Crumbs from the Scone
If your product or service caters to well-heeled customers, you might soon discover a new segment: the Middle Aged Simplifier. According to John Quelch of Harvard Business Online, they spent the boom years accumulating status symbols. “As [those at the top] grew richer,” Quelch reports, “pressure increased on those below to trade up. And, as they traded up, pressure increased in turn on the well-off to buy even more—the second home, the big screen TV and the latest sport-utility vehicle.”
Despite the fact that families got smaller and professionals spent less time at home, the square footage of their houses continued to grow. “In 2006,” notes Quelch, “35% of new homes exceeded 2,400 square feet in floor space compared with 18% in 1986.” They merrily stocked their houses with upgraded appliances, furniture and other high-end household goods.
These consumers are now dealing with an over-consumption hangover, and Quelch says their mantra now sounds a bit like this:
I have more than I need.
I’m embarrassed by my gas-guzzling Range Rover.
I no longer feel the need to impress others with possessions.
I want meaningful experiences, not more stuff.
“Tomorrow’s consumer will buy more ephemeral, less cluttering stuff: fleeting, but expensive, experiences, not heavy goods for the home,” says Quelch.
The Po!nt: Keep the Middle Aged Simplifier in mind as you fine-tune messaging and product development for your upscale offerings.
Source: Harvard Business Online.
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“Tough economic times increase the pressure on marketers to hit their goals for open rate, click-throughs, conversions, and new email subscriber acquisition,” says DJ Francis at the Online Marketer Blog. “Some marketers believe renting email lists is a way to reach these goals.” But, as the title of his post spells out, he believes this strategy is the best way to kill your email list in 2009.
Here are the problems, according to Francis:
It’s unlikely that content will be relevant to a subscriber who signed up for something else.
This diminished relevance leads to diminished trust, both in the company that sold the subscriber’s information and the company who delivered what she considers spam. “List rental is the toxic waste of online customer relations,” he says. “It poisons everything it touches.”
Despite these dangers, Francis cites a survey that found 29 percent of B2B marketers plan to increase the use of third-party list rentals in the coming year. He vigorously recommends against joining this trend.
The Point: Build it yourself. “You can’t afford to kill your email list during this economic downturn,” says Francis. “But building your own list, building trust, and staying relevant can avert this disaster.”
Cheers, Skip
Source: Online Marketer Blog.
Crumbs from the Scone
A post at the Responsible Marketing Blog highlights some companies that aligned marketing campaigns with the recent election. “With estimates of turnout exceeding 130 million people,” it says, “Election Day promotions make sense.” The roundup includes:
A one-minute video from Starbucks yearns for a country in which 100 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots, and we care enough to make a difference year-round, not just on election day. The Seattle-based company offers to reward those who participate in the November 4 election with a free cup of coffee if customers say they voted.
Krispy Kreme, meanwhile, has an offer for November 4 called Hot Vote Now. Customers with an “I Voted” sticker receive a free star-shaped doughnut with sprinkles of red, white and blue.
And then there’s Ben & Jerry’s, which used the headline “Democracy Never Tasted So Sweet!” to advertise a free scoop of ice cream between the hours of 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM on November 4.
“The voters win,” say the sagacious people at Responsible Marketing, “because they are exercising their rights and getting free stuff. The marketers win because they are gaining the benefit of unprecedented election buzz while aligning themselves with an activity that’s both responsible and patriotic.”
Your Marketing Inspiration: Though it will be four long years before the next presidential election, it never hurts to look for similar win-win marketing opportunities.
Cheers, Skip
Crumbs from the Scone
In her keynote address at our Digital Marketing Mixer in Scottsdale, Arizona, Arianna Huffington gave her play-by-play for turning the eponymous Huffington Post into a social media juggernaut. Rohit Bhargava—himself a superstar blogger—was also at the event, and he discusses the secrets to Huffington’s blogging success at the Influential Marketing Blog. Here are a few of his observations:
Huffington makes it easy for contributors, even those who are technologically averse, to participate. “Not a purist about blogging,” notes Bhargava, “Arianna’s point of view on blog posts [is] simple—if someone shares their thoughts transparently and honestly, the site can publish it as a blog post.” There’s a “backstage” area where her enormous roster of bloggers may upload their essays electronically, but they can send posts by pigeon for all she cares. The late historian Arthur Schlesinger preferred communication by fax; superagent Ari Emmanuel, meanwhile, likes to give dictation over the phone.
She builds on her big hits. When gossip blogger Perez Hilton linked to her blog, Huffington not only earned the admiration of her daughter, she saw a serious spike in traffic. Though 72 percent of the visitors never returned, some came back periodically—and an impressive seven percent became regular readers. “Multiply that effect over three years of traffic and big hits, and the result is their current traffic of more than 20 million unique visitors per month,” says Bhargava.
The Point: Huffington doesn’t get hung up on definitions of what makes a blog a blog—and neither should you.
Cheers, Skip
Source: Influential Marketing Blog.
Crumbs from the Scone
Gaming is no longer the sole domain of geeky guys with programmer’s pallor: 44% of online gamers, and 40% of gamers in general, are women. Over half are between 18 and 49, and “extreme gamers” devote 45 hours a week to games. Salivating yet? Good, because here’s a pretty meaty bone: in-game advertising has reached a point where ads can improve the gaming experience. Two case-in-points:
If you ever played The Sims, then you know it’s the perfect landscape for outdoor marketers: it’s all about inventing a place where Sims can interact, and their experiences are more real when their theatre marquees, for example, actually feature current films. Electronic Arts (EA) is currently seeking sponsors for The Sims 3, which comes out in February ’09. It wouldn’t be hard to slip a catchy virtual billboard into an in-game park or highway.
Virtual outdoor ads aren’t the only way to get into the game. Amazon and Rockstar Games partnered to shill popular MP3s in Grand Theft Auto IV. Today the average Grand Theft gamer can sit back in his “stolen” car, turn up the radio, and use an in-game mobile phone to buy songs he likes—totally on impulse.
Are gamers receptive? Overwhelmingly, yes: 82% of them respond positively to contextual in-game ads. Surveys also say gamers are more influential consumers than their less playful peers.
Ready to leap? Call EA. And keep an eye out! Google’s preparing an “AdSense for Games” product that’ll make it easy to plug ads in from an online interface—which is bound to flood this market.
The Point: Get in the game! Transcending old-school boundaries of gender and age group, gamers have two things in common: cash to burn, and clout with peers. Strike while the iron is hot!
Cheers, Skip
Source: MarketingProfs newsletter 11/13/08
Crumbs from the Scone
In a recent Marketing Interactions blog, Ardath Albee asks: “[W]hat happens when the frequency and recency of a lead’s engagement stalls?” Often, B2B marketers will roll these leads into a “general” touch campaign, she reports, “with the intent of keeping [their] company in the lead’s mind so that when something changes, they can re-engage.” But is that the best first response when a good prospect turns quiet? Albee doesn’t think so. Non-responders fall into two distinct groups, she says, and each requires a different outreach:
If the lead is a Sporadic Responder, answering some touches, but not others, Albee suggests taking these actions:
Look at the content they are still responding to, then ask yourself, “What similarities exist between the lead’s content choices?”
Given those answers, determine if you “can you create a 1-to-1 interaction that enables you to learn more.”
If the lead is a Non-Responder, she suggests contacting them and asking specific questions, such as:
Has your position in the company changed? To ___?
Was [this] project put on hold?
Did you already solve this problem? How?
Did our content cease being of value to you? Why?
The Point: When leads turn quiet, it’s time to talk. “If you’re seeing a growing percentage of people retreating from your communications, perhaps something has shifted in your marketplace that you’ve missed,” Albee concludes.
Cheers, Skip
Source: Marketing Interactions.
Crumbs from the Scone
You’ve got a great new product for the high-school crowd. The demographics you’ve researched are screaming that teens love all things digital. So, your marketing team has crafted a great email campaign, with social-media components and links to a fun landing page at your site. Will this totally rad approach grab your biggest ROI ever? Not quite.
A new whitepaper from ExactTarget has a surprise for marketers seeking to reach teens ages 15-17. The results of its recent research project, conducted with Ball State University’s Center for Media Design, show that teens actually prefer to get their marketing messages via—(drum roll, please)—direct mail. Yes, good ol’ direct mail. Some findings:
A full 58% of teens surveyed report they “have been influenced by direct mail to make a purchase.”
Email came in second, with a solid 42% of teens saying an email-marketing campaign had influenced them to buy something.
But “only 13% of teens have made a purchase influenced by text marketing,” the whitepaper notes.
That last point is interesting because, when asked their preference for general communications, teens gave text messaging a high score. That love, however, doesn’t translate to marketing messages. “In terms of absolute preferences, [teens] are similar to other consumers in that they prefer traditional direct marketing channels … for marketing communications,” ExactTarget concludes.
The Point: Put pen to paper. Try adding a direct-mail component to your next outreach to teens. You may see a boost in ROI.
Cheers, Skip
Source: ExactTarget.
Crumbs from the Scone
Everybody loves referrals. They’re easier to close than non-referrals, make quicker buying decisions and tend to be more loyal—in short, they can often become your most profitable customers. Trouble is, referrals are also elusive. Even a likable person with plenty of integrity and knowledge won’t see an influx of referrals if her or she doesn’t implement the appropriate strategy.
“It’s worth taking the time to understand why most referral efforts don’t work,” reports Michael Beck in a recent article over at MarketingProfs, “and to understand what keys need to be in place in order to get the results you want.”
Here’s an overview of his four-step plan for referral success:
Work with enough sources. You need around 12 “core” centers of influence (COI)—people you take to lunch on a regular basis. Bolster this network by cultivating relationships with 100 “potential” COIs.
Implement a system. Relationship-building takes a good measure of conscious effort. “It is only by regular contact that you will create a stream of referral,” says Beck.
Set yourself apart. Find and cultivate a niche that differentiates you from the competition.
Invest in the relationship. “This is the key that almost everyone misses,” he notes. “To create a reliable stream of referrals, you need to make ‘deposits’ into the relationship (emotional) bank account of each of your referral sources.” Get to know your COIs, and find ways to enhance their end of the relationship.
The Point: “If you take the time to get each step right,” says Beck, “you will become one of the few professionals who grow their business strictly by referrals.”
Cheers, Skip
Source: MarketingProfs.
Crumbs from the Scone
“I subscribe to a wonderful Web-based entity that sends me a weekly newsletter, which I enjoy very much,” begins an entry in the Editorial Emergency newsletter. “But a while back they started sending me a daily e-mail on top of my weekly e-mail.”
The first problem with this scenario is—of course—that the company never requested permission to send the daily missive; the second is that Editorial Emergency could find no obvious way to unsubscribe from the unwelcome daily missive without also cancelling the beloved weekly issue. Making matters worse, they were still waiting for follow-up long after the 48-hour window promised by an autoreply from the site’s webmaster.
“Naturally,” continues the entry, “I’ve begun to associate my annoyance at these daily e-mails with the organization that sends them, which I imagine is not its marketing strategy. I’m on the verge of canceling my subscription altogether.”
So annoyed has Editorial Emergency become, it used this topic as an opportunity to ask its own readers how often they’d like to receive newsletters, and plans to publish the results in its next issue.
We spend a lot of time discussing the theoretical advantages of permission-based marketing; in this real-life example, we can see a customer relationship being destroyed in slow motion, and for no good reason. They’re lucky Editorial Emergency hasn’t hit the spam button.
The Point: Don’t second-guess your subscribers. Announce any changes you plan to make, and allow them to choose to opt in—or not.
Cheers, Skip
Source: Editorial Emergency.
Crumbs from the Scone
In a post at Emergence Marketing, Francois Gossieaux tells the story of making reservations with Air France for a trip to Belgium, where his father—who had been diagnosed with a pair of aneurisms—was scheduled for a complex surgery.
Gossieaux didn’t notice a glitch in the itinerary until calling ahead to give his parents the dates of his arrival and departure. “I wanted to come back on the 27th,” he writes, “and for some reason when I ordered through airfrance.com they booked me on a train from Brussels to Paris on the 27th and a flight on the 28th.”
It seemed to him like an easy fix—especially when he learned the desired flight had plenty of space. Gossieaux was even willing to pay a fee for something he blamed on the Air France interface: “I order stuff online all the time and if there is an overnight situation I expect the site to alert me to this.” But no amount of cajolery, however solicitous, would cause Air France to budge. He would have to buy a new ticket, they said, and he did—on Air Lingus.
“In these bad economic times, you would expect companies whose service[s] are going to be the first to be cut from personal and business budgets to do everything they can to hold on to their customers,” he notes, “especially if it does not cost them a dime to accommodate the change request which would satisfy the customer, and perhaps make up for their deficient product offering.”
The Point: There will be times when you cannot meet a customer’s expectations—but be prepared for very public fallout if your position doesn’t sound reasonable to most people.
Cheers, Skip
Source: Emergence Marketing.
