to build an app to join the iPhone ad-mania, even if the iPhone SDK does make it ludicrously easy. Firms like AdMob and Greystripe are on-call to make your creative handheld-friendly. The latter even boasts technology for iPhone-ready Flash ads. Wrap ’em around apps already on the market; devs are always happy to take some extra funding.
To get a sense of where you can ease your brand in, check out all the free apps and games getting snapped up on the App Store, just begging for sponsorship!
Creative’s nothing without quantifiers, and new ways to track iPhone campaigns are cropping up all the time, too. Omniture measures iPhone apps via SiteCatalyst, making it easy to track clicks, purchases and pageviews in real time. Kenshoo tracks geography, cost vs. revenue, and conversions by day or month. And after helping you build an ad execution, AdMob can report on downloads and conversions.
It’s time to test your App aptitude. Exploration is key to mastering this great new revenue stream. Jump on in!
source:marketingprofs enewsletter
Crumbs from the Scone
“Initially, I wanted to be the CEO because I wanted to make the decisions,” says John Edwardson, CEO of CDW, in a video on ChicagoBusiness.com. “And one of the lessons I learned a long time ago was that if you make all the decisions, nobody will want to work for you. And so you learn that you make fewer decisions the higher up you go in the organization.”
Edwardson, formerly an airline executive, recounts an important conversation he once had with the company’s CEO. “‘John,’ he said, ‘you may be the smartest officer of Northwest Airlines. But you’re too critical, you’re too judgmental and you work too hard to try to convince people that your opinion is the right opinion and the best way to do things.'” Instead of smothering colleagues and employees with your own ideas, advised his boss, learn how to listen.
Allowing others to make decisions didn’t come easily to Edwardson, but he began to let those he managed do things their way—as long as it didn’t cost more than $500,000. (He has since upped that cap to $5 million.) “[You] tell people you have a different idea,” he says. “They usually work so hard to prove you wrong that their idea turns out being successful because they want to … prove to you that they can do it.” The management philosophy helped to push CDW revenues from $4 billion in 2001 to $8.1 billion in 2007.
Your Marketing Inspiration comes from Ben McConnell at the Church of the Customer Blog: “If a company’s culture is a reflection of a CEO’s personality, then CDW is one of those companies where employee loyalty is based not just on financial goals, but in a shared ownership of the process along the way—a great pathway to customer evangelism.”
Crumbs from the Scone
Give your emails an effective boost
Cost-effective, and just plain effective, email communications are quite possibly the one sure thing to cling to in the current downturn. So, are you treating them—and your subscribers—right? In a post at ClickZ, Stefan Pollard says there’s no time like the present to improve your email marketing programs. He offers 10 New Year’s Resolutions that are sure to help generate better results for the coming year. Here are a few:
I will listen to feedback. “Monitor replies to inboxes,” he says, “even those you tell readers not to email.” Further, actively solicit input from subscribers by requesting comments and conducting surveys.
I will work to send great content. Create polished email messages with impeccable spelling and grammar, and functional images and links. “Content filters are not your key challenge,” he notes. “It is what readers think of your content and how they act on it.”
I will be more careful about whose email efforts I emulate. Just because a respected company does something a certain way, that doesn’t make it a no-brainer for your situation. “[Y]ou don’t actually know if an initiative worked or if their goals match yours,” says Pollard. “Honestly, most of them aren’t doing great email, either.”
I will trash the word “blast.” Remove the word “blast” from your vocabulary: it represents everything that a responsible email marketer wants to avoid, Pollard says.
Treat your emails to a makeover. A little TLC for this vital channel could make all the difference.
Source: ClickZ.
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Protect Your Online Reputation
When it comes to your company’s reputation, what the Internet giveth, it can also taketh away. The benefits of good online buzz can diminish in the space of hours or days if a harsh critic or unhappy customer decides to make their complaints public. Since you can’t formulate a plan of action if you don’t know something happened, Dan Schawbel recommends free tools that help you monitor conversations in a number of arenas:
- Stay current with new online content by setting up Google Alerts based on specific search terms. Says Schawbel, “You can monitor a news story, keep current with your industry and competitors, and see who is writing about you, all at the same time.”
- By establishing RSS alerts with Technorati.com, you’ll learn when anyone blogs about your company. “Keep track of these blogs, and when you write your next post link to them,” he advises. “Doing so will give recognition to those who have recognized yours.”
- If you track blog posts—but not comments—you’ll miss out on the full picture. “Use Backtype.com to remind yourself where you commented, discover influencers who are commenting on blogs that you should be reading, and continue conversations that you started previously,” he recommends.
In the article at MarketingProfs, Schawbel also explains how to keep tabs on discussion boards, Twitter and social-networking sites.
“Part of your brand is in the hands of others,” says Schawbel, “so it’s critical that you monitor it before a flame becomes a forest fire.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
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MarketingProfs’ own Roy Young recently asked Barry Judge (CMO of Best Buy) and Jessie Paul (CMO of Wipro) how they planned to stay up in a down economy. An article at MarketingProfs details their responses, including this helpful tip from Judge: “Seek out pockets of demand, and invest.” Here’s how:
Start by focusing your highest-value customers. They’re easy to segment, and their enthusiasm for your product or service means they’re more likely to continue as a reliable source of revenue. “At Best Buy,” says Judge, “we can identify them through our database and loyalty programs, so we can target offers, communication, and investment directly to them.”
Then zero in on segments to which you can offer a strong value proposition for must-have items. “[I]n our industry,” he explains, “some products have become consumer necessities (e.g., cell phones, PCs) and therefore may be more resilient during times when consumers pull back their spending on more discretionary items.”
Finally, invest your efforts in areas with genuine growth potential. Says Judge, “For example, unemployed workers tend to startup small businesses during a recession and create demand for small business IT products and support.”
“Leading companies do not subscribe to the common misconception that marketing is a discretionary expense,” says Young. “They know that there is business opportunity during economic downturns, and marketing can lead the way: With smart marketing they stay on top and often capture more market share during a recession.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
Crumbs from the Scone
It happens with every downturn: some companies find ways to thrive. In a recent post at B2B Marketing Confidential, Andy Hasselwander offered some good advice on doing business when the economy goes south. His source? None other than Studs Terkel’s book about the Great Depression, Hard Times.
Thinking Outside The Marketing Paradigm
One chapter in the book, “The Big Money,” includes an interview with William Benton, founder of the ad agency Benton & Bowles (now D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles). Not only did the startup agency not crash when the stock market did, its profits shot up—and stayed there. How did they do it? Hasselwander lists some reasons, then translates them into tips for B2B marketers today.
The agency did audience research. “They worked with George Gallup. They listened to customers. … This was new stuff,” Hasselwander reports. Lesson: Marketers who listen to their customers [and clients] in new and powerful ways will win the battle for fewer dollars.
They invested in media (like radio) that bigger agencies were ignoring. Lesson: Those who master the next wave of media will rise above the fray.
They invested in other businesses—at rock-bottom prices. Lesson: Keep some powder dry. The really good investment opportunities are starting now.
They invested in new talent. The agency was able to “add incredible talent at low prices because of the glut of labor supply,” he reports. Lesson: Keep hiring channels open, and be pickier than ever.
Think outside the tattered box. Great marketers find an opportunity in every challenge—and forge ahead.
Source: B2B Marketing Confidential.
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“In the holiday email season [of 2009], retailers turned up the gas on their email campaigns, hoping to salvage what was predicted to be a flat or down consumer spending season,” says Loren McDonald in an article at MarketingProfs. If handled haphazardly, that’s a risky strategy that increases the likelihood of spam complaints and unsubscribe requests. But if managed carefully, he argues, you can increase your email volume to some recipients without losing their goodwill.
GOOD email!
The trick is to think in terms of sending the right message to the right subscriber at the right time—a formula that might actually call for more than one email each week. Yes, you heard it right: increased frequency can be good customer service.
“Targeting increases relevance,” says McDonald. “With increased relevance, you can afford to send more frequently, because your chances are higher that your subscribers will welcome these emails that clearly reflect their interests, wants or needs.”
One word of warning, though: always respect pre-established preferences. “No matter when or how you offer it,” he notes, “stick to what you promised.”
“Don’t ask yourself, ‘How often should I email?'” McDonald concludes. “Instead, ask, ‘What demographics, preferences and behaviors can I use to drive a … program that maximizes the LTV of my customers?'”
Your pals like to hear from you. If you have a friendly customer relationship, relevance could trump the frequency question.
Source: MarketingProfs.
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Everyone likes personalized attention, and it seems that a handwritten note might be worth the time it takes to write. A post at the Neuromarketing blog cites an interesting study discussed by Robert Cialdini in the book Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. When researchers sent a survey to busy doctors with three different cover letters, and each produced a dramatically different result:
- A printed letter generated a response rate of 36 percent.
- A printed letter with a handwritten message boosted this by one third to 48 percent.
- A printed letter with a handwritten message on a Post-it note pushed the response rate to 75 percent.
“It seems that what is causing the boost is a ‘reciprocity’ effect,” notes Neuromarketing. “The recipient recognizes that the sender apparently put some personal effort into the mailing, and is more likely to reciprocate with some effort of his own.”
Interestingly, the blog notes, responses to the survey with the personalized Post-it note were also more thorough and prompt.
“[T]he effects of personalization and apparent effort on the part of the sender have to be weighed against the desired action,” says Neuromarketing. “[But] making even difficult requests in a more personal manner can’t hurt.”
Source: Neuromarketing.
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“A great way to capitalize on the democratic medium of email is to put your burning questions, late-night hunches, and out-of-the-box ideas to the test with an A/B split test,” says Megan Walsh in a post at the Email Experience Council blog. Here’s some of her advice for using split testing to try out new ideas and boost results:
Focus on one variable at a time. When testing subject lines, for instance, you want to know how many subscribers opened the message. Clicks and conversions, meanwhile, matter when you’re testing calls to action. Remember that a change in one variable can have an impact on another. Always be clear about what you’re trying to test/achieve, Walsh advises.
Use a random distribution for A and B audience groups. “The sizes of the segments don’t need to be the same if the key metric you are looking to influence is expressed as a ‘rate,'” she says, “but they do need to have the same general characteristics to be a fair test.”
Take it to the next level. As you become a testing junkie, begin to explore how different segments behave. Williams-Sonoma knew that including a featured product’s price on the hero image boosted clicks and conversions. The company recently discovered, however, that the customers driving this response were those who spent more than $100 on an average purchase; customers who spent less were more likely to click on an image without a price.
Source: Email Experience Council
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In a post at his Be the Brand blog, Dave Saunders links to a YouTube video by Perry Belcher that takes some Twitter users to task for their seeming lack of interest in the people who follow them. (NB: The video contains some four-letter words.)
Belcher illustrates his point with the Twitter profile for one social-media bigwig who has 77,701 followers, but follows only 120 people. According to Belcher, this creates the impression that Mr. Big doesn’t like his Twitter-friends: “he doesn’t care if they exist or not, they’re just drones that follow him around.” For contrast, Belcher navigates to Guy Kawasaki’s profile, where we discover a nearly even-steven ratio; the editor of Alltop.com follows 31,933 people and has 34,701 followers. Even if you disagree with Belcher’s conclusions—and we think he makes a few leaps—his spirited discussion underscores the fact that appearances do matter in the realm of social media.
Dave Saunders adds to the discussion with his own pet peeve: the Twitter snob who never responds to @replies. “Obviously, you can’t respond to every single message that comes your way on Twitter,” he says, “and some @replies simply don’t warrant a response. However, there are people out there who ignore it all. Using the cocktail party analogy, this would be like someone staring you down in silence after you said hello.”
Your Marketing Inspiration: Whatever reasons you have for avoiding Twitter dialogue, remember that other users might ascribe your limited interaction to aloof superiority
source: marketingprofs enewsletter
Now, here’s more good news: There’s no need to build an app to join the iPhone ad-mania, even if the iPhone SDK does make it ludicrously easy. Firms like AdMob and Greystripe are on-call to make your creative handheld-friendly. The latter even boasts technology for iPhone-ready Flash ads. Wrap ’em around apps already on the market; devs are always happy to take some extra funding.
