Take Two: 11 Ways to Make a Winning Video

Video?!?!... why? That’s typically a part of the conversation from a lot of marketers when suggesting the video route; but there are three very effective reasons to incorporate video into your marketing efforts – 1) Your consumers want to see things; 2) some entertainment/ education requires an “in-person” demo to convey the message – video is the best way to make the two converge; 3) video is expressive and engaging.

The best part is that you don’t have to have TV-quality equipment to effectively use video for your branding – your winning video is just a few steps away, just consider the following:
1) Create brand awareness.
2) Balance the education with the entertainment quotient.
3) Focus on the viewer – how will your message help with the experience/ purchase decision?
4) Showcase your merchandise or offering.
5) Offer interaction – ask people what all they would like to see, let them drive the experience. For example, rather than showing the entire How To video, offer chapters/ sections for the viewer to self navigate.
6) Use the Paul Harvey approach – Tell a little, use intrigue and then drive viewers to a more focused landing page(s.)
7) Tag your video – Key words will be picked up by search engines… they love video!
8) Short is effective – Be crisp and clean, don't drag things out and make sure your video fits in short timeframes.
9) Remember Post-Sale – Videos are good prior to the sale, but are even better post sale because it reinforces the purchase decision and fosters interaction.
10) Initiate a dialogue via email after the video
11) Allow the user to post your video or related comments via social media – just imagine the impact.

Need more inspiration? Search “video” on our blog or spend a little time on YouTube… tell your boss it’s research

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Sold! Selling a Home via Social Media

Not too long ago, I put my house upon the market. I wanted to move to a different school district and closer to the rest of my family. Rather than go through the standard call a bunch of realtors for an interview and see what they could do to sell my home, I decided to leverage the internet to create demand.

I took a lot of pictures and created online curb appeal. The blog was full of information, as was Flickr, and also a few good You Tube clips that showed the house – inside & outside, the neighborhood, useful stores, and the close by schools. I had pictures across seasons as well as lots of information that I felt would be beneficial to a prospective buyer.

Next I started advertising my home to real estate agents. I called and emailed a group of them and as I spoke to each one I followed up with an email giving them a preview into my online repository – I didn’t publish all of my pictures yet. I told them some of the story leaving room for intrigue and my final launch. I ended up having many agents visit and propose taking my business. They also gave me a number of ideas that I kept implementing. I was successful in creating a buzz in the real estate community having many of them pre-selling my home.

I finally chose one, put the home on the market, and they brought someone home that evening. The visiting couple made an offer – the deal was done. So what are the lessons for an email marketer?

Grow your list, but grow it correctly – my target market included select real estate professional and not just randomly growing my list. If you run contests ask questions before you add people else your list will remain non-responsive.

Send the first message immediately – right after each conversation, I was able to send a message to the real estate agent. I was still relevant and they were anticipating my message.

Leverage user generated content – I used real pictures, you should do the same – ask your customers to provide you with images of how they have used your products / services. This is good / real content that is appreciated.

Create intrigue & excitement – I was building my list and giving previews to what was about to come. You should use bonding programs to build up towards the big announcement.

Set a deadline – I had promised the agents that I would be making the announcement on a particular date. That helped and I also know that many of the agents were also telling their customers about a home that was about to come on the market.

Email marketing is about creating interactive conversations. Do it right, and you can yield good results.

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Take 2: Need Awesome Content to Go Viral

With the buzz around social media marketing and the need to go into the life of the consumer, marketers are trying their hardest to get included. There is so much talk about inclusion and about following that marketers are forgetting to look at some fundamental issues.

If you want to get included on the Facebook page of the consumer, it is very much like asking the consumer to invite you & their friends into their living room. The consumer needs to feel comfortable about including you before they open you up to themselves and more so their friends. The same thing applies to Twitter; about getting the consumer to add you to their safe list via email; or even getting them to visit your blog.

You need to engage the consumer with something that the consumer has an interest in and not just expect that the consumer will blindly follow you.

It goes back to a quote by the Chinese philosopher Confucius – ‘Marketer who wants to share something should first be sure he have something to share.’

Okay so Confucius didn’t say that, but to really keep a consumer engaged you need to learn what it takes to keep them interested. It is all about engagement (2009 is the year of engagement for marketers), about making connections. Here are five simple ideas to help facilitate engagement –

You have to improve your segmentation
You have to use active copy
You have to achieve real personalization, name calling will not cut it
You have to look hard at your numbers, if something doesn’t work don’t do it
You have to carry on a conversation


Good copy goes a long way in helping too.

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Once Again: Lure, Engage, Retain

I am really enjoying a new hobby of backyard birding and have learned a lot over the past few months about how to attract and keep birds coming back to my yard. I got a few feeders, a couple of bird baths, and some really good bird seed to get things started.

It took a few days for the first bird to find one of the feeders. Within a few hours, many more birds showed up, and it has been fascinating as the birds start eating and chirping from dawn until dusk. I even learned a couple of good lessons – make sure the location of the bird bath feels safe for the birds & keep the feeders full, else birds stop showing up. You have to retrain them to find the food. My yard now is full of Goldfinches, Cardinals, Titmice, Mourning Doves, & the very friendly Chickadees. My next goal is to get the Chickadees to eat out of my hands.

I got this started by luring them, engaging them with food and water, and of course getting them to come back (retaining them) by making sure that the bird bath was full and clean & I had enough seed to feed the birds. I even started mixing seeds to only to learn that it keeps the birds really interested and flying from feeder to feeder.

Marketing is about the very same principles – you have to attract / lure your prospect. You have to keep them engaged to make them a customer, and you have to learn how to bring them back. It doesn’t matter if you are working with email, direct mail, or even social media. The very same thing applies – lure – engage – retain – the magic mantra for your success.

Have a little reminder at your desk - attract - engage - retain. Look at every campaign and make sure you are thinking about all three elements in your marketing campaigns.

If you would like to join the Backyard Birder group, it is on LinkedIn.

You can also become a fan of another backyard birding club on Facebook.

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Once Again: Why people transact?

As we prepare our campaigns and plan our communiques with our lists here is a quick recap of why people transact – bank / make purchases. Broadly speaking people purchase / transact because –

1. They need it,
2. They find it of value,
3. It is something aspirational.

If you walked into a grocery store to pick up milk, eggs, & cereal for breakfast – you are satisfying a need. As you walk through the store you may see beer or soda on sale so you decide not to pass up on the good deal (value). As you are walking out of the store you eye that water fountain – it looks wonderful and sounds so serene & soothing – you think about purchasing it sometime soon – now that is aspirational.

A checking and saving account is a need, so is a credit card. Opening a six month CD for 3.25% interest would be something of value today, planning a purchase to redo your kitchen is something aspirational.

Three basic shirts from your clothing cataloger might be a need. Picking up two more to waive the shipping might be of value. Getting the shirts monogrammed or switching to French cuffs with cufflinks might be aspirational.

The key here is that the consumer gives us these opportunities to try and connect to them. As marketers we need to watch and plan for these connections. Your email strategy should take advantage of the need to showcase value, ultimately up-selling you on something aspirational.

If there are campaigns that you have liked feel free to share them with us at sundeep.kapur@gmail.com – I will post them for others as well.

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Once Again: Five Star Customers

Segmentation Strategy is a pretty common theme among eMarketers; we’ve covered some simple strategies in other posts on the blog – buyers vs. non-buyers, leveraging preference data etc. We recently got a little insight from a marketing manager of an apparel company and his criteria to target buyers:

1) Recency – Check the time associated with the last order and when the recipient became a customer. Their strategy is to flag the person quickly for targeting with more personalized emails.

2) Frequency – Recipients who buy once are encouraged to quickly buy again; two-time buyers are pushed to three etc. Once the customer is over the five-time buyer mark they are put into a special category where the goal becomes creating a dialogue with this customer.

3) Average Order – They evaluate the total revenue and margin from the customer, the higher the values the higher their customer rating. Higher margin customers get five stars and are treated with a lot of respect and work hard to move the high revenue/ lower margin customers to higher margin products.

4) Geography – They realize that certain products don’t sell in certain climates or year-round so timing and geography become key factors. Geography also plays into their timing, they have seen an up-tick in sales from recipients shopping at work around 11:00AM and 3:00PM, so they release based on time zones to grab the multi-tasking worker.

5) Payment Method – Customers purchasing by check or PayPal are treated differently than those who pay by credit card (and not all credit cards are created equally.)

Just a few items to think about while developing the right mix for you to create interactive conversations with your customers…

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A Few More Tips on Deliverability

With the increased volume of email campaigns, marketers are going to have some challenges as they try to resolve various deliverability issues. Don't forget that even if your emails are legitimate and you follow all protocols - your recipient may mark 'pages' of email as spam, and this could even include your campaigns. The added frequency of the holiday season doesn't help much either.

To try to increase your chances of getting into the inbox, consider a variety of factors. For starters - you need to ensure an opt-in list, not share your IP address, monitor your reputation, feedback loops, whitelists, blacklists, & ensure that you are compliant with all major ISP's. Additionally, monitor your infrastructure as you manage the number of sends per minute or per hour. Don't forget to run SPAM checks on your content as a few extra points go a long way towards deliverability.

Put information on your site, educate your front line, & work with your list management team about how the process works. On your site, list what the recipient can do if they feel that they received an unsolicited email from you - give them contact information and a simpler opt out other than clicking on 'this is spam.' Next, educate your front line on how they go about capturing the email id - a proper script will go a long way in getting people to pay attention to your campaigns. Third, make sure that you work with your DBA's to ensure that the un-subscribe flag is monitored correctly.

Your battle for credibility against spam is going to continue - keep checking up on what you can do to outsmart the bad guys and make sure you have better relationships with your recipients.

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Planning to Execution: An End to End Survey Guide

The Time Has Come
You know you have to, your management team is nudging you, your product and service folks are begging you – even your customers and prospects are hinting that you should ask for their opinions… here’s your safety net:



Step I) Define Objectives – You’ll probably have three to five objectives for conducting your survey… some of the more popular include 1) learning about recipient behavior and their opinions of your program/ offers; 2) gaining perspective on customer satisfaction or site usability; 3) finding ways to break through the clutter and grab the recipient’s attention; 4) gathering opinions for future investments or campaigns; 5) showing your boss what a good job you are doing. Regardless of the reason, state your objectives and engage the groups involved by having them validate the objectives.

Step II) Define Recipients – You could ask everybody but its better to focus your questions to certain segments – the more targeted you are, the better your responses. Some of the best populations to target are those who had to wait at your store/ branch or on the phone, another group could be those that timed out while doing something online. Post-order surveys are excellent places to start as are non-responder surveys.

Step III) Define the Channel(s) – How are you deploying the survey? Will it be the same across all channels? Multi-channel deployment is great for longer surveys (when broken up into smaller sections), the multi-channel strategy reinforces the importance, helps determine respondent patterns and is an attention getter.

Step IV) Determine Incentive – Are you planning to offer something to inspire response – a coupon, free shipping or simply access to the results of the survey. Never forget the value of better service or sincere thanks.


Step V) Define the Timeframe – Determine your survey end date and periodically remind people to take the survey before the expiration.

Step VI) Define Questions – Any writer knows that you start with your base, then edit and polish to strengthen. Beginning with twelve ideas is a great start, just prune response options and tighten your questions to facilitate honest responses.

Step VII): Define Success Criteria – Document the number of respondents you need to feel comfortable with your results and set aside a team of folks to review the results.

Flash forward to your deployment phase, responses are being submitted – now what? The best strategy is to have a couple versions of thank you emails ready to fire off based on the type of responses received.

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Surround Yourself With Honest People

The purpose of this article is threefold -

First, since we have been focused on surveys this week - here is a little suggestion on your survey strategy. If you receive poor marks from people, reach out to them to engage them in a dialogue. Some of the gripes are genuine and it is important you address them. What is more important that you make friends with those that gripe and keep in touch with them over time. If you can turn these people into allies and also keep getting their genuine feedback - you have taken great strides for your brand.

Second, do join us for our Service in Action call tomorrow. We are reviewing some email content - good & bad; we would like to solicit your input and hope that we can all learn some best practices. Your peers from other companies will provide some good feedback. You can find more information on the call on the Service in Action web site.

Third, solicit opinion from your team at work. Ask them for their feedback - on your approach, your content, & your numbers. Ask them if the program you are running is meeting their expectations. Find honest people. These folks are your best source of information.

Honest customers, honest peers, honest employees!

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How to burn bridges after a survey...

I purchased a product from a grocery store. They carried a decent food item from a national cataloger. I was encouraged to fill out a direct mail piece, my incentive was 'coupons, recipes, & great information.' I also provided them with my email id. I received an email from them - the first one was informational. Within a week I received their catalog. Over the past three months I have been getting offers from them that compete with each other. The coupon in the mail is encouraging me to order from their national catalog, the coupon via email is offering me dramatic discounts to their online store. When I called up their call center, I was told that (even in this day and age) the two groups compete with each other.

Interestingly, both the catalog and the online store forgot that I had purchased their product through my grocer. To add some fun to the mix, I took all the coupons I received to the local grocery store and they matched some of the pricing. I also learned that I should have ONLY been offered products from their paper catalog that were not offered through grocery stores.

Intrigued, I back tracked all my transactions and made some notes. In a shameless effort to grow their business - both the catalog and the online group forgot how my name entered their database. Then, the 'Queen of eCommerce' just took my name and started hitting me with three emails a week in an effort to lure me in.

Simple lesson for all of us marketers. If you cannot afford a database centric survey tool, please include 'source code' in all your surveys, and leverage that 'source code' in all of your communications. Be sincere and honest in your messaging, a survey is the start of a relationship - you need to build from it, not burn your bridges.

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The 15 Question Survey

Yesterday we spoke about a short survey. Many times we do need to know a lot more information about those we serve and yes, even though 15 questions may not give you all the answers - they are still a lot of questions to get a recipient to answer. Today's approach is how to get more people to provide answers and also, how to make sure that your answers are relevant. You don't want to put them to sleep.


Your survey should be in three parts.

I - Start with an incentive, this gets their attention. Follow this with an assurance of the privacy of responses and the advantages to the recipient to complete the survey. Some things that you could say include:

- By knowing me better you will provide more relevance,
- Show a couple of instances where feedback has helped, &
- Give them an invitation to join your inner circle.

II - Next start by asking them open ended and opinion questions. Open questions include text box answers where you are soliciting the recipients freeform feedback. Opinion questions allow the recipient to rank things that you have presented. Remember, open works better before opinion.

III - Close out the survey by requesting people for their personal information. This includes things like age / income / family / etc. Your last question should be one where you request the recipient to provide their contact information (keep this part optional).

I have seen this approach drive very high responses, sometimes even more than the three question survey.

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A Three Question Survey

One of the best ways to grab someone's attention is by soliciting their feedback. If you are genuine and timely - the impact could be marvelous. I would like to share with you the recipe of a successful short survey.

1. Start with a headline that will grab the attention of the recipient. This headline could be a subject line of an email message, a tweet on Twitter, or an appeal on one of your social media channels.

2. Be short and sincere in your message - ask the recipient to take a couple of minutes to provide you with the answers, tell them why you need the information - make sure that you are concise as you don't want to loose them here or even force them to push off responding to you (they may never get to it.)

3. Ask them to rank your product - offer them a 1 … 5 with 5 being the best.

4. Ask them to rank your service - again with the same number scale.

5. Solicit their feedback, by asking them to provide input in a comment box. If you want a better answer, frame a better question. The more specific your question, the better your answer. Let the recipient tell all in this box.

6. Conclude the survey by thanking them, reminding them how you are going to use their responses, and take them to a part of your site that they may not have visited. Some have even offered to post the recipients feedback on their social media pages and offer to take the recipient there.

7. Follow up! If they rank you poorly or well - follow up with them. The recipient feels engaged and important. They will pay more attention to your next message.

Three other things to consider.

First, tie the survey into the recency of a transaction and make it as relevant as possible. The recipient considers this good etiquette.

Second, offer them an incentive to get involved by including them in your social media network. People will pay more attention to it, and will probably share it with their acquaintances'.

Third, please survey often, but be genuine. I can promise you from personal experience that this works and it works really well.

Short & sweet works very well. Tomorrow - how to conduct a long survey?

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A Better Way to Ask Questions...

Be careful how you ask questions of your recipients, your tone is particularly important because if you imply that you are soliciting opinion to change things, you must be prepared to do so. Here are some potential pitfalls and ways to avoid them. Simply said here are a few ideas that are a better way to ask questions.

You could be asked to do things that you are simply not prepared to incorporate, for example if you ask the consumer if they want more or fewer messages their likely answer is going to be less. Circumvent by telling them you send x-number messages each month, and you’d like to know how many of those messages they read. This accomplishes two things, first you are telling the consumer that you have an important message and secondly you’re asking them to pay attention to at least some of them.

You could also get varying opinions about what would be best for your email communiqués; each may be a great suggestion but you may not have the resources to come up with that many versions of creative. A better way would be to ask people about the types of things they would like to see in your emails, then attempt to feature as many of these items in future campaigns.

Never forget the importance the text box plays in a survey, make sure it is prominently placed and that you are inviting the recipient to share colloquial feedback with you. Many people love to chat about themselves and their interests; the text box is an open invitation that allows you to gather feedback and segment. What is even better is to incorporate this feedback into your social media channels. Encourage the recipient to share this with their friends, or ask them if you could share it with the rest of your recipients.

Share your survey with a small group just before you deploy, include your team, others in your company and try to get an end-user’s perspective (i.e. first responders club.) Incorporate their feedback before you make the survey available to all recipients.

Remember, your survey should be conversational; never forget they are two-way communiqués and that a good marketing program is all about creating interactive conversations.

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Staying in Touch: Leveraging Email & Social Media

Many companies have the challenge of marketing to customers who only make one big transaction a year; they’re unsure of what to sell and how to promote but want to make sure that they are in consideration whenever the recipient is in the market again. My suggestion is to keep the recipient engaged with information, good customer service and useful tips.

Two things to consider here - first send them information through email, mobile, & other traditional channels. Second make sure you keep your social media channels updated with relevant information. Make it a place where your customer is inspired to come check out. There are three ways to do this - if you simply tell them about the channel, if you invite them to be a contributor, & if you keep the social media channels engaging.

Here are a few examples from different industries:

Your customer has just purchased a vacation trip, start by asking for feedback about their trip, offer lifestyle and food tips from other destinations. Make email communiqués reminiscent of the travel channel – offering a get away with every newsletter. Include information and numbers that they can call about destinations but don't force them to buy, simply remind them that you are there. A prominent travel company allows people to set up family pages where all pictures and videos can be put into a library. They extend this by connecting on Facebook as well.

Put up pictures of destinations and ask people to guess where the picture was taken. It works!

Your customer has just redone their home; follow up the purchase with a sincere thank you. Then ask them to send you pictures or feedback of how they like the new style and layout. Keep communicating with them offering design tips and ways to spruce up their home. Share stories of how other people have transformed their homes with similar/ complimentary products. Keep them in their same segment but offer smaller gifts that may be perfect for their friends and family. Again, encourage your customer to share their story on your blog or submit their pictures for a contest - it will bring them back and perhaps others too.

A customer makes a large financial investment – a bond or CD. Thank them and then keep them abreast of what is happening in the market. Engage them in a dialogue by getting them to share information about their family, their financial aspirations and how you can help them get there. If you keep them engaged they will pay attention to your communiqués including your offers. Financial Institutions can leverage social media channels to help educate customers on products and also use these social media channels to answer questions.

Regardless of the industry or purchase, the key is to keep people engaged with content that they perceive valuable and applicable to their daily lives… regular interaction could be your answer. Write good content for your social media channels & use email to direct people in.

Do you know where this picture was taken?

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Five good reasons to Survey

As a marketer, you should know what’s on the mind of those you serve to help realize the value of all your messages. The best way to know is to ask and engage through dialogue. You can do this via email, & leveraging the many social media opportunities. Do it well and you may stumble upon an awesome brand enhancement or revenue generation stream.

Reason I) Goodwill – We’ve all been on that call that never ends – the one-way conversation that’s kinda pointless. Online marketers send 50 to 300 email messages to their list over the course of a year, add the 3000 - 10,000 tweets, Facebook status updates, etc. and you realize that your recipient is peppered by a little too much information. Why not do step up and ask them for honest feedback - show that you care.

Reason II) You have to know more – Your recipients are your litmus test, you need to check with them to see if you’re on target. Ask them what they like about your program, but avoid asking them what they don't like – instead, have them rank elements of your program. From this you can deduce the areas for improvement; use their feedback to improve as well as segment and offer better service.

Reason III) You have to show off – The recipient may only know a little bit about your company or your brand, you should remind them about all that’s available to them as a recipient. Do this subtly by asking the consumer to rank which of your available products/ services interest them. If they’ve purchased, ask for direct testimonials and ways you could serve them better. This is what you use to populate your social media channels - real user generated content.

Reason IV) You have to grab their Attention – Applying survey feedback not only shows that you’re listening but it helps inspire others to respond to future surveys. By incorporating survey feedback and crediting it to the respondents (even anonymously) is a powerful motivator; it shows empathy and strengthens your bond with recipients. The inclusion is also a great attention grabber, allowing you to reiterate the core benefits of your program – plus you can help reengage those who may have disengaged.


Reason V) The Elite – We’ve talked previously about the creation of a first responders club, it’s really simple to assemble. Start by putting survey responders in a special segment, acknowledge their inclusion and treat them well – doing so will increase the odds that they will provide future feedback, strengthen their opinion of your offering and possibly promote your brand to others.

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A Better Survey

Many organizations will be putting together end of year surveys to get feedback from those they serve. Over the next few days, we would like to share with you some best practices that can both help get higher responses and increase the validity of the information.

Surveys are supposed to provide organizations with information about the needs of their customers and prospects, the hope is that this information can be leveraged into actionable information and make the recipient’s experience more meaningful. Yet so many surveys are full of flaws and as a result the responses are less valuable than expected.

One of the biggest mistakes made is the military-style opening – the request for name, rank and serial number right out of the gate. We’ve seen many surveys that start off by asking the user to identify themselves, the survey then progresses to a series of multiple choice questions and ends with the text box for opinions.

Think about the last time you responded to a survey, did your answers skew from the start to the end? Typically, we lose interest and start half-reading the questions and answers. Most respondents start off the survey by giving aspirational answers but as time progresses they tune out and may contradict previous answers or completely abandon your survey. In either case, the end results aren’t helpful and can be a waste of time for all parties.

A better way to engage the user is to ask them to share their opinion through a text box, keep questions interesting, engaging and try to solicit true views – do this by offering creative response options or by keeping the question types variable. These strategies will help you hold the respondent’s attention and will ultimately yield more truthful responses. Collect your demographic information at then end when the respondent is on auto-pilot and more comfortable with providing the information.

Finally, try and leverage the responses in future communications – email, social media, & print. Acknowledge that the update/ change is a result of survey respondent, you’ll bank extra points with all recipients.

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2009: It has been the Year of Engagement!

ROI was supposed to be a major focus for 2009. The email volume has certainly gone up dramatically. Less is being done through other channels and the lines of a true opt-in has blurred a little. The key to connection this year has been engagement. If you can engage you can connect, and your program will do well. Here are five tips from marketers who have been successful in engaging their recipients:

1) Improved Segmentation – Place your recipients into segments and market to them appropriately, a few simple segmentation points include last clicked or opened, consumer (buyer, customer, member) vs. prospect, online vs. other channel and the length of time on file.

2) Active Subject Lines – Tempt the recipient to open the communiqué, this doesn’t necessarily equal esoteric subject lines, create a quick preview of the email to set their expectations and lure them in. Get your team involved to plan subject lines and never forget that the recipient is part of your team.

3) Achieve True Personalization – Personalize with content and incorporate relevant dynamic elements that fit the recipient’s preferences. Do more than insert the recipient’s name, focus on relevancy and work to engage.

4) Predict & Validate Numbers – Learn to put a prediction on expected results from a campaign – opens, clicks and conversions. Record the actual results and evaluate the delta with your email team, involve your overall marketing team as often as possible to help move toward continuity and discuss trends among your recipients. This group evaluation helps your multi-channel strength and allows you to see what consumers are really doing (Reverse Preferences factor in greatly in 2009.)

5) Carry on a Conversation – Back and forth dialogue is a necessity, accomplish this through small surveys to keep asking if you are meeting their needs. Leverage their responses into future offers.

Remember the recipient is savvy, they expect great things from you and know the value of email marketing, it’s your job to execute perfectly.

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Once Again: Effective Email Marketing, a 30 Day Program

So far this year we’ve met email marketers at the Email Experience Council, Marketing Sherpa and DMA; they varied in experience level but all had a shared goal – coordinating an email program that works. Here are the seven steps we shared with them to help jump start their programs and maximize engagement… the best part is that you can see the impact in as little as 30 Days.

1) Focus on your List – Your list cannot remain stagnant; you have to keep things vibrant by continuing to grow your list – incorporating contests, direct marketing programs, social media are all effective ways to drive email and mobile sign-ups. Make sure the sign up stands out on your site so you don’t impede the process.
2) Know More – Ask for information that is applicable, personal and easy to provide (Facebook does this well.) Evaluate the responses/ behavior and cross-check using our reverse preferences theory.
3) Always Segment – At a minimum, create three segments per campaign and gradually push yourself toward a greater number of segments.
4) Always Test – Maximize the segmentation (#3) and incorporate A/B testing – start with offers and subject lines. If your list is too small, create an internal contest with your team and bet on the subject line you think will be the top performer.
5) Think about your Copy – What are your primary, secondary and tertiary offers; is your call to action clear?
6) Clean Landing – Think about the landing page, keep it focused and be sure to test offers on this page too, make the pages dynamic.
7) Evaluate Immediately – Look at your numbers in real time, share them with others and don’t forget about the quarterly review.

There are a couple other items that you can include as well as a white paper to help you Jump Start your Email Marketing – send us an email if you would like a copy.

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Once Again: Carrying on a Conversation

Marketers are often impatient people… we know our elevator speech and happily recite it at any given point, so it’s difficult to accept when your offers aren’t accepted or you lose out to a competing brand. Financial Institutions are definitely included in this mix – if a customer has an existing line of business, why wouldn’t they automatically use your…

We’ve written about how now is the time for all FIs to engage and connect, let’s expand on ways to connect with your emerging and existing base. One of the most obvious ways is your standard billboard example – a big sign that says we do it all.

A second approach could be full list of all the services provided by the FI; effectively used in your print collateral… but this could be overwhelming and depends on the recipient finding the most appealing offer.

A third approach would be to gradually expose the recipient to a series of offers/ messages from your FI. This method is destined for online media channels - social media & email delivery; it allows you to carry on a conversation and can easily be initiated. The first could be a simple link on an eStatement taking the recipient to a survey or a few offers. A subsequent email could offer a little more detail based on the responses/ clicks and slowly, the FI lets the recipient know that they can help with savings instruments, provide a credit card, help with a car loan, offer insurance or assist with the purchase of a home.

It is a gradual process, requires interaction but can be highly effective when done correctly. The cycle requires both parties to learn to listen… or in the email world, track clicks and feedback. Keep in mind that the interaction may take years to play out, here’s an example from a creative FI.

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Once Again: What Next?

As marketers we spend a great deal of time working on the invitation… the direct mail piece asking you to call, the radio spot that encourages you to visit the website or the email that drives you to a landing page. Yet little is done to solidify that next step… what happens when your recipient does what you want? What is their experience?

Does the caller connect with a specialist or just a CSR? Does the radio listener find the right area on your site? Does the email recipient convert or just abandon the landing page after the click through? As marketers we have to spend equal (or more) time developing that next step, making sure that there are no roadblocks to impede the consumer from finalizing the transaction.

One effective strategy is the optimization of landing pages – making sure your landing page recognizes, coaxes and converts those who have clicked through (email or website.) Employing targeted banners on the landing page/ homepage is an effective way to make this a possibility because the ads can be unique to each segment/ visitor and these offers can to be served up across channel.

So think it through and make sure your recipients are being pointed in the right direction…

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Guiding Your Recipients & Staying Connected

What can an organization do to

Attract more customers & members? &
Not loose any customers or members?

The answer is to keep communication channels open by staying connected with those you serve and using aspiration to attract new customers & members.

Here are three things you should do to create and encourage aspirational marketing -

1. Ask those you serve to share their goals with you, use this to learn about them. This information can be used to create specific offers that can be set up to touch the recipients across channels.

2. Allow your recipients to create scenarios. If you are a retailer, encourage your customer or prospect to create a wish list. If you are a financial institution give your customers or members access to financial calculators. A travel company should allow people to virtually visit places and share pictures of real visits.

3. Learn to listen to what they are saying across channel, including Social Media. More importantly don't forget to follow up. You can listen by tracking what they are looking at, & integrating surveys into your marketing mix.

Stay engaged through relevant messaging delivered via email, mobile, social media & your more traditional direct marketing channels.

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New Terms = Big $avings

The terms Black Friday and Cyber Monday have only been part of the vernacular for a few short years (dubbed by the National Retail Federation in 2005) but it seems that the prevalence has risen with more shoppers looking for greater deals… and retailers are taking note.

Black Friday Subject Lines
Here are a couple subject lines that caught my eye, despite my tryptophan-induced state.
Black Friday Deals End Today!
Up to 65% Off + FREE Shipping – Black Friday Savings Continue
Exclusive Black Friday Savings – While Supplies Last
Over 599 Black Friday Now Doorbusters – Friday 4 am – 12 pm
Black Friday Deals Start Online Now

The success of this year’s Black Friday shows an increase in the number of shoppers, but lower overall spending. The NRF survey shows some 195 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the weekend, up from 172 million in 2008. Average spending was down to $343.31 per person ($372.57 average in 2008.) This put total spending at an estimated $41.2 billion.

Cyber Monday Subject Lines
Results are still being tabulated on the success of Cyber Monday, but it seems that more retailers are giving attention to the Cyber Monday event in their email campaigns; here are some of the early front-runners:

CYBER MONDAY – LAST DAY 10% OFF
Cyber Monday Sale: 75 incredible offers. Online only.
40% Off Cyber Monday Special
It's CYBER-MONDAY! Get 12 FREE Samples & FREE Travel Bag! TODAY Only!‏
Cyber Monday Offers Too Good To Miss
One Day Only: Cyber Monday Savings
Sneak peek: Cyber Monday preview and other great deals.‏
Cyber Monday Sale. Online savings for family and friends‏

This attention to the event and sites like Cybermonday.com (run by the NRF) show that retailers are pulling out all the stops for 2009 – what are you doing differently this year? Send us your comments and/ or post the top subject line you’ve seen for these shopping holidays!

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