“Your business has only 3 or 4 customers living at thousands of different addresses. Your marketing should be crafted to reflect the preferences of each of them.”

As a copywriter, these couple of sentences have a liberating effect: Envisioning just these 3 or 4 customers rather than tens of thousands can do a lot to slice through writer’s block.

But is it fair to shoehorn your customers into these boxes? Actually, forget fair: Will it increase your ability to move them through the sales cycle?

So, what do you think? And if you’re a persona believer, how do you develop them?

© Tom for Bullblog, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: copywriting, personas

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

The Email Experience Council, for example, had one of my favorites this year. And I’d expect nothing less of an organization that is all about e-mail marketing. It was fun and very viral. Rackspace had a similar idea, and I confess I spent far too long playing around at creating virtual gift baskets (still waiting for those thank-you notes, by the way). And we’re very proud of our Bulldog Holiday Album, which was designed to put faces to the names of people our clients deal with all year, as well as to showcase the incredible skills of our creative team.

In contrast, and I won’t name names here, were the poorly designed e-cards with hideous colors, poor-quality video, disastrous rendering and typos (or all of the above). The holiday e-card is a time to go big. And if you can’t go big (yet follow basic rules of quality and usability) due to resources or time constraints, then just keep it simple.

© Amy for Bullblog, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: e-mail marketing

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

In case you’ve been off the grid for a few years, let me sum it up for you:

Apple: “We are cool. You are lame.”
Microsoft: “Shut up! We’re cool too.”

And for those of you who need a field-guide style refresher to high school cliques, I refer you to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for a quick rundown (skip ahead to about 55 seconds into the clip).

Apple’s ads have been running long enough that I’d more or less forgotten about them. But now that Microsoft is fighting back, it’s put the Mac vs. PC war in a whole new light. Microsoft has picked up the gauntlet and breathed new life into this particular front of the culture war.

Revenge of the Nerds

I think my interest in the Mac vs. PC debate has been re-ignited because of personas. As a copywriter, I’m always interested in the personas that our strategic team develops. Used intelligently, personas can help create an engaging user experience and significantly higher conversion rates. 

I write a lot of e-mail invite copy, so I’m typically poring over personas and trying to get in the heads of a given audience. This got me wondering: What personas did Apple have in mind when they cooked up the Mac and PC characters?

For certain, these personas were based on a sort of tribal/emotional appeal. The Mac ads really don’t trade, say, on a MacBook Pro’s ability to process graphics faster than your typical Dell laptop. The appeal of Justin Long’s Mac character is that he’s a sort of hipster Everyman. He just wants his stuff to work while he’s editing photos, surfing the Web, and customizing his Myspace page.  On the other hand, the persona that supports John Hodgman’s PC character must include the following adjectives: harried, out-of-touch, nerdy.

The irony here is that the actors play against their cultural cache—John Hodgman is the witty humorist frequently featured on the uber-hip Daily Show with John Stewart. Justin Long is the here-today-gone-tomorrow actor from Dodgeball and, um, the Mac ads.

This is why the Mac and Microsoft ads are so intriguing—they are pure marketing. No mention of technical specifications or language about processing speeds, RAM, or number of FireWire ports. These advertising campaigns are coming right after your sense of cultural self-worth: Are you hip or are you a dork?

This is probably a can of worms for another post, but I think the Mac ads got it wrong from the start. But I am fascinated by the popularity and longevity of the “Get a Mac” campaign. The ads are personas used to perfection and now that Microsoft’s gearing up for battle, it should make for an interesting 2009 in the battle for our computing hearts and minds.

© Tom for Bullblog, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I do disagree on one piece of advice regarding opt-in communications sent to people familiar with the brand. “No need to have lightening bolts hit consumers over the head if they’ve already opted in for e-newsletters. Stay clear of offer-oriented subject lines, and keep subject lines straightforward and consistent.” The sample cited is the subject line “QuickBooks Newsletter—May 2008.” 

I’d argue that even people who have opted in need to be engaged each month (or week) they receive a newsletter. They’re getting too much other e-mail communicaton not to. I do think a different tone is appropriate, vs. the tone you’d use for special offers or other kinds of communication. But there’s a chasm of difference between “straightforward” and “boring.” I hope.

© Amy for Bullblog, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: e-mail marketing, subject lines

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Read our full article.

Some of the trends that became apparent through our findings:

• The continuing battle against e-mail fatigue
• And expanded definition of e-mail marketing
• A resolute belief in e-mail as a marketing tool (e-mail is dead. no, wait..long live e-mail!)

© Amy for Bullblog, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bulldata, e-mail marketing, email marketing, Marketing Watchdog Journal, trends

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Think about this dethroning the next time you write a B2B marketing e-mail. Is your copy self-important, over-the-top, and fluffy, or is it a simple, to-the-point message?

Radio listeners in 1972 opted for Elvis’ concise, vibrant message over long-winded bombast.

Your readers will make the same choice when it comes to reading e-mail messaging.

Listen to “Nights in White Satin” here.
Get that song out of your head by listening to “Burning Love” here.

~Tom

© Tom for Bullblog, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audience, copy, messaging, writing

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

51 seconds?

51 seconds is an eternity.

I write a lot of e-mail copy. And if I thought the reader was going to spend the better part of a minute on my prose, I’d take the luxury of working in long, drawn-out metaphors and look-at-me-I’m-a-writer words like “Dickensian.”

But I suspect that this 51-second estimation has been cut at least in half over the last couple of years. And while it ain’t front page news anymore, the fact that people speed read e-mails and Web pages is a point that should probably be reiterated.

Spit It Out

Maybe I have a problem or drink too much coffee, but I think the Web is slow. Pages load in seconds (yawn) and when they finally do amble their way into my browser window, what I typically do isn’t really “skimming” or “scanning.” It’s more akin to shot gunning a beer. And what really gets in the way of quickly digesting Web content is a thicket of tiny fonts, too many links, and too little direction.

One company that I think gets it right is Plaxo. Plaxo is an online address book and social networking site from Napster co-founder Sean Parker, along with Minh Nguyen, Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring. What I like about this site is that the company’s tag line is also its call to action. And this is displayed prominently, in easy-to-read font, right at the top. Estimated time of digestion: 3 seconds. Check out the site.

“Stay in touch with the people you care about.”

Nothing too fancy—just clear and concise. Plaxo could have easily gone down the dark path of trying to wow us with their technology and how cool their site/network is. But this kind of Web site copy is usually 200 words long and goes waaaaaaaay past our 51 second mark. Let’s see if its recent acquisition by Comcast mucks up their design.

They also use “you” frequently. It’s easy to get away from this simple style of addressing the reader as an individual. It’s obvious that Plaxo is coming from a reader/user-centric standpoint and that they’ve put some common sense into the messaging on their site.

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Many sites lean on brain-busting design, or are just too tricky for their own good. People visit sites to do something—not to be wowed by the Flash or tricky typography. Again, Plaxo has this figured out. Aside from the easy-to-read font and the crystal clear messaging, the site has a few simple ideas rendered in an elegant design.

The more sites like this I see, the better I like them. Both Vimeo and Twitter seem to have adopted this approach, and I feel like it saves eye strain and I get to the information that I want much more quickly.

The Countdown Is On

Whether you’re creating e-mails or Web sites, you have an extremely small and fast-closing window and the reader is just a muscle spasm away from moving on. Don’t get lost in your own clever copy or design—keep that end-user in your sites at all times. They’ll thank you, and, if you’re lucky, they might stick around longer than 51 seconds.

© Tom for Bullblog, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: beer, content, copy, design, Jakob Nielsen, Plaxo, Twitter, usability, Vimeo, www.emailstatcenter.com

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

At the same time, a tenet of good business for years has been to avoid getting caught up in spending all of your energy chasing down new customers and neglecting the customers you’ve already acquired. “It’s a lot cheaper to retain and grow your existing customers than to acquire new ones,” is a mantra in any business school and in most businesses.

When it comes to lead nurturing, these two concepts go together. Especially in a B2B or considered purchase environment, lead nurturing is critical when it comes to effectively acquiring new customers — when you have that first date (generated a lead), neither you nor the prospect knows each other all that well, and many of those prospects are not at a point in their buying cycle where anything you could do would drive them to buy. So, nurturing is the best way to prove your value as a longer-term mate so that, when they do get to a point in their buying cycle where it’s appropriate to move the relationship to the next level, it’s you that they want to take that step with.

This Post Is Not about That Kind of Nurturing

Let’s move beyond dating to when that dating has progressed to the point of a marriage — the analogy in business being a purchase event, when the prospect becomes a customer. Nurturing your existing customers is as important as nurturing prospects. When companies focus on customer growth and retention, they often see this as being simply “excellence in customer service and support” (I’m not implying that this is simple to do; rather, it’s a simple concept); that is inherently reactive — serving them well when they ask you for something. Nurturing is more proactive. It’s a way to both bring more value to the customer (solidifying your relationship) and to put offers in front of them that they are more likely to respond to.

Better Data for Segmentation

Typically, you have some very valuable information about your customers that you don’t have for non-customers. Mainly, you have data about what they’ve bought from you. You also often have more detailed and more accurate contact information. And, if the purchase was a B2B purchase, you have reliable information about their company — certainly enough information to find the company in Hoover’s or D&B or some other system to determine where their headquarters are, how long they have been in business, what industry they are in (SIC or NAICS code), and so on. In order to effectively nurture your customers, you need to determine which of this data matters when it comes to segmenting them.

Time / Service Renewals

One of the most commonly overlooked customer nurturing opportunities has to do with annual service renewals. Worst case, a company does not even notify its customers when their service period is up. Almost as bad is the situation where customers simply get a get a notice that their service period is about to expire.

A more effective nurturing program that addresses annual service contracts is to have both a “ramp up” period — providing information early on in the service period as to how to get the most benefit out of the service — and renewal-oriented nurturing that starts well in advance of the renewal date. Targeted e-mails that both let the customer know how often they/their company are using the service while also helping them use the service more effectively can plant in the customer’s mind that this is a service they must have. The goal here is, when the customer gets a renewal notice, they don’t scratch their head and try to figure out if they’ve actually used the service over the prior year.

Retention vs. Growth

Of course, you want to both retain and grow your customer base. While these go hand in hand, they can be different, and you should assess possible nurturing messages as whether they do one or the other. If you’re nurturing program is simply, “You already bought X. Would you like to buy Y?” you will quickly alienate your customers. Rather, “You bought X, and we wanted to let you know that some updates (software downloads, documentation, articles, etc.) are available that you might find useful” demonstrates that you are committed to the customer’s success, and, if the customer has not been actively using product/service X, it’s a soft nudge for them to start doing so. “Growth” messages (which can be combined with retention ones) need to be very diligently framed in customer benefit terms. Even though this is a Marketing 101 concept, it is very easy to fall into the trap of assuming that, because the customer has bought from you in the past, that just the mere fact that you have a complementary product available, they will want to buy it. Clearly understanding the value of the cross-sell — what additional pain points the combination of products/services would provide, or why an upgrade might make sense from the customer’s perspective, is critical.

And a Final Word…on Divorce

First and foremost, existing customer nurturing is about preventing a business divorce — customer churn. You need to make a determination as to whether your company’s churn rate is unacceptably high. For many companies, the easiest way for an existing customer nurturing program to deliver real value is by finding “likely churn candidates” and nurturing them to retain them — the trick being to identify them as at-risk before they’ve already made the decision to leave. In the case of one SaaS company, this was done by comparing service usage by each customer over time and then correlating that to customers who failed to renew their service. The company developed a list of ways that they could offer to help the customers use their service more effectively — some of these did not directly bring revenue to the company, but, rather, were free resources or a linkage to partners — and then implemented a nurturing program to make these suggestions. The results were quick and substantial — within 3 months, their renewal rate went up significantly.

So, one more application of the dating analogy. Does it hold up?

Dating photo credit: smile4camera
Wedding photo credit: greggoconnell

© twilson for Bullblog, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: growth, nurturing, retention

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

For example, does sales/marketing understand how your organization is driving lead quantity? How about lead quality? How do you integrate your brand into campaigns? How do you analyze campaign metrics at the onset of the promotional activity?

The one constant I have seen is that sales always wants more leads and marketing is always wondering what happened to those leads they provided. Now comes the million dollar question, how can sales and marketing move from discord to harmony? I have found that when you increase communication between sales and marketing, discussing lead marketing strategies, execution management and metrics, harmony is produced. Here are four areas where sales and marketing can collaborate together to create harmony between their teams:

Lead Quantity: Ask for ideas on how to drive large quantity of leads into the registration page. Some suggestions: highlight promotion and media plans and goals. Discuss branding partnerships, speakers and topics.

Lead Quality: Engage with sales team to create registration questions, identify desirable attributes. Ask them how they engage with their prospects. An example of four ways I engage with prospects:

1. Registration page
2. Sales acceleration email
3. Event polling
4. Event exit survey

Branding: Ask for opinions on how you can integrate your brand into the campaign. Discuss look and feel of all deliverables including online advertising, emails, landing and reg pages. Consider client and partner logos. Share client thought leadership messaging along with other resources and other links (blogs, archives/libraries, etc.). Discuss what is the next step for your brand and how can you test in a campaign.

Analytics and Insight: Begin analyzing campaign metrics at the onset of the promotional activity. Rely heavily on metrics to help you make swift changes during the campaign in order to maximize performance (i.e., change media, location of registration buttons). Review post event carefully with sales and marketing. Analyze how the audience responded to optimize the next campaign (i.e., subject lines, imagery, topic messaging, and audience). Use metrics to gauge success across your other related marketing programs.

That’s it for now.  I’ll blog some more later.  Now, practice makes perfect.  I have given you several ideas on how to create harmony, now go harmonize with your teams.

© mbieler for Bullblog, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Next month we’ll host a Webinar on that very topic: Getting people in the “seats.” This session will focus on the message: what you say and how you say it to get people to engage with you. Lisa Harmon of the design firm Smith-Harmon and I will talk about some proven strategies, taken from our own playbooks at Bulldog and Smith-Harmon. We’ll cover, among other things, best practices for offering incentives; the “anatomy” of an e-mail; and the “talent search”-deciding who is going to deliver your message.

Register here. I think you’ll enjoy it.

*Note this is a relative term.

© Amy for Bullblog, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: e-mail design, message, webinar

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh