Canadian Marketing Blog

Optimize Your Mix: Five Lessons from Email Marketing

I am frequently approached by senior marketers – from across industries – who confide in me that they are grappling with how to achieve an optimal ‘marketing mix’ in light of all the available new media and traditional media. They want to build on their history of success in one medium or technology platform (e.g. mobile, print, web) and leverage all marketing media.

As someone who has seen many marketing and technology trends over the last 13 years, I have identified some consistently powerful lessons that, while drawn from permission-based email marketing, can be applied to improve marketing results across all platforms. These five lessons include:

1. Always Deliver Relevant Content and Segment

Technology has progressed to the point where recipients can choose key components of the marketing information they are to receive – including method of contact, content, timing and frequency. When customers and prospects have control over what marketing information they want, when they receive it and how it arrives, they are dramatically more likely to act upon a marketing campaign’s call-to-action.

2. Collect Your Customers’ Permission: They Demand It

Because gathering permission helps marketers build a positive brand experience and engage with customers, it has become a fundamental to all marketing campaigns – online and offline. The Do Not Call List is another demonstration that securing customer permission is every marketer’s obligation and responsibility. Furthermore, Canadian privacy legislation (PIPEDA) mandates permission is gathered.

3. Test. Measure. Test. Measure.

There are four key lessons regarding measuring and testing:

• Campaign metrics need to be tied to specific business goals at the onset of any campaign. For example, ‘brand reach’ can be linked to the number of new subscribers and successful initiatives to build referrals.

• Use campaign-specific and company-established benchmarks in addition to industry-wide stats.

• As technology and campaigns progress, the meaning and importance of metrics evolves. For example, at one time, email open rates had been held out as the key measure of campaign success. However, with image-blocking software and the popularity of preview panes, the focus has switched to achieving specific conversions.

• As marketing technologies have evolved to allow for variable delivery options, so too has the ability to test several component parts of each marketing campaign. In email marketing, that means the ability to test subject lines, copy, personalization and the specific offer.

4. Focus on “Relative Time” Rather Than on “Absolute Time”

Marketers have long recognized that timing can make or break a campaign. The challenge however is the tendency to seek a ‘perfect time’. Throughout the year, email marketing studies are published that point to a particular day of the week and/or time-of-day as ‘the best time’ to reach out to customers and prospects.

However, because marketing is about establishing, nurturing and enriching relationships, choosing the right times to optimize a campaign’s results involves addressing several items such as: when the previous communication was delivered, the nature of the communication and the time-sensitivity of the message.

5. Integrate with Business Applications

Whether you are leveraging call centres, point-of-sale tracking or any other media, integrate the flow of appropriate data into business applications so that the effectiveness of each campaign can be tied to key metrics such as revenues and acquisition costs. One of the reasons that email, for example, is poised to become an even more powerful marketing tool is because it can be easily integrated into business platforms such as Customer Relationship Management systems and Content Management Systems.

As senior marketers, we are all working towards one common goal: creating and sustaining a positive experience to acquire and retain customers. These lessons, drawn from permission-based email marketing, allow every marketer to harness and optimize their marketing mix.

I welcome hearing any lessons that have helped you optimize your marketing mix - share here on the CMA Blog, or feel free to contact me directly at president@thindata.com.

Be Careful What You Ask Your Customers

There is no doubt that understanding the needs and wants of customers in an ever-more competitive economic environment is critical. Major enterprises spend millions of dollars a year on painstaking market research and consumer surveys. Every year, thousands of shoppers are buttonholed as they enter stores or call customer service centers and then are quizzed about their shopping experience. But a study by Stanford Graduate School of Business indicates that marketers greatly exaggerate the value of matching presumed preferences of consumers and giving them what they want. The study has demonstrated that information gleaned from some widely used types of customer surveys can be misleading and even counterproductive.

The research strongly indicates that priming consumers to anticipate an upcoming interview leads to unexpected, and generally negative, results. The more shoppers were asked in advance, the more negative they became. Most negative of all were the consumers who knew they would be quizzed.

Some popular survey methods actually put consumers in a negative frame of mind, hardly the results the companies paying for the survey had envisioned. The mere fact that consumers are told in advance to form evaluations leads them to believe that they are expected to focus on negative aspects, and they act on that assumption. It marks a distinct departure from prior work that concluded polling consumers just prior to shopping or encouraging buyers to compare products on the shelves was likely to be more accurate.

Most consumers want to be honest, and even helpful, when they participate in a survey. But too many consumers, helpful means being (constructively) critical or at least offering suggestions for improvement, as opposed to simply stating their opinions—good or bad. Moreover, taking a survey and giving a thoughtful answer to complex questions about why they behaved in a certain way isn't easy. Most consumers don't have real insight into their own motivations. Consumers who decide on their own to compare products take decisions, as you might expect, subconsciously without rationalizing their choices, the way they do in research.

Telling consumers to make comparisons, which is a practice that marketers use a lot, can be very uncertain because it can change the behavior of consumers in very fundamental ways. The mere fact that they are asked to make a comparison causes them to become unusually cautious.

Lets Talk about Loyalty

I walked into my bank this morning and for the first time in the history of dealing with this bank I was actually thanked for my business. The teller, while completing a transaction noted the length of time I have been with the bank (14 years) and said “wow you’ve been with us a long time. Thank You!” She was the only one who’s ever thanked me, and that was the only instance where the length of time I had been with the bank had ever been referenced.

This got me thinking… about how often this actually happens.

Additionally, I heard a story on the radio not too long ago about some guy that had been a lifelong seasons ticket holder for a major Toronto team. It was a tradition passed down by his father. One year he ran into financial difficulty (having kids in University and other financial stressors) and had to make the difficult decision not to renew his tickets. He received not one solitary phone call or letter. 25 years of attending games in the same seats and not one person thinks to ask WHY.

Sure everybody wants new customers, more customers, brand longevity, and loyalty. But what are you doing to thank the customers you currently have? What are you doing to let them know that you appreciate them, that you think about them every now and then, and that they mean something? My guess is, not enough.

There are companies who do an outstanding job at this, but most, reduce this relationship to direct mail or email spam which, isn’t really a “thank you” and is more of a “here buy more stuff”.

Sometimes, when I finish a project with a client, I write them a hand-written note on a thank you card and send it along with some candies just to say thanks. This clearly wouldn’t work on a large scale (and not suggesting it should), but why not reward customers for staying with you the same way you reward employees for staying with you. Have 3, 5, 7 and 10 year milestones, each with it’s own reward.

These days loyalty is fleeting, consumers are looking for MORE out of their brands, and it is increasingly harder to compete with other brands. Companies have to get crafty in a variety of ways, including loyalty. If a customer isn’t feeling the love, they’ll run for the hills into the arms of another.

Ironically, before I got the “thank you” this morning I was thinking about switching my banking over to another institution.

Going Vertical: 5 Key Considerations

Visit any Web site, read any piece of collateral or examine any marketing program, and you won’t find too many b-to-b organizations marketing products. The age of solutions is now upon us, and vertical-specific solutions have rapidly become the approach of choice to capitalize on this growing craze. Most organizations correctly understand that the value of a vertical focus is in its ability to leverage and target specific features and benefits to specific needs within specific markets, but it’s never that easy. Today, I’ll share five key gates that b-to-b organizations wanting to go vertical must navigate.

1. Segmentation Every vertical market actually comprises many sub-verticals, each of which is its own “industry within an industry” with highly specific business drivers, buying processes and macro factors that will greatly affect the proclivity to buy what you sell. When b-to-b marketing or sales leaders tell me they target the “financial services” market, my first question revolves around asking whether they have taken subsequent cuts. Is it banks? Insurance companies? Brokerage houses? Buy side? Sell side? And most important, what are the selection criteria that have been used to prioritize one or more against the others? The creation of a ranking framework helps to ensure that the best sub-verticals are selected, not the ones that for one political reason or another carry the loudest voices.

2. Solutions Delta
Few issues within specialized marketplaces can be solved through the purchase of a single product; vertical positioning is the most powerful when a complete industry-specific solution is offered. Few organizations have an existing product that by itself solves a sub-vertical need, unless it was developed specifically for that purpose. For example, unless you have intentionally developed a straight-through-processing solution for online trading, it is unlikely an existing product in your portfolio has the right capabilities. To go vertical, products will have to be enhanced or adapted, or partnerships with complementary vendors will need to be forged. Armed with a list of sub-vertical targets and key issues, a ranking framework and an understanding of what the solutions delta would be within each, you can now adequately prioritize and select your targets.

3. Domain Knowledge
There are many reasons that someone in a particular marketplace will buy something. There might be a catastrophic event that forces their hand in an immediate sense, or they are convinced over time by influencers that they trust that a change needs to be made in the way they have grown accustomed to doing business. As marketers, we must be able to understand these potential catastrophic reasons and the sub-vertical-specific impacts of waiting until disaster occurs to find a solution, as well as to align ourselves with the specific influencer communities that can credibly assist us to drive change. With buying triggers in hand, we can begin the gathering of domain knowledge that relates to the way that prospects buy within a specific marketplace.

4. Messaging
The first step in marketing any vertical solution is to review your messaging architecture. This involves auditing your existing messaging and positioning and updating them to communicate value to individual marketplaces/sub-verticals. Taking this step will transform your organization’s messaging as well as impact how it is delivered by sales. The next step is to learn the language of the marketplace(s) you are targeting. After you have developed new messaging and positioning, validate it with any customers in the space, and refine both as necessary.

5. Sales Readiness
Vertical success does not start and end with marketing; sales must also be able to internalize and communicate value propositions, business needs and capabilities against relevant audiences that it will manage within buying processes. A sales readiness function can play a key role in moving sales to a solutions mentality by working with product marketing to gather content and training materials necessary to equip sales to sell vertical solutions and to release this information in a sales playbook that can be more easily absorbed by the field.

Executed incorrectly, vertical marketing can be a very dangerous business. Although some organizations may find a quick boost with better messaging in the short term, long term they will be challenged to deliver on implied promises, a fact that competitors can and will expose. Taking a measured approach to sub-vertical selection and execution not only ensures sustainable success in the short term, it becomes the foundation for future solutions expansion

Why isn’t your message sticking with Buyers?

In the Top Business book of 2007 “Made to Stick”, the Heath brothers are interested in the question of what makes some ideas effective and memorable and other ideas utterly forgettable? Some ideas stick and others fade away. Why?

“People tend to think that having a great idea is enough, and they think the communication part will come naturally. We are in deep denial about the difficulty of getting a thought out of our own heads and into the heads of others. It’s just not true that, “If you think it, it will stick.”

And that brings us to the villain of our (their) book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.

Here’s the great cruelty of the Curse of Knowledge: The better we get at generating great ideas - new insights and novel solutions - in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly. That’s why knowledge is a curse. But notice we said “unnatural,” not “impossible.” Experts just need to devote a little time to applying the basic principles of stickiness.

JFK dodged the Curse. If he’d been a modern-day politician, CEO (or a VP of Sales & Marketing), he’d probably have said, “Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry, using our capacity for technological innovation to build a bridge towards humanity’s future.” That might have set a moon-walk back fifteen years”.

Elizabeth Newton PHD at Stanford discovered the Curse of Knowledge in 1990. In a controlled group study, she had half of the group act as Tappers, tapping a choice of 25 well known songs like Happy Birthday by knocking on the table and the other half acting as listeners whose job was to guess the song based on the rhythm being tapped. Out of 120 songs, the listeners only guessed 2.5% of the songs. What’s interesting is that before the listeners guessed the name of the song, Newton asked the Tappers to predict the odds that the listeners would guess correctly. They predicted the odds were 50%.

So, the Tappers think they are successful at getting their message across 50% of the time yet they are successful only 2.5% of the time, why? (Try the tapping exercise now yourself.)

When a Tapper taps, they hear the song in their head. The listener, however, can’t hear the tune, all they hear is a bunch of disconnected taps.

The problem is that the Tappers have been given knowledge (the song) that makes it impossible for them to imagine what it's like to lack the knowledge. This is the curse of knowledge.

Isn’t the curse of knowledge reenacted everyday in enterprise sale? Just as the Tappers can’t believe the Listeners could be so stupid to guess ‘Happy Birthday’ to ‘Hey Jude’, are salespeople not equally exasperated how stupid buyers are to not see the value of their offering? To the buyer, are you not speaking in abstractions the buyer can’t understand? Are you not just tapping: Speaking the arcane language of specialization?

Aside from de-learning what you know, the best way, according to the authors, to beat the Curse of Knowledge is through the use of stories.

So, how could you help buyers write their own story about how they could visualize using your offering to achieve a goal, solve a problem and satisfy a need?

After the buyer admits a goal, would it help if buyers write their own story; e.g, if your salespeople could ask the buyer a series of diagnostic questions to fully uncover the buyer’s problem/cost [incentive to change] to their operations?

If the salesperson then followed up on this meeting with a letter outlining what the buyer said was their goal, what what was holding them back and the capabilities that the buyer said could help, [all in the buyer’s words], would that help your message stick with your buyers?

Buyers still might not buy into your message, but would it be such a bad thing if they bought your offering, not based on your message, but instead based on their own?

If you would like to find out more about how to move away from "proposing value" based on product features, and instead, start to help the buyer "create value" by linking your best capabilities to their real business issues, then attend the upcoming CMA event “Aligning Marketing with Sales: Turning theory into reality” on Sept 4th in Toronto.

Don’t focus on mobile, focus on the customer

It’s great to see how mobile as a marketing channel is going mainstream and becoming a mass medium in North America.

Barack Obama has done his part by announcing on his website that people can opt-in to be the first to know via SMS message who his running mate will be during the week of August 25th. Obama has already launched 25 other SMS based campaigns to his supporters so far during this campaign.

Even in Canada we are starting to get it.

The CWTA reported in July that more Canadians are texting more often. 40% of last year’s total was sent in Q1 alone this year. We are on track to reach 20 billion SMS messages sent this year – which would be double last years.

With the iphone having finally arrived in Canada and other next generation smartphones arriving this summer (Blackberry Bold, Palm Centro, Samsung Instinct etc…), we expect massive growth in the mobile internet in Canada.

Having said that, don’t allow the technology to drive your marketing strategy.

Mobile is a great way to extend and support your marketing campaigns – but it’s rarely successful on its own. Without proper integration and support in other channels (web, email, print, TV etc..), Mobile campaigns are rarely successful. In one recent campaign mobile drove 20% of customer activity – but that was supported by other “traditional channels.”

How much of your marketing budget should you allocate to mobile?

I’m recommending that marketers interested in learning how to best incorporate mobile into their overall marketing strategies should allocate up to 10% of their budget to mobile… which includes SMS, mobile web, Bluetooth, and mobile advertising. Unlike a year ago, there’s now some good inventory to buy through Yahoo! Canada and a few other local providers.

Treat the 10% as an investment into your future marcom activities – although like other digital channels, you can still expect to get measured results that can be incorporated into your dashboards.

Workplace Harmony between Gen Y’ers and Boomers

According to a recent Ernst and Young study, 45 percent of baby boomers say they are comfortable using technology, but only nine percent of Generation Y (born after 1980) think that boomers are adept at technology. These misperceptions can cause big problems in the workplace. About 84 percent of Gen Y’ers use technology to avoid difficult conversations while boomers prefer discussing difficult subjects in person or over the phone.

Younger people think that boomers’ inefficiencies with technology create lost opportunities for their workplace while boomers think that members of Gen Y need to work on having more face-to-face interactions. Let’s not forget who invented technology. Bill Gates is a boomer and so is Steve Jobs. According to the Savvy Boomer, a popular blog helping boomers understand how to use technology, the boomer generation uses technology as a means to an end. Younger people use technology as the end.

I have some tips for reconciling boomers and Gen Y on this subject: boomers should invite younger folks to more face-to-face meetings while younger people should teach boomers more about technology!

Olympic advertising that connects us.

When the Olympics come around every two years, we're treated to enjoying the world's elite athletes compete to win and make their fellow countrymen proud.

For these Beijing games, you've no doubt felt the nervous energy leading up to the opening ceremonies.

Press coverage moved between the city's pollution, terrorism and security concerns (wondering if someone was going to succeed in blowing out the Olympic torch during the global relay), to China's architectural wonders, conceived and built to host the opening ceremonies, like the National Stadium (known as the Bird's nest) and the eye popping National Aquatic Centre.

But as entertaining as the brawn and physical beauty of today's athletes is watching the new crop of Olympic inspired advertising. These ads differ from their Super bowl brethren in that they are more inspirational and maintream, trotting out a company’s philosophy, aspirations and speak to their spirit of achievement. Whether you believe them or not, watching them does give you a tinge of thinking about what’s possible in life.

Twelve North American marketers - including Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa, Adidas and Volkswagen - are spending a total of $866 million, or $72 million each, to be global sponsors, up from a total of $600 million in 2004. And that doesn't include advertising. The sponsors and others are expected to spend an additional $1.5 billion for TV and online ads, which are reportedly topping at $750,000 for a 30-second TV spot in select prime-time slots, more than double the $339,000 for the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Here’s some examples of advertising that's trying to connect our emotional dots:

Air Canada – in the midst of sky high fuel costs, company layoffs and reduced services, Marketel’s new spots focus on Air Canada’s behind the scenes story of taking our athletes safely to the games. Engaging, simple, powerful.

Adidas – This spot communicates a fundamental Chinese belief that the accomplishments of one are the result of efforts of many. Stand out production values.

This commercial to the spirit of achievement, called RobA4, is amazingly cool and you're left wondering - "how the heck did they do that?"

In this crazy global world, we're connected to each other by the web and our cultural differences are drummed into our eyes and ears each day. It’s nice then, that during these Beijing days of summer, companies use the Olympic spirit to focus on the qualities of life that transcend culture and are common to us all.

SEE YA LATer BEAVerS

Have you noticed the billboards and the station domination at Bloor Station with the ubiquitous "er". You can't really miss them. They're everywhere. I have to admit, I've been intrigued. But my first thought when I saw this teaser campaign was, I hope they don't let me down when they pay it off.

Well, you be the judge. Here's the pay-off:http://www.bell.ca/home/

From my perspective, it's actually not bad. But does it make me want to send the link to all my friends because it's so differentiating for a rather commoditized brand? Not so much. Is it clean and smart and more appropriate for the brand? I think it is. I do wonder however, whether Bell has gone from one extreme (cute beavERs, retail) to the other (clean, corporate, even a little cold) a little too quickly. Even the new logo removes any connection to humanity. (Remember the yellow swirl around the face in the old logo?)

In the end, it doesn't really matter. Bell is trying to do things differently and that's probably a good thing. But can the service and product offering fulfill on the promise of the new "BETTer" brand?

Someone actually told me a story recently that best represents how seriously Bell seems to be embracing change. The phone rang, my friend picked it up, said hello and heard: Mr. [Smith], I'm calling from Bell. How can I help you today?

In disbelief, my friend said, well, I'd like a FREE Blackberry Curve.

His account was credited $400.

Seriously.

Maybe, in keeping with the times, this is change we can believe in.

R.I.P. Beavers.

Talent Crunch Major Issue for Marketers: CMA Study

A new CMA study finds that students considering a career path in marketing are often not learning enough about the field of marketing in school nor at job and career fairs typically organized by educational institutions. This disconnect is a serious concern for Canadian marketers. Moreover, as the marketing function takes on greater credibility and accountability, it is presenting a major challenge to marketers seeking out the calibre of talent they need to be successful.

Richard Boire shares his thoughts about the talent crunch, below.

Having commenced my career at such leading-edge direct marketing organizations as American Express and Reader’s Digest, the discipline of numbers to make marketing decisions was embedded within the corporate cultures of both organizations. In discussions with my fellow MBA business colleagues at that time (mid eighties), I thought that this was the norm but quickly realized that these organizations were the rare exceptions. In those days, technology and its associated costs were very prohibitive and effectively were a barrier to entry in terms of using numbers for more effective decision-making within the area of marketing. The old adage of not being a numbers person still implied that you could have a successful career in marketing.

This is no longer the case as technology is no longer a barrier to entry with marketers now having access to meaningful numbers. The real limitation is the skill-set to understand and interpret numbers in order to make effective marketing decisions. Some success can still be attained without a numbers discipline but it is confined within the creative side of marketing. However, in order to advance to the more senior levels, marketing experience without any numbers discipline will be a roadblock to today’s young marketers wishing to advance their careers.

This ever growing discipline in marketers becoming more numbers-oriented provides a level of objectivity regarding business decisions that has often been the sole domain of finance. As a result, the disciplines of finance and marketing are now converging to some extent in terms of a numbers discipline skill-set. Yet, marketers will still need to have that creative thinking and expertise in order to bring more meaningful insights into the numbers. This is the real competitive advantage of the marketing discipline relative to other business disciplines. It is reflected in the growing salaries of marketers who exhibit these new skills.

However in most academic institutions, this message is not being heard as marketing is still considered a non-numbers type discipline. The message is also muted regarding the tremendous salary growth potential for students who have these skill-sets.

Institutions are beginning to offer some courses in these areas in order to allow students to become more familiar with these skill-sets. Yet, the discipline of numbers is not embraced as a core academic objective for any student graduating with a degree in marketing. In the brave new world of marketing, it is academia that is lagging behind the changing needs and skill-sets of marketers.

As academia closes this gap in providing the right academic infrastructure --and it will, we will then observe an increased demand for college/university graduates into the marketing profession.