Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

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Of course internet ad dollars will grow... too bad most marketing and ad execs stubbornly refuse see the light...

Great example came across my desk last week from an "old media" (print) publisher friend of mine in response to one of my articles that "old media is dead - welcome to the age of inbound marketing."

Here it is - reprinted verbatim with a ton of free sand into which he firmly sticks his head:

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There's a reason they call Google a search engine... users have an immediate need to find information and Google becomes the handy reference. If that need doesn't exist for any length of time, the user isn't compelled to go to that search engine (or for that matter, any other website). I'm not trying to minimize Google's value, just keeping it all in perspective. Furthermore, most users don't want spam (read advertising) to be visible... they find it an intrusion to see a message pop up when not requested. How many iPods do you think Apple would have sold strictly by posting a link/ad on Google ads? Do you think they could have approached the 1mm plus goal? Do you think their heavy TV campaign was a useless expenditure? Why not just use their own website? Do you know something the good folks at Apple don't? I can tell you my 17 year-old son certainly doesn't want me to mute the TV when their ads are running. The point is that the internet is a valuable addition to the "traditional" media mix but certainly not it's replacement.
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This is classic "Say it isn't so" wishful thinking. This poor sap's print advertising clients are NOT Fortune 500 companies (like Apple) who can afford to do a wide range of "brand" and "image" advertising. They are much more direct response marketers where they want the phone to ring and the orders to come in when they spend dollars on marketing.

Is he even serious when he expands his Apple TV commercial argument to suggest that all kinds of people WANT to watch all kinds of TV commercials, and thus advertising 1.0 is alive and well?

That's not only stupid, it's being irresponsible with client marketing dollars. My point is: you can't fix stupid.

Some marketing execs "get it" that their world has changed dramatically... and some other marketers are happy to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic and slowly sink under the waves as the orchestra plays on.

Let me start by saying I'm not some crunchy, helpless, hapless, whining technology boob.

Quite the opposite in fact... from 1992-1996, I worked in technology consulting and I became one of the first wave of Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCT) on the East Coast. I know all about batch files, command line programming, operating system voodoo, and way the hell more than I care to know about the ugly smelly guts of Windows.

I was also one of the first folks online... WAY before the web. My CompuServe account was "73247,731" in 1984 so I can tell you the thrill of upgrading from a 300-baud modem to a 1200-baud modem. Man, I was *flying* with that baby!!

Alright - enough of our stroll down memory lane... the rest of my 1,000 words can best be told with this picture - the one where you'll see six - count 'em SIX - separate error message dialog boxes on a graphically corrupted screen and totally locked up system:

Funny how my black MacBook never does this.

Never.

Ever.

<sigh>

Copy writing 101: compelling and results-producing copy requires two skills: You must learn how to break complex items into smaller (more digestible) parts and you must be able to convince your readers to take action.

Here are guidelines that have served me (and my clients) well. I hope they're equally helpful to you.

1) The first few paragraphs of any marketing document must tell your reader what's in it for him. We don't want our reader looking up after 30 seconds and wondering, "Why am I reading this?"

2) Each marketing document (sales letter, web page, brochure) should focus on a single purpose -- it should be written to stimulate a specific response. This response could be an action (take the next step in the sales process) or it could be emotional (I want them to feel worried about a particular problem).

3) Density (not length) is important. Marketing materials that stimulate interest and curiosity have lots of new and good ideas. Ideally you should introduce a new fact, figure or idea every couple of paragraphs. This stimulates interest, builds credibility and goes a long way towards ensuring that your entire piece gets read.

4) Write only about what you know.

Keep these points in mind the next time you sit down for a heavy-duty session of copy writing to grow your business.

With so many other conferences being cancelled, cuts in travel budgets and staff reductions, we must do what is best for our institutions during this period where generating revenue and reduction in spending has become a top priority. We apologize for the inconvenience and will be keeping the AMMC ( http://artmuseummembership.org/ ) website live with updates on next steps.

We will also be posting the program, with the speaker's information, so that you can contact the person directly with your questions. We will continue to think of other ideas on how the website can be utilized.

Thank you!

The AMMC Advisory Committee
http://artmuseummembership.org/
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My take on this -- please re-read this sentence and look at the crazy backwards logic of it: we must do what is best for our institutions during this period where generating revenue and reduction in spending has become a top priority.

Hellloooooooo.... Isn't that THE #1 reason to have the conference - to HELP your members "generate revenue and reduce spending" while increasing ROI, serving THEIR customers better, and innovating with agility and new skills to combat the outside conditions that no one can control?

This is scary thinking, folks... I'm fully aware of economic reality, but this pretzel logic just makes me want to shout from the rooftops -- YOU NEED MEETINGS NOW MORE THAN EVER!!!!!

Good luck trying to figure out where to go from here ON YOUR OWN.

-- David

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
-- John F. Kennedy 

He who learns but does not think is lost.
-- Confucius

Small business marketing has a lot of moving parts - even more so in a recession and it's often up to the CEO or business owner to keep all the parts moving all the time. That can be challenging, to say the least. Here are some ideas to keep your momentum up.

Never stop learning. Go back to school or read books. Get training and acquire skills. But never think of learning as learning for its own sake.

Take what you've learned and apply it, modify it, expand it, develop it, share it, teach others, and boil it down to its essence in real, concrete business terms that you can use in your immediate environment.

In any learning situation, focus like a laser beam on application, application, application! Learn from every source, think, and then translate that learning into appropriate, useful, meaningful action.

Don't just focus on learning - focus on unlearning, relearning, and learning differently. With the economy in a meltdown, financial markets undergoing tectonic shifts on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, and everything else up for grabs as giant corporations stumble, falter, and collapse - it's an understatement to say "the rules have changed."

Stay alert for small business marketing ideas that you would have never considered before. Scan the horizon, see where your customers and clients are going, and then as the great Wayne Gretzky advises, "Don't skate to where the puck is... skate to where the puck is GOING to be."

Email marketing campaign tip: A slimmer email can lead to healthier results for 2009...

Many people enter into the new year with a personal goal of living a healthier lifestyle and shedding the unwanted pounds brought on by another season of holiday excess. The same commitment should also be applied to the messages being sent to your subscribers-messages that may have slowly packed on the pounds right under your nose without being noticed.

How It Happened
Emails tend to start off with very streamlined designs, making them easy to use and less likely to run into display errors in different email clients. However, as marketers reach a level of comfort with email marketing, and quality content continues to be developed, more and more of that content begins to find its way into their email communications.

It can start with something as simple as a sidebar, or additional space for images. As the months go on, additional content accumulates on your email template, and soon it hardly resembles the streamlined communication vehicle it once was.

Think this might be the case with your own email? Ask yourself a few questions about your email marketing campaign:

What am I trying to communicate?
Trying to communicate more than two or three main ideas in an email is difficult in light of how quickly most email recipients sift through their inboxes. Identify the one idea, if you could only choose one, that you would want recipients to take away from your email-is it the first thing you notice on your test message? If not, consider moving or eliminating excess content.

Am I overloading?
Giving visitors to your website a variety of options is fine, but an excessive number of links and linked images on an email can make it difficult and frustrating to engage with. Many marketers rely on emails to drive traffic to their sites, but the amount of clicks an email receives has much less to do with the number of available links than the relevance of those links. Also, too many links on an email increases the chances of frustrating site visitors who wait for a page to load only to realize they clicked on the wrong link in your message-an easy mistake to make with several links in close proximity.

Where can I make changes?
Some content on your emails will be non-negotiable, but be mindful of including any non-essential elements. For example, a large graphic about an event could have a negative impact if it's the first thing a recipient sees. In this case, the recipient may believe the event is the focus of the message-even if that is not the case-and could abandon the message due to lack of interest in the event. Scaling the graphic down, or simply using stylized text to promote it, would slim down the message and make sure the recipients' focus is on your products, editorial, or whatever else you consider to be the key takeaway (see #1 above).

One common email element not likely to be eliminated by any marketer is advertising space, but there is no greater contributor to a bloated-looking email than a slew of rotating banner ads. At the very least make sure clearly defined borders separate advertising from your own content, and avoid using any unnecessary images of your own, which can contribute to the cramped appearance.

Your email marketing campaign: Less is more
The tendency of emails to become inflated stems from marketers' desire to communicate as much information as possible with their subscribers. While this desire is perfectly understandable, it does not always take into account the user-experience of those who will be receiving the messages.

It's a good thing to have more ideas than can fit onto one email-for your subscribers' sake, try not to overload your messages. One idea on an email can still get great results, but only if your recipients can find it.

Guest column by Karen J. Bannan

How long was the subject line in your most recent e-mail marketing campaign?

You may not realize it, but the number of characters you use can positively or negatively impact the success of your campaign, according to a new white paper released by direct marketing agency Epsilon.

The white paper, "Rethinking the Relationship Between Subject Line Length and Email Performance: A New Perspective on Subject Line Design," details some of the more important considerations that marketers should be thinking about, said Kevin Mabley, the company's senior VP-strategic services.

Here are four tips you can use to boost your subject line prowess.

1) Front-load your subject lines with the most important information.

It would seem like this tip is a given, but take a look at the messages in your inbox. As you'll soon see, it's a strategy that few marketers embrace. The biggest problem is with ordering information. If you've only got 38 to 47 characters-the average number of characters that show up in the subject line of 57% of all U.S. e-mail recipients' e-mail programs-you need to put the most important information all the way to the left.

Use urgency and relevance as your guide. Is your offer or newsletter timely? Put that right up front. Also, make sure your brand is in the first few words. However, if your company has multiple brands or categories underneath its umbrella, lead with what's most recognizable and important to your customer.

2) Keep the subject line as short as possible to convey the message.

Epsilon's research shows that shorter subject lines have higher click-through and open rates. Still, you don't want to go short for short's sake, Mabley said. Instead, you're looking to pack the most information you can into the smallest number of words.
And avoid words that have a sensationalist slant, such as "free" or "discount." "Don't just say '20% off your next purchase.' Your messages need to be rooted in your customers' expectations," Mabley said.

3) Don't forget to test.

This is another common suggestion, but one that still isn't heeded as it should be, Mabley said. "At the minimum, you should be performing an A/B test on every message that goes out," he said. "The general rule is you can test 10% of your list in order to figure out which option is a better one."

This is how you're going to figure out if your front-loaded data should be the brand name or the actual benefit to the recipient, and it's something that may change on a day-to-day and message-to-message basis, he said.

Your messages should also go through a spam filter so you know, on a scale of 1 to 100, how likely it is that an ISP will consider your message to be spam, Mabley said.

4) Dynamically personalize the subject line.

This is something that's simple to do, and shows that you know who you are e-mailing and what they are looking for. "Whether you use their first or last name or their company's name, it makes it more personal and provides better reception," Mabley said.

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

This smart marketing tidbit came across my desk from Joan Stewart, aka the Publicity Hound:
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One of the most valuable tips I learned is that the onslaught of emails I'm receiving from business people offering cut-rate prices on their products and services is, for them, the quickest way to the poor house. In fact, raising prices, even in a meltdown economy, is one of the fastest ways to success.
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Why is this so smart? Well, because Joan agree with me on this point. I'm not ashamed to share with you that for 2009, I've just raised my fees. And not by a little - by a lot. Specifically, it's a 33% boost. And my fees weren't low to start with!

What are YOU doing to raise yourself above the competition - both literally with pricing and in other more customer-centric ways?

Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure.
-- Edward Eggleston

I'm trying as hard as I can, and sometimes things don't go your way, and that's the way things go.
-- Tiger Woods

Be persistent and work hard.

Will this guarantee success?

Of course not. But it certainly will increase your chances!

Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Never give up. Tom Peters believes that "success in business comes from surviving long enough to get lucky."

Here is a piece I wrote for Sales & Marketing Management. Due to deadline issues, it didn't make it into the magazine, so here it is for your reading pleasure:

Salespeople can gain more and stronger leads through e-mail correspondence by becoming aware of the trends in overall email marketing - and in getting ahead of the curve by FOLLOWING those trends with their email practices!

Email is the most revolutionary tool in marketing history, and everyone should take advantage of its flexibility, ease of execution, low cost, and trackability. Here are some guidelines to make your email more impactful - and to help you ring the cash register more often!

1. Let the customer choose
Providing customers with some level of control makes them feel as though they are in the driver's seat. For example, don't have one email newsletter - have several on different topics or "tracks" and let people select the one(s) they are most interested in.

2. Don't worry about frequency
Let the customers' requests dictate frequency. As emails become more relevant to recipients needs, the question of how frequently to email subscribers goes away. If you'll help solve my problems, get me new customers, or show me how to work smarter, I'll gladly open your emails 2-3 times a week.

3. Data Integration
Email is uniquely positioned to take existing data and elevate it to the level of relationship marketing that most marketers have only dreamed of. Amazon.com is a great example. They know what I've bought, what I like, and they regularly email me suggestions about new titles that match my buying patterns. Database marketing drives relevance. Relevance drives sales!

4. Use the Personal touch
People buy from people. Email technology provides a way to leverage this knowledge and deliver emails coming "from" real people. These emails can include pictures, personal notes based on prior engagements, working reply addresses... just like a real relationship!

5. Use your signature file smartly
Your email signature file should not only have a 'hot' (clickable) link to your website, but you also need to give people a REASON to click. Nobody is going to click on a link because they're thinking, "Wow, Joe's company has a website... wonder what it looks like." Kick your signature line up a notch and add a CUSTOM line or two based on who you're writing to. For example, when writing to a hotel industry client, add this line to the bottom of your email signature block: "Ask about 'Inn Service' our latest offering for the hospitality industry."

The idea is to use every email (both personal and automated) as a marketing vehicle, mini-teaser, or venue for generating further inquiries into your services!