Tech savvy and born into the post-50′s advertising world, people born between 1980 and 2000 (Millennials) believe they’ve got businesses pegged. They know when a company is abusing advertising and they know when things are too good to be true. I think I know a bit about this, as I was born in the early 80′s myself.

Another critical finding that businesses, especially those in the B2C sector, can leverage to attract Millennials is family habits, with 75 percent of the generation living within 30 miles of their parents.^[1]

With that many people living  that close to their parents, marketers that want to build relationships with Millennials should understand the importance of family to those in this generation. Millennials have grown up with a daily bombardment of advertising. My mom loves sharing a story about how I used to love watching commercials on TV, especially the ones where I could say “ooh la la” to the bikini-clad product pushers.

I grew up enjoying watching commercials. They were short enough to keep my attention. This probably led to my pursuit of a career in marketing; I digress. Millennials are familiar with advertising, we are definitely no stranger to it. And with $200 billion in purchasing power, as a marketer, you need to be aware of that fact. No longer is a catchy ad enough. You have to find ways to engage Millennials. You have to find ways to stand out to them.

Millennials Still Love Getting Mail

We haven’t quite gotten so jaded by receiving junk mail that we don’t still get a twinge of excitement when we receive a letter in the mail. It’s still fun going to the mailbox and seeing if any fun surprises have been delivered. I don’t get excited about e-mail.

Despite reports of Millennials having a distrust of marketing, [they] will respond to direct mail via multichannel efforts when receiving a properly executed, relevant and valued marketing message. They want the opportunity to respond by following a personalized link, using a QR code or sending a quick text message. Many are more than willing to try new methods with the hope of an advanced user experience.^[2]

Using mail, especially with Millennials, when done correctly, can still drive sales and form relationships. The key to doing it right: be real. The more you own up to the fact that Millennials are not blind to all the “tricks” of advertising, the better response you will get. As much as possible, your message should be targeted, focused, personalized, and easy to respond to.

Modern technology makes this easy with things like PURLs (Personalized URLs) and digital printing services that allow personalization that feels incorporated directly into the piece. Send me a letter with “Dear Sir,” as the salutation, I’m probably not going to read it. Send me a letter with “Michael,” as the opener and you’ve got much better odds.

Millennial Marketing Key Takeaways

• Be authentic. Perhaps the single-most important factor in successful marketing to Millennials is authenticity. Another way to look at this is through the lens of transparency. Be as open as you can be, and we’ll learn to trust you, even if we don’t like you on a personal level.
• Connect with us. Businesses have a tendency to forget that they are actually comprised of a group of individual people and they are marketing to a group of individual people. Remember that and use it to your advantage. Put information about your actual people on your about page of your website. Don’t just say, XYZ Company was founded in 1970 by Tom and Steve. Instead tell the story, and if you can include the downs as well as the ups, even better. Make it easy for us to get to know you and for us to talk with you through social media and feedback forms.
• Stand out. Don’t just force your way into our mind through shotgun approach advertising. Instead, find ways to make us intrigued by your company and by you personally. We want to have the ability to have our hands on the next cool thing.
• Personalize. With today’s technology, personal connections are easier than ever. Through social media, you get to know exactly who your customer is, by connecting with them and forming a relationship. You have the ability to use personalized marketing messages that speak directly to our core wants, needs, and desires. Blanketed approaches are dying.

References

1. http://www.brafton.com/news/report-profitable-marketing-campaigns-must-evolve-as-tech-savvy-millennials-come-of-age
2. http://www.delivermagazine.com/2012/01/making-sense-of-the-millennials/

Advertising is commonplace. People remember TV commercials, they are motivated by radio ads, and they take a genuine interest in advertising that catches there eye. People talk about that last beer commercial or body wash commercial.

Online advertising, though it may not be as openly discussed at a party, has proven itself effective time and time again. If it didn’t, companies wouldn’t continue to pay for it (well, you’d hope so, anyway). The thing that irritates me, and I’m sure others, is when a company creates an enticing ad, then sends me to a landing page that has absolutely nothing to do with the original ad copy. This happens much more often than it should, and it is an irresponsible use of marketing budgets.

Here’s an example of GE doing this very thing:

I noticed this ad while browsing my Google Reader:

Interesting, they are talking about the possibility of switching from using AC to DC or vice-versa… That sounds very intriguing… CLICK. Then, I am taken to a page with this:

Um, that’s not what I was expecting…

GE, you spend BILLIONS on advertising. Some of it is really exceptional. There really is no excuse for this kind of amateurishness. If this was an ad for a small company, that was working with 1-2 people in the marketing department, there would be much more room for understanding.

The sad part is that GE isn’t the only large company that does this kind of thing. It begs the question, how many millions of dollars are these companies wasting every day by allowing screw-ups like this in their marketing? Because, not only will this sort of activity cause a user to leave the site instantly, they will also be less likely to trust (and therefore click) the next ad they see by that particular company. I know I won’t be so quick to click the next time I see a GE ad that grabs my attention…

Email marketing is without a doubt an important aspect of ANY business. Regardless of whether you are consumer-based, or business-to-business focused, email marketing is one of the most useful marketing tools available to you. For easy reference, here is a list of email marketing vendors that I’ve come across in my research.

I’ve listed them in the order I would recommend looking at them. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the first ones listed are my top picks, however, it means they are the best ones to START with. As your email marketing campaigns grow more robust, some of the vendors won’t be the best pick any more. Only you can determine this based on your specific needs and wants.

Am I missing an email marketing software vendor from the list? Let me know in the comments below.

List of Email Marketing Software Vendors

For those people and businesses that are looking for a way to harness the potential power that lies in social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc), take 5 minutes and watch this presentation. There’s a really cool video at the end. The people that creatively use social media to actually connect with people make themselves more attractive and therefore generate customers organically, without having to spend heavy dollars in advertising.

Enjoy:

I found this presentation over on Jesse Desjardins’ website. If you ever give presentations, and want to learn some creative ways to make them more inspiring, be sure to take some time to look at his presentations, too.

All salespeople, especially successful ones, know that follow-up with a prospective client is one of the most important steps in the sales cycle. By the way, if you’re one of those people who runs a business and you’re still not convinced you’re main function is salesperson, you need a reality check, but I don’t want to get into that right now.

Right now, I’m curious about the art of follow-up. I have been following up with a few prospective clients this morning, and I was reminded of how I’ve always found the art of follow-up intriguing.

Some people have mastered this seemingly simple, yet dauntingly difficult task. When I think about it, I am always reminded of what it was like to achieve the goal of getting a girl’s phone number in college, then trying to tackle the debate I always had with my friends: when do you call her, what do you say when you call, etc.

In the business world, salespeople experience this same debate on a regular occasion. They might meet a prospect at a local chamber of commerce event and want to follow-up with them to discuss how they feel they can help the client. They might have only spoken with them on the phone once prior. They may have a proposal in the client’s hands and are following up to try and close the deal.

The power of focus

Each of these circumstances presents different challenges to a successful follow-up process. I think, though, the process can be made easier by a clear focus. By focusing on what the real objective is with the follow-up the process is immediately clearer. So many salespeople are stuck on “just following up” they forget to be politely persistent about what the primary objective is. They are fearful of being too forthcoming about what they want to get from the contact.

Clients appreciate the honesty of a salesperson telling them exactly what they want to get the client to buy. It is liberating in a way, the expectations have been put clearly on the table, and both sides can get down to handling whatever obstacle or objection is preventing progress.

When to follow-up

Knowing when to follow-up is a non-scientific art. Though there are undoubtedly numerous studies that have been conducted that provide guidelines on when to follow-up, we have to remember that every prospect is also a person, and every person on the planet is different in some regard than every other person on the planet. This means that, though we can follow the general guidelines, each situation is different, and we have to think about how we might need to change our approach based on the individual circumstances.

Knowing what to say when following up

Just like knowing when, knowing what to say is also an art. In my experience, there are two main schools of thought, here:

1. Get right to the point. Don’t waste your breath asking personal questions or trying to make small talk. This is best used for clients that are busy, and actually appreciate the bluntness. You will actually (though it seems wrong) improve your rapport with this client because they appreciate the fact that you respect their time.
2. Be more personal. Other clients like to know that you care about them as a person. They want you to ask about their kids and about their weekend plans. Assuming you have a genuine interest in this information, make the small-talk and enjoy the conversation. The objective of the call must always be remembered and focused on, though. Make sure you get to the point in a timely fashion. Rambling about everything else under the sun is not productive.

Go do a search on Google for the term “social media expert” without the quotes and you’ll find that Google has indexed 83 million pages that it believes could be relevant to your search. Put the quotes back in and you’ll find that Google believes it has about 1.2 million pages that could be relevant. That means that there are approximately 1.2 million pages on the web that contain the exact phrase “social media expert” somewhere within their content.

Think about that for a minute, 1.2 million.

That is a whole lot of “expertise.” Especially in a field that is only, at best, a couple of decades old (10 years is really even a stretch). To really make you go, “hmm” search for either “marketing expert” or “advertising expert.” Before you actually do, though, take a guess at the results you’ll have returned to you. Do you think they will be more or less than the social media variant?

Go do the searches (in a new tab/window of course). I’ll wait here.

What did you find out? You most likely were shocked at the extreme variance between so-called “social media experts” and “marketing/advertising experts.” I know I was a little surprised.

With so many people claiming to be the expert when it comes to social media, it begs the question: how do I know who to trust to help me learn how to apply all of this social media stuff to my business, my life, or whatever. The truthful answer is this: you don’t. The reality is, no one really, truly knows how this whole “social media thing” really is going to work in the future. No one really knows how it will actually exist (if at all) in 10, 5, heck, 1 year down the road.

Remember MySpace? That dinosaur of a social network? It’s hanging on for dear life, and it gained peak popularity no more than a few years ago. Twitter has already exploded and leveled off – no one in the media really seems to care anymore. It’s reached the same level of recognition as Facebook, but only a few people actually use it.

So, back to the point:

Who do you trust to help you learn more about social media and how it applies to you?

Well, think about this. If no one really knows what the right answer is, then logically, no one really knows what the wrong answer is either. Take comfort in that.

Granted, there are plenty of things that have been done by people that are considered “wrong,” just like there are plenty of things that people have done that are considered “right” when it comes to social media. The answer to knowing who to trust is to observe and learn from the people that seem to never do those “wrong” things. Or, if they do, they have the humanity to own them, learn from them, teach/share with the world (since sharing really is what social media is all about), and move on.

Use common sense; use good judgment; ask yourself if you think some of the stuff these so-called experts are trying to sell/teach you makes sense. And if you are thinking about paying one of these people to help you with your own social media efforts, ask for and actually check their references.

If you’d like a head start on people that I think know what they are talking about and are doing it as right as possible when it comes to social media, check out some of these people:

• Chris Brogan (Twitter, Site)
• Ed Shahzade (Twitter, Site)
• Calvin Lee (Twitter, Site)
• Ann Handley (Twitter, Site)
• Scott Stratten (Twitter, Site)
• Lauren Fernandez (Twitter, Site)
• David Spinks (Twitter, Site)
• DJ Waldow (Twitter, Site)

There are plenty of others that I’m sure I have noticed are doing it “mostly right,” but I can’t remember them right now. For some really good questions and some amusing reactions to the wrong answers for interviewing and potentially working with social media experts, take a look at this “10 Questions to Evaluate a Social Media ‘Expert‘” post by Ian Lurie.

The moral of the story?

Be careful who you trust to teach you about social media. There are literally millions of people that claim the title, but only a select few that have earned the title (oh, and here’s a hint: most of the people that have earned the title and deserve the respect to be called social media experts, don’t call themselves social media experts).

I was reading a story about RedEnvelope (I’m not affiliated with them) today. It started out as a typical marketing case study – with the usual woes of what was going on before massive change and an insertion of marketing talent, followed by the high success of the marketing efforts of those same people.

It is a positive story, overall, and granted, the story was written in 2002, so it is a little old, and I have no idea how well RedEnvelope is doing now. There website is still online, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are doing well. That is not the point I’m trying to get at though.

The thing I found interesting about the story, was actually the comment made at the end of the story. After all the build-up of a huge marketing success, the story is slammed down by stating coldly that the company spent $4 in marketing for every $1 in gross sales.

That’s four times the amount of gross sales in marketing. To me, there is no reason this story should have been considered a success at all – of course, that is not taking into perspective what happened after that initial investment in marketing. The point remains, however; without a clear and guaranteed return on that investment, spending four times the amount of sales on marketing is not acceptable by my standards – regardless of the amount of sales generated.

Marketing efforts must be able to demonstrate a clear, measurable path to a return (and hopefully a large one) on investment. Even social media, for example, has the ability to be measured, and it most certainly should be.

Blindly spending vast amounts of money on marketing is not a sure solution to success, especially in today’s society of advertising and marketing bombardment on consumers. People are increasingly turned off by traditional marketing efforts, and are leery of the new marketing efforts being employed. Spending money without a strong indication of the return on investment is just plain stupid.

I don’t mean to pick on RedEnvelope, especially because I don’t know what the overall success of that initial marketing effort was, they may now spend $1 in marketing for every $4 in gross sales – and that very likely could be the case because of that initial effort. But on the surface, the story does not yield itself to a positive light for RedEnvelope’s initial thinking.

Before spending 30%-50% of your startup capital on marketing, make sure that you spend that money in a way that is 1) trackable, 2) measurable, and 3) as close to guaranteed to give you a return as is possible.

Congratulations, through some source or search I’ve conducted, I’ve landed on your website. I like what you have to say about the particular topic I’m currently reading. I want to hear more from you in the future, but I’m lazy, I like to have content force-fed to me, so, since you don’t seem to believe in RSS and its magical wonders, I won’t be back (most likely).

The number of news and information resource sites on the web that still don’t use RSS technology overwhelms me. It’s such a simple thing to implement, and it is such a great way to encourage that oh-so-sought-after returning visitor. Sure, there are some sites that people will naturally return to because of their very nature, i.e their local news site. Before lubbockonline.com had RSS, I did return to the site, but not nearly as often as I do now that they have RSS enabled.

Just Enabling RSS Isn’t The Answer

Okay, so you’ve realized that RSS is important, and you’ve enabled it. However, you’re stingy with your content. You’re afraid that if you put all of your post/article into the feed, then I won’t actually visit your site any more. So instead, you decide to just allow the headlines and a brief (and undoubtedly) vague summary of the post/article. Or worse, you just put the headlines in to the feed. WRONG.

Let me read what you have to say. I subscribed for that very reason. Don’t annoy me (and potentially cause me to unsubscribe) because you are stingy. “But, my advertisers want traffic to the website” you might be saying. True, advertisers are focused on maximizing their exposure, and for good reason. The way I see it, there are three ways to look at this:

1. Pretend you’ll get more website traffic by not encouraging RSS subscriptions (wrong).
2. Realize that more RSS readers equals more return visitors (and therefore more engaged and qualified visitors). Advertisers don’t just want traffic, they want traffic that is the right kind – return visitors offer them much better touch-point abilities.
3. Use RSS as an opportunity to get MORE advertising revenue by selling advertising inside your RSS feeds. There are multiple companies that provide this service. Google AdSense, Pheedo, and I’m sure there are others.

I usually read the articles in my Google Reader every morning (even on the weekends). If you don’t offer an RSS feed subscription when I get to your website, you are missing an opportunity to put your website, your brand, and your advertisers in front of me on a daily basis.

Did I miss something, though? Do you have a good reason for not including an RSS feed on your website? I’d love to hear what it is; maybe you can open my eyes to something I didn’t think of before. Let me hear about it in the comments below.

Your customers are each individual people. No one customer is exactly the same as the next one. When performing your market research, you will undoubtedly come across and/or use such terms as: target market, demographics, household income, etc.

It is crucial, though, to realize that though this data is valuable, it is nothing more than looking at the entire forest instead of the individual trees. When you take the time to look at the individual tree, it has the ability to teach you more about the entire forest than you could ever learn by only looking at the whole forest.

Getting to know your customers on an individual level does a few things that are to your advantage:

1. It provides you with a unique opportunity to learn exactly what it is that brings that customer to your business instead of a competitor.
2. You demonstrate your true appreciation of your customers and inadvertently encourage your customers to increase their word-of-mouth marketing on your behalf. People love to talk about businesses/companies that treated them right, particularly when they are asked for a recommendation.
3. By learning from an individual customer, you are able to gain a greater understanding of how all of your customers think, specifically, and with detail.

Knowing who is in your target market and what their general demographics are is definitely important. But equally, if not more so, as important, is the understanding of what makes your individual customers tick.

How do you do that exactly? A customer survey, whether formal or informal, is the most common way of doing this. There are some key things to keep in mind when preparing your survey and when conducting your survey.

When preparing your survey:

• Start with the end in mind. Know what you’re trying to accomplish with the survey. Keep the questions focused in on this objective. Don’t ask for more information than what you really need to gain perspective on the things you’d like to know. For example, asking your customer what kinds of pets they have only makes sense if your product serves either the pets themselves or handles the concerns of a pet owner.
• Be objective with your questions. Don’t lead customers into saying that they love your product or hate your product, rather use questions that remain neutral and give your customer the ability to answer honestly – and without having to feel bad for being honest.
• Use open ended questions for at least part of your survey. Give your customers a chance to tell you more and in their own words. If you are conducting an informal, verbal survey, this is very easy to accomplish and can provide some of the best information you could ever ask for.
• Make the language simple and easy to understand. Don’t use jargon, industry-speak, acronyms, etc. Make sure you don’t try and inflate the appearance of your intelligent by using big words. Use language that your customers will understand, but be careful not to use language that is too simple and therefore insults your customers’ intelligence.

When conducting the survey:

• Treat your research just as you would any customer interaction. Use respect and regard your customers’ information with the utmost respect.
• Don’t argue/debate with an answer. This defeats the purpose entirely. If you customer gives you an answer you don’t like, ask them how they would suggest fixing the issue. Take down their answer, and move on.
• Tell your customers what your objectives are. By telling the customer what your objectives are you provide them with the right mental framework to answer questions in a way that is the most helpful and beneficial to your success in achieving those objectives.
• Use multiple surveying methods. Some customers will prefer to just fill out a postcard with some answers. Others would prefer you email them a survey they can answer online. Others will appreciate a phone call (usually only customers you have a close relationship with, and only those who have given you permission to call them), and many would love to answer a few questions in person while that are at your location.
• Provide something of value in return for participation. This provides both an incentive for your customers to participate in the survey, and also gives you an easy way to say thank you. Try to steer clear of giving store credit, if possible. Store credit is nice, but a gift card for $5-$10 will be much more appreciated. Also, offering “a chance to win” is not really an incentive for most people.

The bottom line: get to know your customers as individuals. You’ll learn a whole heck of a lot more about what your customers in general really want.

Having the right conversion strategy will help you attain your online marketing goals. In the list below, I have outlined the key areas to focus on with websites that have non-ecommerce related conversion goals in mind, for example, getting a customer to call your business from your website, or fill in a form. I look forward to the ensuing conversations.

These are 7 key areas in the online marketing world, each with its own sub-set group of strategies to consider.

1. Research
   • Analytics – Make Full Use of the Power of the Web
   • Keyword Research – Don’t Assume You Know What People Search For
   • Customer Surveys – Straight From The Source
2. Landing/Funnel Pages/Post-Click-Marketing
   • Conversion Goals – Knowing What You Want To Happen Is Half The Battle
   • Predictive Paths – Customers Don’t Always Know What They Are Looking For, Help Them Find It
   • A/B Testing – Just Because Tim Responded To Your Site, Doesn’t Mean Sally Will
3. Social Networks
   • When, How, and Why to use Social Networks
   • Facebook – Gaining top-of-mind awareness
   • Twitter – Dialog (starting/maintaining conversations with customers)
   • LinkedIn – Establishing/maintain professionalism and credibility
4. Usability/Design
   • User Analysis – Understanding Your Site’s Demographics
   • Flash vs. JavaScript – Does Your Site Really Need To Use Flash?
   • Color – Black on White or White on Black? How To Use Color Appropriately
   • Fonts/Typography – Using the Right Font At The Right Time
   • Quality Assurance Testing – Just Because You Use Firefox 3.0 Doesn’t Mean Everyone Else Does
5. Search Engine Optimization
   • Domain Name Research – Finding the Perfect Domain Name
   • Content Development – If You Don’t Already Know: Content IS King
   • Meta Tags – Don’t Forget About These Guys
   • Conversion Tracking – You’ve Set Your Goals, Now Make Sure You Are Attaining Them
   • Hiring An SEO Firm – What To Watch For, What Questions To Ask, and More
6. Search Engine Marketing
   • Keyword Research – Sometimes You Have To Know Which Words NOT To Use
   • Ad Relevance – If Your Ad Is For Shoes, Your Site Better Be Too
   • A/B Testing – Some Ads Work Better Than Others
   • Quality Score – Google’s Way of Making Sure Your Ads Don’t Suck
   • Conversion Tracking – From Ad Click To Customer Action, You Should Know Who Does What
   • Hiring A Pay-Per-Click Management Firm – What To Watch For, What Questions To Ask, and More
7. Lead Management & Customer Service
   • Lead Management Software (CRM) – What To Look For in LMS/CRM Vendors
   • Email Newsletters – Do It Yourself Tools To Make It Easy
   • Support Ticket Systems – Customers Inevitably Will Need Help With Something, Give It To Them
   • Online Chat Systems – Increase Retention, Improve Time-To-Revenue Cycles