• 60% of CMOs think their digital strategies lack innovation
• Fewer than one in five CMOs think their organizations are any good at digital marketing
• 60% say they will be making agency changes this year to address a lack of innovation and dearth of value-added thinking from their outside partners
• Half plan to hire new talent this year, with digital operations a priority

What an opportunity for your company!

Or maybe…it could be bad news if you are one of the companies they are working with that isn’t relevant or providing the innovation they seek?

The study went on to say the following:

• A distinct tipping of marketing budgets to digital projects, both customer-driven and operational, noting that, on average, 27% of marketing budgets are being allocated to digital imperatives while only 23% of funds went to more traditional marketing expenditures

OK so what does this mean for your business?

• Marketers are moving away from traditional marketing
• They no longer will do direct mail or email ONLY campaigns
• They recognize that leveraging digital online campaigns lead to improve results
• Mobile marketing is a critical strategy for marketing success
• Finally they are looking for innovative partners that can help them leverage new emerging technologies

If your company wants to remain relevant and a critical resource for your customers you have to tap into the areas that your customers are focused on such as:

• Marketing Automation
• Cross Channel Marketing levering online digital response channels
• Mobile Marketing
• Contact Centric tracking and measurement
• A partner that is an innovator that helps them navigate the changing technology options

If you would like to discuss these trends and learn how you can become a critical resource helping your customers leverage digital more effectively contact me.

This article originally appeared on the MarketingExperiments blog. You can also sign up for the Marketing Experiments newsletter to receive more optimization research.

The success of everything you do in marketing — all of your planning, your automation, your copywriting — hinges on one moment …

The Ask.

Also known as the call-to-action.

In today’s MarketingExperiments blog post, we’ll share five common call-to-action errors we’ve discovered in our research, with an example experiment result for each one.

These errors were taken from, and you can learn much more in, the video replay of our “Minor Changes, Major Lifts: How headline and call-to-action optimization increased conversion 45%” Web clinic, written by Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director and CEO, MECLABS, and Paul Cheney, Editorial Analyst, MECLABS.

“Behind every call-to-action there is a perceived cost for taking that action,” Dr. McGlaughlin said. “By either reducing the perceived cost or increasing the perceived value in the button copy, we can generally observe an improved response.”

(Please note: Some samples have been anonymized to protect Research Partner identity.)

Error #1: A call-to-action without implied value

The result: 201% increase in conversions

The value to the customer for taking the requested action in the form on the left is … a sales call?

However, the value for taking action in the form on the right is free access to search a business and consumer database.

Which has more value to you?

Error #2: A call-to-action among several others

The result: 357% increase in monthly clients

The main call-to-action for the page on the left is … somewhere there.

The main call-to-action for the page on the right is “Get

Your Free Consultation.”

The modern customer is extremely impatient, and has an attention span that can barely get through 140 characters before moving on to the next thing. Don’t allow unsupervised thinking. Make it clear how you’d like the customer to act.

Error #3: Evenly weighted calls-to-action

The result: 64% increase in conversion

Sure, this isn’t quite as bad as error #2, but again, don’t allow unsupervised thinking. Make it clear what you’d like the potential customer to do.

Error #4: A call-to-action “above the fold”

The result: 20% increase in conversion

I’m sure you’ve heard it before. The call-to-action must be above the fold. This is a so-called “best practice” that we highly recommend you test on your own pages.

If you just rotely put the call-to-action above the fold, you may be making “the ask” before your potential customer sees the value in why they should act. Or, sometimes, before they even know what you’re asking.

A long, ugly page with a call-to-action “buried” below the fold can outperform this so-called “best practice.”

Error #5: A call-to-action that asks for too much

The result: 81% increase in clickthrough

Much like error #4, you have to understand the customer’s thought sequence. Asking for too much too soon can seriously hurt conversion.

This article originally appeared on the MarketingExperiments blog. You can also sign up for the Marketing Experiments newsletter to receive more optimization research.

Alignment

Alignment is the arrangement of items in a straight line or in corrective relative positions. Alignment takes a huge role in making your design look amateur or professional. Elements on a given canvas that have no alignment with other elements can make a page look cluttered, unorganized, and messy.

Alignment of two elements that are not close to each other can help create an invisible connection between them. Also aligning elements in a canvas will give your audience a unspoken path in which you can lead their eyes.

White Space (Negative Space)

White space is any portion of a page that is left unmarked. This can include space between graphics, margins, gutters, space between columns, space between lines of type or figures and objects drawn or depicted. A lack of white space can make a graphic feel too cluttered and unorganized as well.

With consistent white space between layout elements, you can create a piece that is well-organized and easy to read. Also with a large amount of white space around a given element, you can create an emphasis on that element, bringing the audiences attention to that item.

Repetition
Repetition is the recurrence of a given shape, color, line, or element. Repetition strengthens a design by visually connecting two individual elements. A lack of repetition in a design can alienate the elements on the canvas, and not tie into an overall theme.

By repeating a symbol or element, you can really tie your whole design together and give it a consistent theme all across the canvas. This will give your audience a better idea of what your design is trying to portray.

Color
As we all know, color is the reflection or emission of light off of an object. Color can create different moods, so choose your colors wisely when creating a design. A design that is supposed to convey a calm, trusting feeling might not be best represented by a bold red, orange, and black color scheme. These bold colors would most likely represent something that is fast and edgy.

When selecting colors, it is good to use repetition. Selecting similar colors/shades/tints will bring your design together and create relation between individual elements.

Overall, when creating any type of design, keep in mind these design principles. Adhering to their rules will tighten up your design and create an overall better looking piece to convey your message.

1. Plan as early as possible.  It’s always safe when you have leeway. You just never know any circumstances that might happen like getting sick.
2. Ask your manager, what he needs to get started. Primarily, you would ask or look around for vendors who can work around your budget. The initial reaction is of course, customer service.  From the quote you received, you’d be able to compare apples to apples.  Second is working around your budget and fast replies to your emails. Lastly, getting good vibes with the person is essential.
3. So now you decided which vendor you are going with, request another detailed quote.  Always double check the prices especially when you’re renting. Make sure if the equipment’s are one-time fee or per hour or per day.  Vendors tend to do acronyms so ask them what they are.
4. Now that you hired a vendor and starting to get to know him and the event. Create a checklist and time line (early bird deadline).   I won’t give you details on the check list. There are a lot of sources online to give you information of what you should put on your checklist.
5. Don’t shy away for follow ups.  Remember, your company is paying a lot of money for this vendor so don’t hesitate to call them when in doubt.  As much as possible, send them an email and then call. Email is good so you can document it.
6. Once, you feel that you’re  almost on the last leg of logistics, assign a designated person at your booth the day before the official opening to meet with your Marketing Director or whoever the manager of your company’s tradeshow.  Get his cellphone and give your manager’s cell phone. It’s always smart to check everything on site before the big day.
7. Last checklist. Create a checklist for your IT person for equipment that should be brought to the tradeshow.  Don’t forget to test the electronic equipment before packing it.  Secondly, create another checklist for your collaterals.
8. Get all the flight information of your company’s staff that is going to the tradeshow.  Put them in google docs so they’ll be able to know what time their colleague will be arriving or departing.
9. If you are not going to the tradeshow keep your mobile phone on.   Just in case your colleague needs something that needs to be shipped immediately or just have an important question , you can take action as soon as possible.

Hope these tips will help you in your next event. Keep in mind, being organized is the key to keep you calm and have a successful exhibit.

1. Your results are only as good as your mail file. Garbage in, garbage out. The best lists are organically grown, opted-in house lists of individuals that wish to receive your messages.
2. CAN-SPAM regulations govern your email blasts. You should be familiar with the requirements (including an opt-out method, a physical mailing address, and no misleading or deceptive information.)
3. Unsubscribes are not bad. In fact, you should be grateful for them. Unsubscribes are the polite way of your email recipients letting you know that either your offer is not compelling enough, you are sending it to the wrong people, or both.

 
If this is not intuitive, consider the alternatives:

1. Your recipient complains and marks your email as spam. With many email providers, this not only prevents them from receiving more emails from you, it hurts your sending reputation which negatively affects future email blasts to other clients. Many times, you will not even know that your email was tagged as spam. Result: You continue to pay to market to someone that does not even know you are still sending them messages.
2. Your recipient deletes or ignores your email. Your email may reach the inbox, but if it is not being read, why bother? Result: You continue to pay to market to someone that does not read your messages. If they become frustrated with the frequency or irrelevancy of your messages, it can lower your brand value.
4. Good emails are old school. This means that inline styles and tables should be used rather than the CSS web designers prefer today.
5. Email deliverability is an art, not a science. There are many factors involved in ensuring your emails are delivered to the inbox, and none of the top email service providers are sharing their secret sauce.

As always, the Dscoop annual meeting is a blend of education and networking opportunities. This year, the session is preceded by an invitation-only event for marketers, designers and creative. The DSee conference was sold out in one day! I am flattered to be allowed to attend, so watch this space for feedback on what some three or four thousand of our marketing and designer friends had to say about the capabilities for advanced cross-media marketing that I am sure many of them don’t even realize exist.

If you are planning to attend Dscoop, it sounds like it will be bigger than ever, and thus, more need than ever to plan your trip to get the most out of the experience.  I wanted to highlight three things you might want to pay attention to in Washington this year, especially if you are as tired of the political rhetoric as I am.

First, the Dscoop conference team (all volunteers, by the way) have planned a number of Deep Dive sessions. These will be taking place on March 22^nd, before the actual conference begins, and include highly relevant topics for attendees who are focused on Business/Sales or Operations/Technical:

• Direct Marketing Toolkit: A Business Development Strategy for Selling High-Value, Targeted Direct Marketing Campaigns (Business & Sales)
• Marketing 3.0: How Leading Marketers Optimize an Integrated Strategy for Improved Results (Business & Sales)
• Sustainable Green Printing Partnership Workshop – Your Roadmap to Certification (Operations/Technical)
• The Sales Shake-Up: 10 Laws to Regain Control of Sales (Business & Sales)

How to choose?  All topics look terrific. But if I could attend one (which I can’t, since I will be in the DSee Conference), I would probably choose Marketing 3.0.  This session looks to be focused on the marketer’s perspective, and all too often we don’t spend enough time listening to that perspective and thinking about how we can change our operations to better accommodate the real needs of marketers. This 2.5 hour session includes a discussion of the “seven must-haves” for engagement success in the marketing cluttered world we live in. Ultimately, of course, the choice of which Deep Dive to take is yours, but you should plan on doing at least one.

Secondly, drupa 2012 will be taking place in Dusseldorf from May 3-16, and HP has been busy pre-briefing the journalist and consultant community on what will be new at this mega-show.  Surely they will divulge at least some of the innovations at Dscoop, so be sure to watch for sessions from HP and its partners focused on what they plan to be showing at drupa, especially if you are not making the journey to Dusseldorf in person. A great place to start is the session co-hosted by HP’s Alon Bar-Shany and Chris Morgan, “DSCOOP7 WELCOME You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.’  This 90-minute session is the official kick-off of the event, scheduled for 4:15 PM on March 22^nd, and promises that HP Indigo is bringing its latest innovations to Washington DC BEFORE drupa. I hope to see you there.

Finally, our friends at MindFireInc are announcing a very interesting Marketing Platform that was developed new from the ground up and consists of three components:

• Marketing Studio which is an intuitive visual campaign design environment;
• Marketing Engine, which provides integration with print workflow management, web-to-print, customer relationship management (CRM), and other solutions, including APIs; and
• MAML, a new open architecture marketing mark-up language designed to describe the entire marketing campaign in a proprietary markup language.

I’m particularly interested in seeing how this platform functions, especially with the mark-up language, which is a clever idea.  Perhaps I will see you at MindFireInc’s launch event at booth #303, on Friday, March 23 at 11 am – 12 pm (it includes lunch, and you know how journalists are about a free lunch!). If you want a preview, or aren’t going to be at Dscoop, you might want to watch the video.

I hope to see you at Dscoop7.  These are just highlights, and there will be lots more great stuff.  If you will be there, WhatTheyThink will be doing video interviews again.  Post a comment below to secure your opportunity to become star of stage and screen!

In this post, we’re going to focus on the work aspect (not getting married or having a child, but I’m open to any and all husbanding and parenting advice!), and give you a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what we’ve been up to and why we’re excited to share it with you.

It all started with a traffic ticket …

The 2 Million Dollar Traffic Ticket

February 2010. I’m sitting in the world’s foremost idea incubator: Traffic Court.

Awaiting to appear before a judge for a ticket (infraction: speaking with Joe Manos on my cell phone … it’s against the law here in California!), I started doodling what became one of the key building blocks for our new Marketing Platform. Here’s the doodle …

I know it doesn’t look like much, but these sketches led to an idea we believe reduces complexity and provides a compelling framework for how you think about, launch, and manage multi-channel campaigns.

Within a few days of sitting in court, we made the decision to invest a few million in development.

But why? While we’re well known for Personalized URLs (PURLs), the opportunity for today’s marketer extends much further; as you know, now there’s SMS, Twitter, Facebook, and so much more. PURLs are just one tactic in an increasingly complex, sophisticated, and dizzying array of options.

That’s why we’ve created three things we’re excited about:

• The Marketing Studio: a visual environment (some Users are calling it an integrated development environment) for creating multi-channel, multi-touch campaigns;
• The Marketing Engine: a gnarly beast that powers everything; and
• The Marketing Language: an XML-based method for describing an entire marketing workflow, useful for integration and more.

I’ll tell you a bit more about each.

The Marketing Studio: The Visual Design Environment
The Marketing Studio is a slick drag-and-drop interface for visually creating multi-touch, multi-channel workflows. It’s what you use to plan, architect, and configure your cross-media campaigns. You can:

• orchestrate all sorts of offline-and-online media like direct mail, email, and social media, along with microsites and landing pages — all in an easy drag-n-drop environment, requiring no technical skills;
• leverage event-driven triggers to create marketing sequences (some people call them drip-and-nurture sequences), using any combination of media; and
• analyze campaign performance using Visual Reporting and Analytics, providing real-time insight in to campaign performance.

Our beta Users are excited about the fact that they can use the environment to brainstorm and design a campaign workflow as they’re sitting with a Client. Here’s a short video that gives you a sense of what I’m talking about.

By the way: All campaign activity is supported by a powerful contact repository that progressively captures behavioral information, allowing personalization and targeting in future communication.

Here’s a snapshot of what it looks like to create a workflow (this happens to be for a microsite).  Click to see more clearly:

The Marketing Engine
The Engine is seriously cool.  It’s the part of the system that executes your cross-media campaign, and has lots of horsepower.

The Engine:

• ingests an open architecture language (MAML) that describes an entire multi-channel, multi-touch marketing campaigns (more on that below);
• has APIs for creating, managing, and reporting campaign activity; and
• can be customized using Extension Modules.

Essentially, when you use the Marketing Studio to create a marketing campaign, everything you do is captured within a MAML file, which is fed to the Engine for execution.  Other applications can also feed MAML to the Engine.  Let’s look at this aspect a bit more closely.

The Marketing Language: MAML
Sure, its a funny word (say “mammal” out loud a few times …), but what’s it all about?

MAML is based on a special form of Extensible Markup Language (XML), and provides a way to describe an entire marketing workflow. When you use the Marketing Studio, the output of your work is MAML. This means that within a MAML document, each aspect of the marketing workflow is articulated, including various forms of media like email, SMS, and landing pages, as well as the content and personalization required by each element.

Think of it as a smart, self-described document that holds not only the marketing content, but also instructions for how campaign respondents interact with each element.

MAML expands workflow integration beyond the pressroom and into the enterprise itself. For example, MAML-enabled systems can interface with other systems such as print workflow management, CRM software, and web-to-print.

Here’s a snapshot that shows that what you design in the Studio is also expressed in XML:

We’re Just Getting Started . . .
I’m so thankful for that cell phone ticket 2 years ago. Hopefully, you’ll soon feel the same way.

Whether you need workflow freedom in designing multi-touch, multi-media campaigns using different media (watch this video to get an idea of what I’m talking about: bit.ly/MFIplatform), or if you’re a more technical User looking to integrate your web-2-print and cross-media solution for a higher degree of automation, we feel there’s something for you.

Here’s what we’d like from you: If you want to be on our beta list, leave a comment below. If something said here is unclear, leave a comment so we can clarify.  We’re still working through the best way to communicate about this platform, so your input is very helpful.

Here’s to traffic tickets — maybe a little less expensive next time!

The concept of “fascination,” is what captures the attention of your prospects and acclaims their loyalty. During the keynote, Sally Hogshead will be revealing the secret to the science of fascination. She will be sharing her research and how her internationally acclaimed book, Fascinate, about a study done on the science of fasciation, has helped marketers reach more prospects and customers through seven specific triggers.

Check out Sally Hogshead’s blog on her research about fascination:

For the past year, I’ve been getting ready to show you something pretty cool. It’s a new personality assessment. (We haven’t released our newest personality research yet, but you can get a first look today).

It all began with my researching the science of fascination. I wanted to understand a few simple questions:

• How do certain people immediately captivate us?
• How do certain leaders influence our opinions?

And more to the point…

• What makes your personality fascinating?

My research has revealed that you can become more fascinating. (In fact, if you want to succeed in any competitive environment, you must.)

It all begins with identifying and applying your natural, hardwired strengths of persuasion.

Here’s the good news: You already have the ability to create this force of emotional focus. It’s built into your own personality. You don’t have to fake it or rehearse it— it’s already there. You just have to identify it, and use it.

The team here at Fascinate, Inc. is about to release our new system. It pinpoints makes you fascinating to others. We’ll show you how to identify these natural strengths, and then amplify them, to become more persuasive.

This isn’t about how you see the world, but how the world sees you.

The Fascination Advantage is not a traditional psychology test, such as Myers-Briggs or StrengthsFinder. Our test comes directly out of our research, specifically designed to pinpoint what makes you fascinating to others.

Fascination is an intense emotional focus.

The science of fascination begins deep inside the human brain. Fascination isn’t the same as paying attention — it’s an intense emotional focus. This state of intense focus has been studied repeatedly by the most respected academics. You can harness this neurological response, and use it in work.

If you can activate the hardwired “triggers” in your customer’s brain, they will become instantly and intensely focused on you.

Once they focus on you, they are more likely to buy from you, respect you, like you, and trust you.

There are 7 different forms of fascination. Your personality uses 2 of them already, every day. Deep inside your personality, you’re already using 2 of these triggers to persuade others:

• POWER: Taking command
• PASSION: Attracting with emotion
• MYSTIQUE: Provoking curiosity
• PRESTIGE: Earning respect
• ALARM: Prompting immediate action
• REBELLION: Changing the game
• TRUST: Building loyalty

Which 2 triggers does your personality use? Our Fascination Advantage system identifies your pattern of persuasion, and outlines how to nurture your strengths with customers, co-workers, and family.

Anyone can become more influential, once they begin to apply their personality’s own fascination advantages. So what’s your Personality Archetype? Find out here, in a sneak peek of our site.

When you fascinate someone, they open themselves up to you, and your message. That’s when you have an opportunity to sell, and lead.

You can do this. Being fascinating is a choice.

You can choose to create the moments at will.

You can create this intense emotional focus.

You can do it starting today, with your personality’s natural strengths.

To view this blog post, please click here.