Beware of Shiny Marketing Toys

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Many marketers can’t resist a shiny toy. Whether pay-per-click in the mid 1990s, Web 2.0 in the early 2000s or mobile marketing in the late 2000s, we want it—and we want it now. “But at what price?” asks Laura Patterson at MarketingProfs. “I’d suggest at the price of our credibility and the opportunity to be perceived as a strategic player.”

“When our enthusiasm (or that of our colleagues) convinces an organization to experiment with the next shiny toy without understanding the strategic implications,” she continues, “as marketers we are doing a disservice to the organizations we support and we’re presenting marketing as a primarily tactical function.”

To ensure a shiny toy also makes strategic sense, be sure to ask questions like these:

• Has our target audience adopted this new channel, or will we get there before they do? “Being first on the block may be irrelevant if the markets you serve or want to serve aren’t ready,” explains Patterson.
• Does our company have the wherewithal to exploit the new channel? “If a successful implementation requires complex new skills, and if it is too time-consuming or costly to acquire that level of competence, it may be too soon for your organization to tackle the new channel.”
• Will we see a return on our investment? “The adoption of a new channel may require configuring systems, upgrading technology, or even adding new systems and training employees,” she notes. In other words, you need to be reasonably sure that it’s worth it.

A shiny toy can quickly lose its luster if it fails to boost your bottom line—so refrain from what amount to impulse buys.

Source: MarketingProfs

How the Epsilon Breach Might Affect Your Email Campaigns

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“The recent Epsilon breach that exposed millions of email addresses has the potential to create a very big problem for all email marketers and will demand development of new best practices in the world of email marketing,” writes Candyce Edelen at PropelGrowth.
Although the phishing danger is most pronounced for banks and brokerages with retail-facing business, fallout from the attack affects everyone, especially for the following reasons:

Hackers captured email addresses, company names and full customer names. “This enables a much more effective fraud tactic called ‘spear phishing,'” Edelen explains. “The fraudsters know that jdoe [at an email address] is John Doe who has an account with Citibank.” With that much information, a phisher’s message sounds far more convincing.

Phishers are producing better content. Phishing used to be easy to spot—badly designed email rife with grammatical errors, strange syntax and odd requests. But, reasons Edelen, “If the hackers that broke into Epsilon’s database knew what they were stealing and are planning spear phishing attacks, then it’s likely that fraudsters using this data are going to get more sophisticated in their approaches.”

Repeated warnings have made customers leery of legitimate messages. “The affected Epsilon clients rushed to inform their subscribers of the breach and tell them to be suspicious of any email purported to come from them,” Edenlen notes. But that approach could work too well. For instance, a routine transactional email with a new call to action might—mistakenly—raise a red flag.

Arm yourself. Whatever your product or service, it’s important to develop best practices that address the ramifications of attacks like the one against Epsilon.

Source: PropelGrowth.

Three Ways to Thank Your Loyal Customers via Email

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“Unless you were raised by wolves in the wild,” writes Karen Talavera in an article at MarketingProfs, “at some point you learned that it is polite to say thank you. It’s not merely proper etiquette; it’s just downright considerate and gracious.”

Customers need to know you’re grateful for their business, and adding thank-you emails to your marketing “illuminates the human side of your brand,” she argues.

Talavera breaks down the thank-you email into three categories:

The Immediate Thanks. It’s important to acknowledge any transaction or communication right away; be sure to do it in a tone, style and design that match the channel in which your customer took action. And don’t skimp on the gratitude if they spent lots of money. “Match your thanks, in magnitude, to the action you are thankful for,” Talavera advises. “The last time I bought real estate, for example, I received a huge housewarming gift basket, not a lame postcard or text message.”

The Seasonal Thanks. Holidays—especially Thanksgiving—are a natural time to thank loyal customers. “[B]ut go beyond national or religious holidays,” she suggests. “Are you also thanking your customers on the anniversary of their relationship with you? Of their first purchase? On holidays relevant to them (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, New Year’s Day, Veterans Day, Grandparents Day)?”

The Surprise Thanks. Even the most jaded customer will likely appreciate an expression of thanks that comes for no particular reason. “To start,” she says, “weave a quarterly or (if you’re ambitious) monthly thank-you campaign to reward repeat business and customer loyalty.” You can establish a regular schedule, keep customers guessing or tie the program to behavior.

It’s OK to show you’re grateful. Like friends, your customers won’t feel valued if you contact them only when you want something from them. Thank them once in a while.

Source: MarketingProfs.

It’s your choice…

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Are you going to wait until SOPA/PIPA passes and THEN complain?

How to Put Your Customers on Hold

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In a post at the Neuromarketing blog, Roger Dooley recalls trying to minimize wait times when his company oversaw a small call center. “We knew (from those times when we didn’t have enough staff in place) that the longer callers waited to speak to a representative, the higher the probability was that they would abandon the call,” he says. “And, if they hung up, they might never call back.”

Everyone knows the exasperation of calling a toll-free number only to wait—and wait, and wait—while listening to elevator music, ads for products and services, or disingenuous messages about the importance of your call. “Instead of those common and boring solutions,” suggests Dooley, “try something a little different: building in ‘social proof’ messaging might actually keep callers on the line and, when the call is answered, boost conversion rates.”

In other words, tell callers you can’t answer their call because so many people are clamoring for your product or service. Using this philosophy, Colleen Szot famously tweaked infomercial copy from the standard operators are waiting, please call now to if operators are busy, please call again. “This seemingly trivial change caused sales to skyrocket,” notes Dooley.

How can you give your message some social proof? He offers this example:Due to high order volume during our holiday sale, our wait times are a little longer than usual. Thanks for holding. As a bonus, customer might even feel fortunate if their call is then answered swiftly.

With a social proof strategy, putting your customer on hold might not be such a bad thing. But, warns Dooley, “[t]his kind of message will wear out its welcome over time. Regular rotation is a must.”

Source: Neuromarketing.

How to Create Customer Personas

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“Your site has hordes of visitors every day clamoring to check out the vintage comics you sell,” writes Veronica Maria Jarski at MarketingProfs Daily Fix. “But what do you know about your visitors? Are they die-hard fans of specific series? Older folks caught in childhood nostalgia? Rather than make assumptions, create personas of your users.”
Personas are profiles that represent your website’s typical visitors, and they help you to focus your energies on those who matter the most. Mark O’Brien, president of Newfangled, suggests identifying 15 of your most significant visitors and asking them 10 questions:

• What were your impressions when you got to the current website?
• Did you come back to the site? What encouraged you to return?
• How often do you visit the site and for what purpose?
• Are you familiar with our area of expertise? Are you just learning about it and our site is a research tool? Are you a competitor?
• If you do have an understanding of our area of expertise, what other sites have been good resources in this area?
• What do you dislike about those sites? Do you prefer ours?
• What do you do on the site? Do you: check press releases, sign up for newsletters, download whitepapers, etc.?
• How would you describe our site to a peer?
• “How would you like feature X?” (Use this question to bounce ideas off people about a feature that you are considering adding to the site.)
• What is the No. 1 thing we could do improve our site?

With their answers, you can develop between three and five personas—quick snapshots of your most valuable customers’ wants and needs.

Source: MarketingProfs Daily Fix.

How to Avoid Four Deadly Email Program Sins

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“There are a lot of things that can go wrong with email marketing—broken links, typos, unoptimized images—the list goes on,” writes Magdalena Georgieva at the HubSpot blog. But on the other hand, she notes, marketers shouldn’t focus so intently on small technical details that they lose sight of the big picture—of customer engagement.

Keeping in mind the need to tread the thin line between email right and wrong, Georgieva discusses David Meerman Scott’s deadly sins of email marketing.

Here are four:
Bad marketing automation. The positive benefits of personalization will turn quickly negative if your message begins Dear [blank]. No subscriber thinks you sat down and wrote a personal offer—but she can reasonably expect that you’ll get her non-personal personalization correct.

Boring content. We can’t expect subscribers to share our inherent passion for our products, services and news. So tell a compelling story, and hold their interest with humor, controversy and interesting facts.

Lack of variety. No matter how much customers like a brand, they’ll lose interest if the only thing its messages ever say is please buy this thing. Mix it up with content that educates and builds relationships.

Predictable timing. If you send messages on Tuesday morning because someone said that’s when you should send a message, you’re probably missing big opportunities, Georgieva notes. Find out what works for your company by testing a variety of days and times; you might even discover success with a weekend campaign.

Think communication first. It’s important to cross your t’s and dot your i’s, but don’t get so carried away with the details that you forget to simply engage your subscribers.

Source: HubSpot.