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Anyone who hears the acronym CAN-SPAM can be excused for assuming it’s intrusive and onerous; but in an article at MarketingProfs, Neil Anuskiewicz says the legislated guidelines actually make you a better email marketer. No legitimate business will take issue, for instance, with the rule against harvesting email addresses: we all know unsolicited messages accomplish nothing except annoying their recipients. While your ESP (Email Service Provider) will help you meet CAN-SPAM requirements, Anuskiewicz notes that the buck still stops with you.
OK. Quick primer: The two key CAN-SPAM elements that every email message must include:
1. A valid postal address. No see-sawing on this one. “Although easy enough to do,” he says, “many people seem to forget this rule. But it is just good marketing, as greater transparency leads to greater trust by your subscribers.”
2. A relevant subject line. Again, this is something of a no-brainer, but Anuskiewicz contends that following this rule is both good law and smart marketing: “If your email does not contain a good, relevant subject line, you … won’t entice subscribers.”
“Meeting the CAN-SPAM requirements is the responsibility of the sender and not the ESP,” Anuskiewicz reminds us. “Reputable ESPs will assist senders in meeting the requirements, but the sender must stay vigilant in verifying that all aspects of the act are met.”
The Po!nt: Don’t pass the CAN-SPAM buck. By ensuring your emails match its requirements, you may reap rewards you didn’t anticipate.
Source: MarketingProfs.
Cheers, Skip
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Let’s face it: as consumers, we’re not that good at judging the volume of a product (eg, how much liquid is actually in that bottle or glass of juice). Moreover, we use (sometimes erroneous) mental shortcuts to make inferences about how much a given product contains.
For example, a well-documented finding has shown that products packaged in long, tall containers are judged to contain more volume than those with equivalent amounts of product packaged in shorter containers. And now, there’s new research that shows yet another factor affecting consumer perceptions of volume: how attention-getting the package is.
It seems that unusual or unexpected packages command attention—and lead consumers to estimate that the product has more volume than a similar amount of product packaged in a less attention-getting, more run-of-the-mill package.
Interestingly, this effect was observed even when the plainer package was actually longer than the fancy one. People still felt the fancy package held more.
The message for marketers? If you’re thinking about downsizing a product’s contents, make sure you fancy-up that packaging!
The Po!nt: Time to play dress-up! If you want consumers to think your package contains a larger volume of product, try creating a bold, unusual design for it.
Source: The Effect of Package Shape on Consumers’ Judgments of Product Volume: Attention as a Mental Contaminant, Valerie Folkes and Shashi Matta. Journal of Consumer Research, 2004.
Cheers, Skip
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Marketers don’t always agree on the best way to achieve results, and Michael Antman takes the contrarian view of a strategy popular with many of his colleagues. “[S]ome businesses, especially on the B2B side, rely far too heavily on organic word-of-mouth strategies and, specifically, on acquiring new customers primarily through referrals,” he says in an article at MarketingProfs. Here are some reasons for his rationale:
Recommendations are subjective and uncontrollable. Antman argues that a referral gets you nothing more than a foot in the door. And that’s assuming your product or service receives accurate representation. “Well-intentioned recommenders may still get your message entirely wrong or characterize you so narrowly that a potential client won’t consider you for an enterprisewide solution.”
Word-of-mouth is limited in reach and easily subverted. The strength of a recommendation weakens with the degree of separation. Further, without a formal way to combat negative word-of-mouth, competitors can diss your company with impunity.
The Po!nt: Antman believes there is no substitute for case studies, sophisticated sales-support tools and mass communications vehicles such as advertising, public relations and print and electronic collateral. “[R]elying on organic word-of-mouth is practically a guaranteed way for a small or medium-sized business to stay small or medium-sized.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
Cheers, Skip
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“In these stressful economic times, it is more important than ever to build messages that resonate with your audience,” says Winston Bowden in an article at MarketingProfs. “Like retailers, nonprofits should be thinking about how they can tell their story and leverage the holiday season.” Here’s some of his advice for a nonprofit holiday “retail” approach to fundraising:
Offer a gift membership. You’ll not only generate additional income, you’ll gain valuable exposure to the likeminded friends of your members. Engage your email audience with a professionally designed message that presents a compelling gift offer. And don’t worry if you don’t have an existing method for processing online payments; a service like PayPal can handle everything for a small fee.
Appeal to the bargain hunter. Create an offer with a discounted membership. It doesn’t have to be drastic—just enough to make people feel like they’re getting a good deal. Also, highlight your tax-deductible status, and make documentation easily available.
Don’t forget to tug at those heartstrings. Include these tried-and-true nonprofit elements in every email, regardless of how retail-oriented it is: Choose stories about the people you’re helping that members can relate to, and include pictures. Show how the money donors are giving furthers your cause.
The Po!nt: Write that nonprofit holiday retail email today! “Don’t count on email as a last-minute channel to bolster support,” says Bowden. “Instead, make it a tactic with thoughtful planning and execution.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
Cheers, Skip
Crumbs from the Scone
When Tate Linden of Stokefire began to see a number of obscure blog posts touting a heretofore unknown competitor as the world’s “first naming company,” he thought he should check them out. And in a post at the Thingnamer blog, he concludes that the company had likely paid for the “editorial” coverage and their coveted links. “Even if no money changed hands,” he says, “something must have happened to get this mini-avalanche of blog postings to occur.”
Ethics aside, the strategy has an inherent problem. It relies on subterfuge to succeed, and can do enormous damage to a company’s public image if it isn’t sneaky enough. According to Linden, Stokefire has a “mantra” that goes something like this: If you wouldn’t talk about it on our homepage, you shouldn’t do it. “That includes taking on questionable projects, working for questionable clients, or undertaking questionable advertising practices.”
You might scoff at a company that buys links from random bloggers, but the concept of not-entirely-kosher practices raises an interesting question for Linden. Would any aspect of your marketing plan cause embarrassment if you didn’t keep it on the QT? “If so, why?” he asks.
“Remember,” says Linden, “your brand is who you are when you think no one is looking.” We think the thoughtful reminder is an excellent piece of Marketing Inspiration.
Source: MarketingProfs newsletter 10/27/08
Cheers, Skip
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We never tire of good writing advice, and Anna Goldsmith of The Hired Pens recommends an interesting editing process that begins with taking a break. “We all know that when we’re too close to things, we don’t see them clearly,” she says. So after writing your first draft, go for a walk, drink a cup of coffee or run an errand—anything that will put some mental distance between you and your copy. Then follow these four steps:
Pretend you are not you. Get into the mind of your audience by reading the draft from their perspective. Does it make sense? Does it hold your interest? Does it include the information you need to take action?
Cut, cut and cut some more. If a sentence is more than 25 words, eliminate unneeded words or break it into two shorter sentences. Replace long words and awkward phrases with more simple variants. “Why say ascertain the location of when you can just say find?” asks Goldsmith.
Channel your inner English teacher. You may use contractions and an informal tone if it’s appropriate to your copy. But banish the dreaded passive voice, all grammatical errors and any incorrect formatting.
Revise, print it out and read aloud. Your ear will probably catch anything your eye missed.
The Po!nt: “In a perfect world, you’d never have to edit your own work, but well, you know the drill,” says Goldsmith. “The world’s not perfect, life’s not fair, yada yada.” Investing a little time upfront can save you the hassle of explaining an embarrassing typo to your boss—or yourself.
Source: An article submitted by The Hired Pens to MarketingProfs.
Cheers, Skip
Crumbs from the Scone
Yeah okay so it’s not exactly a direct quote from The Who but it made you look!
Today I want to talk a little about video and audio pod casting. It can be tough and costly to win sympathetic ears for your life-changing service. But the Net—and a wildfire proliferation of iPods—have conceived a powerful ally for you: the podcast. A full 18.5 million US users listened to podcasts last year—a figure that might hit 65 million by 2012, says eMarketer. And Podtrac and TNS claim podcast advertising is three times as effective as “traditional” online ads.
There’s no mystique to using podcasting to benefit your brand. You’ll need patience, well-planned material (try scripts out on your apathetic spouse!)—and a bit of time. The trick is doing it effectively. Don’t start a podcast series before realizing what commitment it requires. Leaving it to die on the vine might do more harm than good. Some tips:
Plan a schedule. Will you broadcast monthly, weekly? Canvas topics beforehand; don’t scramble for material the night before. Thankfully, podcasts don’t have to be long (3-4 minutes).
Spend on-air time wisely. Avoid hard-sells. Entertaining and informing are the priority, but consistently mention your brand at the end. You can also try incorporating it in a randomly playful way. (Retro fun: bring back the jingle!)
Launch a microsite where fans can commune, contact you and read transcripts or blogs. (Think of the SEO benefits!) Don’t forget to analyze progress: Feedburner’s good for measuring unique subscribers per show; Podtrac and Volomedia lend demographic insight.
Ready to start? Try these services: Garageband (great for Mac-heads), Gcast, ClickCaster or Audacity.
Cast off! Podcasting reaps major brand recognition for minor effort. Try it—but plan for the long-term!
source:MarketingProfs newsletter
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With the latest seismic shifts in the U.S. economy, it seemed a good time to check back to Jon Miller’s “definitive guide to B2B marketing during a downturn,” first presented last June in his Modern B2B Marketing blog. Here are seven of Miller’s smart tips.
1. Use lead management to maximize the value of each lead. When prospects are fearful, Miller says, “you need lead scoring to identify which leads are highly engaged, and lead nurturing to develop relationships.”
2. Focus on your house list. Spend more time marketing to (and building relationships with) the people you already know.
3. Build and optimize landing pages. Jon Miller wisely informs us that “a dedicated landing page is the single most effective way to turn a click into a prospect.”
4. Develop content for later in the buying cycle. Stick to the surer thing: “focus your offers on content that will appeal to someone who’s actually looking for a solution.”
5. Appeal to the nervous buyer. Says Miller: “[Include] customer references, reviews, expert opinions, awards, and other validation as part of your marketing.”
6. Align sales and marketing. Both teams should work together to create a single revenue pipeline.
7. Don’t be a cost center. “[M]arketing investments must be justified with a rigorous business case and should be amortized over the entire ‘useful life’ of the investment,” says Miller.
Tough times can be toughed out. Tips like these can help ensure you stay on top during a downturn.
source:Modern B2B Marketing.
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Is it more effective to tell customers your brand name right away in advertising? Or is it better to create a little mystery, and reveal the brand name only at the end of the ad, once you’ve intrigued them?
One might think that it’s better to create some mystery. (After all, who doesn’t love a Mystery Man?) Holding off the brand-name reveal might sustain customer attention, and make people focus on the ad for a longer period of time. Right? Well, wait just a minute, there, folks.
Research is showing that a customer’s memory for ads and brands is actually better when the brand name is presented early in the ad. (Think: “Nike’s newest cross-trainer” vs “A great new athletic shoe!”)
The reason? Researchers suggest that an early statement of the brand name helps customers more easily recognize what brand and product category is being advertised. And if they have a positive image of it, they’ll read, view, or listen further. Subsequent information can then be encoded with this frame of reference in mind—giving you a better chance of making your message stick.
So even though creating an air of mystery in an ad is fun, and it might draw customers in, it’s best to make sure you work your brand name into the mix right at the start as well.
The Point: Be up front. Stating your name early in an ad encourages better brand recognition and message retention by customers.
source: Do Not Wait to Reveal the Brand Name. Baker, William E.; Honea, Heather; Russell, Cristel Antonia.
Journal of Advertising, 2004
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Research coming out of Penn State reports that 20% of tweets—those wee messages published on Twitter—are brand-oriented. And not the way you’d naturally expect. While researchers originally thought they’d find lots of brand engagement in the form of product reviews or referrals, what they discovered was this (hold on to your hat):
The vast majority of tweeters who talk labels are trying to connect with brands—and the companies behind them.
Double wow! This is one of the reasons Twitter is so darned good for CRM: people want to meet you halfway! (The other reason is that Twitter makes it so easy for folks to air their every whim that you find out what they’re really thinking, not just what they want you to hear.) (You eavesdropper, you.)
And there’s more good news: Now there are handy tools to help keep a leash on these winds of preference-change. HootSuite and TweetDeck, for example, help you keep track of multiple Twitter accounts. You can also create special groups for search terms. Say, for example, you’re Nike. Open up a search group for “Nike,” and you’ll receive instant updates in that box every time somebody on Twitter mentions you. (Prepare to be deluged!)
Suffering from stage fright? Don’t, love.
“A lot of the brand comments were positive,” observes Jim Jansen, associate professor of information science and tech at Penn State, after his group tracked over a half-million brand-related tweets. “There are some good products out there, or at least products that people are happy with.” High five!
The Point: Just do it. Reason #3208493240983 to leap aboard the Goodship Twitter: at least two in ten people on the site want to reach out to brands they dig. That’s a big number. As for the other eight? Think of ’em as converts-to-be.
Cheers,
Skip
reference: MarketingProfs newsletter- 10-15-2009
