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[clairerollo]

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Hi,

I just moved my posts from Posterous! Do go though my blog for all the new posts.

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3Crumbs app - Are you the local thrifter we all have been looking for? 

[clairerollo]

When Targeting Fails

Now I am a big admirer of Apple, being one of the many London folk addicted to their beautifully designed products. But in terms of knowing their customers and sending out relevant emails...still lots of room for improvement.

Just check out this email I got from this morning

Subject line: "Get the new iPad for uni. And 35 pounds for apps."

  The whole email is targeted at Students planning for their first term at university, with even details on student financing.

Great email if I had received it 18 years ago!

[clairerollo]

Email marketing – debunking the “best practices”

Below is the full copy of my interview with Dave Chaffey, which first appeared in SmartInsights.

Email marketing – what are the obvious mistakes to avoid

Q. Email marketing is now an established part of the communications mix. But newcomers enter the scene all the time. What are the most common mistakes made by ‘newbies’, and which opportunities do they tend to miss out on?

Trying too hard not to make any mistakes

When it comes to mistakes, the email industry has managed to position itself as completely unforgiving. Email subscribers are portrayed as being less than a hairsbreadth away from hitting the spam button and boycotting your business forever. ISP’s like Gmail Yahoo etc. are watching your every move and making decisions about whether to deliver your email or not, so any mistake you make however small will result in the direst consequences for you and your business.

You could argue that innovation and creativity is being stifled because many email marketers, not just the newbies are not pushing hard enough at the boundaries because we are trying so hard to avoid making any mistakes. One of the most striking things about email is how quickly opinion coalesces around any given “best “practice. Once consensus is reached, very few bother to actually test whether “better” practice exists. The great thing about working at Alchemy Worx is we are encouraged to push the boundaries and within reason question everything in the search for a better solution for our clients.

Here are some great examples of accepted practice that do not stand up to close scrutiny.

1) Long subject lines are bad Not necessarily true. At Alchemy Worx, we have spent a lot of time researching subject line length and have found that while it is true that shorter subject lines are better at driving opens longer subject lines are better at driving clicks because they deliver a more qualified audience to the offer.

2) There is a best time of day or day of week to send your email Some think that sending emails at a specific time, or on a certain day, produces a better response by itself. But do subscribers REALLY open emails just because it’s 3pm on a Friday or 12.00 on a Wednesday? We have spent more than 5 years analysing client data to see if there is a best time or day to send email. There isn’t.

  When it comes to timing the only thing that has a consistently significant impact on sales generated by an email is proximity to payday. Emails sent just before or after payday generate more revenue than those sent mid-month.

3) You should remove inactive subscribers from your list Of course any sane marketer would immediately stop mailing anyone on their list who they knew for certain would never transact again and/or actively disliked receiving their emails. The issue isn’t if you should take an inactive or disgruntled person off the list – of course you should and most people do – but HOW do you tell they ARE inactive or disgruntled.

With very few exceptions when it comes to sales and marketing, long term inactivity is perfectly normal. After all, how often do you actively interact with marketing communications of any kind from a car dealer, insurance company, estate agent, bank, consumer electronics retailer, hotel chain etc.? Yet almost all “best practice” documents seem to advocate indiscriminately purging your list of every subscriber who has not opened an email for 3, 6 or 12 months.

Most inactive people on your list are people who want your email, but haven’t needed your product, service or information in that time. We call these people unemotionally subscribed.

They are happy to ignore your messages until they are ready to buy, because it is easier than unsubscribing and having to remember your URL or Google you at a later date. Here are 2 real examples:

£70,000 generated by subscribers who had not opened or clicked on the previous 25 to 40 emails – it was a great offer.

14% of 2008 revenue and 7 % of 2009 revenue generated by subscribers who did not open or click at all in 2007

What do declining email engagement measures mean?

Q. Open and click rates have been falling over the past couple of years as social media has taken off. So is email marketing in trouble’

The connection between the rise of social media and email open and click rates is a spurious one and for me obscures the real surprise, which is the fact that email performance has remained very robust despite huge year on year increases in email volumes. According to the latest Email Benchmarking Report produced by the Direct Marketing Association, UK marketers sent over 1.7 billion emails in the first half of 2010. That’s an increase of 50% against the same period in 2009!

A 50% increase, and yet open and click rates held up year on year at 24% and 11% respectively. Email is delivering huge numbers of additional clicks at an estimated CPC of between 5p and 7p. Beat those numbers!

Without a doubt, email is still by far the most cost effective way to get a marketing message in front of any given individual or list and is huge amounts of traffic to brands at a fraction of the cost of search or banners – which is why Facebook and Twitter are so reliant on email. It is without the doubt the driving force behind e-commerce AND social media.

Are there better engagement measures for email?

Q. Many would say that open and click rates aren’t the best way to assess campaign engagement or effectiveness anyway. Which other measures can email marketers consider?

I agree. Open and click rates are extremely misleading metrics and can lead you astray. We prefer to focus on hard numbers. So for example you have a list of 100,000 subscribers who you send one email a month to and your average open rate is 20% and click rate 7% (20,000 opens and 7000 clicks). You decide to send 2 emails a month to your list. Your open rate and click rates will almost certainly fall to say 17% and 5% respectively. So you could conclude that your tactic has failed because sending more email has resulted in a drop of around 15% in your open and click rates. Or you could conclude that increasing your mailing frequency to 2 a month is a huge success because you are getting 34,000 opens and 10,000 clicks.

More recommendations on “best practices”

Q. What about your own winning approaches or “best practices”  - please suggest some marketers should consider to increase engagement with their subscribers?

Hmm, where to start? Here are some of the strategies and tactics that I believe are effective:

First, optimise and use your data! Capture relevant data like gender, birthdays and anniversaries – and use it to target content and offers. Detail is the key here. So if you’re a travel company, in which month did your subscriber book their holiday? Once you know this, you can ramp-up your offers around this time next year.

Or maybe you’re selling electronic goods. Does a customer favour a particular product category like TVs? If so, use dynamic content to personalise things like newsletters, and to cross-sell into related categories. ‘Bought that? Maybe you’d also like this?’

But don’t over engineer the segmentation. You don’t want to pigeon-hole your subscribers too much as it limits cross-selling opportunities.

Next, introduce and develop more lifecycle emails as they provide value to your subscriber. Welcome email programmes are vital to engagement. Create a welcome series rather than just one email. This enables you to convey ALL the benefits of being a subscriber.

Emails based on recipient behaviour or actions can be highly effective. You might enable people to pre-register for updates on new phone releases, or notify someone when a product they tried and failed to order is now back in stock.

Offer tips and advice. This is value-added content they might not be able to get via social media channels. And think about whether it’s wise to direct people to Facebook or Twitter for this content. If you’re an email marketer, surely it should be the other way around. Also, offer exclusive content ONLY to email subscribers – things like genuine incentives and discounts.

Hot topics

Q. Finally, which aspects of email marketing excite you most at the moment?

I am most excited by research we are conducting with our clients which shows that email is a very powerful branding tool. It is leading us to completely rethink our approach to subject lines in particular. Because every single message you send has an incremental – and if you do your job properly – positive impact on the recipient.

The preoccupation with engagement defined and measured by open and click rates means that we treat each message we send out as a singular and unique event that has not been affected in any positive way by the emails we sent before, nor does it impact any emails we send subsequently. This is simply not the case.

If the industry average for open rates is 24% it means that the vast majority (75%) of people on your list will not open your message no matter what you do. Yet we spend all our time trying to come up with a subject line that will make everyone open the email! If you think of each message as delivering a subtle yet powerful brand impression and that you have 12, 52 or more opportunities a year to put your message across you would start to realise that the unopened emails are as important if not more important than the ones that get opened! Particularly as we live in a multi-channel world.

So for example if you sent an email on Friday with the Subject line “20% off all Australian wine in store this weekend” you would not consider the unopened emails as wasted.

Email as the new broadcast channel – now THAT is controversial!

[clairerollo]

My top 10 websites and blogs for marketing advice – including direct marketing, email and social media

I am often asked what blogs I read and what are my favourites - so here you go.

1)  econsultancy.com  - if you need information and advice on anything digital, enconsultancy is the one for you. I am also a member and can’t recommend their research reports and guides highly enough

 2)  Smartinsights - the excellent Dave Chaffey (with Richard Sedley and Mark Brownlow amongst others contributing) will advise you on digital strategy, web analytics, conversion optimisation, social media, search engine, affiliate and email marketing

 3)  Email marketing reports – Mark Brownlow consistently comes up with detailed thoughts and analysis on the latest trends coupled with straightforward advice and support on how you can improve your email marketing

 4)  The Direct Marketing Association - the email blog has contributions from some of the UK’s top email gurus, and my favourite email speakers including Dela Quist, Kath Pay and Denise Cox 

 5)  Drayton Bird - 100 free DM ideas. If you haven’t already done so sign up to 'THE direct marketing gurus' free tips email and be educated, amused and entertained along the way

 6)  Copyblogger - a mountain of lists and tips to help you improve your copywriting, no matter what you are selling

 7)  Seth Godin’s blog - best selling author, his posts span many topics including areas of leadership, management, change and marketing. He will keep you abreast of what the world of work will be like in years to come

   8)  Smart Blogs - social media. Sign up to the newsletter and get your daily update on all that is new in social media, along with tips and the latest advice from a vast range of sources

  9)  Mashable - How to. Well no list on top social media sites would be complete without these guys. A veritable feast of information, news and advice

  10)  queer ideas – and finally even though I am not a fundraiser I have used this blog extensively – it is a must read for all fundraisers on whatever you are trying to achieve from Mark Phillips.

  There are other sites (apologies if I have missed you) but in all honestly these are my most visited.

Most of these blogs are commercially focussed, but they have been chosen as they will give you all you need to know in areas of direct marketing and social media keeping you up to date and ahead of the pack.

[clairerollo]

Twitter & social media monitoring tools and the latest developments on social media KPI's

There are loads of free tools out in twittersphere, which can give you feedback and analysis on your influence on twitter and how successfully you are engaging with your followers at large.

Three of the best, which I think give you the best insight are

klout.com

tweetstats.com

twitteranalyzer.com

Klout measures various aspects of Twitter usage and network, but focuses more on how influence and messages are spread via your network, rather than look at just your number of followers - which doesn't say much about your influence. For instance many early adopters have large follower numbers for that very reason.

Below is a copy of my 'tweet wordle' from tweetstats which illustrates what I have tweeted about over the last 15 months or so. This allows me to check that the main focus of my tweets are on what I 'promised' it would be in my bio - marketing, social media, twitter and NCVO are all pretty prominent.

...as is 'thanks'! - Don't forget to thank people who retweet or mention you. Not only is it the 'right' and polite thing to do, it's also a easy way to start up a conversation with a new follower.

Another site is twitter parade - which although not exactly useful for measuring ROI - it is a whole lot of fun!

  Whilst on the topic of monitoring tools two other tools which are great for listening and finding out about what people are saying about you and your organisation are:

social mention

Addictomatic

And if these are not enough for you then take a look at Top Ranks marketing blog which lists the top 11 free social media monitoring tools.

  KPI's for measuring social media activity

The above tools are great for listening and checking out your twitter influence.  If however you are wanting more advanced tools for measuring your Return on Investment or Return on Engagment, the Internet Advertising Bureau recently came up with its own KPI's it thinks all marketers should adopt.

The four social media KPI's being

Awareness (Reach)

Appreciation (Act)

Action (Convert)

Advocacy (Engage)

Read more and watch the IAB's presentation here and for further information on how you can actually measure these, read the very excellent Dave Chaffey in his latest Smart Insights blog.

On the otherhand a blog post which is getting a lot of traction on twitter is this one from econsultancy: Social media monitoring: time to say 'sod it'?   Are we all becoming obsessed with monitoring what people are saying about our organisation online and in danger of drowning in our own data? As defining KPI's is one thing - actually being able to measure them easily, cheapily and effectively is quite another!

[clairerollo]

Best Pizza in Rome?

Mmm Roman Pizza @ Pizzeria de Baffetto - along with dar Poeta best pizza in Rome :-)

[clairerollo]

How to write email subject lines and tweets that work

Subject lines in emails are ‘headlines’ – in fact if you use Twitter, then every ‘Tweet’ you write is effectively a headline. You have 140 characters or less to interest your followers to click on that link. 

Some of the most successful direct marketers in the world, who have made their life (and lots of money) from direct marketing such as David Ogilvy, Drayton Bird, John Caples, and the man who has been credited with creating ‘modern day advertising’ back in 1892 Claude C Hopkins, all stand by the same ‘rule of thumb’ when it comes to writing headlines.

The headline is the most important element in direct marketing

The most effective headlines appeal to the reader’s self interest or give news

Long headlines that say something are more effective than short headlines that say nothing.

Specifics are more believable (and attract the readers you want) than generalities.                                                                                                                                                                                

These ‘rules’ that have applied to successful direct mail have been formulated from decades of exacting testing and research – just because the medium has changed to email or social media doesn’t matter.  People it seems haven’t changed that much. We still respond to the same emotional triggers as we always have.

So what should we include in our subject line?

You reader will ask: Does this email interest me? Should I open it? What is in it for me? (WIFM) Remember you are 'competing' with every other email in your reader’s inbox, so why should they open your email? 

1. Be useful - offer benefit of value to your reader

What is in it for me? For the reader. What may interest you and your organisation may be boring to your reader. Don’t just state ‘monthly email newsletter’ and then include a wealth of information and advice hidden away in the body copy. Tell your reader in the subject line - it may make all the difference as to whether they open it or not. An example of good a benefit headline is: “Free funding publication reveals how to increase your income by 50%”.

2. Offer news

People like to read about new things so these headlines are effective in getting your readers attention. Use words such as 'new' ‘announcing,’ and ‘introducing’ .

3. Begin your headline with ‘How’ or ‘Now’

If you are struggling to write a headline with the reader at the heart of it, using these words will help. Such as “How to write email subject lines that work”.

4. The reason why headline

Perhaps within your email copy you have a series of lists or top tips which give the reader a reason for opening your email? Again don’t hide it in the copy use it. For example ‘6 ways to help you retain new members’.

5. Highlight your offer

If you are offering something for free, such as a publication, a new guide, or a time limited offer – then include it. It use to be that  because ‘free’  and ‘offer’ were words commonly favoured by spammers we were advised to avoid using them in email.  But I have sent emails with ‘free’ in the subject line running them through a spam checker and they have got through ok.

It seems ISP’s are moving more towards to ‘domain reputation’ and ‘subscriber engagement’ techniques as opposed to scanning for words in emails. So if you have a good reputation, i.e you send emails to people who have opted in; clean your lists regulary to remove ‘dormant accounts; and send valued emails which your subscribers open and click through on, then this will count more towards to your ‘reputation’ than writing the word ‘free’ in your subject line. But check and test.

6. Ask a question and arouse curiosity

Your subject line asks a question which arouses curiosity with your reader – which they can only get the answer too by opening your email. Just be sure to actually satisfy and provide the answer – and that it is relevant to what you are promoting. As people may open the email, but it the second action of ‘contacting you/or buying’ that you actually want.

7. Be specific

And be honest. Being misleading in the subject field by promising a ‘benefit’ your content doesn’t deliver can have a very detrimental affect with recipients unsubscribing, becoming disillusioned with the brand, or even worse clicking the ‘report this as spam’ button. So don’t chase short terms ‘open rates’ at the expense of your brand in the long-term.

What is the ideal length of effective subject lines?

There have been many studies on what the ideal length should be of subject line.  What matters most though is the ‘quality’ of your subject line, so what you actually say as discussed above, rather than just the number of words persa. So make every word count.

Try front-loading your subject lines. So put your most important copy, words at the start of the email. Quite often people scan the left hand-side of emails, taking in who the email is from and the first few words of the subject line. What are your ‘hot triggers’? Put these at the front rather than at the end where people may not read it.

  PS - And don’t neglect the ‘from line’

Do I know the sender and do I trust them? Do I want to hear from them? This is what your subscribers will quickly ask themselves when they see your email so make sure they recognise you. Include your organisation name to reinforce the brand recognition and your personal name to help build and retain a personal relationship. (For example Claire Rollinson, NCVO.) Or perhaps use a high ranking well known person within your organisation if people are more likely to respond to them. 

The ‘from line’ combined with the ‘subject line’ are the two most important aspects of your email.

Want to read more? John Caples wrote an excellent book, (Tested Advertising Methods) with great detail on writing effective headlines. The style may have aged, but the advice certainly hasn’t. If you were to read just one book on Direct Marketing I would recommend Drayton Bird, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing. 

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/clairerollo

[clairerollo]

Twitter and social media - Why it is all about customer service

(*This post was orginally written 15th Jan 2010)

On Tuesday night* I attended a lively media140 event where people from agencies, commercial companies and a few brave souls from the voluntary sector met up to discuss the role of twitter and social networking in our organisations today.(b33god and NCVOforesight thank you for keeping me company in person and on the live twitter feed)

What I found most interesting was a topic on what social media should be used for. RichardBaker who use to work for Virgin Trains highlighted how twitter is great for customer service, allowing you to respond and engage with your customers or supporters instantly, including out of hours. They have an issue or query, and as long as you have the right monitoring tools set up and are actually willing to engage, you can respond very quickly. Answering or alleviating any concerns, queries or complaints.

Interestingly a few people made the point that we shouldn't be disappointed if an organisation doesn't reply to the consumer on twitter, even if we expect it.

This is not something I agree with - with some of my fellow tweeters @Rachel Beer and @lowcarbondiary nodding along with me too. Rachel Beer tweeting "Damn right! I had a useless experience with Marks and Spencer who tweeted about my complaint, then sent *awful**email*." Going on to say "All brands are going to have to deliver 'out of office hours' engagement"

I believe that if your organisation or brand is on twitter then you have set out the expectation that you want to engage with your customers, and not just when being replied to directly.

We should be actively monitoring and listening to our customers, keeping abreast of the conversations to ensure we ARE not only meeting expectations but surpassing them. Isn't that always been the mantra in customer service? - is this the conflict between marketing people of old and the traditional customer service roles.

It use to be that us in marketing would craft up a lovely creative campaign, send it out, then wait for the responses to come rolling in. Often however it is the customer service, admin or operations team who ACTUALLY deal with and speak to customers.

Did our offer we promised in our marketing communications meet the actual reality experienced by our customers? Is IT easy to donate or buy online? Did we deliver our service or product on time?

Now marketers need to be a lot closer to the customers and prospects they communicate with. No longer can we just push messages out for 'other' people in our organisation to respond too.

So if your twitter feed is handled by your marketing, PR or web team - lets make sure we empower them to be our personal voice of the organisation, and to be our customer service arm on twitter.

Your customers and supporters expect it - you wouldn't ignore (I hope) emails and telephone calls sent by your customers - neither should this be the case in the social networks.

What do you think?

ps join me on twitter at http://twitter.com/ClaireRollo 

[clairerollo]

Email marketing and the importance of testing

In my last post I highlighted the hierarchy of testing, paying particular attention to lists and keeping your data up to date. In this post I am going to highlight some of the aspects you should test when sending email campaigns.

Two of the most important elements to success of email is what you put in the 'From' field and the 'Subject line' of your email (see previous posts for more details on this). So it only stands to reason that we should test what we include in these fields.

If you use an email service provider to send your emails then most of them should have the ability to be able to send A/B split email campaigns.

Put simply, an A/B split test means sending half of your list one email, and the other half a different one - changing just one thing/variable. Variables such as a different subject line, a different offer, different content. 

Doing this enables you to find what works for you, by finding out what YOUR customers want and need. What they find relevant and useful. After all, only by being genuinely relevant will you keep the relationship with your customer/supporter alive.

So if you are including a special offer within your email such as a free guide or download, then highlight this in the subject line. Don't rely on readers (or make it hard for them) to find the good stuff by scrolling through all your body copy. Lead with it in the subject line.

Just take a look at the two subject lines below:

"NCVO monthly bulletin" "NCVO bulletin: Download your free funding guide"

Which subject line do you think got the most open rates, the most clickthrough rates, and the best response – enhancing brand reputation and engagement along the way?

Yes it was the subject line that promised a benefit to the reader.  It answered the question 'What's in it for me to open this email?' It created desire; it convinced the reader that this email out of all the emails they scanned in their email box was the one they should open, now - because the offer (the benefit) resonated with the target audience.

This may seem obvious but all too often in our rush to get a mailing out, the subject line can be the last thing we think about , neglecting to put any thought into the headline.

Email is possibly the easiest and best channel available for most of us to test easily and cheaply. You can see what emails are being opened and what trigger points readers are clicking on. You can't do this with direct mail pieces or with press ads. All you know with these mediums is that you got a 2% response. What about the other 98%?

With email you can get a much better picture what this other 98% did and didn't do – so use it to help make all your marketing more effective. What messages should you use? Is one offer better than another? Set out a long term strategy of what you want to achieve with your email marketing and in each email campaign look to test one thing each time. Improving just 0.5% on each campaign can mean a massive impact on your long–term ROI.

And in the current climate don't we all want that?

[clairerollo]

Cuts in marketing budget? Find out what you should be spending time and money on to get more response

When organisations are faced with having to make cuts to their expenditure spend, quite often one of the first things to get the chop is the 'marketing budget'.  Rather than being seen as an important income generator it's seen as a cost, and just as our counterparts in the commercial sector were faced with having to do more with less in the last two years, now our marketing will have to work much, much harder, and achieve a better ROI than perhaps in years previous.

The main feature and indeed benefit of direct marketing is that it is about getting a response. It is an interaction, a continous dialogue between you and your customer or supporter.

So what should we be concentrating our efforts on?

The well documented hierarchy of factors that have an impact on your reponse rates are:

  Possible lift on response The list (target market) x 6 The offer x 3 Timing (in relation to the customers needs)    x 2 The creative (the copy)    x 1.35 Response Mechanism  x 0.5

So as you can see from above as important as good copy-writing is, if you are not sending the right offer to the right person, at the right time, in the right channel then it won't matter if you have the master himself Drayton Bird writing your copy, the chances are you will not get the response you are after.

The list /data is the most important factor as to whether you will receive a good response to your 'ask'.

The importance of clean, correct data

Therefore the most important (and often the most neglected) factor to success in direct marketing is to concentrate our efforts on our lists and target market. Who is most likely to be interested in not only buying from us once, but to buy from us again and again? As it's this long term relationship with a customer/supporter we should be striving for.  And once started, like any relationship we need to work hard on maintaining it – which all comes to down to the data we hold, and how we use it. If a customer has given you their precious personal data then use it. There is nothing worse than receiving a mailing from an organisation you have a relationship with, and being addressed as ' Dear member' or 'Dear valued supporter'.  

Research by TGI/Royal Mail earlier this year found that 50% of people would not open a piece of direct mail addressed 'Dear Occupier' and 33% of people would not open a mailing if their name was spelt wrong. 33%!  Add to this the 5-10% of gone aways and before the respondent has got to even opening your letter you have narrowed down your market to 50% of the people that you sent it to. Which also means 50% of your marketing spend has just been thrown the drain.

If you are marketing to people at work (B2B) then keeping your data up-to-date is even harder, with an estimate that one fifth of this data decays each year. Email accounts close, or just become ghost accounts.  Direct mail pieces head straight to the bin as 'Steve in IT' left five years ago. Moreover if you have large email lists and keep sending emails to these closed accounts, or get a high number of bounce backs you could be black-listed as a spammer by Internet service providers.

When you think of it like this, then spending time collecting, validating, cleaning, and de-duping your data is money and time well spent – but do YOU do it?

[clairerollo]

How integrating your marketing will lift response to your acquisition campaigns

Depending on which blog posts or industry experts you listen to, it seems one marketing channel is always being heralded over another in terms of driving direct response and ROI.

When email came along, many signalled it would be the death of direct mail, and it wasn’t long before the same was said about email when social networking (Facebook, Twitter and Youtube) became global phenomena.

So where should you be spending your marketing budget?

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am a strong advocate of the benefits for organisations having a presence on social networking sites – to listen, engage and create a true dialogue with our supporters and customers. It helps supplement and aid your other marketing activity.

But do social networks drive direct response? Do you get donations; new members; new sales directly from ‘asks’ you put out on Twitter and Facebook? Are people in a ‘buying’ or ‘transactional’ frame of mind when they visit social networking sites, or are they just in the space to catch up with friends and their network?

A few months ago at the last NFPtweetup I listened to an interesting presentation from the British Red Cross and MerlinUk, around their use of (mainly) Twitter in response to the Haiti earthquake.  From regular tweeting British Red Cross managed to keep their supporters up to date with what was happening on the ground in real-time, as well as managing to gain a large number of followers in the process.

But in terms of getting their followers (and others) to donate via their ‘asks’ on twitter the response British Red Cross got (on one of the most high profile appeal campaigns since the tsunami ) was very low – around the £200 mark.

I’m sure when compared to the donations received from email and direct mail pieces to their regular donors and press/billboard posters to cold prospects, who were looking to donate to Haiti, this figure was tiny in comparison. What their presence on twitter would have helped with though was the halo effect. 

Media channel integration is key

So you should look to implement an integrated approach, and depending on your budget, resources and target market use a mixture of offline (eg press, posters, direct mail) and online channels (eg email, social media, search marketing, online display ads, affiliate marketing) to reach and engage with your customers and supporters – and actually test channels to see which works best for you. 

Even the smallest of charities can set up a small database or spreadsheet of all your supporters and send them regular email updates – keeping you top of mind for when you do your annual fundraising ask.

Direct mail

If you work in the  B2B arena then you may want to think about re-testing some direct mail campaigns other than just relying on email. I seem to get very little in the way of direct mail (but a deluge of email marketing) and normally only from the Institute of Direct Marketing and the Chartered Institute of Marketing – and I'm sure they know a thing or two about response trends.

Indeed a study by i-prospect showed that 40% of online sales were driven by offline marketing. This may be more expensive in terms of acquisition but if your target market respond well to this type of marketing then you shouldn’t drop it in favour of moving all your marketing online, or into social media.

The important thing is to test and see what works for you. A direct mail ask, with an email follow up a week later will lift response by as much 5% if the contact list and offer is relevant. Then use social networks to enable and empower your customers to engage with you - to quickly ask for further details, and to get an all round picture of what you are doing, aiding your conversion and retention strategies.

And remember - twitter is being used more and more for 'search' and indeed since Google started including tweets in their search rankings, tweeting regularly will help optimise your natural search ranking (more on this another time as this is a whole different story.) A great example of how one activity will help your responses in another media channel - integration!

I’ll be interested to hear what you think, especially from people and organisations who have seen significant direct response from their twitter or Facebook fan/group pages – as case studies (except Dell of course) of these do seem very few and far between.

Find me on twitter http://twitter.com/ClaireRollo 

[clairerollo]

New to writing copy? Seven top tips to guarantee responses to your direct marketing.

How to increase your response rates – whether it’s in relation to recruiting members, donors, event delegates or customers.

1 Headlines

This is probably the most important piece of text in your direct mail letter or advert. It will grab the reader’s attention and encourage them to read the rest of your copy. Fail to interest or connect with your reader here and all the hard work you have put into your lovely body copy could be wasted. Don’t just state the name of your product or name of your event. Promote a benefit. Ask an open question. Deliver news. Include all three if you can. But don’t mislead in the hope of getting more people to read your letter. It will only serve to annoy them. Be useful, be specific, promise a benefit and the ‘right’ people will read your mail.

An example of good a benefit headline is: “Free funding publication reveals how to increase your income by 50%”.

 2 What’s in it for me? 

The letter is not about you or your organisation but needs to focus on the benefit to the reader. Starting with your headline and throughout your body copy, you need to state the benefits of your service or product for your reader and not just the features. The reader will constantly be wondering ‘What’s in it for me?’, and if this is not explicit, they will switch off.

For example: Benefit = Become an expert copywriter in just six months by learning from the top 50 marketers in the UK with our free marketing magazine. Feature = Free marketing magazine subscription.

Present a time-limited offer. Again, these will outperform those letters with no offer or with no time deadline. For example, offer a free publication for all orders received before a certain date. You want to install a sense of urgency into your reader to act now, not tomorrow when their attention will have moved on to something else.

3 Copy length

People are busy. Daily we are inundated with information from emails, direct mail, television, the web – you name it.  Don’t make it hard for your readers to understand what you are selling or communicating. Spell it out for them. Write clear, short sentences. You should try and aim for a maximum of 16 words per sentence or your reader will trail off. Mix up your sentence length.

In terms of how long your copy should be, marketing experts like Drayton Bird point out that long copy almost always outperforms short copy. It’s not how much you say but the quality of what you say and how you say it being the important thing.

4 Language

Avoid jargon – it puts people off. Spell out in full any acronyms or abbreviations. In the voluntary sector, we have so many acronyms that reading a new press release or letter can sometimes feel like completing a hard puzzle – without the fun!  Don’t assume your reader is aware of them. Again, your reader doesn’t want to spend time figuring out what you are trying to say and will probably just give up.

Use plain English. ‘Buy’ instead of ‘purchase’. ‘Before’ instead of ‘prior to.’ ‘Get’ instead of ‘obtain’. Avoid flowery language and get straight to the point, leaving out needless words. Read through your copy and if a word doesn’t add value to your letter, delete it.

5 Tone

Write your letters as you would if you were communicating verbally. Read your letter out loud. Does it sound like something you would say? If not, change it. Claude Hopkins, the original authoritative figure on marketing, said advertising is just ‘salesmanship in print’. How would you describe your product or service to someone you just met? This is what you should write in your direct mail letter.

Use a friendly, personal tone. You have addressed them personally in the letter (hopefully), so write as though you are addressing your reader one-to-one throughout.Avoid talking in the third person, and instead use ‘we’ and ‘you’ throughout the communication. For example, instead of writing ‘NCVO can help people with their marketing skills,” write “We can help you improve your marketing skills”

6 Call to action

What do you want your readers to do? Book onto an event, sign up to your newsletter mailing list or join your membership scheme? Spell it out to your reader, clearly and simply. “Book your place [online now]”, “call [this telephone number] to book your place”, “send your booking form to [this address]”.Have you included an order form leaflet with your letter? Tell them to complete it and return it – state the obvious (which may not be so obvious to your busy reader) and repeat it a few times.

For instance, some highly engaged readers may not need to read your whole letter to be sold to. Give them a call to action in the first few paragraphs, rather than just stating it at the end of your letter.

7 And finally…

Remember the only aim of your communication is to elicit a response, to drive people to your website or whatever your call to action may be. It’s not all about the page looking visually pleasing, it’s about selling. Measure the return on investment. Does it work? If not, why not? And crucially test, refine, test and keep on testing.

What do you think?

[clairerollo]

Twitter: The Halo effect of your marketing strategy

Over the past week or so I have been to a number of social media events; from the social media workshop with Steve Bridger and Euan Semple at our very own Annual conference; social media for membership organisations at Freshnetworks; and via live feed (oh the technology) the ‘rock star’ social media event of the year – Likeminds in Exeter.

Out of all the great insights that I took away from these events – one comment really stuck out for me as a kind of reality check not just for us already on twitter, but for those of you starting on your social media journey.

@Cosmond at both the Freshnetworks seminar and the Likeminds conference likened social media to participating in the national lottery. You have to be in it to win it, but only a few people will ever win the big money.  Most of us will only ever win a small amount, £10 or so, for time to time.

This is the same for organisations participating in twitter – attend any social media event and at one point or another someone will highlight the success of Dell’s twitter feed, amongst others – which is purely promotional - as an example of the revenue that can be directly generated through twitter. However these are the exceptions the to the rules – its not that they do it any better than anyone else, (although they were very early adopters) it's just that they were lucky.

Not everything goes viral and even by following all the ‘rules’ in your participation the mass majority of us won't experience those levels of direct revenue generation success.

Why? Well in terms of strategy I believe twitter should be part of your retention and ongoing customer relationship management strategy. Use the channel to connect and communicate with your customers and supporters. Answer their queries; monitor what they are saying about your organisation and respond, and stop looking to monentise your twiter feed.

As Chris Brogan said at Likeminds ‘Coupons are not conversations’

For the mass majority twitter should not be seen as a acquisition or recruitment tool. Yes it will help raise awareness of your organisation and what you do, allowing people to see a more personable side of your brand; which will bring incremental sales and donations. But is about the conversation and having a relationship before the sale and in fact a relationship after the sale.  It’s about creating a true two way dialogue which brings you closer to your supporters and customers.

So if you are new to twitter and want to see instant monetary returns on the time and resources spent, then you are approaching it all wrong. Look to engage, to share, to learn, and you will see without being a ‘try hard’ or pushing or wares onto your followers that being on twitter produces the ‘halo effect’. The activity that supports your overall strategy, helping to shape peoples perception, knowledge; and ultimately desire to buy from (or donate too.)

The Halo effect: What you advertise & communicate and what you make money on can be two different things.

What do you think?

ps join me on twitter at http://twitter.com/ClaireRollo 

[clairerollo]

How social networks are enabling us to create a true dialogue with our customers and supporters

In my blog post last week I highlighted how we organisations increasingly need to be interacting in a dialogue with our customers and supporters. Twitter and social networks are ideal for achieving this, breaking down the walls between you and your audience.

From monologue to dialogue

In essence, marketing in social networks should be seen as an extension of this customer service, but not in the traditional sense of ‘push’ marketing. Now more than ever marketing needs to create a dialogue with the audience you are trying to connect with - and not just for when we are on twitter and social networks.

Is it because our customers and supporters feel more empowered to be part of the dialogue on social networks that this has become the mantra on these channels? Because it is easier; quicker; more open; more transparent and less formal than all other channels, you are almost laid bare to your supporters. Customers can see how you are interacting with others (or not as the case may be) and this helps shape their image of your brand and their expectations also.

From dialogue to trialogue (One-to-one communications to many-to-many communications)

How many times have you sent out an email, asking for feedback, but have got none? Look to engage with your audience on social networks and empower them with the tools to spread your message, or better still get them involved at the outset of your campaign or service development. It won’t happen overnight, but search for and connect with your brand ambassadors - the advocates that are already spreading the word about you. Treat them as an extension of your internal family and involve them from the onset.

Your customers are connected to each other

Do you segment your customers? Tailor different messages and offers to each of them? Well now they are connected. They are talking to each other and mostly not involving you. On social networks, everybody is a communicator and distributor of information, and your organisation is just one part of this network. Look to be a facilitator of this network. Listen, monitor and respond. Don’t worry about losing control of the message and for negative feedback. It is how you respond that is the important thing.  This is customer service marketing on social networks and it is important that we participate.

Your customers have access to other information

During the recent Haiti appeal, I got an email and a direct mail piece from ActionAidUk who I donate to regularly. But I also got a plethora of updates from other charities I follow on twitter, asking me to donate or to spread their fundraising messages. My awareness of what other charities are doing has never been greater and as a result ActionAidUk may not be the sole recipient of my donation for future appeals like this. Now more than ever, your supporters can switch to other charities that help the same beneficiaries or other brands that provide the same product. How are you going to be different and provide extra value or create that emotional connection we all strive for in our marketing messages?

Your customers ‘pull’ information

When we have a need to be met, we open up Google and search – receiving hundreds of results, with your tweets included in this. Your tweets are now being indexed by Google, so all comments (positive and negative) about your organisation could be propelled to the front page of searched results – word of mouth marketing money just can’t buy. You just need to work hard to ensure these comments are positive.  As the CMO of Ford has recently said: “You can’t just say it. You have to get people to say it to each other” Today there are so many other sources and channels of information that our messages are competing with. As consumers, are we getting harder to engage with and as a result harder to satisfy? How can your organisation and charity be heard and seen above the noise?

Be different - stand out. Be personable; be responsive and engage in a true dialogue with your supporters. This is where twitter and social networks really come into their own. We shouldn’t be looking for the ROI from being on twitter or even use it as a direct response medium. It is the return on engagement we should be striving for, getting closer to our customers and supporters. This is what will separate you out from the rest ensuring your messages cut through the clutter.

What do you think?

ps join me on twitter at http://twitter.com/ClaireRollo 

[clairerollo]

Discover how earning trust and building your reputation is the new 'online' currency.

Chris Anderson, author of ‘Free – The Future of Price’ and Chris Brogan ‘Trust Agents’ both highlight that the major currency of the internet (due to the advance of the social web) is fast becoming non monetary.

Now the valued currency ‘online’ is not the dollar or the pound, but trust, reputation and influence.

Any marketing activity your organisation does should be an attempt to leverage a level of trust with your prospect. Now social networks (embraced correctly) are fully enabling us to become more ‘human’ and to build deeper, longer-lasting relationships with our customers, donors and prospects – which, in the long-term, will lead to increased sales or donations.

So are you trusted? Do you have a reputation of someone who shares and helps others? Do you have influence in your online community? This is how you truly succeed in social networks, and how your organisation benefits from this investment of time and effort in the long ter

How do you gain trust?

Photo credit: Iurii Davydov

Chris Brogan highlights some key activities.                                                                

Be social, be human and be a ‘friend’. Share a bit of your personality and if you mess up, remember the three As: acknowledge, apologise and act

Help, comment and signpost. When you treat people well, they treat you well back. But don’t expect a favour in return. Do all this without asking for a sale or donation – you will be remembered

Share and highlight other people’s work if you find it useful or interesting – Chris Brogan promotes others 12 times as much as himself

Build relationships, and don’t just participate when you have a campaign running. Be in it for the long term. As Liz Strauss highlights: ‘I’m not a one-link stand’

By doing this, you will slowly become a ‘trust agent’ – a person people come to. In time, your reputation and influence will spread and when people are in a position to buy or donate, you will be 'top of mind.'

“Have a relationship before the sale"                                                                                                     

(Read on for more tips on how to approach online communities)                                                                          

Establishing trust leads to a better online reputation

When you have relevant, interesting and valuable information on your blog or website, people will begin to link to your site. The more inbound links you get, the better your page rank, and the more your site rises on Google search rankings.

Comments - We trust the people that have been there before us, so the more positive comments the better. When people buy, they now look at comments and reviews. By ensuring you have a positive presence, you are ‘pushing’ people through from the ‘consideration’ stage to the ‘buying’ stage.

If you become trusted and influential, your community will ‘promote/evangelise’ about you – you won’t need to do it. Social media is word of mouth marketing on a global scale. (For instance, I found out about Chris’s book through other people talking about it. Chris has never marketed to me, never mailed me and I have seen no advert for the book. Simple word of mouth recommendations from people I trust in my online community!)

What is the best way to get people, your customers, to open your emails? The two most important aspects as to whether a customer opens your emails are the subject line and from line.  If they know you and trust you, they are more likely to open your email and respond to your ‘call to action’ 

Why this leads to positive ROI

We tend to buy from people who are like us – to become ‘one of us’ we need to be part of the community.

A study of 3,000 active social network users in the U.S. found that almost half (48%) of Twitter users who saw a brand's name mentioned on the site would go on to use a search engine to investigate further.

By being active in social media and building your reputation, you are also aiding your email and direct marketing communications as your customers become to ‘know’ you.

Positive sentiment. By participating and listening you can learn, respond and improve your service to meet your customers’ needs more effectively. Over time this will have a positive impact on your brand identity, i.e. what your customers think of you, rather than the brand image you try and market.

Just being online and being accessible can solve a lot of problems you otherwise would not know about.

Improves efficiency – rather than constantly taking part in ‘one-to-one’ FAQs by phone or email, by writing a blog or responding to comments on community forums you have the ability to speak to ‘many’. 

Participating in social media provides outward signs that you are listening; that you care, that you want to part of the conversation and part of the community. What is the ‘opportunity cost’ of not participating? Rather than perhaps asking what ‘will we get?’, ask ‘what will we lose?’. The latter will probably be far greater.

[clairerollo]

Is participating in social media of value to organisations?

Last week I wrote about how you should approach your first steps into social media as a marketer. But perhaps a question you have asked yourself is - ‘Should I be participating in social networks/media – is it of any value to me and my organisation?’

You may in your charity (depending on your size) use one or all of the following to communicate with your supporters and members - Direct mail; email newsletters; magazines; a website; display or television adverts. Social networks are an important extension of these traditional marketing and communication mediums we use, with one important difference.

Most of the above are traditional ‘push’ marketing mediums – We send the message out and our supporters (maybe) consume it.  This may have worked in the past, but people and the media landscape are changing. The way we get our news, how we watch our TV programmes, how we keep in touch. We can’t keep expecting people to stop what they are doing every time we want to interrupt them with a communication message. So why is social media so different? At its core, social media is about conversation - two way conversation.

So why should organisations be partipating in social media?

It’s free market intelligence

Listen to the conversations. What are people saying about your cause or brand? What do they like - are they positive about you?  Using social media you can get real-time, instant feedback about your brand, organisation or campaign. A quick search on Twitter for #NCVO, web alert on Google or Technorati search (Technorati is a real-time search for user generated media) and I can see all the mentions from all over the web. This is instant, genuine feedback - positive and negative.

Customer service and supporter engagement

Not only can you listen to the conversation, you can actively get involved. If you see ‘negative’ feedback, you can respond to the person and resolve the problem or add clarity to where there may be confusion.  By participating in social media you can’t control what people say about you, but at least you can control your response to it. You can moderate the conversation and ‘manage your reputation’ - quickly turning any detractors into possible brand ambassadors!

You can also build genuine relationships with your supporters - connecting with people who are passionate about your campaign, who in turn can help you to spread your message. You may only have a network of a few hundred but if one of your supporters picks up your message and spreads it to their network of 10,000 you have suddenly (at no extra cost or time) got your message out to a whole new audience.

Social media is ‘word of mouth’ marketing on a global scale

The most powerful piece of marketing is ‘word of mouth marketing’ - the messages you or your organisation don’t control. If a supporter or member recommends you or your service to a friend, this is more powerful and of more value than any expensive marketing campaign you can run. This is social media in action, except it is not just ‘one-to one’ communication. It can be ‘one-to-many’ or ‘many-to-many.’  Social media is word of mouth marketing multiplied on a global scale. Reviews, comments, recommendations – this is what people now read when they make their buying decisions. By listening, participating, and refining you can help make sure these ‘WOM’ statements are positive.

Collaborate with your colleagues and develop your knowledge

Learn and share with others who are doing the same job as you – people are on social networks to help, share and discuss. Join up with fellow minded people who share the same passions as you, and no longer be the ‘one communication person’ at your small organisation.

For instance since I have been on Twitter, I have come across marketing blogs that I would have never would have found through a traditional ‘search’ on Google, as well as making connections (online and off-line) with other ‘charity’ colleagues.

It levels the playing field between large and small organisations

Social media has levelled the playing field between large multinational charities and small local ones. Now your ‘niche’ cause can get the awareness once only afforded to the large charities from running expensive marketing or PR campaigns.  You can raise awareness of your campaign using all the free tools and platforms that are available (such as Facebook and Twitter) – building up your network, connecting with new prospects and getting your voice heard. Social media is MADE for small charities and organisations!

Still not convinced? 

Your supporters and members are already having the conversations about your organisation or brand – whether you are participating or not. If you ignore the conversations, they won’t go away, they will just continue without you, and at some point you may get left behind. Participating in social media/networks is the ‘new normal.’   Can you afford not to be in the conversation? What do you think? Have you got some positive stories or experience of how you have used social media to connect with your supporters?