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.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Surefire Tips for Getting and Using Customer Testimonials, Part 2
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.
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.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
How to Make Your Email Program More Productive in 2008
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
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
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
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
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Six International E-Mail Marketing Challenges
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.
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.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Three Powerful Press Kits (and Why They Work)
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
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
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.
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.
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