Archive for September, 2009

September 30th, 2009

5 Steps to Writing a Really Motivating Email

at signWriting effective emails for marketing purposes has its challenges. When contacting potential customers (or even steady customers)in an email, you’ll want to take these 5 steps to encourage them to take action.

  1. Use an attention-getting subject line: Include exciting words, “Free”, or anything that will differentiate your email from all the others your customers receive.
  2. Explain the problem/need: Educate the recipients on the problem they have, just to be sure they are aware of it.
  3. Describe solution: Now that they know they have a problem, they want a solution. Tell the recipients what your product will do to help them.
  4. Explain benefits: Be sure your potential customers know how your solution will benefit them.
  5. Ask for action: It’s an old saying, but true: “ask for the sale.”

These five steps don’t need to be elaborate. In fact, the simpler the email, the better. Keep it strong but minimal in words, and powerful in impact.

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September 29th, 2009

Will Mobile Marketing Coupons Work for Your Company?

iPhoneMobile Marketing is just beginning to take off, with some projections showing an increase in spending from worldwide spending of $913.5 million (estimated) in 2009 to $13 billion in 2013. And one aspect of mobile marketing that has huge potential is mobile coupons. Sent directly to the user, these coupons have barcodes that can be scanned at the store. JCPenny, Caribou Coffee, Domino’s Pizza, A&P and others are already successfully using mobile coupons.  Will mobile coupons work for your company?

1. Do your clients carry mobile devices? Consider that in Japan and Korea, over 50 million people use their devices like virtual wallets. Some markets in the US even have 100 percent mobile penetration.

2. Do your stores have device readers? The United States is still growing in the area of mobile devices, but it will need to increase readers that can scan the mobile coupons.

3. Are you willing to spend on mobile development through the recession? Research has shown that in 2008 and 2009, advertising through mobile channels is not decreasing.  Mobile marketing is poised for expansion.

4. Do you like double digit coupon redemption rates? There are reports showing greatly increased redemption of mobile coupons.

5. Do you like data? With mobile coupon tracking, you can know the time of day when coupons are redeemed. You can send out real-time offers to shoppers, give a nudge to impulse buyers, and target carriers in the area of your store.

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a resource: http://bit.ly/mobilemktforecast

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September 25th, 2009

Warning: Is Your Website Being Read?

HttpThe premise behind the new book Ordinary Greatness, by Pamela Bilbrey and Brian Jones, is that there are people all around who are everyday people doing great things every day.  One of the ideas they promote deserves attention: Read at least six books a year. What a way to keep your marketing skills up to date, and up your awareness of the world around you. It will help you become great.

One of the ways many of us get our information nowadays, however, is not in books. (How sad, sayeth I.)  We get info doing exactly the way you are doing it right now. We read the web.

And here’s some interesting statistics they found that are relevant to our customers who provide information to customers on the web.

“Scholars form University College of London found that people who get their knowledge from online sources do it in a very distinctive way: They bounce from one source to another, rarely reading the piece in its entirety. The study reports: “It is clear that users are not ‘reading’ online in the traditional sense: indeed, there are signs that new forms of ‘reading’ are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, content pages and abstracts going to quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.”

What does that mean to you as you design your websites? What successful designs for your web pages have you found? Give us your ideas.

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September 25th, 2009

Why Facebook is Like a Pub and LinkedIn is Like a Tradeshow.

I’m sitting here this morning waiting for the New Media Atlanta conference to start — it looks like it’s going to be absolutely fabulous.BlogRSSFeed

Earlier, I had the pleasure of chatting with Desiree Scales, who is the CEO of Bella Web Design, an Atlanta-based web design and social media firm.

Desiree was the first one to point out to me that you can’t do social media in 30 minutes a day. That all seems so obvious right now, but she was the first person I knew to draw attention to the fact that social media is about having an ongoing conversation with your customers and prospects. An ongoing conversation can’t happen over a morning cup of coffee — it has to take place in little bursts throughout the day.

No sooner had I thanked Desiree for providing me that insight than she thanked me for pointing out a framework for thinking about social media. “You were the first person to point out to me that Facebook is like a pub and LinkedIn is like a trade show,” she said.

This insight came from a speech I gave in San Francisco about 9 months ago. While working up the slides, it hit me that the problem with social media is that, for some people, it’s relatively new. Given its newness, people don’t know how to think about it — they need to put it into a framework so they can understand it and wrap their minds around it.

So I developed a neat little way to frame various social media tools. It put Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace into categories that seemed to resonate with people.

Here they are again, in case you missed them when we talked about them a few months ago.

The 60 Second Marketer Social Media Framework:

Facebook is like a Pub — an informal place to talk casually with people and get to know people on a more personal 
basis. It’s okay to tell a joke in a pub. You can also talk about what you did over the weekend.

LinkedIn is like a Trade Show — a slightly more formal place to meet other business professionals and connect with them primarily for business purposes. You don’t tell dirty jokes at a Trade Show. Nor would you do that on LinkedIn.

Twitter is like a Cocktail Party — an energetic place where there are many conversations going on at once. If you like the conversation going on in one group, you might share the information with people in the next conversation you have.

YouTube is like Times Square on New Year’s Eve — a place where it’s hard to break through, but if you do, millions of people will see you.

MySpace is like Woodstock — wild, crazy and perfect for the younger generation or cause-oriented marketing.

I’m told that people have really gravitated to this framework — apparently, it helps people wrap their minds around social media. For that, I’m very, very grateful.

If you’d like to download this and other good information about social media, visit 60SecondMarketer.com/pdf where you’ll be able to download a presentation called “How to Set Up, Run and Manage a Social Media Campaign.” It’s packed with good information on social media and how to use it for your business.

Enjoy!

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September 23rd, 2009

Don’t be Left Behind in 2010

Here goes online ad spending

Here goes online ad spending

Time to plan next year’s budget as the fourth quarter of the year approaches. What do you need to be aware of for planning how to spend your ad dollars for 2010?

GroupM has released its predictions for 2010 online ad spending. Here are the numbers, and what they suggest your budget allows for.

Increase online advertising:

Online advertising is expected to account for 15% of global ad spending in 2010, up from 13% this year, according to media buying agency GroupM. This reinforces what many believe:  that marketers are willing to put more of their ad dollars into the Internet.  In the study covering 36 countries, GroupM says it expects nearly $65 billion to be spent globally in online ads next year.

Online ads made up only 3.1% of global ad buys in 2001. Compare that to the U.S. alone, where digital ads will grab 17% of total spending next year, or $24.5 billion. Then consider that compared to 15.4% in 2009, and 13.9% in 2008.

More Search, Video and Mobile Ads:

Many of those dollars will come in the form of search, video and mobile ads, with search increasing its ad spend to 43%, compared to 38% in 2006. “Today, search remains a key driver of digital marketing as advertisers compete to capture a disproportionate share that search behavior represents,” said Rob Norman, CEO of GroupM Interaction.

Mobile Ads are Up:

Mobile ad spending will reach 6%, or $3.3 billion, up from $2.4 billion in 2008.

Display Ads are Down:

Display ads will decline as supply has run ahead of demand in 2009. Display ads will account for 34% of online marketing buys in 2010.

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September 22nd, 2009

7 Ways to Leverage Your Advertising

by Jay Abraham, author, The Sticking Point Solution

It's all about leverage

It's all about leverage

If advertising is currently your main driver of sales, you can make surprisingly minor and easy changes in your existing advertising that will produce major results – and you won’t have to spend a dime. There are several  leverage factors at your immediate disposal, each of which can increase sales 20 to 500 percent:

1. Write great headlines: No matter how good the rest of your ad is, your audience won’t ever see it if they don’t get past the headline. Your headline must telegraph to your prospects the biggest, most appealing specific benefit or payoff they can expect to receive. It must be catchy and contain key words that will pop up from the page.

2. Set yourself apart: Distinguish your business from every other competitor by addressing an obvious void in the marketplace that you alone can honestly fill. Set your prospects’ buying criteria for them, so that only you, your business, or your product can clear the bar. Focus on one specific, relevant niche that is most sorely lacking in the marketplace and make it your own.

3. Offer proof to build your credibility: Provide substantiation for your claims, including client testimonials, quotes from experts, and excerpts of media articles about your product. Contrast your performance, construction, or support with the competitions’.

4. Reverse your customers’ risk: Put the onus on yourself. Tell your clients that you’ll offer a full refund, or at least some element of the transaction. Taking the burden of risk off a client will result in higher (and quicker) sales.

5. Include a call to action: Now that your audience has read your ad, don’t make their next step ambiguous. Tell them exactly what to do, why to do it, what benefits they can expect – and what penalties or dangers will result from delay. “Call now!” “Visit our store!” Such phrases may sound old school, but they’re still in use for a reason.

6. Offer a bonus: Whether it’s a coupon, a discount, an extended warranty, or the promise of preferential treatment, a bonus on top of your already fabulous product or service proposition can only further entice and multiply sales. “Be one of the first to join and receive a free companion book!”

7. Summarize your offer: By summarizing your offer at the end of your ad, you are seizing the moment to “Bring it home”:  Reiterate the problem you are able to solve, the benefits your buyers will gain, and the upside with no downside. Then tell them again how to act now.

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Jay Abraham, author of The Sticking Point Solution: 9 Ways to Move Your Business From Stagnation to Stunning Growth In Tough Economic Times, is founder and CEO of Abraham Group, Inc., in Los Angeles, California and has spent the last twenty-five years increasing the bottom lines for over 10,000 clients in more than 400 industries worldwide.

Learn more about Jay Abraham at www.abraham.com

Reprinted with permission.

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September 21st, 2009

Company has Balls, Doubles Twitter Followers

beachball pageApparently, the best way to increase your company’s Twitter followership is to have balls. Beach balls, that is. Severa Corporation found a unique way to lure their website visitors to their Twitter site and sign on as followers. Beach balls in hand, here’s what they did.

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By Zaki Usman, Marketing Director, Severa Corp.

Before the start of summer, I had ordered over 300 branded beach balls to be used for some promotional offer with Severa Corp. While I was sweating out the heat wave with my colleagues in Severa’s Headquarters in Eastern Finland, a light bulb went off…“Hey, how about we use those beach balls to get more Twitter followers?”  We got busy to launch “Follow us on Twitter and win a beach ball campaign.”

We had some inspiring results.

Doubled Follower Count:

By the ninth day after the program was launched, we doubled our Follower count from 4,700 to 9,400.

We have increased the following:

  • Meaningful conversations through direct messages
  • Frequency of our ReTweets
  • Higher website traffic referred from Twitter

And not only that, we started getting genuine followers who contribute to our social network.

Increased Relevant Traffic:

In fact, here are some of our website traffic stats on unique visitors that were referred from Twitter:

Avg from June 1 to June 28

(before the beach ball campaign)

 Avg from June 29 to July 8

(during the beach ball campaign)
Avg Time on Site approx. 3 minutes approx. 5 minutes
Bounce Rate 40% 48%
Goal Conversion Rate 6% 8

In the first week, we had more Twitter traffic than in the last 2 months. With this increase, we also had a slight raise in bounced traffic – which is understandable since we get more “passer bys.”

Raised Conversion Rate:

What’s most interesting is that, people who do stay, end up on our site for 5 minutes (2 minutes longer than before.) This means they are genuinely interested in our offering and that also explains why our conversion rates are higher now as well.

Over all, the Beach ball for Twitter follow has been a successful campaign thanks to my marketing team. Within 9 days we doubled our follower count, we increased relevant traffic and we raised our conversion rate. This really was a good idea to kick start our summer!

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If you want you can follow Severa on Twitter too – perhaps, you may win a beach ball. Also visit TargetInfoLabs and Severa.

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September 19th, 2009

The Best Marketing Program Ever?

touchdownNow here’s an interesting concept to consider:  Fantasy Football is a prime example of integrated marketing. We came across this article and have condensed it to a 60 second read. Get the whole article here. Read, then let us know if you agree.

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Is Fantasy Football The Best Marketing Program Ever? Yes!

by Cory Treffiletti

This past weekend marked the opening of the NFL season, which reminded me of the simple brilliance that is fantasy football. Without a doubt, fantasy football is the most perfect example of integrated marketing in existence today. It marries the best of online marketing and social media with real-world events and that most basic of human traits: pure, unbridled competitiveness.

First and foremost, fantasy football is an integrated marketing platform. It takes an offline event, one that is still considered appointment viewing in television and is less likely to be DVR’d and time-shifted, and marries it with online tools that allow you to keep track of the games no matter where you are and what time it is. It generates enormous page views and it is also one of the fastest growing online video plays.

Fantasy football is also a social networking opportunity, with more and more people engaging in competitive leagues each year for money and bragging rights alike. There are numerous platforms for creating and managing a league.

Active fantasy team managers don’t just wait till Sunday to log in to their teams. They are interacting daily: checking injury reports and waiver wires, reading local news on their star players, etc. Some fantasy team managers log in and spend as much as 30 minutes or more just doing research (much of which is likely done at work).

Fantasy football is also an open, distributed platform, much like Twitter and Facebook Connect. Fantasy football apps are all the rage this time of the year.  It would appear there are just as many people accessing their teams through mobile devices as through the Web and the standard PC interface.

And of course, fantasy football is the ultimate social lubricant. Just the other day I was in the elevator talking with my wife about our fantasy teams (and yes, she has a better team than I do) and the guy next to us jumped into the conversation. Fantasy sports, especially fantasy football, are a unifying factor in the U.S. for just about all casual sports fans because they force you to watch and root for multiple teams beyond just your hometown.

If I were a sports marketer, I would examine the NFL and the ways they’ve embraced this pastime because it can provide valuable insight into how to engage with my consumer. Even CPG marketers can see that marrying together social and standard online media with an offline event can help tap into the innate passion for a product and drive consumer engagement.

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Cory is president and managing partner for Catalyst SF.

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September 18th, 2009

13 Tips to Help You Succeed in Business.

Ellis Vener is one of the nation’s leading commercial photographers and has spent his entire career fine-tuning his craft. During the course of his journey, Ellis compiled a list of 13 tips he’s used to succeed in the highly-competitive field of photography.

Ellis Vener has worked with some of the largest and best-known brands in the world.

Ellis Vener has worked with some of the largest and best-known brands in the world.

You’ll noticed a sense of humility in all of Ellis’s tips, which is why we gravitate to this article so much. After all, success if often about hard work, humility and persistence. (Our favorite tip: Be nice to people, especially people behind airport counters.)

With that in mind, here are Ellis Vener’s 13 Tips to Help You Succeed in Business.

“Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win.” — Bobby Knight

1.  Persist and prepare. It takes time to refine a craft. Eric Clapton spent a year or two in his room in his mother’s house practicing learning how to play different styles of blues guitar. Adobe says it takes 10,000 hours to completely master Photoshop’s tools. Andy Warhol said just do the work.  All these things prepare your mind to see the right opportunities and go through those doors when they appear.  And the process of practice and preparation should never stop if you want to keep on growing. Warren Buffett still does his homework, shouldn’t you?

2. Be willing to try, fail and start again. You are only as good as your last piece. Failures and the willingness to try again, and again, and again are as essential to being a creative person as is seeing things in a unique way.

3. Accept change. Given the opportunity we are all creative people and creativity requires a willingness to evolve.

4.  Learn your craft and the business of practicing it. There is no substitute. Given the opportunity we are all creative people and creativity requires a willingness to evolve.

5. You can’t do it alone. You need a teacher, a mentor, an inspiration, and someone who can kick your ass to try harder.  You probably need more than one of each, at different times and for different reasons. As well as encouraging you, good teachers, mentors and inspirations help you see your weak spots, even when you want to ignore them.

6.  Enjoy what you spend most of your time doing. Challenge yourself.

7. Be nice, but don’t give in to bullies. When I was assisting, the guy who was hired before me once waved his paycheck in my face and said “I am more important than you because I make more money than you do.”  I was embarrassed to show him mine, which was larger as I was always willing to work overtime.

8. Respect other people. A large part of being successful is simply showing up on time, being prepared, and being polite to people behind check in desks at airports.

9.  Be true to you, be loyal, and reward loyalty.

10. Talent can be developed, but raw talent never takes the place of preparation, practice and persistence. I pre-visualise a lot of my photos, whether it’s a week ahead of the shoot or just a few minutes before the shoot.  I do a lot of thinking about what I hope the final finished photograph will look like, but many times the real world throws curve balls at my plans so I have learned to improvise a bit. Some of my best work results from those improvisations.  Preparation and practice help you come up with solutions to real world problems.

11. You have to define what success means to you.

12. You have to enjoy the process as much if not more than the finished piece.

13. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Learn what you can about your client’s business. Most people are happy to talk about what they do

Author Bio:

Ellis Vener is a professional photographer specializing in photographing people, high resolution panoramic, and industrial photography. Ellis’ clients run the gamut between Fortune 100 companies, startups, and non-profits. You can see galleries of his work at http://www.ellisvener.com

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September 17th, 2009

How to Set Objectives for a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

Email continues to be one of the most effective tools in the marketer’s toolbox. But before you launch your first email campaign, you should ask yourself, “What are your objectives? What formats are most effective to communicate these objectives? How often should you send the emails?”EmailIcon

Constant Contact, an email marketing solutions company, offers a way to match the formats you choose based on the objectives of your email campaign.

Here are their formats and their suggestions for using them:

1)    Newsletter Format: Use this format when your objectives include:
a.    Enhance awareness
b.    Increase interaction
c.    Educate recipients

Send a Newsletter monthly or quarterly.

2)    Promotional Format: This format works best when your objectives are to:
a.    Motivate purchases
b.    Generate traffic to a storefront
c.    Generate traffic to a website

You’ll want to send promotional emails bi-weekly or monthly.

3)    Announcement Format: These press releases or new product offerings are effective with objectives such as:
a.    Increase event attendance
b.    Increase donations/contributions
c.    Improve public relations

Since these are usually event-based, send an event invitation with multiple communications allowing for recipients to first “save the date”, then sign up, then get a reminder. Announcements, of course, would only need a single communication.

Constant Contact reminds us – track your responses to be sure what you think is effective really is effective. If the campaign isn’t getting the results you expected, check your format, check you objectives, check your timing, and see if you can tweak.

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The 60 Second Marketer is a free online magazine brought to you by BKV Interactive and Direct Response. We try to provide quick updates on the newest tools, tips and techniques in marketing. We also try to accomplish that with a dose of humor or levity. As it turns out, we're pretty good at providing tools, tips and techniques, but we're not actually all that funny. Which would explain why people don't call us "funny" as much as they call us "laughable." Bummer. Our offices, for those of you who are interested, are located in Atlanta (404-233-0332) and Kansas City (913-648-8333). We also have offices on Bora Bora, but they don't have the phones installed yet.

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