How to Create Marketing Demos That Sell Products

by Amy Gesenhues

One of the biggest challenges that marketing departments face is producing marketing tools that actually get used by the sales team.

If you are like many frustrated marketing professionals, you spin your wheels trying to create effective marketing communication materials that are left unused; or worse, you give up hours and hours fine-tuning your product's messaging to communicate key features and benefits, only to hear each salesperson giving a different pitch.

You want to create marketing tools that help sell products, not collateral that sits on a shelf. So how do you do it? How do you create a marketing tool that not only gets used but also can reinforce your marketing messaging so that everyone is speaking the same language?

A professionally produced product demo can do wonders for your marketing initiatives. It can accelerate your sales cycle and generate qualified leads. You can leverage it on multiple platforms and within various campaigns, from your site to your tradeshow booth, on marketing CDs and in email marketing efforts. And when done right, a great demo can get everyone speaking the same language.

Four Questions to Ask Yourself

Before you begin building your demo, you have to answer the following four questions:

1. What's your demo's objective?
2. What type of demo will best fit your needs?
3. How do you build a demo so that it gets the maximum return on investment?
4. Do you have the resources to build your demo in-house, or should you outsource it?

Producing an effective demo that gets used on a regular basis can be an overwhelming task—but it doesn't have to be. Once you go through the following four questions and corresponding answers, you'll be able to start your demo project with confidence and end up with a marketing tool that sells your product.

What's your demo's objective?

Just as with any project, a clearly defined objective is mandatory. Do you want to generate more leads from your Web site? Do you want an engaging, dynamic tool that pulls prospects into your sales cycle more quickly? If you are selling a software product, do you want to shorten your sales cycle? If you have a Web site, do you want to increase registrations?

Know your objective so that your product demo's content is aligned with your goal.

Your demo's objective will help you select the visuals that you want to use and the script that you will write.

For example, if you're a marketer for a retail Web site and your goal is to encourage more users to purchase products online, build a three-minute demo using actual screen shots of your site with a voiceover that tells users how to buy online as it shows them.

Put the demo on your homepage, provide links to it in emails and in online newsletters. Give the link to your demo to the customer service department so that they can email it whenever they take a call.

What type of demo best fits your needs?

In the world of product demos, there are two schools of thought: product-centric demos and conceptual demos. Which one you use depends on what you are selling. A product-centric demo focuses primarily on your product, offering up visuals of what it looks like and how it works. A conceptual demo is more animated and often leverages more graphics and marketing language.

If you have a product that does not immediately resonate with your prospects, then you will receive the most benefit from a product-centric demo. People don't buy what they can't see or don't understand.

Any complex product that does not render itself recognizable by name alone can be well served by a product-centric demo because it offers prospects the chance to see the product. For example, if you're selling a software product, showing prospects your software's top three key features in action does a lot more than giving them fading bullet points that tell them what your key features are.

A conceptual demo can be thought of as more creative than a product-centric demo, because you don't have to show the product. Conceptual demos work best when prospects have a profound understanding of what the product is.

For example, if you're selling a car, you can be more conceptual by using graphics and creative language that touches the buyer's soft spots when it comes to purchasing a vehicle. Obviously, you'll show pictures of the car, but you don't have to go into detail about how key features like the brakes or power-locks work.

How do you build a demo that it gets maximum return on investment?

ROI—the three-letter acronym that marketers live (and die) by. For your demo to receive maximum return on investment, you have to make it easily accessible and leverage it across the board. Live demos are great for prospects already deep into your sales cycle and ready for a 40-60-minute overview of your product.

But for prospects who are still in the research or evaluation stage, you need to offer a 3-6-minute automated demo that can be accessed from your Web site. Hit the highlights quickly, be clear and concise, and make it easy to find. Use technology with high user-adoption rates. Flash is great tool for automated demos. Whatever you do, don't rely on applications that have to be downloaded and don't force a prospect to use a plug-in.

The demo needs to stream instantly and deliver your message in five minutes or less. An automated demo can be used throughout your site, looped at tradeshows, linked to in an email, and placed on laptops for your sales team to use on the road.

The more ways you can deliver your demo to your prospects, the more cost-effective it becomes.

Do you have the resources to build your in-house or should you outsource it?

You have a full marketing department: copywriters, designers, flash experts. But do you have the right resources to build an effective demo that looks professional? And does your team have the time to turn the project around quickly?

A great demo is the result of blending a well-crafted script with expertly selected visuals. Outsourcing your demo to a demo-development firm may be your best bet to create a professional demo using a minimal amount of your team's time.

If you choose to outsource the demo project, select a firm that specializes in product demos. Make sure it has a defined process and pricing structure without any hidden fees. Check out the client list and view samples before you start working with the firm.

If your budget is too tight for a demo-development firm, tools are available that allow you to create your own demo. Just remember, your demo may be a prospect's first impression of your product. You want to put your best foot forward; the more professional your demo looks, the better your product looks.

* * *

A great product demo puts your product in the best light. It gives prospects an immediate understanding of what they are buying so that they come to your sales team already interested. Not only does it serve up qualified leads, it reinforces consistent messaging by getting your internal forces on the same page.

When sales, customer service, and all else who interacts with your customers, are offered a dynamic marketing tool that gives a voice to your marketing messages, everyone starts speaking the same language. Before you know it, your product demo will become your most popular marketing tool, because it will sell your product for you (and your sales team).

Amy Gesenhues is the Director of Marketing for Autodemo LLC (www.autodemo.com), a developer of software and Web site demos. She can be reached at amy@autodemo.com.

Published on April 22, 2008

How to Make Email Marketing More Mobile-Friendly

by Andrew Osterday and Chris Lovejoy

Mobile technology continues to develop. The number of consumers with mobile devices capable of retrieving and viewing email continues to increase rapidly. The early adopters of the Blackberry have given way, in numbers at least, to those using what are fast becoming fully functional internet-ready devices.

With multiple mobile platforms on the market and mobile phone companies vying for the sale of not only the devices but also the data plans that supply the bandwidth, these "mini-messengers" are in the hands of millions of consumers.

Could your email be more mobile friendly?

Are your email messages ready for the move to mobile? They had better be: Over two-thirds of B2B emailers regularly read your emails on their mobile device.

If you haven't tested how your emails are rendering across multiple handhelds, you might be very surprised, and not in a good way.

Here some things to think about when considering email on mobile devices:

• Communications that rely on image-heavy content, special font treatments, tables, or other advanced coding will not translate well without optimizing the message for the mobile user.
• If sending mobile campaigns, be sure to be honest and very personal. Use the name of a real person if possible.
• HTML links can be used but should be used sparingly and only if the call-to-action link is also enabled for mobile devices.
• If your communication boasts a lengthy terms-and-conditions section, it may be better rendered as a mobile-formatted landing page for the user.
• Opt-out rules still apply. One-click opt-out works best.

A few basic formatting rules for mobile devices:

• Coding fonts may or may not work on the user's device. Most mobile devices allow the user to select a preferred default font. Although the link to the mobile communication is actually a web link, simple (default) font coding or basic fonts are best. Font size consideration: Keep it small. Work with your messaging provider on the appropriate size.
• Screen size is limited. Design for easy word wrap. The list should be kept short (in regards to width), as odd wrapping will occur on the smallest of screens.
• Keep the message short and keep your call to action in the top area of the communication. Being "front of mind" for users, even if they do not view the entire message, may prompt them to save the message and view the full HTML version when they get to their computer.
• Simple black text with color action links work best on smaller screens and make it easy to view and navigate.
• Images should be small and few. Depending on the connection speed of the device, images may take some time to render. Small logos for brand recognition or small but viewable images that support content should be used, if at all, sparingly.
• Do not replicate your website navigation in email. Place it at the bottom of the message if at all.
• Use full images, not sliced. Sliced images will wrap and appear jumbled.
• Design in columns and plan for content to wrap after a couple of hundred pixels.
• Include a click-to-view-online link and take users to a mobile-optimized landing page.
• Include a click-to-call link, if applicable.
• To test rendering across different handhelds, download a free tool at Opera (www.opera.com).

How to start: Use email to promote mobile marketing

So you've made your emails mobile friendly. Now lets look at marketing via SMS (short message service) and MMS (multimedia message service)—aka mobile marketing.

Using wireless networks to reach consumers on personal phones and mobile devices has come a long way over the past few years, and consumers are warming up to the emerging technology.

But how do you start?

What better way to introduce the mobile option than through an already established email relationship? Email is the perfect vehicle to introduce your audience to an alternative form of communication such as SMS or MMS.

Permission is just as important in mobile marketing as it is in email. Rather than starting from scratch or purchasing lists, build your mobile list organically: Engage your current base of email subscribers who have already requested a relationship with you. Provide a choice to receive mobile communications where it makes sense, especially for timely messages.

Mobile campaigns are great for the following:

• Same-day reminders
• Special events
• Meeting confirmations
• Product delivery confirmations
• Flight status
• Financial alerts
• Data collection

Use your primary email template when introducing the mobile option to your users. This helps maintain familiarity and instantly establishes trust. The copy should be brief and personal and should direct your customers to a landing page where they can submit their mobile phone number. You can also include the option on the registration page so they can sign up for mobile messages right from the start.

Not ready to jump head first into the mobile arena? Then optimize your email messages for handhelds, as described above. Or simply include a link at the very top of your email to "View on Handheld." Then link the user to a mobile-optimized landing page of your message. Use rich text to be safe.

There are many ways to approach the growing propensity of mobile users to engage with marketers' messages. Experiment now and find the right fit for your business.

Andrew Osterday and Chris Lovejoy: Andrew is solutions director of eMarketing at Premier Global Services (www.premiereglobal.com); Chris is eMarketing strategic services account executive.

E-mail Marketing vs. E-mail Sales

By Jeanne Jennings , March 24, 2008

Early in my career, during a job interview, I was asked to talk about the relationship between marketing and sales. After a moment's thought, I said marketing was the umbrella term for a lot of different activities, of which sales was one. Marketing was about doing things that would help grow a business in the short, mid-, and long terms; the focus of sales was closing business today, this week, and this month. The director of marketing and sales (that was his title, in that order) seemed to agree, and I got the marketing position.

In many companies the marketing team is tasked with driving leads to the sales team. This isn't a trivial thing; businesses must sign on new customers to grow. But sometimes, especially in e-mail marketing, the broader responsibilities and goals of marketing, over and above immediate sales and lead generation, seem to get lost.

Case in point: e-mail messages that are strictly promotional. Don't get me wrong; I'm not against sending these types of e-mail. But if the only thing you send your prospects is a "buy from us now" or "take a demo now" message, you aren't doing true e-mail marketing. You're doing e-mail sales or e-mail lead generation.

Why Do True E-mail Marketing?

True e-mail marketing, which would include branding, relationship-building, sales/lead generation and other efforts, will not only deliver sales or leads today, but also make it easier for you to deliver sales or leads in the future. These other efforts can be used to:

• Position your company as one that understands your prospects and their needs
  
  
• Keep your brand name top of mind so when prospects are ready to buy, they think of you
  
  
• Address common objections prospects have to taking a demo or buying your product, moving the sales process forward
  
  
• Build a relationship with prospects, increasing their comfort level about doing business with you

Could you use direct mail or an ongoing telephone campaign to your house list to accomplish these goals? Maybe. But it would be more expensive. E-mail is an affordable way to provide targeted content to a large group.

Why Don't More Companies Do True E-mail Marketing?

Many companies have made the investment in true e-mail marketing and are reaping the benefits. But just as many, if not more, haven't. Why?

One reason is that laser focus on short-term sales or lead generation. If you have even a halfway successful promotional e-mail program, it's likely that your first relationship building e-mail effort won't meet or beat the promotional e-mail's conversion rate. If a company has a strong focus on short-term results, that can be a hard sell: Why spend additional money to develop an e-mail with a mix of editorial (read: nonpromotional) and promotional content when you could just do an additional send of your promotional e-mail?

In the short term, another send of the promotional e-mail is the wiser choice. But if you're looking at the mid- to long term, the logic shifts. There comes a point of decreasing returns. If you send a promotional e-mail to your house list once a month and generate 100 leads from it, that doesn't mean that a weekly send of the promotional e-mail will garner 400 leads per month. And it's very unlikely that a daily send to that same list will bring you 3,000 leads for March.

Promotional e-mail attracts a limited audience: people who are ready to buy or are investigating buying. Relationship, branding, and other e-mail messages not strictly focused on sales or lead generation appeal to a larger group and give you the chance to frame the discussion. Success stories might cause readers who didn't know they had a problem to want to learn more about your solution. Interviews with experts in readers' industry might position you as someone who understands their business, which is always appealing in a partner. Getting a daily tip with your branding might trigger a call to your sales team when a need arises.

The key to success is your content's quality. Developing an e-mail message that isn't 100 percent promotional takes more effort than creating a single promotional e-mail. Many companies have an e-mail newsletter but find it isn't driving sales, leads, or other business goals; often it's being sent but rarely opened, read, or clicked through from. The reason is quality.

People are deluged with e-mail today. And they are busy. Just sending an e-mail newsletter isn't enough; you have to make sure your content is compelling to your readers. This is where many attempts at true e-mail marketing fall down. Companies are going through the motions, but they either don't have the resources or don't know how to create an e-mail newsletter that's engaging to readers and effective at forwarding the business' goals.

When done well, efforts that aren't strictly promotional can drive more sales or leads than your promotional e-mail. I've worked with clients where their e-mail newsletters, which comprise 60 percent or more editorial (read: not promotional) material, delivered sales at a higher rate than their 100 percent promotional efforts. In one instance, the relationship was two-to-one; its e-mail newsletter had double the conversion rate of its sales e-mail. This requires great quality content and some strategic placement of promotions in the e-mail newsletter, but it can be done.

The beauty of a true e-mail marketing program is that the branding and relationship-building efforts aren't replacing the promotional efforts, they're being added into the mix. So you aren't losing the 100 leads your promotional e-mail brings in every month. Instead, you'll add a different type of communication to the mix in hopes of providing a short-term lift to leads and building value over time that allows you to maintain and increase this monthly lift.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Until next time,

Jeanne

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.

Marketing's New 5 Ps: Turning What You Know Inside Out

by Jason McNamara

With apologies to Philip Kotler, whose four Ps—product, price, place, and promotion—have been integral to any successful product or service marketing effort of the past 50 years, today's successful marketing hinges on five new Ps.

Whereas the Ps we studied in college are all from the provider's point of view, these new Ps focus with laser-like clarity on the customer.

But customer-centricity can't be the mantra of just the marketing department. Every group, from the boardroom to product leaders to IT, must place the customer at the core of every decision it makes.

Responsibility for evangelizing within the organization rests squarely on the shoulders of the CMO. After all, if the marketing chief isn't living and breathing customer focus every minute, and encouraging others to do the same, who will believe its importance?

The CMO's office must consistently demonstrate to the rest of the enterprise the value of looking at all products, messaging, and brands through the customer's eyes. The entire organization can then get closer to the hearts and minds of their prospects and customers, with the added benefit of proving the value of every initiative that the company undertakes.

The new Ps are composed of five equally important, tightly interwoven components, designed to more tightly integrate marketing in the future.

1. People

Certainly, the audience must be at the heart of any marketing initiative. That isn't news to anyone in your department. Smart marketers have always had an instinctive sense of what their audiences would respond to. But no longer is it enough to know about your target in aggregate. Perhaps "person" might be a better heading for this P—because now it's important to know your customer intimately, as a human, emotional being.

It's one thing to know how people who generally look and act like your customer might respond. It's another to know exactly how John A. Sample has responded in the past, and what's likely to interest him next time. Why did he make his last return or exchange? What did he look at before placing an order? Has he purchased anything since his last call to customer service? What size does he wear?

Chances are, he's already told you who he is and what he wants—but were you listening?

2. Passion

Marketers are passionate about their profession. But no good marketer can function using only the right side of the brain anymore. Creativity and instinct are still important, but the anal side—the analytics side—is gaining fast.

Marketing is part of the business, and the business exists to perform. As a result, you're being held to greater accountability than ever before. Today, your passion for marketing must be driven by facts—the full view of all the data now available about customers, campaigns, and returns.

You already know that this passion for a 360-degree perspective can have an incredibly powerful effect. Being able to apply sophisticated marketing analytics to every piece of information you collect about your customers is like bringing the customers themselves in-house to tell you not just what's working and what isn't, but why. You can use this passion to your advantage, helping generate ideas, proving their relevance, and justifying the money you spend.

Still, a survey published in March by the Association of National Advertisers found that the top two concerns of senior marketing executives are integrated marketing communications and marketing accountability. Further research by the same group found that 60% of respondents had none of the necessary cross-functional involvement in their companies' development and management of marketing accountability programs to make them truly effective.

If you're like many CMOs, you've already identified the needs but may be uncertain of the solutions. Fortunately, each of these issues can be addressed by enterprisewide marketing analytics.

3. Processes

Marketing processes must become more enlightened. It's time for everyone to sing from one song sheet—instead of having discrete departments creating dissonant communications and hoarding data. Database and digital marketing, marketing operations, and customer relations all need to work in concert—a concept foreign to many companies in which other departments are often viewed as competitors rather than collaborators.

Again, the answer is a passionate, organization-wide approach to customer-centricity. If it doesn't come from the CMO, where will it begin?

Just two years ago, more than 40% of database marketers surveyed by Forrester Research lacked a complete picture of customer contact history, and one-third were missing transactional data from one or more channels.¹ That is clearly less than ideal.

In an organization with customer-focused processes, everyone strides toward a common goal. In a sales organization, for example, this can mean that the group which handles generating and tracking leads works closely with the sales team to contact, close, and communicate with prospects. Everyone has a hand in determining how often to communicate, how to allocate budgets, campaign lifecycles and more.

Forrester Research analysts suggest that "socializing" the customer database is a necessary change, so that everyone in the enterprise can contribute to and benefit from this tremendous asset. It's time to throw siloed systems, ideas, and processes out the window. But a sea change like this one has to start at the top.

4. Platform

An industry of ideas, marketing also now relies heavily on technology to guide contact strategies, deliver messaging, integrate information and processes, and measure performance. This takes powerful tools, only a few of which are up to the task of managing the vast data stores available across multiple channels, but they're out there.

Of course, software and technology can't solve the issues—they can only provide the platform for coordinating and accessing information, helping to apply customer-centric thinking to every initiative an organization undertakes.

Peter Kim of Forrester Research suggests that "many brand marketers don't understand IT's value beyond email and Ethernets. Conversely, many IT departments think of marketing as the 'make it pretty' department. In the best interests of the organization, marketing and IT must come together and share resources to build an experience infrastructure layer to support the customer experience. Marketers should add a high-level internal role to champion marketing technology and to manage the construction of a marketing technology backbone."²

Of course, the internal IT department may not be the answer. They have their hands full trying to satisfy new regulatory, privacy, and security demands that crop up every day. Marketing technology, however, is a specific discipline that applies technology to traditional and emerging marketing functions that can help companies deliver consistent customer experiences, integrate marketing processes, measure performance, align themselves to the needs of their businesses, and become more accountable to senior management.

5. Partners

Partners are an integral part of marketing—they always have been and always will be. The expertise they offer adds value over and above what can be achieved in-house. Consequently, CMOs must ensure that they have solid partner relationships that are part of the process and integrated more closely into the marketing department.

As marketing becomes more sophisticated, marketing service providers, agencies, and systems integrators must all be tapped to deliver on their particular areas of expertise. It's impossible to have all the skill sets in-house and do everything well and cost efficiently.

For many companies, this isn't a new idea—they already look to different providers for various types of creative, media buying, production, and more. It just becomes more critical as highly technical capabilities come into play.

Looking to the right partners means outsourcing key responsibilities to those best equipped to deliver on them, and that reduces the risk associated with investing in new infrastructure and specialist teams.

The Five Ps in Practice

When wholly, enthusiastically deployed, the new five Ps all work together—a passion for pleasing the person with whom you're doing business gives rise to new processes, the adoption of smarter platforms and value-adding partnerships that can make the promise of one-to-one marketing real.

But it has to be an enterprisewide way of thinking that comes from the top and infiltrates every member of every team. And it has to start with you.

Sources:

^1"Best Practices: Socializing The Customer Database," Forrester Research, Inc., July 23, 2007.

^2"Best Practices: Customer-Centric Marketing," Forrester Research, Inc., July 25, 2007.

Jason McNamara is chief marketing officer of Alterian (www.alterian.com).

Published on March 18, 2008

E-mail Copy Tip From a Great E-mail Copywriter

By Jeanne Jennings , February 25, 2008

Pat Friesen is an award-winning, results-oriented on- and offline copywriter, as well as a friend. Her client list includes AT&T, Century 21, Hallmark, Hasbro, Hershey's, IBM, Motorola, and many other household name brands.

Friesen is my go-to copywriter for client projects. Driving response, not just writing copy, is one of her strengths. She was kind enough to share her keys to successful e-mail copy with me for this column. I encourage you to check out her regular column in Target Marketing. Her most recent column is an interview with yours truly, discussing the similarities and differences between offline direct mail and e-mail marketing.

Be Clear on Objectives

"It's important to clearly define the e-mail's objective," said Friesen. "Do you want people to buy, fill out a lead-qualification form, or just raise their hand [click through]? The copy needs to motivate the reader to the action needed to meet the objective. The more you're asking from them, the more information you will probably need to provide."

Prepare Before You Write

I know Friesen immerses herself in projects before putting fingers to keyboard. What I didn't fully comprehend was the amount of preparation. "Although I don't charge by the hour, I do keep track of my time." Friesen told me. "On average, only 20 percent is spent writing; the other 80 percent is research. I go deep into the product or service I'm writing about, as well as the audience I'm writing to. I look at current e-mails that are working for the client, as well as competitive information.

"The more information I get from a client, the better. Performance of past e-mails, including clickstream information from the open to the conversion, helps me identify opportunities and gives me a goal to beat," she continued. "Reviewing past e-mails, especially controls, is critical. Often there's a small detail that was under emphasized or just missed. By making this detail the hero of the new piece, putting it front and center with the same offer, you can often get a lift in response."

Understand the Sender

"Who is the e-mail coming from? What type of relationship does the sender have with the audience? These are critical questions to answer before you start writing." said Friesen. "E-mails come from people, not companies, so I try to work that into the copy. In some cases, the e-mail may be from a person (the director of marketing, product manager, or CEO); in other cases, it may be from a community (the company's customer service team, your friends at that company, etc.)."

Something Friesen and I agree on: there are pros and cons to using a real person's name in the sender address. If you take this route, be sure to include your company or brand name along with the person's name so you familiarize recipients with the company as well as the person sending the message.

Visualize Your Audience

Friesen says she "always has an image of who I'm writing to in my head. If the e-mail is going to mothers of little girls, I picture a woman I know and her little girl. If it's to a businessperson, I picture someone I know who's in that audience.

"I think about where they're reading the copy -- at their desk, in their home -- as well as how they are seeing it -- holding a piece of paper in their hand, viewing it on a computer screen, or scanning it on their mobile device. Also important are the distractions they may face while reading it; the copy needs to be interesting enough to gain and hold their attention."

Focus on What's in it for Readers

"The more specifics the client provides about what would motivate the audience to take the action desired, the better," said Freisen. "It's all about putting myself in the shoes of the reader. What's in it for them? Why should they open, read, click, and follow through to meet the objective?" is what Friesen focuses on. I think this is what makes her copy so highly relevant to the target audience, which is the secret of all great e-mail marketing.

Know the Features, But Talk About the Benefits

Friesen stresses the importance of knowing the different between the features of your product or service and its benefits. "A pocket is a feature; the benefit is that it can hold business cards or other things that the reader needs to keep with them," she said. "The benefit is what's in it for the reader, what's important to them, not the feature alone."

Use Violators to Highlight Key Messages

Many traditional direct marketing tactics translate beautifully to e-mail. Friesen has had success with "Johnson boxes, bursts, slashes, sidebars. These are all 'violators' which pull the key message out of the copy and give it more emphasis, so it won't be missed by the reader. Most people scan copy, rather than read it, so these techniques help you highlight the key takeaway and get your point across, even if the reader only skims."

Develop a Unique Voice and Use It Consistently

Friesen can't emphasize enough the importance of voice. "No matter what the medium, you should have a voice that you use to speak to your audience and keep it consistent throughout the relationship. E-mail tends to be more conversational, looser than copy used elsewhere. Even if you're targeting a business audience, you wouldn't want to use the type of language you find in an annual report.

"The voice you choose needs to be an accurate reflection of your brand personality. For an entertaining consumer product, it should be a fun voice; this is reflected in the vocabulary you use as well as the way the dialogue is structured. For business e-mails, you'll want to be more business-like but still conversational.

"Reading copy out loud is a great way to make sure your tone is appropriate to the audience and suitably conversational. Often I'll rewrite sentences which initially seemed good on paper but which don't work as well when I read them out loud."

Be Your Own Best Editor

"Don't say or tell too much," advised Friesen. "Hone in on the two or three things the reader needs to know to take the action you're looking for. If something in the copy isn't moving the audience toward the objective, get rid of it. If possible, step away from the copy and come back to it a few hours or a day later. Keep cutting until the message comes through loud and clear, without clutter."

Test, Test, Test

Friesen is as big a fan of testing as I am. "That's what makes it direct marketing!" is how she puts it. This is another reason she's one of my favorite copywriters to work with. It's not just about copy that reads well, it's about beating the control, lifting response rates, and creating an e-mail that's more effective than anything the client has used before. Once we get a winning e-mail, it's about tweaking it to make it even better or going back to the drawing board to create a new e-mail that will beat it.

Use Friesen's tips to write your own copy and let me know how it goes!

Until next time,

Jeanne

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.

How to Create a Marketing Plan

What is a marketing plan and why is it so essential to the success of your business? Find out here, in the first section of our comprehensive guide to creating a marketing plan.


URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingbasics/marketingplan/article43018.html

Firms that are successful in marketing invariably start with a marketing plan. Large companies have plans with hundreds of pages; small companies can get by with a half-dozen sheets. Put your marketing plan in a three-ring binder. Refer to it at least quarterly, but better yet monthly. Leave a tab for putting in monthly reports on sales/manufacturing; this will allow you to track performance as you follow the plan.

The plan should cover one year. For small companies, this is often the best way to think about marketing. Things change, people leave, markets evolve, customers come and go. Later on we suggest creating a section of your plan that addresses the medium-term future--two to four years down the road. But the bulk of your plan should focus on the coming year.

You should allow yourself a couple of months to write the plan, even if it's only a few pages long. Developing the plan is the "heavy lifting" of marketing. While executing the plan has its challenges, deciding what to do and how to do it is marketing's greatest challenge. Most marketing plans kick off with the first of the year or with the opening of your fiscal year if it's different.

Who should see your plan? All the players in the company. Firms typically keep their marketing plans very, very private for one of two very different reasons: Either they're too skimpy and management would be embarrassed to have them see the light of day, or they're solid and packed with information . . . which would make them extremely valuable to the competition.

You can't do a marketing plan without getting many people involved. No matter what your size, get feedback from all parts of your company: finance, manufacturing, personnel, supply and so on--in addition to marketing itself. This is especially important because it will take all aspects of your company to make your marketing plan work. Your key people can provide realistic input on what's achievable and how your goals can be reached, and they can share any insights they have on any potential, as-yet-unrealized marketing opportunities, adding another dimension to your plan. If you're essentially a one-person management operation, you'll have to wear all your hats at one time--but at least the meetings will be short!

What's the relationship between your marketing plan and your business plan or vision statement? Your business plan spells out what your business is about--what you do and don't do, and what your ultimate goals are. It encompasses more than marketing; it can include discussions of locations, staffing, financing, strategic alliances and so on. It includes "the vision thing," the resounding words that spell out the glorious purpose of your company in stirring language. Your business plan is the U.S. Constitution of your business: If you want to do something that's outside the business plan, you need to either change your mind or change the plan. Your company's business plan provides the environment in which your marketing plan must flourish. The two documents must be consistent.

A marketing plan, on the other hand, is plump with meaning. It provides you with several major benefits. Let's review them.

* Rallying point: Your marketing plan gives your troops something to rally behind. You want them to feel confident that the captain of the vessel has the charts in order, knows how to run the ship, and has a port of destination in mind. Companies often undervalue the impact of a "marketing plan" on their own people, who want to feel part of a team engaged in an exciting and complicated joint endeavor. If you want your employees to feel committed to your company, it's important to share with them your vision of where the company is headed in the years to come. People don't always understand financial projections, but they can get excited about a well-written and well-thought-out marketing plan. You should consider releasing your marketing plan--perhaps in an abridged version--companywide. Do it with some fanfare and generate some excitement for the adventures to come. Your workers will appreciate being involved.

* Chart to success: We all know that plans are imperfect things. How can you possibly know what's going to happen 12 months or five years from now? Isn't putting together a marketing plan an exercise in futility . . . a waste of time better spent meeting with customers or fine-tuning production? Yes, possibly but only in the narrowest sense. If you don't plan, you're doomed, and an inaccurate plan is far better than no plan at all. To stay with our sea captain analogy, it's better to be 5 or even 10 degrees off your destination port than to have no destination in mind at all. The point of sailing, after all, is to get somewhere, and without a marketing plan, you'll wander the seas aimlessly, sometimes finding dry land but more often than not floundering in a vast ocean. Sea captains without a chart are rarely remembered for discovering anything but the ocean floor.

* Company operational instructions: Your child's first bike and your new VCR came with a set of instructions, and your company is far more complicated to put together and run than either of them. Your marketing plan is a step-by-step guide for your company's success. It's more important than a vision statement. To put together a genuine marketing plan, you have to assess your company from top to bottom and make sure all the pieces are working together in the best way. What do you want to do with this enterprise you call the company in the coming year? Consider it a to-do list on a grand scale. It assigns specific tasks for the year.

* Captured thinking: You don't allow your financial people to keep their numbers in their heads. Financial reports are the lifeblood of the numbers side of any business, no matter what size. It should be no different with marketing. Your written document lays out your game plan. If people leave, if new people arrive, if memories falter, if events bring pressure to alter the givens, the information in the written marketing plan stays intact to remind you of what you'd agreed on.

* Top-level reflection: In the daily hurly-burly of competitive business, it's hard to turn your attention to the big picture, especially those parts that aren't directly related to the daily operations. You need to take time periodically to really think about your business--whether it's providing you and your employees with what you want, whether there aren't some innovative wrinkles you can add, whether you're getting all you can out of your products, your sales staff and your markets. Writing your marketing plan is the best time to do this high-level thinking. Some companies send their top marketing people away to a retreat. Others go to the home of a principal. Some do marketing plan development at a local motel, away from phones and fax machines, so they can devote themselves solely to thinking hard and drawing the most accurate sketches they can of the immediate future of the business.

Ideally, after writing marketing plans for a few years, you can sit back and review a series of them, year after year, and check the progress of your company. Of course, sometimes this is hard to make time for (there is that annoying real world to deal with), but it can provide an unparalleled objective view of what you've been doing with your business life over a number of years.

Source: The Small Business Encyclopedia and Knock-Out Marketing.

Email Marketing and Small Businesses: Waste of Time or Worth The Effort?

by Josh Nason

Stop me if you've had this conversation before with a small-business owner:

You: "So that's a broad overview of what we do. We can definitely help you out with whatever you might need in the email marketing space."

Them: "Well... how much do you cost?"

You: "It really depends on what you use us for, whether it's software, creative or something else. Do you have a budget set aside for this type of thing?"

Them: "Not really."

You: "OK. How much money do you invest in marketing?"

Them: "We don't really have any money set aside for that."

You: "Oh."

"You" are the email marketing person. You've made your pitch, given the 10,000-foot view of your assortment of services, and provided a cost-effective and much more financially sensible way to spend marketing dollars. "They" are the small business owner (SBO), who either has no idea about what email marketing is all about or has only a rudimentary knowledge. They have heard of email and figure they should be doing something, but they're not sure where to start.

For email marketers, how to deal with the SBO is an ongoing challenge. I always try to be optimistic in the early stages of these talks, since it takes a lot of small pebbles to fit around the giant rocks in the sales bottle I'm trying to fill. You never know when the person on the other end of the line has the next big idea that will catch fire and, as a result, create a fanbase of information-seeking consumers.

Obstacles

In my experience, there are three main obstacles to introducing email marketing to a small business.

1. Budget

No matter who you're dealing with, the question of cost will always be a factor. Every dollar counts when it comes to a small business, from pens to water to benefits to that arcade game you buy from the pizza shop going out of business. So the SBO often worries about the expense before the benefits.

2. Education and Experience

There is a chart that a coworker and I designed to help us classify prospects and how much of an educational investment we'd have to make in bringing them on. Featured on one axis was experience and on the other education. Some people were very experienced with email, but had no real education on what a successful campaign was. Some people were well educated, having done research on the subject, but had never deployed a campaign themselves.

For the most part, the SBO falls low on both counts, simply because email doesn't fall high on the priority chart when you're opening up the doors to a new restaurant. Email marketing is one of those deals that come after a Web site, unfortunately months after people have already become consumers of the product—and, with the right offer, could be easily enticed to come back. This leads to direct mail and, then, a colossal waste of money and resources.

So when you're trying to explain paying for something that traditionally is understood as free (Hotmail, AOL, etc.), it can become difficult to get the SBO to understand the next step. In addition, when you try something new and don't have experience, it can be a bit scary. You don't want to err so badly that you suddenly alienate your client base, but you also don't have to the time to fully commit to doing things the right way. How can you win?

3. Desire

The best marketers are those who want to do a great job, rather than feel like they have to do a great job. Desire will turn a good marketer into a great one, and a lackluster campaign into an award-winning one. However, most SBOs don't desire to do great email, but feel they should be doing something because "everyone else is."

If SBOs don't embrace the concept, how can we expect them to pull off successful campaigns?

Surmounting the Obstacles

Have no fear, though. There are ways to get around those obstacles.

Sing to their stinginess

One of the easiest selling points of email marketing is its cost-effectiveness. Pay by the month, pay by the campaign, do whatever makes you comfortable. If they're saying they have no money, tell them that email is the stopgap in flushing money down the marketing drain, and that if done right email will help their sink overflow. (Note: The overflowing sink isn't a great analogy with plumbers... so try something else.)

It's the metrics, baby!

Are they going to do ads in the local paper? Stop them. Running a series of :30 jingles on a radio station? Stop them. Letting their crazy nephew walk around town in a sandwich board? Stop... well, let them do it—and then stop them.

Paint a simple analogy: If you put an ad in the paper/TV/radio, will you know whether people keep going back to it, point to it, or tell other friends about it? With email, you can track all that and more. Know your prospects' actions, and then cater your marketing around it. Feel free to add in the cost/benefit again, too!

Be honest

I've told several potential SBOs, "Just so you know, this might not work out." Some are stunned, while others appreciate the honesty. Quite simply, there are some smaller companies that we just don't have the bandwidth to work with... because of time, budgetary resources, or needs. They need more than we can offer at a price we can't justify. But that's OK. We'll refer them to one of our partner email consultants who has more one-on-one time available.

If you're honest and upfront with every prospect you come in touch with, that'll alleviate any potential trust issues down the road. And trust is a huge part of any partnership that a small business encounters.

***

Helping the little guy win some battles can be a great feeling, especially when it means that you're helping make their dreams come true.

The email marketing business is more effective and targetable than any other mass medium. And it is relatively easy to get started. So the small business owner can spend more time thinking about all these new revenues he has and less time banging his head against a wall trying to figure out why his radio ad isn't working.

The tricky part is getting them to understand that.

Josh Nason is The Email Marketing Guy for SendLabs (www.SendLabs.com), an email marketing software and solutions company. He can be reached at josh@sendlabs.com or (603) 296-4084 ext. 01.
Published on February 12, 2008

E-mail Testing: A Real-World Approach

By Karen Gedney , February 6, 2008

I recently read "The Practical Guide to E-mail Marketing" by Jordan Ayan, CEO of SubscriberMail and frequent speaker at ClickZ's e-mail forums.

It's a great CliffsNotes introduction to e-mail marketing (only 55 pages total) that can help online marketing newbies quickly get up to speed.

While the whole guide is very helpful, the section on e-mail testing stands out. It covers the real-world thought process of anyone who's thinking about testing her e-mail program's effectiveness while providing a simple road map to follow.

I've excerpted the section because I think it outlines testing scenarios in the way people really think (or should be thinking) about testing.

Hand out this checklist next time you go into a meeting to discuss how to improve your e-mail marketing performance. It will help you guide the discussions more productively -- and probably hit upon the most profitable areas to test.

Step 1: Ask a Question

Start the testing process by asking a question. What are you hoping for? Determine a specific goal to accomplish rather than attempt multiple goals with one blanket approach. A series of small steps can be easy to test and analyze:

o I'd like to have more people open my messages.

o I'd like to have more people click through to my Web site.

o I'd like to reengage with historically inactive people.

o I'd like to have people click on a specific area, topic, or action.

Step 2: Form a Theory

Use your marketing experience and best practice knowledge to determine what aspects may make a difference in achieving the goal you've defined.

o I think people may be bored with my current subject lines.

o I think that the placement of the specific content may drive more people to action.

o I think that people may not understand this is from my organization and therefore will not interact.

o I think my calls to action need to be stronger.

Step 3: Create the Test

Set up your test, following best practices. Remember, you don't need to prove the obvious.

To optimize opens, I am going to test (one per test):

o From name

o Best day to send

o Subject line

o Best time to send

To optimize click-throughs, I'm going to test (one per test):

o Creative/layout

o Subject lines

o Copy

o From name

o Calls to action

To optimize conversions, I'm going to test (one per test):

o Landing pages

o Calls to action

o Creative/layout

o Subject lines

o Copy

o From name

Step 4: Segment the List

Choose the best list or segment to test, and split it (for that specific test):

o I'm confident this list is the most appropriate to prove or disprove my theory.

o My list is only large enough to do an A/B split.

o My list is large enough that I can break it into a larger control and other smaller test segments.

o My list is large enough that I can sample a percentage of my list to test.

Step 5: Measure and Analyze Results

Measure and analyze results to gain insight and prove or disprove theory. Accurately compile stats (to conversions). What does it all mean? Look beyond the numbers. Even small percentage differences can mean large gains in response rates:

o My opens increased ___%.

o My click-throughs changed __%.

o My conversions changed __%.

o Traffic to my Web site increased __%.

o My click-throughs were more focused on specific area, topic, or action.

o My click-throughs were spread out across areas, topics, or actions.

o Sales calls increased __%.

Step 6: Make Changes

Commit to making at least one change in each campaign.

o I need to change my from name.

o I need to change my subject line.

o I need to specific words.

o I need to subject line format.

o I need to add content.

o I need to decrease content and simplify.

o I need to increase clickable areas or clicks.

o I need to highlight actionable items more.

o I need to change copy.

o I need to modify layout.

Let me know how this checklist works for you. You can be sure I'm passing it along to my clients.

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.

An Open Letter to CFOs

By Shane Atchison , January 24, 2008

Last year, I wrote a letter to CMOs, giving them some guidance from an agency perspective. I wanted to help them become more effective in working closely with their agency partners to drive successful business results. With the dawn of a new year, I thought it might be helpful to write a letter to you, the CFO.

You may wonder, "Why are you addressing this to me at all?" Many CFOs are used to keeping marketing and agencies at a distance, knowing CMOs are in place to ensure success. However, the Web and newly empowered customers have forced most businesses to reinvent themselves in the past five years. This reinvention has broken down traditional barriers between departments and fundamentally reshaped the structure of corporate activity. The distance between marketing and finance has been reduced to the steps across the hall from your office to the CMO's office. I hope my perspective will give you some tools to make that distance even smaller.

The Pro Forma

A message I've been delivering to marketers over the past year has been the importance of being able to make assumptions about data and using those assumptions to build financial pro forma models. These models help drive an overall monetization strategy for the Web (and often for all online channels) and lend themselves to robust ROI (define) calculations. I suspect you've already seen some of these models in budget meetings.

My advice: get more involved in developing the pro forma for the Web team. Help them gain a greater understanding of all the financial elements involved in running the business and lend your expertise to improving the models' robustness. Use your experience and knowledge to raise their game.

The Profit Center

If you're already selling goods and services on your Web site, you know the impact it can have on your bottom line. If your site is just a brand advertisement or information/support site, perhaps it's time you put it under a little more scrutiny. Every site needs to be able to move from just being an expense to becoming a potential profit center, and someone must drive that point home.

Consider a site that's currently doing only brand building. How can you turn that into a potential profit generator? Perhaps your company has strong customer advocates and they're interested in buying branded merchandise, such as shirts and bags (don't laugh; have you visited M&M's World?). On a more serious note, how far along the path toward online customer self-service have you traveled? Now might be the time to see how easily that can be integrated into your brand-only site.

The Nuts and Bolts

As the worlds of financial analysis and Web site analytics grow closer, now's the time to designate a lead in your organization to help bridge the gap. The Web and marketing teams are creating scorecards, making investments, and pushing hard for big ROI. Lend them a hand through a dedicated individual that will ensure their work becomes part of your overall organizational perspective.

One of the best reasons for doing this is the requests you may have already seen for performance-based bonus added to the marketing budgets. My recommendation to marketers is to reward individuals, teams, and agencies for achieving site results. This is a natural extension of traditional performance-based compensation to a domain where results can actually be measured. Getting your team involved helps legitimize these practice and ensures it's done in a fair and responsible fashion.

Finally, sit down with the CMO and his analytics team, create a monthly scorecard that meets both of your needs, and communicate it effectively to the rest of the organization. This integrated scorecard for online performance can demonstrate the importance of Web analytics to the entire company and the close connection between investing in the online channel and creating profit from it.

If you're already doing all of the above, I salute you. The companies that acknowledge the new world of measurable and actionable marketing and its connection to ROI are going to be first to the brass ring.

Surefire Tips for Getting and Using Customer Testimonials, Part 2

By Jeanne Jennings , January 14, 2008

My last column discussed the value of testimonials and presented my tried-and-true, surefire way to get quality testimonials for e-mail, Web site, and other marketing efforts.

This week, let's move on to discuss effective uses of testimonials, and what to do if the person who gave you a testimonial changes names, positions, or companies.

Use of Testimonials in E-mail

Once you have great testimonials about your company, you want to leverage them in every way possible to benefit your brand. Positive testimonials are an asset to your organization, so don't just collect them and let them sit in a file folder.

You can build entire marketing campaigns around a single testimonial or a group of testimonials. This works equally well for e-mail, direct mail, and other channels. The credibility of the statement is greatly increased since it comes from a peer, rather than your organization's marketing department.

Here's an easy way to do it: use the testimonial as your starting point, lead with it in the piece, then build on its message in the marketing copy. I've seen testimonial-based pieces perform very well. If you're at a loss for what to use as a concept for a new campaign, start looking at, or gathering, testimonials.

Testimonials can also be added to any existing campaign, e-mail or otherwise, as supporting information to strengthen the piece. Have a control that's doing well and looking for a lift? Add a testimonial and see if it helps.

Use of Testimonials on Web sites

Your Web site is another good place to make use of testimonials; it's not uncommon for companies to devote a page to them. But how many page views do those "testimonial" pages really get? It's certainly not as many as the home page and other marketing-oriented parts of the site.

Therefore, you should sprinkle testimonials throughout the Web site so prospective clients see them where they have the most impact -- right next to marketing messages. Look for a prominent location on each page of your site where you can put a testimonial.

If you have just one great testimonial, you can certainly use it in a few places. If you have more than one great testimonial, then mix it up and incorporate each testimonial on the page where it's most relevant.

If your IT group is a bit more advanced, you can actually develop code that rotates your testimonials throughout different pages of your site. That way, each time the visitor visits or refreshes a page, a new testimonial is there for them to see.

A good example of this (and of some good testimonials) can be seen on PRWeb. The testimonials box on the home page is in the left column if you scroll down (not the most prominent placement for something this valuable; other than that a good example).

What if Something Changes?

I ran into this recently with a client. They were gearing up to do a testimonial-based e-mail/direct mail campaign. In a creative review, a member of the marketing team alerted us that the person being quoted had gotten married and taken her husband's last name, and also changed jobs (title and company) since the testimonial had been collected.

A discussion ensued about possible courses of action. Choose another quote? Update this one with the person's new name? What about the title and company? Should that be updated as well?

What came to mind in this discussion was the importance of maintaining the "time/space continuum." In other words, this testimonial was given at a certain time. At that time, the information provided (name, title, company) was accurate.

Trying to update it causes some disconnects, for instance:

* Changing the person's name. This makes it difficult for anyone to verify the quote, since the person wasn't known by this name at the company listed. This could lead to confusion and skepticism about the legitimacy of the quote.

* Changing the person's title. This is a dicey area. It could work if they were still working in the same department, but would totally backfire if they weren't. As a result, I recommend keeping it as it was at the time the quote was acquired.

* Changing the company name. Let's say the speaker's new employer isn't a customer. If so, it would be misleading to attribute the quote to one of their employees. This might also result in legal action if you're representing the new company as a client when they're not.

Try gathering some top quality testimonials, add them to your e-mail marketing efforts, and let me know how it works.

Until next time,

Jeanne

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.

How to Make Your Email Program More Productive in 2008

by Reggie Brady

Welcome to the New Year! I hope you've recharged your batteries and are ready to start a successful 2008.

And if you haven't done it yet, now is the perfect time to map out plans for your email program. Any changes you might make in the first few months of the year will stand you in good stead.

Resolve to do your homework

Good planning starts with analysis. Have you compared your overall results with available industry benchmarks? There are many sources for this information, but one to check is email provider Bronto. Though your own metrics are more important, you will have a gauge for how well your program is working in comparison with those of your peers.

Drill down deeper and look at results from the types of campaigns you send. Many email marketers vary the cadence of their messaging. They send e-newsletters, product or service promotions, general-themed promotions, and more. Are there variations in your results? If certain types of emails are stronger, attempt to discern what makes them work. If some campaigns are weaker, you may need to try a new communications strategy for those.

And, take the time to analyze your list. Is your list size growing substantially each year? Is your list showing any fatigue in terms of open and click-through rates? If so, you might want to look at frequency. Have you analyzed performance by the source of the names? Email sign ups from your Web site should be the most productive. Other marketing techniques such as co-registration, contests, or appending may not be as effective. If you find that's so, you might want to tighten your permission practices for those sources.

What percentage of your list has not opened or clicked on a message in four to six months? Possibly a substantial part of your file. Put a plan in place to re-engage them. Some common techniques are to ask recipients to update their preferences, special time-sensitive offers, and text or HTML-lite messages (to overcome potential delivery or image-blocking problems). After one or more reactivation efforts, it may be time to take a big step and selectively prune your list.

Resolve to test new email features or capabilities

Email programs should never be on autopilot. There are great features and capabilities that should be part of your email marketing toolkit. For a well-rounded program, you should include the following features:

1. A preference center. Today the power is in the hands of your recipients. Make sure they can alter their information and preferences. If you already have such a facility in place, perhaps it is time to add additional features, such as giving them the choice to indicate specific topics or products of interest or the ability to decide how often they want to hear from you.
2. Triggered messaging. If you are an e-commerce marketer, you should definitely have an abandoned-shopping-cart program in place to recapture lost sales. Consider putting triggered messaging in place for email recipients who clicked through to your site and browsed, but did not purchase. You might start this simply and choose only your top products or services. Or, launch a cross-sell initiative for purchasers. Each of these techniques will improve the relevance of your programs and increase sales.
3. Segmentation. This is important to your email success and should be part of your communications strategy. Some common elements used to segment are geography, gender, past purchase behavior, demonstrated interest from click-throughs, and the length of time the person has been on the list. If you're not segmenting, set a goal to test one or two factors. If you already see the value of using this technique, it's time to test additional groups. Dynamic personalization makes it relatively easy to set up and monitor results.
4. Social networking. There's certainly a lot of buzz about blogs and customer reviews. They may not be right for everyone, but more marketers are experimenting with ways to increase interaction and the overall user experience on their sites. And, email is a perfect way to promote any new features you incorporate into your online presence.

Resolve to make your emails work harder

Take a hard look at your email template designs and make sure they put your best foot forward. I continue to be surprised that many emails I receive make no effective use of the preview pane.

Many do not include a link to view the HTML version. Since image blocking is a major issue, this is almost a mandatory element to include. You may also want to include headlines to support your subject line, additional personalization, or even a newsletter table of contents.

View your emails with images disabled. Is there enough supporting text to still stimulate interest and activity? Too many emails I receive are composed of a single large image. It takes more time to hand-code messages with images and text, but it is well worth the trouble. It is very easy to test whether this makes a major impact on your results.

Is it time to develop some new templates? Get your creative team to develop some new prototypes for the various types of campaigns you conduct. An updated look and feel can breathe new life into your program.

Resolve to focus on the customer

Finally, think hard about ways to amaze and delight your email recipients. That effort will make your emails stand out in a cluttered inbox and improve your performance.

My favorite technique is to introduce value-added content such as tips, interesting factoids, or user-generated content. You could also provide the opportunity to interact—via polls, an Ask the Expert feature, or periodic contests or games.

Any plans or changes that you implement in the first quarter should pay dividends for the balance of the year. I hope that I've given you food for thought and that you'll put several of these ideas into practice.

Have a great 2008!

Reggie Brady is president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions (www.reggiebrady.com), a direct and email marketing consultancy. She can be reached at (203) 838-8138 or reginabrady@att.net.
Published on January 8, 2008

18 Strategies and Tools for Naming Your Business or Product

by Scott Trimble

Naming. Doesn't matter what you're naming—your product, your business, your Web site or heck, even your child (which happens to be my current project), your choice is important. Below, you'll find a flock of ideas, strategies, and tools to make your name discovery a little easier.

Through researching and writing this article, I tried to make name discovery a point-by-point affair. I've also noticed that most, if not all, of the articles and reports I've read over the years do the same. Start here, end there, do this and don't do that.

Lemme tell you, though, that it's not nearly that cut and dry. The process of naming is anything but linear.

There is NO chronological set of events that promise to lead you to naming perfection.

There is NO set of naming principles you must adhere to.

Sure, there are certain guidelines and ideas that are good to keep in mind, but I promise you that there's an exception to every rule. (Successfully branded, wildly popular—and, by all standards, bad—names abound.)

The process of naming also has its idiosyncrasies. Sometimes you'll set out to name a new product and the perfect name will be hanging there, right out in front of you, just waiting to be snatched out of thin air. Other times, you'll mull for days, agonizing over the details of your product, entering in hundreds or thousands of options to your registrar with nothing sounding "just" right.

So, given the interesting and often inconsistent nature of naming, I've decided to divide this article into "considerations." That is, instead of giving you a chronological chart of action points from which you'll undoubtedly stray, or assigning you a set of naming commandments that are anything but set in stone, I've outlined a collection of methods, ideas and strategies that you should simply consider.

(You'll find the more basic ideas in the beginning with more meaty stuff following.) So, let's get the fast ones out of the way first…

Consider this: The basic stuff

1. Be easy to pronounce and spell.
2. Make it memorable.
3. Don't pigeonhole yourself (being too specific in the naming of your company or product [example: Dave's 256k Flash Drives Inc. or Portland Flooring Inc.] can hinder growth later).
4. Go easy on the numbers.
5. Don't use names that could have a negative connotation in other languages (Baka Software Inc. sounds OK in the US, but won't fly in Japan).
6. Stay away from negative connotations.
7. Make sure your name doesn't alienate any group (race, religion, etc.)
8. Search for existing trademarks on potential names.
9. Make sure that the domain is available or purchasable in the aftermarket. Use your favorite registrar or use a bulk domain checker (I've outlined one below).

Consider this: Domain availability

Domain availability is possibly the biggest hang-up to ever happen to naming. Sure, you can come up with great potential names, but can you come up with great potential domains that are available?

I won't spend much time on this because it's pretty simple. If you're creating a name for a product or business that will require a .com, be patient, keep trying, and you'll start to get a feel for names that are more likely to be available than others. I've also listed some tools below that will help immensely with this.

Consider this: Focused brainstorming

Every book out there prescribes brainstorming. However, instead of just sitting back and trying to come up with ANY words that describe your business, focus your brainstorming to answering a set of questions.

Answer each by making as long of a list or words and phrases as you possibly can. Remember, the longer and more abstract your list, the better off you'll be. So go wild...

* What does your product do?
* What does your industry do, what's its purpose?
* What is your product's benefit to the consumer?
* What will happen for them?
* What will they get?
* What are the "ingredients" that go into your product or service?
* How are you different from the competition?
* What makes you unique?
* What's the lingo in your industry? What are the expressions that are unique to your offering and business?

Add your own to the list, as you see fit.

Consider this: Synonym search

It's pretty simple, really. Take every one of the words you brainstormed above and plug them into a thesaurus, like Thesaurus.com (thesaurus.reference.com). Run through each entry, keeping the words you like, trashing the ones you don't. Put these into a new list, paying attention to name possibilities.

Consider this: Word combining + a cool name-combining tool

After you've done some focused brainstorming and/or a synonym search, try word combining. Pop ALL of your words into a word combiner like My Tool (www.my-tool.com/word-domain/word-picker/), tweak its settings to reflect what you want it to show, and combine.

Depending on how many words you put into the system, you may get a massive list returned to you. To weed through them quickly, you can then hit the button at the bottom and check each domain for availability.

Consider this: Name and word lists to get your juices flowing

Plenty of great product, company, and Web site names have their roots in other, irrelevant names. Look up "list of ______" in Google and you'll get more than you can handle:

* Geologic periods
* Fruit or food names
* Types of dinosaurs
* Kinds of rocks
* Latin or Greek roots
* Place names
* Historical figure names
* Zoological names
* Botanical names
* Math or Engineering terms
* Astronomical terms
* Animal, fish, or bug names

Think about this abstractly also. If your product is new and unique, what foods or plants have fresh connotations? And so on.

Consider this: Punning and plays on words

I just tried a new beer recently specifically because of its name. It was called Tricerahops, a double IPA made by Ninkasi Brewery. Quite a beer, incidentally. But check out how you can create a name like that.

Cruise your focused brainstorm and synonym lists for words that describe/define your product. In this beer example, we might find hops—one of the main ingredients in beer. Then, we can look through lists of animals, foods, places, etc and see if we get any good combinations, where the words fit seamlessly. In this case, they chose the dinosaur name "Triceratops" and simply changed one letter. Here's an even easier way of doing it…

Consider this: Groovy word tool

Use this More Words tool (www.morewords.com) and search for any words that contain ____ . You can search for anything—search for words that contain "top," or words that have a double "e." Virtually any sound or letter combo you want to find in a word, this site will do it for you.

Consider this: Meaningful or not?

(Example: Dave's Rocket Repair Inc. has meaning, Simble Inc. does not.)

Some say creating a name with built-in meaning is a must—new companies or products need to seem familiar and safe. Others say non-meaningful names are the best— the name is completely yours, free of meaning (which you can then define); plus, newly coined word names connote innovation.

The jury, as they say, is out. Some things to keep in mind though:

Newly coined words CAN convey meaning. The most championed of these may be Acura, which was formed from the morpheme "Acu" and finishing with suffix "ra." Acu as a root connotes accuracy or precision, which fits nicely for a luxury car line.

The creator of the Acura name (Ira Bachrach of NameLabs) is purported to have a list of thousands of combinable morphemes. I, as of yet, have not found such a list. If you happen to run across one, I'd love to see it. : )

Consider this: A truly killer naming tool

Word Lab (www.wordlab.com) and specifically this page: Word Lab Tools (www.wordlab.com/tools/t_index.cfm).

This Web site I consider to be one of the single most powerful naming tools out there. With an absolutely massive list of company names, a morpheme name creator, name builder, and so on, this site is the juggernaut of idea generators. Every time I'm naming something new, I use this site.

Consider this: Metaphorical naming (some powerful stuff)

I call it metaphorical or lateral naming; but no matter what you call it, it's a branch from the focused brainstorm, and often the coolest names come from this method. It'll take a more creative, abstract frame of mind, so whatever you need to do to break out of your linear comfort zone, do it.

So, after you've changed into your tie dye and stared at your Led Zeppelin poster for a while, grab your focused brainstorm. Here we're going to center on the question "What does your product, business or industry do?" You're going to sequentially take each of the words and phrases you came up with, and come up with other things in life that do these things too.

Let me repeat (or rewrite, as it were) that. You're going to take what your business does, and come up with other things in life that do the same thing. Make a list of everything you come up with. Here is an example:

I have a software company, and our newest product's function is to copy files (pretty high-tech, I know). So I ask, "What else in life copies things?"

A copier—too logical.
A cell—might work, but a little "out there."
A mime—A HA!
Why not call the new software product... Mime.

Here's another:

My marketing company helps its clients voices get heard above the competition's. So, what else gets voices heard or makes things louder?

A bullhorn.
A volume dial.
An Amplifier—A HA!
Why not call the company Amplify Interactive (happens to be a real company here in Portland). Volume Media wouldn't be bad, either.

Consider this: Misspellings

Misspellings of commonly used words can get you in familiarity's proverbial backdoor. Example—netflix.com. It's familiar, short, and you instantly know what they do. Though, if looking for an available domain, you'll have to use some fancy combinations because common misspellings are already registered.

Consider this: Industry lingo

Each industry has its lingo, and you may have noticed that many taglines come from such lingo... or, more distinctly, from words and expressions that are used by your consumers.

For example, I've just developed the perfect fish hook. It never, and I mean never, lets a fish go. A common expression in fishing when you feel a fish take your bait is "Fish on." This great expression, combined with something else, might make a nice tagline for my fail-safe hook. How about "Fish on ... never off."

Consider this: Ask your friends, but...

Ask your friends' opinions, but take them with a grain of salt. First of all, your pool of test subjects is probably pretty small, leaving your results (ratio of yays to nays) with little accuracy.

Second, consider whether your friends are in your target market. If they're not, they may not "get" a name that might be perfect for your market.

Finally, people in general side with what's familiar. Finding your Web site, seeing an advertisement, or having a friend suggest your product can have the unique ability of making your product's name sound good. The name or names that you ask your friends to grade won't have the benefit of such an advantage.

Consider this: How is the competition named? What are the trends?

I've made the mistake (like an idiot, I might add) of not checking my competition first, before creating a name, only to find out the name I created is just like a competitor's. Time wasted.

Now, my general rule is to find out how my competitors are naming themselves and simply be different. Stepping out of the box is always a bit of a gamble, so make sure you're different in what will be seen as a positive way.

Consider this: Name rhyming

Rhymed names are memorable and can work, as long as they're not too cute or overboard. Rhyme Zone (www.rhymezone.com) is fantastic for finding words that rhyme. More Words can also be good for this.

Consider this: Web 2.0 name generators

I'll be honest, they're generally crap. I've used this one, Web 2.0 Name Generator (benjamin.hu/w2namegen.php), but found that, for the most part, they return relatively useless gibberish.

If you have a few extra minutes, though, try popping some of your synonyms into the interface and see what it comes up with. At the very least, it might give you some ideas and get your wheels turning.

Consider this: Don't put too much stock in your name

They're certainly important, but naming can also be over-emphasized. There are plenty of highly successful businesses and products out there with bad names. So, take your naming, like your friends' opinions, with a grain of salt. And, as with everything, the more you stress about obtaining perfection, the less likely you'll come up with that killer name that seamlessly fits your offering.

Scott Trimble is a managing partner of Halfagain LLC, a Portland, Oregon based search and affiliate marketing software producer. He blogs at www.halfagain.com.
Published on January 8, 2008

Six International E-Mail Marketing Challenges

Six International E-Mail Marketing Challenges

By Derek Harding , March 20, 2008

Last month I was part of a panel on international e-mail marketing at the Email Experience Council's Email Evolution Conference in San Diego. When marketers think about sending e-mail internationally, localization is obviously one of the first issues that come up. The discussion then often moves to the questions of translation and infrastructure support for "foreign" languages. In effect, localization is often equated with translation.

What struck me most during the panel was the consensus that translation isn't localization. The panelists all agreed that localization is vital to international campaigns' success, and they weren't talking about translation.

Localization, effectively, is a form of segmentation. When sending e-mail within a single country with a mostly common language and culture, we know there are significant differences between audiences. We also know that speaking to these audiences individually (segmenting) substantially lifts results. Clearly the same will hold true when sending to multiple countries, each with its own language, culture, and social mores.

Some localization issues that regularly present challenges internationally include:

* Message form. The amount of content that works well in messages varies from country to country. In the United States, when we send newsletters, it's common to only include article overviews with links to the full articles online. However, in some countries the expectation is the full content will appear in the message.

* Personalization and salutations. In some countries, use of personalization and salutations (e.g., Dear Derek) can improve results. In others, it's seen as hackneyed or even a privacy invasion.

* Send time. When to send is also a regional and cultural question. Clearly, the local time zone must be taken into account. So should variations in when people work. Which days constitute the weekend vary across the globe. Holidays vary from country to country, as does when people commonly take vacations.

* Local norms. There are many local norms that can be entirely unexpected if you don't have local knowledge. For example, in the U.S. it's quite common to post prices exclusive of tax. In some other countries, this is simply not done and may even be disallowed by local law. In France, it's common to ask recipients to print out a form and fax it back, whereas in many other countries this would be considered absurd.

* Local laws. While anti-spam requirements are the most obvious laws that apply to international e-mail, some countries may have additional laws and requirements for doing business electronically, especially related to privacy and use of personal information.

* Language. The language selected does matter for international communications. However, the choice of language isn't necessarily clear cut. Many countries use more than one language, and which languages you support can be very important. For some cultural groups, using their language may be essential; for others, it may have little effect. Some audiences may even prefer to receive communications in English rather than their native tongue. This is often the case for more technical audiences.

In a tightening economy, many organizations centralize and close satellite offices to manage costs. What my fellow panelists made clear is that while such centralization of e-mail management can reduce costs and improve messaging consistency, it's essential not to lose the understanding of the places to which you're mailing.

At the end of the day, there's really no substitute for local knowledge to ensure effective international communications.

Three Powerful Press Kits (and Why They Work)

by Gail Z. Martin

Press kits are like business cards. If you don't have one, you have no way to make an introduction and no way to provide valuable information to people with whom you want to do business

A "press kit" is a collection of a few vital pieces of information that makes it easier for the media to tell your story accurately and with full details. By putting the power of your press kit to work, your company can enjoy more accurate media coverage, more exposure for story ideas, and more complete information through press coverage.

Reporters often want press kits to fact check the spelling of names and products, release dates, company history, and other important details. Press kits can also be tailored to specific events, product rollouts, and grand openings with audio, video, maps, photos and commemorative giveaways.

For years, press kits were expensive, custom-printed packets. While those types of press kits still have some limited uses, today's press kits are most likely to be found online, where they can be accessed around the clock.

While the media are one key target audience, prospective customers, partners, investors, and vendors are also likely to be looking for accurate, detailed information about your company. Press kits provide that information in an organized, easy-to-read format.

Many companies put off creating press kits. If business is good, staff may be too busy to think about a kit, especially if there is no pressing deadline. Some companies are unaware of a press kit's value, or unsure of what goes in a good kit. Still others are reluctant to make a press kit available online because they want to control access to information.

That last reason is the most dangerous. If you don't have a press kit, your company has already lost control of its information because it has waived its ability to make it easy for reporters to have accurate, updated data and to shape the story.

A good press kit helps your company put its best foot forward. It is a useful collection of information that answers questions and suggests story ideas.

A press kit is designed first and foremost for the needs of the media. Resist the urge to try to make a press kit into a sales piece. Doing that will alienate reporters who don't want to be sold and aren't buying your product. Stick to the facts and help to shape coverage by drawing attention to positives that might otherwise be overlooked.

I like this example of an online press kit at Gap, for the following reasons:

* It's cleanly designed and easy to navigate.
* It addresses bad news up front instead of hiding it under layers of links.
* It provides a nice snapshot of the company—press releases, stock price, interesting trivia.
* It provides the option to download a paper press kit.
* It offers the chance to sign up for news alerts.
* It provides a handy image library.

Some of the key elements of a press kit include executive bios, a company history, fact sheets, backgrounders, testimonials, recent speeches, recent major press releases, and information regarding recent recalls or high-profile crises (and how they are being dealt with).

Reviews, awards, story ideas, web audio and web video clips, and virtual tours can make for an interesting and interactive press kit. Posting a press kit is a reason in itself for sending out a release and inviting the press to take a look.

Take a look at a more robust press center at Coca-Cola. What I like about this site:

* Press kits for special events and products filed by type
* Well-organized information—and lots of it
* Audio-visual resources that amplify the message
* A news index to find releases by date
* Speeches and company statements
* Press contacts that aren't hidden

Once the basic pieces are in place, press kits can be customized for special events, corporate anniversaries, new-product launches, and other major occasions. Add a new fact sheet about the occasion, include fresh audio and video clips, tuck in some pertinent quotes by executives on the occasion, and perhaps include a whole or partial speech text if appropriate.

Online press kits make it easy to create lively documents, such as interactive timelines and milestones complete with audio and video. Use the technology to its best advantage to tell your story and make it compelling.

Look at the customized event-driven press kits on Verizon's media site. It's great because...

* It combines press releases with photos and video.
* It can be viewed in Spanish and English.
* The customized press kit page still has links back to all the main bios, releases, and other information.

Or look at this press kit on Verizon's store layout. It works because...

* Viewers can take a virtual tour as well as download pictures.
* You can download renderings from several perspectives, as well as display layouts.
* Users can even sign up to get updates via RSS feed.

Once your press kit is in place, it's easy to find new uses, such as including a link in the signature of your email or adding it as a line in your pitches to reporters. If a high-profile live media event—such as a press conference—arises, it's possible to convert the online documents into physical kits fairly quickly.

A press kit works for your public relations department 24/7. Hire the best publicist you'll ever get—a great press kit—and put it to work for your company today.

Gail Z. Martin owns DreamSpinner Communications (www.DreamSpinnerCommunications.com) and has over 20 years of corporate and nonprofit experience at senior-exec levels. Reach her via "gail at dreamspinnercommunications dot com."

Premium Plus members: Don't miss our on-demand seminars with Gail, Telling a Story that Sells: Case Studies with Heart and Publicity Power Tool: Building a Great Online Press Kit.
Published on December 27, 2007

Justifying E-mail Budgets for 2008

By Jeanniey Mullen , December 10, 2007

Need help justifying e-mail budgets for 2008? Be prepared to think outside the tactical box. It's no longer good enough to show that your deliverability has improved to 90 percent or that your optimized creative increases clicks. Instead, your focus must expand into the ever-growing digital world. But how do you do that?

Today, a simple mathematical equation I often use to justify and win an increased budget for e-mail marketing. Its primary focus is on improving deliverability.

Deliverability impacts more than response rates for e-mail; it also drives the bottom line. For one client, I was able to show that every percentage increase in delivery rate drives $1 million in sales. Here's how to estimate how an improvement in performance boosts results.

Start with two basic facts: revenue and opt-in list size. Begin with the total revenue driven for the year by anyone who has an opt-in e-mail in your database. For example, we have 50,000 opt-in e-mail addresses and the total sales generated by those people was $20 million. Note: total sales generated doesn't have to be entirely through e-mail.

1. Determine your average conversion rate from e-mail. Start with the number of times people get e-mailed per month. In our example, the delivery rate is 85 percent (42,500), the open rate is 20 percent of delivered (8,500), the CTR (define) is 25 percent of opens (2,125), and conversion rate from clicks to the site is 35 percent (744). So here one send to 50,000 people would generate purchases from 744 people.

2. Identify your average monthly revenue as a percentage of total annual revenue. Divide the per-month revenue by the number of people who purchased for the month. In this case, $1.67 million ($20 million a year divided by 12 months) divided by 743 people is $2,244, the average monthly revenue by buyer.

3. Determine average impact. Now for the magic. Using the number of opt-in addresses; open rate, CTR, and conversion rate from step two; and the average monthly revenue from step three, determine the average impact on sales if only 1 percent of your e-mail were delivered. In our example, 50,000 x 1 percent x 20 percent x 25 percent x 35 percent x $2,244 equals $19,635 in revenue per month.

In our example, then, a 5 percent increase in delivery could generate $98,175 per month in additional revenue, or $1.18 million for the year. Given these figures, there's not a CFO out there who could resist approving one extra head count or additional vendor support to help keep your campaigns moving in the right direction.

There are many calculations like this one that can help you justify your budget. If you have something specific you're trying to justify and can't, e-mail me and I'll help you figure one out. If you have a good, effective example you would like to share, e-mail me that too.

EXAMPLE: How Increasing E-mail Delivery Rates Pays Off
One way to win approval for an increase in an e-mail marketing budget is tie performance to financial metrics. This tool is designed to help estimate the additional amount of revenue an organization can generate if e-mail delivery rates improve. This example assumes a company with annual revenue of $20 million and 50,000 opt-in e-mail addresses; the baseline was derived by assuming an 85 percent delivery rate. INSTRUCTIONS: Perform the calculations in the rows, in boldface.

Step 1: If the e-mail delivery rate is 85 percent:
A Opt-in e-mail addresses: 50,000
B Number of messages delivered per month 1
C Delivery rate 85%
D Open rate 20%
E CTR 25%
F Conversion rate from clicks to the site 35%
G Total number of conversions or buyers (A x B x C x D x E x F) 744

Step 2: And the company's annual revenue is $20 million:
H Annual revenue $20,000,000
I Monthly revenue (G ÷ 12) $1,666,667
J Average monthly revenue by buyer (I ÷ G) $2,241

Step 3: If the e-mail delivery rate is 1 percent:
H Number of messages delivered per month 1
I Delivery rate 1%
J Open rate 20%
K CTR 25%
L Conversion rate from clicks to the site 35%
M Average monthly revenue by buyer (J x H x I x J x K x L) $19,608

Step 4: If the e-mail delivery rate is 5 percent:
H Number of messages delivered per month 1
I Delivery rate 5%
J Open rate 20%
K CTR 25%
L Conversion rate from clicks to the site 35%
M Average monthly revenue by buyer (J x H x I x J x K x L) $98,039

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.