When mixing marketing and social media you never really know what you’re going to get. The response look like just another drop in the ocean or as overwhelming as a tsunami.
I came across the video below at Jason Keath’s blog, the evolution of media, in a post that compared dancing to viral marketing. How does a dancing man at a concert relate to viral marketing? Well, you’ll just have to watch to find out.
U.S. marketers are predicted to spend $2 billion on email marketing by 2014, amounting to an almost 11% compound annual growth rate, according to the latest forecast by Forrester Research.
Falling CPMs and high ROI are giving marketers more reason to rely on email as their primary direct marketing outreach, according to the “U.S. E-mail Marketing Forecast 2009 to 2014” report.
A major challenge for marketers to be on the lookout for is the use of email in social networks. Marketers will have to find a way to leverage social sharing tools in the same way they once used social and traditional inboxes.
But just because everyone’s doing it and spending a lot of money on it, doesn’t mean that this is the time for everyone to go into email overload.
You may be looking at email as an effective way to boost sales while your budget is feeling the pinch, but turning up the volume of emails you send customers could backfire in a big way.
“E-mail is such a low-cost channel to send that people have the impression they can keep pulling that lever,” said Aaron Smith, principal and co-founder of Smith-Harmon, a Seattle-based e-mail marketing, strategy and creative services provider.
“There’s a saturation level in the inbox that is unprecedented right now, and you are far more likely to oversaturate your customer base, upset them and turn them off.” (BtoB Magazine)
When you’re feeling the pressure to push out more emails, Smith offers some strong arguments on why it could be a bad idea in a recent BtoB Magazine article.
Why email overload can be a bad idea:
Lower lifetime value. The average value of an email address is $118. When subscribers start ignoring your messages or unsubscribe from your emails, that value quickly diminishes.
Higher spam complaints. Even if you’re sending to subscribers, they will start marking your emails as spam if you’re loading their inbox with more, but worthless messages.
Brand damage. It’s possible that a person can get so fed up with the amount of messages they receive from you, that they block you out entirely. Once they’re gone, it’s tough getting them back.
We’ve all had the joy of dealing with email overload in our personal inboxes. Turn those negative experiences into a chance to improve your marketing at work.
Improve your email marketing by asking yourself a few questions:
What standards do you have for emails subscriptions?
What motivates you to open an email? To click through in an email?
Why do you unsubscribe from mailing lists?
Understanding why you choose to subscribe, actively participate or unsubscribe from emails can give you an added insight into why your customers do the same.
Analyst Richard St. John took the lessons he learned in business, both successes and failures, and put them in this advice-filled, honest four-minute presentation.
Take a quick break and listen to some awesome advice:
Want to know whether your homepage layout is effective? Or if readers prefer short paragraphs over long ones? And if your ads are in the best place to be noticed by your audience?
Take a few minutes out of your day and read over the latest findings from Eyetrack III (via ProBlogger and the Direct Creative Blog). Their research could give your team a better idea of where to start and what to fix when it comes to your Web site design.
You can check out the full article for a complete overview of their findings, but here are some of the main points:
Headlines first, then pictures. When people first land on a page, they tend to look at dominant headlines before looking at pictures. Headlines located in the upper left of the page got the most attention.
The first few words in a headline are most important. A headline will grab less than a second of a visitor’s attention and it appears that the first few words need to be the most eye-catching. People scan the first couple words before deciding to read on.
Use large type for scanning, small type for closer reading. Smaller type is harder to read, so visitors have to focus when they want to find out more. As always, large type should be used for headlines to allow for easy scanning.
Short paragraphs have a better chance of being read than longer ones. Long paragraphs, especially on the Web, look difficult to read. Short paragraphs are more appealing.
Ads in the top and left portions of a homepage get the most attention. Our eyes tend to look at the upper left of a page when we first arrive on it.
Bigger ads are better. Bigger ads have a better chance of being seen. When ads are also placed next to popular content they’ll generally get more attention.
Surpassing all other business-to-business media categories, online revenue had the most impressive growth in 2008, according to a recent report by The Jordan, Edmiston Group.
In 2008, the online category increased 15.1%, a shift mainly credited to the shift in ad dollars from magazines to online channels. Magazines have been declining in revenue over the past few years, showing an 8.4% annual decline in 2008.
“Advertising dollars continued shifting from print vehicles to online outlets, as magazine net ad revenue declined,” said Richard Mead, Managing Director at Jordan, Edmiston.
Where are most B2Bs putting their money? In online display and search advertising.
Online display and search advertising account for more than 50% of total online revenue and gained more than 12% year-over-year in 2008.
If you’ve ever been searching for research on business-to-business buying behaviors, it can seem like you’re stuck in a maze full of an overwhelming amount of information on consumers around each turn.
To ease our frustration, Marketo and Enquiro Research teamed up to perform some research of their own to discover exactly how businesses make complex purchases.
Yesterday, Jon Miller shared some initial findings from their research at the Marketo blog. Here are a few highlights:
Despite popular belief, business buying is not rational. B2B buyers are self-taught and use a trial-and-error process in their decision making, helping to simplify complex decisions. Instead of dealing with just one irrational decision maker, marketers must deal with an entire group of irrational decision makers, making the buying process that much more complex.
Emotions play a big role. After a purchase, a B2B buyer may not experience the full benefit of their purchase directly or may not be recognized for making the decision and making a poor decision can put that buyer’s job security at risk. Fear drives most B2B buying decisions. “B2B buying is all about minimizing fear by minimizing risk.”
So, it turns out that what we once thought was a strictly linear buying funnel is actually a buying process that may not be logical or rational at times.
Check out the full post for even more great information, including Enquiro’s advice for managing B2B buyer’s perceived risk.
Since their launch of the SEO Center at HR Marketer.com, the company has been witness to some interesting statistics when it comes to how well HR vendors are managing their SEO.
HR Marketer’s data shows that not many have the hang of it, with only half of HR vendors ranking on the first few pages of major search engines for their top keyword strings.
After analyzing hundreds of HR vendors using their SEO Center, HR Marketer found that:
About 20% of HR vendors don’t show up on the first 10 pages (100 rankings) of top search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN).
Another 30% of HR vendors ranked on just one or two sets of keywords, but after the first two or three pages of search results.
Only about 15% had “exceptional” SEO, meaning they landed on page 1 of search rankings for at least two or three keyword strings.
On a positive note: What their data reveals is that about 50% of HR vendors do “get it” and are ranking on the first few pages of major search engines for their top keywords.
According to HR Marketer’s Mark Willaman, the data showing how many B2B companies are using SEO effectively to improve their search rankings should be a wake-up call for the other half of marketers out there.
“These are the companies being found first. So if your competitor ranks and you don’t guess who is getting the leads?” Mark asks.
Does your company “get it” when it comes to SEO and search rankings? What have you found that works or doesn’t work for your B2B that could be useful for others out there? Leave a comment and let us know.
To get a clear picture of how much money marketers waste each week all most people have to do is simply take out the trash.
Every week marketers send out thousands upon thousands of pieces of direct mail. If they’re lucky, some will get a quick second look by their recipients before they end up in the garbage or recycling bin. Along with the money, marketers time and effort are also being taken out with the trash.
When most people find direct mail in their inboxes, the immediately classify it as “junk” and quickly dispose of it. To really catch your audience’s attention, you have to find a creative way to get noticed and make people take a second look.
Because we all receive multiple pieces of junk mail daily, it takes a truly creative approach to stand out from the crowd. Will V. at The Better Response Blog recently tacked the issue and shared some ingenious examples of direct marketing that isn’t a waste of money.
Two dollar bill DM campaign, The Better Response Blog
The first example is of a piece by the Seattle Art Museum to promote the Life Liberty and Pusuit of Happiness exhibit. The marketing piece took the form of a two dollar bill, something most people don’t see everyday. Will admitted he’d likely read it before throwing it away. At least it’s a step up from landing directly in the trash, without so much as a slight glance.
“The point I am trying to make is we should always try to create a piece that no one else is creating. Part of marketing is to stand out and not be typical. Being typical will not catch any attention and is a waste of money. This may be a thought that is always in the back of our minds, but we don’t always factor it into our marketing initiatives,” Will says.
Will showed another good example of a direct mail campaign that not only stood out from the crowd, but was “highly personalized.” As part of a sensory-based direct mail campaign, Proximity London crafted a letter made entirely out of chocolate. Yes, real chocolate.
I don’t know about you, but receiving a chocolate letter in the mail would catch my attention close to 100% of the time. Before I devoured it, you could bet that I would also be spreading the message and showing the piece to everyone in the office.
We’re not expecting you to go out and print your next direct mail piece on chocolate, but if you do just make sure I’m on the mailing list. What we’re saying is that it’s time to start getting really creative with your marketing.
“Do not send out postcards because your competitors are sending out postcards. Send out something you know your competitors will not be sending out. Remember, you are not just competing with your competitors’ pieces, but with the 50 gazillion other pieces who are not even from the same industry,” Will adds.
Ask yourself truthfully if you would stop and read what your company is mailing out. If you think it’s going to land in the trash, it’s time to rethink your idea. Stop wasting your marketing dollars and start grabbing people’s attention.
What creative techniques have you used recently in your marketing to grab your audience’s attention? Or, have you been the recipient of a cool piece of direct marketing? Let us know about it …
I know, I know … April Fool’s Day was a week ago, but this was too good to pass up sharing.
Next year when April 1st rolls around, make sure you don’t find yourself in someone’s blog post covering the worst examples of a bad April Fool’s joke and pay attention to the lesson outlined in a recent post from Andrew Lennon at the Daily Anchor.
Lesson one: Don’t use your Facebook status to try to get a rise out of your significant other on April Fool’s day.
You can take a look at the screen shot of an example of this bad April Fool’s joke here. When you joke that you’re worried about “how to break the news” to a boyfriend or girlfriend on Facebook, chances are they’re not going to appreciate it. Even worse, all of your Facebook friends will be embarrassed for you and your bad decision.
Lesson two: If you’re going to joke around with your customers on April Fool’s Day, tell at least a half-truth.
On April 1, Brenthaven sent its customers an email with this subject line: “Today Only! Buy a Brenthaven – Get a FREE CAR!!!”
When customers opened the email, they found out that it wasn’t a joke — they would really receive a free car with their purchase. Unfortunately, they would never be able to get behind the wheel of that car because it was a HotWheels.
If this email was sent out on any day other than April Fool’s, I’m sure there would be an incredible amount of upset customers calling the company and complaining. Since it was the funniest holiday of the year, they got away with it.
The moral of this story: Unless it’s April Fool’s Day, make sure your B2B email subject lines only speak the truth.
Business-to-business ad agencies had it tough last year, with total ad spending down 2.6% from 2007, according to Nielson Monitor-Plus.
Though advertising took a hit, many b-to-b agencies were able to grow their business last year, with some reporting their most profitable years ever.
How did they do it?
According to a BtoB Online Special Report, those businesses found success by focusing on three major areas:
Understanding their clients;
Developing relevant, compelling creative
Expanding into new areas such as green marketing and social media
Winners from this year’s Top Agencies Special Report added that in order to succeed in today’s market, B2B businesses will need a healthy dose of “optimism, boldness and creative thinking.”
“If you are smart, you get lifted up by the recession, not pulled down by it,” said Rick Segal, CEO of HSR Business to Business, Cincinnati, winner of the midsize category. “It is an opportunity to grow and become more profitable in terms of building your business and bringing new ideas to clients, even if they’re not asking for them.”
With an increase in revenue by 30%, 2008 was HSR’s best year on record. The agency explored new opportunities in online video and social media, even with some of the company’s most traditional clients like John Deere & Co.
“We live in a time of extraordinary change—change that will be amplified and accelerated by the recession, ushering in perhaps a new age of business transformation,” said John Favalo, managing partner-group B2B at Eric Mower & Associates, runner-up in the midsize category. “Business models, marketing and communications will transform, and successful agencies will be instrumental in helping clients through the dramatic changes.”
How has your organization responded to the changing market? Are you using new media, including online video and social media to improve your chances of success?
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