Marketing Intelligently

One powerful marketing tool that shouldn’t be ignored

2009-11-16T13:14:00.001-05:00

Any business wanting to drive interested, quality prospects to their door must have original, engaging and valuable content on offer.

One strategy for generating such content and sparking good leads that I recommend is to publish white papers. Their readership and influence beats out many other forms of content marketing:

A study by Eccolo Media in November 2009 found white papers were considered the most influential form of business collateral compared to case studies, podcasts, videos and brochures. 84% of survey respondents rated white papers as moderately to extremely influential when making a final purchase decision. The survey also found that 89% of respondents pass white papers onto others making them the most frequently shared collateral type. In addition, research by Marketing Sherpa in 2008, showed that more than half of business decision-makers and influencers say they read two to five white papers each quarter.

If you get the topic right and the content is well written, I have seen companies use white papers extremely successfully to enhance their brand by demonstrating thought leadership. In addition, they’ve built stronger relationships with the press, and generated an extensive number of quality leads, ultimately leading to new business.

The beauty of white papers is that hidden behind the educational content is a very powerful, soft sell marketing tool that can be used over and over again.

Here are a handful of tips to creating a better white paper:

1. In deciding what the white paper should be about, be very clear about who your audience is. Think about what subject matter will strike a chord, what topic are your audience lacking information about or having issues with. The paper should describe a problem or challenge and then provide potential solutions to the problem.

2. Conduct proprietary research around dimensions of the topic and include the unique data in your paper to support your story/message. It’s this kind of data and content that the press will pick up on for a news story.

3. In terms of length, white papers are typically between 8 to 12 pages, but they’ve also been known to exceed 50 pages if the topic warrants it.

4. Break dense text up with charts, graphs, and illustrations. Consider including call-out boxes of key points in the margins for those readers that are time-poor and just want to skim the document. Also use bullet points and multiple columns to improve readability.

5. Avoid being too product pushy or direct selling – people won’t respond to this and they won’t move to share the paper with others.

6. Be careful in choosing the title. What’s going to capture the audience’s attention and interest them enough to make them want to read on?

7. Don’t skim on the introduction and conclusion – these are quite possibly going to be the most read sections. Ensure you fully explain the background in the introduction and use the conclusion to convey once again the key points you want the reader to take away.

8. Publish your white papers in as many forms as possible, the most obvious being a downloadable PDF from your website (use the opportunity to collect data of readers such as email addresses so you can target them later).

- Make sure your sales team has copies to discuss at meetings, to use as leverage for getting in the door at previously hard to reach prospects, and for sharing with existing clients.

- Also consider creating online videos and podcasts with the content.

- Host a webinar (the beauty of webinars is that they can be repurposed after the live event for prospecting, customer service and for further lead generation).

- Blog about the paper (the average blog attracts 55% more visitors and gets indexed 434% more by search engines than a traditional website, giving your business great exposure).

- Prior to publication, consider giving the ‘story’ as an exclusive to one trade news publication to obtain promise of either front-page coverage or free advertising space.

By providing insight that helps the reader better comprehend their problems or challenges and presenting possible solutions to addressing same, white papers can help your business generate leads and convert interested prospects into buyers - while positioning your company as a go-to resource, creating trust, and a stronger brand. This in turn should lead to word-of-mouth advertising - one of the best forms of promotion you can get.

In short, don’t overlook the power of white papers as a serious marketing tool.

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The most effective marketing communication tool?

2009-10-25T09:38:00.001-04:00

With more than 90% of internet users aged between 18 and 72 sending and receiving email according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project (February 2009), ignoring email as a marketing tool in this day and age is simply foolish.

What’s more in a recessionary environment it offers an inexpensive means for communicating. But its value does not stop at low cost - email marketing is also a highly effective way, from a ROI perspective, to stay in front of your clients and to reach prospects. A 2009 survey by King Fish Media found that 78% of companies surveyed believe email marketing is the most effective communication tool for reaching existing clients, followed by custom content and social media. And according to the Direct Marketing Association, Email generates 21.6% of total revenue from campaigns and the average ROI produced is $45.06 for every dollar spent. ("The Integrated Marketing Media Mix" 2008).

Think about it, your message is delivered instantly and is usually opened within 48 hours of you sending it. Once opened, your target can usually take action immediately if their interest is peaked - reply, click a link, call you, forward etc. In addition, you're staying top of mind, raising your profile and generating awareness, while sharing useful information with your clients. Email really is a powerful tool.

Here are a handful of tips to bear in mind when planning your next email campaign:

1. Subject line
Getting your subject line right is critical – in this day and age when people’s inboxes tend to be crowded with email, you need yours to stand out. The subject line and the “from” line are the first things your target audience will see and these will drive whether they decide to open the email or just delete it.

For the “from” line always ensure it has your company name in it so you’re automatically recognizable as the sender, thereby increasing the trust factor.

For the subject line, typically stating the immediate benefit as to why they should open the email will create a sense of urgency and encourage recipients to open it. But for every email campaign you do, test different subject lines to see what works best and definitely avoid using a blank subject line, all capital letters, non-specific chatty headlines, and lots of punctuation. Keep it short and resist the temptation to personalize it as research shows this will lead to a lower open rate. Also note a word like “Free” is regarded as a spam word so avoid using it in your subject line.

2. Content
When it comes to creating the email content itself, research has shown that the key to success is to keep it simple. In MarketingSherpa's Marketing Wisdom 2009 report, a company reported that their plain text emails worked far more effectively than those with fancy graphics, links and buttons. Remember many recipients these days are viewing their emails on mobile devices (64% according to the survey by MarketingSherpa, in partnership with SurveySampling) where images tend not to render very well, if at all.

It is also well studied that personalizing the message as much as possible will improve your campaign success. Try to keep what you're saying relatively brief. If you need to go into more detail, provide a link that will take them through to the detail. In fact providing many links that link through to a variety of content will tend to increase the number of clicks your message receives.

Make sure what you have to say is of immediate value to your audience. By this I mean it should include interesting information they can't glean elsewhere, or something they can garner savings from, such as an incentive, coupon or giveaway.

Also, don't try to say too much in the email or promote too many products or services - once again keep it simple. Use bullet points to break up the content and to emphasize important points.

And always, always include a call to action. This can be anything from clicking a link to visit a web page to filling out a form or making a purchase.

3. Timing
When you send out your email will affect how many people open it. Research has shown that the highest click-to-open rate tends to be early morning around 8am. Not surprisingly the lowest click-to-open time is late in the workday at 5pm. Research by MailerMailer (H2 2008 Email Marketing Metrics Report) also shows that in general, the earlier in the workweek the emails are sent, the better. Open rates peak on Mondays and decrease as the workweek continues. Those sent on Mondays generated the highest open and click rates, and those on Sundays, the lowest.

In addition, space out your emails over a period of time rather than bombarding someone with multiple emails too close together as this will likely cause them to opt out of receiving your emails altogether.

4. Track and measure
As a matter of course, in very basic terms, you should track the following:
- How many people opened the email
- Who opened the email
- What the click-through rate was
- Which emails bounced
- Who unsubscribed from your email list

Try to find out what the benchmark metrics are for your specific industry so you have a form of comparison to determine the success of your campaigns. Make sure you act on the data you track, for example, rewrite your subject line, change your offer, move your most important message higher within the email, move your call to action higher up within the email.

You can glean more information about email marketing metrics from these sources:
MarketingSherpa's Email Marketing Benchmark Guide: www.sherpastore.com/home.html
MailerMailer Email Marketing Metrics Report: www.mailermailer.com/metrics.rwp
Email statistics Center: www.emailstatcenter.com

How to build your brand if you're a small business

2009-10-16T10:59:00.000-04:00

Someone asked me this week, "If you're a small business or a sole trader, how do you build your brand?" It's a great question. All too often I hear small businesses claim they can't build a brand because they don't have a big marketing budget to put into it. But actually they are wrong - any business can build a brand, and it doesn't have to cost a lot of money.

Here are a few quick tips:

1. Build a personality around yourself and your business. PR is a highly effective way to do this. It will help you develop your brand image, but also put you on the shopping list of potential new clients. Local press, industry publications and online news sites are always looking for fresh ideas and stories of interest. Also if you position yourself as the go-to expert on a specific subject area, the press will seek out your opinion on that topic.

2. If you use a logo as part of your brand, make sure to use it on everything you do so that it becomes recognizable and increases awareness of your business.

3. Connect with your local community - consider sponsoring small events locally that your target market might see or attend. Make sure as part of the sponsorship that you can have your logo and company information clearly advertised on event material.

4. Don't underestimate the power of word of mouth in building your brand and reputation. Social media like Twitter and Facebook are great tools for this purpose. But also encouraging your clients to refer you to friends and family is gold. Nielsen reported in April '09 that recommendations from people known is trusted by 90% of the people getting the recommendation. Consider offering incentives for each referral.

5. Client experience is vital in building your brand as it affects how your clients perceive you. This includes everything from your office space and how it comes across to visitors to how your clients are treated by your staff and your overall customer service. Check all these different aspects to ensure you're projecting the corporate image you want people to have of your business.