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If you’re like the majority of marketers polled by Jupiter Research, your number one consideration when choosing an ESP is deliverability. But Adam Covati says an ESP can only do so much to ensure your message reaches an inbox; this is, ultimately, your responsibility, and dependent on how you manage your list, your message, your subject line and your reputation.
“Think of ISPs as bouncers at a private club,” he says. “If they don’t know you or they don’t like what you’ve done in the past, you are going to have a hard time getting [past them].” If you want to glide past an ISP’s velvet rope, Covati recommends pondering four questions on a regular basis:
How old are the email addresses on this list?
How long has it been since I have obtained permission from these recipients?
Have too many people on this list unsubscribed?
If recipient “A” has not opened any of the last five messages I have sent, should I remove her from my list?
“You should never guess at email addresses or assume your recipients’ preferences,” he argues. “If you’re not 100 percent confident that an address rightfully belongs on your list, for any reason, you should remove it.” Finally, ask your ESP to help clarify best practices. “Although deliverability is in your hands,” Covati says, “consider your ESP your go-to-resource for getting on the right track.”
The Point: Don’t pass the deliverability buck. Use these four questions to regularly assess your list, to ensure your messages get through.
Cheers, Skip
Source: MarketingProfs. Click to read the article.
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In a recent blog post at ReturnPath, Stephanie Miller offers, in one word, a way to provide optimum service to B2B clients while saving precious marketing dollars. That word? Email.
“The good news is that email marketing is a great tool for building relationships and adding value to your customer relationships,” Miller says. She offers creative ways in which email can help you shine with B2B clients. Don’t just blast product announcements. Try sending:
“Recession Buster” ideas, for both clients and prospects. (How about listing the uses of email marketing as one of them?)
Simple, actionable tactics to help clients be more productive, get more out of vendors, and build stronger relationships with their own customers. (You should brainstorm with your team about the tactics they employ, and then share a few.)
Tailored tips about the business you are in, and the benefits you provide. “If you sell technology, offer productivity tips easily solved by advanced features of your software,” she advises. “If you sell services, send tips on managing meetings, or how to read data from disparate sources.” Warning: stay away from sales pitches.
“Customize the email based on geography, firmagraphics, and customer status (definitely segment customer vs. prospect),” Miller concludes. “Oh yes, and every message—regardless of tone or content—can have a call to action about your business, too!”
The Point: Now’s the time to boost your B2B email outreach. Offering e-info that clients can use is a cost-effective way to stay top-of-mind, and ahead of the competition.
Cheers, Skip
Source: ReturnPath.
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Sales promotions that offer either price discounts or free goods (premiums) are often used to entice customers to buy products. But which is better?
Every family has one or two bargain shoppers—always looking for discounted products, and priding themselves on never paying full price. So, logically, marketers would assume that discounting prices in periodic sales gives their customers what they want. Right? Well, as often happens here, we must disagree.
Research is actually showing that, while sale prices do draw customers in, from the standpoint of long-term brand equity, companies are better off offering a premium rather than a price discount — at least once in a while, anyway.
The reason? Apparently, consumers “incorporate” a price discount into the product’s regular price, making it look less expensive overall. (Once they see it marked down, they remember that lower price, and keep watching for it to return.) Because customers often make price-quality inferences like this, they may actually start to discount the quality of the product over time in their minds as well.
Free premiums, on the other hand, apparently enhance the overall value of the product. (For instance, that bottle of free conditioner packaged with the shampoo adds value to the regular price.)
The Point: Give ’em something to remember. Sales are fun, but occasional premiums are better for maintaining brand equity over time, because consumers see them as an added value.
Cheers, Skip
Source: The Price of “Free”-dom: Consumer Sensitivity to Promotions with Negative Contextual Influences. Sucharita Chandran and Vicki G. Morwitz. Journal of Consumer Research, 2006.
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“We are bombarded with messages that tell us the how, why, should and must of business,” says Karen Swim in a post at Words For Hire. “Much of the information is solid but blindly applying it can be deadly to your spirit and your business.”
She argues that your company’s success begins with a clear sense of purpose, and the ideas you implement should further that vision. In other words, as great as an idea might be, it’s not for you if it doesn’t dovetail with your values, strategies and goals.
According to Swim, maintaining awareness of your company’s purpose helps you to:
Put public opinion in context. “If you ask people what they want and how they want it,” she notes, “they may give you what they want but not necessarily what they need.” Your core values give you a helpful filter through which to process customer feedback.
Be consistent. “When you are clear on your ‘why I do this’ it will guide you in your day to day business activities,” she says. If you don’t lose sight of your purpose, you’re more likely to make better decisions and build a solid reputation.
The Point: Great advice inspires action—but whatever you do with it, be sure it stays true to you.
Cheers, Skip
Source: Words For Hire.
Crumbs from the Scone
According to a post at the True You Marketing (TYM) blog, “Dennis McConnell … sailed merrily into the office … only to find seven unsubscribe messages in his inbox.” All were in response to an email he had sent announcing an upcoming Photoshop workshop. You probably understand why he made a snap decision to send fewer messages to his subscribers in the future. “‘Why anger them?’ he thought.”
But TYM believes this is the wrong approach. Suppose you’re giving a speech to 100 people, and 30 of them walk out the door. It’s discouraging, certainly, but you shouldn’t forget there are still 70 people in the room. “Your job is not to focus on the people who are leaving,” they say, “but on those who have stayed to listen to you.”
Further, they argue, unsubscribers are people who probably wouldn’t make a purchase even if they stayed. It’s better, says TYM, to be concerned about people who lodge complaints. “The only time people complain is when they DON’T want to leave. Complaining is their way of communicating to you to spruce up your act.”
TYM’s advice: focus on serving the customers who truly want to stay. “Customers want to improve their lives, their businesses and their careers. If you believe you can do that, tread the intelligent road by educating them in great detail.”
The Point: Focus on what you have, not what you lost. “Don’t let the unsubscribers worry you,” says TYM. Letting them go will help sharpen your list—and better serve your loyal subscribers.
Cheers, Skip
Source: True You Marketing.
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Van Jones beat the odds when The Green Collar Economy landed at number 12 on the New York Times best-seller list. “What he didn’t have, as a first time author with an almost non-existent marketing budget, was the kind of money and name-recognition that typically helps place a book on the best sellers list and in the national conversation,” writes Nicholas Sabloff in an article at the Huffington Post. “So he improvised.”
With a marketing budget of less than $5,000 and the help of colleagues at his environmental org Green For All, Jones created a viral campaign that targeted 150 environment-oriented organizations of every size and scope. The team also dusted off their Rolodexes, and Sabloff says, “they called everyone they knew.”
The persistence paid off. Central to the enthusiasm of environmental networks was a product worthy of the hype. “We don’t put forth anything unless we really believe in it,” says the Reverend Lennox Yearwood in the same article. “I’m a believer in what the book stands for and obviously our members, mostly young people aged 18 to 29, really found Jones’ book exciting.” The Hip Hop Caucus, which Yearwood heads, sent a series of messages about The Green Collar Economy to its 700,000-strong membership. Blogs like Treehugger responded with a review and an interview; the Environmental Defense Fund was so impressed that it recommended the book to 500,000 members.
Alli Chagi-Starr of Green For All told the Huffington Post, “A friend called and told me she got the email from 10 different sources.” That is viral—and undeniable Marketing Inspiration.
Cheers, Skip
Source: MarketingProfs newsletter 11/03/08
Crumbs from the Scone
In a post at Copyblogger, Sonia Simone offers some unconventional blogging advice, her nine “little known” rules for a successful blog. It’s an interesting read, with plenty of key takeaways like these:
Don’t over-explain. You might know everything about a subject, but that doesn’t mean you have to write it all down in a single post. Save the comprehensive dissertation for a few pillar articles. “But in your day-to-day content,” she recommends, “leave room for other answers and other points of view in your community comments.”
It’s okay to get mad. The occasional rant can actually lend your blog a measure of credibility. “[Y]ou’ll show your humanity and your backbone,” she says. Be careful, though, not to overindulge in grumpy diatribes—if you make them a regular feature, they’ll start to lose their effectiveness.
Say it again. And, even, again. “New readers have no idea what you wrote last year, or even last month,” says Simone. And don’t worry about boring longtime readers—they will also benefit if you provide a fresh angle on a topic you’ve already covered.
Tell a stupid joke. Introducing a bit of levity keeps your blog from becoming a dry and academic. “[D]on’t be an idiot,” she advises, “But don’t take yourself so damned seriously, either.”
The Point: “The most ‘perfect’ blog in the world would be deathly dull,” says Simone. “Great blogs are quirky, weird, and hard to predict—just like interesting people are.”
Source: Copyblogger.
Cheers, Skip
Crumbs from the Scone
“Predictive statements are all around us, ” writes Adam Gordon in the introduction to his book Future Savvy. “[I]n the newspapers, on TV, at conference presentations, in industry reports, consulting documents, think tank studies, and so on. All claim to be valid, but the record shows that few are.” This doesn’t mean, however, that forecasts can’t play a critical role in your decision-making process. You just need the right tools to evaluate what Gordon calls the “torrent of information.”
Future Savvy starts with the analytical basics by placing forecasts into five categories: short-term, short-medium, long-medium, long-term and ultra-long term. According to Gordon, the actual timeframes for each depend on an industry’s general rate of change. “For example,” he notes, “the electronics industry moves much faster than the mining industry, so a three-year forecast for ‘wi-fi’ may be long-term view, while a three-year view of the Canadian mining industry might be a short-term view.”
His subsequent discussion covers topics like bias traps, the powers of zeitgeist and perception and the limits of quantitative forecasting before arriving at a helpful list of questions to ask of any prognostication. Subject headings include:
What is the purpose of the forecast?
Is the forecast mode predictive—spelling out what will happen—or speculative, illuminating possible alternative?
How extensive and how good is the base data?
Are the forecast’s biases natural or intentional?
Does the forecast oversimplify the world?
Your Marketing Inspiration: By asking the right questions, you’ll get the right answers for using a forecast as a valuable tool for adjusting or changing your strategies.
Source: MarketingProfs newsletter, 10/31/08
Cheers, Skip
Crumbs from the Scone
The next time your management team meets to determine the fate of a recently introduced product or service, consider a post by Scott Anthony at Harvard Business Online. He argues that superficial success, or underperformance, might not give a full picture of actual potential. To make his point, Anthony presents two scenarios and asks which would appeal to your company’s executives:
Innovation A enjoyed blockbuster first-year revenues of $200 million thanks to “a clear value proposition, clever positioning, and a strong distribution network.”
Innovation B, meanwhile, had on a muddled business model and generated only $220,000 during its first year.
“It’s obvious, right?” he says. “Innovation A is the winning proposition.” But you knew there’d be a catch, and here it is:
Innovation A was Vanilla Coke. “It was a line extension that largely cannibalized sales of Coke’s other products,” says Anthony, with the note that Coca-Cola unceremoniously discontinued the flavor only three years later.
Innovation B—drumroll, please—was Google, which found wild success when it finally settled on an ad-based model.
The Point: “Before making a decision about an innovation,” writes Anthony, “make sure you know what type of idea you are evaluating. Then make sure you use the right metrics for that idea.”
Source: Harvard Business Online.
Cheers, Skip
Crumbs from the Scone
Imagine if you could take Twitter and make it exclusive to your company. Surprise!—you’ve created Yammer. With a three-month free trial, and provided everybody has a legit company email, enterprises can register on Yammer to create their own insular microblogging universe.
Why does Yammer matter? Because as times change, so too, does the workforce. You’ve probably noticed more freelancers in your midst, or designers and tech people working remotely. What’s more, as digital advertising grows more sophisticated, it’ll be crucial for marketers to communicate more closely with tech—unless you wanna take a night class in Python.
No need to change lunch dates. Yammer makes it possible to form friendly—and strategic!—ties with the dev dude who never leaves his office, as well as with the new SEO girl, who just happens to reside in India. That’s right: influence them all, right from your desk!
Better still, office-mates can contribute their marketing views without ambushing you with a PPT presentation you never plan to open. The CEO can ping you with, “What’s your take on Twitter outreach?”—and while you’re contemplating a savvy answer, the intern two doors away might reply, “If you guys have a plan, I’ve got the free time!” All you have to do is fill in the blanks. Wow ’em—without ever having to reach for the ClipArt.
The Po!nt: Yammer brings social media’s merits to the enterprise. You’ll work less hard, and tap into a broader pool of creativity, with the entire office just fingertips away.
Source: MarketingProfs newsletter 10/30/08
Cheers, Skip
