Crumbs from the Scone
If you’ve ever been to Fort Collins, Colorado, you’ve likely ventured to the outskirts of its historic district to sample popular beers like Fat Tire and 1554 at New Belgium’s tasting room. The brewer has long touted its green-production policies—a stance popular with its customers—but recently found itself at the center of a media brouhaha when an ex-employee accused New Belgium of being less environmentally friendly than it claimed.
While marketing materials asserted products were produced entirely with wind-powered energy, argued the naysayer, New Belgium had in fact purchased carbon credits to offset very real emissions. Though a perfectly legal statement, its semantic nature presented a serious PR risk in this age of increased scrutiny.
You might expect the company to put up a fight. “Instead,” notes Ciara O’Rourke in a post at the New York Times’ Green Inc. blog, “New Belgium embraced the rebuke and used it as a catalyst for increased transparency in its first-ever sustainability report, which it published last month.”
In addition to modifying its representation of wind-powered energy sources, the company has launched a series of initiatives such as finding locally produced raw materials and working with the city to reduce peak-load electricity demand.
The Marketing Inspiration is clear: If you receive fair criticism, don’t get defensive. Instead, work toward a resolution and use the experience as an opportunity to seek out other ways to improve your product, service or impact on the community. Your reputation might actually improve in the process.
source: marketingprofs enewsletter
Crumbs from the Scone
Is it better to send an email on Monday or Wednesday? What about Tuesday or Friday? If you wonder about each day’s pros and cons, a post at the 60 Second Marketer has some practical advice. Here’s a sample of their wisdom:
Sending a message on Monday has the advantage of arriving before a recipient’s inbox fills up with business-related email; however, it’s also when people are most focused on the task at hand, and they might not have the time for non-essential browsing. The 60 Second solution: “Send emails late Monday morning, after consumers have cleaned the weekend spam from their inboxes.”
If subscribers are scrambling to catch up with work as the weekend draws near, you might get lost in the shuffle on Wednesday and Thursday; this is prime time, however, for catching their interest as they make weekend plans.
Believe it or not, a case can be made for Saturday and Sunday delivery. Beware, though, of subscribers who might consider this too intrusive. According to 60 Second Marketer, Saturday has better response rates than Sunday, which you should avoid.
“The most important point to keep in mind for an email campaign is a proper and thorough evaluation of a test group,” 60 Second concludes. “By making a practice of consistently testing your email campaigns, you’ll be sure to get the most bang for your marketing buck.”
It’s your party, and you’ll mail when you want to. Just make sure you test, test, test.
Source: The 60 Second Marketer Blog.
Crumbs from the Scone
“If you want to create something very good,” says Tom Peters, “it takes time, energy, and sometimes money.” That, he argues, is exactly why you should give away your finest know-how for free. Before you beg to differ, consider his ten-point business case, which includes reasons like these:
It increases your reach. The marketplace is flooded with mediocre ideas that don’t merit discussion. Excellence, therefore, stands out and takes on a viral quality. “Giving away good stuff for free may be the fastest way to reach a lot of people,” says Peters.
It improves future projects. When smart people notice your ideas, he notes, “They may comment on your work, enhance your work, and maybe even, challenge your work.” It’s the equivalent of a kitchen cabinet making pro bono intellectual contributions.
It lowers the cost of sale. If companies decide to act on the ideas you present, there’s a good chance some will turn to your product or service during the implementation process.
Your Marketing Inspiration, and Peters’ number-one reason to give away the best you have to offer: “They don’t have to guess the quality of your work anymore,” says Peters, “so they will be more open to paying a premium for additional work.”
source: marketingprofs enewsletter
Crumbs from the Scone
When David Greiner decided to redesign the Campaign Monitor newsletter—rather than give it a simple facelift—he first studied the advice his company gave to customers. “Turns out we were breaking a number of the recommendations we’d been advocating for so long,” he notes, “and it was time to remedy that.” In a post at the Campaign Monitor blog, Greiner offers an in-depth discussion of his four redesign must-haves. Here’s a snapshot:
The newsletter had to be readable, even with blocked images. Though the previous design already addressed this issue, Greiner took it a step further. “I moved away from the large image-based header graphic at the top of the email and kept every important bit of information as text,” he explains. With the new design—shown in a screen shot at the blog post—a recipient won’t see the image placeholder, and might not even realize that anything has been blocked.
It had to be optimized for preview panes. Again, nothing groundbreaking here, but Greiner also put a spin on this concept by dispensing with a preheader altogether and diving right into a Table of Contents. “My testing showed this key content was now visible in the preview pane of every popular email client I tested,” he says, “even at a very low resolution.”
In its inaugural week, the redesigned newsletter’s click rate improved on the old design’s average by a cool eight percent.
Designer, heal thyself! Are you breaking any of your own newsletter design rules? If so, maybe it’s time for a makeover.
Source: Campaign Monitor
Crumbs from the Scone
“Digital marketing has become the way to communicate in the 21st century,” says Elaine Fogel in a premium article at MarketingProfs. “Social media, email, search engine marketing, interactive marketing, blogs, wikis, and knols—the list goes on … to include mobile marketing, podcasting, videos.”
But in your rush to marketing’s online future, you shouldn’t abandon its offline past. Print collateral, argues Fogel, remains relevant.
Despite the seeming ubiquity of Internet access and usage, many people simply don’t go online. She cites a Parks Associates study that found 21 percent of Americans had never visited a Web site, sent an email or used a search engine. Even in highly developed European countries like France, Belgium and Austria, more than 40 percent of the population never uses the Internet; despite high rates of connectivity in countries like Japan and Taiwan, this number jumps—on average—to a whopping 85 percent in Asia.
Some segments prefer print marketing. Hispanic interest in direct mail has spiked in recent years, according to a Vertis survey, and while 85 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 44 read direct mail pieces, only 53 percent read email-marketing messages. “From this,” notes Fogel, “we can conclude that if you target women age 25-44 or Hispanics, print collateral may get your marketing messages through over digital options.”
Don’t neglect traditional marketing collateral. Says Elaine Fogel, “Even though digital marketing is growing with a vengeance, print collateral can still hold its place in an integrated marketing communications mix, at least for now.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
Crumbs from the Scone
According to Kara Trivunovic and Andrew Osterday, most mom-and-pop businesses can’t do much with email marketing advice that concentrates on sophisticated topics like multivariate testing, dynamic content development and data integration. For those who need entry-level advice, they created a 10-point Do-It-Yourself Primer that includes handy tips in plain English. Among them:
Be yourself. “People frequent your establishment because they enjoy the environment, the way they are treated, the quality of your product,” the authors say. “[W]hatever the reason may be, your recipients need to feel the same emotion when they open your email messages.” Your tone and word choice, for instance, will seem more authentic if they’re similar to those your customers hear in person.
Use what you know. As you’ve built your business, you’ve probably learned more about your customers than any consultant you might hire. “Appealing to the recipient by leveraging information you know about them extends that relationship to the inbox,” they note.
Offer an incentive. “[B]ecause of the relationship most small business owners have with their customer base, the incentive tends to be perceived as a ‘thank you’ to a good customer and not just a ploy to get an email address,” they say. But beware, they warn—the cost of list-building giveaways can add up.
You can do this yourself. One of the joys of email marketing is the fact that, by paying heed to a few insider tips like these, small business owners can see solid results.
Source: MarketingProfs.
If you’ve ever been to Fort Collins, Colorado, you’ve likely ventured to the outskirts of its historic district to sample popular beers like Fat Tire and 1554 at New Belgium’s tasting room. The brewer has long touted its green-production policies—a stance popular with its customers—but recently found itself at the center of a media brouhaha when an ex-employee accused New Belgium of being less environmentally friendly than it claimed.
