It’s your choice…
Are you going to wait until SOPA/PIPA passes and THEN complain?
How to Put Your Customers on Hold
In a post at the Neuromarketing blog, Roger Dooley recalls trying to minimize wait times when his company oversaw a small call center. “We knew (from those times when we didn’t have enough staff in place) that the longer callers waited to speak to a representative, the higher the probability was that they would abandon the call,” he says. “And, if they hung up, they might never call back.”
Everyone knows the exasperation of calling a toll-free number only to wait—and wait, and wait—while listening to elevator music, ads for products and services, or disingenuous messages about the importance of your call. “Instead of those common and boring solutions,” suggests Dooley, “try something a little different: building in ‘social proof’ messaging might actually keep callers on the line and, when the call is answered, boost conversion rates.”
In other words, tell callers you can’t answer their call because so many people are clamoring for your product or service. Using this philosophy, Colleen Szot famously tweaked infomercial copy from the standard operators are waiting, please call now to if operators are busy, please call again. “This seemingly trivial change caused sales to skyrocket,” notes Dooley.
How can you give your message some social proof? He offers this example:Due to high order volume during our holiday sale, our wait times are a little longer than usual. Thanks for holding. As a bonus, customer might even feel fortunate if their call is then answered swiftly.
With a social proof strategy, putting your customer on hold might not be such a bad thing. But, warns Dooley, “[t]his kind of message will wear out its welcome over time. Regular rotation is a must.”
Source: Neuromarketing.
How to Create Customer Personas
“Your site has hordes of visitors every day clamoring to check out the vintage comics you sell,” writes Veronica Maria Jarski at MarketingProfs Daily Fix. “But what do you know about your visitors? Are they die-hard fans of specific series? Older folks caught in childhood nostalgia? Rather than make assumptions, create personas of your users.”
Personas are profiles that represent your website’s typical visitors, and they help you to focus your energies on those who matter the most. Mark O’Brien, president of Newfangled, suggests identifying 15 of your most significant visitors and asking them 10 questions:
- What were your impressions when you got to the current website?
- Did you come back to the site? What encouraged you to return?
- How often do you visit the site and for what purpose?
- Are you familiar with our area of expertise? Are you just learning about it and our site is a research tool? Are you a competitor?
- If you do have an understanding of our area of expertise, what other sites have been good resources in this area?
- What do you dislike about those sites? Do you prefer ours?
- What do you do on the site? Do you: check press releases, sign up for newsletters, download whitepapers, etc.?
- How would you describe our site to a peer?
- “How would you like feature X?” (Use this question to bounce ideas off people about a feature that you are considering adding to the site.)
- What is the No. 1 thing we could do improve our site?
With their answers, you can develop between three and five personas—quick snapshots of your most valuable customers’ wants and needs.
Source: MarketingProfs Daily Fix.
The Shelf Chronicles Revisited!
Okay… two points right off the bat. I have always been drawn to interesting, unusual people, businesses and ways of thinking. I enjoy reading business blogs that offer interesting, out-of-the-box content that gives me a glimpse into who the owner’s are as well as what the company has to offer. The occasional “what I did on my summer vacation” post is a great way to introduce some whimsical content in with the business to business postings.
With that said, I am going to revisit a thread that I had originally started back in February of 2008, the “Shelf Chronicles”. I have always enjoyed watching bonus feature material on any dvd from Pixar Studios as it typically shows employees working in there impossibly cool studios surrounded by all manner of interesting, weird, out-of-the-ordinary toys, decorations etc. I have a corner in my office which is devoted to my “muses” as I call them. They are a collection of things that have special meanings for me; from toys of my childhood to action figures and statues from tv shows, anime and movies that I have enjoyed over the years.
My Office Muses
This particular thread on my blog will be a way for me to introduce them to you and give you the opportunity to get to know the “geekier” side of Shadowbend Studios (whether or not that is a good idea, we’ll soon find out!!). Those of you who may have read my pseudo-bio on the company information page on my website will know that I am no stranger to quirky, odd ramblings 🙂
So, on to the first introductions…. perhaps we should begin with one of the more unique members of my extended family; Tybo the Carrot Man from “Lost In Space”. He was one of the first of my collection and always gets a double take from visitors.
"Tybo" The Carrot Man
Tybo is the main alien character from the Lost In Space episode “The Great Vegetable Rebellion”. For those of you are in the mood, you can view the entire episode on Hulu by following this link. Enjoy! 🙂
How to Avoid Four Deadly Email Program Sins
“There are a lot of things that can go wrong with email marketing—broken links, typos, unoptimized images—the list goes on,” writes Magdalena Georgieva at the HubSpot blog. But on the other hand, she notes, marketers shouldn’t focus so intently on small technical details that they lose sight of the big picture—of customer engagement.
Keeping in mind the need to tread the thin line between email right and wrong, Georgieva discusses David Meerman Scott’s deadly sins of email marketing.
Here are four:
Bad marketing automation. The positive benefits of personalization will turn quickly negative if your message begins Dear [blank]. No subscriber thinks you sat down and wrote a personal offer—but she can reasonably expect that you’ll get her non-personal personalization correct.
Boring content. We can’t expect subscribers to share our inherent passion for our products, services and news. So tell a compelling story, and hold their interest with humor, controversy and interesting facts.
Lack of variety. No matter how much customers like a brand, they’ll lose interest if the only thing its messages ever say is please buy this thing. Mix it up with content that educates and builds relationships.
Predictable timing. If you send messages on Tuesday morning because someone said that’s when you should send a message, you’re probably missing big opportunities, Georgieva notes. Find out what works for your company by testing a variety of days and times; you might even discover success with a weekend campaign.
Think communication first. It’s important to cross your t’s and dot your i’s, but don’t get so carried away with the details that you forget to simply engage your subscribers.
Source: HubSpot.
Do What I Say AND What I do
When David Greiner decided to redesign the Campaign Monitor newsletter—rather than give it a simple facelift—he first studied the advice his company gave to customers. “Turns out we were breaking a number of the recommendations we’d been advocating for so long,” he notes, “and it was time to remedy that.” In a post at the Campaign Monitor blog, Greiner offers an in-depth discussion of his four redesign must-haves. Here’s a snapshot:
The newsletter had to be readable, even with blocked images. Though the previous design already addressed this issue, Greiner took it a step further. “I moved away from the large image-based header graphic at the top of the email and kept every important bit of information as text,” he explains. With the new design—shown in a screen shot at the blog post—a recipient won’t see the image placeholder, and might not even realize that anything has been blocked.
It had to be optimized for preview panes. Again, nothing groundbreaking here, but Greiner also put a spin on this concept by dispensing with a preheader altogether and diving right into a Table of Contents. “My testing showed this key content was now visible in the preview pane of every popular email client I tested,” he says, “even at a very low resolution.”
In its inaugural week, the redesigned newsletter’s click rate improved on the old design’s average by a cool eight percent.
Designer, heal thyself! Are you breaking any of your own newsletter design rules? If so, maybe it’s time for a makeover.
Source: Campaign Monitor
Three Tips for Making Smart Hires
Successful marketing requires a strong team—whether it’s dealing with customers on the front line, writing copy for email campaigns or developing products. “One way to hire smart is to never do it in a panic,” writes Jennifer Prosek in her book, Army of Entrepreneurs. “This means creating and nurturing a constant pipeline of potential candidates.” And here’s how to do it:
Always be on the lookout for talent. Make a habit of identifying and getting to know potential candidates—even when you don’t have a specific position to fill. “Never get caught in the trap of recruiting only when you need someone to start in two weeks,” she says. “That’s when you’re vulnerable to making a mistake [or] overlooking a weak work ethic.”
Make talent-spotting part of your staff’s job description. “Too often, staffers assume that recruiting happens someplace away from the daily hum of business, in some corner of the HR department,” notes Prosek, who freely admits she isn’t her company’s best talent spotter. She highlights the importance of recruiting in the weekly blog post she writes for employees, and encourages referrals with bonuses for bringing in top talent.
Hire the right person for the right job—even in a downturn. “I have often made strategy hires that at the time raised eyebrows,” she says. “What’s she doing? Hiring this high-priced talent in this economy? But I know what I’m doing. I’m making sure we are bringing in the talent we need to be successful.”
If you want the best employees, never stop looking for them.
Source: Army of Entrepreneurs.
Kickin’ It Old School
“Digital marketing has become the way to communicate in the 21st century,” says Elaine Fogel in a premium article at MarketingProfs. “Social media, email, search engine marketing, interactive marketing, blogs, wikis, and knols—the list goes on … to include mobile marketing, podcasting, videos.”
But in your rush to marketing’s online future, you shouldn’t abandon its offline past. Print collateral, argues Fogel, remains relevant.
Despite the seeming ubiquity of Internet access and usage, many people simply don’t go online. She cites a Parks Associates study that found 21 percent of Americans had never visited a Web site, sent an email or used a search engine. Even in highly developed European countries like France, Belgium and Austria, more than 40 percent of the population never uses the Internet; despite high rates of connectivity in countries like Japan and Taiwan, this number jumps—on average—to a whopping 85 percent in Asia.
Some segments prefer print marketing. Hispanic interest in direct mail has spiked in recent years, according to a Vertis survey, and while 85 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 44 read direct mail pieces, only 53 percent read email-marketing messages. “From this,” notes Fogel, “we can conclude that if you target women age 25-44 or Hispanics, print collateral may get your marketing messages through over digital options.”
Don’t neglect traditional marketing collateral. Says Elaine Fogel, “Even though digital marketing is growing with a vengeance, print collateral can still hold its place in an integrated marketing communications mix, at least for now.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
Give Away The Good Stuff
“If you want to create something very good,” says Tom Peters, “it takes time, energy, and sometimes money.” That, he argues, is exactly why you should give away your finest know-how for free. Before you beg to differ, consider his ten-point business case, which includes reasons like these:
It increases your reach. The marketplace is flooded with mediocre ideas that don’t merit discussion. Excellence, therefore, stands out and takes on a viral quality. “Giving away good stuff for free may be the fastest way to reach a lot of people,” says Peters.
It improves future projects. When smart people notice your ideas, he notes, “They may comment on your work, enhance your work, and maybe even, challenge your work.” It’s the equivalent of a kitchen cabinet making pro bono intellectual contributions.
It lowers the cost of sale. If companies decide to act on the ideas you present, there’s a good chance some will turn to your product or service during the implementation process.
Your Marketing Inspiration, and Peters’ number-one reason to give away the best you have to offer: “They don’t have to guess the quality of your work anymore,” says Peters, “so they will be more open to paying a premium for additional work.”
source: marketingprofs enewsletter
Three Tips for Getting B2B Email Frequency Right
Ardath Albee often gets questions about appropriate email frequency for B2B nurturing programs. How much is too much? How little is too little? “And, yep, wait for it—the answer is—it depends,” she writes at the Marketing Interactions blog.
So to help a range of B2B marketers find the right frequency for their email programs, Albee offers advice like this:
Accept that the length of the buy cycle is the length of the buy cycle. “If it’s 8 months, trying to increase the frequency to complete the program in 3 months isn’t going to change that,” she argues. “Buyers will move at their own pace.” Attempts to speed things up with additional email messages will likely annoy your leads and cause campaign fatigue.
Plan with a realistic view of your content-producing capabilities. It takes time to research, write, vet, approve and publish high-quality content. “Map your processes to a timeline so that you can meet the frequency schedule you choose to follow,” Albee advises. “Better to space it out and do it well than to rush to publish based on an artificial schedule you cannot maintain over the long haul.”
Coordinate the timing of email campaigns with each of your company’s departments. “Unless you can isolate your targeted lead list,” she says, “you need to look at the entire universe of email that they could be exposed to from your company and plan accordingly.” You might think you’re giving leads plenty of space, but they’ll feel bombarded if they’re also getting product announcements, corporate newsletters and webinar invitations from others in your organization.
Take the time to clearly map things out. There’s no simple formula for correct frequency, and yours depends on a host of variables—internal and external.
Source: Marketing Interactions.