Crumbs from the Scone
“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.
Crumbs from the Scone
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.
Crumbs from the Scone
“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
Crumbs from the Scone
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
Crumbs from the Scone
“To date,” writes Rob Hof in a post at BusinessWeek’s Tech Beat blog, “mobile advertising hasn’t taken off partly because it’s a hassle for advertisers to create special campaigns for mobile devices, most of which so far use stripped-down browsers that don’t display standard Web pages very well.”
This will likely change as more of your customers embrace devices like the iPhone, and as you take advantage of a new service from AdWords that removes the need to reformat ads for mobile devices.
In a short video included in the Tech Beat post, Google’s Alexandra Kenin provides a quick overview, guiding viewers to the Edit Campaign Settings page, where she scrolls to the Networks and Bidding section.
“As you can see,” she says, “I’ve put a check box next to ‘iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers.'” With just a click, mobile landing pages and ads in mobile formats become unnecessary. “One of the major benefits of platform targeting,” she notes, “is that advertisers can now show their desktop ads on mobile devices and direct users to their desktop websites.”
Your Marketing Inspiration: “[I]t could position Google as one of the easy choices as advertisers realize how many people are increasingly on the Web through their smart phones instead of their computers,” says Hof.
source: marketingprofs enewsletter.
Crumbs from the Scone
If you were to talk to a sixth grader about blogs or social networks or streaming video, you’d be having a conversation with a first-generation “digital native.” While the rest of us learn new media as a second language—with varying levels of skill and comprehension—this emerging segment speaks Web 2.0 with accent-free fluency.
In an article at MarketingProfs, our content chief Ann Handley uses her 11-year-old daughter as an example of the digital native. “Caroline’s comfort with social media tools and her innate knowledge on how to use email to drive traffic surpass that of most grownups I know,” says Handley. “It even surpasses her older brother’s; just five years [her senior], he isn’t nearly as digitally fluent as she is.”
According to Handley, reaching digital natives requires what experts like David Meerman Scott call the “new rules” of marketing. They include:
- Offering or sponsoring online research tools.
- Refreshing content constantly.
- Tossing out marketing-speak and a product-centric viewpoint.
- Monitoring the conversation, and participating.
- Being completely transparent.
Handley also notes that you have to be prepared for the worst if you irk a digital native. “A ticked off customer has a larger platform, and negative feedback can send ripples excruciatingly far.”
Your Marketing Inspiration: “Rather than pushing marketing messages out to digital natives,” says Handley, “[engage] with your customers on an entirely different level.” Use the tools and social platforms they use; start a dialogue, not a monologue; and produce content they want to consume.
source: MarketingProfs enewsletter
Crumbs from the Scone
You know it’s time for your company to enter the realm of social media, but perhaps you’re unsure of how to get started, or where to concentrate your efforts. You probably require outside help. And in a premium article at MarketingProfs, Mack Collier provides an in-depth primer on hiring a social-media consultant. Here’s a taste of his advice:
Google the potential candidate. When you enter Collier’s name, “you see that there are over 30,000 search results, and among the first 10 results you see my blog and my Blogger profile, as well as my Twitter account and my LinkedIn account. You can immediately tell that I am active on multiple social sites.” Be wary if a search returns only a few hundred results, especially if they aren’t related directly to the consultant.
Investigate expertise with specific social-media tools. If you need help with blogs, for instance, look for evidence of success at the consultant’s blog. Do posts appear at least once a week? Do visitors leave comments? Does the consultant publish statistics on the volume of traffic and subscribers? “Evaluating a consultant’s blog is important, because if a consultant appears to have a healthy and vibrant blog, then odds are he or she can help you improve your blogging efforts. Blog consultants will understand that their blog is a tool that can be used to sell potential customers on blog consulting.”
Don’t rule someone out only because their consultancy resume is thin. “Many successful bloggers begin consulting simply because potential clients begin inquiring about their availability to consult,” says Collier. “Also, since the field of social-media consulting is relatively new, many consultants wont yet have a robust package of client work. So, although a nice portfolio of client work is important, its not essential.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
Crumbs from the Scone
“In 2007, 9 million digital picture frames were sold, about 1 million of them Wi Fi-enabled,” writes Katy Bachman in an article for Brandweek. “By 2010, that’s expected to jump to more than 42 million, with the vast majority of them Wi-Fi equipped, according to data from IDC.” Can advertisers be far behind? Of course not.
With an eye to capitalizing on this emerging channel, reports Bachman, the Initiative agency has already formed a partnership with Frame Media to test advertising potential for clients like Dr. Pepper and Lionsgate. Instead of paying a fee, users of Frame Media’s free 400-channel service see banner ads rotated through content like news, traffic, weather and sports.
Snapple, another Initiative client, combines content and ads in its own channel displaying “fun facts” sourced from bottle caps. “Think of it as a Snapple fact-a-day,” says Bachman, “like a page-a-day calendar.”
“We believe we’ll see the emergence of a new category of information appliances that will become ubiquitous in the home or office replacing the alarm clock or kitchen calendar,” Frame Media CEO Alan Phillips told Bachman. “We’re trying to predict the future,” Marc Simon of Initiative says in the article. “This really feels like it could be another screen in the home or office.”
Source: BrandWeek.
Crumbs from the Scone
A new whitepaper from ExactTarget—cheekily titled No Executive Left Behind—argues in its subtitle that there are 10 things your C-Suite must know about email. “You cannot assume that your C-Suite understands the critical role played by email in facilitating sales and maintaining strong customer relationships,” ExactTarget’s Jeffrey Rohrs says. “You must take it upon yourself to educate your executives about email’s strengths.” Here are a few facts your leadership team might not know:
Email is everywhere. “You would think that 15+ years into the Internet revolution, the ubiquity of email would be widely acknowledged as an asset—even in the C-Suite,” says ExactTarget. “However, you make this assumption at your own risk.” They suggest you offer executives persuasive data like this: 99 percent of Internet users have email accounts, 96 percent check their inboxes weekly, and 60 percent check them daily.
Email is profitable. According to a DMA survey, email campaigns return $45.06 for each dollar spent. But be sure to clarify that the personal nature of an email inbox demands a different approach from direct mail. “Higher ROI comes from developing and executing a long-term email marketing strategy that builds relationships,” notes ExactTarget.
Email is measurable. “Thanks to the magic of the Internet and tracking pixels,” they say, “you can gain an immediate sense of who is receiving, opening, and responding to your email messages.”
Source: ExactTarget.
Crumbs from the Scone
It’s a recession, folks. They’ve brought out the “R” word. And everybody’s pulling back. Turning in. Acting just plain scared. Gone are the days when a B2B team could take risks, push creative boundaries. It’s time to get practical. But, hey, that doesn’t have to be all bad. In a past blog post that’s still popular today, Jon Miller listed Ten Practical Trends in B2B Marketing that offer a wealth of creative opportunities for your team right now—as long as they’re handled properly. Here are a few time-tested ideas to help keep your B2B outreach vital:
Practice attention marketing—and make it measurable. “Leverage the Internet and word-of-mouth to break through the attention barrier,” Miller advises.
Love your landing pages. “Sending traffic to a landing page can [always] improve conversions … and following best practices can raise them [even further],” he reminds us.
Help buyers research early in the sales cycle. Hesitant B2B buyers are researching online before they engage with sales. “By helping to educate the customer,” Miller says, “you can establish your company as a trusted advisor that understands their problems.”
Measure relationship depth. “Track the number and quality of marketing interactions with each prospect company, so you know the next best marketing action to take,” says Miller.
Source: Modern B2B Marketing.
