Better response for marketing campaigns!

Imagine if the guy in the picture is knocking on your front door or is walking into your office with a briefcase. More than certain, your reaction would be, “annoying salesman is trying to sale me something I don’t need.” Half way through his pitch, you would probably tell him you are not interested and show him the door. You don’t even know what he was selling, but without a doubt, you know you were in no way interested in what he has to sell. As it turns out, he was just trying to hand out vouchers for free drinks at the grand opening of a bar he owns down the street.

He did not have the slightest ounce of intent to sell you anything, but you immediately assumed he did because his appearance resembles the copier or carpet cleaning service salesman that comes by every other week. So the story ends with a “lose-lose” situation. You missed out on some free drinks (you would probably appreciate after a long day of work) and the owner was denied the opportunity to inform you about the grand opening of his bar. The moral here is no one likes being sold to.

Everyone’s definition of marketing slightly differs, but I assume we can agree that marketing is not sales. The purpose of marketing is to inform and educate the market about a product/service and its benefits. The purpose of sales is to convince someone to pay for or use the product/service.

Now think about the messaging of your marketing initiatives. Does it appear to be informative and educational or does it sound like a sales pitch? For example, if you are doing an eblast (email campaign), compare your message to the emails in your spam or trash bin. Those emails ended up in the spam or trash bin because you saw no difference between them and the copier salesman who occasionally stops by your office. If you sort though them closely, you might find some appealing offers or useful information you can benefit from.

Think about the words and phrases used in the description of the offer or the product…

“Our product is the best and is unbeatable in price. Contact us today to get your hands on one.”

“Cost efficiency is essential to the operation of a business. XYZ modules have been extensively tested by the Kellog and Harvard Business Research Scholars. Their results yield a success rate of 98.71% at enhancing cost efficiency. Learn more…”

How the wording is composed determines how the messaging is read. It is obvious the first example sounds like an email you would delete before reading the entire offer. The second offer may or may not sound like something you are interested in, but you will at least read more before moving it to the trash bin. The moment people sense the slightest hint they are being sold to, they are reluctant to absorb any additional information.

The lesson here is to not dress your marketing messaging in the apparel of a sales pitch. It may not have been your intention to compose a sales pitch, but consumers today are more sensitive than ever before. If the objective was to share a whitepaper or to invite someone to a webinar, make sure it sounds genuine and avoid trying to get someone to buy something. Just think, if the bar owner had came into your office with an Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat, you would have probably listened to what he had to say and gotten a couple of free drinks.

Willv

one way communication

What is the point of speaking to someone who has no way of speaking back to you? How would you know what their thoughts are on what you just told them? Did they even hear you at all? Might as well be talking to a wall!

Everyone, at least I assume, understands the concept of “communication” exists on a two way stream. Information flows from one end to another and back. That wasn’t too hard to understand, right?

What I don’t really get are marketing initiatives that only communicate to the  target, but do not provide them a way to communicate back. Yes, mass media marketing (e.g TV) is still a popular form of marketing communications, but keep in mind only big brands like Nike, Coke, Wal-Mart etc… can engage in such initiatives. If the scale of your brand is not close to being comparable, one way communication initiatives are a waste of time and dollars. Don’t expect to send out an email with no call to action and have anyone respond.

If you happen to see a TV ad for Joe’s Tailoring Services (located around the corner from your office), you would most likely pay no attention. What if Joe sent you an email offering you 50% off to tailor a suit? All that is required from you is to visit his website, insert the validation code he has emailed you, and redeem a printable coupon.

Joe has created an opportunity to engage in a two way communication  flow with you. If you do not visit the site and print out a coupon, he will know you are not interested. If you did visit the site and print out a coupon, he will be expecting to see you soon. To continue interacting with you , Joe may send a follow up email or a “see you soon” email.

Just think about the parties you’ve been to… isn’t it always more interesting to hang our with people you can have conversations with? The weird guy who only smiles and sips his beer when you are trying to talk to him is obviously not listening or is had a little too much to drink. The point is, better things do happen when communication is not just one way.

-Will V.

What motivates you to respond?

I believe, as a marketer, ultimately my job is to motivate people… motivate people to pay attention to our brand, motivate people to find out more about our product, motivate people to buy our product, motivate people to continue using our product, and the list goes on…

As a consumer, we only respond to marketing messages when we are motivated to do so. It can be a need, a want, an incentive, a negative reaction etc… The point is we only responded because there was a motivating factor in the message that caused us to take action. However, as marketers, we don’t always understand this concept. What makes you think the subject line on the eblast you just sent out will motivate someone to open the email? What makes you think someone is willing to follow your company’s Tweets? What makes you think someone will read the direct mail piece you just sent them?

It is obvious that as marketers,we don’t always ask ourselves these questions. If we did…. there would never be anything in our spam box, we will always be excited to receive junk mail (we wouldn’t even see it as junk mail), and “commercial free” programs wouldn’t be of any value to us.

The problem is most marketing messages lack a motivating factor. So before your next initiative, do yourself a favor and ask yourself if you would be motivated to respond to the what you are about to send out. You might save some time, effort and money by doing so.

Will V.

We, as marketers, can all agree that design (use of graphic elements) is an important part of marketing communications. This is true because we, as humans, are extremely visual. We judge others based on the way they dress, assume colorful edibles are delicious and often consume products that have a fancy packaging. When deciding on the graphic design of a marketing piece, print or web, do we all consider if the design is truly functional or just decorative? Probably not.

More than often, I would see  billboards or a banner ads that are visually stunning, but not understand the message and/or who is conveying the message. That is because the graphic design for the piece only serves a decorative function… it only makes the ad look pretty. In addition to visual enhancement, functional graphic design also tells a story and reinforces the brand semiotics.

It is extremely important that the graphic appearance of any marketing collateral we distribute is professional looking and visually stunning enough to capture attention. You can’t tell someone a story if they are not paying attention. As marketers, it is important to have control over anything that communicates to customers and prospects. If you happen to design your own work, please let others critique it… if there is any doubt, consult with or hire a professional designer. If you are a hands on type of marketer, you can also sharpen your design skills (check out these sources provided by Seth Godin).

Now that you have a graphically stunning piece, does it convey the intended message? Conveying a message is basically telling a story… the story of why someone needs your product or service. There are two parts to visually communicating a story successfully: connection and control. People tend to only like stories they can connect to. Pay attention to the use of imagery, color and text. Does all three element appeal to your target audience? To consistently tell the same story to everyone in your target audience, you must be able to control their vision. Is there a focal point the viewer starts at? Is the piece meant to read from right to left or top to bottom?

image source: http://frazer.rice.edu

For example, viewers will first notice the nude girl with yellow tape around her (focal point) and then move their eyes across the page to read the text. 

The third and most challenging part is reinforcing brand semiotics. Does the overall design of all your marketing collateral build upon and reemphasize what your brand stands for? Do specific elements within the piece also remind your audience of your brand image? Would your audience know the ad is produced by your company before seeing the logo? The point is, what we communicate and promote to the public directly reflects the brand image. Coke and Nike do a fantastic job reminding the public about their brand image with their TV ads. You can always tell if an ad is produced by these two brands before their names are revealed at the end. Brand semiotics is a broad and complicated topic that cannot be covered in one blog post, so I am not going into any details.

Before you make the final decisions on the design of your next marketing communication piece, just ask yourself these three questions:

1. Is there anything that can be done to improve the visual appearance of the piece?
2. Does it tell a story that appeals to the target audience?
3. Is the overall design consistent with the intended brand image?

For more insights on graphic design from marketing, check out these links:
Brand New Blog
Bad & Good Graphic Design
Clever and Creative Shopping Bags
Seth’s blog post on graphic design�
How Graphic Design Plays a Vital Role in Marketing
More Kick A$$ Marketing Promotions Part 1 

Will V.

While browsing though my RSS feeds this morning, I came across an interesting, but dubious article. It was an article written by Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations & Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The article, Why Advertising is Failing on the Internet, strongly expresses the Internet will shatter all forms of advertising. The Internet is not the innovative solution that will resolve challenges in the realm of advertising, but will create more challenges.

“The problem is not the medium, the problem is the message, and the fact that it is not trusted, not wanted and not needed.” This sentence alone sums up what Professor Clemons is trying to express in his article. I can agree to various points in his article, but I will have to challenge the essence of his article.

He provides three points as to why advertising will result in nothing but failure:

1. Consumers do not trust advertising
2. Consumers do not want to view advertising
3. Consumers do not need advertising

First of all I would have to agree that we, as consumers, do not trust advertisements. We are part of a new breed on consumers… we are sophisticated, intelligent and value conscious. We are not motivated to buy because of a banner ad we saw on the side of our Facebook profile or an email we have received from one of our favorite retail stores. We take the time to research, compare and analyze before we have any intent of making a purchase. The way I see it is advertisements are not used as a tool to create trust, but a tool to inform or remind consumers  the existence of a product. This will motivate prospect consumers to do research, compare the advertised products and make a value assessment.

“Consumers do not want to view advertising,” is a true, but over assumptive statement. We use TiVO and spam blockers, because we are ofter annoyed by the amount of advertisements competing against the content we actually want to consume. This, however, does not mean we dislike viewing advertising. We only dislike viewing advertisements that are irrelevant to us. If you were thinking about buying a new car and is not sure of which one to buy, you would probably be interested in viewing ads about cars that are recently released.

Consumers do need advertising, just not too much of it. A good example would be movies. Imagine a world without movie trailers and how it would affect the way dates and weekends are planned. How would people know when what movies are released? It would in fact create an inconvenience. We would have to allocate more time to find out movie release dates and what each movie is about.

The point I am trying to make is consumers have a need to be advertised to, but only with content that is relevant. Just imagine a world with zero (literally) advertisements. Not only would this world be boring, we would need to spend more time on deciding what to buy. How would anyone know what products or brands are available to buy? The concept of brand identity would not exist and we would all be using the same toasters as our neighbors.

I may not be as knowledgeable as Professor Clemons on conducting research on consumer behavior. The one thing that is for certain is I am just as qualified as a general consumer.

If the Internet fits into any part of your marketing mix, I strongly encourage you to read the article and all the comments.

Will V

Can your prospects hear what you have to say?

Marketing is often mistaken as “just” a function in a business’s value chain. As marketers, we all understand that “marketing” is “communicating.” What some of us don’t understand is effective marketing, like effective communication, is a two way system that requires the delivered information to be received. This blog post is might mean something to you or it could also be just a bunch of text displayed on your monitor.

As individuals, if we really tried, we are extremely good at communicating and getting our point across. We may verbally express it, blog about it, display an emotion, exhibit a gesture etc… The key here is we never just stick with one channel of communication, but a combination of multiple channels. Think about a time when you were going through emotional distress. You were probably not as talkative as usual (cahnge in behavior), vented about it with some friends and posted it as a facebook status update.Several methods were used to communicate your distress.

As marketers, we can also apply the multi-channel approach to communicate with our prospects. We are often frustrated when we do not get the response rate we want. It does not always mean the offer is of no interest to the prospect. Ever considered that they just didn’t get the message or forgot about it?  Do not expect miracles to happen with a single email blast or a single direct mail campaign. Try combining emails with pURLs, direct mail with pURLs, email and direct mail… better yet, do all of it.

Ever watched an ant trail? After a close examination, most people would probably agree that it is one of the most efficient systems in the world. Despite its efficiency, the slightest disruption will paralyze all efforts. Think of what happens when an ant trail approaches an unexpected crack on the sidewalk or if a leaf falls in the middle of it. Efficiency immediately evolves into chaos and all efforts made will yield no results.

Ever wondered why some of your best marketing efforts did not achieve desired results? Basically, what you thought was the best marketing initiative was just an ant trail that got disrupted by a leaf or a crack on the sidewalk. There was an objective, a plan and an investment of sufficient resources, but there was propably no effort made to anticipate disruptions and a reaction plan. This is why we marketers should value the importance of a follow up plan and make it a part of every marketing initiative.

If the content appears to be too abstract, here is an example to better illustrate my point. With a newly purchased car, I was in the market for modification parts or anything that will put an extra shine on it. About two months ago, while going through my messages in my Outlook inbox, I received an email from Acura promoting OEM parts in my gmail account. At the point of contact I was excited to see what Acura has to offer, but I also had to finish replying to several important messages in Outlook. I saved the message and intended to return to it later that day. As I was finishing up replying to the never ending list of messages, I was summoned to a meeting by my boss, received a couple of phone calls, and got several RSS alerts. I forgot about the offer message from Acura after a series of distractions. I did not recall the message until just now, as I am writing this blog post.

Acura had a plan of targeting all new car owners and the message was appealing to their target, but there was no follow up plan. It has been over two months now and I, as a consumer, am not as excited or motivated to install modification parts on my car. As consumers, we occasionally experience sudden urges to make a purchase that we later realize we can live without. Acura did not anticipate the disruption, a series of distractions, as a barrier to their initiative. If I had received a follow up email shortly after receiving the first offer message, I would probably have some new rims on my new car by now.

Disruptions can be costly to marketing efforts and cannot always be anticipated. Fortunately, unlike ants, we marketers can learn from mistakes and past experiences. We may be startled by a leaf in our path the first time, but we should have a plan of going around it the next time we encounter it. Until we make an effort to anticipate disruptions and have a follow up plan in place. we will not be able to prevent our efforts from falling into cracks it may come upon.

Disruptions will and can occur in any part of your marketing cycle. Check out these links for more insights on follow up marketing initiatives:

Customer service, Customer Relations, & Networking

Just something to think about…

PPC ads is important even to marketers that rely mainly on direct mailings. They help shortcut the lead generation process by pulling in a more qualified, captive market and getting to the sale quicker.

An effective PPC ad campaign is not just about higher click-through rates or better keywords or blindly increasing spending. This is where Google’s advertising metrics fails to tell the entire story. For example, you could run an ad to give away $100 everyday and get phenomenal click-through rates but clearly it would not be an effective PPC campaign.

Rather, an effective PPC campaign involves:

• creating relevant ads
• landing pages that follow-through on these ads
• useful offers
• CRM to follow-up with contacts effectively
• seamless integration with your sales process
• periodic monitoring and updating of ad campaigns

Relevant news:

Google Yahoo Deal: Google blog

Google deal with Yahoo draws more opposition: NYTimes