Monthly Archives: January 2009

Will Your New Product Succeed or Fail?

Posted on by

You’ve got a great idea, and a brilliant marketing campaign, looks like all is good to go. Right?

Or wrong?

Jim Kronenberger (current Director of Sales at American Le Mans Series) said on LinkedIn that he once worked for a company that had a great marketing idea. They rented two bright yellow Hummers, loaded them down with emergency communications gear, and made the rounds of state and local agencies.

The agencies loved it! They had few plans for a disaster and really wanted a solution.

So far, so good. The company found a problem, created a solution, and selected a market that desperately wanted their product.

But something went wrong. It seems that the agencies had no money to pay for the equipment. They needed a 1-2 year lead time to apply for grants and get the funds necessary to purchase the equipment.

The agencies had a need, but no authority and no money. Eventually, – after wasting lots of time and money – Jim’s employer had to give up.

When looking for prospects, or generating ideas for a new product, ask yourself:

1) Is there a need for this?

2) Is there a niche I can exploit?

3) Is the market for this product big enough? You may love garlic and sausage-flavored ice cream, but will anyone else?

4) Can your target market afford your solution? There’s no sense trying to sell Louis Vuitton handbags to people applying for food stamps.

5) M-A-D (not angry – but Money, Authority, and Need). Make sure the people you’re talking to have all three.

When promoting your product, don’t assume that your customers’ tastes, opinions, and habits mirror yours exactly. Choose based on what will truly appeal to them (not what appeals to you).

If you’re not sure, ask them!

Email me privately for personal help.

What’s the most critical part of any direct marketing campaign?

Posted on by

Without this one thing, the whole campaign falls apart. Unfortunately, it’s also often the most overlooked part of a marketing effort. It’s not the graphics, or the words, or the size of the brochure that matters the most. It’s not even what you’re offering or the price.

The key to success (in fact up to 40% of your return) is… the list.

Teenagers won’t buy your denture cream (no matter how slickly produced your ad is).

Since the list is so important, treat it carefully. Don’t look for the cheapest list, look for the list of people that best matches your target audience. It’s tempting to get compiled lists (like those from InfoUSA) because they’re inexpensive. But there’s a hidden cost – bad data. Purchasers have reported up to 27% error rate (a clean list has an error rate of 2-3%).

Good B to B lists can cost up to $275 per thousand names, so choose wisely. Look for lists of purchasers, attendees, or subscribers. Ask for a data card. This is the list’s biography. It shows when the list was last updated, the pricing, the demographics of the people on the list (age, income for consumers or titles, industries for businesses), and the different selections available. A selection is a subset of the list, for instance, only people in manufacturing businesses or only people with incomes over $50,000.

Where do you find lists?

Call a list broker. (contact me and I’ll give you the name of a good one). List brokers have access to thousands of data cards on thousands of lists. Tell him (or her) your target audience, your product, and your offer (what you’re selling and for how much). Also, send a sample of your brochure or a link to the Web page for the product.

Check direct marketing publications. Direct magazine or DM News. Both are free, and keep their subscribers up to date on new lists.

Contact trade publications in your industry. Many will rent the names of their subscribers.

Build your own. Create a newsletter, e-book, or free offer, and build a list of people who want to hear from you.

Email me privately for personal help.

Is Your Email Personal?

Posted on by

Seth Godin had a post yesterday about sending personal email. His post lists 14 ways to do that. I want to focus on the last one: “Just because you have someone’s email address doesn’t mean you have the right to email them.”

As Seth often says, people want personal, relevant email (and messages) not spam. I was talking to someone recently who said, “I’ve got several hundred email addresses and I’d like to send messages to those people. I got the email addresses because I was bcc’d on messages they received from other people. Can I email to them?”

In a word, NO.

They don’t know you, they haven’t given you permission, and you will be seen as a spammer. Same thing applies to email lists you “inherit” from a company that went out of business (unless you bought the company and the list, and the people on that list know it), names you take off of Web sites, or an email list you buy.

Without permission, you’re a spammer. Plain and simple.

The penalties are severe too; up to $11,000 per violation.

Email me privately for personal help.

Vote for Becky!

Posted on by

Becky is vying for the winning spot in the Johnny Bunko contest. Winner gets to go to the TED Conference in Oxford, England! All votes must be cast by 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time on January 15, 2009. Find out more here.

But hurry, time is running out.

Email me privately for personal help.

Are You Making These E-mail Marketing Mistakes?

Posted on by

email image In email marketing, there are mistakes, little flubs and errors that we wish we hadn’t made (like spelling errors), and there are MISTAKES. These can cost you customers and cost you money. Some may even trigger lawsuits or complaints. Here are some of the biggest, and how to fix them.

Failure to Comply with CAN-SPAM

CAN-SPAM requires that you put a physical address at the bottom of every commercial email: whether or not it’s for a direct sale. This applies to follow-ups, customer service queries, everything. It doesn’t have to be a street address; a P.O. box is OK. Add an opt-out link to every e-mail. Only one click to a single site should be required. You can, however (and this is recommended, see yesterday’s post) allow subscribers to opt-out selectively (keep one newsletter but not another). You may not charge a fee for this.

Lack of a Privacy Policy

Tell your customers what you will (and will not) do with the information they are giving you. Will you share it with affiliates? Sell or rent it to other companies? Spell it out in clear language.

Deleting Landing Pages Immediately After a Campaign

Keep them up for several months. Most of your orders will come in the first six weeks or so, but some may find your offer months later. If a particular promotion has expired, redirect visitors to the current one.

Not Tracking Bounces

Check to see how many of your emails are not being delivered.. Emails can bounce (fail to be delivered for a number of reasons, including challenge-responses (e-mail systems that require a personal note back before accepting delivery), dead e-mail addresses, or a busy server. Have a system in place to manage bounces and clean up dead addresses. Bad addresses can cost you money (especially if your vendor charges by list size), decrease your response rate (fewer people actually receiving your message), and overload servers.

Email me privately for personal help.