You will no doubt recognise some of these increasingly common buzzwords, sourced from Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services in the US:
Mobilenecking: The alarming tendency to have our necks tilted down or shifted sideways – ever glued to our mobile device. This anywhere, anyplace epidemic is increasingly evident in cars, airplanes and city streets.
Wiki Wart: A bad piece of news or an embarrassing brand episode that just won't go away in a brand's Wikipedia description (e.g., an activist protest or a social-media campaign that backfired). PR pros often give brands false hope of removing the warts, but relentless Wikipedia editors put them right back.
Faux Post: When you are talking to someone on the phone and he/she notices an unrelated tweet or Facebook status update from you showing up in real-time. Now that’s embarrassing.
Conversational Divide: The huge gap between what marketers preach about social media "conversations" and the brand's actual customer service or call centre operations.
Buck Sucked: The condition that typically slaps you in the face when reading your credit card bill and you see dozens of "dollar" charges for music and "what the heck" iPhone or mobile apps. Expect much more of this as it gets easier and more convenient to pay for online content.
Runway Rebel: That person who keeps the "electronic device" going well past the airline warnings and prohibitions. We see them everywhere, and few of us are totally innocent.
Blog Dodger: Someone who has abandoned his or her blog for Twitter or some other lower-hassle social media substitute. This was big in 2009, and we'll likely see much more of it in 2010.
Please let us know about any other social media terms that you think all marketers should be aware of!
For details about the Action Words one-day workshop that will immediately improve your team's business writing, please go to http://www.actionwords.com.au/business-writing-course/
31 January 2010
What marketers need to know
Sometimes you can’t help wondering what marketers are doing.
A recent US survey reported by the global customer experience specialist company Right Now (1900 global clients) found that only 46% of senior marketers have good insight into customer retention rates, lifetime value, and profitability.
Let’s just tease this out a little. What this survey result seems to say is that more than half of the marketers questioned:
> did not know the retention rate for their customers – in other words, when they won 10 new customers, they did not know how many on average would still be with them in 12 months;
> did not know how much profit they obtained from a typical customer over the lifetime that the customer stayed with them; and
> did not have a clear handle on how much profit an average transaction provided for the company.
All this obviously relates to fundamental data that marketers must have, to do their job properly.
If you plan to run a campaign, you have to know about profitability in order to gauge whether your proposed initiative is worthwhile.
If you launch a blog or an e-newsletter for nurturing clients in order to keep them, you have to know about lifetime value. What’s the point of spending to keep them if their profitability does not justify such expenditure?
If you acquire customers by, say, advertising, you have to know the retention rate. You might think the advertising is effective, but if the customers walk out the door as quickly as they walk in, then it may well be that the advertising is only marginally profitable – or not profitable at all. You may be attracting the wrong people, or promising too much, or causing brand confusion, or whatever.
As a marketer, do you have access to the information you need? What is the information that you find most valuable for your decision making?
For details about how the Action Words team can help you with all kinds of copywriting, please go to: http://www.actionwords.com.au/home/
A recent US survey reported by the global customer experience specialist company Right Now (1900 global clients) found that only 46% of senior marketers have good insight into customer retention rates, lifetime value, and profitability.
Let’s just tease this out a little. What this survey result seems to say is that more than half of the marketers questioned:
> did not know the retention rate for their customers – in other words, when they won 10 new customers, they did not know how many on average would still be with them in 12 months;
> did not know how much profit they obtained from a typical customer over the lifetime that the customer stayed with them; and
> did not have a clear handle on how much profit an average transaction provided for the company.
All this obviously relates to fundamental data that marketers must have, to do their job properly.
If you plan to run a campaign, you have to know about profitability in order to gauge whether your proposed initiative is worthwhile.
If you launch a blog or an e-newsletter for nurturing clients in order to keep them, you have to know about lifetime value. What’s the point of spending to keep them if their profitability does not justify such expenditure?
If you acquire customers by, say, advertising, you have to know the retention rate. You might think the advertising is effective, but if the customers walk out the door as quickly as they walk in, then it may well be that the advertising is only marginally profitable – or not profitable at all. You may be attracting the wrong people, or promising too much, or causing brand confusion, or whatever.
As a marketer, do you have access to the information you need? What is the information that you find most valuable for your decision making?
For details about how the Action Words team can help you with all kinds of copywriting, please go to: http://www.actionwords.com.au/home/
Update on Sorrento
Some readers of The Scoop may remember my comments around this time last year about the traders in the Victorian holiday town of Sorrento and their extraordinary lack of customer service. Well, I can give you an update: nothing has changed.
Around 6pm on Monday 28 December, we went to a place called “The Baths” to order take away fish and chips for four. And what were we told? “There’s a wait of 90 minutes on fish and chips.”
While the town is packed with holiday makers, most of the shops still close at 5pm! I went to the main street supermarket “Stringers” on one occasion, and stood in a queue of 17 people waiting to buy milk and a newspaper.
People put up with a main street of traders who are mostly living in a different century because everyone is there to take it easy. The traders in Sorrento have their way of doing things. If you want to buy from them, you do business their way, and when it suits them.
Did you have an interesting marketing or customer service experience from your time away over the holiday period?
For details about the Action Words one-day workshop that will immediately improve your team's business writing, please go to: http://www.actionwords.com.au/business-writing-course/
Around 6pm on Monday 28 December, we went to a place called “The Baths” to order take away fish and chips for four. And what were we told? “There’s a wait of 90 minutes on fish and chips.”
While the town is packed with holiday makers, most of the shops still close at 5pm! I went to the main street supermarket “Stringers” on one occasion, and stood in a queue of 17 people waiting to buy milk and a newspaper.
People put up with a main street of traders who are mostly living in a different century because everyone is there to take it easy. The traders in Sorrento have their way of doing things. If you want to buy from them, you do business their way, and when it suits them.
Did you have an interesting marketing or customer service experience from your time away over the holiday period?
For details about the Action Words one-day workshop that will immediately improve your team's business writing, please go to: http://www.actionwords.com.au/business-writing-course/
01 December 2009
5 tips for B-to-B search marketing
More and more organisations are investing in paid search marketing, or pay-per-click advertising, as it is more commonly referred to.
In Australia, because of the dominance of Google, paid search marketing is normally Google AdWords advertising.
The following tips may help you get better value for your investment.
1. Pre-qualify
In mainstream advertising, when you want to reach Chief Executives and you choose to advertise in the Financial Review, you are pre-qualifying.
Well, you have to do exactly the same online. And you mainly do it with key phrases and keywords. You can hardly spend too much time getting your keywords right and regularly reviewing them.
The keywords should make it clear exactly what people will find when they click through to your site. If they click on ‘house and contents’ you’d better make sure that’s where you take them – and that when they get there, you explain your ‘house and contents’ policy. You may reduce the volume of clickthroughs, but that’s what qualifying involves.
2. Focus on what the user needs
If you truly understand the buying steps that your prospects typically go through, you are more likely to know exactly what it is that they need.
What is most likely to influence purchase? If it's a complex sale with multiple buyers and influencers, then you need to provide the type of detail that buyers require.
Landing pages, in particular, should highlight exactly what buyers need.
3. Hot leads go cold quickly, so nurture them
In most B-to-B sales, getting leads to your site is just the beginning.
You need to have an agreed system in place for ‘working’ your leads, and that begins with an opt-in from the prospects for regular email.
How are you going to keep in touch? Is there something of value that you can offer on an ongoing basis?
If the lead has to be passed to your technical people or to sales, then there needs to be an efficient way of doing this that you stick to every time.
4. Track all conversion points
What’s the conversion point that is usually most telling? Maybe it’s the completion of an online form by a prospect.
It’s important to know what this critical point is, but it’s also important to monitor the impact of your paid search campaign on all your sales metrics.
Only then can you be sure of the impact your investment is having.
5. Detail tells the story
Search Engine Marketing is very much a detail business. If you are going to do it effectively over time, you need to have the time to continually check it.
Maybe it’s identifying different ads that work, maybe it’s advertising on different days or at different times. Whatever the case, there are savings to be made if you can identify exactly what is going on.
For example, if you uncover that a certain ad is producing most of your response and that other ads are doing nothing, then you can improve your results significantly by dropping the ones that don’t work and putting all your budget into the one that does.
In Australia, because of the dominance of Google, paid search marketing is normally Google AdWords advertising.
The following tips may help you get better value for your investment.
1. Pre-qualify
In mainstream advertising, when you want to reach Chief Executives and you choose to advertise in the Financial Review, you are pre-qualifying.
Well, you have to do exactly the same online. And you mainly do it with key phrases and keywords. You can hardly spend too much time getting your keywords right and regularly reviewing them.
The keywords should make it clear exactly what people will find when they click through to your site. If they click on ‘house and contents’ you’d better make sure that’s where you take them – and that when they get there, you explain your ‘house and contents’ policy. You may reduce the volume of clickthroughs, but that’s what qualifying involves.
2. Focus on what the user needs
If you truly understand the buying steps that your prospects typically go through, you are more likely to know exactly what it is that they need.
What is most likely to influence purchase? If it's a complex sale with multiple buyers and influencers, then you need to provide the type of detail that buyers require.
Landing pages, in particular, should highlight exactly what buyers need.
3. Hot leads go cold quickly, so nurture them
In most B-to-B sales, getting leads to your site is just the beginning.
You need to have an agreed system in place for ‘working’ your leads, and that begins with an opt-in from the prospects for regular email.
How are you going to keep in touch? Is there something of value that you can offer on an ongoing basis?
If the lead has to be passed to your technical people or to sales, then there needs to be an efficient way of doing this that you stick to every time.
4. Track all conversion points
What’s the conversion point that is usually most telling? Maybe it’s the completion of an online form by a prospect.
It’s important to know what this critical point is, but it’s also important to monitor the impact of your paid search campaign on all your sales metrics.
Only then can you be sure of the impact your investment is having.
5. Detail tells the story
Search Engine Marketing is very much a detail business. If you are going to do it effectively over time, you need to have the time to continually check it.
Maybe it’s identifying different ads that work, maybe it’s advertising on different days or at different times. Whatever the case, there are savings to be made if you can identify exactly what is going on.
For example, if you uncover that a certain ad is producing most of your response and that other ads are doing nothing, then you can improve your results significantly by dropping the ones that don’t work and putting all your budget into the one that does.
Consumer attitudes and a good cause
It seems that despite the GFC, consumers are still spending with companies and brands that have a clear social purpose.
A 2009 global study reported last month in The Wise Marketer (www.thewisemarketer.com) has some interesting stats about consumer attitudes.
Surveying 6000 people in 10 countries, the study particularly looked at whether consumers will swap brands where a brand supports a good cause. Countries surveyed include USA, UK, France, Italy, Japan, China, India and Brazil.
Some of the most interesting results were:
> 67% of consumers say they would switch brands if another brand of similar quality supported a good cause.
> 83% of consumers are willing to change their consumption habits if it can help make the world a better place to live in.
> 70% said they would prefer to live in an 'eco-friendly house' rather than a 'big house'.
> 69% of consumers would rather use a brand that supports the livelihood of local producers than a designer brand.
> 71% think brands and companies spend too much on advertising and marketing and should put more into good causes.
> 64% would recommend a brand that supports a good cause, up from 52% in 2008.
> 64% expect all brands to support a good cause.
63% are looking toward brands and companies to make it easier for them to make a difference in the world.
Putting a value on email subscribers
Arthur Hughes is an American marketing guru who has been around for a long time. He’s been to Australia, and some readers of The Scoop may have been lucky enough to hear him.
Hughes wrote the book on database marketing many years ago, but since the rise of the internet and the new media, he has reinvented himself.
Today, Arthur Hughes is senior strategist for the email marketing services provider e-Dialog, which is based in the small town of Burlington, near Boston, in the state of Massachusetts.
At a recent presentation, Hughes put forward some thoughtful ideas on acquiring email subscribers, including the following.
1. The first step is to find out what your email subscribers are worth. Without knowing their value, you don’t know whether the effort to acquire more is worthwhile.
2. For putting a value on subscribers, there are four important metrics that you need to be specific about:
•The value of online and offline orders generated from email;
•The costs of your email program;
•Gross profit generated from email subscribers; and
•Individual subscriber lifetime value.
These numbers are fundamental before you proceed.
3. Once you’ve decided that getting new email subscribers benefits the business, then Arthur Hughes suggests you consider the following:
> Promote email registration prominently throughout your site, including the checkout page.
> Explain why consumers should subscribe. Is it for free shipping on their next order, for the chance to receive ‘thought-leader’ white papers, express checkout, or what?
> Send triggered, personalised welcome messages as soon as consumers sign up for your email program.
> Reward your employees for email addresses collected.
> Reward your subscribers. Offer subscribers incentives such as special prices for them only, discount coupons, premiums, white papers and continuing benefits such as free shipping.
> If appropriate, upgrade your point-of-sale system to capture email addresses.
> Use surveys to solicit email addresses. The surveys can be about any subject — e.g. politics, economics, products, etc. — and are a good way to get email addresses in return for survey results.
Changing your mood
We’re talking about changing your mood in writing, here, not your mood first thing in the morning or when you’re disturbed after watching an exciting movie at home!
Writers need to be aware of mood changes.
You need to alert the reader as soon as possible to any change in mood from the previous sentence. Words to use for changing the mood include: but, yet, however, nevertheless, still, instead, meanwhile.
Shareholders were obviously delighted to get the overall picture from the Chair, but when the CEO began to speak . . .
In this example, the mood obviously changed when the CEO began to speak, and the word that signals that mood change most clearly to the reader is ‘but’.
It’s much easier for readers to process a sentence if you start with ‘but’ when you are shifting direction. It is much harder if they must wait until the end of the sentence to realise that you have shifted.
Many of us were taught that no sentence should start with ‘but’. If that’s what you learned, then it’s time to unlearn it.
There is no stronger word at the start of a sentence when you want to change the mood.
Writers need to be aware of mood changes.
You need to alert the reader as soon as possible to any change in mood from the previous sentence. Words to use for changing the mood include: but, yet, however, nevertheless, still, instead, meanwhile.
Shareholders were obviously delighted to get the overall picture from the Chair, but when the CEO began to speak . . .
In this example, the mood obviously changed when the CEO began to speak, and the word that signals that mood change most clearly to the reader is ‘but’.
It’s much easier for readers to process a sentence if you start with ‘but’ when you are shifting direction. It is much harder if they must wait until the end of the sentence to realise that you have shifted.
Many of us were taught that no sentence should start with ‘but’. If that’s what you learned, then it’s time to unlearn it.
There is no stronger word at the start of a sentence when you want to change the mood.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
