4 Quick Email Marketing Tips

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Improving your email newsletter doesn’t have to require a major overhaul.

Sometimes, tweaking a few small things can make a big difference in the results you get.

The important thing is to make your newsletter easier to read, more interesting, and less overwhelming.

Keep it simple

Cut the content and the clutter. Many email newsletters try to cover every single thing the company has done since the last newsletter (up to an entire month’s worth!).

The trouble is that five or six articles can be overwhelming and intimidating. Rather than throw in everything you can think of, reduce the newsletter to one featured article and two smaller, shorter ones.

Break up the content

Big blocks of text are hard to read online. They’re even harder to read on cell phones, and since more and more traffic is mobile these days you need to keep that in mind when you create your newsletters.

Check to see how many people are reading your newsletter on mobile. If it’s a large percentage, make sure your newsletter is formatted in a why that’s easy to read on phones.

Break up your paragraphs into bite-sized pieces. In a text-only message, highlight headlines or breaks with asterisks or dashes.

Test the subject lines

If your list is big enough, try testing subject lines. Send out a small sample with two different headlines and see which has a higher open rate (how many people opened your email) and click through rate ((how many people clicked on one of the links in your message).

Check your stats

Turn on link tracking in AWeber (or whatever email service you use) to see which emails are the most popular. Track the open rate , click through rate, and click rates for each link.

Which links convert the best? The first one? The last? And which wording did best?

Image thanks to ilco

Niche Marketing Strategy from Antiques Roadshow

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Photo thanks to: Cornell University

A friend has a large collection of campaign buttons, dating back to William Henry Harrison (US president for only 31 days in 1841).

When Antiques Roadshow came to town, she eagerly brought some of her collection in for appraisal, hoping to be told her treasured buttons were worth lots of money.

It turns out that they weren’t.

Why didn’t this work?

Because collectors want something very particular. Not all campaign buttons, but campaign buttons for Republicans from Pennsylvania. Or, buttons from Barack Obama’s campaign for president.

If you’re an Obama guy, Clinton buttons won’t do. Certainly not George W. Bush buttons.

Her selection was too broad to interest avid collectors who want one thing and one thing only, and will buy anything and everything that fits that particular niche.

How does this apply to marketing?

Be specific

Try aiming your marketing and your services toward your own niche collectors: the people who want exactly what you do (accountants who need web sites, dry cleaners who want flyers designed, or musicians who want web videos).

Build anticipation

People are drawn to Antiques Roadshow by the possibility of finding great riches from something they bought at a yard sale for $5. Give out little snippets about what you’re up to. Make people curious.

Demonstrate success

Show other people succeeding after following your advice or using your services. Include testimonials and case studies. Make a video or two showing happy clients.

Fill a void

I came across someone who collects old Burry’s cookie boxes (a company that went out of business years ago). To a cookie box collector, the price doesn’t matter. What does matter is filling any possible hole in his collection, or finding something extraordinarily rare that other collectors can’t get. That’s not just the joy of acquisition, it’s the joy of exclusivity.

Give people something they can’t get elsewhere; such as a project progress dashboard, or blog posts from videos.

What do you think? Is there something you’re doing that nobody else does? What is it? Share your story.

The Yogi Berra Marketing Guide

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Photo compliments of orlandk

Yogi Berra, Hall of Fame baseball catcher, was famous for saying things that didn’t seem to make much sense, at least at first.

It’s easy to laugh at some of his remarks because they sound nonsensical. How can it get late early? And whatever does “It ain’t over till it’s over” mean?

However, when you stop to think about them for a while, it turns out those silly sayings were really quite wise.

No, really they were.

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it”

Pick your path, don’t try to go down two roads at once. Find your niche, and your passion, and pursue it. Yogi was passionate about baseball, and had enough World Series championship rings for each finger on both hands. When you love what you do (and focus your energies on doing it), you will succeed.

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.”

Make a marketing plan, and follow it. For example, write an ebook to build an audience, have them sign up for your newsletter, and then eventually purchase other products or services.

“It gets late early out there”

The Web has sped everything up. Wait too long to respond to a customer complaint or a service problem and the twitterers will let you know. If you don’t post on your blog for three weeks, or answer comments, readers will go elsewhere.

“That place is so popular, nobody goes there anymore”

When you lose your focus, you’ll lose your customers too. Starbucks built an image and a “tribe” by brewing coffee that was different from ordinary deli coffee, offering more ways to customize it, and a welcoming atmosphere. Then, they expanded too much, tried to overcome it with discounts, and now… well there are more interesting places to get coffee in New York (with beans that have been roasted in the last 10 days, or coffee ground to order).

What do you think? Was Yogi right? Am I?

7 Business to Business Marketing Tips From Your Local Newsstand

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Image compliments of: Phillip C

Paper magazines and newspapers can seem a bit old-fashioned nowadays. Websites, blogs, Twitter, Snapchat and social media are all the rage. Who needs paper? And, paper as a source of marketing tips? Isn’t that a bit like lugging around a sundial to check the time? How can something that out of date improve your business to business marketing?

The truth is, that old-fashioned or not, magazines and newspapers have a much longer history than anything on the internet. They’ve been working hard to catch the attention of passers-by for hundreds of years. And, they’ve learned a few things while doing it too.

Here’s how a trip to your local newsstand can help make you a better marketer. You don’t even have to buy anything.

1. Market research

Look at the titles on the newsstand. What subjects do they cover? Are there lots of magazines about bicycling? Or more about architecture?

It’s a quick way to find out if your niche is big enough and if your local area is interested (no interest, no magazines).

2. Copywriting tip #1

A great source for writing great headlines. Magazines won’t attract readers unless they have attention-getting headlines and colorful pictures. Neither will your Web site or your blog.

3. Pricing

Newsstand prices are higher. Magazines reward regular customers with lower prices for subscriptions. Making a commitment gets you a better price. People who read regularly are more loyal and likely to continue buying from you.

You might either add extra bonuses, or offer a better price for someone who hires you on a retainer or other continuing basis.

4. Copywriting tip #2

Simple words. Even the tech magazines keep the jargon to a minimum. The latest issue of Windows IT Pro promises an article about “Mobility and Exchange Server” (evidently a pain in the butt), rather than “Configuring Exchange Server Across Multiple Mobile OS Platforms.”

5. Risk reversal

Risk reversal means that the customer has little (or nothing) to lose.

Magazines have:

trial issues (send in this card and get your first three issues free)
bill me later (here’s your first issue, we’ll send you a bill only after you receive the next four issues)
cancel any time offers

You can adapt this to your services with:

60-day guarantees
a forwards and backwards guarantee (if you don’t like it, you can return it; just forward to a friend you think could use it, and tell us how we can make our product better)
limited free trial periods (demo software for example)
risk-free guarantees (join our forum for 30 days, if you don’t like it, cancel your membership)

6. Copywriting tip #3

A big appealing promise, “Thinner Thighs in Thirty Days.” No magazine ever told you “Exercise Four Hours a Day, Starve Yourself, and You’ll Weigh Less.” Put the big promise right in your headline — in big type.

7. Gifts

Magazines give away tote bags, t-shirts, and puzzles.

You can adapt this by creating a free favicon (that’s the little images you sometimes see on the left next to a URL (CNN has their logo), or a thank you note for a referral, or even doing something a little extra for a client (I just did a quick grammar fix for a client who’s not a native English speaker — he called me a “saint”, we both feel good).

What other marketing ideas can you get from a newsstand? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Send Your Clients to School

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Image compliments oftowodo

I recently read a memoir (Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All, by Christina Thompson).

In the book, one of the author’s professors complained that she’d failed to say anything new about “the intertextual process of establishment of authority via discourses of experience or empirical observation.”

She was also guilty of “presenting empiricism ‘as a form of simplicity,’ rather than as “a metaphysically complex mode of representation.”

Apparently, this means that she’d taken the words of the writers she was studying at face value, rather than critically. It makes my head hurt.

Take Microsoft’s web site (please)

It says, “Introducing WIndows 7. Your PC, Simplified.”

Is it? I can barely read the text on the windows home page because it’s got white type on a background that shades from dark green (OK) on the left to yellowish-green on the right. The type on the right is illegible.

Then, there’s a box that says compare versions (there are three). Click on that and you get to a box that lets you compare Windows 7 to XP and 2000. Not what I thought I was getting. I expected to see the different versions of Windows 7. In order to see that information, I had to click still another tab.

It’s highly technical, it’s hard to read, and it’s confusing.

Apple’s site is different

Apple’s web site says, “…Snow Leopard makes your Mac faster, more reliable, and easier to use.”

There are large images, and lots of white space.

It’s easy to read and it’s easy to find what you want.

Yes, the technical stuff is there, but it’s presented in a way that’s easy to understand, even if you’re not a geek.

Educating your clients

Now, take a look at your own marketing materials and your emails to your clients. Are they full of technical terms like CSS, standards-compliant, and HTML 5.0?

If you’re dealing with highly technical people, that may be OK. However, if you’re talking to Joe and Jane Businessperson you’re probably just confusing them. They don’t know (or care) why HTML5 is better than Flash, nor do they know what responsive means.

Instead of dwelling on the technical stuff, tell the client that the wix site they want isn’t good for search engines and will make it harder on Google.

Or, point out that you’ll fix their site so it will work probably both on desktop and mobile (never mind why or how).

Skip the usability explanation and talk about how making her site easier to use will improve sales (confused or frustrated prospects will leave without buying anything).

If people can’t read the text, they won’t know what the client offers. If they can’t find products, they will be unable to buy them.

That’s language any business person can understand.