Fundraising: To Email or Not to Email
Email is the one must have tool every online fundraiser needs. But most brands are afraid to use because they only now how to spam people.
The Permission Trap
After reading the Age of Context (read my review here), I could not help but think about how this era is removing most concepts of privacy. In turn, it is causing an incredible amount of intrusive spam. A tension builds… Read More »The Permission Trap
Short Emails
I write short emails. Usually no more than five sentences, often fewer. The sentences tend to be truncated in their own right. Sometimes people complain to me that I write short emails, and they don’t know what I am thinking.… Read More »Short Emails
Social Results Will Stay Small
If you think small, you stay small. That’s why companies and brands that treat social like a unique practice — a box within the larger whole — will struggle to achieve results and intangible outcomes.
Building seemless customer experiences should take the fore in all strategies. Yet according to the CMO Survey, the integration gap in companies is not closing, in spite of years of research showing that cross-tactic coordination produces more sales.
The struggle to achieve ROI and real business impact with new media strategies is a direct result of focusing on individual tactics. Rather than simply discuss integration, an easier approach may be to consider building from the customer’s viewpoint.
Customers don’t care about social, in-store, mobile, content marketing, white glove treatment for influencers, or any of the other strands of spaghetti you see strewn across the marketing blogosphere wall. They don’t care about integrated multi-channel approaches either.
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Why Email and Search Outsell Social
So much for social ROI. Yesterday, the New York Times ran an op-ed debating social media marketing’s ability to deliver sales in comparison to other forms of advertising (for example, traditional search or email marketing).
A recent Forrester report stated paid search matters most for new customers, email matters most for repeat customers, and social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers. Correlating this data, ExactTarget surveyed more than 700 consumers (ages 15+) in its 2012 Channel Preferences study, and 77% responded that email was preferred over social media for communications for promotion offers.
Opt-in email and click throughs driven by paid search represent private acts of engagement that occur deeper in an online sales cycle.
While the linear sales cycle has been disrupted by online media in the past ten years, buying still represents a process.
Eliminate Distractions
Olympians Missy Franklin, Katie Ledecky and me at last week’s USA Today 30th Birthday bash.
Fathering a child, starting companies, writing books, getting work done, working out… Finding time for all of these things requires discipline and focus.
That’s why over the past couple of years and in particular recent months, I have eliminated distractions wherever possible.
Here are six things I have intentionally nixed from my day-to-day life:
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WAKE UP CALL: Word of Mouth Marketing more than Social Media
Social media experts will tell you that social is word of mouth marketing (WOMM). Experienced grassroots marketers may be confused, thinking word of mouth occurs person-to-person in a wide variety of ways, with social offering another venue for that. Now grassroots marketers have the proof to push back on social media experts.
A recent study from the Temkin Group shows post purchase word of mouth feedback will more likely occur via email, phone calls, in person, or directly to the company rather than social media.
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Rethinking Strategy through Storyboards and Cognitive Maps
In today’s networked media environment, marketing strategists find weaknesses in linear approaches to selecting campaign tactics. Break that strategy planning process by integrating best practices from web site user experience (UX) design with storyboards and cognitive maps.
Today, most marketers end strategies with media choices and tactics (and hopefully associated measurement choices). This linear process represents a common inside-out perspective, and fails to embrace the customer/stakeholder experience.
UX design seeks to keep people engaged in a great online experience. Similarly, instead of treating customers and stakeholders like cattle, we should build marketing campaigns that inform and entertain in a comprehensive experience.
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