Good Marketing Articles

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2011-08-26T12:13:00.000+02:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More bespoke

10 Best Interactive Marketing Practices - Multimedia - iMediaConnection.com

2010-04-07T20:39:00.000+02:00

10 Best Interactive Marketing Practices - Multimedia - iMediaConnection.com

Uma reflexão sobre trabalho em Equipe e sobre os problemas dos amigos

2009-06-04T11:24:00.000+02:00

Um rato, olhando pelo buraco na parede, vê o fazendeiro e sua esposa
abrindo um pacote. Pensou logo no tipo de comida que haveria ali. Ao
descobrir que era uma ratoeira ficou aterrorizado.

Correu ao pátio da fazenda advertindo a todos:

- Há uma ratoeira na casa, uma ratoeira na casa!!

A galinha disse:

- Desculpe-me Sr. Rato, eu entendo que isso seja um grande problema para
o senhor, mas não me prejudica em nada, não me incomoda.

O rato foi até o porco e disse:

- Há uma ratoeira na casa, uma ratoeira!

- Desculpe-me Sr. Rato, disse o porco, mas não há nada que eu possa
fazer, a não ser orar. Fique tranqüilo que o Sr. Será lembrado nas minhas
orações.

O rato dirigiu-se à vaca. E ela lhe disse:

- O que? Uma ratoeira? Por acaso estou em perigo? Acho que não!

Então o rato voltou para casa abatido, para encarar a ratoeira. Naquela
noite ouviu-se um barulho, como o da ratoeira pegando sua vítima. A
mulher do fazendeiro correu para ver o que havia pegado. No escuro, ela
não viu que a ratoeira havia pego a cauda de uma cobra venenosa. E a
cobra picou a mulher...

O fazendeiro a levou imediatamente ao hospital. Ela voltou com febre.
Todo mundo sabe que para alimentar alguém com febre, nada melhor que uma
canja de galinha. O fazendeiro pegou seu cutelo e foi providenciar o
ingrediente principal.

Como a doença da mulher continuava, os amigos e vizinhos vieram
visitá-la. Para alimentá-los, o fazendeiro matou o porco.

A mulher não melhorou e acabou morrendo. Muita gente veio para o funeral.
O fazendeiro então sacrificou a vaca, para alimentar todo aquele povo.

Moral da estória:

Na próxima vez que você ouvir dizer que alguém está diante de um problema
e acreditar que o problema não lhe diz respeito, lembre-se que quando' há
uma ratoeira na casa', toda fazenda corre risco.

O mesmo ocorre em uma empresa... O problema de um departamento, de uma
área É PROBLEMA DE TODOS!!!

ESTAMOS NO MESMO BARCO!!! JOGAMOS NO MESMO TIME!!!

'Nós aprendemos a voar como os pássaros, a nadar como os peixes, mas
ainda não aprendemos a conviver como irmãos. '

Why Not to Drop $1000+ on Adobe CS3: Freeware Alternatives

2009-02-19T17:45:00.000+01:00

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
by ethanbaker

I very well know that Adobe CS3 offers some compelling programs. However, I have a solution to the major problem with the software: the price. The following are free alternatives to CS3 programs that will save you some major dough. Photoshop is Adobe’s stab at a photo editing program. For this common task, I have two programs to offer. The first program is The Gimp. The Gimp is slightly complex, but offers all the features that Photoshop does. A recompilation of The Gimp, called Gimpshop, is designed to be like Photoshop. Secondly, the infamous program Paint.NET. Paint.NET is a more basic image editor, but is still much more advanced than Windows Paint. Paint.NET is only available for Windows, while The Gimp is open source and therefore is available to most platforms.

Flash is a web 2.0 standard, however Adobe’s Flash program is expensive and complicated. I have found two alternatives to use instead of Flash. I have not extensively tested Synfig so I cannot comment on the UI or performance. The other option is called Powerbullet Presenter. Powerbullet is a well built program that makes Flash presentations. The UI is a little bit cluttered, but its performance really packs a punch. Synfig is available for Windows and OS X and Powerbullet is a Windows-only app.

Ah, Dreamweaver, the benchmark of all WYSIWYG editors. My suggested alternative is called Komposer. Komposer is the successor to NVU and is very similar. Komposer has a visual design and a code view, very similar to Dreamweaver. The only true difference between the two is that integrating Flash in Komposer can be a little bit tricky. Komposer is available for all major platforms.

Next up is Adobe Acrobat. I have a very simple solution to create PDFs rather then spending your hard earned cash. I suggest downloading PrimoPDF which is a printer driver that creates PDFs from any application that supports printing. All you need to do is select PrimoPDF in the Print dialogue box. PrimoPDf is available only for Windows.

Adobe Illustrator is great for creating works of art. Inkscape can be easily substituted for Illustrator saving you money. Inkscape is available for all major platforms.

Every now and again, everybody needs to build a publication. Of course you could use MS Publisher or Adobe InDesign, but why would you use those when you could use Scribus for free? Scribus has a simple, but powerful UI that reminds me of Komposer and the Open Office suite. Scribus is available for all major platforms.

Video editing is something that nowadays lots of people do. Windows Movie Maker is not great, iMovie is OK, but Adobe Premiere is professional quality. Jahshaka is a great alternative to Premiere and offers many of the same features. Jahshaka is available on all major platforms.

Audio editing is something required for podcasting and music recordings. Adobe Soundbooth allows this to be done professionally, but the open source program Audacity can do the same thing for a lot less. Audacity is available to all major platforms.

Finally, we have an Adobe product that is not part of CS3, but still has a free alternative. That product is Adobe Captivate. Adobe Captivate allows you to create screencasts to share with the web, colleagues, or friends. A free program that allows this to be done is CamStudio.

I hope that this list of freeware alternatives to expensive software helps everybody find an easy, cheap way to do what they need.

Note: These programs were found by use of Google, osalt.com, and CNet.

Power Point Version Hell

2009-02-17T16:31:00.002+01:00

Software makers release new versions of their products all the time -- and each version upgrade adds an updated file format that can no longer be opened by users of previous versions. This makes sure that users upgrade all the time -- and it's easier for the software maker too since they don't have to find workarounds for users of previous versions.

Microsoft doesn't work that way -- they make sure that users of older versions can still open new and improved file formats -- this approach is laudable but it's not without its share of problems -- these problems have been more rampant than usual in the case of PowerPoint. While it was already a tough task moving PowerPoint presentations between Windows and Mac machines, now it's downright difficult moving between PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and users of older Windows versions of PowerPoint. Welcome to PowerPoint Version Hell!

Introduction

If you have are still working with PowerPoint 2003, and work in a mixed environment where some users have upgraded to PowerPoint 2007, you know that it’s no easy task working with presentations that have been opened, edited, and saved on both versions. The opposite is also true. If you are using PowerPoint 2007, and need to share files with users who are still working on PowerPoint 2003 (or even older versions), you know that there have been some unhappy times!

And if you really haven’t noticed any issues while working with different PowerPoint versions, then you are absolutely lucky – but even then, make sure you are aware of the possible pitfalls.

Now, let us look at another part of this version story that spans across OS platforms – with file issues, link problems, and media maladies that stem from viewing and editing PowerPoint presentations created on Windows on the Mac – or even vice versa. Everything isn’t too well on that front too.

All these issues can be placed under a common umbrella that I’ll call Version Hell – and while it’s no fun being under this umbrella, life can be much more uncomplicated if you are aware of these problems, and ready to look at workarounds and best practices. You might have noticed that I never promised any solutions – that’s because very few of them exist – most of the time, you’ll have to look at workarounds for existing content, and plan with best practices for any new slides you create. As goes the famous saying: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Version Hell can raise its head at a time you least expect it to show up – and many times, there’s nothing much you can do. However, I don’t expect you to pray, and fully recommend that you be prepared for any such situation. That calls for a two pronged approach.

First, be aware of the common problem areas.
And secondly, follow a set of guidelines all the time.

Let me first show you the main problem areas. In exploring these, I decided to categorize them into three distinct areas:

* Template Issues between PowerPoint 2003 and 2007
* Charting Issues between PowerPoint 2003 and 2007
* Cross Platform Issues between PowerPoint on Windows and Mac

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Template Terror

It’s quite apt that this is named template terror. What else would you call it when your masters gets deleted, multiple masters become hundreds of slide layouts, and you end up with something that doesn’t work within PowerPoint 2003 or 2007?

As one my friends explained it: Huge client makes a move to PowerPoint 2007 -- needs all their templates and presentations updated for 2007 using new layouts, charts, and tables (and needs them all to work in PowerPoint 2003 as well)! Cannot go backwards, layouts become many, many masters and charts lose the wow factor. Version Hell raises its head yet again.

The workaround for this is actually quite simple – so simple that some would call it blunt. As far as possible, create a separate set of templates and prototype presentations for PowerPoint 2007 and 2003 (and earlier). Use multiple masters for version 2003 and earlier sets, and slide layouts for version 2007. Also, if you also need to use these templates on PowerPoint for Mac, be aware that 2003 and earlier on Windows roughly translates to 2004 and earlier on the Mac. Similarly 2007 on Windows is the file format equivalent of 2008 on the Mac. Ignore this approach, and you’ll have a nightmare sorting out the hell you’ll be in!

Also, if there are some important presentations that are shown by large groups using different versions of PowerPoint – make sure you keep separate PPT and PPTX versions of them. This will make sure that you are prepared for any situation.

To a certain extent, smaller groups working with a very simple template (one slide master, no title master) and simple slides may relax these rules. In that case, working in both versions might be possible. But again in that case, your templates and master need to use the PowerPoint 203 PPT and POT file formats, and version 2007 users will have to work in compatible mode. This might alleviate some issues, but it still will only address the template terror in version hell – you are still prone to other version problems. Evolve your simple template with a single master to something that includes a title master, or heaven forbid multiple masters – and you are again on the highway to version hell.

So, if you make the template in PowerPoint 2007, will it be okay in PowerPoint 2003? How about making it in PowerPoint 2003 – will it work in PowerPoint 2007? Short answer: if you make the template in 2007, you may have some oddities with title slides in 2003. If you make the template in 2003, the color scheme will not be right in 2007. It’s best to make the 2007 template in 2007 and the 2003 template in 2003.

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Charting Concerns

Charting concerns are not as terrible as template terrors – even then I’ll put them on a close second rank since many presentations that belong to the PowerPoint 2003 and earlier era have charts that were created using the Microsoft Graph component. Enter version 2007, and the amazing improvements in charts stemmed from the fact that Excel 2007 rather than Graph was doing the charting.

I need to add here that if you have PowerPoint 2007 installed without Excel 2007 on your system, you’ll still get to use Microsoft Graph. That could be an advantage if you need to share chart slides with users who are still using PowerPoint 2003 or earlier. However, for the rest of this content, I’ll assume that you are using Excel 2007 as the charting component for PowerPoint 2007, and Microsoft Graph as the charting component in PowerPoint 2003 – that’s the default, and I don’t find an easy way to change that option.

Some users report error messages about open dialog boxes in Excel when the try to insert a new chart in PowerPoint 2007 – most of the time, running the Office Diagnostics option in Office Button | PowerPoint Options | Resources resolves the issue. This, and other similar issues may result from some broken registry entries between 2007 versions of PowerPoint and Excel as far as charting is concerned – running Office Diagnostics is therefore a good idea even if you run into a similar, unrelated issue.

A majority of charting problems stem from the fact that PowerPoint 2007 prompts you to convert, convert all, or edit existing charts when you try to edit a chart that was created in PowerPoint 2003 or earlier using Microsoft Graph. If you need to share these slides with users of older versions of PowerPoint, make sure you choose the Edit Existing option. In fact, you can change the default behavior in PowerPoint 2007 to Edit Existing by using a registry key edit explained by PowerPoint MVP Steve Rindsberg.

Create this key in the registry (registry editing is not recommended for the faint hearted – always keep a backup of your system before attempting any registry edit):

* Quit PowerPoint 2007 if it's running.
* Choose Start Menu | Run (in Windows XP) or Start Menu | All Programs | Accessories | Run (in Windows Vista) and type in “regedit” without the quotes to open the Registry Editor.
* Navigate to this folder in the registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Office/12.0/Common/Charting/
* Click on Charting, right-click and choose New | DWORD Value.
* Registry Editor now inserts a new value, and leaves it highlighted for you to rename.
* Type in “MSGraphEnable” without the quotes. If you clicked off the new value, you'll need to rightclick it and choose Rename, then type the new name.
* Now doubleclick the MSGraphEnable value and set the data value to 1 in the dialog box that appears.
* Click OK to close the dialog box then quit Registry Editor.

This change in the registry results in new behaviors in PowerPoint 2007 as far as charting is concerned:

* PowerPoint will no longer convert existing Microsoft Graph charts to Microsoft Excel 2007 charts – nor will it prompt you to do so when you try to edit one by double-clicking.
* Inserting a new chart via the Insert options, or by clicking the chart icon in a content placeholder will result in a Microsoft Graph chart that you can share with users of pre-2007 versions of PowerPoint.
* PowerPoint 2007 will also retain Microsoft Graph charts if you choose the Office Button | Convert option to create a PPTX file from a PPT file.

If you edit a 2007 chart in 2003, you lose the colors. Maybe something to note for users.

Updated information on this technique can be always found at: http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00872.htm

To restore the charting options to Excel 2007, just delete the DWORD key you created.

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Cross Platform PowerPoint

PowerPoint started life as a Mac program that was acquired by Microsoft, which continued creating a Mac version of PowerPoint along with Windows versions. Somewhere along the way, maybe around version 4 – both the Mac and Windows versions started drifting a little as far as the feature set and media support was concerned. The rift is at its widest in PowerPoint versions 2007 and 2008 although these current versions are better behaved in the way they explain these errors.

PowerPoint 2008 for the Mac includes the Compatibility Report option (View | Compatibility Report) – this checks the open presentation for compatibility issues with profiles of all versions of PowerPoint on Windows and Mac – right back to PowerPoint 97 and 98 – it then tells you exactly what features may be compromised, and what will not work.

PowerPoint 2007 has a similar Compatibility Checker that can be accessed from Office Button | Prepare | Run Compatibility Checker – but this option only looks at compatibility issues with older versions of PowerPoint on Windows – there’s no reporting on problems with Mac versions of PowerPoint.

There are some guidelines that you can follow when you are creating PowerPoint presentations intended to be viewed or edited on both Windows and Mac versions of PowerPoint:

1. Keep things simple – and use PowerPoint’s drawing tools to create shapes and drawings rather than using content from a third party application.
2. Always use industry standard media formats that are not too platform specific: stay away from WindowsMedia and QuickTime file formats – use MPEG videos. Similarly, use DRM-free MP3s rather than iTunes songs or WindowsMedia audio files.
3. Use fonts that can be found as standard on Windows and Mac – these include Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New, Verdana, Tahoma, Trebuchet MS, etc. PowerPoint 2007 and 2008 can also use the new fonts such as Calibri.
4. On the Mac, avoid using PICT graphics – on both OS platforms, GIF, PNG, and JPG work best. For illustrations, use WMF or EMF files.
5. Don’t space out your text too tightly – font rendering differences may add an extra line to a text box on either Windows or Mac versions of PowerPoint.
6. Remember some features don’t work on both platforms – Mac versions of PowerPoint still don’t have motion path or trigger animations – although they can show you motion path animations in presentations created on Windows – you still cannot edit them though.

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Conclusion

We discussed three important aspects of Version Hell – and there’s a whole lot more than just these issues that you may encounter. The best thing you can do is create a unique set of guidelines for everything you do on a PowerPoint slide. Here’s a starting set of thoughts – add to these, and make changes as per your unique requirements:

* Decide upon the lowest common denominator for your organization, and document them.
* Don’t edit files through a cycle of version pairs. This could be something like this: you created the presentation in PowerPoint 2003, then made changes in 2007 using the compatibility mode, and saved again – and kept alternating between versions.
* Although you should not edit your PowerPoint presentations on different versions, the opposite is true as far as checking them is concerned. Always check the presentations files as often as you can on versions/platforms where you need to deliver.
* As far as possible, use industry standards file formats that are not platform specific.

As you might have realized by now, there are no solutions to version hell – but there is still so much you can do to avoid it in the first place.

Having said that, there’s no better solution to this problem other than creating a long term plan – this is a plan that moves everyone in your organization to working on the same version of PowerPoint. But I guess that does not happen very often in the real world!

Business Model Innovation Matters

2009-01-24T01:24:00.001+01:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Business Model Innovation Matters

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: osterwalder alex)

Why PowerPoint rules the business world

2009-01-24T00:39:00.001+01:00

A CALL FOR VISUAL LITERACY

In many organizations, the beginning and end of any business activity is marked by the PowerPoint presentation. In the early stages of an initiative, PowerPoint is used in strategy sessions, to present proposals and put forth plans. Later, it’s used for updates and progress reports. In the final stages, it’s used to report back and to present findings and conclusions. PowerPoint is everywhere, and it shows no signs of going away anytime soon.

Why is it used so broadly? And how did this simple tool become so entrenched in business? Here are a few thoughts:

1. PowerPoint is accessible. For the novice, it’s easy to learn and use.
2. PowerPoint is everywhere. Pretty much everyone has it, or has the ability to view a file. This makes it easy to share ideas and generally move meaning around. Slides can be borrowed, stolen, recycled and re-used.
3. PowerPoint is flexible. The same document that is used to present information in a meeting or conference, can, with little or no modification, be emailed as a document or shared online, retaining much of its meaning.
4. PowerPoint is easy to read. PowerPoint documents can be scanned and understood more rapidly than text documents. Because they are primarily visual they tend to be more easily understood and remembered.
5. PowerPoint is modular. It can be broken down into single slides, which can be arranged and rearranged into numerous different sequences. Over time you can build up a storehouse of slides that represent your – or your team’s – collective knowledge about any subject, which can be distributed, shared, discussed and modified as things evolve over time.
6. PowerPoint is powerful. For the more experienced user, it’s a powerful multimedia tool, with animation and other advanced effects. It’s easy to add information of any kind: Video, charts, photographs, maps – just about anything that can be digitized can be added to PowerPoint.

People use PowerPoint to represent knowledge, and the main element is relatively small and useful atomic unit we call the slide.

So what’s the problem?
“Death by PowerPoint” is the popular term for the much-dreaded meeting where a presenter subjects his audience to slide after slide, each one densely packed with bullet points or complex, confusing information, leaving the audience bored, frustrated confused.

But PowerPoint is not the enemy. When used appropriately, slides, and short sequences of slides, are excellent tools to represent knowledge. A good slide contains visual and verbal information in equal measure, and as an “information container,” a slide is just about the perfect size for memory and retention: big enough to hold meaningful information, but not so big that it’s likely to become overwhelming. A well-designed slide – one that’s comfortable to view and read – holds just about the same amount of information that you can hold in your short-term memory.

The problem is much, much deeper than PowerPoint. The issue is this: PowerPoint is a visual tool, and we are a visually illiterate society.

What do I mean by this?
In the modern world we are constantly confronted – you might say bombarded – with visual information: Television and film are the primary culprits, followed closely by billboards, brochures, and, yes, bullet points. Advertisers have long known that visualizing an idea is one of the quickest and most reliable ways to insert it into a human brain.

Due to this visual assault, we have, over time, become more sophisticated in our reading of visual information. In a world where information is digital, where photos can be altered in Photoshop and where films can show impossible things like dinosaurs and talking animals with a high degree of realism, we understand that seeing is no longer believing.

But this kind of visual sophistication is not literacy. Literacy is the ability to both read and write. If a child could read written language but not write it – if he could read a mathematical equation but not perform such operations himself – then we would not consider him prepared for success in the world.

In our school systems we teach our children the three R’s – reading, writing and arithmetic, because we believe them to be fundamental skills for successful integration in society. But the three R’s are no longer enough. Our world is changing fast – faster than we can keep up with our historical modes of thinking and communicating. Visual literacy – the ability to both read and write visual information; the ability to learn visually; to think and solve problems in the visual domain – will, as the information revolution evolves, become a requirement for success in business and in life.

PowerPoint has risen to its current position for two reasons:

1. We’re processing more information than ever before, at unprecedented volumes
2. We don’t have as much time to read anymore, and
3. Much of the information we need to share is non-linear in nature.

PowerPoint is a visual medium. If you want to convey information visually, it’s the most accessible and ubiquitous tool there is. The answer to bad PowerPoint is not to eliminate the tool, but to improve our visual literacy. We need to teach visual literacy in our schools, and to our business people. We need an ABC book of visual language (a project I am working on).

We’re leaving an industrial age and entering an information age, yet we continue to teach, and operate our schools, as if they were factories. In an information age, visually literate societies will succeed and thrive. Shouldn’t we be one of them?

source: http://www.davegrayinfo.com/2008/05/22/why-powerpoint-rules-the-business-world/

Email Marketing Disobedience: Six laws of proper e-Newsletter creation, and why you should ignore every one of them

2008-11-28T18:07:00.000+01:00

by Gary Levitt

Nobody loves email marketing more than I do. But even I admit that within the grand taxonomy of consumer touchpoints, e-newsletters hold a sorry position.

They're the longwinded busybodies who never get invited to the cool parties. Porcelain-skinned print campaigns turn up their perky, sans-serif noses at e-newsletters' frumpy templates and canned copy. Super Bowl spots kick sand in e-newsletters' bespectacled faces.

Yet, these boxy embodiments of mediocrity move product and build loyalty. Marketing people are aware of this—they've proven it with charts and everything. You need an e-newsletter and you know it.

Before rolling up your sleeves, cranking up the REO Speedwagon, and cooking up some long-form creation-wizard-based love, please review the following six bromides from a recent how-to article phoned in by a reigning email-marketing magnate.

After each, I'll explain how to do the exact opposite so that you can avoid polluting the e-cosystem with mediocre e-newsletters.

1. Share expertise

Wrong—share ignorance. Consider the old Zen adage "the more I know, the less I know." It means the more expertise we have, the more we're dazzled by just how little we currently understand.

Pick something you're marvelously clueless about and confess the fact to your readers. They won't fault you for it—but they just might love you for it. As long as the topic you're "ignorant" about is something they didn't even know they were ignorant about until reading your enlightening e-newsletter.

2. Tell a success story

Wrong—tell a failure story. It humanizes your company and demonstrates your high standards. Example: a legendary 1960s ad for the Volkswagen Beetle showed just the car, with "Lemon" in bold type. The copy explained, "The chrome strip on the glove compartment was blemished and needs to be replaced."

While other car companies waxed self-congratulatory about success, Volkswagen cornered the market talking about failure. You can do the same with your e-newsletters—simply master the art of strategic self-criticism. It never fails.

3. Conduct a relevant interview

Wrong—conduct a gloriously irrelevant interview. Approaching a topic head-on can be a headache—especially if it's been done to death. Try a sideways approach. What can your design firm glean from interviewing a homeless man? How might a chat with a priest spice up your women's fashion newsletter? Why would a software developer pick a farmer's brain about emptying grain bins into semi trailers?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I'm willing to read your e-newsletter to find out!

4. Take an in-depth look at a product or service you offer

Wrong—take an in-depth look at a product or service you refuse to offer. As the visionaries of 37signals say in Getting Real (sort of a Thomas Paine's Common Sense for the digital generation), "do less than your competitors in order to beat them."

Embrace l'esprit du moment by poking satirical fun at the superfluous features common to your industry. Waving the simplicity banner while it's still in vogue is smart—and your next e-newsletter is a smart place to wave it.

5. Springboard off of current events

Wrong—springboard off of that which is timeless. Your readers are suffering from information overload—spare them the latest trope on gas prices, politics and Paris Hilton. Realize that the guys reading your scrap metal e-newsletter probably don't give a rat's ass that it's Halloween.

And while you're at it, throw away the springboard. Relying on convoluted conversation-starters is a milquetoast way to win friends and influence people—both in life and in e-newsletters.

6. Ask your readers

Wrong—listen to readers. In the words of Louis Armstrong, "if you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know." Same wisdom applies to knowing the hearts of your readers. Get in sync with customers' needs by observing their riffs in natural online habitats built around your company. Replace pre-fab surveys with improvised forums. The intuition you gain will free you up to follow the inspiration of the moment and hit the high notes needed to create authentic brand loyalty.

* * *

Rebelling against clichés will keep your customers reading, and it'll keep you writing—without falling asleep. This matters. Readers can sense when you're just going through the motions. That can't be good for your brand, regardless of what the stats say.

So ask yourself: Am I excited about my e-newsletter? Does it express my voice and vision? Did I have fun creating it? If you have to ignore an army of email experts' advice (including mine) to get to where you can answer "yes" to those questions, so be it. That's called employing the virtues of e-newsletter disobedience.

Super Bowl commercials, watch out!

Five Steps to Building Brand Equity for the Small Business

2008-11-28T17:46:00.000+01:00

by Mike O'Toole

Instinctively, every small business owner understands the importance of brand equity, even if they may not be able to define the idea. Marketing-speak aside, brand equity is how your customer recognizes why you are different and better than the alternative.

Brand equity is built on that customer's direct experience with your product or service. This experience, repeated over time, creates equity or value in your brand. And it serves as a shorthand in the buyer's mind that separates you from everyone else.

Brand equity is what creates loyalty that carries beyond price or the occasional product or service bump in the road. It is the quality that motivates your customers to recommend their friends or colleagues to you.

Everyone wants brand equity. But building it, when you are more likely to qualify for the Inc. 500 rather than the Fortune 500, can be a puzzle. Particularly when the role models for brand equity are global icons like Coca Cola, Volvo, or Sony—hardly your peer set.

The good news is that the path to building brand equity is clear. Here are six simple steps you can take to get started:

1. Clarify your position

The first step to building brand equity is to define your positioning: the single thing your company stands for to your customers. Single is the operative word here. Good positioning forces hard choices.

To define your brand position, get the key leaders in your company together. Decide what makes you different and better than your competition. This might sound blindingly obvious, but most small businesses are too busy responding to customers or making payroll to do a lot of introspection.

You don't need an agency or consultant to get started. There are a couple of good exercises out there that you can do on your own. A simple one that I like is the Positioning XYZs:

"We are the only X that solves Y problem in Z unique way."

Where...

* X is the category of the company, product, or service or other offering you've chosen to own.
* Y is the unmet need of your target audience.
* Z is the differentiation, advantage, or key positive distinction you have over your competition.

2. Tell your story

Clear positioning is critical, but positioning statements are internal touchstones, not external expressions. Your next job is to make it interesting, to imbue the rational positioning with emotion.

All brands are stories, and a good way to get started is to document and share your best corporate stories: the founding insight of the company, the times you went to extraordinary lengths to take care of a customer, or the background behind the big product breakthrough.

The good news is that with ubiquitous broadband access and Web-based applications, it is within every company's grasp to share these stories more broadly through rich-media video and audio.

B.Good (www.bgood.com), a small restaurant chain in Boston, has done this well. It's a burger joint that promises "real food," positioning itself against the typical fast-food burger and experience. The real food story begins with the stories of the "real people," the founders whose corporate values are based on their experiences growing up at their uncle's restaurant. You're reminded of these stories when you're in the restaurant or checking store hours online.

3. Bring it to life

Once you have the story, you need to bring it to life. Make sure that the way your company looks and feels to the outside world matches that truth. This leads to questions about your corporate identity: Do the basics (starting with your name and logo) make the impression you want? And your broader system for communicating to the market: Web site, brochures, your retail environment.

A client of mine talked about his Web site as a "corporate veil" that obscured what made the company special. Does your corporate identity reveal the best truth about your business, or does it hide it?

4. Start building brand before they buy

Think beyond the transaction. Brands begin at the transaction level, but the brand experience goes much deeper. The opportunity to create a brand impression starts long before the buying decision. The principle is a simple one: Give away an artifact of your brand for free. In the professional services world, this means a taste of your service or your intellectual property. Here are two creative examples:

Igor (www.igorinternational.com) is a naming consultancy based in San Francisco. It has built a methodology—and a client list that rivals those of much-larger branding agencies. That methodology is laid bare in a 100-page guide to naming that it gives away—without any registration requirements—on its Web site.

This move is both generous, in the spirit of Web content "wanting to be free," and also incredibly shrewd. The naming guide is rich, detailed, and outlines a very clear process for naming. Igor understands that giving away IP (intellectual property) doesn't cost it business—but it is its lead business generator.

It doesn't have to be just IP. Peet's (www.peets.com), the coffee retailer, allows customers to send their friends an "eCup," an email redeemable for a free cup of coffee. This is an ingenious way to enable the fiercely loyal customers of Peet's to promote the brand themselves.

5. Measure your efforts

Here are a few direct ways to measure the progress of your brand:

* Ask your customers. Survey a subset of customers, prospective customers, and (ideally) people who chose a competitor over you. You'll be surprised at how candid people will be about your strengths—and your weaknesses. Make sure you ask the most important question in any customer research: Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague? Research (check out www.netpromoter.com) has shown that the willingness to recommend is the most important indicator of brand health. This research can be done quite cheaply online, using free or near-free tools like KeySurvey (www.keysurvey.com) or SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.com).
* Check your search rankings. I don't know all of what Igor measures, but I do know it fares very well in what is perhaps the most important measure of them all: organic search results. Type "product naming" on Google, and chances are you'll see Igor come up in the top three listings (the earned ones in the middle, not the paid ones on the top or side).
* Monitor the social media conversation. In most categories, consumers are holding a very active and candid conversation about the brands they love and hate. Check out what they're saying about you in blogs, bulletin boards, and vendor-rating Web sites (www.technorati.com or www.yelp.com are good places to start).

* * *

At the end of the day, brand value is tangible. If you're skeptical, take a look at Interbrand's annual survey of the world's most valuable brands.

These companies start with a clear, focused position in the market. They have built a special relationship with customers that extends far beyond the product. And they exercise a fanatical discipline in how that brand position is communicated in the market.

These are practices you don't need a billion dollar marketing budget to emulate. In fact, you can start today.

Email Hygiene: Six Ways to Polish Your List

2008-11-10T19:30:00.001+01:00

by Eric Groves

Fifty million people changed their email address last year. How many of those old addresses are on your email list right now?

You already know the importance of a permission-based email list. You even practice list segmentation to improve the relevance of the emails you send to your customers and prospects.

But how much time do you devote to cleaning your email list? If your email hygiene is lax, you're greatly limiting the success of your campaigns.

An up-to-date, clean email list can have a big impact on your delivery, open, and click-through rates, not to mention your ongoing compliance with CAN-SPAM laws.

Permission is perishable. Just because you received permission to send emails to a prospect three or six months ago doesn't mean they're still interested—especially if you're an infrequent emailer.

Act quickly when you receive permission to ensure that your email recipients remember you and your service. The older your list, the more likely it needs a checkup.

Has it been a while since your last cleaning? Follow these six steps to polish up your email list:

1. Analyze bounce-backs

After every email campaign you send, analyze the bounce-backs you receive. Identify the different reasons for the bounce to determine next steps (Was your email was blocked? Is the recipient is no longer at that address?). Remove hard bounces from your list. This is also a great way to identify and correct obvious typos in your list (e.g., ".con" instead of ".com").

2. Manage your unsubscribe requests

If you use an email marketing service with automatic unsubscribe, this step is handled for you. If not, you must do this yourself—and not only because you want to maintain a clean list: It's required by law.

3. Monitor your "reply to" address

Many recipients are fearful of using the unsubscribe function as it has been used by spammers as a way of verifying an address rather than as a legitimate unsubscribe. So, be aware of unsubscribe requests coming to your "reply to" address and permanently remove those unsubscribers' addresses.

4. Examine your open and click-through rates

You may think your email list is pretty clean, but look closer. Have your open rates decreased over the past six months or year? Are your click-throughs on the decline?

Over time, people can lose interest in a specific product or service, or they might move or change jobs and no longer require your service, but they haven't taken the step to unsubscribe. These subscribers may meet the requirements of permission-based email, but in reality they're just clogging up your list.

If you cannot re-engage them, it's best to simply remove them and move on.

5. Re-engage inactive list members

Segment your members who haven't opened your emails for the past six months and create some special communications just for them with the goal of getting them to re-engage and open your emails. If that doesn't work, remove them.

Clearly, they aren't interested; and your time is better spent communicating with people who are interested.

6. Rebuild your list the right way

As you weed out the bad emails and unsubscribes, you'll of course want to rebuild your list with new, interested subscribers. It's imperative to grow your list the right way, with permission-based emails.

Make it easy for interested parties to opt in wherever they come in contact with you, your brand, or service—such as on your Web site, in your email signature, at your physical store, etc. It's also a great idea to give them options for the types of communications they want to receive from you (e.g., newsletters, promotions, coupons) and how often (e.g., weekly, monthly).

* * *

If you haven't cleaned up your list in a while, the first time will be a little challenging; but afterward, cleaning your email list should be a simple matter of maintenance. Set aside some time following each campaign or just once a month to analyze your unsubscribes, open rates, bounce-backs, etc., and toss the bad emails out.

Your sparkling clean email list may shrink a bit, but it will outperform your big, old, messy list any day.

Eric Groves is senior vice-president, worldwide strategy & market development, at Constant Contact

5 ways to increase deliverability

2008-11-10T17:18:00.001+01:00

By Karen J. Bannan

Story posted: July 31, 2008 - 3:37 pm EDT

This week e-mail services company Return Path released its Q2 2008 Reputation Benchmark Report. The results highlight the fact that for many b-to-b marketers, deliverability may still be an issue. According to the report, e-mails sent from “legitimate” e-mail servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; 20% were rejected and 8% went into some type of filter. The rest—16%—were bounces. In other words, almost half of the time, e-mail marketers’ messages aren’t getting through. There are ways to increase deliverability, though, according to George Bilbrey, Return Path’s general manager of delivery assurance. Here are five to consider:

1) Make sure your e-mail server—or your ESP’s—is configured correctly. If you maintain your own e-mail server, it’s crucial that it’s set up correctly. If not, Bilbrey said, you run the risk of being classified as an illegitimate server. This means making sure your reverse DNS settings—which map an IP address to a host name—are correct and use your domain name. “You don’t want to have a big string of numbers. You want it to say, ‘mail.domainname.com,’ ” he added.

2) Keep your unknown user rate down. When you send out an e-mail to someone who doesn’t exist, the ISP or server that’s handling that e-mail keeps track of that delivery attempt. Log too many of those attempts and you risk being placed on a black list or blocked at the server level. If that happens, none of your e-mails to that domain or ISP will get through. This can happen when e-mail recipients change jobs or don’t log in to their e-mail address frequently. Your best bet, Bilbrey said, is to check for unknown users after every mailing and remove them immediately. Your IT person or ESP should be able to provide you with a list of bounced e-mail addresses and help you remove them.

3) Track your reputation. Companies such as Return Path track e-mail senders’ reputations based it on a variety of information such as inclusion on black lists, complaint rates and e-mail volume. Keeping track of your score will give you an idea of your deliverability rates because reputation scores tend to correlate with deliverability, Bilbrey said. “It’s definitely a case of the higher the score, the higher the deliverability,” he said. You don’t need to subscribe to a service to check on your reputation. Return Path provides a free service at senderscore.org, for example.

4) E-mail often. If you don’t e-mail your list often enough, e-mail addresses can become stale. This means you may end up with more undeliverable messages than you would like. In addition, even if your messages do get through, recipients may forget that they signed up for your messages and report you as a spammer. The fix, Bilbrey said, is to make sure you reach out to your list at least quarterly, although monthly is even better. “With triggered events, the condition that triggers an e-mail may never occur,” he said. “It’s good to send out quarterly messages to weed out bad addresses right away.”

5) Don’t get caught in a spam trap. ISPs and large domain holders may set up spam traps, placing e-mail addresses that don’t belong to anyone on their home page or around the Web to thwart those spammers engaged in e-mail harvesting. You can end up sending to one of these addresses if someone maliciously signs one of these addresses up for your list or if a legitimate e-mail address is entered incorrectly. You have two ways of preventing this problem, Bilbrey said. The first is to implement a double opt-in so you can verify every address before it goes on your list. The second is to e-mail double opt-in e-mail messages from a separate domain as well as a separate IP address. “If you do hit a spam trap and get on a black list, you can go to the ISP or the domain owner and say, ‘This is my confirmed opt-in welcome stream. I can’t control what people input. That’s why I have a double opt-in in place,’ ” he said. “The ISP sees you’re trying to do the right thing and, as long as you provide some evidence that that’s what you’re doing, you won’t have a problem getting off the black list and at the same time, the rest of your e-mail list is safe.”

How to Avoid TMI in Email: When Less Is More

2008-11-10T16:57:00.000+01:00

by Josh Nason

You have them dead in your sights. They're eager to sign up for your email list. (Yeah, they actually want to get information from you!) The user is on your site and that all-important Subscribe click is made. You are seconds away from having another prospect to market to, and then... they stop.

They go away, never to return because they were turned off. Why? What happened?

It's an ill that has plagued marketers for years. Heck, even I had it in my former life as a sports marketer. It's called TMI-tis, short for Too Much Information-itis. You're not alone, however, so don't fear. Read on for help in curing your email marketing ills.

It starts simply. You're setting up fields for your email signup form and instead of grabbing just the basics for information, you start to wander. What if I got all the information I want up front? That would save me so much time! Who cares about emailing them at that point? I'll have it all! Bwahahahaha!

So then it begins: name, address, home number, work number, mobile number, bag phone number, AOL IM, Yahoo IM, favorite band, favorite station, favorite team. Sure, you don't make it required that all the fields are filled in, but while they're there why not offer it, right?

All they wanted was to supply you with was an email address, but instead the end users are looking at a form worthy of governmental consideration.

Eventually, the process you create gets so bad that the person attempting to sign up can't even find where to enter in an email address, which was the only reason they clicked to begin with. They get frustrated, the browser window closes, and within seconds you've lost a potential addition to your list because you came down with TMI-tis: You got greedy.

Let's get to the root of what you're trying to do: collect emails from someone who wants to stay in contact with your company or client. They've attempted to engage you by opting to give you their address, so you've already achieved your goal. Stop right there.

While it's tempting to assume that they'll be willing to give you every possible bit of information while they're at this critical juncture, ask yourself what you're going to do with that information when you get it. Is there an immediate purpose and plan, or are you getting it "just because"? If you hesitate with answering this question at all, then you should be asking just the basics: first/last name, email and zip code. This allows to you know who the email owner is, how to contact them, and where they're from.

However, if you really need that info right away, I'd suggest going about it a different way.

Most times, you will probably get those highly coveted demographics and psychographics just by smart marketing. Try a targeted data-collection initiative to your list, securing information for the chance to win something of high value. You could do a direct sales campaign, offering a specific product in a specific window of time that would achieve your data collection goal. Or you could just practice great email marketing and entice them to provide information in other legitimate ways.

A few examples:

* Sending out timely newsletters with worthwhile and engaging content that builds trust. If users trust the source, they will be more likely to supply information for a contest or some other sort of data-collection drive.
* Doing a "recommend-a-friend" push whereby you award prizes for the most people recommended who sign up for the marketer's list. On the sign-up landing page, ask the initial user (the "recommender") for the rest of their info. If they're engaged in asking others to sign up and there's a trust already established, this might be a chance to get them if you feel the timing is right.
* Surveys: If you can create a very short-and-sweet survey asking some other important information, you can probably also get your additional demo information here.

Ultimately, there are ways to get what you want without overwhelming end users and losing them before they bite the hook. Don't overcomplicate the process... just do what you do best!

A good rule of thumb is to put yourself in the slightly-worn out seat of the end user. You're a busy person just like your potential subscribers. If you were sitting in front of a computer and signing up for an email list, what would you want your user experience to be like? Signing up to receive emails shouldn't be an uncomfortable and lengthy process.

A few other thoughts on the email-signup process:

* Please, please, please don't make people choose a username/password to get emails. I subscribe to a few arena mailing lists to get information on concerts, and two of them required me to create a username/password. Why? I'm not that concerned about someone hacking into my account and changing my music preferences from Tool to Toby Keith, so why should they? It's email, not national security.
* Always use the double-opt-in process. Keep your lists legit and clean. This is something people are now accustomed to doing, so don't look it as a needless extra step on their behalf.
* Keep them on your site during the signup process. I cannot stand it that when I'm attempting to sign up for a list, a non-branded window pops up for me to fill in. Any email marketing company worth its salt should able to provide you, the marketer, with HTML code that you can format into your own site, so that users don't have jump to a stock order-form landing page.

My marketing friends, the golden rule with avoiding TMI-tis is to keep it simple. Do whatever it takes to get subscribers in your database with as little difficulty as possible. Then, get the rest of the information the old-fashioned way: by providing a service they absolutely have to have.

Minimize List Churn by Reducing Unsubscribes

2008-11-10T16:12:00.000+01:00

by Loren McDonald

Reducing the number of people who unsubscribe from your mailing list is one of the key ways to minimize list churn and in turn make it easier to grow your list.

That doesn't mean you make it harder for people to leave, however. Instead, learn why people leave, offer them other ways to remain in the relationship, and make the process a great customer experience.

Unsubscribes: A Fact of List Life

Email consumers control their destiny—choosing when to opt in and when to say adios. But, unsubscribes can also be a good thing. The alternative is a poor brand experience for the subscriber and spam complaints or deadwood on your list that masks true performance.

Make the process easy. You'll minimize spam complaints and likely retain the customer relationship through another channel.

Why People Unsubscribe

According to JupiterResearch:

1. 53 percent say they unsubscribe when the content is irrelevant.
2. 40 percent say they unsubscribe when email is sent too often.

How to Optimize the Unsubscribe Process

1. Make the unsubscribe and alternatives links stand out in your emails

Display a clearly labeled unsubscribe link prominently in your email message, in an easy-to-read font size, style, and color that match your email design. Don't try to hide it by blending it in with the background color, shrinking the type size, or moving it around each time.

Put it in both your primary or secondary navigation below the fold and near the bottom or in your email administration area if you have one. However, if you have a high spam-complaint rate, add it to the very top of your emails.

2. Deploy a combination unsubscribe/preference page

Create a well-designed, branded page that explains exactly how to unsubscribe, thanks the user for his/her patronage, and offers alternatives to unsubscribing but completes the unsubscribe process quickly for those who really do want to leave.

Test it for ease of use. Check it and the email unsubscribe link regularly to be sure they're working correctly.

A. Unsubscribe function

This page should make it easy and obvious how to unsubscribe. In fact, a ruling in May by the Federal Trade Commission prohibits requiring logins or passwords, surveys, or the viewing of offers to complete the unsubscribe. The entering of an email address is the only requirement allowed.

Pass the subscribers' email address and preferences through to this unsubscribe page. They won't have to enter any information; they'll merely check or uncheck boxes or select radio buttons.

After completing the unsubscribe or preference changes, launch a thank-you page that confirms the action(s) and again offers ways to continue the relationship via other channels, such as RSS or catalogs.

B. Suggested alternatives

Many of your subscribers who click the unsubscribe link just want some aspect of the relationship to change.

Retain these subscribers with an unsubscribe/preference page that allows them both to change preferences and to opt out. Include these alternatives:

* Changing their email address. Best practice: To reduce mistakes, load the form with the address they used to subscribe.
* Changing the frequency. Offer some appropriate options, such as a weekly or monthly digest of daily or weekly messages.
* Changing the format. Let users switch from plain text to HTML or vice versa, as well as a "mobile" version—a shortened HTML format minus images—if you offer it.
* Changing the channel. Show users how and where to sign up for your RSS feed(s), SMS messaging, or direct mail, if you offer them.
* Changing their profile or preferences. People's needs and interests change over time. Present their profile/preferences this page or link to your preference page.
* Subscribing to your other lists/emails. You may have other emails or newsletters of more relevance to the subscriber. Present a list (with descriptions, if possible) of the emails you offer and highlight those they are currently receiving.

C. Alternate contacts

Always provide your customer-service phone number and email and postal addresses in case the subscriber has problems, such as when a page is not loading or in case of error messages.

D. Exit survey

Try to capture why subscribers are opting out. Use radio buttons listing the top five or so reasons you know why people are unsubscribing. Then, provide a comment box for people to elaborate or list other reasons, and study what they say. Make it clear the survey is optional.

E. Timing statement if the unsubscribe is not immediate

Consumers expect your emails to stop as soon as they unsubscribe, even though in the United States the CAN-SPAM Act allows up to 10 days to remove someone from a list. If, for whatever reason, it takes you several days to process an unsubscribe, include a statement such as the following: "When unsubscribing, there may be a delay of up to seven days. We apologize in advance if you receive further emails during this period."

Other Best Practices

* Launch a thank-you page that confirms the actions the subscriber took and thanks that person.
* Track your unsubscribe rate over several campaigns to spot trends, correlate with spam complaints, and analyze to find patterns.
* Test different unsubscribe formats to find one that works best.
* Minimize the need for unsubscribing by optimizing your opt-in procedure and following email best practices throughout your relationship.

The Definitive Guide to Business-to-Business Marketing in a Recession

2008-11-07T10:36:00.001+01:00

by Jon Miller

Does an economic slowdown necessarily mean that business-to-business marketers have to find even more ways to do more with less? Or can a downturn create opportunity for smart marketers to grow and thrive?

In this guide to B2B marketing during a recession, I answer these questions and share specific strategies you can use to shine when times are dark.

Are We in a Recession?

First of all, I should explain I do not think that the US is in a recession—yet. A recession requires two quarters of negative GDP growth, and the Bureau of Economic Statistics reported 0.6% growth for Q4 2007 while preliminary numbers for Q1 2008 show 0.9% growth.

So we may not yet be in a recession, but times are growing increasingly difficult for consumers. The subprime mess is real, rising energy and food costs are cutting into discretionary spending, and the weakened dollar is importing inflation to our economy.

According to the Web site How I Spent My Stimulus, the $152 billion stimulus package is going primarily to reduce consumer debt or pay for higher gas and food costs, not to stimulate incremental spending.

I like to say that we are in the worst possible non-recession. And, since prior downturns avoided becoming a (global) recession because of resilient spending by American consumers—a saving grace we don't have this time—things may still get worse before they get better.

What Does This Mean for Business-to-Business Marketing?

Fewer consumers means less demand; less demand means efforts to stimulate demand (i.e,. marketing) are less effective overall. In other words, when people buy less, advertisers spend less. According to research firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, advertising in the US dropped 9% in the 2001 recession and Internet advertising specifically fell 27%.

I should point out that this slowdown applies to business-to-business marketers as well, because as consumer spending drops the businesses that sell to those consumers reduce their spending as well.

However, these macro trends hide two important facts:

1. Branding and other forms of push marketing drop in a slowdown, while direct marketing tends to rise. When budgets are cut, the channels with the least ability to measure marketing ROI are cut especially hard as companies shift spending to more measurable channels. Investment bank Cowen and Company looked at the last six recessions since 1950 and found that spending on direct marketing actually grew during six recessions.
2. This time is different for online marketing. In the 2001 recession, online marketing was still unproven and got caught in the downward collapse of the Internet in general. Today, the trend to shift advertising dollars to measurable online channels is proven and won't disappear anytime soon. However, just because online marketing won't crater doesn't mean it isn't immune from a slowdown. In fact, eMarketer recently reduced its 2008 estimate for US online advertising to $25.8 billion. That is a 7% reduction from its prior estimate—but it is still 23% higher than 2007's total. In other words, the recession may slow down the growth of online marketing, but it's still growing at a significant pace.

What this means is that a recession will accelerate the decline of interruption-based mass advertising that simply shouts your message to customers. In its place we will see increased growth in measurable and relationship-based strategies such as search marketing, email marketing, lead nurturing, and online communities.

A downturn can also create opportunity for the companies that are more efficient at turning marketing investments into revenue, since there will be less competition overall.

In a study of US recessions, McGraw-Hill Research found that business-to-business firms that maintained or increased advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth than those that eliminated or decreased advertising. It found, in fact, that by 1985 the companies that were aggressive recession advertisers had grown their revenue over 2.5X faster than those that had reduced their advertising.

Seven Strategies for B2b Marketing During a Slowdown

Given these macro-economic trends, how should you allocate your marketing budget—and time? Here are specific business-to-business strategies you can use during a downturn:

1. Use lead management to maximize the value of each lead

In a recession, risk-averse buyers take longer than normal to research potential purchases. When you first identify a new prospect (regardless of whether he/she downloaded a whitepaper, stopped by your booth at a tradeshow, or signed up for a free trial), that prospect is more likely than not still in the awareness or research stage and is not yet ready to engage with one of your sales reps.

This means that you need lead scoring to identify which leads are highly engaged and lead nurturing to develop relationships with qualified prospects who are not yet ready to engage with sales. Without these capabilities, as many as 95% of qualified prospects who are not yet sales-ready never end up turning into a sales opportunity. These prospects are valuable corporate assets that you worked hard to acquire, and in a down economy you need to do everything possible to maximize value from them.

Implementing even simple automated lead-nurturing programs can yield a 400% improvement in the conversion of qualified prospects into sales opportunities over time. Net-net: Companies that can do a better job of managing leads and developing early-stage prospects into sales ready leads will be in the best position to thrive in a downturn.

2. Focus on your house list

In a recession, you may have less money to spend on acquiring new customers. The solution is simple: Spend more time marketing to (and building relationships with) the people you already know.

Activities that can help you get the most out of your existing relationships include conducting lead-nurturing campaigns, creating new content to offer to existing prospects, and cleaning and augmenting your marketing lead database with progressive profiling.

3. Build and optimize landing pages

When times are tough, it's more important than ever to maximize the return on your advertising. Whether you are using Google AdWords, banners, sponsorships, or email campaigns, a dedicated landing page is the single most effective way to turn a click into a prospect.

A relevant landing page can easily double conversions versus sending clicks to the homepage, and testing your pages can increase conversions by another 48% or more. Together, these tactics alone can result in 2.5X more leads for every dollar you spend, something that's sure to look good in tough times.

However, most companies are under-using this important technique: 44% of clicks for B2B companies are directed to the homepage, not a special landing page, and of B2B companies that use landing pages 62% have six or fewer total pages.

A recession is perhaps the best time to focus on some of these basics.

4. Content is for later in the buying cycle

When buying slows down, you need to focus more than ever on making sure that you are finding the prospects who are actually ready to buy—or, even better, make sure that they are finding you.

One great way to do this is to focus your offers on content that will appeal to someone who's actually looking for a solution (as opposed to thought-leadership and best-practices content, which can appeal to prospects who may one day have a need but are not currently looking). Examples of this kind of content can include "Top 5 Questions to Ask a Potential Vendor" whitepapers, buyers guides and checklists, analyst evaluations, and so on.

5. Appeal to the nervous buyer

A recession can mean more risk-averse buyers, which may lead to a tendency to go with "safe" solutions. This is fine for large established companies, but it means that younger companies need to do more than ever to reassure buyers and build trust.

Tactically, this means including customer references, reviews, expert opinions, awards, and other validation as part of your marketing.

Strategically, a recession means fewer risk-takers and visionaries, so take a lesson from Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm (pdf) and use methods that appeal to mainstream pragmatists: industry-specific marketing tactics and solutions, vertical customer references, relevant partnerships and alliances, and whole-product marketing.

6. Align sales and marketing

Today's prospects start their buying process by interacting with marketing and online channels long before they ever speak with a sales representative. This means companies must integrate marketing and sales efforts to create a single revenue pipeline.

The old days of functional silos and poor communication between the two departments must end. A tougher selling environment, driven by a recession, means this is more true than ever.

7. Don't be a cost center

Most executives today think that Sales delivers revenue and Marketing is a cost center. Marketers are partly to blame for part of this mindset, since when we use metrics such as "cost per lead" we frame the discussion in terms of costs, not in terms of impact on revenue. More subtly, language like "marketing spending" and "marketing budget" instead of "marketing investment" perpetuates these beliefs.

In a recession, marketing needs more than ever to change these perceptions. This means that marketing investments must be justified with a rigorous business case and should be amortized over the entire "useful life" of the investment. And it means marketing must increase marketing accountability by demonstrating the impact of each marketing activity on pipeline and revenue.

Of course, this is easier said than done, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Even small steps, like reports that show the total opportunity value for each lead source or campaign, can make a big impact.

Conclusion

Even if we aren't in a recession, we are in for some tough economic times—and an economic slowdown means a tendency to scale back marketing spending. However, research shows that a downturn creates opportunity to accelerate growth faster than your competitors. This means it may be the best time to step up your marketing—at least in quality if not quantity.

The marketers who focus on getting the most out of every dollar spent and on demonstrating marketing's impact on revenue and pipeline will be well positioned to come out of the slump looking like a star.

Stick to the Script!

2008-11-07T10:32:00.000+01:00

To ease the pain of cold calling, "A good sales script is essential," says Christine Comaford-Lynch. The perfect script should contain four elements, she says:

Start with who you are and where you are calling from. Move on to explain what you are selling. Continue with two compelling features of what it is you're offering. Finish with a request for commitment, by asking: "Is this something you want?"

Don't be discouraged if the answer to that last question is "no." According to Comaford-Lynch, disqualifying bad leads is an essential part of the lead-gen process. In fact, the dialogue you prepare with a good script should be able to both attract a good lead and disqualify a bad one. Two tips for creating that perfect dialogue:

Limit your script to 45 words at most. "Conventional sales theory (and countless studies) have found that after 30 seconds, your listener will begin to have negative feelings about you. That means you really have about 20 seconds, which … only works out to about 45 words," she says.

Practice your offer with a 14-year-old. If he or she understands it, it's likely clear and concise enough.

"[C]ustomers' buying decisions have a lot to do with five factors," Comaford-Lynch concludes: "trust, respect, brand recognition, quality, and price. … So drop the schmoozing, and start building rapport."

The Po!nt: Get writing before you start calling. The key to an easy cold call is an informative script, well-rehearsed, that's designed to build rapport—as well as disqualify a bad lead.

Source: BusinessWeek.

Bridging the Gap Between Email Marketing and CRM

2008-11-07T09:46:00.000+01:00

by Drew Adams

It's easy to get frustrated when mapping out the complexities of integrating email marketing with a CRM application. Companies want to view all customer data, including email marketing statistics, in one easy-to-use application. However, few CRM providers have mastered the art of email marketing.

Some organizations attempt to build their own email tool within a CRM application for managing email marketing, but this often results in poor deliverability. A new system can't immediately leverage the whitelisting status that reputable email marketing companies work hard to maintain. Also, by bringing email marketing in-house, a company must dedicate staff time to developing relationships with ISPs.

Many firms turn to an API, or application-programming interface, as the solution. APIs bridge the gap between CRM and other third-party software applications, which is useful for organizations that wish to manage customer data and email campaigns in one interface. A user may view sales data, demographic, and other customer data in the CRM system. The API is simply a bridge between the two systems, allowing them to talk with one another.

Why is integration important? Simplicity. By using a single interface, users can quickly gather information from various sources rather than logging into different applications. Everything they need is available by the click of the mouse from their CRM's interface.

OK, I'm ready to integrate my CRM with an email marketing solution. What next?

Before you do hours of research on an email marketing company's API, ensure that your own system has an API. If you're using a CRM that does not allow third-party applications to connect, it may be difficult to achieve this level of integration.

Assuming you have a system that can plug in, you may begin shopping for an email marketing API. Your first step is to perform the standard email marketing litmus test:

* Is it whitelisted with the major ISPs?
* Does it use third-party services to measure deliverability?
* Does it offer Sender-ID and DomainKeys?
* Does it ban rented or purchased lists from their system?
* Does it offer and encourage double opt-ins?
* Does their feature set meet my needs?
* Does it screen resellers and API users to ensure they aren't abusing the system?

If the answers to those questions are favorable, then one can move on to evaluating the API. At this point in the evaluation process, you should pull in your development team, if applicable.

What Does the API Need to Do?

Automatic contact subscriptions

One of the main uses of an email marketing API is to subscribe people automatically to email lists from a third-party system. For example, when a customer is added to your CRM, an API call can be made to automatically add that person to an email list. Without the API, your marketing manager will be pulling double duty adding the email address to both the CRM and the email application.

Leverage whitelist and deliverability setup

Email campaigns kicked off by using third-party API services use technologies such as DomainKeys and Sender ID so that mail coming from your clients will be seen as legitimate mail.

In addition, the IP addresses of the sending servers will already be set up on whitelists giving the highest possibility of getting in the inbox.

Finally, third-party API servers will be set up on feedback loops with the ISPs. This means that when anyone reports a message as spam to an ISP, generally through the "spam" button inside the mail reader interface, a notification of that will be sent back to the sending server.

This allows email marketers to unsubscribe the recipient and keep track of how many people are complaining and take appropriate actions if those complaint rates spike.

Open and click-through tracking provided automatically

Those who might be thinking of adding email capabilities into their applications may soon be asked to provide statistics on how the email performed, meaning how many people opened or clicked on the message, how many messages bounced back, and how many people reported the message as spam.

Writing the code to deliver those statistics takes lots of time and testing, which is the reason many people choose to leverage an email marketing API. Those statistics come "built-in," which means they can be reported back to the senders, giving them actionable intelligence.

Unsubscribe and bounceback management

Managing subscription status is an important component of an email marketing system. When using a third-party email marketing API, an "Unsubscribe" link will automatically be added to all emails going out. The system tracks unsubscribes and does not send to that address again. In addition, any recipient mail that bounces back—either temporarily or permanently—will be tracked and reported back to you. All this ensures that you are CAN-SPAM and whitelist compliant, and yet another potential headache you don't have to worry about.

Speed of delivery (and message throttling)

Third-party systems are built to send mail and can deliver it quickly if need be. However, to ensure maximum deliverability, third-party providers enable throttling capabilities to ensure ISPs don't get mail faster than they are willing to accept it. This helps with deliverability.

Conclusions

There isn't a magic button to bring all these components together. Integrating your email marketing application and your internal databases will take time and planning. By selecting an email marketing application, along with an open CRM application, you can increase efficiency and ROI by bringing these powerful tools together.

Five Inexpensive Direct Mail Tools to Generate Sales Leads Fast

2008-11-07T09:40:00.000+01:00

by Dean Rieck

There are many new ways to generate sales leads today, but direct mail remains one of the most powerful lead-generation tools.

Even successful online businesses are discovering that direct mail is essential for growth, since newer marketing tactics, such as SEO, social media, and email marketing, often have limitations because of the rapidly changing rules and technical issues involved.

While a mailer isn't as sexy as a viral video and it's not a hot topic at conferences, it's the most reliable way to reach people at home or at work. Its reach is wider and deeper than any other medium's. Plus, there are few restrictions on format and no message filtering or blacklisting headaches that plague email marketing.

Isn't direct mail expensive? It can be. But don't think that you have to create big, flashy mailers. In fact, when your goal is to generate sales leads, simpler, cheaper formats often work better. That's because the purpose of a lead-generating mailer is not to tell the whole story but to say just enough to get people to ask for more information.

Here are five basic direct mail tools that you can use to generate sales leads quickly and inexpensively.

1. Sales Letter

The letter is one of the simplest and most effective direct-mail tools available. It won't win any design awards, but if written well it's one of the few types of advertising that people will actually read all the way through.

To generate sales leads with a letter, you generally want to offer something free, such as a brochure, sample, demo, evaluation, or information kit. There's no need to get fancy when writing your letter. Keep it simple. Identify a problem, present your solution, and offer to send your freebie. Doing so allows interested prospects to identify themselves and gives you or your sales people a "foot in the door."

The simplest letter mailing includes a one- or two-page letter and a reply card in an envelope. You can enclose anything else you like, but remember that your goal is to get people to ask for more information, not to close the sale immediately. Less is more.

2. Postcard

Yes, simple postcards are a terrific way to generate leads. They're easy to print and as cheap as mail gets. If you're a small business, you can even print postcards through a variety of online printers and apply stamps and address labels by hand.

To get the cheaper postcard rate, the minimum size of any postcard you can send in the US mail is 3.5" x 5", and the maximum size is 4.25" x 6". You can certainly create larger postcards, and many businesses do. You simply have to pay more postage. Larger sizes give you more room for your message and photos or graphics. Just be sure to talk to your printer first to determine the most efficient size for printing so you get the most for your money.

Postcards are particularly good for generating a quick phone call or for driving people to your Web site. Since cards are small and offer little room for copy, your product or service should be familiar and easy to understand. Your offer should be simple and direct. People don't read postcards as much as they glance at them.

Your phone number or Web address should be big and bold so people can't miss it. If you're driving people to a retail store, make sure to give clear directions and a simple map if you have room. Telling people what you want them to do and how to do it is the best way to maximize response.

3. Flyer

You want simple and cheap? Print up a flyer on ordinary paper, fold it, affix a mailing label and a stamp, and throw it in the mail. This kind of guerrilla tactic is dirt cheap and can produce fantastic results for all kinds of businesses.

It's particularly good for small, local businesses (or businesses that want to appear small). Unless you're selling Mercedes sedans or Rolex watches, no one expects you to do fancy mailings anyway. In fact, in a pile of over-designed ad mail, a simple flyer from a local business stands out. People are subjected to so many clever ads, they develop "ad blindness." To get people to notice you, just mail them ugly flyers that don't look like ordinary advertising.

When you're mailing a flyer, you should fold it in thirds (called a "roll fold") and affix a tab to hold it closed so it can survive the journey. You will put your main message on the inside with teasers and your mailing information on the outside. And be sure to design the flyer so that when you read the address, the folded side is on the bottom and the tab is on the top. Most printers, even small ones, should know this.

4. Invitation

When you see the word "invitation," you probably think of small cards with heavy paper and elegant printing asking you to a wedding or formal dinner. But invitations can take almost any form. They're simply a way of presenting an offer that feels personal and important.

You can certainly go the expensive route if you have an expensive product or service. But you can invite people to an event with any of the formats above: a letter, postcard, or flyer. Just start the headline with the words "You are invited to..." then tell people what the event is.

You can invite people to an open house, special sale, party for your best customers, product demonstration, informational presentation, or anything that requires getting people to a particular location. The key is to make people feel that they are special and not everyone is being invited. Once they get there, your sales people can go to work.

5. Special Delivery

FedEx and other quick delivery services are far more expensive than regular mail, but this is a technique for a special "wish list" of your best prospects. If you have 100 key people you want as customers, spending the money to overnight a brochure or information kit may well be worth the investment.

This mailer is guaranteed to get opened. Who can resist opening a FedEx package? Inside, you should include a personal letter explaining who you are and what you are offering. You might send a sample with a note that says, "Here's a small sample of our product. If you'd like to see the real thing, call me and I'll have one shipped to you." Or you could enclose a disk with a video presentation or a white paper with detailed information about how others have used your product.

Once again, don't try to fancy it up. You are sending a message to a highly select group of people, so it should look like you've done it personally. This isn't advertising, it's a personal contact from you to them.

* * *

No matter what direct mail tool you use to generate leads, remember to follow up quickly once you get the lead. Hot leads cool off quickly. Ideally, you should respond to people within a week, two weeks maximum.

Give your leads to the salespeople and make sure they understand what was offered so they can follow up with a phone call.

Almost every day a new marketing technology or technique is developed. But good-old-fashioned direct mail hasn't lost any of its power for generating leads.

Tips for Improving E-mail Marketing Performance

2008-11-07T09:38:00.000+01:00

By Karen Gedney - May 28, 2008

You may not think of yourself as a publisher. But if you're involved in sending out e-mail marketing for your company, you've got the makings of a mini-publishing empire on your hands.

In most companies, e-mail marketing is proliferating at a rate that's far outstripping the staff resources dedicated to it.

B2B (define) companies that don't consider themselves in the publishing business are generating a huge amount of content in the form of event and Webcast campaigns, e-newsletters, surveys, lead-generation e-mail, and e-catalog promotions.

And often, there's just a small e-mail marketing department dedicated to handling it all. Overworked and underbudgeted, this group is often tasked with formatting content provided by outside departments into a usable e-newsletter template and blasting it out the door.

They may review open rates and CTRs (define) after the fact, but they rarely have time to strategize how to improve these rates in advance -- when it can make a difference.

Having consulted at a number of companies where this is the case, I have a number of questions and recommendations that you might want to consider if you're planning a midyear review of your e-mail marketing performance.

Are You Reaching Your Ideal Customers?

If you're just looking at your open rates across the board, you might be missing something pretty fundamental. It could be that you're getting a lot of interest, but not from the decision-makers who have the budget, authority, and need for your products.

Match your sales team's top prospect list to the list of people who open your e-mail to see if you're getting through to the right folks.

If not, you must rethink your e-mail strategy. You may need to test a segmented publication to reach this desirable group of decision makers. Or if your best prospects are C-level executives, you may need to concede that an e-mail-only approach isn't the best way to reach them -- and instead create a multichannel campaign that includes high-quality direct mail, dimensional packages, and telemarketing.

By focusing on your ideal customer, you may find that you can streamline or curtail e-mail communications to prospects on your list who are less desirable or unlikely to buy.

Are You Reaching Your Ideal Customers on Their Preferred Communication Device?

If you send out dense multi-article e-newsletters to sales executives who are out of the office all day and only read e-mail on their BlackBerrys, your communication strategy is out of date and out of sync.

It's time to strip down your content from a too-much-information format to a need-to-know format that your audience can read on the go.

While formatting e-mail for the BlackBerry is a relatively new challenge and there aren't too many best practices available yet, you can:

Ask new e-mail subscribers how they want to receive your messages when they sign up. Usually most e-mail preference centers offer the choice of text or HTML. However, one e-mail service provider told me that 95 percent of people sign up for HTML. So I would drop the text option and replace it with a handheld or BlackBerry option.

Offer a "View by handheld" link at the top of your e-mail.

On your mobile version:

Strip out your banner, but be sure to create a text-letterhead with your company's name.

Put your call-to-action link up top.

Top-line your information in just a few sentences.

Front-load your subject line so that it says everything in the first 15 characters (the length of the BlackBerry screen.

Are You Helping Your Reader Self-Identify the E-mail They Need to Read?

If you bombard your prospects and customers with look-alike e-mail messages with vague subject lines, how will they know which messages to open?

Categorize your messages according to your readers' needs and your objectives. For example, your sender lines could be categorized in the following way:

XYZ Co. Webcast

XYZ Co. Event

XYZ Co. Survey

Or you could alert readers to the type of communication they're receiving at the beginning of the subject line, then follow up with an intriguing teaser that entices them to open your e-mail:

[Webcast] Recession-Proof Your Marketing

[Event] Marketing in Uncertain Times

[Survey] Share Your Insights for Special Report

[E-Newsletter Name] Top CMOs Reveal What's Working Now

In the same way, the e-mail messages should be categorized by using different formats. For example, e-newsletters shouldn't use your company's traditional banner. They should have their own mastheads with the publication name, a subtitle describing the value to the reader, and the issue number and date. And Webcasts invitations should look distinctly different from live event invitations.

Are Your E-Mail Messages Taking Too Long to Write? Are They Missing the Point?

There aren't a lot of writers trained in the fine points of e-mail writing. As a result, most companies aren't achieving their objectives in terms of sales generated.

To make things easier, create fill-in-the-blank templates for the main types of e-mail communication you send out. Areas to include in your template:

Subject lines: Specify the optimal number of words or characters, and provide a few of examples of subject-line approaches that tend to work well.

Alt-text tags and photo captions: Require that each image (including your company banner) include an alt-text tag in the image itself, as well as an intriguing caption.

Preview pane: Require that the e-mail's whole message be summed up in one or two sentences at the top of the e-mail, so that it shows through the preview pane.

Call to action: Specify where the call-to-action message should go (near the top) and how often it should be repeated in the message.

Sidebars, Johnson boxes, and hotboxes: Create a template to break up information into bite-sized chunks that all appear in the initial screen.

Finally, guide your writers to where their creativity really counts, including:

The subject line: If it isn't good, no one will open the e-newsletter.

Your event or Webcast name: It better be compelling, or no one will attend.

Your headlines and lead-in sentences: If you don't catch readers in the first few seconds of opening your e-mail, you'll lose them as they hit delete and scroll away to view the rest of their inbox.

Follow these guidelines, and you'll soon be thinking like a publisher by creating e-mail content that your audience really wants to read, and streamlining or discontinuing e-mail efforts that aren't making the mark.

What techniques are you using to manage e-mail proliferation, strategize communications, and get that e-mail out the door quickly? Let Karen know.

Five B2B Email Marketing Tips

2008-10-31T20:42:00.001+01:00

by Stephanie Miller

Editor's note: See Stephanie in person at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, Driving Sales: What's New + What Works. Catch her session on "B2B Email That Moves the Needle." Sign up for the event and use promo code ESPK08 to save $200 on the registration fee.

Here we are, oh email marketers, caught in the middle. On the one hand we are celebrated for being the go-to resource for generating short-term revenue results (anyone have that "hey, our numbers are down, send another email" conversation this week?). On the other hand, it's "funny" how the applause dies down when the budget talk comes around and we continue to be handicapped by limited investment and strained resources.

What's an email marketer to do?

With that reality as our foundation, I'm leading a panel of great marketers at the upcoming MarketingProfs B2B Marketing conference in June. Return Path blog subscribers can.

Here are five ideas from a panel that I'm leading at the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing conference in June that you can apply to your own program. I'll be expounding on them during our panel at the conference. (Sign up for the conference and save $200 with the promo code ESPK08.)

1. Turn the recession to your advantage

Email is easy and inexpensive to get into, so more and more businesses are sending messages. You can see the result is in your inbox—more and more clutter.

That means our messages have to be better than everything else to break through. To get better messages you need to create great subscriber experiences. And that requires discipline around sending frequency, segmentation, data integration and advanced measurements and reports. Which requires more investment in the channel.

So when you feel the pressure to do more with less, focus on proving how sending more targeted messages will result in higher return over time and add value to your email asset. For example, trigger a message around a customer lifestage event—renewal, contract anniversary, upgrade, number of uses, new to the relationship, etc. Show how those messages earn higher engagement, in order to automate them for every subscriber.

2. Improve your benefit statement

Email is the highest-ROI channel, so be sure to capture email addresses at every touchpoint. Since you want to capture email at the point of entry, your homepage may not be the best location if most visitors come through alternative pathways.

Make sure there is a strong, compelling benefit statement on every search and advertising landing page, at the bottom of every blog post, in every sales and customer service call, in every webinar and every whitepaper download page.

The key here is "compelling." Product announcements and press releases are not compelling. These ideas are: Productivity tips, insider reviews, chances to network with peers, invites to cool events, and exclusive access.

3. Simple segmentation is essential

If you do no other segmentation, distinguish your messages between prospects and customers. These are singularly different groups with different relationships to your brand/products and different knowledge levels of your product and solution benefits. Treat them differently, or you will continue to optimize your email marketing for neither.

4. Sender reputation matters in B2B, too

Though many B2B marketers think that the feedback they get from the Web-based ISPs (AOL, Yahoo and MSN/Hotmail) isn't relevant since their file is not saturated with these domains, the reverse is actually true.

Those ISPs provide important feedback about your sender reputation based on complaints (registered at the ISPs when a subscriber clicks the "This is Spam" or "This is Junk" button)—and you can use that data to understand your program's deliverability at corporate systems.

Most business system administrators use Cloudmark or Postini—both of which are strongly based on complaint data—to decide what messages to allow past the gateway and to your subscriber's inbox. And, of course, some businesspeople specifically use consumer email systems to get email they don't want in their corporate inbox. It could well be person123@ AOL or Yahoo is also important.person@ your biggest account.

If you don't know your sender reputation, start here for a free evaluation: www.senderscore.org.

5. Test the tone

As the inbox clutters and budgets get tighter, test tone. Will your subscribers respond better to a happy, sunshiny "spend now to get ahead" message of hope, or a more somber, "how to get more with less" partnership approach?

Perhaps one will work better for different types of product messages.

Need more great B2B marketing ideas? Sign up for the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing conference now. Remember to use promo code ESPK08 and save $200.

Stephanie Miller is vice-president of strategic services for New York-based email performance-management company Return Path (www.returnpath.net) and the co-author of Sign Me Up: A Marketer's Guide to Email Newsletters that Build Relationships and Boost Sales. Reach her at stephanie.miller@returnpath.net.

What Is Your E-mail's Value?

2008-10-31T19:04:00.001+01:00

Merkle notes two key findings based on its annual consumer survey "View from the Inbox":

50 percent of respondents had bought something based on a permission e-mail message, up 3 percentage points from the previous year.

50 percent also said a company that "does a good job with e-mail" influenced their purchase decision.

Conversely, a negative experience can drive customers away. In Merkle's report, 32 percent of respondents said they stopped doing business with at least one company because of its poor e-mail practices.

We talk a lot about how to improve e-mail deliverability by using opt-in subscription practices, managing your reputation, segmenting lists, optimizing content, and testing. But it all boils down to this:

Provide demonstrated value in each e-mail.

It would be nice to think your e-mail program's value would be so obvious that readers would see it in each message. Alas, we live in the real world, so we know we have to sell the value at all points in the e-mail relationship, even before it begins officially.

Promote your e-mail value at the following crucial places.

Home Page

This is your first chance to sell potential subscribers on your e-mail value. "Sign up for e-mail updates" and a link don't begin to hint at what they will receive if they hand over their e-mail addresses. "Join now and receive e-mail-only discounts and advance sale notices" makes the value clear and begins to set subscriber expectations.

Registration Page

This is your showcase, the best location to explain the benefits of signing up for e-mail, including the kinds of e-mail you send, how often, and what the content entails.

All too often, though, companies who have an otherwise excellent e-mail program give this short shrift. They rarely dedicate a page solely to the value of their e-mail program.

Instead, they slap up a checkbox and a one-sentence value statement more focused on the subscription function itself.

Elements to convey your e-mail value proposition more effectively:

Explanation of benefits: What's in it for them?

Privacy policy: Assure them you'll treat their e-mail addresses responsibly.

Preference page: This increases message relevance.

Sample messages: Let subscribers see what they'll get.

Links, images, and transactions (subscribing, confirming, even unsubscribing): Make sure they work reliably each time.

Welcome Message

This is another opportunity that too many companies waste with a simple "you are subscribed" message. It's accurate enough, but it does nothing to remind subscribers about what they signed up for and what value your message brings.

Thus the welcome message, sent immediately after opt-in confirmation, has become a generally accepted best practice for conveying value before you mail your first program e-mail.

The optimum welcome program encompasses more than just a single message. It includes a separate cycle of message designed to get your readers engaged as quickly as possible.

Your e-mail program's value should shine through in each message, reminding subscribers of what they signed up for and that they need to open each message or miss out.

Regular Program E-mail

These are the regular e-mail messages you send as part of an established programming cycle. However, if all you do is sell, sell, sell, you'll wear out or bore your readers. And bored readers are likely to click the "spam" button to make you go away, especially if they don't trust your unsubscribe to work.

Elements to help remind subscribers about your e-mail program's value:

E-mail-only discounts (one-time or permanent, only for subscribers)

Invitations to fill out surveys or complete profiles

Directions on how to use products or to contact company reps

Account statements, membership numbers, links to key functions on your Web site

Company or product news

Changes that affect the e-mail subscriptions

Transactional E-mail

Naturally, a transactional e-mail's first job is to confirm an action, deliver an account statement, ask for a payment, or conduct other business. However, you can remind subscribers of your e-mail value here, too, provided you keep the focus on the transaction.

To do this, put the business in the top half to two-thirds of the message content, then put your e-mail value proposition in the bottom third to half. This is also called putting it "below the fold," a reference to a standard broadsheet newspaper page, where the most important stories go on the top half, above the fold.

Midcycle Messages

Don't wear out your list by sending more e-mail than you promised. However, a carefully chosen and timed message sent between campaigns or in the middle of a publishing schedule can restate and refine.

Use these messages to remind subscribers, especially less active ones, about e-mail benefits or account details to bring them back into the fold. Invite them to update their profiles. Send a short survey. Offer incentives for referrals. Explain any program changes that could affect their subscriptions.

Final Word: Emphasizing Value Is Easy

It might sound as if you have to overhaul your messages to make the value clear, but you might just need a simple retooling. Put yourself in your subscribers' shoes again, and see where you can add information or functionality, improve design, or boost convenience. Never waste another chance to remind your subscribers of all the benefits they have coming.

Until next time, keep on deliverin'.

How Marketing Can Go Beyond the 'Make It Pretty' Syndrome

2008-06-12T10:55:00.000+02:00

by Laura Patterson

At a recent conference, Sylvia Reynolds, chief marketing officer for Wells Fargo, asked, "When did Marketing become the make-it-pretty department?" Reynolds then reminded conference participants that the fundamental role of Marketing has always been about the customer.

Essentially, Marketing's role is to find, keep, and grow the value of customers. So what does that mean, and how does a marketer get beyond the "make it pretty" syndrome?

We can use the American Marketing Association's (AMA) definition of marketing as a guide. The AMA defines marketing as "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders."

By using this definition, we can see that marketing is more than a creative function; rather, it about a set of four critical customer-focused marketing processes.

Creating Value

Marketing sits in the space between the company's capabilities and what the customer wants. By understanding the core capabilities of the company, and then matching it with customer wants and needs, marketing drives value creation.

This means Marketing must fully understand the customer. In this capacity, the marketing organization serves as a driver of an organization's value chain by insuring products and services are shaped by customer expectations and demands.

Communicating Value

To be the chosen supplier for your customer, you first have to be on your customer's short list. To be on the customer's short list, you need to know what the customer values so that you can communicate how your company and its products/services deliver on this value in such a way as to create preference for your company and its products/services over alternative options.

Every customer touch point affects the customer's decision and action; therefore, every touch point needs to tied to and communicate the value proposition.

Delivering Value

By establishing a strong link between customer value requirements and the major value-producing activities in the company, Marketing is in the unique position to enable the company to deliver on customers' value expectations. Marketing can then use these value expectations to drive customer preference and stimulate purchase decisions.

One way to think of this is that at every customer touch point—whenever a customer will be affected by a decision or action—the people involved in that touch point need to understand and deliver on the value. In some organizations this is known at "moments of truth."

Marketing is in the unique role of being able to look across all the touch points and monitor whether the value is actually delivered. Through constant monitoring, Marketing can help determine whether it is delivering on its value promise and whether the value proposition needs modification.

Managing Customer Relationships

We need to think beyond technology when we think of customer relationship management (CRM) and instead realize that CRM is a business philosophy in which the customer plays a central, critical role in all business activities.

Though we can debate who "owns" the customer, Marketing is in the ideal position to be the centralized point for aggregating, segmenting, and analyzing customer data. This ability to create a single view of the customer comes with responsibility—to take a leadership role in the creating and managing the processes associated with the company's customer relationships.

* * *

For organizations to grow, the leadership team relies on Marketing for more "than just the pretty stuff." It should be able to depend on Marketing to develop marketing strategies that create and deliver superior perceived customer value.

With this emphasis on increasing value, Marketing can help the firm achieve growth by penetrating existing segments, developing new markets, and creating new products and services.

Accordingly, marketers should be willing to own and be accountable for these four processes if they want to serve as growth champions within their organization and leave the "make it pretty" syndrome behind.

See Laura in person at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, Driving Sales: What's New + What Works. Catch Laura's session on "Proving Marketing's Value: Tangible Tools and Metrics for the 21st Century." Sign up for the event and use promo code ESPK08 to save $200 on the registration fee (save $350 if you sign up before May 19).

Laura Patterson (laurap@visionedgemarketing.com) is president and cofounder of VisionEdge Marketing, Inc. (www.visionedgemarketing.com) and author of Measure What Matters: Reconnecting Marketing to Business Goals and Gone Fishin': A Guide to Finding, Keeping, and Growing Profitable customers.

Published on May 13, 2008

Marketing after a merger

2008-05-06T18:15:00.000+02:00

The goal of delivering a better product should dictate what brand is used - and how

by Bernadette Johnson
page 1

Most people agree a successful marriage takes work: Among other things it calls for communication and commitment.

It's not unlike marrying companies or brands. Consolidation can lead to greater efficiencies, better products - stronger companies overall - but it requires a thorough integration strategy and marketing plan to convince shareholders, employees and especially customers that the move is a good one.

Studies have shown that a high percentage of mergers worldwide fail to create value; in some cases they even destroy it.

"The challenge is that more fail than succeed," says Nancy Helstab, managing director at marketing consultancy BrandEdge of Toronto, citing a Canadian Business study, conducted by the Boston Consulting Group, that showed 60% of the large Canadian mergers over the past decade (among publicly traded companies) underperformed their sectors and actually destroyed acquirer shareholder value.

"The ones that succeed," she continues, "are doing it not strictly for growth reasons but because they think there is some added value they can provide; combining forces to deliver something better. That's what should motivate [a merger]...and dictate what brand will be used, and how."

There's no blueprint for success, no one common strategy. Rather, pundits point to several different formulas employed by the likes of Telus-Clearnet, TD Canada Trust, Rona-Revy, Chapters-Indigo, Sun Life-Clarica, and even the newly named Conservative Party.

Over the last year, Montreal-based Rona has actively sought to solidify its brand across Canada, says senior national marketing director Michael Brossard. In the West in particular, the home improvement chain completely rebranded its Revy (Revelstoke) stores, which it purchased in 2001, under the Rona banner.

"It was important for us to own a brand name out West, but the Revy name was so well-established that we decided to keep both brands for a while, and [ease into the] integration."

The transition was spurred on by a successful integration campaign (print and radio), that featured then Revy spokesperson Bob advising consumers that while the name was changing, the brand promise and heritage would not. In fact, Brossard adds, that campaign achieved top-of-mind-awareness of about 50%.

Similarly Rona's most recent Ontario campaign, produced by Montreal agency BCP, stars the Building Box's (now Rona Home and Garden) Hammerhead mascot shedding his suit in an effort to explain the change to consumers. While its Building Box and Revy stores have all been consolidated under the Rona banner in Ontario, the company still maintains sub brands Lansing and Cashway, both purchased between 2000 and 2001. These banners have a very strong brand equity among their key trades people and contractor targets, Brossard says. "We want to maintain that heritage."

Consolidating its banners is a wise move for Rona, says retail consultant Ed Strapagiel of Toronto-based Kubas Consulting, adding that it is tough to sustain - and rationalize - several brands that hold the same promise: Each brand is serving a similar need in the marketplace, so there is not an awful lot of difference.

"They're likely going to increase the efficiency of their advertising, and of their presence in the marketplace, by being known as one thing," he speculates. "Trust in uniformity."

Rona's consolidation is also an example of a regional-to-national strategy, adds Helstab, whereby a company that wants a national presence will buy up local or regional brands, much in the way Telus moved East by acquiring Clearnet. In such cases, she adds, the parent brand will almost always keep its name/positioning, or at least incorporate it over time.

The latter should also hold true in cases where a company purchases another organization in an effort to further its industry growth and/or market leadership, she adds.

When Montreal-based pulp and paper firm Domtar purchased four paper mills from Atlanta-based Georgia Pacific in 2001, it effectively doubled its size - becoming the number-three player in the category. But it realized that its plethora of brands could overwhelm the consumer, says Scott Townsend, director of strategic marketing initiatives at Domtar.

"We went from 54 brands to one brand, which is Domtar," he says. "Product names have become sub-brands, and they are phased out if they are too confusing."

The approach has permitted Domtar to deliver a consistent marketing message. Everything from its lifestyle-oriented advertising by New York-based agency desgripped gobe group to its newly developed packaging, featuring silhouettes of people at work, links back to its positioning, "a different feel."

But there are instances where the acquired company's name and positioning can be leveraged.

In early 2002, when Sun Life purchased Clarica, senior folk from both companies got together to determine the fate of both brands. According to Peggy Jarvie, EVP customer knowledge and branding, many different options were considered: one brand vs. the other, a co-mingled brand, and a completely new brand. In the end, with the help of focus groups and a brand assessment, they elected to use Sun Life as the corporate brand, but maintain use of the well-known Clarica brand to continue to target its retail mid-market customers.

"We put an enormous amount of effort into communicating to our customers and employees and advisors what the relationship was going to be," says Jarvie, pointing to the two waves of cross-country advertising Sun Life did at the time of the merger to allay any customer concerns.

Jarvie says they've been tracking consumer response to the Clarica brand since it launched in 1999 (pre-merger), as well as perceptions of other brands in the market. And though there have been some fluctuations over the last few years, her sense is that they haven't been impacted by the merger.

Toronto-based Chapters too has maintained separate identities for its Indigo, Chapters and Coles brands mostly due to the brand equity behind each one, says Sorya Ingrid Gaulin, director of PR and regional marketing. In fact, she adds, the book retailer has made the selection across both of its superstore formats (Chapters and Indigo) very similar, however, the perception from the customer is that they are getting something different. Coles' mandate, meanwhile, remains one of convenience (because of its mall locations) and community (customers tend to be voracious readers and visit the retailer frequently), she says.

"We want to be respectful of those different perceptions. The key for us is not so much amalgamation - it is making our stores as relevant as possible to the customer. And that to us means drilling down to the selection and the customer experience," says Gaulin, adding the retailer now has a new inventory system to help it do exactly that. Eighteen months in the making, the system will eventually allow it to tailor the inventory in each store across the country based on spending patterns, among other things, and help it further its goal of being relevant, she says.

Since the merger though, the retail chain has focused its marketing (mostly print ads supporting national campaigns) around its large-format brands - often positioned together since most of its offers apply to both brands; and always listing the integrated Web site www.chapters.indigo.ca. However, she says, in the year to come it will turn its attention to the Coles brand.

This month, it launched a promotion called Bag-a-bargain that actually extends across all formats and will include all of the brands in its print ads, which it sometimes does if the offer is not brand-sensitive. Gaulin says: "It's value- and savings-based, so it is relevant to all our customers."

- with files from Lisa D'Innocenzo

Focus Groups 2.0

2008-05-05T20:04:00.000+02:00

By Jack Aaronson , April 18, 2008

While we've talked for over a year about how social networks may alter the landscape of retailing, many companies are finding another use for social networks: as modern and more interesting, focus groups. Whereas focus tests were out of reach to smaller companies with tight budgets, social network-based focus groups (which I'll call Focus Groups 2.0) are a significantly less expensive entry into the world of focus testing.

Traditional focus groups work like this:

Your company (or a third-party provider) contacts a number of users in your target demographic and offers them a small amount of money to participate in a focus group.

The focus group company (generally, experts in the field) works with you to create a list of questions and topic areas.

A trained facilitator runs the focus group while the client (you) watches behind a mirror.

On the downside, this "town hall" type group can fall victim to bullying. One loud participant can sway or intimidate the others from expressing differing opinions.

Focus groups organized and run by professionals are invaluable, and I'd never say the current social networking version can completely replace them. But real focus groups get expensive, and there are many benefits to Focus Group 2.0.

Focus Groups: A New Approach

Smart companies are creating new, ongoing dialogues with their customers via social networks. Most use them as another promotional channel, but some are really taking an interest in their customers and their opinions.

At Shop.org last week, I sat down with Jordan Nasser, who's in charge of online marketing and creative at H&M. He created the H&M social networking pages on Facebook and MySpace. Each site has a different look and feel, owing to the different audiences on the two platforms and the technical limitations of each platform.

The H&M pages are wildly successful, with over 83,000 friends on MySpace and over 67,000 "fans" on Facebook. Because H&M doesn't have an online store in the U.S., they use social networks to increase brand awareness and help create dialogue between H&M fans. This has organically grown to also include H&M employees, who regularly contribute to the message boards. Where some companies would fear allowing their employees to have an open platform on which to directly interact with customers, H&M sees the benefits of empowering staff this way.

On the H&M sites, Jordan (and others H&M staffers) routinely answer users' questions. While one might worry these forums would turn into another customer service channel, the forums are littered more with questions about store openings, store events, and general brand questions. Oh, and lots of testimonials about how much people love the brand.

While this direct dialogue with real consumers (not just people fitting a demographic in a focus group) is great passive feedback, H&M and other companies also take a more active approach to conduct focus testing with this group of customers. Even if the customer doesn't get the answer they wanted, they express how grateful they are to talk to a human being. Consider how much more connected they must be to the brand because someone like Jordan is talking directly with them, versus how they probably view more "anonymous" brands like Sony (where it's nearly impossible to speak with a human).

Last spring, H&M put 50 user-submitted T-shirt designs on their MySpace page and asked visitors to vote for their favorite. Within four weeks they had over 5,000 votes and a clear winner. They mass-produced the shirt and put it in over 20 stores. The shirts sold out almost immediately.

The social networks also solicit user feedback in this manner. When Facebook decided to redesign its pages, it showed users a preview and asked for feedback. Retailers launching new functionality on their sites could easily do this via these social networks. Online polls, surveys and message boards are a quick and easy way to get feedback from real-world users in a comfortable environment.

One problem with real focus groups: participants often try to be smarter than they are, or project what they "think" everyone would want onto their own needs. Online focus groups (which are so informal the users don't really think of them as focus groups at all) most likely generate more honest feedback. Moreover, these customers actually spend money with you, they're not "demographic fits" that may or may not care about your brand. If indeed your brand is how people see it (to paraphrase a familiar quote), the knowledge gained from these people (who are living and breathing your brand) is invaluable.

An Alternative, Not a Replacement

Focus group companies truly are the experts when it comes to asking a group of people the right questions. But one-to-one interaction devoid of a group mentality is probably more honest and interesting than group testing. Social networks allow this to scale in a way traditional focus groups can't. Plus, it's significantly less expensive to throw a few questions up as on online poll and see what the response is.

Taking a lesson from H&M and other retailers, the first step is to create social networking pages on the various networks that people like and with which they want to interact. Next, go through the same steps you'd take when creating a traditional focus group questionnaire, but tailor it to the online experience. Add interactivity, especially in cases where you're asking about possible new features and functionality.

Done correctly, you might just find a treasure trove of user knowledge you always thought was too expensive or difficult to obtain.

Questions, thoughts, comments? Let me know!

Until next time...

Jack

Client 101: How to Write an RFP, 2008 Edition

2008-05-05T19:32:00.001+02:00

By Sean Carton , April 28, 2008

Way back in 2001 I wrote a guide to RFP-writing for clients. It was intended to be a helpful checklist and also (selfishly) a pre-emptive strike against getting any more byzantine RFPs (define) that took weeks to complete and resulted in bids so wildly divergent that clients often had to turn to haruspicy or other ancient methods of divination to make a decision.

Recently I got a letter from a reader who found the column helpful but had a simple question: what's changed since 2001? It got me thinking: what has changed? After all, that column was written seven years ago. Something must have changed since then, right?

Yup. A lot's changed since those dot.bomb days. We've seen online advertising take off to heights that few had predicted back in 2001. Social media has arrived and taken the world by storm. Heck, Facebook, MySpace, and Del.icio.us wouldn't even exist for another couple of years. Online video shot into the stratosphere in the intervening years, spurred on by the launch of YouTube in 2005. Broadband's gone past the tipping point, online gaming's become a multi-billion dollar industry, and more and more people are moving away from traditional media and heading online for all their news and entertainment needs. Yeah, things are a little different now then they were back then.

Even so, a lot hasn't changed, at least when it comes to building online presences for companies and working to get the word out about them. Everyone still needs a Web site, though in most cases now it's about redesigning sites rather than putting them online from scratch. Even so, many companies are still challenged by the tasks of integrating their online and offline businesses and many still are challenged by simple questions of who's going to maintain the site, how content's going to get there, and how much of the budget should be shifted to online operations.

Regardless of the hype spun by many Silicon Valley wags and tech-press boosters, my experience over the past seven years tells me that a lot of companies and organizations are still making the transition to fully dealing with how the Web has changed how they do business. While nobody asks why or if they should have a Web site anymore, many still aren't sure what to do with it once they have it.

I see a lot of this ambivalence reflected in the RFPs that cross my desk just about every day. One major change since 2001: most concerns I deal with involve operations and marketing and not technology. I don't get a lot of RFPs written by the information technology department anymore (e.g., RFPs that ask obsessive questions about server platforms and development languages). However, I get a lot of RFPs written by marketing folks who seem clueless about the day-to-day work it takes to keep feeding the beast that's the Web site or how to change internal practices to make the switch from old ways to the new. A lot of the new requests I get are big on branding and image issues but awfully light on requirements for content management and database integration. They're also pretty light on understanding how most consumers use the Web now, often spending lots of time worrying about the "experiences" they want to create rather than recognizing that people go online to get stuff done.

So yeah, a lot's changed since 2001. Here's how to deal with the new realities if you're trying to find someone to redevelop your old site or build a new site from scratch so you can get responses that allow you to judge your new potential developers:

Budget. As in "how much do you have to spend." Unfortunately this is one thing that hasn't really changed much since 2001. If you want to get bids that you can actually compare, you must give some sort of budget range in your requests for proposals. Not putting in a budget is like going to a bunch of different homebuilders and asking them to build you a house. One might come back with a proposal for a mansion and another might come back with plans for a bungalow. They're both "houses" but comparing them is an exercise in futility. Thinking that developers just "make up" prices to match budgets is absurd. How much "stuff" you're going to get depends on your needs and on how much you're going to spend. It's a much more useful exercise to compare what one company will give you for $100,000 versus another company.

Content and content management. If you have a content management system you're happy with, say so. If you're planning on developing the content yourselves (or need someone else to do it), say so. Probably the biggest stumbling block for most Web projects is the content that's going to fill the site. Before you start looking for someone to build a site for you, you'd better know how you're going to deal with your content issues. Likewise, if you have specific content management system requirements, say so. Otherwise, you might end up with bids specifying systems that could range from zero dollars for open source solutions to many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Be specific!

Timeline. Be realistic with your requested launch dates. Just about everyone puts "ASAP," but doing so is a recipe for disaster because "as soon as possible" is about as subjective as you can get. If you do have a specific launch date in mind, be specific about that too. Be realistic in your expectations. Redeveloping a site (even a small one) isn't going to happen in four weeks, unless you want a crappy site. If you have specific benchmarks or events that you have to shoot for (tradeshows, product launches, board meetings, etc.) say so. It helps a developer to know what to propose to meet your deadline.

Customer/audience profiles. Who is this thing for? What are they like? How do they interact with your company now and/or how would you like them to interact with your company. Knowing whom the site's for makes it a lot easier for a potential vendor to tailor its solution to the needs of your organization and customers. It's not necessary to include multi-volume psychographic profiles. But knowing that you need a site for 18 to 35-year-old men is a lot different than a site for pre-teen girls.

Spec work. Don't ask for it. It's rude and wastes our time as well as yours. If you want to know what someone's design capabilities are, ask for portfolios and case studies.

Your goals. Why do you want to redevelop your Web site? What's so bad about the old one? What market (or internal) forces are driving the project. How will you measure success? Knowing all this ahead of time and letting your potential vendors know is key to getting a solution that will help you reach those goals.

Your internal style. This may sound a bit goofy, but take a good look at your internal work styles and let potential vendors know so that they can give you realistic bids for project/account management as part of the proposal. Is there a single person who can make decisions? Is there a group that needs to reach consensus before a decision is made? What's the path to take something from concept to approval? Providing this information means that a vendor can tailor its project management costs accordingly. If a vendor ends up losing money during the project because every step needs a series of meetings before approval or because nobody can make a decision, it will probably start charging you more or answering the phone less.

Technical requirements. Unless you're contracting for some hard-core custom development, you don't need to spend a lot of time on technical requirements besides providing a description of the platform you currently use. If you don't care and plan on throwing everything out, say so. If you do care and you're bound by internal policies or the need for a particular technology that can be maintained internally, say so and be clear about it.

Hosting and maintenance. Do you care where the site is hosted? Are you planning on maintaining it yourself? What kind of ongoing relationship do you want to have with a vendor? If you're one of the many who's gotten burned by long-term "relationships" forced on you by a Web vendor, make sure you tell potential vendors you don't want to have any ongoing costs. On the other hand, if you want to outsource everything, make sure you tell them that, too.

Social media. Think hard: do you really need to have a blog? If you do, that's fine. But don't just start asking for things you don't know how you'll maintain or don't need. Social media has transformed the way the Web works but it's also a major commitment. Make sure that you know what you're getting into and whether or not what you want is going to be strategically necessary or just "cool." Not that there's anything wrong with cool -- as long as you understand what you're getting into.

Rebranding initiatives or other major changes. If you're about to embark on a 12-month project to rebrand your company, please say so! If you're about to change everything, I would recommend not redoing your Web site until you know where you're going. Don't think you'll get a "two-fer" by using the Web development project to drive the rebranding of the company. You'll just end up with a lot of internal hassles and additional costs.

KISS. Finally, keep it simple. Don't demand multiple printed copies, odd bindings, or whole bunch of documentation that you're not going to read. You can always get that stuff later on if you need it. What you're looking for is a concise description of what you're going to get plus verifiable evidence that the company you're going to get it from is right for the job. Get references and call them. Ask for case studies that detail both design and results. Look at work done for similar companies. It ain't that tough, but if you follow the "keep it simple" rule and ask for the things I've detailed here, you're going to end up with proposals you can compare objectively and quickly.

Client 101: How to Write an RFP

2008-05-05T19:31:00.000+02:00

By Sean Carton , December 5, 2001

One of the biggest disadvantages of being in the Web biz is that we're all still figuring out how things should work. Even though the business has matured somewhat over the past five or six years, the practices still aren't anywhere near as cut and dried as they are in, say, the traditional advertising industry. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Web development request-for-proposal (RFP) process.

In the ad biz (or construction or chemical procurement or just about any other business that's been around for a while), the whole RFP process is fairly standardized. Companies looking to hire a vendor for a project (or for a long-term relationship) generally know what questions to ask so they can get the data they need to make their decisions. Vendors, knowing that they're being asked the right questions, know how to respond in such a way that the potential clients get the information they need. Sure, there are always plenty of creative showdowns, and backroom politicking is inevitably involved, but generally everybody knows what to expect. Because they know what to expect, they're free to expend their energies on being creative.

But when it comes to Web development... watch out! Because clients don't know what to ask, they often don't get the answers they need to make intelligent decisions. Because the potential vendors don't get enough information, they're forced to guess, and they come up with responses that don't help the prospect. The result? Everyone goes home unhappy, and clients end up with vendors that are too expensive, too inexperienced, too mismanaged, too big, or too small for the job. In the meantime, all the vendors who bid on the job and didn't get it wasted inordinate amounts of time responding to something they had no chance of getting.

What to do? The answer will come from understanding -- clients understanding what Web developers need to respond, and Web developers understanding the needs of their potential clients. Better understanding equals better responses equals better matches equals happier clients. It's a simple equation that equals "win" for everyone.

So, dear client, what do we developers need from you to make sure you are comparing the proverbial apples to apples (as opposed to those dreaded oranges)? Here are 10 humble suggestions that'll make everyone's life easier:

Budget. Yes, budget. Money. As in, "How much you got?" In about 90 percent of the RFPs I get, there's no indication of how much the client wants to spend. The result is a little like playing "Battleship." The developer guesses blindly as to the client's needs. The client responds with a "Hit!" when the number is somewhere within the magical range or a "Miss." when it's too high (proposed budget numbers are rarely too low).
Why does this happen? Many clients have the mistaken perception that since Web development doesn't involve a tangible "product," the price is infinitely variable and that, given a number, all developers will inflate their prices to reach that number. Baloney. Things take time. Software costs money. People have salaries that need to be paid. You'd be surprised at how similar most companies' rates are. The only way to have an understanding of how much stuff to propose is to know how much money the client has to spend.
Scope. If you don't feel comfortable saying how much you have to spend, at least take the time to sketch out the scope of the project. To use the old hackneyed analogy, we're like homebuilders. If you tell us you want a house, we'd at least like to know if you want a shack or a mansion. And if you don't know the scope, that's fine, too. Make a requirements phase the first item on your wish list so that the company you pick can do some research to tell you what you need.
Speculative creative. Yes, this has been standard operating procedure in the ad industry for years. It sucks. Let's learn from the mistakes of the past and not repeat this onerous practice. First, it degrades the value of design. Secondly, it forces the better shops (those that routinely take a more strategic focus) to create design without any knowledge of you and your customers. The result? Design for its own sake. Decisions based purely on aesthetics are usually bad ones because of their subjectivity.
Technical requirements. If your company has a religious commitment to Microsoft products, say so. Likewise, if your company worships at the altar of Linux, be open about your preferences. If you need database integration with a certain back-end database, tell us what kind of database system you have. It doesn't do anyone any good to play the technical requirements guessing game. If you let your potential vendors know what you need, you'll be sure to get answers you can compare.
Marketing versus IT. Which is more important? If your IT department has the upper hand in picking the vendor based on technical expertise, say so. If the marketing department is running the show and wants a more strategic focus, make sure that this is something that your potential vendor knows -- and one you know yourself. Self-knowledge about this issue is vital in putting together the short list of vendors: Don't ask systems integrators that focus on back-end issues to bid against high-end, flashy design shops. You'll have a very hard time comparing the responses.
Content and content development. Do you plan to reuse all the content on your existing site (basically just doing a face-lift to your current site), or do you want to start from scratch? Are you looking for a Web developer that can write the content, or are you planning to do it yourself?
Maintenance and a long-term relationship. Who's going to keep the site up and running once it's launched? If you're planning to maintain content, are you interested in a content management system? If you want an agency to work with you on a long-term basis, how do you want the relationship structured?
Third-party software. Where do you stand on third-party software? Do you want custom applications or off-the-shelf solutions? Do you own licenses for the software you want to reuse? If you don't want custom apps, say so. It doesn't do anyone any good to guess about this. If you don't mind custom apps, do you want to own them outright or license them?
Partnerships. Where do you stand on partnerships? Does the company you pick have to do everything in-house? Many companies these days are specializing in one aspect of development or another -- some do back-end integration work, others focus on design, some do consulting, and others may just do content development. Do you care if that's all done by the same company? If you do, please say so, and let your potential vendors know that in-house capabilities are a condition of the contract. If you don't care, make sure you find out who their partners are and who to contact if things go south. Make your primary vendor ultimately responsible.
Know thyself. Finally, take a good hard look at your company and make sure that you communicate any idiosyncrasies that you may have. If you know that any development process will involve a lot of time in committee meetings, don't be afraid to say so. If you know that certain key dates have to be met (board meetings, conferences, etc.), lay them out so that you can get a development schedule proposal that works with your dates. You'll end up with responses that address your issues and schedules that work with your key dates.

How to Create Marketing Demos That Sell Products

2008-04-22T20:01:00.000+02:00

by Amy Gesenhues

One of the biggest challenges that marketing departments face is producing marketing tools that actually get used by the sales team.

If you are like many frustrated marketing professionals, you spin your wheels trying to create effective marketing communication materials that are left unused; or worse, you give up hours and hours fine-tuning your product's messaging to communicate key features and benefits, only to hear each salesperson giving a different pitch.

You want to create marketing tools that help sell products, not collateral that sits on a shelf. So how do you do it? How do you create a marketing tool that not only gets used but also can reinforce your marketing messaging so that everyone is speaking the same language?

A professionally produced product demo can do wonders for your marketing initiatives. It can accelerate your sales cycle and generate qualified leads. You can leverage it on multiple platforms and within various campaigns, from your site to your tradeshow booth, on marketing CDs and in email marketing efforts. And when done right, a great demo can get everyone speaking the same language.

Four Questions to Ask Yourself

Before you begin building your demo, you have to answer the following four questions:

What's your demo's objective?
What type of demo will best fit your needs?
How do you build a demo so that it gets the maximum return on investment?
Do you have the resources to build your demo in-house, or should you outsource it?

Producing an effective demo that gets used on a regular basis can be an overwhelming task—but it doesn't have to be. Once you go through the following four questions and corresponding answers, you'll be able to start your demo project with confidence and end up with a marketing tool that sells your product.

What's your demo's objective?

Just as with any project, a clearly defined objective is mandatory. Do you want to generate more leads from your Web site? Do you want an engaging, dynamic tool that pulls prospects into your sales cycle more quickly? If you are selling a software product, do you want to shorten your sales cycle? If you have a Web site, do you want to increase registrations?

Know your objective so that your product demo's content is aligned with your goal.

Your demo's objective will help you select the visuals that you want to use and the script that you will write.

For example, if you're a marketer for a retail Web site and your goal is to encourage more users to purchase products online, build a three-minute demo using actual screen shots of your site with a voiceover that tells users how to buy online as it shows them.

Put the demo on your homepage, provide links to it in emails and in online newsletters. Give the link to your demo to the customer service department so that they can email it whenever they take a call.

What type of demo best fits your needs?

In the world of product demos, there are two schools of thought: product-centric demos and conceptual demos. Which one you use depends on what you are selling. A product-centric demo focuses primarily on your product, offering up visuals of what it looks like and how it works. A conceptual demo is more animated and often leverages more graphics and marketing language.

If you have a product that does not immediately resonate with your prospects, then you will receive the most benefit from a product-centric demo. People don't buy what they can't see or don't understand.

Any complex product that does not render itself recognizable by name alone can be well served by a product-centric demo because it offers prospects the chance to see the product. For example, if you're selling a software product, showing prospects your software's top three key features in action does a lot more than giving them fading bullet points that tell them what your key features are.

A conceptual demo can be thought of as more creative than a product-centric demo, because you don't have to show the product. Conceptual demos work best when prospects have a profound understanding of what the product is.

For example, if you're selling a car, you can be more conceptual by using graphics and creative language that touches the buyer's soft spots when it comes to purchasing a vehicle. Obviously, you'll show pictures of the car, but you don't have to go into detail about how key features like the brakes or power-locks work.

How do you build a demo that it gets maximum return on investment?

ROI—the three-letter acronym that marketers live (and die) by. For your demo to receive maximum return on investment, you have to make it easily accessible and leverage it across the board. Live demos are great for prospects already deep into your sales cycle and ready for a 40-60-minute overview of your product.

But for prospects who are still in the research or evaluation stage, you need to offer a 3-6-minute automated demo that can be accessed from your Web site. Hit the highlights quickly, be clear and concise, and make it easy to find. Use technology with high user-adoption rates. Flash is great tool for automated demos. Whatever you do, don't rely on applications that have to be downloaded and don't force a prospect to use a plug-in.

The demo needs to stream instantly and deliver your message in five minutes or less. An automated demo can be used throughout your site, looped at tradeshows, linked to in an email, and placed on laptops for your sales team to use on the road.

The more ways you can deliver your demo to your prospects, the more cost-effective it becomes.

Do you have the resources to build your in-house or should you outsource it?

You have a full marketing department: copywriters, designers, flash experts. But do you have the right resources to build an effective demo that looks professional? And does your team have the time to turn the project around quickly?

A great demo is the result of blending a well-crafted script with expertly selected visuals. Outsourcing your demo to a demo-development firm may be your best bet to create a professional demo using a minimal amount of your team's time.

If you choose to outsource the demo project, select a firm that specializes in product demos. Make sure it has a defined process and pricing structure without any hidden fees. Check out the client list and view samples before you start working with the firm.

If your budget is too tight for a demo-development firm, tools are available that allow you to create your own demo. Just remember, your demo may be a prospect's first impression of your product. You want to put your best foot forward; the more professional your demo looks, the better your product looks.

* * *

A great product demo puts your product in the best light. It gives prospects an immediate understanding of what they are buying so that they come to your sales team already interested. Not only does it serve up qualified leads, it reinforces consistent messaging by getting your internal forces on the same page.

When sales, customer service, and all else who interacts with your customers, are offered a dynamic marketing tool that gives a voice to your marketing messages, everyone starts speaking the same language. Before you know it, your product demo will become your most popular marketing tool, because it will sell your product for you (and your sales team).

Amy Gesenhues is the Director of Marketing for Autodemo LLC (www.autodemo.com), a developer of software and Web site demos. She can be reached at amy@autodemo.com.

Published on April 22, 2008

How to Make Email Marketing More Mobile-Friendly

2008-04-18T15:18:00.001+02:00

by Andrew Osterday and Chris Lovejoy

Mobile technology continues to develop. The number of consumers with mobile devices capable of retrieving and viewing email continues to increase rapidly. The early adopters of the Blackberry have given way, in numbers at least, to those using what are fast becoming fully functional internet-ready devices.

With multiple mobile platforms on the market and mobile phone companies vying for the sale of not only the devices but also the data plans that supply the bandwidth, these "mini-messengers" are in the hands of millions of consumers.

Could your email be more mobile friendly?

Are your email messages ready for the move to mobile? They had better be: Over two-thirds of B2B emailers regularly read your emails on their mobile device.

If you haven't tested how your emails are rendering across multiple handhelds, you might be very surprised, and not in a good way.

Here some things to think about when considering email on mobile devices:

Communications that rely on image-heavy content, special font treatments, tables, or other advanced coding will not translate well without optimizing the message for the mobile user.
If sending mobile campaigns, be sure to be honest and very personal. Use the name of a real person if possible.
HTML links can be used but should be used sparingly and only if the call-to-action link is also enabled for mobile devices.
If your communication boasts a lengthy terms-and-conditions section, it may be better rendered as a mobile-formatted landing page for the user.
Opt-out rules still apply. One-click opt-out works best.

A few basic formatting rules for mobile devices:

Coding fonts may or may not work on the user's device. Most mobile devices allow the user to select a preferred default font. Although the link to the mobile communication is actually a web link, simple (default) font coding or basic fonts are best. Font size consideration: Keep it small. Work with your messaging provider on the appropriate size.
Screen size is limited. Design for easy word wrap. The list should be kept short (in regards to width), as odd wrapping will occur on the smallest of screens.
Keep the message short and keep your call to action in the top area of the communication. Being "front of mind" for users, even if they do not view the entire message, may prompt them to save the message and view the full HTML version when they get to their computer.
Simple black text with color action links work best on smaller screens and make it easy to view and navigate.
Images should be small and few. Depending on the connection speed of the device, images may take some time to render. Small logos for brand recognition or small but viewable images that support content should be used, if at all, sparingly.
Do not replicate your website navigation in email. Place it at the bottom of the message if at all.
Use full images, not sliced. Sliced images will wrap and appear jumbled.
Design in columns and plan for content to wrap after a couple of hundred pixels.
Include a click-to-view-online link and take users to a mobile-optimized landing page.
Include a click-to-call link, if applicable.
To test rendering across different handhelds, download a free tool at Opera (www.opera.com).

How to start: Use email to promote mobile marketing

So you've made your emails mobile friendly. Now lets look at marketing via SMS (short message service) and MMS (multimedia message service)—aka mobile marketing.

Using wireless networks to reach consumers on personal phones and mobile devices has come a long way over the past few years, and consumers are warming up to the emerging technology.

But how do you start?

What better way to introduce the mobile option than through an already established email relationship? Email is the perfect vehicle to introduce your audience to an alternative form of communication such as SMS or MMS.

Permission is just as important in mobile marketing as it is in email. Rather than starting from scratch or purchasing lists, build your mobile list organically: Engage your current base of email subscribers who have already requested a relationship with you. Provide a choice to receive mobile communications where it makes sense, especially for timely messages.

Mobile campaigns are great for the following:

Same-day reminders
Special events
Meeting confirmations
Product delivery confirmations
Flight status
Financial alerts
Data collection

Use your primary email template when introducing the mobile option to your users. This helps maintain familiarity and instantly establishes trust. The copy should be brief and personal and should direct your customers to a landing page where they can submit their mobile phone number. You can also include the option on the registration page so they can sign up for mobile messages right from the start.

Not ready to jump head first into the mobile arena? Then optimize your email messages for handhelds, as described above. Or simply include a link at the very top of your email to "View on Handheld." Then link the user to a mobile-optimized landing page of your message. Use rich text to be safe.

There are many ways to approach the growing propensity of mobile users to engage with marketers' messages. Experiment now and find the right fit for your business.

Andrew Osterday and Chris Lovejoy: Andrew is solutions director of eMarketing at Premier Global Services (www.premiereglobal.com); Chris is eMarketing strategic services account executive.

E-mail Marketing vs. E-mail Sales

2008-04-18T14:55:00.001+02:00

By Jeanne Jennings , March 24, 2008

Early in my career, during a job interview, I was asked to talk about the relationship between marketing and sales. After a moment's thought, I said marketing was the umbrella term for a lot of different activities, of which sales was one. Marketing was about doing things that would help grow a business in the short, mid-, and long terms; the focus of sales was closing business today, this week, and this month. The director of marketing and sales (that was his title, in that order) seemed to agree, and I got the marketing position.

In many companies the marketing team is tasked with driving leads to the sales team. This isn't a trivial thing; businesses must sign on new customers to grow. But sometimes, especially in e-mail marketing, the broader responsibilities and goals of marketing, over and above immediate sales and lead generation, seem to get lost.

Case in point: e-mail messages that are strictly promotional. Don't get me wrong; I'm not against sending these types of e-mail. But if the only thing you send your prospects is a "buy from us now" or "take a demo now" message, you aren't doing true e-mail marketing. You're doing e-mail sales or e-mail lead generation.

Why Do True E-mail Marketing?

True e-mail marketing, which would include branding, relationship-building, sales/lead generation and other efforts, will not only deliver sales or leads today, but also make it easier for you to deliver sales or leads in the future. These other efforts can be used to:

Position your company as one that understands your prospects and their needs

Keep your brand name top of mind so when prospects are ready to buy, they think of you

Address common objections prospects have to taking a demo or buying your product, moving the sales process forward

Build a relationship with prospects, increasing their comfort level about doing business with you

Could you use direct mail or an ongoing telephone campaign to your house list to accomplish these goals? Maybe. But it would be more expensive. E-mail is an affordable way to provide targeted content to a large group.

Why Don't More Companies Do True E-mail Marketing?

Many companies have made the investment in true e-mail marketing and are reaping the benefits. But just as many, if not more, haven't. Why?

One reason is that laser focus on short-term sales or lead generation. If you have even a halfway successful promotional e-mail program, it's likely that your first relationship building e-mail effort won't meet or beat the promotional e-mail's conversion rate. If a company has a strong focus on short-term results, that can be a hard sell: Why spend additional money to develop an e-mail with a mix of editorial (read: nonpromotional) and promotional content when you could just do an additional send of your promotional e-mail?

In the short term, another send of the promotional e-mail is the wiser choice. But if you're looking at the mid- to long term, the logic shifts. There comes a point of decreasing returns. If you send a promotional e-mail to your house list once a month and generate 100 leads from it, that doesn't mean that a weekly send of the promotional e-mail will garner 400 leads per month. And it's very unlikely that a daily send to that same list will bring you 3,000 leads for March.

Promotional e-mail attracts a limited audience: people who are ready to buy or are investigating buying. Relationship, branding, and other e-mail messages not strictly focused on sales or lead generation appeal to a larger group and give you the chance to frame the discussion. Success stories might cause readers who didn't know they had a problem to want to learn more about your solution. Interviews with experts in readers' industry might position you as someone who understands their business, which is always appealing in a partner. Getting a daily tip with your branding might trigger a call to your sales team when a need arises.

The key to success is your content's quality. Developing an e-mail message that isn't 100 percent promotional takes more effort than creating a single promotional e-mail. Many companies have an e-mail newsletter but find it isn't driving sales, leads, or other business goals; often it's being sent but rarely opened, read, or clicked through from. The reason is quality.

People are deluged with e-mail today. And they are busy. Just sending an e-mail newsletter isn't enough; you have to make sure your content is compelling to your readers. This is where many attempts at true e-mail marketing fall down. Companies are going through the motions, but they either don't have the resources or don't know how to create an e-mail newsletter that's engaging to readers and effective at forwarding the business' goals.

When done well, efforts that aren't strictly promotional can drive more sales or leads than your promotional e-mail. I've worked with clients where their e-mail newsletters, which comprise 60 percent or more editorial (read: not promotional) material, delivered sales at a higher rate than their 100 percent promotional efforts. In one instance, the relationship was two-to-one; its e-mail newsletter had double the conversion rate of its sales e-mail. This requires great quality content and some strategic placement of promotions in the e-mail newsletter, but it can be done.

The beauty of a true e-mail marketing program is that the branding and relationship-building efforts aren't replacing the promotional efforts, they're being added into the mix. So you aren't losing the 100 leads your promotional e-mail brings in every month. Instead, you'll add a different type of communication to the mix in hopes of providing a short-term lift to leads and building value over time that allows you to maintain and increase this monthly lift.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Until next time,

Jeanne

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.

Marketing's New 5 Ps: Turning What You Know Inside Out

2008-04-18T11:20:00.001+02:00

by Jason McNamara

With apologies to Philip Kotler, whose four Ps—product, price, place, and promotion—have been integral to any successful product or service marketing effort of the past 50 years, today's successful marketing hinges on five new Ps.

Whereas the Ps we studied in college are all from the provider's point of view, these new Ps focus with laser-like clarity on the customer.

But customer-centricity can't be the mantra of just the marketing department. Every group, from the boardroom to product leaders to IT, must place the customer at the core of every decision it makes.

Responsibility for evangelizing within the organization rests squarely on the shoulders of the CMO. After all, if the marketing chief isn't living and breathing customer focus every minute, and encouraging others to do the same, who will believe its importance?

The CMO's office must consistently demonstrate to the rest of the enterprise the value of looking at all products, messaging, and brands through the customer's eyes. The entire organization can then get closer to the hearts and minds of their prospects and customers, with the added benefit of proving the value of every initiative that the company undertakes.

The new Ps are composed of five equally important, tightly interwoven components, designed to more tightly integrate marketing in the future.

1. People

Certainly, the audience must be at the heart of any marketing initiative. That isn't news to anyone in your department. Smart marketers have always had an instinctive sense of what their audiences would respond to. But no longer is it enough to know about your target in aggregate. Perhaps "person" might be a better heading for this P—because now it's important to know your customer intimately, as a human, emotional being.

It's one thing to know how people who generally look and act like your customer might respond. It's another to know exactly how John A. Sample has responded in the past, and what's likely to interest him next time. Why did he make his last return or exchange? What did he look at before placing an order? Has he purchased anything since his last call to customer service? What size does he wear?

Chances are, he's already told you who he is and what he wants—but were you listening?

2. Passion

Marketers are passionate about their profession. But no good marketer can function using only the right side of the brain anymore. Creativity and instinct are still important, but the anal side—the analytics side—is gaining fast.

Marketing is part of the business, and the business exists to perform. As a result, you're being held to greater accountability than ever before. Today, your passion for marketing must be driven by facts—the full view of all the data now available about customers, campaigns, and returns.

You already know that this passion for a 360-degree perspective can have an incredibly powerful effect. Being able to apply sophisticated marketing analytics to every piece of information you collect about your customers is like bringing the customers themselves in-house to tell you not just what's working and what isn't, but why. You can use this passion to your advantage, helping generate ideas, proving their relevance, and justifying the money you spend.

Still, a survey published in March by the Association of National Advertisers found that the top two concerns of senior marketing executives are integrated marketing communications and marketing accountability. Further research by the same group found that 60% of respondents had none of the necessary cross-functional involvement in their companies' development and management of marketing accountability programs to make them truly effective.

If you're like many CMOs, you've already identified the needs but may be uncertain of the solutions. Fortunately, each of these issues can be addressed by enterprisewide marketing analytics.

3. Processes

Marketing processes must become more enlightened. It's time for everyone to sing from one song sheet—instead of having discrete departments creating dissonant communications and hoarding data. Database and digital marketing, marketing operations, and customer relations all need to work in concert—a concept foreign to many companies in which other departments are often viewed as competitors rather than collaborators.

Again, the answer is a passionate, organization-wide approach to customer-centricity. If it doesn't come from the CMO, where will it begin?

Just two years ago, more than 40% of database marketers surveyed by Forrester Research lacked a complete picture of customer contact history, and one-third were missing transactional data from one or more channels.¹ That is clearly less than ideal.

In an organization with customer-focused processes, everyone strides toward a common goal. In a sales organization, for example, this can mean that the group which handles generating and tracking leads works closely with the sales team to contact, close, and communicate with prospects. Everyone has a hand in determining how often to communicate, how to allocate budgets, campaign lifecycles and more.

Forrester Research analysts suggest that "socializing" the customer database is a necessary change, so that everyone in the enterprise can contribute to and benefit from this tremendous asset. It's time to throw siloed systems, ideas, and processes out the window. But a sea change like this one has to start at the top.

4. Platform

An industry of ideas, marketing also now relies heavily on technology to guide contact strategies, deliver messaging, integrate information and processes, and measure performance. This takes powerful tools, only a few of which are up to the task of managing the vast data stores available across multiple channels, but they're out there.

Of course, software and technology can't solve the issues—they can only provide the platform for coordinating and accessing information, helping to apply customer-centric thinking to every initiative an organization undertakes.

Peter Kim of Forrester Research suggests that "many brand marketers don't understand IT's value beyond email and Ethernets. Conversely, many IT departments think of marketing as the 'make it pretty' department. In the best interests of the organization, marketing and IT must come together and share resources to build an experience infrastructure layer to support the customer experience. Marketers should add a high-level internal role to champion marketing technology and to manage the construction of a marketing technology backbone."²

Of course, the internal IT department may not be the answer. They have their hands full trying to satisfy new regulatory, privacy, and security demands that crop up every day. Marketing technology, however, is a specific discipline that applies technology to traditional and emerging marketing functions that can help companies deliver consistent customer experiences, integrate marketing processes, measure performance, align themselves to the needs of their businesses, and become more accountable to senior management.

5. Partners

Partners are an integral part of marketing—they always have been and always will be. The expertise they offer adds value over and above what can be achieved in-house. Consequently, CMOs must ensure that they have solid partner relationships that are part of the process and integrated more closely into the marketing department.

As marketing becomes more sophisticated, marketing service providers, agencies, and systems integrators must all be tapped to deliver on their particular areas of expertise. It's impossible to have all the skill sets in-house and do everything well and cost efficiently.

For many companies, this isn't a new idea—they already look to different providers for various types of creative, media buying, production, and more. It just becomes more critical as highly technical capabilities come into play.

Looking to the right partners means outsourcing key responsibilities to those best equipped to deliver on them, and that reduces the risk associated with investing in new infrastructure and specialist teams.

The Five Ps in Practice

When wholly, enthusiastically deployed, the new five Ps all work together—a passion for pleasing the person with whom you're doing business gives rise to new processes, the adoption of smarter platforms and value-adding partnerships that can make the promise of one-to-one marketing real.

But it has to be an enterprisewide way of thinking that comes from the top and infiltrates every member of every team. And it has to start with you.

Sources:

^1"Best Practices: Socializing The Customer Database," Forrester Research, Inc., July 23, 2007.

^2"Best Practices: Customer-Centric Marketing," Forrester Research, Inc., July 25, 2007.

Jason McNamara is chief marketing officer of Alterian (www.alterian.com).

Published on March 18, 2008

E-mail Copy Tip From a Great E-mail Copywriter

2008-04-18T11:15:00.001+02:00

By Jeanne Jennings , February 25, 2008

Pat Friesen is an award-winning, results-oriented on- and offline copywriter, as well as a friend. Her client list includes AT&T, Century 21, Hallmark, Hasbro, Hershey's, IBM, Motorola, and many other household name brands.

Friesen is my go-to copywriter for client projects. Driving response, not just writing copy, is one of her strengths. She was kind enough to share her keys to successful e-mail copy with me for this column. I encourage you to check out her regular column in Target Marketing. Her most recent column is an interview with yours truly, discussing the similarities and differences between offline direct mail and e-mail marketing.

Be Clear on Objectives

"It's important to clearly define the e-mail's objective," said Friesen. "Do you want people to buy, fill out a lead-qualification form, or just raise their hand [click through]? The copy needs to motivate the reader to the action needed to meet the objective. The more you're asking from them, the more information you will probably need to provide."

Prepare Before You Write

I know Friesen immerses herself in projects before putting fingers to keyboard. What I didn't fully comprehend was the amount of preparation. "Although I don't charge by the hour, I do keep track of my time." Friesen told me. "On average, only 20 percent is spent writing; the other 80 percent is research. I go deep into the product or service I'm writing about, as well as the audience I'm writing to. I look at current e-mails that are working for the client, as well as competitive information.

"The more information I get from a client, the better. Performance of past e-mails, including clickstream information from the open to the conversion, helps me identify opportunities and gives me a goal to beat," she continued. "Reviewing past e-mails, especially controls, is critical. Often there's a small detail that was under emphasized or just missed. By making this detail the hero of the new piece, putting it front and center with the same offer, you can often get a lift in response."

Understand the Sender

"Who is the e-mail coming from? What type of relationship does the sender have with the audience? These are critical questions to answer before you start writing." said Friesen. "E-mails come from people, not companies, so I try to work that into the copy. In some cases, the e-mail may be from a person (the director of marketing, product manager, or CEO); in other cases, it may be from a community (the company's customer service team, your friends at that company, etc.)."

Something Friesen and I agree on: there are pros and cons to using a real person's name in the sender address. If you take this route, be sure to include your company or brand name along with the person's name so you familiarize recipients with the company as well as the person sending the message.

Visualize Your Audience

Friesen says she "always has an image of who I'm writing to in my head. If the e-mail is going to mothers of little girls, I picture a woman I know and her little girl. If it's to a businessperson, I picture someone I know who's in that audience.

"I think about where they're reading the copy -- at their desk, in their home -- as well as how they are seeing it -- holding a piece of paper in their hand, viewing it on a computer screen, or scanning it on their mobile device. Also important are the distractions they may face while reading it; the copy needs to be interesting enough to gain and hold their attention."

Focus on What's in it for Readers

"The more specifics the client provides about what would motivate the audience to take the action desired, the better," said Freisen. "It's all about putting myself in the shoes of the reader. What's in it for them? Why should they open, read, click, and follow through to meet the objective?" is what Friesen focuses on. I think this is what makes her copy so highly relevant to the target audience, which is the secret of all great e-mail marketing.

Know the Features, But Talk About the Benefits

Friesen stresses the importance of knowing the different between the features of your product or service and its benefits. "A pocket is a feature; the benefit is that it can hold business cards or other things that the reader needs to keep with them," she said. "The benefit is what's in it for the reader, what's important to them, not the feature alone."

Use Violators to Highlight Key Messages

Many traditional direct marketing tactics translate beautifully to e-mail. Friesen has had success with "Johnson boxes, bursts, slashes, sidebars. These are all 'violators' which pull the key message out of the copy and give it more emphasis, so it won't be missed by the reader. Most people scan copy, rather than read it, so these techniques help you highlight the key takeaway and get your point across, even if the reader only skims."

Develop a Unique Voice and Use It Consistently

Friesen can't emphasize enough the importance of voice. "No matter what the medium, you should have a voice that you use to speak to your audience and keep it consistent throughout the relationship. E-mail tends to be more conversational, looser than copy used elsewhere. Even if you're targeting a business audience, you wouldn't want to use the type of language you find in an annual report.

"The voice you choose needs to be an accurate reflection of your brand personality. For an entertaining consumer product, it should be a fun voice; this is reflected in the vocabulary you use as well as the way the dialogue is structured. For business e-mails, you'll want to be more business-like but still conversational.

"Reading copy out loud is a great way to make sure your tone is appropriate to the audience and suitably conversational. Often I'll rewrite sentences which initially seemed good on paper but which don't work as well when I read them out loud."

Be Your Own Best Editor

"Don't say or tell too much," advised Friesen. "Hone in on the two or three things the reader needs to know to take the action you're looking for. If something in the copy isn't moving the audience toward the objective, get rid of it. If possible, step away from the copy and come back to it a few hours or a day later. Keep cutting until the message comes through loud and clear, without clutter."

Test, Test, Test

Friesen is as big a fan of testing as I am. "That's what makes it direct marketing!" is how she puts it. This is another reason she's one of my favorite copywriters to work with. It's not just about copy that reads well, it's about beating the control, lifting response rates, and creating an e-mail that's more effective than anything the client has used before. Once we get a winning e-mail, it's about tweaking it to make it even better or going back to the drawing board to create a new e-mail that will beat it.

Use Friesen's tips to write your own copy and let me know how it goes!

Until next time,

Jeanne

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.

How to Create a Marketing Plan

2008-04-18T11:06:00.001+02:00

What is a marketing plan and why is it so essential to the success of your business? Find out here, in the first section of our comprehensive guide to creating a marketing plan.

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingbasics/marketingplan/article43018.html

Firms that are successful in marketing invariably start with a marketing plan. Large companies have plans with hundreds of pages; small companies can get by with a half-dozen sheets. Put your marketing plan in a three-ring binder. Refer to it at least quarterly, but better yet monthly. Leave a tab for putting in monthly reports on sales/manufacturing; this will allow you to track performance as you follow the plan.

The plan should cover one year. For small companies, this is often the best way to think about marketing. Things change, people leave, markets evolve, customers come and go. Later on we suggest creating a section of your plan that addresses the medium-term future--two to four years down the road. But the bulk of your plan should focus on the coming year.

You should allow yourself a couple of months to write the plan, even if it's only a few pages long. Developing the plan is the "heavy lifting" of marketing. While executing the plan has its challenges, deciding what to do and how to do it is marketing's greatest challenge. Most marketing plans kick off with the first of the year or with the opening of your fiscal year if it's different.

Who should see your plan? All the players in the company. Firms typically keep their marketing plans very, very private for one of two very different reasons: Either they're too skimpy and management would be embarrassed to have them see the light of day, or they're solid and packed with information . . . which would make them extremely valuable to the competition.

You can't do a marketing plan without getting many people involved. No matter what your size, get feedback from all parts of your company: finance, manufacturing, personnel, supply and so on--in addition to marketing itself. This is especially important because it will take all aspects of your company to make your marketing plan work. Your key people can provide realistic input on what's achievable and how your goals can be reached, and they can share any insights they have on any potential, as-yet-unrealized marketing opportunities, adding another dimension to your plan. If you're essentially a one-person management operation, you'll have to wear all your hats at one time--but at least the meetings will be short!

What's the relationship between your marketing plan and your business plan or vision statement? Your business plan spells out what your business is about--what you do and don't do, and what your ultimate goals are. It encompasses more than marketing; it can include discussions of locations, staffing, financing, strategic alliances and so on. It includes "the vision thing," the resounding words that spell out the glorious purpose of your company in stirring language. Your business plan is the U.S. Constitution of your business: If you want to do something that's outside the business plan, you need to either change your mind or change the plan. Your company's business plan provides the environment in which your marketing plan must flourish. The two documents must be consistent.

A marketing plan, on the other hand, is plump with meaning. It provides you with several major benefits. Let's review them.

* Rallying point: Your marketing plan gives your troops something to rally behind. You want them to feel confident that the captain of the vessel has the charts in order, knows how to run the ship, and has a port of destination in mind. Companies often undervalue the impact of a "marketing plan" on their own people, who want to feel part of a team engaged in an exciting and complicated joint endeavor. If you want your employees to feel committed to your company, it's important to share with them your vision of where the company is headed in the years to come. People don't always understand financial projections, but they can get excited about a well-written and well-thought-out marketing plan. You should consider releasing your marketing plan--perhaps in an abridged version--companywide. Do it with some fanfare and generate some excitement for the adventures to come. Your workers will appreciate being involved.

* Chart to success: We all know that plans are imperfect things. How can you possibly know what's going to happen 12 months or five years from now? Isn't putting together a marketing plan an exercise in futility . . . a waste of time better spent meeting with customers or fine-tuning production? Yes, possibly but only in the narrowest sense. If you don't plan, you're doomed, and an inaccurate plan is far better than no plan at all. To stay with our sea captain analogy, it's better to be 5 or even 10 degrees off your destination port than to have no destination in mind at all. The point of sailing, after all, is to get somewhere, and without a marketing plan, you'll wander the seas aimlessly, sometimes finding dry land but more often than not floundering in a vast ocean. Sea captains without a chart are rarely remembered for discovering anything but the ocean floor.

* Company operational instructions: Your child's first bike and your new VCR came with a set of instructions, and your company is far more complicated to put together and run than either of them. Your marketing plan is a step-by-step guide for your company's success. It's more important than a vision statement. To put together a genuine marketing plan, you have to assess your company from top to bottom and make sure all the pieces are working together in the best way. What do you want to do with this enterprise you call the company in the coming year? Consider it a to-do list on a grand scale. It assigns specific tasks for the year.

* Captured thinking: You don't allow your financial people to keep their numbers in their heads. Financial reports are the lifeblood of the numbers side of any business, no matter what size. It should be no different with marketing. Your written document lays out your game plan. If people leave, if new people arrive, if memories falter, if events bring pressure to alter the givens, the information in the written marketing plan stays intact to remind you of what you'd agreed on.

* Top-level reflection: In the daily hurly-burly of competitive business, it's hard to turn your attention to the big picture, especially those parts that aren't directly related to the daily operations. You need to take time periodically to really think about your business--whether it's providing you and your employees with what you want, whether there aren't some innovative wrinkles you can add, whether you're getting all you can out of your products, your sales staff and your markets. Writing your marketing plan is the best time to do this high-level thinking. Some companies send their top marketing people away to a retreat. Others go to the home of a principal. Some do marketing plan development at a local motel, away from phones and fax machines, so they can devote themselves solely to thinking hard and drawing the most accurate sketches they can of the immediate future of the business.

Ideally, after writing marketing plans for a few years, you can sit back and review a series of them, year after year, and check the progress of your company. Of course, sometimes this is hard to make time for (there is that annoying real world to deal with), but it can provide an unparalleled objective view of what you've been doing with your business life over a number of years.

Source: The Small Business Encyclopedia and Knock-Out Marketing.

Email Marketing and Small Businesses: Waste of Time or Worth The Effort?

2008-04-17T17:43:00.000+02:00

by Josh Nason

Stop me if you've had this conversation before with a small-business owner:

You: "So that's a broad overview of what we do. We can definitely help you out with whatever you might need in the email marketing space."

Them: "Well... how much do you cost?"

You: "It really depends on what you use us for, whether it's software, creative or something else. Do you have a budget set aside for this type of thing?"

Them: "Not really."

You: "OK. How much money do you invest in marketing?"

Them: "We don't really have any money set aside for that."

You: "Oh."

"You" are the email marketing person. You've made your pitch, given the 10,000-foot view of your assortment of services, and provided a cost-effective and much more financially sensible way to spend marketing dollars. "They" are the small business owner (SBO), who either has no idea about what email marketing is all about or has only a rudimentary knowledge. They have heard of email and figure they should be doing something, but they're not sure where to start.

For email marketers, how to deal with the SBO is an ongoing challenge. I always try to be optimistic in the early stages of these talks, since it takes a lot of small pebbles to fit around the giant rocks in the sales bottle I'm trying to fill. You never know when the person on the other end of the line has the next big idea that will catch fire and, as a result, create a fanbase of information-seeking consumers.

Obstacles

In my experience, there are three main obstacles to introducing email marketing to a small business.

1. Budget

No matter who you're dealing with, the question of cost will always be a factor. Every dollar counts when it comes to a small business, from pens to water to benefits to that arcade game you buy from the pizza shop going out of business. So the SBO often worries about the expense before the benefits.

2. Education and Experience

There is a chart that a coworker and I designed to help us classify prospects and how much of an educational investment we'd have to make in bringing them on. Featured on one axis was experience and on the other education. Some people were very experienced with email, but had no real education on what a successful campaign was. Some people were well educated, having done research on the subject, but had never deployed a campaign themselves.

For the most part, the SBO falls low on both counts, simply because email doesn't fall high on the priority chart when you're opening up the doors to a new restaurant. Email marketing is one of those deals that come after a Web site, unfortunately months after people have already become consumers of the product—and, with the right offer, could be easily enticed to come back. This leads to direct mail and, then, a colossal waste of money and resources.

So when you're trying to explain paying for something that traditionally is understood as free (Hotmail, AOL, etc.), it can become difficult to get the SBO to understand the next step. In addition, when you try something new and don't have experience, it can be a bit scary. You don't want to err so badly that you suddenly alienate your client base, but you also don't have to the time to fully commit to doing things the right way. How can you win?

3. Desire

The best marketers are those who want to do a great job, rather than feel like they have to do a great job. Desire will turn a good marketer into a great one, and a lackluster campaign into an award-winning one. However, most SBOs don't desire to do great email, but feel they should be doing something because "everyone else is."

If SBOs don't embrace the concept, how can we expect them to pull off successful campaigns?

Surmounting the Obstacles

Have no fear, though. There are ways to get around those obstacles.

Sing to their stinginess

One of the easiest selling points of email marketing is its cost-effectiveness. Pay by the month, pay by the campaign, do whatever makes you comfortable. If they're saying they have no money, tell them that email is the stopgap in flushing money down the marketing drain, and that if done right email will help their sink overflow. (Note: The overflowing sink isn't a great analogy with plumbers... so try something else.)

It's the metrics, baby!

Are they going to do ads in the local paper? Stop them. Running a series of :30 jingles on a radio station? Stop them. Letting their crazy nephew walk around town in a sandwich board? Stop... well, let them do it—and then stop them.

Paint a simple analogy: If you put an ad in the paper/TV/radio, will you know whether people keep going back to it, point to it, or tell other friends about it? With email, you can track all that and more. Know your prospects' actions, and then cater your marketing around it. Feel free to add in the cost/benefit again, too!

Be honest

I've told several potential SBOs, "Just so you know, this might not work out." Some are stunned, while others appreciate the honesty. Quite simply, there are some smaller companies that we just don't have the bandwidth to work with... because of time, budgetary resources, or needs. They need more than we can offer at a price we can't justify. But that's OK. We'll refer them to one of our partner email consultants who has more one-on-one time available.

If you're honest and upfront with every prospect you come in touch with, that'll alleviate any potential trust issues down the road. And trust is a huge part of any partnership that a small business encounters.

***

Helping the little guy win some battles can be a great feeling, especially when it means that you're helping make their dreams come true.

The email marketing business is more effective and targetable than any other mass medium. And it is relatively easy to get started. So the small business owner can spend more time thinking about all these new revenues he has and less time banging his head against a wall trying to figure out why his radio ad isn't working.

The tricky part is getting them to understand that.

Josh Nason is The Email Marketing Guy for SendLabs (www.SendLabs.com), an email marketing software and solutions company. He can be reached at josh@sendlabs.com or (603) 296-4084 ext. 01.
Published on February 12, 2008

E-mail Testing: A Real-World Approach

2008-04-17T17:36:00.000+02:00

By Karen Gedney , February 6, 2008

I recently read "The Practical Guide to E-mail Marketing" by Jordan Ayan, CEO of SubscriberMail and frequent speaker at ClickZ's e-mail forums.

It's a great CliffsNotes introduction to e-mail marketing (only 55 pages total) that can help online marketing newbies quickly get up to speed.

While the whole guide is very helpful, the section on e-mail testing stands out. It covers the real-world thought process of anyone who's thinking about testing her e-mail program's effectiveness while providing a simple road map to follow.

I've excerpted the section because I think it outlines testing scenarios in the way people really think (or should be thinking) about testing.

Hand out this checklist next time you go into a meeting to discuss how to improve your e-mail marketing performance. It will help you guide the discussions more productively -- and probably hit upon the most profitable areas to test.

Step 1: Ask a Question

Start the testing process by asking a question. What are you hoping for? Determine a specific goal to accomplish rather than attempt multiple goals with one blanket approach. A series of small steps can be easy to test and analyze:

o I'd like to have more people open my messages.

o I'd like to have more people click through to my Web site.

o I'd like to reengage with historically inactive people.

o I'd like to have people click on a specific area, topic, or action.

Step 2: Form a Theory

Use your marketing experience and best practice knowledge to determine what aspects may make a difference in achieving the goal you've defined.

o I think people may be bored with my current subject lines.

o I think that the placement of the specific content may drive more people to action.

o I think that people may not understand this is from my organization and therefore will not interact.

o I think my calls to action need to be stronger.

Step 3: Create the Test

Set up your test, following best practices. Remember, you don't need to prove the obvious.

To optimize opens, I am going to test (one per test):

o From name

o Best day to send

o Subject line

o Best time to send

To optimize click-throughs, I'm going to test (one per test):

o Creative/layout

o Subject lines

o Copy

o From name

o Calls to action

To optimize conversions, I'm going to test (one per test):

o Landing pages

o Calls to action

o Creative/layout

o Subject lines

o Copy

o From name

Step 4: Segment the List

Choose the best list or segment to test, and split it (for that specific test):

o I'm confident this list is the most appropriate to prove or disprove my theory.

o My list is only large enough to do an A/B split.

o My list is large enough that I can break it into a larger control and other smaller test segments.

o My list is large enough that I can sample a percentage of my list to test.

Step 5: Measure and Analyze Results

Measure and analyze results to gain insight and prove or disprove theory. Accurately compile stats (to conversions). What does it all mean? Look beyond the numbers. Even small percentage differences can mean large gains in response rates:

o My opens increased ___%.

o My click-throughs changed __%.

o My conversions changed __%.

o Traffic to my Web site increased __%.

o My click-throughs were more focused on specific area, topic, or action.

o My click-throughs were spread out across areas, topics, or actions.

o Sales calls increased __%.

Step 6: Make Changes

Commit to making at least one change in each campaign.

o I need to change my from name.

o I need to change my subject line.

o I need to specific words.

o I need to subject line format.

o I need to add content.

o I need to decrease content and simplify.

o I need to increase clickable areas or clicks.

o I need to highlight actionable items more.

o I need to change copy.

o I need to modify layout.

Let me know how this checklist works for you. You can be sure I'm passing it along to my clients.

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.

An Open Letter to CFOs

2008-04-11T19:19:00.000+02:00

By Shane Atchison , January 24, 2008

Last year, I wrote a letter to CMOs, giving them some guidance from an agency perspective. I wanted to help them become more effective in working closely with their agency partners to drive successful business results. With the dawn of a new year, I thought it might be helpful to write a letter to you, the CFO.

You may wonder, "Why are you addressing this to me at all?" Many CFOs are used to keeping marketing and agencies at a distance, knowing CMOs are in place to ensure success. However, the Web and newly empowered customers have forced most businesses to reinvent themselves in the past five years. This reinvention has broken down traditional barriers between departments and fundamentally reshaped the structure of corporate activity. The distance between marketing and finance has been reduced to the steps across the hall from your office to the CMO's office. I hope my perspective will give you some tools to make that distance even smaller.

The Pro Forma

A message I've been delivering to marketers over the past year has been the importance of being able to make assumptions about data and using those assumptions to build financial pro forma models. These models help drive an overall monetization strategy for the Web (and often for all online channels) and lend themselves to robust ROI (define) calculations. I suspect you've already seen some of these models in budget meetings.

My advice: get more involved in developing the pro forma for the Web team. Help them gain a greater understanding of all the financial elements involved in running the business and lend your expertise to improving the models' robustness. Use your experience and knowledge to raise their game.

The Profit Center

If you're already selling goods and services on your Web site, you know the impact it can have on your bottom line. If your site is just a brand advertisement or information/support site, perhaps it's time you put it under a little more scrutiny. Every site needs to be able to move from just being an expense to becoming a potential profit center, and someone must drive that point home.

Consider a site that's currently doing only brand building. How can you turn that into a potential profit generator? Perhaps your company has strong customer advocates and they're interested in buying branded merchandise, such as shirts and bags (don't laugh; have you visited M&M's World?). On a more serious note, how far along the path toward online customer self-service have you traveled? Now might be the time to see how easily that can be integrated into your brand-only site.

The Nuts and Bolts

As the worlds of financial analysis and Web site analytics grow closer, now's the time to designate a lead in your organization to help bridge the gap. The Web and marketing teams are creating scorecards, making investments, and pushing hard for big ROI. Lend them a hand through a dedicated individual that will ensure their work becomes part of your overall organizational perspective.

One of the best reasons for doing this is the requests you may have already seen for performance-based bonus added to the marketing budgets. My recommendation to marketers is to reward individuals, teams, and agencies for achieving site results. This is a natural extension of traditional performance-based compensation to a domain where results can actually be measured. Getting your team involved helps legitimize these practice and ensures it's done in a fair and responsible fashion.

Finally, sit down with the CMO and his analytics team, create a monthly scorecard that meets both of your needs, and communicate it effectively to the rest of the organization. This integrated scorecard for online performance can demonstrate the importance of Web analytics to the entire company and the close connection between investing in the online channel and creating profit from it.

If you're already doing all of the above, I salute you. The companies that acknowledge the new world of measurable and actionable marketing and its connection to ROI are going to be first to the brass ring.

Surefire Tips for Getting and Using Customer Testimonials, Part 2

2008-04-11T19:05:00.002+02:00

By Jeanne Jennings , January 14, 2008

My last column discussed the value of testimonials and presented my tried-and-true, surefire way to get quality testimonials for e-mail, Web site, and other marketing efforts.

This week, let's move on to discuss effective uses of testimonials, and what to do if the person who gave you a testimonial changes names, positions, or companies.

Use of Testimonials in E-mail

Once you have great testimonials about your company, you want to leverage them in every way possible to benefit your brand. Positive testimonials are an asset to your organization, so don't just collect them and let them sit in a file folder.

You can build entire marketing campaigns around a single testimonial or a group of testimonials. This works equally well for e-mail, direct mail, and other channels. The credibility of the statement is greatly increased since it comes from a peer, rather than your organization's marketing department.

Here's an easy way to do it: use the testimonial as your starting point, lead with it in the piece, then build on its message in the marketing copy. I've seen testimonial-based pieces perform very well. If you're at a loss for what to use as a concept for a new campaign, start looking at, or gathering, testimonials.

Testimonials can also be added to any existing campaign, e-mail or otherwise, as supporting information to strengthen the piece. Have a control that's doing well and looking for a lift? Add a testimonial and see if it helps.

Use of Testimonials on Web sites

Your Web site is another good place to make use of testimonials; it's not uncommon for companies to devote a page to them. But how many page views do those "testimonial" pages really get? It's certainly not as many as the home page and other marketing-oriented parts of the site.

Therefore, you should sprinkle testimonials throughout the Web site so prospective clients see them where they have the most impact -- right next to marketing messages. Look for a prominent location on each page of your site where you can put a testimonial.

If you have just one great testimonial, you can certainly use it in a few places. If you have more than one great testimonial, then mix it up and incorporate each testimonial on the page where it's most relevant.

If your IT group is a bit more advanced, you can actually develop code that rotates your testimonials throughout different pages of your site. That way, each time the visitor visits or refreshes a page, a new testimonial is there for them to see.

A good example of this (and of some good testimonials) can be seen on PRWeb. The testimonials box on the home page is in the left column if you scroll down (not the most prominent placement for something this valuable; other than that a good example).

What if Something Changes?

I ran into this recently with a client. They were gearing up to do a testimonial-based e-mail/direct mail campaign. In a creative review, a member of the marketing team alerted us that the person being quoted had gotten married and taken her husband's last name, and also changed jobs (title and company) since the testimonial had been collected.

A discussion ensued about possible courses of action. Choose another quote? Update this one with the person's new name? What about the title and company? Should that be updated as well?

What came to mind in this discussion was the importance of maintaining the "time/space continuum." In other words, this testimonial was given at a certain time. At that time, the information provided (name, title, company) was accurate.

Trying to update it causes some disconnects, for instance:

* Changing the person's name. This makes it difficult for anyone to verify the quote, since the person wasn't known by this name at the company listed. This could lead to confusion and skepticism about the legitimacy of the quote.

* Changing the person's title. This is a dicey area. It could work if they were still working in the same department, but would totally backfire if they weren't. As a result, I recommend keeping it as it was at the time the quote was acquired.

* Changing the company name. Let's say the speaker's new employer isn't a customer. If so, it would be misleading to attribute the quote to one of their employees. This might also result in legal action if you're representing the new company as a client when they're not.

Try gathering some top quality testimonials, add them to your e-mail marketing efforts, and let me know how it works.

Until next time,

Jeanne

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.

How to Make Your Email Program More Productive in 2008

2008-04-10T16:25:00.000+02:00

by Reggie Brady

Welcome to the New Year! I hope you've recharged your batteries and are ready to start a successful 2008.

And if you haven't done it yet, now is the perfect time to map out plans for your email program. Any changes you might make in the first few months of the year will stand you in good stead.

Resolve to do your homework

Good planning starts with analysis. Have you compared your overall results with available industry benchmarks? There are many sources for this information, but one to check is email provider Bronto. Though your own metrics are more important, you will have a gauge for how well your program is working in comparison with those of your peers.

Drill down deeper and look at results from the types of campaigns you send. Many email marketers vary the cadence of their messaging. They send e-newsletters, product or service promotions, general-themed promotions, and more. Are there variations in your results? If certain types of emails are stronger, attempt to discern what makes them work. If some campaigns are weaker, you may need to try a new communications strategy for those.

And, take the time to analyze your list. Is your list size growing substantially each year? Is your list showing any fatigue in terms of open and click-through rates? If so, you might want to look at frequency. Have you analyzed performance by the source of the names? Email sign ups from your Web site should be the most productive. Other marketing techniques such as co-registration, contests, or appending may not be as effective. If you find that's so, you might want to tighten your permission practices for those sources.

What percentage of your list has not opened or clicked on a message in four to six months? Possibly a substantial part of your file. Put a plan in place to re-engage them. Some common techniques are to ask recipients to update their preferences, special time-sensitive offers, and text or HTML-lite messages (to overcome potential delivery or image-blocking problems). After one or more reactivation efforts, it may be time to take a big step and selectively prune your list.

Resolve to test new email features or capabilities

Email programs should never be on autopilot. There are great features and capabilities that should be part of your email marketing toolkit. For a well-rounded program, you should include the following features:

1. A preference center. Today the power is in the hands of your recipients. Make sure they can alter their information and preferences. If you already have such a facility in place, perhaps it is time to add additional features, such as giving them the choice to indicate specific topics or products of interest or the ability to decide how often they want to hear from you.
2. Triggered messaging. If you are an e-commerce marketer, you should definitely have an abandoned-shopping-cart program in place to recapture lost sales. Consider putting triggered messaging in place for email recipients who clicked through to your site and browsed, but did not purchase. You might start this simply and choose only your top products or services. Or, launch a cross-sell initiative for purchasers. Each of these techniques will improve the relevance of your programs and increase sales.
3. Segmentation. This is important to your email success and should be part of your communications strategy. Some common elements used to segment are geography, gender, past purchase behavior, demonstrated interest from click-throughs, and the length of time the person has been on the list. If you're not segmenting, set a goal to test one or two factors. If you already see the value of using this technique, it's time to test additional groups. Dynamic personalization makes it relatively easy to set up and monitor results.
4. Social networking. There's certainly a lot of buzz about blogs and customer reviews. They may not be right for everyone, but more marketers are experimenting with ways to increase interaction and the overall user experience on their sites. And, email is a perfect way to promote any new features you incorporate into your online presence.

Resolve to make your emails work harder

Take a hard look at your email template designs and make sure they put your best foot forward. I continue to be surprised that many emails I receive make no effective use of the preview pane.

Many do not include a link to view the HTML version. Since image blocking is a major issue, this is almost a mandatory element to include. You may also want to include headlines to support your subject line, additional personalization, or even a newsletter table of contents.

View your emails with images disabled. Is there enough supporting text to still stimulate interest and activity? Too many emails I receive are composed of a single large image. It takes more time to hand-code messages with images and text, but it is well worth the trouble. It is very easy to test whether this makes a major impact on your results.

Is it time to develop some new templates? Get your creative team to develop some new prototypes for the various types of campaigns you conduct. An updated look and feel can breathe new life into your program.

Resolve to focus on the customer

Finally, think hard about ways to amaze and delight your email recipients. That effort will make your emails stand out in a cluttered inbox and improve your performance.

My favorite technique is to introduce value-added content such as tips, interesting factoids, or user-generated content. You could also provide the opportunity to interact—via polls, an Ask the Expert feature, or periodic contests or games.

Any plans or changes that you implement in the first quarter should pay dividends for the balance of the year. I hope that I've given you food for thought and that you'll put several of these ideas into practice.

Have a great 2008!

Reggie Brady is president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions (www.reggiebrady.com), a direct and email marketing consultancy. She can be reached at (203) 838-8138 or reginabrady@att.net.
Published on January 8, 2008

18 Strategies and Tools for Naming Your Business or Product

2008-04-10T15:43:00.000+02:00

by Scott Trimble

Naming. Doesn't matter what you're naming—your product, your business, your Web site or heck, even your child (which happens to be my current project), your choice is important. Below, you'll find a flock of ideas, strategies, and tools to make your name discovery a little easier.

Through researching and writing this article, I tried to make name discovery a point-by-point affair. I've also noticed that most, if not all, of the articles and reports I've read over the years do the same. Start here, end there, do this and don't do that.

Lemme tell you, though, that it's not nearly that cut and dry. The process of naming is anything but linear.

There is NO chronological set of events that promise to lead you to naming perfection.

There is NO set of naming principles you must adhere to.

Sure, there are certain guidelines and ideas that are good to keep in mind, but I promise you that there's an exception to every rule. (Successfully branded, wildly popular—and, by all standards, bad—names abound.)

The process of naming also has its idiosyncrasies. Sometimes you'll set out to name a new product and the perfect name will be hanging there, right out in front of you, just waiting to be snatched out of thin air. Other times, you'll mull for days, agonizing over the details of your product, entering in hundreds or thousands of options to your registrar with nothing sounding "just" right.

So, given the interesting and often inconsistent nature of naming, I've decided to divide this article into "considerations." That is, instead of giving you a chronological chart of action points from which you'll undoubtedly stray, or assigning you a set of naming commandments that are anything but set in stone, I've outlined a collection of methods, ideas and strategies that you should simply consider.

(You'll find the more basic ideas in the beginning with more meaty stuff following.) So, let's get the fast ones out of the way first…

Consider this: The basic stuff

1. Be easy to pronounce and spell.
2. Make it memorable.
3. Don't pigeonhole yourself (being too specific in the naming of your company or product [example: Dave's 256k Flash Drives Inc. or Portland Flooring Inc.] can hinder growth later).
4. Go easy on the numbers.
5. Don't use names that could have a negative connotation in other languages (Baka Software Inc. sounds OK in the US, but won't fly in Japan).
6. Stay away from negative connotations.
7. Make sure your name doesn't alienate any group (race, religion, etc.)
8. Search for existing trademarks on potential names.
9. Make sure that the domain is available or purchasable in the aftermarket. Use your favorite registrar or use a bulk domain checker (I've outlined one below).

Consider this: Domain availability

Domain availability is possibly the biggest hang-up to ever happen to naming. Sure, you can come up with great potential names, but can you come up with great potential domains that are available?

I won't spend much time on this because it's pretty simple. If you're creating a name for a product or business that will require a .com, be patient, keep trying, and you'll start to get a feel for names that are more likely to be available than others. I've also listed some tools below that will help immensely with this.

Consider this: Focused brainstorming

Every book out there prescribes brainstorming. However, instead of just sitting back and trying to come up with ANY words that describe your business, focus your brainstorming to answering a set of questions.

Answer each by making as long of a list or words and phrases as you possibly can. Remember, the longer and more abstract your list, the better off you'll be. So go wild...

* What does your product do?
* What does your industry do, what's its purpose?
* What is your product's benefit to the consumer?
* What will happen for them?
* What will they get?
* What are the "ingredients" that go into your product or service?
* How are you different from the competition?
* What makes you unique?
* What's the lingo in your industry? What are the expressions that are unique to your offering and business?

Add your own to the list, as you see fit.

Consider this: Synonym search

It's pretty simple, really. Take every one of the words you brainstormed above and plug them into a thesaurus, like Thesaurus.com (thesaurus.reference.com). Run through each entry, keeping the words you like, trashing the ones you don't. Put these into a new list, paying attention to name possibilities.

Consider this: Word combining + a cool name-combining tool

After you've done some focused brainstorming and/or a synonym search, try word combining. Pop ALL of your words into a word combiner like My Tool (www.my-tool.com/word-domain/word-picker/), tweak its settings to reflect what you want it to show, and combine.

Depending on how many words you put into the system, you may get a massive list returned to you. To weed through them quickly, you can then hit the button at the bottom and check each domain for availability.

Consider this: Name and word lists to get your juices flowing

Plenty of great product, company, and Web site names have their roots in other, irrelevant names. Look up "list of ______" in Google and you'll get more than you can handle:

* Geologic periods
* Fruit or food names
* Types of dinosaurs
* Kinds of rocks
* Latin or Greek roots
* Place names
* Historical figure names
* Zoological names
* Botanical names
* Math or Engineering terms
* Astronomical terms
* Animal, fish, or bug names

Think about this abstractly also. If your product is new and unique, what foods or plants have fresh connotations? And so on.

Consider this: Punning and plays on words

I just tried a new beer recently specifically because of its name. It was called Tricerahops, a double IPA made by Ninkasi Brewery. Quite a beer, incidentally. But check out how you can create a name like that.

Cruise your focused brainstorm and synonym lists for words that describe/define your product. In this beer example, we might find hops—one of the main ingredients in beer. Then, we can look through lists of animals, foods, places, etc and see if we get any good combinations, where the words fit seamlessly. In this case, they chose the dinosaur name "Triceratops" and simply changed one letter. Here's an even easier way of doing it…

Consider this: Groovy word tool

Use this More Words tool (www.morewords.com) and search for any words that contain ____ . You can search for anything—search for words that contain "top," or words that have a double "e." Virtually any sound or letter combo you want to find in a word, this site will do it for you.

Consider this: Meaningful or not?

(Example: Dave's Rocket Repair Inc. has meaning, Simble Inc. does not.)

Some say creating a name with built-in meaning is a must—new companies or products need to seem familiar and safe. Others say non-meaningful names are the best— the name is completely yours, free of meaning (which you can then define); plus, newly coined word names connote innovation.

The jury, as they say, is out. Some things to keep in mind though:

Newly coined words CAN convey meaning. The most championed of these may be Acura, which was formed from the morpheme "Acu" and finishing with suffix "ra." Acu as a root connotes accuracy or precision, which fits nicely for a luxury car line.

The creator of the Acura name (Ira Bachrach of NameLabs) is purported to have a list of thousands of combinable morphemes. I, as of yet, have not found such a list. If you happen to run across one, I'd love to see it. : )

Consider this: A truly killer naming tool

Word Lab (www.wordlab.com) and specifically this page: Word Lab Tools (www.wordlab.com/tools/t_index.cfm).

This Web site I consider to be one of the single most powerful naming tools out there. With an absolutely massive list of company names, a morpheme name creator, name builder, and so on, this site is the juggernaut of idea generators. Every time I'm naming something new, I use this site.

Consider this: Metaphorical naming (some powerful stuff)

I call it metaphorical or lateral naming; but no matter what you call it, it's a branch from the focused brainstorm, and often the coolest names come from this method. It'll take a more creative, abstract frame of mind, so whatever you need to do to break out of your linear comfort zone, do it.

So, after you've changed into your tie dye and stared at your Led Zeppelin poster for a while, grab your focused brainstorm. Here we're going to center on the question "What does your product, business or industry do?" You're going to sequentially take each of the words and phrases you came up with, and come up with other things in life that do these things too.

Let me repeat (or rewrite, as it were) that. You're going to take what your business does, and come up with other things in life that do the same thing. Make a list of everything you come up with. Here is an example:

I have a software company, and our newest product's function is to copy files (pretty high-tech, I know). So I ask, "What else in life copies things?"

A copier—too logical.
A cell—might work, but a little "out there."
A mime—A HA!
Why not call the new software product... Mime.

Here's another:

My marketing company helps its clients voices get heard above the competition's. So, what else gets voices heard or makes things louder?

A bullhorn.
A volume dial.
An Amplifier—A HA!
Why not call the company Amplify Interactive (happens to be a real company here in Portland). Volume Media wouldn't be bad, either.

Consider this: Misspellings

Misspellings of commonly used words can get you in familiarity's proverbial backdoor. Example—netflix.com. It's familiar, short, and you instantly know what they do. Though, if looking for an available domain, you'll have to use some fancy combinations because common misspellings are already registered.

Consider this: Industry lingo

Each industry has its lingo, and you may have noticed that many taglines come from such lingo... or, more distinctly, from words and expressions that are used by your consumers.

For example, I've just developed the perfect fish hook. It never, and I mean never, lets a fish go. A common expression in fishing when you feel a fish take your bait is "Fish on." This great expression, combined with something else, might make a nice tagline for my fail-safe hook. How about "Fish on ... never off."

Consider this: Ask your friends, but...

Ask your friends' opinions, but take them with a grain of salt. First of all, your pool of test subjects is probably pretty small, leaving your results (ratio of yays to nays) with little accuracy.

Second, consider whether your friends are in your target market. If they're not, they may not "get" a name that might be perfect for your market.

Finally, people in general side with what's familiar. Finding your Web site, seeing an advertisement, or having a friend suggest your product can have the unique ability of making your product's name sound good. The name or names that you ask your friends to grade won't have the benefit of such an advantage.

Consider this: How is the competition named? What are the trends?

I've made the mistake (like an idiot, I might add) of not checking my competition first, before creating a name, only to find out the name I created is just like a competitor's. Time wasted.

Now, my general rule is to find out how my competitors are naming themselves and simply be different. Stepping out of the box is always a bit of a gamble, so make sure you're different in what will be seen as a positive way.

Consider this: Name rhyming

Rhymed names are memorable and can work, as long as they're not too cute or overboard. Rhyme Zone (www.rhymezone.com) is fantastic for finding words that rhyme. More Words can also be good for this.

Consider this: Web 2.0 name generators

I'll be honest, they're generally crap. I've used this one, Web 2.0 Name Generator (benjamin.hu/w2namegen.php), but found that, for the most part, they return relatively useless gibberish.

If you have a few extra minutes, though, try popping some of your synonyms into the interface and see what it comes up with. At the very least, it might give you some ideas and get your wheels turning.

Consider this: Don't put too much stock in your name

They're certainly important, but naming can also be over-emphasized. There are plenty of highly successful businesses and products out there with bad names. So, take your naming, like your friends' opinions, with a grain of salt. And, as with everything, the more you stress about obtaining perfection, the less likely you'll come up with that killer name that seamlessly fits your offering.

Scott Trimble is a managing partner of Halfagain LLC, a Portland, Oregon based search and affiliate marketing software producer. He blogs at www.halfagain.com.
Published on January 8, 2008

Six International E-Mail Marketing Challenges

2008-04-08T12:06:00.001+02:00

Six International E-Mail Marketing Challenges

By Derek Harding , March 20, 2008

Last month I was part of a panel on international e-mail marketing at the Email Experience Council's Email Evolution Conference in San Diego. When marketers think about sending e-mail internationally, localization is obviously one of the first issues that come up. The discussion then often moves to the questions of translation and infrastructure support for "foreign" languages. In effect, localization is often equated with translation.

What struck me most during the panel was the consensus that translation isn't localization. The panelists all agreed that localization is vital to international campaigns' success, and they weren't talking about translation.

Localization, effectively, is a form of segmentation. When sending e-mail within a single country with a mostly common language and culture, we know there are significant differences between audiences. We also know that speaking to these audiences individually (segmenting) substantially lifts results. Clearly the same will hold true when sending to multiple countries, each with its own language, culture, and social mores.

Some localization issues that regularly present challenges internationally include:

* Message form. The amount of content that works well in messages varies from country to country. In the United States, when we send newsletters, it's common to only include article overviews with links to the full articles online. However, in some countries the expectation is the full content will appear in the message.

* Personalization and salutations. In some countries, use of personalization and salutations (e.g., Dear Derek) can improve results. In others, it's seen as hackneyed or even a privacy invasion.

* Send time. When to send is also a regional and cultural question. Clearly, the local time zone must be taken into account. So should variations in when people work. Which days constitute the weekend vary across the globe. Holidays vary from country to country, as does when people commonly take vacations.

* Local norms. There are many local norms that can be entirely unexpected if you don't have local knowledge. For example, in the U.S. it's quite common to post prices exclusive of tax. In some other countries, this is simply not done and may even be disallowed by local law. In France, it's common to ask recipients to print out a form and fax it back, whereas in many other countries this would be considered absurd.

* Local laws. While anti-spam requirements are the most obvious laws that apply to international e-mail, some countries may have additional laws and requirements for doing business electronically, especially related to privacy and use of personal information.

* Language. The language selected does matter for international communications. However, the choice of language isn't necessarily clear cut. Many countries use more than one language, and which languages you support can be very important. For some cultural groups, using their language may be essential; for others, it may have little effect. Some audiences may even prefer to receive communications in English rather than their native tongue. This is often the case for more technical audiences.

In a tightening economy, many organizations centralize and close satellite offices to manage costs. What my fellow panelists made clear is that while such centralization of e-mail management can reduce costs and improve messaging consistency, it's essential not to lose the understanding of the places to which you're mailing.

At the end of the day, there's really no substitute for local knowledge to ensure effective international communications.

Three Powerful Press Kits (and Why They Work)

2008-04-07T17:48:00.000+02:00

by Gail Z. Martin

Press kits are like business cards. If you don't have one, you have no way to make an introduction and no way to provide valuable information to people with whom you want to do business

A "press kit" is a collection of a few vital pieces of information that makes it easier for the media to tell your story accurately and with full details. By putting the power of your press kit to work, your company can enjoy more accurate media coverage, more exposure for story ideas, and more complete information through press coverage.

Reporters often want press kits to fact check the spelling of names and products, release dates, company history, and other important details. Press kits can also be tailored to specific events, product rollouts, and grand openings with audio, video, maps, photos and commemorative giveaways.

For years, press kits were expensive, custom-printed packets. While those types of press kits still have some limited uses, today's press kits are most likely to be found online, where they can be accessed around the clock.

While the media are one key target audience, prospective customers, partners, investors, and vendors are also likely to be looking for accurate, detailed information about your company. Press kits provide that information in an organized, easy-to-read format.

Many companies put off creating press kits. If business is good, staff may be too busy to think about a kit, especially if there is no pressing deadline. Some companies are unaware of a press kit's value, or unsure of what goes in a good kit. Still others are reluctant to make a press kit available online because they want to control access to information.

That last reason is the most dangerous. If you don't have a press kit, your company has already lost control of its information because it has waived its ability to make it easy for reporters to have accurate, updated data and to shape the story.

A good press kit helps your company put its best foot forward. It is a useful collection of information that answers questions and suggests story ideas.

A press kit is designed first and foremost for the needs of the media. Resist the urge to try to make a press kit into a sales piece. Doing that will alienate reporters who don't want to be sold and aren't buying your product. Stick to the facts and help to shape coverage by drawing attention to positives that might otherwise be overlooked.

I like this example of an online press kit at Gap, for the following reasons:

* It's cleanly designed and easy to navigate.
* It addresses bad news up front instead of hiding it under layers of links.
* It provides a nice snapshot of the company—press releases, stock price, interesting trivia.
* It provides the option to download a paper press kit.
* It offers the chance to sign up for news alerts.
* It provides a handy image library.

Some of the key elements of a press kit include executive bios, a company history, fact sheets, backgrounders, testimonials, recent speeches, recent major press releases, and information regarding recent recalls or high-profile crises (and how they are being dealt with).

Reviews, awards, story ideas, web audio and web video clips, and virtual tours can make for an interesting and interactive press kit. Posting a press kit is a reason in itself for sending out a release and inviting the press to take a look.

Take a look at a more robust press center at Coca-Cola. What I like about this site:

* Press kits for special events and products filed by type
* Well-organized information—and lots of it
* Audio-visual resources that amplify the message
* A news index to find releases by date
* Speeches and company statements
* Press contacts that aren't hidden

Once the basic pieces are in place, press kits can be customized for special events, corporate anniversaries, new-product launches, and other major occasions. Add a new fact sheet about the occasion, include fresh audio and video clips, tuck in some pertinent quotes by executives on the occasion, and perhaps include a whole or partial speech text if appropriate.

Online press kits make it easy to create lively documents, such as interactive timelines and milestones complete with audio and video. Use the technology to its best advantage to tell your story and make it compelling.

Look at the customized event-driven press kits on Verizon's media site. It's great because...

* It combines press releases with photos and video.
* It can be viewed in Spanish and English.
* The customized press kit page still has links back to all the main bios, releases, and other information.

Or look at this press kit on Verizon's store layout. It works because...

* Viewers can take a virtual tour as well as download pictures.
* You can download renderings from several perspectives, as well as display layouts.
* Users can even sign up to get updates via RSS feed.

Once your press kit is in place, it's easy to find new uses, such as including a link in the signature of your email or adding it as a line in your pitches to reporters. If a high-profile live media event—such as a press conference—arises, it's possible to convert the online documents into physical kits fairly quickly.

A press kit works for your public relations department 24/7. Hire the best publicist you'll ever get—a great press kit—and put it to work for your company today.

Gail Z. Martin owns DreamSpinner Communications (www.DreamSpinnerCommunications.com) and has over 20 years of corporate and nonprofit experience at senior-exec levels. Reach her via "gail at dreamspinnercommunications dot com."

Premium Plus members: Don't miss our on-demand seminars with Gail, Telling a Story that Sells: Case Studies with Heart and Publicity Power Tool: Building a Great Online Press Kit.
Published on December 27, 2007

Justifying E-mail Budgets for 2008

2008-04-07T17:27:00.000+02:00

By Jeanniey Mullen , December 10, 2007

Need help justifying e-mail budgets for 2008? Be prepared to think outside the tactical box. It's no longer good enough to show that your deliverability has improved to 90 percent or that your optimized creative increases clicks. Instead, your focus must expand into the ever-growing digital world. But how do you do that?

Today, a simple mathematical equation I often use to justify and win an increased budget for e-mail marketing. Its primary focus is on improving deliverability.

Deliverability impacts more than response rates for e-mail; it also drives the bottom line. For one client, I was able to show that every percentage increase in delivery rate drives $1 million in sales. Here's how to estimate how an improvement in performance boosts results.

Start with two basic facts: revenue and opt-in list size. Begin with the total revenue driven for the year by anyone who has an opt-in e-mail in your database. For example, we have 50,000 opt-in e-mail addresses and the total sales generated by those people was $20 million. Note: total sales generated doesn't have to be entirely through e-mail.

1. Determine your average conversion rate from e-mail. Start with the number of times people get e-mailed per month. In our example, the delivery rate is 85 percent (42,500), the open rate is 20 percent of delivered (8,500), the CTR (define) is 25 percent of opens (2,125), and conversion rate from clicks to the site is 35 percent (744). So here one send to 50,000 people would generate purchases from 744 people.

2. Identify your average monthly revenue as a percentage of total annual revenue. Divide the per-month revenue by the number of people who purchased for the month. In this case, $1.67 million ($20 million a year divided by 12 months) divided by 743 people is $2,244, the average monthly revenue by buyer.

3. Determine average impact. Now for the magic. Using the number of opt-in addresses; open rate, CTR, and conversion rate from step two; and the average monthly revenue from step three, determine the average impact on sales if only 1 percent of your e-mail were delivered. In our example, 50,000 x 1 percent x 20 percent x 25 percent x 35 percent x $2,244 equals $19,635 in revenue per month.

In our example, then, a 5 percent increase in delivery could generate $98,175 per month in additional revenue, or $1.18 million for the year. Given these figures, there's not a CFO out there who could resist approving one extra head count or additional vendor support to help keep your campaigns moving in the right direction.

There are many calculations like this one that can help you justify your budget. If you have something specific you're trying to justify and can't, e-mail me and I'll help you figure one out. If you have a good, effective example you would like to share, e-mail me that too.

EXAMPLE: How Increasing E-mail Delivery Rates Pays Off
One way to win approval for an increase in an e-mail marketing budget is tie performance to financial metrics. This tool is designed to help estimate the additional amount of revenue an organization can generate if e-mail delivery rates improve. This example assumes a company with annual revenue of $20 million and 50,000 opt-in e-mail addresses; the baseline was derived by assuming an 85 percent delivery rate. INSTRUCTIONS: Perform the calculations in the rows, in boldface.

Step 1: If the e-mail delivery rate is 85 percent:
A Opt-in e-mail addresses: 50,000
B Number of messages delivered per month 1
C Delivery rate 85%
D Open rate 20%
E CTR 25%
F Conversion rate from clicks to the site 35%
G Total number of conversions or buyers (A x B x C x D x E x F) 744

Step 2: And the company's annual revenue is $20 million:
H Annual revenue $20,000,000
I Monthly revenue (G ÷ 12) $1,666,667
J Average monthly revenue by buyer (I ÷ G) $2,241

Step 3: If the e-mail delivery rate is 1 percent:
H Number of messages delivered per month 1
I Delivery rate 1%
J Open rate 20%
K CTR 25%
L Conversion rate from clicks to the site 35%
M Average monthly revenue by buyer (J x H x I x J x K x L) $19,608

Step 4: If the e-mail delivery rate is 5 percent:
H Number of messages delivered per month 1
I Delivery rate 5%
J Open rate 20%
K CTR 25%
L Conversion rate from clicks to the site 35%
M Average monthly revenue by buyer (J x H x I x J x K x L) $98,039

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.

Taglines Are It!

2008-01-23T14:44:00.001+01:00

Use Them to Make Your Message Memorable
By Elizabeth J. Goodgold

Taglines are the invisible communication today. They’re rarely discussed, barely analyzed, and sparingly researched. Yet, a good tagline can provide the essential underpinning upon which to build all your marketing messages.

What is a Tagline?
A tagline is the name for the words that are used with the business name or brand. It should be such a natural outgrowth of the company’s positioning that the two are inextricably linked. It can differentiate you from your competitors, express your personality, and add consistency to your marketing campaign.

Most importantly, it becomes the common thread woven throughout all of your communication. It also provides the acid test: if your brochure, advertising campaign, or sales letter conflict with the tag line, it’s obviously time to rethink your creative message.

Owning Your Tagline
In a carefully crafted tagline, the key point of difference is either overtly stated or strongly implied. This strategy reinforces your positioning and pre-empts your competitor from using the same idea. Remember: the goal is to own a unique benefit in the customer’s mind.

Any company in any industry could borrow People Soft’s "we work in your world" whereas Lincoln’s "what a luxury car should be" suggests that it has created the standard in the narrowly defined luxury car market. Merely stating parental heritage doesn’t help UUNET’s "a Worldcom Company", yet it expresses personality when used with Virgin Vie’s "for life and for living" new beauty line.

A good tagline should be so clear that even if your audience had never heard of your company, they could determine what business you’re in. Good examples include Timken: "leader in bearings and steel" to PK Ware "the data compression experts."

Differentiating in a Crowded Market
When a market becomes overcrowded or a company name becomes confusingly similar, it is a good time to introduce a tag line. This statement is particularly applicable to the high-tech field in which the number of new companies appearing with the name "cyber" "micro" or "net" grows every day.

"We put the Net to work for you" provides critical information about Netcom whereas Microway’s tagline merely makes it a "me too" player with "technology you can count on."

Another opportunity to employ a tagline is when your company name tells little about your business. Consulting firms have adopted this approach with Anderson Consulting proclaiming "business performance improvement" and Deloitte, Touche counter punching with " TBD." Even Dell Computer’s "be direct" tag informs its audience that it is a direct marketer.

Avoiding Acronyms
In the current alphabet soup maze with companies using initials versus words, a tagline provides the first clue as to the company’s business. AIG, for example provides a hint of what business it is in by its tagline of"…." TPG on the other hand, provides merely more acronyms with "the world behind TNT & PTT Post" as does QNX with "the leading realtime OS for PC’s."

Taglines vs. Slogans
Although often confused, a tagline is not a slogan. Slogans change with the advertising campaign whereas a tag line remains virtually static for many years. Ford Motor Co. only recently changed its tagline to "built Ford tough" after having used "have you driven a Ford lately?" for over 15 years.

Yes, taglines can change, but they should be evolutionary not revolutionary in nature. The United States Post Office has edged away from "we deliver for you" to simply "we deliver." Ameritech had nicely evolved its tagline from "your link to better communication" to "your link to better technology." Unfortunately, they’ve now lost all continuity and brand reinforcement provided by the "link" word by recently unveiling "in a world of technology, people make the difference."

Cliché Taglines
If you’re not careful in creating an ownable tagline, your line may quickly degenerate into a cliché. In the banking world, "bank on us" is applicable to any bank, but appropriate for none because it doesn’t communicate a sound benefit. On the other hand, Citibank’s pre-merger "The Citi never sleeps" line worked well because it communicated a 24 hr, accessible, reachable institution.

The "we mean business" line is also overemployed. Examples abound from American Airlines to the City of Seattle. Again, the message is too generic to work well for any type of business.

Guidelines for a Good Tagline
Although there’s no secret formula in this highly subjective area, there are a few guidelines to remember about taglines:

• Ensure that it is consistent with the company’s positioning;
• Communicate one simple idea;
• Opt for a few, short words;
• Always use the tagline with the company name on business cards, brochures, and printed materials;
• Test to see if it is "ownable" and could not be usurped by your competitor
• Avoid acronyms even if the term is widely known in your industry
• Communicate a clear, jargon-free message

Taglines as a Post Script
Since taglines are often at the end of a commercial or at the bottom of an ad, they act as your PS: the last best hope to propel your message. Employed properly, an audience will understand your company and its unique point of difference.

Business 2 Business Marketer, July/August 1998. Reprinted with permission.

The Balanced Scorecard: Prelude to a Marketing Dashboard

2008-01-13T02:38:00.000+01:00

by Pat LaPointe

No matter how much we advocate the science of marketing, its art has not disappeared.

Take the balanced scorecard, for instance. In the tradition of marketing creativity, a graphical document—the balanced scorecard—translates marketing strategy to operational terms and sows the seeds for marketing accountability as measured and highlighted on the marketing dashboard.

Balanced scorecards, very simply, help marketers and the executives to whom they answer visualize strategic project planning.

But the scorecards don't end with their simplicity or their coordinated colors. They represent an approach to strategic management that surfaced in the early 1990s with Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the same guys who brought us Success Mapping.

Recognizing some of the weaknesses and vagueness of previous management approaches, the pair wrote a 1992 Harvard Business Review article about a format that communicates what companies measure in order to "balance" their marketing goals with broader corporate aims.

The balanced scorecard provides feedback around both business processes—from employee communications and training to launching a pilot program with print, outdoor and online advertising—and outcomes. When fully deployed, the balanced scorecard transforms strategic planning from a creative exercise into the interim tool for organizations migrating from purely intermediary metrics—brand awareness, customer satisfaction and the like—to a marketing dashboard of hard metrics like ROI.

Kaplan and Norton introduced four perspectives to include on the balanced scorecard: financial, customer, internal business processes, and learning and growth.

Whether you subscribe strictly to their outline or adapt it for your own use, the balanced scorecard suggests that you view the organization from different perspectives, developing metrics, setting goals, defining timeframes, and analyzing data relative to each. It relates corporate missions to marketing efforts—or vice versa—through a tool in which even unrelated key objectives such as brand development metrics, customer satisfaction scores and channel penetration can be plotted and tracked. This mix-and-match illustrates how individual initiatives and integrated campaigns work toward fulfilling enterprise-wide goals.

With unique missions on the corporate level and visions within marketing, balanced scorecards tend toward customization. Some even go by different names. However, all work toward the same ends—improved business process outputs and strategy outcomes.

The balanced scorecard methodology builds on some key concepts of previous management ideas (total quality management), including customer-defined quality, continuous improvement, employee empowerment, and measurement-based management and feedback. Because of its ties to other recommended management disciplines, many companies use a balanced scorecard without even knowing it.

Achieving Equilibrium and Excellence

As stakes around accountability of business functions within organizations rise, marketers don't want to monkey with measurement. To maintain the reliability and quality of the marketing scorecard, users agree that they must focus on every step in the process, keeping an eye on their proposed marketing initiatives as they progress from the planning phase, to introductions to the C-suite, general employee base and beyond.

These "feedback loops" check back from specific action plans to see that they will accomplish stated goals, ensure that applied metrics will identify success or failure of action plans and adjust timeframes to realize outcomes. The scorecard lives through constant improvement. Outputs, in numerical form, guide improvements, show performance over time, evaluate measurement methods and provide models for future goals and action plans, working from small goals to larger ones.

Through the analysis of data from the tracking processes, the measures or key performance indicators (KPIs) themselves may be evaluated and changed to better support such goals.

Build It and the CEO Will Come

To build a balanced scorecard, you first have to consider your organization's corporate mission and determine marketing's place within it. On which portions of the mission can marketing have a direct impact? Where does marketing have to start? Does it first have to win respect from the C-suite? Respect that will help executives acknowledge the value of marketing and of its scorecard?

From responses to these questions, marketing develops a vision of its own, a higher calling that it aims to answer to elevate its position within the company. Where is the organization going? How can marketing help it get there? In other words, what sub-strategies belong to marketing?

In looking at these, consider the different internal and external audiences affected, and include each of their perspectives in your marketing scorecard, at the same time defining marketing's core competencies able to assuage each perspective's needs.

You'll be happy you've done such homework before deciding on metrics. Remember that you'll review metrics continuously to make sure you've matched them to marketing's strategies and audiences appropriately and that they maximize the outcomes, displaying the complete value of marketing's success or pointing out, if possible, the missteps in marketing's failures.

With a solid scorecard—one that you feel confident will balance marketing's strengths to fulfill the function's vision of the corporate mission—action plans such as product and service rollouts, reinvigorated brand toolkits, increased media coverage of the brand message and others come to the fore.

The next step prepares to start the process over again, adjusting for missions accomplished and those left at the starting gate, in need of better metrics or cross-functional help from inside the corporation. Charge a high-ranking marketing team member with managing the scorecard and moving it forward, with sins confessed and salvations praised.

A Strategy for Action

These are benefits of activating a balanced-scorecard approach to marketing management:

* It helps align KPIs with strategy.

* It provides management with a picture of marketing operations.

* It facilitates communication and understanding of business goals and strategies to different audiences, internal and external.

* It provides strategic feedback and learning with a forward-looking thrust, not a study of past performance patterns.

* It organizes marketing information and converts it into numbers—an attractive outcome for the CEO and CFO—from a broad system that champions long-term marketing excellence.

New Products: The Real Challenge Is in Execution, Not Strategy

2008-01-12T22:08:00.000+01:00

by Barry Curewitz

Marketers love talking about products like the Swiffer or iPod, two colossal successes in terms of brilliance in innovation and new product development. In fact, rumor has it there are more consulting firms taking credit for Swiffer's development and success than can fit into the new Yankee Stadium.

The puzzling question remains: Why aren't there more examples of unabashed new product successes?

To gain insight, we recently implemented a research study exploring the factors that have an impact on a company's ability to succeed in the ever-important CPG growth domain.

Our survey, titled "Creativity in New Products, A Reality Check," queried 128 senior CPG marketers to gauge the challenges they face in growing their businesses as well as the strategies and thought processes they employ.

In planning the research, we theorized that new-product development efforts could be influenced by both strategic and tactical elements. Therefore, we developed a list of five strategic and five tactical pitfalls that could limit a company's ability to succeed.

Then, we asked participants to identify those issues that currently challenge them; those they addressed three years ago; those they expect to face three years from now; and which single factor occurs most frequently.

Based on our experience, we hypothesized that strategic issues would be the most relevant causes of new-product disappointment. We were way off base. We learned that, yes, there are strategic issues affecting the outcome of new product activity, but the more relevant issues focus on tactical elements—those things that can be addressed in the short term.

In fact, 63% of survey respondents identified tactical issues as the leading prohibitive factors in the development and launching of new products.

The need to satisfy stockholders (Wall Street) has had a profound effect on our ability to identify, develop, and launch new products as reflected in the lack of human capital, financial resources, and company competencies (another form of human capital). Strategically, we're confident we know where to "place our bets," it's just that financial limitations prevent us from doing it.

The following data illustrate that three of the strategic categories we identified have become less of an issue in the last three years and are expected to become even less relevant over the next three (or at least remain status quo). These include the identification of differentiated opportunities, identification of the key consumer insight, and development of a motivating consumer proposition.

Two issues that will become more relevant to marketers have to do with competitive challenges and the elasticity of brand equities. It appears our own tactical issues have caused a bit of paranoia that the competition is moving faster than we are. And, the research further suggests that brand equities (perhaps our most valuable asset) have reached their breaking point and can't go any further.

Tactically, while all but one factor (the lack of product technology) are expected to decline over time in the amount they can limit our success, several of them are working against higher levels of frustration today, as compared with three years ago.

For example, the lack of human capital and financial resources are more relevant today than they were three years ago, but they are projected to be less relevant in '10 than they were in '04. Why? Because new product development efforts are often disrupted or delayed in order to meet the immediate corporate financial obligation—we're responding to the financial needs of the current quarter.

What are we to do? Well, we're called "managers" for a reason. We need to manage the innovation process so that we can support the best, most promising initiatives, with the limited resources available to us.

And, when possible, convince our management that additional resources are prudent in order to realize the success that the Swiffer and iPod have enjoyed.

Barry Curewitz is managing partner of Whole-Brain Brand Expansion (www.wbbe.biz); reach him at barry@wbbe.biz.

Published on December 11, 2007

Recovering the Lost Art of Product Marketing

2008-01-12T21:02:00.000+01:00

by Laura Patterson

When the CEO asks questions such as...

1. How can we bring products to market faster?
2. What can we do to eliminate development mistakes?
3. How can we ramp up sales faster and lower the overall cost of sales and marketing?
4. How can we improve our customer retention and referral rates?
5. What can we do to create better product margins?

...the CEO is asking product-marketing-related questions. These questions go to the heart and soul of marketing and actually go beyond what Marketing has evolved into—a function that has come to mean communicating the company's message and creating and implementing a product promotion strategy.

But if this is all Marketing has become, then Marketing has lost its way and is no longer doing its job for the organization.

Peter Drucker, the father of contemporary management, said "the aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself."

The essence of marketing requires that Marketing understand the market problem, enabling the company to create products people want to buy. Understanding the market problem is what drives product decisions, the messaging for these products, the key elements of selling, and Marketing's ability to encourage people to buy from your company.

From this perspective, marketing is knowing what to build and for whom; subsequently, a market-driven customer-centric product strategy can be defined.

This competency of defining and bringing market-driven customer-centric products to market use to reside within what was traditionally known as product marketing, a role that is disappearing from the marketing function.

Yet if marketing is knowing what to build and for whom, then this role, regardless of what we call it, is at the cornerstone of everything we do in marketing. Without this capability, Marketing will fail.

Today many companies no longer have marketers who bridge the gap between the market and product. Rather, they have replaced this expertise with product managers that reside in the engineering or development ranks.

The product manager is generally responsible for ensuring that a product gets created, tested, and shipped on schedule and that it meets the specifications. This function is primarily internally focused, bridging Marketing and Development. This person generally has excellent technical expertise but rarely has the marketing expertise needed to bring a product to market.

That may explain why Robert Cooper in his book Winning at New Products writes that for every four projects that enter development only one makes it to the market, and he estimates that 46% of all resources allocated to product development and commercialization by US firms is spent on products that are canceled or fail to yield an adequate financial return.

If your company is developing great products and services that are either missing their potential or failing altogether, it may be time to retrieve the lost art of product marketing to facilitate a more market- and customer-centric orientation. Organization and process changes might be required to make this transformation.

The following illustrates an example of the types of organizational changes that might be required.

In July 2002, Steve Ballmer reorganized Microsoft into seven business units focused on market segments, not products. Ballmer stated, "We were pretty product-centric in our marketing, which meant we weren't always delivering a higher-level perspective on the value of technology in key areas." The company embarked on a 10-year initiative to reinvent its worldwide marketing team in order to "institute a consistent customer value proposition across the organization." As a result the company renewed its focus on problems their customers need to solve, not products the company wants to sell.

The Microsoft example illustrates how a company can shift from a product-centric view to customer- and market-centric focus. This type of change requires that a company revisit the role of Marketing in its organization, because to be successful the company needs people who truly understand customers and facilitate the company's ability to define, develop, and market products that customers want to buy. This type of company will need product marketing. The transformation isn't an easy one and, as illustrated by the Microsoft example, may require management-team commitment and process and organizational changes.

It may take a while to realize the benefits, but recovering the art of product marketing will be worth the effort. As a result, your company will have individuals who understand your market and what factors and people impact the purchasing decisions about which products to buy. These product marketers will bring the insights needed to make creating the right message—delivered in the right place, at the right time—possible. The benefits far outweigh the investment.

With product marketing, your company will be able to prepare the sales channels to relate to the buyer and enable these channels to focus on the most effective messages and programs. You will be able to develop outbound marketing initiatives that move prospects into and through the pipeline to drive revenue and increase customer retention and loyalty. You will have people on your team who are always thinking about how to use what they know about the market and buyers to influence the product strategy.

With this change, your marketing will be more than just selling and advertising. It will help you define the target market, position yourself as different and superior in that target market, and permit you to stay ahead of the competition.

And you will be able to answer the five questions that we began this article with, because the company can now develop specific metrics and key performance indicators around time-to-market, time-to-revenue, time-to-value, and time-to-profit that ensure a new level of proficiency and confidence.

Laura Patterson (laurap@visionedgemarketing.com) is president and founder of VisionEdge Marketing, Inc. (www.visionedgemarketing.com) and author of Measure What Matters: Reconnecting Marketing to Business Goals and Gone Fishin': A Guide to Finding, Keeping, and Growing Profitable customers.

HOW TO WRITE BETTER ADVERTISING COPY

2008-01-12T20:31:00.000+01:00

by Brian Konradt

A successful marketing plan relies heavily on the pulling-power of advertising copy. Writing result-oriented ad copy is difficult, as it must appeal to, entice, and convince consumers to take action. There is no definitive formula to write perfect ad copy; it is based on a number of factors, including ad placement, demographic, even the consumer’s mood when they see your ad. So how is any writer supposed to pen a stunning piece of advertising copy -- copy that sizzles and sells? The following tips will jumpstart your creative thinking and help you write a better ad.

KNOW THE BASICS

All good advertising copy is comprised of the same basic elements. Good advertising copy always:

Grabs Attention: Consumers are inundated with ads, so it’s vital that your ad catches the eye and immediately grabs interest. You could do this with a headline or slogan (such as VW’s “Drivers Wanted” campaign), color or layout (Target’s new colorful, simple ads are a testimony to this) or illustration (such as the Red Bull characters or Zoloft’s depressed ball and his ladybug friend).

Promises Credible Benefit: To feel compelled by an ad, the consumer must stand to gain something; the product is often not enough. What would the consumer gain by using your product or service? This could be tangible, like a free gift; prestige, power or fame. But remember: you must be able to make good on that promise, so don’t offer anything unreasonable.

Keeps Interest: Grabbing the consumer’s attention isn’t enough; you’ve got to be able to keep that attention for at least a few seconds. This is where your benefits come into play or a product description that sets your offer apart from the others

Generates Action: This is the ultimate point of advertising copy -- it must make the reader react in some way. This doesn’t necessarily translate to buying the product immediately or using the service. Your ad could be a positioning tool to enable the reader to think about you in a certain light. Speak to your audience, or the audience you’d like to reach, and you’ll be surprised how frequently they come to you in the future.

KNOW THE MEDIUM

How you write your advertising copy will be heavily based on where you will place your ad. If it’s a billboard ad, you’ll need a super catchy headline and simple design due to the speed at which people will pass. Online ads are similar; consumers are so inundated with Internet advertising that yours must be quick and catchy. Magazine advertising is the most versatile, but this is solely dependent on the size of your ad and how many other ads compete with yours. If you’ve got a full page, feel free to experiment; more page space gives you more creative space. If the ad is tiny, you’ll need to keep things as simple as possible.

KNOW THE STYLE

Advertising copy is a unique type of writing. As the ad copywriter, your aim is to balance creativity and readability into something persuasive and entertaining. Keep the following points in mind when you write your copy:

Be Succinct: Messy wordiness will completely destroy an ad campaign. Use short sentences with as many familiar words as possible; save the thesaurus for a thesis or dissertation. Always make sure to use precise phrasing (why use five adjectives when one good action verb would do?); and eliminate any redundancies, such as “little tiny” or “annual payments of $XXX per year.”

Talk To Your Audience, Not At Them: Though you are announcing the availability of a product or service, avoid being clinical or overly formal. Write as if you’re talking to your ideal customer; use a style they’d use, words they’d be familiar with, slang they’d probably know. But be absolutely certain that you’re using these terms and phrases correctly. A recent McDonald’s campaign attempted to reach a certain audience by using the phrase “I’d hit it” in reference to a cheeseburger, unaware that the phrase is almost always used as a sexual reference.

Avoid Clichés: It’s easy for writers new to advertising copy to fall into this trap, but it’s a trap that can severely damage the writing. Clichés fail to ignite the imagination; and consumers so numb to the phrases will often skip right past them, effectively ruining the succinct element of your ad. If you find yourself tempted to use a cliché, think about the message you want to convey with that cliché and try to rephrase it in a more imaginative, personal way.

Always Proofread: It’s an obvious point, but you’d be surprised how many ads run in a magazine or on a billboard with an error of some sort. Go through your advertising copy carefully to make sure that every word is spelled correctly, the grammar is impeccable and the punctuation is dead on. Even the best ads can be ruined by a misplaced comma or dangling modifier.

© B. Konradt

Brian Konradt is a freelance writer and founder of FreelanceWriting.Com (http://www.freelancewriting.com), a free web site to help writers master the business and creative sides of freelance writing, and BookCatcher.com (http://www.bookcatcher.com), a free website to help authors promote their books.

Web Measurement Strategies for Small Businesses

2007-12-26T20:07:00.000+01:00

By Neil Mason, The ClickZ Network, Nov 27, 2007
Columns | Contact Neil

I've just returned from presenting at an Internet marketing seminar targeted at small and medium-sized businesses. Preparing for the presentation made me think about how to coordinate an effective digital marketing measurement program when you don't have much of a budget. I'm a great believer Arthur C. Nielsen's quote: "The price of light is less than the cost of darkness." Still, companies must live within their means and small businesses often don't have huge amounts of money to spend on data collection and analysis.

So what's an effective Web measurement strategy for a small company doing business online? It actually doesn't look much different from a large organization's strategy. Just the scale and some tools might be different. A small business still needs a holistic approach to measuring its online channel and the right tools in its toolbox. It must have clearly defined online goals and objectives, which can be translated into a set of KPIs (define). A small business still needs the right processes in place to ensure its data's integrity.

In some cases, it might be easier for small businesses to measure online performance. Defining business goals and KPIs may be easier because fewer people are involved in the process. Managing its processes may be easier to ensure pages are correctly tagged and campaigns are properly tracked, for example. Measurement may be easier because one person might do everything.

Small businesses might find it harder to take a holistic view of measuring their online channel by having multiple tools in their toolbox. An effective strategy for measuring and optimizing site performance has four key components:

Good market intelligence

Sophisticated visitor behavior analysis

Excellent user profiling

Effective site-performance tracking

Market intelligence provides the context for the business's own performance. While the majority of a digital marketer's time can be focused on the brand and its site, it's important to remember that the neither the brand nor the site operate in a vacuum. External factors and forces are also at play. Larger businesses might buy into third-party data providers, such as comScore, Nielsen//NetRatings, and Hitwise. These services are often out of small businesses' reach and may mot even be suitable for sites with lower traffic levels. However, a small business can still uses online resources, such as government statistics and sites like ClickZ, to keep a breast of trends in the industry.

Visitor behavior analysis comes from Web analytics tools. Some sophisticated reporting packages are available for free or at low cost. Google Analytics is free and will suit many businesses' needs for a long time to come. (Microsoft is launching its own service soon.) For those willing to invest a little bit, other tools are suitable for small businesses. I like ClickTracks for its ease of use and some of its powerful analysis features.

User profiling is the process of getting to know who's using your site and why. The basic principles of marketing are about understanding your customers and meeting their needs. In our online environment, a business must know the following:

Who is visiting my site?

What are they trying to achieve? What are their goals?

Were they able to do what they wanted to do? If not, why not?

This data can be collected from surveys, and there are plenty of cost-effective Web survey services around (SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang, etc.) that allow you to create online surveys at a reasonably low cost. Just because a survey is cheap to run, it doesn't mean it's low quality. Pay attention to the type of information you're asking for and the way you ask for it.

Finally, site-performance tracking looks at a site's effectiveness from a technical perspective. It encompasses speed of page delivery, site availability, and responsiveness of transactional processes. A Forrester report on this subject shows that users find slow Web sites are less interesting, less believable, and less trustworthy. If you're a small business trying to cut through the Internet's noise, don't burden your site with these perceptions. Tracking and measuring your site's speed are an important component of the mix. If you can't afford to buy into continuous services such as Keynote Systems or Gomez, find sites to test your site speed for free or on an ad-hoc basis.

For small businesses, the price of light may not be the actual price you need to pay for data services but rather the time you need to spend managing, interpreting, and understanding the data you can get. In this competitive environment, doesn't it make sense to work smarter?

Apps Us Marketers Can't Live Without

2007-12-19T03:36:00.000+01:00

Here at VerticalResponse we have roughly 70% of all employees using Apple computers. Our engineering department refuses to use anything else, and our latest convert was our Vice President of Product Management, Josh, who is on the latest Macbook Pro - where if he really needs to, he can run Windows.

As a side note, check out one of our customers, Due Maternity, talking about us on the Apple website.

We love our Macs and we love web-based software (after all, our product is web-based). I figured I'd share some Apple-specific software that works for us and web-based software that anyone can use. I've asked Alf, our Director of Marcom, and Ivan, our Web Producer, to weigh in on what they like too.

Janine's Picks

	Typepad - Online tool for blogging. I use it to publish this blog - it's about $5/month and totally easy to use.
	Salesforce.com - Online CRM tool for managing contacts and marketing to them. You can use VR from within this application. It has a few limitations with a Mac but still worth it! Just $95/month or $65/month depending on your flavor. The best part? You can use VerticalResponse right from within you salesforce account, then when someone clicks or opens your email, it is reported right back into the lead record. Booyah!
	FileMaker - Software to customize and store your database if you aren't into the online thing like Salesforce.com. $299 for the product, and you can totally customize your database.
	NewsGator - This is a great online tool for tracking keywords that appear on blogs and in the online world. We use it to see who is talking about us, and better yet, who is talking about our competition. You can really track where your press releases are being picked up more or less, real-time. I think we pay about $15/month.

Alf's Picks

	Firefox Extensions - Alone, Firefox is a great browser, but add the treasure trove of extentions available, and it becomes an invaluable tool for marketers and developers alike. On the marketing side, one of my favorites is SearchStatus, it shows me the Google PageRank & Alexa Rank for any page I browse right in my status bar and lets me instantly check a page's keyword density, backlinks & indexed pages in a variety of search engines (among a few other goodies). On the development side Web Developer is da bomb, I know there's been a lot of buzz about FireBug (I have that one installed too) with all its Web 2oh AJAXy Goodness, but my loyalty is still with Web Developer ... it's just too useful.
	Apple Keynote (Mac Only) - Them special effects is fantastic. Mac only (you can save to ppt for pc but why?) presentations & slide shows, this app kicks PowerPoint's *#$%. We use it to create the big-screen product presentaions for our trade show booth, and it's as easy as pie to use. Sync it up to a playlist in your iTunes library...click... and you have yourself an instant soundtrack, Rock On! Don't beleve me? Visit us at a tradeshow and see for yourself.
	OmniOutliner (Mac Only) - When I need to structure my thoughts on various marketing projects, I find OmniOutliner from the Omni Group to be the simplest hierarchical outlining app around. You can organize almost anything with this app, complex road maps, or simple to-do list. Its super flexibility and scriptability make it an irreplaceable tool. Can't wait to get my hands on Omni's sister app OmniPlan once its out of beta.

Ivan's Picks

	QuickSilver (Mac Only) - Remember the LiveStrong bracelet at the apex of its popularity? Being marginally tech-savvy and not having this installed on your Apple is like forgetting to wear your LiveStrong bracelet in 2004. If you are fond of keyboard shortcuts, this is the app for you. Despite its overbearing trendiness, it turns out there is reason it fosters zealotry among its users - if you take the time to learn it, it really speeds up your workflow while simultaneously impressing your haughty, hipster friends.
	NetNewsWire (Mac Only) - Just about every site these days has a news feed you can subscribe to, and this gem for OS X is the best way to manage those news feed subscriptions. Subscribe to all your competitor's feeds, industry blogs and publications. Become one with your business' marketplace. There is a free version (NetNewsWire Lite) and one you can purchase ($29.95). The paid version integrates into your NewsGator account, allowing you to synchronize your feed subscriptions across multiple computers, and even access them through a web browser if you are jonesing for an information fix.
	Basecamp - This web-based application is a great tool to manage your ongoing projects, streamline communication and enhance collaboration within a team. It came quite in handy when we were re-designing our website and needed to keep track of the seemingly-endless task list. If you're an Apple user, you can also integrate Basecamp into your dashboard with either the Telescope or the Basecamp widget.

Got any applications your marketing can't live without? Comment and tell everyone!

Brand equity

2007-12-18T03:13:00.000+01:00

Brand equity can be defined in many different ways. I have developed a simple, yet powerful, definition of brand equity. For a brand to be strong it must accomplish two things over time: retain current customers and attract new ones. To the extent a brand does these things well, it grows stronger versus competition, and delivers more profits to its owners.

Breaking down the definition of "brand equity" into its two components, we can more easily determine a reliable way to measure brand equity, and to track changes in brand equity over time. The components of brand equity, retention and attraction of customers, stem from people's experiences with and perceptions of a brand.

The ability to retain customers is largely experiential. High equity brands exhibit stronger levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty. History has shown that consumers will continue to buy a brand that offers them "their money's worth."

The ability to attract new customers is largely perceptual. Because customers do not have actual brand experience, they must go by what they hear, see and believe about a brand. The two primary ways the market receives this information is through messages controlled by marketing, such as advertising and PR efforts, as well as uncontrolled messages such as press stories and "word of mouth."

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_D._White

Mini tutorial on SpamAssassin

2007-12-15T14:53:00.000+01:00

Here’s a selected list of just a few of the hundreds of terms blocked by SpamAssassin, the most widely used network-level filter.

(Note: SpamAssassin uses open-source technology aimed at UNIX systems. My non-techie interpretation of this is that network administrators can configure SpamAssassin however they want.)

Some common trigger words or phrases:

- subject line starts with “free”

- subject contains FREE in all caps

- the word “free” in certain phrases (free offer, free leads, free access, free preview)

- certain words like “guarantee” in all caps

- words like “unsubscribe,” “leave,” and other list removal phrases

- using font sizes that are 2 + or bigger

- background in an HTML email that isn’t white

- HTML font color is gray, red, yellow, green, blue, magenta or “unknown to us”

- claims compliance with spam regulations or with US Senate Bill 1618 or House Bill 4176

- urges you to call now or claims you can be removed from the list

- the phrases: what are you waiting for, while supplies last, while you sleep

- asks you to click below

- uses a Nigerian scam key phrase such as “million dollars”

- money back guarantee

Eegads...

How can you avoid all of these? The answer is you don’t have to. SpamAssassin uses a rules-based system to filter mail headers and body text.

Basically, it’s a point system that assigns positive (it’s spam) or negative (it’s not spam) scores to a long list of trigger words, phrases and message headers. You have to reach a certain total before your email message is classified as spam and diverted.

If you’re accumulating negative as well as positive points, you may be under the threshold. For example, using the phrase “if only it were that easy” assigns you +2.0 points. “Free preview” gives you +1.7 points while “free trial” gives you only +0.1.

KFI’s: Key Forecast Indicators

2007-11-29T12:16:00.000+01:00

As I said in my presentation at the eMetrics / Marketing Optimization Summit, if you want to get C-Level people to start paying attention to web analytics, you have to get into the business of predicting / forecasting. Let’s face it, KPI’s are about the past, right? You don’t know “Performance” until it has already happened.

But C-folks don’t really care much about what has already happened, because they can’t do anything about it. What they really want to know is what you think will happen. For example, ideas like “sales pipeline” - a forecast. If you start forecasting - and you are right - you will get attention from the C-folks pronto. The web is a great forecasting tool because it’s so frictionless; it tends to provide tangible signals before many other parts of the business.

So: Do you have any KFI’s - Key Forecast Indicators?

I have one for the Lab Store, and it tripped about 2 months ago. It’s the Unwanted Exotic Index (UEI).

As part of the Lab Store, we run a moderated board where people who want to give up exotic pets can post the availability, and people looking for exotic pets can post requests. Typically, the ratio of people giving them up to wanting them is about .25 - for every post looking to give an exotic up, there are 4 posts looking to adopt.

A couple of months ago, this ratio starts popping higher. A couple of weeks ago it hit 1.25 - for every 5 posts looking to give up an exotic there were 4 posts looking to adopt. The last time something like this happened was prior to the mini-recession of 2004, when the Unwanted Exotic Index tagged 1.0 for a short time. After this happened, our sales got soft about 2 - 3 months later.

Why is the UEI predictive? Let’s go through the logic - my logic, anyway!

Keeping certain types of exotic animals can be a strain on a family, both from a time and money perspective. They can be high maintenance. On the margin, as the economy gets tougher and people look to manage household budgets, these pets can get some scrutiny - particularly if kids have lost interest or gone off to college. So more go up for adoption. At the same time, requests to adopt fall, as families who might have considered an exotic pet put the “owning decision” on hold. Taken together, these decisions cause the UEI to spike higher. Both giving up and deciding not to own exotic pets affects Lab Store revenues “expected” in the future. So the UEI ends up being predictive of future demand.

Makes sense to me.

Now, I’m a pretty good student of macroeconomics and pay attention to many economic indicators, especially predictive ones like the ECRI’s US Weekly Leading Index. If you’re an analyst, you should too; economic indicators provide context for any analysis you might have to do, and clients often want to understand the impact of these external issues on their business.

As far as the Lab Store specifically, I don’t usually pay much attention to the macroeconomic cycles. The pet business tends to be insensitive to the economic cycle; people don’t stop caring for pets as the economy wobbles up and down. That’s why it’s such a good business - if you can find a niche. So I don’t get too concerned when I see these predictive macroeconomic indexes forecasting a slowing economy.

However, what we have here with our Unwanted Exotic Index is a confirmation of the broader economic forecasting tools that is specific to our exotic pet business. That makes me sit up and take notice! Looks like our business is setting up for a repeat of the 2004 slowdown - the last time the UEI spiked like this. Why is this important? Because I can do something with this knowledge. I can re-allocate and re-prioritize based on this knowledge. For example, I can move from a “grow bigger” to a “grow smarter” mode.

And please note: this KFI has nothing to do with traffic or sales on the web site; traffic and sales are “rear view”. By the time you see the sales slow down it will be too late to do anything about it. And that’s why the C-folks don’t care much about web analytics reports.

You could track an index like the UEI with a web analytics tool, but you’d have to come up with the idea first. My point is you will probably have to look outside the usual “rear view” metrics to find one with forecasting ability. I caution you not to substitute a “survey” for a predictive model; people’s opinions are a notoriously lagging indicator. You’ll be up to your ears in the slowdown before people start turning bearish.

So: Do you have any KFI’s - Key Forecast Indicators? Tell us about them.

If you don’t have any KFI’s, now is the time to start looking for them. What can you see now that predicts what will happen in the future? Think about the business, think about the data sources, and put together a bunch of different ideas. Track them back a couple of years and post them monthly going forward. You’re bound to find something predictive. Perhaps something about posting, like the UEI. Recommendations / comments as a percent of visitors or something like that.

If you’re stuck, start with a simple “engagement” idea - percent visitors / members / customers who visited / logged in / bought in the past 90 days. If this percentage is falling, so will your business in the next 3 - 6 months. If your business has a lot of seasonality in it, look to year-over-year comps of the same metric.

If you’ve never played this game before, you won’t have proof your KFI’s work until after the business is in the soup, but you’ll be ready with accurate and actionable KFI’s the next time around!

Stand and Deliver

2007-11-15T14:05:00.000+01:00

If the Brady Bunch taught us anything about public speaking, it's that you should always imagine your audience in their underwear. Okay. So there you are, up at the podium, nothing but bras and boxers as far as the eye can see. Now what?

Social media expert Chris Brogan has some ideas about what to do next:

Lead with humor. You have two minutes to make your audience love you. Skip boring preambles and corny jokes. Win them over with a funny story highlighting your keen sense of self-deprecation.
Follow up with a question. But not because you want an answer—no, your goal is to get everyone thinking about themselves. "I want you to be connected and engaged to what I'm saying," writes Brogan. "If I'm getting you to stir up internal memories, I've snuck in." Clever, huh?
Go for a walk. Unless you're saddled with a fixed microphone, interact with the audience by moving around. No fidgeting.
Speak like a broadcaster. Vary your volume, stick to short statements and pause once in a while. Banish um and uh from your vocabulary unless you want to put your audience to sleep.
End with an "idea handle." Give your audience an idea they can implement as soon as they leave. They've given you their time—make it worth their while.

Chris Brogan's savvy approach to public speaking gets your audience thinking about how your ideas impact their lives—that's Marketing Inspiration.

See the full article at Chris Brogan's site.

MP 'Classic Truths': If You Don't Measure, You Can't Manage: The Best Metrics for Managing Marketing Performance

2007-11-15T13:44:00.001+01:00

by Laura Patterson

Without metrics to track performance, marketing and business plans are ineffective.

Businesses need to know which success factors require measuring, and they must understand the differences between measurements (the raw outcomes of quantification), metrics (ideal standards for measurement), and benchmarks (the standards by which all others are measured).

For marketers, three primary metrics constitute a starting point for tracking their performance. Once companies are aware of their competitive position, their desired outcomes, and what it will take to achieve those outcomes, companies will be better able to identify the success factors, benchmarks, and appropriate metrics to meet their target.

Why Measure?

Metrics are a part of our everyday lives: from our heart rate, to our bank balances; from our weight, to the gas mileage on our cars. If we don't pay attention to these numbers, we create a risk for getting a heart attack, being overdrawn, or running out of gas.

The same is true in the business environment. If a company doesn't identify and track important performance measures, it increases its risks.

Metrics provide a means to assess progress; they provide valuable data points against which the marketing organization can track its progress. Metrics demonstrate accountability and allow marketers to better know, act upon, align efforts, and reduce market exposure. Metrics enable the marketing organization to truly serve as the eyes and ears of the company.

And, more importantly, establishing and tracking metrics will have a positive influence on the leadership's satisfaction with Marketing and the marketer's ability to secure funds. Only 38% of US executives say their companies are now measuring the results of their marketing efforts, according to a study of senior business executives conducted in the second quarter of 2004 by Blackfriar.

Will measurement actually change investment in Marketing? Blackfriar compared planned marketing spending for companies that measure marketing with those that don't. The result? Firms that measure marketing planned to spend an average of 41% of their annual marketing budgets during the second quarter. Those that don't measure planned to spend only 33%; apparently, they felt more comfortable planning to spend their marketing dollars than those that don't measure.

Measuring marketing also has an impact on the satisfaction of senior executives regarding their investment in Marketing. Some 16% of executives at companies that measure marketing said they were dissatisfied with their marketing efforts. But at firms that don't measure marketing, 28% said they were dissatisfied.

The simple act of measuring marketing results reduced the dissatisfaction of senior executives significantly. In other words, measurement allowed Marketing to prove its worth.

Defining Metrics

The world of metrics can be confusing for people new to these concepts. To better understand metrics and how they work, several terms must be defined:

Measurements are the raw outcome of a quantification process, such as a company's numbers, ratios, and percentages.
Metrics are the standards for measurement, providing target values that a company must achieve to reach a certain level of success.
Benchmarks are the best measurements to aspire to, the standard by which all others are measured. Companies that set benchmarks in their industries are the ones often lauded in "Top Ten" and "Most Admired" lists and articles.

A good example of a marketing benchmark can be traced back to the early 1990s. Over a decade ago, market research firm IntelliQuest (now Millward Brown IntelliQuest) conducted a customer satisfaction research study for the personal computing industry.

The firm spoke to customers who rated the companies in the industry, which resulted in a measurement on a one-to-nine scale. It then learned that 84% of users who rated their satisfaction as a seven, an eight, or a nine would consider the same brand for their next purchase. Seven, eight, or nine became the metrics that companies aspired to attain. The benchmark was nine.

Three Metrics Gauges

To determine which success factors to measure and the appropriate metrics for each, marketers must have a clear understanding of the company's goals. A young company looking to gain traction in the market is focused on factors different from those of a more established company wanting to improve its customer relationships.

For those beginning to use metrics, listed below are four key performance indicators that support three metrics gauges: market share, lifetime value, and brand equity.

These gauges are directly linked to the three specific performance areas that Marketing can impact: acquisition, penetration, and monetization.

The first responsibility of Marketing is to identify and enable the organization to acquire customers, without whom there is no revenue, without which there is no business. Acquisition enables the company to increase its market share.

Although Marketing may not close the deal, marketing strategies move the customer through the buying process, from awareness to consideration. Four key performance indicators enable you to address market share:

Customer growth rate
Share of preference
Share of voice
Share of distribution

The second responsibility of Marketing is to keep the customers that the company acquires and increase the value of those customers. It is expensive and ultimately disastrous to have customers coming in one door only to go out another. High customer churn signals a variety of problems and hinders your ability to create leverage.

The following performance indicators will help your drive these penetration-related metrics:

Frequency and recency of purchase
Share of wallet
Purchase value growth rate
Customer tenure
Customer loyalty and advocacy

The third responsibility of Marketing is monetization. Up until the 1970s, a company's value was determined by its book value. Over time, intangible assets, such as a company's intellectual property, customer value, franchises, goodwill, and so on have had an increasing effect on a company's market value.

Marketing professionals can improve the market value of their company by improving their performance in four key areas:

Price premium
Customer franchise value
Rate of new product acceptance
Net advocate score

A recently published report, "Measures + Metrics: Assessing Marketing Value + Impact," by Glazier, Nelson and O'Sullivan, corroborates these gauges and performance metrics. In their report for the CMO Council, the authors specified four performance metrics:

Business acquisition/demand generation, which can include such metrics as market share gains, lead acquisition and deal flow
Product innovation/acceptance, which can include market adoption rates, user attachment and affinity, loyalty and word-of-mouth
Corporate image and brand identity, which can include growth in brand value and financial equity, awareness and retention of employees
Corporate vision and leadership, which can include share of voice and discussion, retention and relevance of messaging, and tonality of coverage

Regardless of which model companies choose to deploy, to fully capitalize on the benefits of metrics they should consider establishing a continuous process in which metrics are collected, analyzed, and reported on a regular basis.

Over time, metrics can reveal valuable information about which marketing tactics are most effective, what types of prospects are most likely to buy, which customers are most profitable, and how the market in general develops over time.

Also important to remember is that metrics themselves can change over time. As the market and the company evolve, marketers must diligently review and adjust their metrics.

Innovative competitors will continue to set higher benchmarks, ratcheting up the acceptable range of metrics. The airline industry's 45-minute airplane turnaround time was considered standard until Southwest Airlines decided to do it in 15 minutes. Some metrics may become outdated, and newer metrics and methods of measurement will require attention.

To work without metrics is to work blindly. A lack of metrics makes it extremely difficult to assess whether a course of action is working or needs adjustment. The proper use of metrics can provide guidance to help a company expand market position, lower costs, and retain the best customers so that the company can ultimately set the benchmarks in its industry.

Note: This MarketingProfs "Classic Truths" article was first published on November 23, 2004.

Laura Patterson (laurap@visionedgemarketing.com) is president and founder of VisionEdge Marketing, Inc. (www.visionedgemarketing.com) and author of Measure What Matters: Reconnecting Marketing to Business Goals and Gone Fishin': A Guide to Finding, Keeping, and Growing Profitable customers.

Published on October 23, 2007

Breaking News: Advertising Is Dead!

2007-11-14T23:15:00.000+01:00

by Barry A. Densa

Don't agree?

Please ask your wife, husband, or significant other—in other words, the nearest typical consumer—to answer the following seven questions:

Does viewing pop-up ads on your computer curl your toes in orgasmic delight? Yes or No?
Does a mailbox filled with junk mail cause your palms to itch and sweat with nervous anticipation? Yes or No?
Do you suffer from outbursts of violent anger when a TV commercial is interrupted by a TV movie? Yes or No?
Do you prance around the parking lot with ecstatic abandon whenever you find a flyer on your car's windshield? Yes or No?
Does keeping a phone next to your soup spoon on your dinner table (for fear of missing the next telemarketer's call) help your digestion? Yes or No?
Do you drink pots of black coffee at 10 pm so you can stay awake to watch 30-minute infomercials at 4 am? Yes or No?
Do you drool at the thought of spending $300 on an iPhone just so you can see interactive ads on its big, cool screen? Yes or No?

Have I made my point? Yes or No?

Advertising is dead. If you're a marketer... save your money.

Consumers have been over-advertised to and over-sold.

Unless you're conducting a white sale, fire sale, or going-out-of-business sale—and halving or quartering your prices—advertising won't get you a bang, a whimper- or a nickel for your buck. Not anymore.

The only ads that still earn their keep are those in newspapers and on supermarket windows:

Big SALE
Buy 1 Can of Campbell Soup for 89 Cents
and Get a 2nd Can—FREE!
Supplies limited!

Or something like that.

Beyond that, the first reaction that most consumers have when viewing any other type ad is to not believe anything it says.

And if they have no need, desire, or knowledge of you, your product ,or your service, their second reaction is to play basketball: Their arm and hand muscles reflexively contract, causing them to roll up your ad (even if figuratively) into a tight little ball and shoot for the nearest basket.

Beware the Consumer's Anti-Ad Third Eye

Because the consumer has become so desensitized to advertisements in general, if you don't shove your ad, sales letter, or flyer directly and firmly into their hands—they won't even notice it.

It's as if they've developed an anti-ad third eye that instinctively alerts them to an ad's presence and then immediately shoots a signal to the brain, instructing the other two eyes not to see it.

For example: How often, when surfing the Web, have you run across a Web page with a bright red, 40-word, one-sentence headline, ending with an exclamation mark or two or three?

Unless searching for that particular Web page, the average information-seeking web-surfer will immediately recognize the site as an ad and click away—without even reading two words of it.

The same thing happens when reading the newspaper, or driving past a billboard on the highway. Consumers simply refuse to look at the ads.

So What's a Marketer to Do?

Advertorialize!

I'll explain...

The success of the Internet has proven one thing above all else: Human beings, who include consumers, are addicted to information.

Google—the Internet version of a library card catalog—exists, thrives, dominates, and will eventually own the world because consumers are in a constant, never-ending search for more and more information.

And why do consumers want ever more information that will convince, compel, and persuade them to a certain point of view?

So they can make the most efficient, prudent, and intelligent choice about whatever it is they want to own, possess, consume, or buy.

Yes, buy.

Though consumers hate to be sold to, they nevertheless love to buy.

And their decision to buy is most effectively influenced when they are provided with information that supports, confirms. and increases their already resident desire to buy!

Enter the Advertorial

The advertorial is an ad disguised as an editorial. A cunning wolf in sheep's clothing. It's roughly 80% useful, compelling, and persuasive information—and 20% sales pitch.

It will never mention the name of the product, its features, or benefits in the headline. Because that would be too obvious—it would scream "ad" and immediately activate the consumer's anti-ad third eye.

Instead, in a newspaper, in a direct mail promotion, or on the Internet the advertorial will attract attention and readership by merely dangling the tantalizing promise of free actionable and profitable information... if only the reader would continue to read on.

An advertorial headline won't scream "LOSE 10LBS OF FAT IN 10 DAYS OR YOUR MONEY BACK!!"

Instead, the advertorial headline will read "John Hopkins Research PhD discovers active ingredient in ice cream that causes rapid weight loss."

Then the advertorial will proceed to show and prove, in pseudo-journalistic fashion, the What, Why, Who, Where, and When of how the product or service does precisely what the consumer wants and needs.

The advertorial delivers valuable, documented information that relentlessly leads readers to the inevitable conclusion that the solution to their problem or need is... whatever it is you're selling.

It doesn't look, taste, or smell like an ad, and the consumer's anti-ad third eye will never see it coming.

Try it... you'll like it.

Barry A. Densa is a freelance marketing and sales copywriter. Visit WritingWithPersonality.com to see samples of "salesmanship in print."

Published on October 9, 2007

18 Web-Marketing Concepts That Make a Difference

2007-11-14T18:39:00.000+01:00

by Jerry Bader

If you've been looking high and low for the secret to Web success, today is your lucky day. These "18 Web-Marketing Concepts That Make a Difference" may just give you an edge on your competition—or an edge, period.

So if the same old left-brain thinking that everybody else is using just doesn't get you where you want to be, try these creative concepts on for size.

1. Think audiences not markets

What's your market? Hire a consultant to help you with your Web-business problems, and one of the first questions he or she will ask is, What's your market? How about 18-34-year-old, single male college graduates with a dog named Spot; or maybe 45-59-year-old married women who hate their husbands and can't get their adult children to move out of the house. Maybe, just maybe, they're asking the wrong question.

The Web isn't about markets, it's about audiences. Audiences need to be entertained, enlightened, and engaged; and if your Web site doesn't, you're never going to achieve what you want.

Time to rethink how you're delivering your marketing message. Start treating Web visitors like an audience, not a market, and you might just find what it takes to be successful on the Web.

2. Think people not customers

You know all those visitors you attract to your Web site with your brilliant search engine optimization schemes? How many actually purchase anything? Stop treating visitors as if they are already customers and start treating them like what they are—people. That's right, people. You know, the two-legged funny creatures with wants, needs, desires, and maybe even a few bucks to spend.

Customers are always looking for a deal and they're leery of Web sites that only want to take their hard-earned cash. Treat your Web visitors like people who can satisfy their wants, needs, and desires with your assistance... and guess what? Maybe it will make a difference: one small step for Web credibility, one giant leap for Web success.

3. Think experiences not features

Bought any good features lately? Didn't think so. You would think the way business pushes them that features are exactly what people are looking for; but nobody buys features, they don't even buy solutions (doesn't that whole solution provider nonsense really get to you after a while?).

What people really buy are experiences: hopefully, positives ones. Whether it's soft ice cream or a new accounting program, what people are paying for is the experience your product or service provides.

Does your Web site offer an experience? Does it explain the experience your product or service delivers? If it doesn't, then you really haven't got anything anybody wants.

4. Think emotion not logic

Think you're a logical person, always making rational decisions based on practical criteria, and bottom-line results? So tell me what was the functional thinking that went into the purchase of those leather pants you bought last year, or that 60-inch plasma television you bought just to watch the big game?

Let's get real. You make purchasing decisions based on what you want, and then justify them with seemingly sensible rationalizations, just like everybody else. So stop trying to appeal only to the practical, logical aspects of bean-counter sales, and start pushing the feel-good aspects of emotional marketing.

If you're trying to appeal to an audience that gets its only satisfaction out of acquiring the most features for the least cost, then you're marketing to the wrong audience.

5. Think memories not promotions

Most animals live in the moment, whereas human beings live in the past. Our here and now and our plans for the future are based on our experiences, our histories, and our memories.

We take pictures of our kids, holidays, and special events; we commemorate birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, and milestones of all kinds. Even the significance of our prized possessions is centered on the fact that those mere objects represent memories of the people, places, and events that shaped our lives.

Real marketing, the kind that creates long-term clients and customer relationships, is not about coupons, sale promotions, or deep discounts; it's about delivering memories.

6. Think marketing not SEO

Okay, here's one you've heard from us before: Think marketing—not search engine optimization.

Sure you've got to drive as many people to your Web site as possible, but if your marketing message is so confused, unfocused, and hard to comprehend because of all the keyword density and SEO tricks, then what have you really accomplished other than wasting people's time? And people get really upset when you waste their time.

7. Think stickiness not hits

It's not about how many hits you get on your Web site, it's about how long people stay. If visitors remain on your site long enough to get your marketing message, then you must have said something worth listening to; and if visitors get the message, your site has done its job.

If your Web site delivers the message, then you can expect the email inquiries and phone calls to start flowing, but it's still up to you and your sales staff to close the sale: People close sales, not Web sites.

8. Think stories not pitches

Did you hear the one about the farmer's daughter and the search engine optimizer? Stories, everyone loves stories. In fact, before the invention of the Gutenberg press, oral storytelling was the way knowledge got passed down from one generation to the next, and how news was sent from one region to another.

Now that we have this multimedia Web environment, we can continue the tradition of real people who deliver creative audio and video presentations that capture the imagination and drive home the marketing message so your audience won't forget who you are.

Nothing informs, engages, and entertains like a good story: Sounds to me like one heck of a way to sell to an audience desperate for meaningful communication.

9. Think focus not confusion

There you go again, telling everyone who will listen all the wonderful things you and your company can do. Trouble is, telling them all those things just confuses them.

What is the product or service that is most important to your company, the one you are determined to sell to your audience? That's the one you want to talk about. That's the one you want to devote your marketing effort to promoting. That's the one you want people to think about when they hear your name or see your logo.

Focus your communication ,else your message will just be a forgettable, incomprehensible blur.

10. Think campaigns not ads

Isolated one-time advertisements are like one-night-stands: exciting for a while, but ultimately unfulfilling and devoid of meaning. Your audience is looking for marriage, not a short-term fling.

Your marketing has to woo your visitors with long-term campaigns that tell your story and deliver your focused message; audiences expect to be courted and counseled with meaningful communication. And that takes time and commitment.

If you're spending money on just ads, you might as well be throwing that money down the drain. There is a better way. So if you're looking for a long-term relationship with your audience, think campaigns—not ads.

11. Think message not hype

What message are you delivering to your online visitors? Are you telling them you've got the best product, at the best price, with the best staff, and world-class customer service? Is that what you saying? Guess what? Nobody cares, because nobody believes you.

There is only one way to show people you're the best and that is to prove it; but here's the catch, you can't prove it until they become customers. Whoops.

OK, so what's the solution? How about a real marketing message that speaks to what your audience really wants. It's not about you, it's about them.

12. Think personality not banality

Does your Web site just lie there like a lox: you know, that cold, dead fish that often comes with a bagel? No personality, just more of the same tedious, dull, dreary, mind-numbing, tiresome, lackluster, monotonous stuff everybody else has. Boring!

This is the new Web, so if you can't get with it you'd better get out, because you're wasting your time and everybody else's.

You're so worried about downloading times that you forgot to put anything on your site worth seeing or hearing. Check your logs. If people are jumping ship faster than rats on a burning ship, it's time to try something new—like some compelling content.

13. Think branding not copyrights

Hey, I love the Beatles. I grew up with them, and I have all their records—yea, records, like vinyl, not CDs. And guess what, I've also got a Mac, in fact I've got a bunch of them, not to mention iPods and other assorted Apple gizmos and gadgets. And you know something? I've never once got John, Paul, George, or Ringo confused with Steve Jobs. Amazing!

Worry just a little less about all that small-print stuff and more on building a memorable brand that people will remember, and that nobody will mistake for some johnny-come-lately imposter.

14. Think positioning not slogan

It's funny how people have a position on almost everything: You name the issue and people will have a definite opinion on what they think, except when it comes to their businesses. Just because you have a cute slogan that you print under your logo doesn't mean you own a position in your audience's minds.

It seems businesses can't stand to make a definitive statement about who they are and what they do. Why is that? Afraid they'll lose a customer, I guess; but if people don't understand exactly what you do, and why they should be doing business with you, then they're never going to be customers anyway.

No company can be all things to all people, and companies that try... never go anywhere. Tell people who you are and what you do, and forget about all the other stuff; it just gets in the way.

15. Think sensory appeal not cents appeal

Do you want people to sit up and take notice of what you have to say? Do you want people to actually remember what you're telling them? If so, you'd better appeal to their senses, and we're talking about sights and sounds.

Deliver all your juicy, got-to-have content in an audio and video presentation that will stick in people's heads.

If all you're doing is appealing to their desire to spend less, then maybe they aren't the customers you're looking for anyway. Nobody can afford to sell for less all the time, every time.

16. Think identity not logos

Is your company the equivalent of the invisible man? You're on the Web, but nobody cares because you're not saying anything worth listening to; and if they do see you, you are instantly forgettable.

You've got to have an identity, a personality, an image—and there is no better way to create that identity than with a video of a real person delivering your marketing message in an entertaining, memorable manner.

17. Think entertainment not biz-speak

Speaking of entertaining... you cannot engage, enlighten, or entertain if everything you present sounds and looks like it came from some b-school textbook or one of those self-help courses on direct marketing guaranteed to make you a millionaire in only three weeks.

Every business has a story to tell, and it can be presented in a compelling way with a little imagination and creativity. And yes, even B2B businesses can rise above the mundane and deadly boring if they take the time and make the effort.

18. Think communication not copy

Last but not least, let's all remember that Web sites are about communication. If you've got nothing to say, nothing to offer, or are afraid to say what you can do for your audience, then how do you expect to be successful?

Filling your Web pages with keyword-dense prose and instantly forgettable sales copy is not going to win the day.

Whether you are presenting your case in text, audio, or video, it had better be interesting and enlightening—even text can be entertaining if written with style and attitude.

When Web sites fail, they fail because they do not communicate a realistic, believable, convincing marketing message.

A note to Web site adventurers

If you missed the discovery of the "Lost Brad Tapes," follow the adventures of fellow Web site entrepreneur Brad and how he tried to find the secret to Web site success. It's time well wasted.

Jerry Bader is senior partner in MRPwebmedia (www.mrpwebmedia.com), a Web site design firm that specializes in Web audio and video.

Published on September 25, 2007

Beyond the 4Ps: The 5Ts of Marketing Operations

2007-11-14T18:11:00.000+01:00

by Adrian Carol Ott

CMOs of global companies are now confronted with unparalleled challenges—and opportunities:

Marketing accountability: It is no secret that CEOs are demanding greater ROI on their marketing investments. Consequently, many CMOs are driving initiatives to make the marketing function more accountable and measurable.

Globalization: Serving global markets necessitates that marketing coordinate campaigns across continents to leverage cost and synchronize messaging; however, campaigns must also meet local needs and norms.

Complex consumer expectations: Consumers have become increasingly vigilant about spam and privacy. Compliance with the regulations of each country and state is mandatory.

Mergers and acquisition (M&A) integration: Frequent M&A places constant demands to rapidly integrate messaging, Web, and collateral of newly acquired companies into the corporate brand. Inadequate marketing budgets frequently associated with acquisitions place additional stress on existing budget priorities.

New marketing technology: The advent of new internet technology has enabled unprecedented interactive dialog with customers. This presents a huge opportunity for forward-thinking companies to target and reach customers in personalized ways. However, new technologies must be implemented and integrated across the world with regional marketing teams that execute campaigns locally.

Stakeholder agreement: Coordination with regional marketing groups, product business units, and sales is a major task. Processes are needed to prioritize and support new product introductions and demand generation within marketing budget constraints. Terms such as "What constitutes a qualified lead?" need to be standardized worldwide. Otherwise, roll-up, visibility, and accountability via actionable CMO and campaign dashboards become nearly impossible.

Marketing Operations Emerges as a Discipline

Faced by these demands, many CMOs have commissioned a marketing operations organization to tackle these challenges. Originally designated to create metrics and dashboards for accountability, marketing operations is increasingly being treated by leading companies as a foundation to the marketing function.¹

Marketing operations is the only function (other than the busy CMO) that manages marketing from an end-to-end perspective. Marketing functions such as PR, product marketing and regional marketing only see a portion of the big picture.

"Marketing operations ensures marketing is run as a business," states a VP of Marketing Operations at a major Silicon Valley firm, "We strive to enable the marketing organization to be streamlined in day-to-day processes so they have time to think, focus on the customer and to innovate."²

The 5Ts of Marketing Operations

What constitutes marketing operations? Based on our work with clients, and in our research, we have found that marketing operations is an emerging dimension to the marketing mix. Enabled by new processes and technology, it goes beyond the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion), and 3Cs (Customers, Competitors, Corporation³), to fully round out the marketing mix.

The 5Ts of Marketing Operations:

Total Strategy

Techniques & Processes

Tracking & Predictive Modeling

Technology

Talent

By approaching marketing operations across these dimensions, CMOs have an integrated approach to enable marketing worldwide.

Let's describe the 5Ts in more detail.

Total Strategy

This area involves strategy development in the product portfolio. It is not uncommon for large companies to have dozens of products in their portfolios—some have hundreds. Managing investments and priorities across the portfolio is paramount.

What constitutes effective strategy development for each product?
What are the key elements needed in each plan to win in the marketplace and to roll this out worldwide?
Where do we "double-down" our investment? How do we gain market share with our resources? Where do we reduce investment?
Does the organization reflect how our business should optimally interact with customers? Are there new ways we can improve our dialog and reach?

Chief of staff for the CMO: Based on our work with clients and research, the head of marketing operations in a number of companies takes on this role—driving the organizational agenda, identifying "white spaces," and ensuring measurement results are discussed at review meetings.

Techniques and Processes

How should information flow most effectively across the marketing organization worldwide? How do we make decisions? What are our governance processes? What is our roadmap for marketing processes next year? in three years?

Fiscal planning processes and reviews
How should budgets be allocated?
How should we optimally interact with our customers? What are the touch points?
How should information flow within marketing and with other stakeholders such as sales and business units?
Standards and criteria for evaluating new initiatives and campaigns.
What are product launch categories (e.g., criteria for "A," "B," or "C" launches)
Can we apply Six-Sigma to our processes?
Tracking and Predictive Modeling
How do we make marketing more accountable? How do we measure campaigns and ensure better predictability of outcomes?
How are we doing today? Metrics and dashboards.
Forecasting—What are leading indicators of the future? How can we better target and predict? e.g., data-mining customer databases.

Technology

How do we implement technology across the globe to enable effective customer dialog, demand generation and measurement? What are the business requirements for IT? How does technology support the marketing and sales process road map for the next three years? How do we integrate with sales technology?

Internet/Web/e-commerce
Consolidating/rationalizing customer databases
Online customer forums
Marketing resource management software Analytics/decision-making software
Marketing research databases, etc.

Talent

How do we ensure our marketing personnel are trained and able to work with new marketing technologies and processes? How can we enable them to make the right decisions based on analytics and campaign scorecards?

What are the roles and responsibilities of each talent community?
How do these communities interact? Where are the hand-offs?
Training strategy with a marketing skills curriculum across the marketing function
Ensuring balancing between the art and science of marketing

The 5Ts Transform the Future of Marketing

Although foundational, the 5Ts have a deep and significant impact on customer relationships. For example, by implementing integrated technology for demand generation and customer database access, regional marketing personnel can build innovative campaigns on top of a marketing operations infrastructure. By tracking the success of a campaign, companies will realize better customer targeting and ROI; they learn from prior successes and failures.

Although it can be a multiyear process for large organizations to implement all of the 5Ts, a holistic, integrated approach to marketing operations gains CMOs greater accountability and ROI for their organizations worldwide. It enables them to "run marketing as a business."

The 5Ts add a critical foundation to the marketing function, enabling marketing operations to support CMOs in tackling contemporary challenges and opportunities. The 5Ts are dramatically transforming the marketing function and changing how marketing will be conducted in the future.

Endnotes:

¹In a number of business-to-business-focused firms, marketing operations is combined with the sales operation function to promote integration of the two groups. Although organizationally integrated, the purpose of marketing operations remains the same.

²HBS N. CA Marketing & Sales Roundtable, "Marketing Operations: How It Will Transform Marketing Forever," Panel Discussion with VPs of Marketing Operations from Symantec, Cisco, BEA, and a consumer packaged goods expert, June 20, 2006.

³The 3Cs have been used in other forms and described in different ways. For example, we have heard "Communication" used as a "C." Our description is what appears to be most consistent in the literature. Other forms could be substituted for the 3Cs and have the same effect. The intent here is to avoid debate on this element, as it would diminish the central topic.

Adrian Carol Ott is CEO of Exponential Edge Inc. (www.exponentialedge.com).

Published on September 25, 2007

Quality Metrics Enable Marketing's Ability to Influence Strategic Direction

2007-11-13T23:47:00.000+01:00

by Laura Patterson

Various studies for the past several years from the Association of National Advertisers, Frost & Sullivan, IDC, and the CMO Council, among others, have found that CEOs are demanding more accountability from marketing. While most marketers are measuring something, survey results indicate there is room for improvement regarding metrics and the quality of these metrics.

In fact, results from VisionEdge Marketing's 6th annual Marketing Performance Survey found that only 17% of the 136 executives and marketing professional indicated that their CEO would give marketing an A. In addition, this study and others continue to suggest that a gap remains between a company's business goals and the metrics marketing uses to measure their impact on these goals. Companies continue to struggle with the contradiction between priorities and action.

The need and opportunity remains for marketing to improve the linkage between marketing expenditures and delivered results.

"Marketing must improve its value to justify its existence as a centralized function," according to Elana Anderson, a principal analyst at Forrester Research. If we don't make our case and develop and communicate quality metrics, we may find the days of marketing as a standalone department numbered and instead find ourselves absorbed into sales, finance, or some other function.

It's not like this is a new phenomenon. The concept of measuring marketing has been around for a long time. The question is what should we measure and what metrics are best?

In 2001, James Gregory's article in the Journal of Brand Management shared a proprietary model that linked various financial factors and corporate images to stock prices, sales, and market share. Research at VisionEdge Marketing has found that most companies fail to measure such things as cost to acquire, order value, share of wallet, churn rate, brand equity, and other key business variables that marketing impacts. Rather, marketers have a tendency to measure such things as response rate, demo participation, event traffic, number of new contacts or leads, number of press hits, cost per lead, and lead aging.

While these metrics offer some insight into the results of specific programs, they do not link marketing to the business objectives. In fact, our studies indicate that only about one in four marketers measure marketing's impact on the business and nearly two-thirds of marketing plans do not even include metrics.

A Five-Point Continuum

Forrester Research, Marketing Management Analytics, and the Association of National Advertisers conducted an online survey to find out how marketing professionals leverage marketing analytics. Some 50% of the respondents indicated that measurement remains the hardest part of marketing and 51% are dissatisfied with how they measure marketing ROI. Yet nearly all of the respondents realize that measuring marketing is important and influences senior management's confidence in Marketing personnel and programs.

To make progress on the marketing-measurement front, marketing professionals must shift from tactically based metrics to metrics that are more linked to business outcomes. The measures must include both financial and non-financial goals.

This figure illustrates the continuum of marketing metrics and how marketing metrics are evolving:

Starting at the bottom left and working up and to the right, we can use this illustration as a framework to explore how marketing metrics are evolving from tactical to strategic. Activity-based metrics refer to those things we can count. This was marketing's first foray into the world of measuring—looking for things we could count, such as press hits, click-through rates, CPMs (cost per thousand), and so on.

Most marketing plans today consist of activity lists, such as the number of ads to run, the number of tradeshows to attend, the number of new product brochures to produce, the number of research studies to conduct, and so on. Marketing then reports on the status of these activities—ads ran and responses per ad, Web site visits and downloads, contacts per tradeshow, etc. These are then turned into charts in an attempt to present the marketing dashboard.

Yet with activity-based metrics all we have is a colorful status report and no information on the impact of these activities on the business. The company cannot make any key business decisions or determine whether strategies are working.

Operational metrics, the next level, is a step forward. These metrics focus on improving the efficiency of the organization. Typical metrics in this stage include cost per lead, lead aging, leads per sales rep, and campaign payback. The goal is to squeeze out any inefficiency. While this is a noble pursuit and an important one, marketing efficiency alone will not make a company successful. What really "moves the needle" in terms of business performance is how well its marketing identifies product opportunities, positions these products, builds market traction against the competition, and fosters customer loyalty. Performance outweighs efficiency.

Both activity-based and operational metrics are a good place to start, but neither serves as an accurate indicator of strategic effectiveness. Neither enables the organization to determine which efforts are having the greatest impact; neither provides a quality control process, focuses on marketing's contribution to the company's overall valuation, or serves as a good way to demonstrate marketing's accountability.

To address those issues, marketing executives and professionals need to evolve to outcome-based metrics to develop quality measures. Outcome-based metrics focus on three specific and common business outcomes: market share, customer lifetime value, and brand equity.

Once we accomplish a systematic approach to outcome-based metrics, we will have the basis for advancing to leading indicator metrics—those that help us determine the likelihood of a particular outcome and eventually creative models to use metrics to predict outcomes.

And once we've mastered leading indicator metrics, we're only a few financial models away from predictive models—those that allow us to predict a business outcome.

Creating Your Marketing Executive Dashboard

Marketing performance management and metrics tracking would be incomplete without a way to capture and report the metrics—that is, a dashboard. Ideally, metrics indicate the business health of your organization. A dashboard is the visual representation of a firm's health and provides a snapshot between actual performance and the goals. A good dashboard facilitates action. It not only reports on the metrics being monitored but also serves as a vehicle to help decide on what actions are required and their priorities. Yet, according to a 2005 study conducted by CMO Magazine, three-fourths of marketers have no formal scorecard.

Creating a dashboard is more than just producing a few charts and graphs. A good marketing dashboard serves as a visual and diagnostic vehicle that communicates marketing's effectiveness and impact on business goals. Every metric provides a specific perspective on the firm's business. Some metrics indicate whether there is a problem today, and others help alert marketing to a potential problem down the road. The status of the marketing organization on the metrics continuum will impact what kind of dashboard it can create. As the business goals change, it will be important to revisit the dashboard to make sure the dashboard metrics are still in alignment with the business needs and goals.

As companies progress along the metrics continuum from activity-based to outcome-based, the dashboard will also evolve. Outcome-based metrics involve a dashboard that hones in on the primary business outcomes: market share, customer value and shareholder value. Because these metrics tend to be more market centric, the dashboard begins to provide more strategic insight and direction.

The greatest challenge for the marketing organization is how to capture the metrics. Manual aggregation of data across multiple spreadsheets comes with potential issues, ranging from error-prone reporting to poor utilization of internal resources. Moving from a spreadsheet-based system to an automated system provides greater benefits to the organization as a whole.

A mapping process helps with defining the metrics and ultimately the dashboard. As a result, most companies select metrics and a dashboard that reflects the following six categories:

Market growth
Customer value and net advocacy
Profitable deal flow
Opportunity pipeline
Competitive health and market value index
Product innovation pipeline

Regardless of the metrics you ultimately choose or the categories represented on your dashboard, a good dashboard provides insight into performance, fosters decision-making, and aligns strategy with implementation.

Measure What Matters

We began this discussion about the need for marketing to be more accountable and to develop quality metrics. Hopefully, you have some new ideas on how to focus marketing metrics around business outcomes and how to develop quality metrics that will help you provide insight into how marketing is making a contribution to the company and how to demonstrate that contribution to senior management.

As you continue on your marketing performance journey we hope these ideas lead you to...

Focus marketing metrics around business outcomes.
Develop quality metrics that will help you provide insight into how marketing is making a contribution to the company.
Demonstrate that contribution to senior management.

And we hope your journey will include the following three actions:

Start making active progress on improving marketing performance and accountability.
Even if you don't have all the data, start with what you have, define your data gaps, and develop a plan to close these gaps.
Stop reporting on activities and tactical data around campaigns and Web traffic, and focus on climbing up the metrics continuum. It may still be important to track campaign results for an internal functional dashboard. The more you can link marketing to business outcomes, the more you can influence your company's strategic direction.

If in doubt about what to measure, select those measures that help your company make decisions and take action. When used this way, marketing metrics enable a firm to seize a competitive advantage, and they position Marketing as a strategic member of the team.

Published on September 18, 2007

New Interactive Tools and Tactics for the B2B Marketer

2007-11-13T23:42:00.000+01:00

by Joe Rizzo

Because interactive marketing is inherently more addressable and measurable, B2B shouldn't wait for further proof that online channels pay off. Marketers who fail to adopt these tactics will fall behind with the online buyer acquisition as competitors move ahead with more engaged prospects.

—Forrester Research

In an online sales environment that is both increasingly competitive and cluttered, business-to-business (B2B) marketers must be able to perform two critically important tasks:

They must communicate a unique brand identity.
They must be agile enough to quickly customize lead generation and communication programs to meet their measurable objectives.

These tasks can be especially challenging for small-to-medium-sized B2B firms, as well as for divisions of very large firms. Their sales and marketing organizations often have limited budgets, and their IT departments often are not attuned to marketing.

To meet these challenges, a growing number of firms are turning to sophisticated but low-cost and high-performance interactive technologies. The new solutions allow them to create effective yet affordable landing pages and microsites that can be customized, and they avoid the need to involve IT professionals who may be too busy with other corporate requirements.

Introduction: A Challenging Online Sales Environment

B2B marketers in the United States spent $972.4 billion on on-line outreach in 2006, a 4.1% increase from the year before.¹ As a result, the online sales environment is not only intensely competitive but extremely cluttered. For example, with the email marketing industry spending $950 million on email campaigns in 2006, a 7.5% increase from the previous year, inboxes are more crowded than ever before.² Recent research by Akamai Technologies found 75% of customers surveyed would not return to Web sites that took longer than four seconds to load.³

To succeed, therefore, B2B marketers must set themselves apart from competitors in two related ways: They must establish a unique brand identity, and they must also be able to use interactive technology effectively. That is, they must be able to use the technology to attract prospects, convert prospects into qualified leads, and assist in making the sale.

In addition, one of the elements that sets B2B apart from business-to-consumer (B2C) or other marketing is time. It often requires more time for a B2B marketer to move a prospect along the sales funnel from searching for a vendor to agreeing on a contract. To succeed, B2B marketers have to be able to devote extended periods to nurturing a relationship with a prospective customer. Moreover, they must be able to provide tailored information and services to the customer throughout the lengthy lead management process.

Unfortunately, these requirements for success in the online sales environment can prove daunting for many B2B marketers.

Laura Ramos, a senior analyst who covers lead generation at Forrester Research, describes one of the challenges:

Often marketers work hard to fill the sales funnels with as many prospects as possible. In turn the sales department cherry-picks prospects it thinks are likely to close in the shortest possible time. The net result? Respondents who have longer purchasing horizons [and who often have the largest budgets] or need further information or education leak out of the funnel.⁴

Until recently, sustaining contact with prospects and providing them customized treatment throughout the lead management process required expensive technology and expertise. Many marketers have tended to rely on quick-sale customers because they lack the resources to meet the needs of those who demand more time.

Moreover, when the sales and marketing departments of smaller B2B marketers (and even some large ones) turned to their IT departments for help, they were often disappointed. They found that IT departments have sometimes been spread so thin that they could not provide sales and marketing departments the resources needed to respond quickly to customer needs. The IT departments are also unfamiliar with or uninterested in lead-management technology

As a result, large B2B marketers—armed with sizable budgets for lead-management technology, staff, and technical support—enjoyed significant advantages over their rivals.

The Emergence of New Tools

In recent years, the balance has shifted. Sophisticated new interactive technologies have emerged that are helping small-to-medium-sized B2B firms and divisions of very large firms meet the challenges of the current online sales environment. In particular, new solutions are allowing B2B marketers to use two powerful interactive tactics—landing pages and microsites—to generate leads and convert them into sales.

Microsites are page groups of personalized content that marketers can add to Web sites. As a recent report by Forrester Research notes, they allow "B2B marketers [to] target specific product features or offers to unique buyer segments."⁵

Landing pages and microsites can play a pivotal role in reaching prospects, promoting a B2B marketer's brand awareness, and managing leads in the following ways:

Promoting brand identity. The most successful landing pages and microsites are an extension of the company's unique brand identity. They resemble the company's main Web site in layout and design.
Gathering information. Effective landing pages and microsites make it very easy for prospects to supply qualifying information. At the same time, landing pages and microsites can convey the message that any information the marketer asks for is needed solely to better understand and meet the needs of the prospect.
Providing crucial information. The best landing pages and microsites provide leads with information that is directly relevant to their specific needs. In addition, the data gathered by landing pages and microsites can be used to create personalized marketing collateral, such as personalized URLs (PURLs). That personalized collateral can be used in direct mail, email, and other marketing tools.

Using landing pages and microsites does not, of course, guarantee success. Success depends on speed, customization, and sustainability. The most effective B2B marketers are able to change their landing pages and microsites quickly to respond to the changing needs of individual customers and the changing contours of marketplace.

Successful marketers can customize landing pages and microsites, using the data they gather to tailor that information to the needs of specific prospects. Moreover, they can use landing pages and microsites to sustain the kind of long-term relationship with a prospect that is often needed to complete a sale.

Opportunities for B2B Marketers

Increasing numbers of marketers are exploring landing pages and microsites because new software solutions have made them affordable and agile. A recent survey by Forrester Research found that more than half the respondents "are using or piloting microsites aided by technologies, from companies like iNeoMarketing [now PluraPage] and Relevant Works, which help B2B marketers publish buyer-friendly mini-sites without specialized Web skills or information technology (IT) intervention."⁶

These new solutions provide B2B marketers with the following:

IT independence. The technologies give marketers the ability to create microsites and landing pages without a database administrator, a Web master, or IT support or resources.
Better response rates. Experience shows that effective landing pages can increase response rates up to 40%.
Instantaneous live sites and URLs. The technologies give marketers the ability to create new and updated sites and pages and make them immediately available for use.
CRM integration. The technologies allow marketers to create personalized microsites driven by the data stored in their customer relationship management solutions.
Response-to-close insight. Microsites and landing pages can incorporate and track responses with the reporting tools already in a marketer's CRM solution.
Data entry and duplicate elimination. The technologies allow marketers to add new leads or append preexisting contact records.
Consistent brand use. Microsites and landing pages enable marketers to maintain domain identity, as well as a consistent campaign and Web site look and feel.
An affordable solution. The technologies usually have incremental campaign costs, because they are offered under a pay-for-conversion pricing model.

An Example

TFC, Inc. is a northern-California-based provider of specialty marketing services that executes one-to-one marketing and customer communications programs. Its client base ranges from Fortune 1,000 to medium-sized companies, with typical annual client spend of about $750,000. Given the size of TFC clients, the sales cycle for new business is usually long and complex. Sales depend on precise, highly personalized outreach.

TFC's marketing director is responsible for creating a large corporate imprint for the firm. Recently, she planned a campaign to promote a valuable research report through an email outreach program and a postcard direct-mail follow-up. The campaign resulted in an above average response rate of 0.7%.

The marketing director wanted to see whether she could get better results, so she adopted PluraPage Landing Pages solution, combining it with Vertical Response. PluraPage enabled her, working as a team of one, to mass-produce highly personalized landing pages for target customers.

By incorporating PURLs into emails and direct mailings, TFC more than doubled its initial response rate from 0.7% to 1.8%. Moreover, all responses were directly input into Salesforce.

Next Steps

It seems clear that to succeed in an intensely competitive and increasingly cluttered online market small-to-medium-sized B2B firms and divisions of very large firms should explore the new technologies that support landing pages and microsites.

To do so, marketers should ...

Analyze the market and the competition.
Define your position in the market and your goals.
Analyze the relationship between your IT department and your sales/marketing organizations.
Interview technology solution vendors.
Test-drive technology solutions.
Pilot a marketing and lead management program that uses landing pages and microsites.

Endnotes:

¹ EmailLabs, "Email Marketing Statistics and Metrics"

² April 2, 2007, B-to-B Magazine "Increased ad budgets, new media services drive agency growth"

³ Extended Retail Solutions, "What's Hot on the Web"

⁴ October 4, 2006, Forrester Research, "Improving B2B Lead Management "Use Forrester's Maturity Model To Upgrade Lead Management Processes

⁵ July 19, 2007, Forrester Research, "B2B Marketers Dip A Toe Into Emerging Tactics" Further Adoption Hinges On Evidence Of Customer Use And Peer Success

⁶ Ibid.

Joe Rizzo is CEO of PluraPage (www.plurapage.com).

Published on September 11, 2007

How NOT to Launch a New Product

2007-11-10T17:14:00.001+01:00

by Joan Schneider

Successfully launching new products gets tougher every year. In the past decade, the number of new consumer products hitting the shelves has skyrocketed by 59%, making it much more difficult for new products to win consumer attention.

If you've built a better mousetrap and plan to introduce it into this tidalwave of new products, it is more critical than ever to carefully plan and execute your launch using a strategic approach.

Here are seven classic mistakes companies make when developing new product launch campaigns. Avoiding these pitfalls will greatly increase your odds of success:

Mistake #1: Don't plan the launch until right before the release date

Nothing is more disheartening to a PR or marketing consultant than to have a client call and say, "We have a great new product ready to launch next month. Can you develop a plan by next week?"

Sadly, this happens all too often. Companies spend months—even years—developing a new product only to think about creating the launch plan as the product is rolling off the assembly line.

In a market where over 33,000 new consumer products goods were launched last year, you need a truly outstanding launch strategy to entice consumers to buy your new product. That's not something you can create overnight, so start your launch campaign planning early. If possible, begin launch planning when the product gets the "go" sign from management. That way, you'll have the same amount of time to plan and execute your launch as your production team has to manufacture the product.

Mistake #2: Carve your launch plan in stone

Few new product introductions go exactly according to plan. Manufacturing snafus occur. Distribution gets delayed. Be sure to build flexibility into your launch plan. Always ask the unpopular question, "What if the launch date gets delayed?"

Keep the launch team in daily communication with the people who are manufacturing and shipping the product so the launch campaign calendar can stay in sync with the shipping date and eventual availability of the product at retail. There is no use implementing a launch campaign touting a product that won't be on the shelves for another month due to production delays.

Mistake #3: Put the head honcho in charge of the launch

Brand managers or product managers are best suited to take primary responsibility for the launch process—not senior personnel whose multiple and competing duties can impair focus and tactical expertise. The involvement and support of the CEO, president and other senior leaders are critical to the success of a launch, but not on a daily basis.

These individuals should be kept in the loop so they can make key decisions when needed and ensure that adequate financial and human resources are being allocated to the effort. But the day-to-day leadership for the launch initiative should come from someone whose sole focus is on making the launch a success.

Mistake #4: Don't educate employees until after the news breaks elsewhere

Your employees are your most important word-of-mouth brand ambassadors. Educate them about the launch plan and prepare them to talk about the product with their family and friends so they can begin to build the buzz.

It's important to enroll these "passionistas" in your launch strategy so they can reinforce what is going to be said when the product is introduced in the trade, business and consumer press.

Mistake #5: Use the same forms of media you've always used

The number of potential media outlets that can talk about your new product grows daily. Don't just dig out the same media list you used for your last launch. There are 6,200 magazines and 240 television stations available today, with hundreds more being introduced each year. There are multiple publications and channels that cover every topic.

Get up-to-the-minute information on each media outlet to make sure its audience is your audience. Don't overlook Internet media outlets that might not have existed when you executed previous launches. And don't forget foreign-language publications and channels, especially if your product appeals to ethnic groups.

Today, the fastest growing demographic in America is the Hispanic population; take advantage of this group's love for news and programming by contacting the publications and stations that cater to this important audience.

Mistake #6: Pour all your resources into "push" strategies

According to findings in the Schneider/Boston University New Product Launch Report, a joint academic research study that examined how marketers launch new products, how you spend your launch budget is as important to success as allocating a healthy budget at the outset. Among the launches studied, those that used a "push" strategy that says "put it on the shelf and they will come" were far less effective than "pull" strategies that drove consumers into stores looking for the new product.

While trade advertising is certainly important, particularly during the sell-in phase, using a significant portion of your overall launch budget on consumer-oriented marketing initiatives will increase your odds of success.

Mistake #7: Skip the crisis plan

The number of things that can go wrong when a new product hits the market is limitless. Brainstorm all potential pitfalls to ensure your plan provides remedies for what might go wrong. Develop a crisis plan that outlines what the team would do in case of a crisis, like a recall or food contamination.

It's always better to have a crisis plan in place rather than trying to create one while facing a major issue that could tarnish your brand.

* * *

Make your next new product launch a success. Plan aggressively, execute with great care, and be flexible and ready for the unexpected!

Joan Schneider is president of Boston-based Schneider Associates and author of New Product Launch: 10 Proven Strategies. For more information, visit www.launchpr.com.

Published on July 5, 2005