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

Often the greatest divides result from the simplest of things. 1 chromosome in your DNA, the continuous flow of a river or whether your prospects enable images in their emails.

Whether you are marketing B2B or B2C this problem is the same, but the solution is very simple.

Send email messages in the right format to everyone on your list.

Personalized marketing is not just about putting the first name, company name, etc in your marketing message. It is also about catering to preferences. Test your response to image-heavy HTML emails, HTML emails using background colors for the design and a simple email text message.

Track who responds to each type and remember those settings for future messages. If you like, have a link in each email message that allows your prospects to specify their preference.

Here’s this email divide in action:

Email: Text Version

Email: HTML

If you asked me which format is better for your messages? I wouldn’t know. (It’s not called the great email divide for nothing. )

But if you know which customer segments are more visual, how they have been responding to your image-laden html messages or if you just asked them. The choice is clear for you.

Every message you send out, you’ll be sending email messages that give you a better response.

Will some people still label you a spammer? Probably.

Will you get better response with targeted email structure and design styles? Definitely.

Related posts:

Marketing Sherpa’s 2009 Email benchmarking guide:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/exs/Email09Excerpt.pdf

Converting email with images blocked:
http://www.betterresponseblog.com/index.php/marketing/converting-email-with-blocked-images/

“A cowboy rode into town on friday and left 3 days later on friday. How did he do it?”

I assure you the quiz question is relevant and it all has to do with the channel. It’s the same in marketing!

Elizabeth Gooding, the Digital Nirvana, recently discussed personalized URLs and how it should be used in conjunction with email and direct mail.

We’ve been touting the same message almost all year but we’re finding that the channels you use to reach your customers and how you put them together are becoming more important this year. Especially when more than ever, marketers need to show results and find a way to get the same response at less cost.

In her article, Elizabeth quotes a statistic provided by podi.org which indicates that

“Relevant campaigns generate, on average, 300% better response than those that are simply personalized”

Now imagine what that boost in response will be if it is personalized, relevant and continuous.

You may have a great campaign idea for a direct mail piece, complemented by a purl, but it is not enough until you have a plan for a multi-touch campaign. This means involving everything from email, purl, direct mail, reminder emails, sales calls, maybe even SMS that continues the two-way conversation between your brand and your customers.

Yes it may look more expensive adopting this multi-channel process, but remember when you have a way to track response down to the individual, you will be able to make sure you spend 80% of your budget on the 20% of customers that give you the most business!

For more on the multi-channel process. View this video about “Climbing the Multi-Channel Mountain (without falling off!)” to see how you can get started!

By the way, the horse’s name was ‘friday’.

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.

Aren’t you tired of struggling with poor campaign response rates? Can’t find that pot of gold?

If you’re getting poor results and ROI, not getting value for your marketing dollars (even if it is just the cost of emails) and are feeling bummed about your marketing ideas chances are you’re not alone.

Arguably, marketing has never been as challenged as it is during this economic period. With marketing budgets often the first to be cut, your prospects and customers even more determined not to respond and spending at an all time low. You need to make your marketing stand out! With this post, I want to help you do that and lift the lid on some of the secrets to doing better.

1) Implementation matters

Your marketing ideas are not bad. Likely it is the implementation of the idea that is lacking. Marketers need to warm up to the fact that a campaign is not just a single email/ direct mail message. Instead, it is putting together a message across multiple channels with multiple touches across time with different messaging across your central theme.

Your ideas are like the central theme for a movie. What you need to do is put together around it the CGI, talent, script to complete the cinematic experience.

2) Brand matters

If you work for an already established brand, then in general, you are privy to higher response rates. But if most of your campaign recipients do not really know you. Then you need to stand out with your campaigns. Yes, the message and offer does matter but just as important is how you present it. Do it in a way that adds humour, pulls the heart strings, makes economic sense or just entertains and your recipients will remember you for it.

3) Relevance matters

I said once, sending a direct mail/ email personalized to an individual but getting their name wrong is bad. But just as bad is sending a message that is not relevant to the individual. Make sure you are targeting each customer segment with appropriate messages and if a large number of people unsubscribe from your message from a particular segment, refine your message and keep it relevant!

4) Design Matters

Will V is the expert on this. If you’re like me and think well, if the message is right, the offer is right, the implementation is well-planned then that’s enough to make a successful campaign. You’re missing the key to the treasure chest. You’re missing the design!

As Wrich frequently points out to me. We’re first visual people. And if you’re getting high email open rates but poor response,  maybe this is your achilles heel.

Harness the power of Fuse for effective multichannel, interactive campaigns

The conversion rate, in marketing terms, is not rocket science. Simple formulas can equate to the optimal conversion rate. Depending on the initiative and objective, there are multiple formulas that will give you the conversion rate you are looking for. I cannot say which formula works for which objectives, but I can tell you a formula that has been proven to be effective  is: multi-channel + interaction = conversion.

Multi-channel

Multi-channel is simply communicating the same message to your target through a combination of channels. For example, your target may receive an email, direct mail and/or SMS with the same message. The objective is to get their attention.

Interaction

Are you “just telling” your target about an offer or did you start a conversation about the offer? Create an opportunity for your target to find out more about the offer. The latest trend in motivating response is the use of a personalized URL. Try sending emails with a personalized URL attached to it. The target will receive the email with an appealing offer and they can click on the their personal URL to do more research on the offer. With proper analytics, you will be aware of who has visited their personal URL and have sales initiate the follow up contact.

Conversion

Once you have gotten your target’s attention through a multi-channel strategy and created a relationship through encouraging interaction, conversion is just a couple of variables away.

As you are reading this post, you may think is this is easier said than done. Well, I did not intend on teaching anyone how to put the formula together. I only wanted to share a formula that various organizations have received success in. The latest success story is from One2Won of the Palmer Printing Company. Palmer Printing  is one of the largest and most reputable print organizations in the industry. Read how One2Won of Palmer acquired successful results for some of their biggest clients through the use of this simple formula.

curious about how a personalized URL works? Play with this test application

Let me know what you think. Feel free to agree or disagree ( i am open to any challenges).

Will V

The current economic conditions, intensity of rivalry and reduced consumer spending makes all marketing initiatives seem like uphill battles. As veterans of marketing wars, you are all probably accustomed to fighting uphill battles. Fighting under the overcast of massive media clouds and content contamination, maybe uphill battles are the only battles in a marketing war. This is assuming you are not Apple, Google, Wal-Mart or in possession of brand equity that is worth millions.

Even as veterans of uphill battles, the ROI does not always equate to victory. The biggest mistake in fighting an uphill battle is always taking the same and only one trail up the hill. Ever thought of taking more than one trail up the hill? You will be surprised that victory might just require less effort.

Tony Wilcox, founder of Atomic Media Works, has recently claimed victory in one of the most intense industries. The DPS Magazine has recently posted a story about his success. Tony demonstrates the effectiveness of a multi-channel strategy by combining direct mail, pURLs and emails. Read about it! Maybe we can all be inspired to take different approaches in the next battle.

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