What marketing message did you send out this holiday season?
Was it product/offer-driven?
or was it a simple holiday message?
or did you build an application customers could use?
Don’t get me wrong, the messages above were chosen because they were well-designed and targeted (not all are personalized and they should be) but they all fulfil the different goals set out by each marketer.
Perhaps what would make marketing messages even better is building an application to go along with it. They could be as simple as a game (http://stockrider.trone.com/), a holiday snow globe or a viral application to send a simple greeting card (http://Greeting.L2soft.com).
This holiday, we chose to send a simple holiday greeting but with a link to an application that allows prospects to send a personalized email greeting to their friends, colleagues or loved ones.
Marketing applications that help you generate curiosity and interest while showcasing the abilities of your product will be the next big thing in marketing. They help you stand out from the clutter of marketing messages and if it is well designed and executed, your recipients will remember you for it.
For better campaign results: mix up your 2009 marketing messages with applications and you will build a better 1 to 1 relationship with your prospects.
Connect with me on Twitter http://twitter.com/RyanLou
Its that time of the year again! A few weeks to the holiday and while you finish up on marketing tasks for 2008, it is also time to prepare for 2009.
Now, more so than ever, your marketing plan and marketing calendar for 2009 should be high on your december to-do list! And while you set goals for the number of new customers, how you are going to distribute your advertising budget, etc., don’t forget to plan for regular marketing campaigns to your list of prospects..
We’ve found in our own marketing, that campaigns to a particular segment persistently get double the response and conversion as our other segments.
The difference - we sent more regular messaging to that particular segment…
… and because we kept our campaign messages relevant and customized to each individual, we were able to build better brand recognition which gave us double the average response rate for this segment!
I’m sure you will if you do the same!
Relevant posts:
Read: Our post on how often you should send emails
Connect with me on Twitter http://twitter.com/RyanLou
Anne Holland of MarketingSherpa wrote about converting email with images turned off. Quoting a statistic that 59% of consumers and 90% of business email users view some or all of their email with images turned off. In the article she highlighted an example of an email she received from a HomeAway email newsletter (A vacation lodgings firm).
See what the newsletter looked like with images turned off. http://www.marketingsherpa.com/cs/homeaway/1b.html
The good: Each image included “alt tags” and clickable links that allows for clicks to specific sections of the travel website. The tags and clickable links provides users with options even when they have no idea how to view the images. Contrast this to the Borders Rewards email that is filled with some of the best email designs but are blank when images are turned off.
For designers, another solution with blocked images is to setup the email using tables instead of Div layouts. This allows you to display emails with blocked images while still maintaining designability.
See the screenshots below for an example of this.
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You know passive income, what about passive marketing?
Not the term used by some to refer to the lack of proactiveness of marketers - not getting out to network with people, making presentations, cold calls… but passive marketing that works for you in getting leads while you spend more time going out to meet people and following up with leads.
You could do that with static microsites that ends with a form or you could get much better response and lead conversion with automatically created personal urls. L2 has been building one such site to allow marketers and digital service providers to testdrive L2’s Fuse product. Like a microsite, it involves a static data collection page ( www.1to1campaigns.com ) which collects basic information like first and last name to create a purl along with some contact information.
Once this information is filled out, prospects are taken to their very own personal url (1to1campaigns.com/firstname.lastname) which tracks interest based on what the prospect saw. For insurance companies this would be knowing whether the prospect is interested in auto insurance, health insurance or disaster insurance even before you make the call!
It also sends an automated email to remind prospects of the URL so they can return to the site easily keeping them involved and participating on the personal url.
With an entirely automated campaign like this one, you will have the time to focus on the other elements of your marketing (following up with leads, direct mailers, conferences, telemarketing…) but still ensure you get good response off PPC ads, print ads, your corporate website, etc.
Marketing that works for you 24/7, what a concept!
I’ve seen a lot of stuff written on other marketing blogs about the US election. While most came off as fluff, Al ries makes some convincing points on his monthly post on Adage about what marketers can learn from Obama’s campaign.
Some good points Al made:
- The average guy with the right message can take on large corporations (watch out Google!)
- Sticking to the same message. Telling it often makes it stick.
- The keywords you use and own matters!
- Differentiate from your competitor
- Simplicity, consistency and relevance are key to campaign success!
Note: A huge budget helps too, but we don’t all have that.
Read more from his post at http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=132237
Rohit Bhagava included a good visual analysis of Obama’s campaign, highlighting the flexibility and use of buttons. Check out his post at the influential marketing blog
The biggest mistake marketers make with email campaigns is sending too much too often. “They’re cheap, so let’s blanket our prospects with our emails”. This might have worked before, but your prospects can easily protect themselves from this now.
Campaign success doesn’t only depend on email open rates, open rates won’t get you the sale. Instead you should be sending information only when you have something new to say, something big to announce, a good offer to make.
Move away from the mass marketing approach. Segment your prospects and customers into groups according to metrics like how much they like your product, (e.g. Apple fanatics get more product updates than the average ipod user) and how often they buy (borders customers that purchase once a week get offers more often).
Each business/ campaign will have an optimum campaign schedule that works. To get you started with yours, try sending out 2 emails between expected purchase dates, adjusted as the length of time increases. If your customers buy every week, send them 2 offers a week. If purchases are a yearly affair divide your campaigns into bi-monthly campaigns.
Make sure you vary your campaigns. Send them an email linked to a personal url, follow up with a direct mail piece then a call from your sales staff, send a letter thanking them for taking the time for the call, include a better offer in that letter… The methods of reaching your customers are endless, don’t abandon other channels because you think emails are cheaper.
Remember your marketing campaign goal should always be to get better response that lead to a sale not keeping campaign costs down!
Joetheplumber.com may have already been taken up, but picking domain names for your Personal URL campaigns should not be a difficult task. Here are some tips for making sure the domain name you pick improves your marketing response.
1. Leverage your company name and domain name.
You would have already done the hard part of getting your company domain name. Use a sub-domain name to increase credibility and assure your prospects that the email is from you.
For example:
Promotions.CompanyName.com/firstname.lastname
Rewards.CompanyName.com/firstname.lastname
2. Pick a new domain name with your name in it
Use a new domain name to spread a message or use a catchy phrase to generate interest.
PayLessWithJoe.com/firstname.lastname
Joecleansyourpipes.com/firstname.lastname
3. Use the same URL with subsequent campaigns
Using the same URL in each campaign you send your prospects might be a good idea, if you do not expect them to buy immediately, but want them to remember you when they’re ready to buy. Car dealerships, Insurance companies, real estate agents… for example can get their campaign response rates limited by the low frequency of purchases. Keeping the same URL keeps you in the back of your prospect’s mind for when they’re ready to buy.
Vote early, Joe wants to buy the plumbing business!
Saw this event on the Tornado Marketing Blog.
Join the trio in a call this friday 24th October. Sign up even if you cannot make the call and get the recording link.
Sign up here: http://www.authorteleseminars.com/tribes2.html
Here’s a description of the live call from the sign up page.
On Friday, October 24 at 1pm Eastern Time, meet NY Times bestselling author, Seth Godin, and learn why it’s more profitable, powerful and productive to be a leader rather than to sit back and do nothing. You’ll discover why you already have the skills you need to make an incredible difference and how you can start leading right now.
You’ll not only hear from Seth, but get to hear from two other inspiring leaders who know exactly what it means to effectively lead a tribe:
- John Jantsch, bestselling author of Duct Tape Marketing and columnist for Entrepreneur magazine
- Dave Lakhani, author of Persuasion, Power of an Hour and Subliminal Persuasion
