Better response for marketing campaigns!

#1 Use different channels.

Lots of celebrities make money from different channels. From showbiz to sports, the key to making a fortune is multiple streams of income. Tiger woods is a fine example of this; he’s made over $25 million in prize money. Not a lot? Together with off-course earnings, he’s made almost $1 bil. Currently ($97,919,714).

For marketers, the core statistic is probably response rates and ROI, but the method is the same. Use different channels including email, direct mail, personalized web-pages, social media, print, traditional media,… to achieve your goal. The better you get each channel to complement each other, the more success you will enjoy.

#2 Prepare for the unexpected.

Wimbledon fans will remember the longest final in history just a year ago between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Many tennis fans call that match the greatest in history, but it required that both players were prepared for the unexpected and were physically and mentally in shape.

Are you prepared for the unexpected with your marketing campaigns? Do you have the tools to understand the underlying dynamics behind your campaign statistics. Is a new marketing segment beginning to respond to you, are your competitors imitating your campaigns, do you need to change your approach.

#3 Bad publicity is still publicity

(Just ask Paris Hilton)

If you’re reading this, it is likely that you won’t have to deal with bad publicity often. Frankly you almost wish you had some bad publicity to deal with. This point is still important to you as a marketer.

You still have to deal with negative sentiments towards your campaign. If you’re mass marketing the same campaign to the same list regularly. Chances are you are damaging your brand and making your recipients less receptive to what you have to say.

Learn from Paris, take a bad and use it for your benefit. Use the opportunity to rebrand your company/ marketing campaigns and turn negative sentiments around. (Of course not everyone will be convinced, remove them from your list! )

#4 What do people remember you for?

Take a page out of Donald Trump’s play book. When you hear the name Trump, you associate it with perfection.

What do your recipients associate your brand with? Humourous campaigns, long boring text, spam? Make sure you control how people view your brand and keep to it. Marketing success often comes with repetition.

#5 It’s all about the campaign

On her current concert tour, Lady GAGA very boldly tells her fans that for her, it is all about the music, not the money. This refreshing approach to music is however the reason for her success.

Similarly, by focusing your campaigns on the recipient’s experience, making the conversation about them (not about you or your brand), then campaign success will follow. Make sure the campaign tools you have in your arsenal: design, messaging, campaign offers, marketing channels… work to this purpose.

#6 Practice, Practice, Practice (or Test, Test, Test)

Only 1 player in the recent history of the NBA has the ability to unite the world around a sport. Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest player in the history of the NBA, often attributes his success to his focus on training.

Similarly, marketers need to constantly hone their skills and test each campaign. Will a simple change in email subject line improve responses? What about a new offer, a new marketing channel, a new way to use social media, a new presentation style, a new sales pitch…

Make sure you are constantly testing, the marketing landscape changes quickly, what works today may not work tomorrow.

—> In remembrance of another MJ

Your customers and prospects are social. They like interacting with brands online. You already do email marketing, you already send direct mail, some of you are already creating effective multichannel marketing campaigns, but do you have the right strategy for going social?

Chris Brogan frequently blogs about social media strategy and how technology can be used to create applications that interacts with the online community. See the Dunkin run demo (below).

Here are some strategy tips from his recent post ‘ you still need a frame‘.

• Discover related blogging community. Begin commenting and building relationships.
• Build branded Twitter and Facebook presence.
• Build off-site blog to connect with the community of prospective users.
• Launch blogger outreach requests. Track affirmatives. Track for posts. Respond to comments.

The social communuty is also a great place to learn from and connect with other brands.

Connect with L2: Youtube | Twitter | Facebook

GURLs, CURLs, and PURLs

So, why are some of us still reluctant to use PURLs as an ingredient in our direct marketing mix. Does it not generate higher response rates than GURLs or CURLs ? Is it not cost efficient? Implementation is difficult and time consuming? If you nodded and/or answered “yes” to any of these questions, you probably haven’t done your homework.

There has been sufficient proof that PURLs generate higher response rates than GURLs and CURLs do… Google it! Yes, personalization does come with a price tag, but it may not be as costly as you think. The key is to consider other alternatives before committing to “out of the box” solutions. Do some research on SaaS (software as a service) solutions… they are more likely to be more cost and resource efficient.

I strongly believe the true barrier is the perception that implementing PURLs is difficult and time consuming. Perceptions are not always true. There are solutions that enable users to quickly implement PURLs into their direct marketing initiatives with very little effort. What I am speaking of is not a myth. Take a few minutes and check out the clip below and witness how PURLs can be created and published in just minutes. Just a side note, the presenter (Doug) did this on his laptop, while waiting to tee off at the 16^th hole. 

(don’t be too concerned with all the technicality, this is just an example of how easy and quick PURLs can be implemented)

For general definitions of GURLs, CURLs and PURLs, check out the Insight Forums

Will V.

I recently attended Ad:Tech Singapore, mainly to get a feel of the general sentiment in the marketing community in Asia.

I have to say, much of the sentiment is the same. The main focus is still the dollars and cents; basically measuring the performance of various marketing mediums, finding cheaper/better ways to reach the user/customer and providing better value to the user.

A lot of talk was on digital marketing, and how it has to be connected with traditional media and social media on both ends of the spectrum.

In terms of marketing technology of the future, mobile seems to be standing out from the rest (although I still have my qualms about mobile’s unique ability to more deeply invade and distract the user and in some cases make them pay for it.

Incidently, Yahoo now has mobile advertising. See http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/mobile/

Video-on-demand seems to be another big innovation (especially with large content publishers and television networks).

One of the main differences in Asia (apart from the less mature markets) is the distribution of online spend. As far of marketing budgets go, the online budget is almost about 1%, much less than the (>20%) average in US and Europe.

I heard the same complains from online advertising companies that 30% of your customers are online so shouldn’t 30% of your budget be allocated to online mediums. I still disagree with this thought process.

Simply because online marketing (when done right) provides a better ROI than a print ad in a popular publication/ tradeshows and especially TV ads. So while I agree that online budgets should increase, I do so for an entirely different reason, they work!

In the words of one of the panelist from Yahoo. Online marketing flattens the marketing ‘ecosystem‘ - your prospects go from awareness to retention to acquistion almost immediately.

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…

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

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