Market Moose

4 Ways To Miss Important Mail Using Outlook

Market Moose — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:24:09 +0000

Example Scenario: You send an e-mail to a client, vendor, or business partner. You don’t hear back. You keep checking Outlook and still don’t hear back. You assume they didn’t reply. Finally, you send another e-mail telling them to call you. You hear nothing. You act accordingly. Perhaps two weeks later you finally get a response to your first e-mail. You think the sender is a jerk. Maybe two more weeks go by and you get a response to the second e-mail. You add the sender to the spam filter, because it’s been a month and a half already.

Expanded Scenario: When you first open Outlook you don’t have it set to automatically check mail. So if someone has responded, you aren’t seeing it. You write an e-mail. But you don’t have Outlook set to send on completion or send when closing the program, so the e-mail doesn’t go out that day. You also don’t have it set to check mail on close, so you still aren’t seeing any recent responses to previous messsages. You close the program and check back in a week. Note: if you only check once a week, there’s your biggest problem – professionals these days respond to e-mail within 24hrs, normally. You say you don’t get much e-mail? Aside from marketing failure, let’s continue to show why. You check your e-mail in a week, but again, it’s not set to pull mail on opening, so you’re still not seeing any waiting replies. You send an e-mail to someone else. Perhaps something prompts you this time to click send/receive. Outlook sends the message, and finally sends all the other messages that you wrote but that never went out. Upon sending, Outlook also checks mail. But those old messages you wrote have only just now been sent and haven’t actually been read yet. Responses will take longer. What does come in are very old replies. But you close the program without looking at the inbox. A week later you open Outlook again. Lo, there are responses from several weeks ago, except you may think they were sent just this week. After all, you check Outlook every week, don’t you? And they weren’t there 2 weeks or 3 weeks ago. Meanwhile people have been replying to the really old messages you wrote that they finally received weeks late. But you’re not seeing their replies in your inbox. You’re convinced your inbox is pulling mail, because you can see new mail. But it’s not pulling mail on opening the program – it’s only doing it when you click the button or when you send, depending on your settings. So you’re not going to see the replies today that were sent several days ago to messages you sent a week ago, that you actually wrote two or three weeks ago.

Recap: The four ways to miss important mail using Outlook are pretty simple, and they’re very common among long time users of Outlook or Outlook Express:

Don’t have Outlook set up to check immediately upon opening Outlook
Don’t have Outlook set up to send immediately upon finishing an e-mail
Don’t have Outlook set up to send and check on closing Outlook
Alternately: don’t hit “Send/Receive” on those 3 situations

If the above situation describes you, either a) set up your Outlook properly. You’re burning relationships and probably blaming other people for something happening on your end. b) alternately, get out of Outlook and start using Gmail or another web-based e-mail client. That’s how we see it. Once more, straight talk from Market Moose. poopa dulk goota yundug

10 Ways to Make Your E-mail Postcard Campaign More Effective

Market Moose — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 21:10:14 +0000

You’ve invested in a nice postcard that you physically send to leads and prospects, and you’ve realized you want to use it in an e-mail marketing campaign. Even without the original artwork, it’s a fairly simple matter with a scanner to produce a nice .png file, resize it to 600px or less, and include it in an e-mail blast. There are some things that can make your e-mail postcard campaign more effective:

image by online prints

#1: Use a Familiar Heads Up:Remind recipients of why they’re getting the e-mail by reference to how you got their lead, and do it with thanks: “We want to thank you for attending…” “We appreciated you registering at…” “We feel lucky that you expressed…” The thanks makes it harder for people to respond negatively. You can use a different color or highlighting of this sentence to make sure they see it first.

#2 No Pants Down: If the postcard you’re sending is a scanned image, not pure text that you can copy/paste as text into Notepad, most e-mail systems no longer automatically display the image. If recipients don’t notice the little button in their e-mail software to display it, it could be missed. The image “alternate text” or placeholder text in html format e-mail blasts will occupy the place of the image in the meantime. Don’t let the placeholder text be the image file name like newest-pitch.jpg or latest-marketing-message.gif. Instead, set the alternate text of the image to say something like “Click Display/Show Images in your e-mail software to see the newest…”

#3 Overcome Image Resistance: Make it possible to see all written content even if they don’t click “display images” or “show images” in their e-mail software. You can do this by simply reproducing any text on the image entirely as text (e.g. below where the postcard would appear in the e-mail). If the postcard says “An unplanned estate is an uncertain future, call 555-1216 now for a free consultation” then put that same text as text below the image.

#4 Be New (each time): Add value when sending a postcard by saying there is something new that can simplify or streamline things for the recipient – save time or money – make life easier, etc. Don’t let them treat it as if you’re just sending out another business card. That’s like applying for your own job and has about as much return potential (not zero, of course) as blanketing a city with resumes. We have critical mass now of services and products being “offered” – and just the fact that you exist and provide something is not enough anymore (hasn’t been) to create a rush. Wow, you mean I can get accounting services in Charleston? Wow, there are lawyers in Philadelphia, and they can take my business? Add value beyond telling someone of your existence and list of services – and try to avoid fluff. Get to the heart of the matter – then you’re ready to send.

#5 Be Counterintuitive: Actually *feature* the unsubscribe link. Instead of making it tiny and hard to find, put some verbiage in front of it like “Don’t want this e-mail? We understand!” or “You can drop us any time, but we promise not to overfill your inbox.” Make the text obvious – maybe a different color. Make it easier to find the unsubscribe link, by possibly increasing the font. The reasoning is this – most web-based e-mail providers – like G-Mail – provide a “SPAM” button. A lot of recipients don’t understand this is a declaration that they *never* gave you their e-mail address. Too many SPAM declarations can get your e-mail marketing banned. You would much rather have people opt-out using e-mail marketing software that tracks opt-outs and doesn’t let you send to that person again, than have them hit that SPAM button.

#6 Be Social: Include your social media links in the e-mail. It’s amazing that people still send out postcards and flyers and e-mails without ever offering a way for an ongoing connection. That means you miss all those people who aren’t ready to act exactly on the moment they open the e-mail, but will soon forget they even received it as their day progresses. This is especially true of people with smart phones who maybe notice their 5 most recent messages if you’re lucky. Why throw away the opportunity to keep people in your orbit by not giving them a way to socially connect to you, and revisit it later – which could be later in the day, the week, month, or year, besides the referral value? It’s almost like sending a postcard with your address and phone number but no e-mail. It’s very horse and buggy. Update or see increasingly smaller returns on your e-mail marketing.

#7 Be Catchy not Fluffy Wuffy: Have one summary line that works really well as the subject line of the e-mail. Something that describes in one phrase the essence of the value you’re providing. It can be a little sentimental and warm without being utter fluff. Above all, it has to make sense. If recipients have to click to understand, it has to be a really good teaser, or most won’t. If it’s too sales-ish, it’s not like the don’t get enough ads already.

#8 Be Familiar: Make the “From” information they see before opening the e-mail something they recognize and see value in. A lot of people won’t open e-mail if they don’t know who it’s from or recognize where they would have agreed to receive it. A gentle reminder in the form of your company name or credentials may help. If you’re John Doe – an accountant at Rigsby Accounting, maybe it should be John Doe CPA, or John Doe, Rigsby Accounting, or even John at Rigsby Accounting.

#9 Be Sure to Fit In: To fit most devices, try to keep the width of the e-mail and images to 600px (600 pixels) or less and don’t send enormous physical image sizes. *Physically* resize images *before* you add them to the e-mail. Virtually resizing an image is where you just drag it smaller in the e-mail campaign before you send. That doesn’t make it physically smaller and, if the image is quite large physically, it can take a long time to download (*especially to a phone!*) which can be frustrating to the recipient. Smaller actual physical dimensions for images means smaller file sizes for those images, and that means faster image handling on the recipient’s end, especially with a lot of dodgy phone internet connections. 600px will usually keep all but the lamest phones from having to scroll left to right in order to read your postcard. Common image formats are .jpg, .gif, and .png. We like .png, because we get small, fast-loading images with no quality loss. Gif is good if the original image quality is high. JPG can be a little blurry or pixelated if the image contains text. But any of these will do if you keep it small.

#10 Be Upstanding: We didn’t put this first, because while it’s silly not to stay within the bounds of the law, that’s primarily a legal concern for your business, not a marketing one per se. Still, the CAN SPAM Act says you need to use e-mail marketing tools that provide an opt-out method. You need to include your physical address in the e-mail. If it’s an ad or solicitation, instead of a newsletter or blog article. the e-mail has to say that somewhere. It has to have a valid, working reply-to address if the recipient hits “reply” to the e-mail. It can’t have a misleading subject line like “I’ve been trying to call you” or misleading content like links that purport to offer free information and then take them to a checkout cart. And no spoofing or misleading transmission info – meaning you can’t pretend the e-mail is from something or someone it isn’t, like a government agency if you’re not a government agency. Buying lists may be iffy, if they didn’t opt-in specifically to *your* e-mails, even if they did agree to receive e-mails from someone’s “parters” – because if recipients later opt-out from that original source, it doesn’t automatically remove them from the list you’ve already purchased. Check with your company’s attorney about the current state of the case law before risking your wealth and reputation. We’re not attorneys and this summary is just an amateur reading of the law, but you’ll find a summary by attorneys here if you like. For anything iffy, especially if you’re in a highly regulated industry, pay the attorney for the hour and get legal advice.

A postcard is the simplest, lowest overhead type of e-mail marketing, because you’re just adapting a print medium to another medium (e-mail). It can deliver a lot of bang for the buck if you have a good contact list, use good e-mail marketing tools, and keep the above suggestions in mind. poopa dulk goota yundug

Web Site Choices – Picking From What You See on the Web

Market Moose — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:46:00 +0000

If you’ve been doing internet marketing long enough, you’ll have seen every deeply flawed marketing attempt pointed at and lauded as something to imitate. This is no less true of web sites in particular. If we get past the childish simplicity of labeling “good” and “bad” web sites, and look at a web site as simply another marketing tool (if not, why bother?), we can actually evaluate rationally what’s helpful and what isn’t.

Imitation, in particular, is probably the most flawed model on which to build a web site. It is a confession that we don’t really know what else to do. In that sense, imitation can actually give us a sense of ‘expertise’, because we can point to examples. But will those examples actually deliver what we’re trying to accomplish, if we do it just as well as they do?

There are a number of flawed premises people use to make choices about creating a web site. And they cost money, because you spend money and they aren’t optimal for what you want to achieve.

Can You Copy Those Guys’ Web Site but Use My Photos? Sure, anyone can, though most ethical companies won’t unless it’s just a standard template anyway. But why would you want to? Why be “just as good as” but not actually any *better* than the other guys? And even if you like their design, are you sure it will actually accomplish your goals for growing your business? The most important premise to revise is the notion that a web site is just a look and feel. It’s not. That stuff anyone can do. A web site is an internet marketing tool – or else why build one? Just because it’s the thing to do? We’re in business, so we get the stationary? And if it’s a strategic tool, it had better be put together with a view to implementing a strategy. The decisions we make to simply “lift” a design from someone else could actually run counter to what we’re trying to achieve and our plan to achieve it.

I Know What I Like. Do you? Based on what criteria? If you’re not an internet marketing expert, you might like things that are counterproductive to your intended strategy and goals – things that won’t like you very much in return. In 2000, a flash intro on a business web site was all the rage. “I like that. I want to look like that. It’s impressive.” Sure, having your own “movie trailer” was impressive, when it was new and not yet just annoying. It drastically killed your search engine value (so who cares about your fancy intro if no one sees it) – it broke your site on numerous devices and browsers where flash was installed improperly or not at all (say hello to hits, goodbye to leads), and it put the barrier of an extra (“how the hell do I get past this thing?”) between visitors and the reason they were looking in the first place. But hey, you liked it. Is that really the basis for an effective marketing decision?

My Parent, Sibling, Spouse, Friend Thinks This is Great Too. I bet they thought that poem you wrote in 3rd grade was great. It’s good to have caring family and friends. But it’s a business web site, remember? The reason you’re doing it is not to get positive feedback from the family on how *they* like it, but from prospects who never heard of you and don’t care about you personally or your feelings – skeptics who are just as likely at the outset to go with the other guy and not you – the very people you’re looking to reach – people who aren’t moved by it just looking great. It can look great and not convert leads or prospects.

My Client Likes It. Yes, but clients aren’t leads or prospects – those are different things. Your client already does business with you. If your marketing goal is mainly to appeal to existing clients, this could actually be highly relevant. If your goal is to appeal to a guy who doesn’t know you from Adam and has pulled up 3 search results and is going to call one of them based on a set of criteria (do you know the criteria?) then maybe it’s not that relevant that your client likes it.

I Like the Simplicity of Google’s Home Page. So do we, for a search engine. And if you’re building a search engine, it’s a good model. But if you’re a local business that serves a dozen urban areas, it’s internet marketing suicide. Visitors need sufficient qualifying information to even proceed to care at all what you have to say next. If you don’t give them that qualifying info, your window gets closed, and the other two search results they open get the attention. In addition to at least a couple of types of qualifying info, they need market differentiators. Most web sites have bullsh*t hype. And that hype actually is negative marketing. As with design, the content may sound good to you, but what do you really know about what’s effective in internet marketing to visitors? You either know or you don’t. It can sound good and be anti-marketing swill that costs you leads. It can be simple and ineffective. Simplicity isn’t a goal in itself. Simplicity and effectiveness, which is really hard and involves trade-offs – that’s a possible goal. Where you land on those trade offs should be determined by your internet marketing strategy.

I Like This Color or This Graphic Header. OK. So keep in mind, a web site is just a box. Let’s demystify it for all time. People like to believe in the mystery surrounding ‘technical’ things, but frankly a web site per se is something any kid can put together in his garage in a few hours. In the next few years, not being able to create a web site will be considered illiteracy – it’s like not being able to multiply fractions. It’s OK if you’ve forgotten, but the point is, that building a web site is a basic skill. The visible portion of a web site consists of just:

the box (the platform)
the layout (the template or design framework)
the graphics
the colors
the content (text/fonts, videos, etc)

That’s it. Those 5 things. The rest is bullsh*t hype. Sure, it also needs the non-visible things – back-end search engine optimization, security, backup capability, admin functionalities, etc. But the part you can point to by looking at it on the face, on the web, is just a box with layout, graphics, color, and text, and that’s *all* it is. So you like some color – any web site can be that color. You like some graphic. OK – you probably don’t want to just put your name on their Nike swoosh if your business plans to avoid litigation in the future (no we won’t help you steal their logo), but you can have something similar designed. The point is, even if it’s a graphic image that dominates the top half of the page, it’s still just a photo, or it’s a set of bullets, or it’s a font or something. It’s a .gif – so what? That’s not a reason to imitate the rest of the site. The rest of it might have serious deficiencies made up for by a stellar photograph on top. First, what do you like about it. Second, is what you like actually useful to your internet marketing strategy.

I Like That it Looks Corporate, not Informal. OK, there’s nothing wrong with a ‘corporate’ style if that’s what you want. But is that in keeping with what you’re actually going to do to grow your business through internet marketing? If you don’t have an internet marketing plan at all, or are planning to use the internet to generate leads, will the corporate look send them away again, or do you know? Design isn’t a decision you make in a vacuum based on concepts like the clothes we wear to the appointment we’ve already got with a prospect who expects us to dress that way. Design is part of a strategy to grow a business (or again, what’s the point)? So make sure you’re thinking consistently with that strategy as it will actually play out in the wild. Corporate clone web sites are a dime a dozen. They’re also boring as hell. So make sure – is boring part of the strategy? If so, ok, but be sure. And if you don’t have an internet marketing strategy, why aren’t you talking to an internet marketing consultant before plunking down bucks for a canned web site?

I Like That it Doesn’t Have Any Images of People. Yes, people actually insist on “no human images” rather frequently. This is popular among people who are self-conscious about their own appearance or personality, or believe there’s an inevitable conflict between being considered a real person and being taken seriously as a professional. But 50% of site visitors don’t agree. Not saying you’re wrong – just saying half your visitors think you’re wrong, and will treat your web presence accordingly. Basic personality modeling suggests that half of visitors respond to a sense of human presence and are not comfortable with marketing presentations (which is what a web site is – or else why have one?) that don’t suggest personality and the presence of real human beings. It doesn’t matter if you’re like that or not, or if you or I prefer it or not – it matters whether our leads and prospects do. And if you’re willing to throw out half up front just to avoid having a photo of a human being, then you might want to consider what your internet marketing strategy actually consists of. People have personal theories about lead response just like they do about design and about content, but if it’s not based on data or analysis of behavior, is it useful?

When We Do Web Site Audits, we go right for the throat, because you’re paying us to give you the goods, not pull our punches or hold back to spare your feelings. No lead capture? Why not? It looks great, but if doesn’t convert leads, the looks aren’t helping. I’ve got great looking stuff in my closet that I don’t wear, either. By the same token, is your site telling your message, but it’s a long essay with endless links to click on and no sense of rational layout or design? Yeah, that really is important. I have a lot of great info just like you do, but if it’s not presented in a useful format, it doesn’t get used. So how do you know what goes into an effective web site?

Being BETTER Than the Other Guys: Remember, a web site is a box. Sometimes we get asked “can you build a box like this?” I always kind of chuckle. Sure – anyone can – it’s a box. Put in a layout, graphics, colors, text, and there you go if that’s all you’re concerned about. But our question is always “what’s your internet marketing strategy?” Do you know? Do you have one? Are you sure the box you’re pointing at will assist that strategy rather than hinder it? Again, do you know the implications of the choices you’re making? They make look great, but have made some really costly choices you haven’t considered. I saw a site the other day that was missing seven out of ten things they need for an effective home page. But hey, they had a nice photo on top. Even if you don’t just clone something you saw on the web, which is kind of the lowest common denominator of “I don’t know what I’m doing, but the other guy probably does” – even if you’re building the box out of a set of goals, have you clarified those goals into effective strategy? If not, you’re just buying an off the shelf, canned web site. You can get one of those anywhere.

Same Is Always Less, Not the Same. You’re not going to be as good as the other guys doing what they’re doing – let alone be any better. Just take search results as just one aspect of it — even if you totally copy the competition you want to beat, you not only won’t beat them, you won’t even come close to catching up – even doing a 100% identical web site, even using all the same SEO tags (which is silly). Even from just a search engine perspective alone, they were there first, they’ve been there longer, and so they automatically have more dominance than you, all things being equal. Growing in that is a process, and they’re ahead – so you won’t even get close just matching pace. You have to be *better* to even just catch up, let alone actually do better than them. Imitation is the sincerest form of failure.

Effective Web Sites: So, we’ve mentioned a number of faulty premises for putting together a web site. It’s probably helpful to reiterate the stuff we always say about what goes into an effective web site, when the goal is to grow your business:

Branding that doesn’t dominate, but a consistent appearance
Sufficient qualifying info on the home page for search engines to index properly, and visitors to qualify the result
Market differentiators that aren’t simply what we think is great about ourselves
Call to action with options (someone asked “isn’t that old fashioned?” Um… no.)
Lead capture with effective data gathering
Social networking, bookmarking, and referral capability
Simplified and orderly navigation you can easily update with new content without having to redo the menu on every page
Some sense of human presence (images of human beings that don’t all look like stock models – 50% of site visitors agree.)
Some sense of life (video, slideshow, or some other indication that the lights are on and someone is home)
Dynamic written content (if it’s just a static web site that sits there, and no one is posting updates, it’s asking to get buried – so right away we’ve guaranteed a kick in the marketing groin)
Original written content (if it’s canned content that a dozen other web sites are using, you’d be better off with a blank page and a phone number – given Google’s penalty for duplicate content, that is)
Color warmth. Color combinations that suggest company attitude (don’t choose sterile, if sterile isn’t the attitude). Don’t just match your logo (would you paint your wall the same color as the sofa in front of it?).
Good typography. Fonts matter. Is it designed for beauty and speed, for efficiency? What’s the approach?

We give straight talk. You can probably tell. We won’t ask you to the prom, and we won’t just take your money and sell you the first thing you ask for, like a canned item off the shelf, without at least making you aware if we think the choices you’re making might not actually help you achieve your goals. Sure, we can do it, if it’s legal and ethical, but we want to at least inform your first, if we think it’s not going to be in your best interest. There are small firms that are nevertheless Walmart-like in that they’ll just pitch you what you seem to want in terms of the product without digging into what you’re trying to achieve in the way of goals. If you want those guys, they’re a phone call away, and you can find them anywhere. Dime a dozen. We’re not here to hurt your feelings, and we aren’t going to say “you suck” because your web site isn’t up to snuff, or you like something that has serious flaws it would be unwise to imitate. But the currency we trade in that is the reason we’re taken seriously is forthrightness and directness on your behalf. Our approach is candor – we’d rather lose your business than take your money based on an illusion of value. If you like that, great – we’re probably a good match. In the end, we’ll do it your way, even if we wouldn’t recommend it, as long as we at least get to raise the concerns. If you want the sugar coating and for us to never mention if the widget isn’t going to do what you want to do – just sell to the excitement – we’re probably not your first choice.

More straight shooting from Market Moose.

poopa dulk goota yundug

Wiser Marketing Investment with a Systematic Internet Marketing Plan

Market Moose — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:18:36 +0000

Today’s topic is why you should start your internet marketing efforts with a systematic internet marketing plan. The simple answer is that any marketing efforts that proceed without a plan are basically experiments. Experiments can be a smart idea as a way to test response, if you’re already savvy about internet marketing. If not, you risk wasting a lot of money.and blowing a lot of effort in ineffective directions. You have a budget for marketing in both time and money, as every sound business does – that’s a plan to grow your business in the first place. Why wouldn’t you also develop a plan for how to use that time and money most effectively? There’s every kind of snake oil marketing available, promising you can instantly dominate your market, if you just sign up for a quick, thoughtless fix. Is there any other area of your business in which you would do that? Internet marketing can be done effectively, cheaply, or effortlessly – you get to pick two of those. How you allocate resources, and whether your activities do any good, begin with knowledge and planning, not an ad we’ve seen on the web, or a random set of attempts that can make things worse, not better. When companies of size do internet marketing, they start with a systematic plan in the form of marketing intiatives broken down into marketing campaigns. But there’s absolutely no reason why even a one-person shop can’t use the same techniques to be successful and even compete with much bigger operations. Key advice for today. Before you spend money on a marketing campaign, start with an comprehensive internet marketing plan that’s tailored to your business. poopa dulk goota yundug

Turn up the Web Site Traffic with Search Engine Marketing

Market Moose — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:14:36 +0000

Today’s topic is how to use Search Engine Marketing or SEM (that’s different than Search Engine Optimization or SEO) to increase the visibility and potentially the traffic of your online presence. The simple answer is to no longer wait around for your web site to draw in traffic. That’s a passive approach, and there are just far too many web sites now for it do any good. Instead, engage in active marketing by writing high value content on an ongoing basis, and distributing it through other internet venues, separately from the content on your site. Make sure each piece has a link back to your web site, so people can get there when interest is peaked by the content.There’s a bit more to it, but that’s really the core concepts. You spend money or effort building a web site that’s impressive, inviting, and has solid marketing content that appeals to a broad range of prospects. But then what do most people do after that? They wait. And they wait. And they wait. Not only is the competition not waiting, neither are the prospects themselves – they’re expecting us to leave the outfield and come into the stands to engage the audience and make fans out of them. Search Engine Marketing adds value to prospects *before* they visit your site, so when they click through to it, you’re already positioned as the local area expert in your field. Ten years ago, when there were fewer web sites, all you had to do was some traditional search engine optimization. But not only has the number of web sites multiplied exponentially, and SEO become basically standard, the search engines have actually changed their algorhythms to favor web sites with high quality content linking back to them – in other words, SEM is as important these days as SEO was 10 years ago. Key advice for today. Get outside the box of your web site. Certainly do blogging there, but put some of your content creation efforts off-site in other web venues to give search engines a reason to send people to your site in the first place, and to peak the interest of visitors before they get there. poopa dulk goota yundug

Secret of a Good FAQ – Engaging Visitors with Authenticity

Market Moose — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:12:49 +0000

Today’s topic is what makes a good FAQ or Frequently Asked Questions page on your web site? The simple answer is a good FAQ includes questions people are actually asking frequently (not the questions we wish they’d ask), and it puts them in the words they actually use (not the ones we polish up and use for them). The same goes for the answers to the questions. Effective ones are the exact words you use on the phone or in person, not some kind of special sales lingo you’re using especially because it’s a web site. You create a Frequent Questions page for your site, but does it really sound like your prospects or customers, and do the answers actually sound like you? If not, why not? Is your FAQ really adding value to web site visitors, or is it just another sales sheet that no one reads or finds very useful? People don’t respond anymore to artificial talk or getting sold to. Authenticity is the new marketing currency. The good news is that most of your competitors are putting out canned answers to questions they made up, that aren’t the ones web site visitors are actually asking when they call or e-mail. A Frequent Questions page is supposed to be actually “frequented” by visitors, with questions to ask, and so it should grow over time, and not be filled out all at once. It should prompt them to ask the missing questions that they have on their minds and, if those questions are frequent, you should get those words down on the page too. Key advice for today. Overhaul the FAQ page on your web site, making the questions sound like your clients & prospects, the answers sound like what you tell them in response. If you can’t quote your own FAQ when answering questions, it’s probably not an authentic FAQ. poopa dulk goota yundug

content

You Are Always the Minority in Your Marketing – Be Counterintuitive

Market Moose — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:44:40 +0000

Personality studies have been around since Hippocrates among the ancient Greeks, and perhaps existed among the Egyptians as well. Whether it’s the four humours (Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic) or Jung’s four temperaments, or the four corporate personalities of the DISC system, personality studies have remained a vital means of thinking about differences of human motivation for at leat 2500 years. Unfortunately, most of the time, now, they’re used as fluff in corporate training seminars – feel good exercises for the instructor to get easy high marks, because we focus on the specialness of each individual. That’s an easy class to deliver. This means people haven’t always experienced the genuine usefulness and applicability of personality typing in core business processes.

One of the best uses of personality studies is in thinking about our marketing. While our own motivations are shared with about 25% of the rest of humanity (allowing for four general, not perfect, directions of motivation), that means that:

No matter what motivates you or I to respond, the vast majority of people will not necessarily respond to it or respond in the same way. By being 1/4 of the population, we’re saying that 3/4 of the population are driven by very different motivators from our own. In short:

You and I are always the minority of the population. That’s a hard bone for people to swallow, which is why it’s so important to face up to it, if you’re going to do effective marketing.

If you structure your marketing in a way that it appeals primarily to you, and people like you, it can fail 75% of the time, apart from any other considerations. And that’s if it’s perfect, otherwise. The number goes down from there.

See, most of us have a heretical (untrue) theory that we don’t admit or own up to. We think we’re normal. We think most people are like us. Or we think we’re like most people. And no matter who we are, or how we are, that just isn’t so.

It’s so important to remember this, because our own motivations are so ingrained (operating at the level of innate personality) that, in the absence of consideration, we tend to simply think of what motivates *us* as what motivates “people” – we regard how *we* work as how the “world” works. And that simply is not accurate. It’s not even accurate in various locales. It’s common to hear that “people around here” are a certain way. Nope – “people around there” are also differently motivated in about the same break down as everywhere else. The blindness we can experience, the ‘prejudice’ about what makes people tick is up against pretty good science that indicates we are actually born with certain personality traits – with some core tendencies in general directions that are not merely learned phenomena – they exist in the womb. It’s true that some communities will tend to impose more standardized roles on these differences, but the core distinctions still come through even in the pecking orders and differences in collaborative roles that exist within the community. The quieter, more thoughtful, less prone to act quickly individual works in the same coal mine as the hotter-headed, louder, more ‘high strung’ type. It’s not hard to see on any set of bar stools or in any extended family gathering.

This will necessarily be simplistic, but let’s break down the four core directions for purposes of marketing. Think of these as four ‘model’ prospects – four types of prospects that may visit and/or respond in different ways to your marketing:

Fact-Seeker: focused primarily on the rationality of your offering – will not be persuaded by hype, superficiality, or mere image – requires sufficient details to act – generally reserved about acting until there’s been sufficient thoughtful consideration – centered on information. Responds well to flowchart-like presentation (e.g core services list, details of rational differences from competition, path for action) that makes it about logic and information..
Driver: focused primarily on bottom line of your offering – less interested in details – tends to skip to the end – acts quickly. Responds well to summary presentation (e.g. core message, only sufficient details, multiple options for action) that makes it about accomplishment and options.
Helper: focused on attitude of your offering – cautious about acting – not generally an early adopter if the offering is radically different – checks for reference points in conventional experience – concerned about the social value – engagement as a person with a person or people. Responds well to credible reference points in conventionality, reliability, stability, and personal relationship that makes it about integrating better with society in general.
Socializer: focused on image-value or personal enhancement value of your offering – responds strongly to social prestige value and how offering positions them in relation to other people and to society in general – tends to skip over details in favor of style and attitude – acts quickly. Responds well to image-based presentation that makes it about ascending to a spotlight position in society or self enhancement.

Now these are necessarily generalizations. In fact, you might call personality studies:

The science of generalizing about prospect response. That’s why they’re useful memes for constructing our marketing. It’s not possible to interview each and every prospect before we market, it wouldn’t do any good if we could draw some general conclusions from such interviews anyway, and just because someone tells us why they respond doesn’t mean that’s accurate or even that they really know why they’re responding.

What personality studies give us is 2500 years of consensus about differences that we can import into our marketing plan to help us structure different campaigns. We might, for instance, decide to do four campaigns:

A landing page, e-mail or postcard campaign, or series of posters or videos that position our company’s offerings in terms of image-value, summed up in one phrase, visual, or vignette that isn’t a direct presentation of features and benefits. It might center on how the company’s offerings enhance the individual, alter his/her image in society, or why they’re chic. Imagine a man standing in line at a coffee shop, and he’s hit on by a girl, who simply sees him dangling a gold key fob with a brand emblem on it. Not exactly a rational presentation, is it? There’s at least 25% of the audience that won’t respond at all, and maybe only 25% who will. But personality studies indicate that’s true of any campaign, which is why this can’t be your only one at any given time. Which personality type do you think this is aimed at?
An in your face summary of a problem that you solve, in giant fonts, three sentences, no details or bullet points. Enter e-mail address at the bottom to act immediately (acts quickly) or call (options). This could be a landing page, for instance, or a short video, or a poster which features your e-mail (or URL) instead of asking for theirs. Which personality type might this appeal to most?
A simple chart consisting of 3 boxes with arrows, showing a linear process (problem to solve – bullets for examples, solutions available, and options to proceed). Each box has a [more] link to jump down to full details. In the latter section is a link to frequently asked questions with an invitation to engage and ask anything we haven’t covered. In addition there’s a video embedded that walks you through the process. This could be your main web site, or a landing page designed for this campaign, or a live presentation using a powerpoint. Which personality group is this primarily targeting?
A landing page featuring a) a warmer, more personal, more conventional presentation of your business. If your insurance company, this might include a local agent sitting down in an almost familial conversation with a group of family members (never just one type of person – it’s inclusive, and the client is not outnumbered). b) an emphasis on community involvement, the charitable activity of the company, or the ethics – how the company gives something back or takes care of people by maintaining sensitivity to people in general. Which general personality type is this campaign aimed at?

The mistake people often make is in structuring not only their core marketing, but all their marketing along the lines of what they think “people” respond to. It’s interesting, from the standpoint of a marketing professional who hears people’s versions of reality all day long.

25% of clients start off with, “I think people basically don’t like a lot of detail and clutter, and I want a warm, personal, friendly feel”.
25% say, “I want a kick-ass presentation that really packs a lot of oomph, because I think people are bored by details and basically respond to a sharp or polished image.”
25% claim, “I don’t need a lot of fluff in my marketing. I think if you just present the facts, rationally, people respond to that, not a lot of hype. I want to make sure they see the information they need to actually make an effective decision.”
25% say, “Bottom line, I don’t really care what we do as long as it works, but I do think you’ve got to position our bottom line right up front, prominently. All the details and stuff are fluff – put those somewhere if we need them, but hit them with the point first thing.”

You see? What you and I really tend to believe, if we’re honest, is that we’re representative. We don’t have to ask people why they say these things, but if we do, the response is usually, “I think most people…” Except, of course, they can’t all be right, can they? We’re not describing the world, we’re describing our own experience – not other people, but ourself and people we identify with. In fact, we tend to most identify with people who are most like us, and that tends to confirm (artificially) our suspicion that most people are like us.

In short, we tend to have cognitive biases that interfere with our ability to market our services more effectively.

This is enhanced by the fact that stereotypical marketing (which is the kneejerk marketing that most of us engage in if we don’t put more careful and challenging thought into it) is based on traditional sales, and not the newer, more evolved consultative approach to selling.

Traditional sales utilizes some variation of this formula: ask data-gathering questions, ask superficial probing questions to identify an opportunity or opening to seize upon, present a proposal, overcome objections, close the deal. This kind of sales is often called transactional sales because it relies on heavy turnover and fast numbers of initial deals but is less effective at a) retaining clients and b) keeping clients for repeat business. It’s not without value, though. In certain fields, for certain purposes, it’s appropriate – generally where we’re going to do business once, right now, and never again. And from it we take some valuable things that are still useful in today’s new marketing.

Traditional sales (and the marketing based on it) is now far less effective than it once was, because of the glut of such attempts and the vast increase in services available along with vastly enhanced means of access to those services (especially with the internet). Ask any real estate appraiser whether they’re having to contend with automated valuation systems and the attitude shift brought on by Trulia. The marketing effect of lingering in the older sales model boils down to simply a) deliver your information or message and b) ask for the sale. It’s simple, and it’s the minimum, and it’s the shortest, most direct route (the most efficient, if you ask fact finders). It does have value but, if that’s all there is, it’s already setting aside the majority of prospects from the start. A point of clarification here:

It doesn’t matter what you think you do for a living, you are involved in sales. It doesn’t matter if you “offer” services instead of products, you’re in sales. Best to face up to it. So we use the word sales here freely, and simply dismiss outright any semantical claims that “my business isn’t about selling”. Yes it is. That said:

The newer consultative sales models are based on increased engagement with clients, tailoring the relationship to their core motivations, and developing a longer-term relationship focused on repeat business, referrals, and additional ways to add value over time. It’s no accident that successful use of social media, which based on more balanced two-way communication (consulting) – less top-down or one-way pitching or talk, on keeping people in your orbit (as “friends” or “followers), and building a community or tribe or referral “group” around oneself within the larger professional community, has everything in common with consultative selling.

It is possible to try to make sure all the elements that appeal to all the personality types are presented in a balanced way on say the main web site of a company, which is what we try to achieve. However, that’s a subjective set of choices and in reality, that means that no one motivational direction will be wholly pleased. No matter who looks at it, they’ll either compare it to some typology of “good” sites based on a standardized criteria and stereotypes of how selling works – a cognitive checklist, or they’ll be prospects who you haven’t asked for evaluation, and we know how they actually respond by how they interact with the material and whether they act on it now, or in the case of the more reserved or cautious types, eventually. In short, we proceed at least partly against the notion of standardization itself, and partly in a concerted attempt to appeal at least somewhat to people who, in the main, are *not* like ourselves at all. This is why it’s important to not rely on just one marketing campaign, especially not the merely passive campaign of creating a web site and sitting on it waiting for the phone to ring. Whatever personality motivations we’re referring to have no trouble discovering gazillions of web sites and are not merely sitting around waiting for yours or mine to pop up on some radar grid, so they can swoop in and be wowed by it. Effective marketing will be active (you’ll get out of it only what you put into it, on a sustained, prolongued, ongoing basis), and it will proceed according to a coherent plan to engage the majority of prospects – that is, the ones who are very different than ourselves. In that regard, all effective marketing is counterintuitive – that is to say, it goes against our cognitive biases that suggest that we are representative of people in general.

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Get More Leads on Your Web Site with Lead Capture Forms

Market Moose — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:10:59 +0000

Today’s topic is why you should include lead capture forms on your web pages. The simple answer is to convert more web site visitors into actual leads that you know about in the first place, with actual contact information, so you can can reach out to them instead of lose them back to the open internet. You put a lot of work into provocative marketing material, optimizing your site for search engines, and contributing high value content on an ongoing basis, all to draw traffic to your web site – so why would you let visitors get away without at least inviting them to ask questions or contact you for more information? Why rely on just a contact button, or the likelihood that they’ll call after hours or go to the trouble of sending an e-mail, when you can make it as easy as entering two pieces of info and asking a question, without ever leaving the page? The average person looking for professional services visits several web sites before they make a choice of who to contact. They’re stealth visitors you might never even know about. Making contact easier and more inviting removes barriers to connecting you with your own visitors, and reduces the chances they’ll keep on looking around the web. Keep in mind, a lead capture form is called “lead capture” because it can capture the lead’s name and e-mail address into your contact database, where you can actually use it to keep them in the loop with things like e-mail drip campaigns, which can increase the likelihood that they do business with you and provide ongoing referrals. Key advice for today. Put lead capture forms on your web pages to convert more visitors into actual leads. poopa dulk goota yundug

Get Wider Distribution for Blog Posts By Connecting Social Media Accounts

Market Moose — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:04:10 +0000

Today’s topic is why you should set up your social media accounts to distribute your business blog posts. The simple answer is distribution – and it affects both people and search engines, for a double whammy of marketing potential. You spend time and effort to post to your blog, so why wouldn’t you make each post count even more? Why wait passively for people to find your blog and connect with your business, when you can actually go where people already are? Connecting your blog to your social media accounts, so your posts are actually distributed automatically across Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, means greater distribution of your content, plus links back to your blog that are picked up by search engines, and often used to give authority to your web site and to you as a professional. Keep in mind, another name for posting to social media sites is “microblogging.” Distributing your longer blog content on these microblogging or social media sties can increase interest and readership.Key advice for today. Connect your blog to your social media accounts to gain wider distribution. poopa dulk goota yundug

Grownups Don’t Believe in Unicorns – Ridiculous Marketing Fantasies and the Value Proposition

Market Moose — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:26:29 +0000

Do you believe in unicorns in your business? Once a month, we get an order for the following:

maximum competitive and marketing value
lowest possible cost, no frills
no learning, understanding, attention, or involvement required

In other words, we want to spend very little money and no real effort, but want to dominate our market place which is highly competitive. Oh, and by the way (it usually goes), will you throw in ongoing maintenance for the indefinite future at nominal or no cost?

If you have ever run a successful business, of course you already know that you didn’t operate this way, and neither did anyone you respect or anyone that lasted. There are people out there who try to deliver on this falsehood, either because they need the portfolio badly enough, or they really want a chance to learn the ropes on your dime. But we’ve never met a skilled plumber willing to replumb a house with superb materials, do all the work, make sure it lasts and remains effective, and charge you only what it costs for a couple of decent meals in New York. What’s the equivalent in your business? Do you get asked similar questions?

So we usually make one effort to explain how the value proposition in business works, because not everyone has operated a successful business before. For those who have, we’re also indicating that we’re not stupid or financially suicidal, and we adhere to the value proposition too. Others who know the value of good work respect that. The value proposition is simple: You can have it: effective, cheap, or time & effort-free – and you get to pick two. The dream is out there, of course. People still want to chase the dream of having it all. But those guys don’t ever do anything anyway. We’re talking about reality here.

So if that doesn’t work, we know we’re talking about unicorns – that is, rare animals that everyone has heard of that don’t actually exist. We don’t mean that people don’t sell marketing unicorns. You see ads for them every day. They sound like this: “ultimate effortless low-cost marketing solution”. In other words, they’re utter and unmitigated bullshit – or, if you’re of a slightly more delicate disposition, fluffy white unicorns. And the folks selling these adorable fantasies will have tons of reviews and testimonials by “customers” claiming how they’ve seen the unicorn and it has revolutionized their business. All you need to do is sign an annual contract for that nice monthly fee, give us your credit card number, and sit back and do nothing. They don’t even need your passwords. We always hang at the contract because, if it works, why wouldn’t you just keep on paying without the contract to force you to do so?

So along with unicorn merchants, there are unicorn believers – people with an unshakeable faith in those cute, fluffy bastards. And once we determine it’s a true believer we’ve got on our hands, there really only are two options. Keep trying to convince you (but we’re going to have to charge for that – that’s consulting), or let you go and exercise your faith in the open marketplace. Either way, there’s one point we like to leave everyone with: Anything effective takes either money or time and effort or some combination of both. We all want things. We want to be on top. We want to get more or have more of something, or at least to maintain what we have. The guy that tells you it’s possible without either money, involvement, or both is a liar. He might wear a suit. He might have a great web site. He might have tons of followers. He’s a liar. He’s telling you that the world is populated by unicorns. And we can prove he’s lying. It’s very simple. There’s one very easy way to tell. Ready? Here it is:

He’s telling you that unicorns exist, and he’s still asking for your money. Just like those guys that sell videotapes on how to become a millionaire, out of “altruism”, because they want everyone to achieve what they’ve achieved. You know the ones – standing in front of a rented Ferrari and a high rise condo tower they don’t live in, near a wonderful beach full of people whose parties they’re not invited to. If they really believed in unicorns, they’d be off chasing them. Doesn’t the nouveau riche gold jewelry and the silly macho sunglasses give them away? He’s lying. Otherwise, he’d be doing something else for a living.

The guy that tells you that anything good – anything that really works consistently and over the long haul – anything genuinely effective will cost you – either in money, time, or some proportion of both, is being honest, at least about that. And at some point, he’ll prove it, by letting you go if you don’t believe it. We pay our way in the world, or else we believe in fluff. That’s candid talk – maybe even offensive, if you’re in the church of unicorns. But it’s true, nonetheless. And truth is the starting place of effective marketing. We hope you appreciate it. If you don’t, just google “ultimate effortless low-cost marketing solution” and you should be on the unicorn’s track. Good luck. And let us know if you finally capture the unicorn. poopa dulk goota yundug