Name: Jack
Email:
Web Site: http://www.internetviz.com
Bio: Jack Scharff is a direct-marketing executive and writer. He works on content and strategy for many successful email newsletters. Scharff can be reached at 609-704-7049, Jack@internetVIZ.com
Posts by :
- Coke’s Hard Times.
- E*Trade’s Milkaholic — What happened to the “Shankapotimus” kid?
- Hundai’s Sonata — 10 Years from Now with Brett Farve and a hologram older than most of the fans.
- Intel’s hurt-feelings robot, Jeffrey.
- Cars.com’s very interesting Timothy Richman spot.
- U.S. Census Snapshot of America with too dry humor was probably a waste of taxpayer funds.
- Tim Tebow tackling his mother — Why here?
- Dockers I wear no pants — Great pants, stupid commercial.
- What types of list segments will be valuable to measure?
- To which segments should you provide specialized content and make special offers to?
- What is practical depending upon time, measurement, and possible impact?
How to Improve Open and Click-through Rates
July 19th, 2010Nine areas to help you increase results
Super Bowl Branding: Winners and Losers
July 16th, 2010Super Bowl Branding: Winners and Losers
Entertainment — Fair to great. Game — Great.
Commercials — Some good, others stinko!
What a happening! Super Bowl 44 attracted a huge audience and big dollars from advertisers trying to build their brand. Some succeeded; others didn’t in my humble (well maybe not so humble) opinion.
The entertainment started with Queen Latifah. She looked great but appeared a little unsure of herself and sang a strange arrangement of America the Beautiful. Sorry you can’t see the YouTube video, but it was removed “due to terms of use violation.”
Carrie Underwood, in a smashing white jumpsuit, followed with a fine version of The National Anthem. Her last note was a little weak, but she gave a good performance.
In addition to the great entertainment of the game, the Who provided one of the best halftime shows ever. Song after song to great applause and with unbelievable lighting effects, they did their thing without a hitch. There was one wardrobe malfunction, however. See if you can find it in Part one or Part two. (Answer at end of article.)
But if you are a marketing type, the commercials are always a Super Bowl extravaganza. Will there be another Mean Joe Green equal? Super Bowl 44 didn’t provide one, but there were some good spots.
Here are my top three:
No. 3. In addition to sponsoring the halftime show, Bridgestone ran this fine commercial with an orca, a car, a dock and super driving. They also ran another one, Your tires or your life, which was funny, but a little dark.
No. 2. Who says deadpan and rivals can’t go together? These three rivals pull it off. You just have to laugh. Only four words from Oprah? Wow!
No. 1. The best of the bunch and the funniest ran very early in the broadcast. Snickers made you more than snicker. Betty White is a literal smash. And do you remember the old guy from Barney Miller? (Answer at end of article.)
There were a number of honorable mentions:
Unfortunately, all the commercials were not of this caliber. And some were outright distasteful and could damage the brands rather than help them.
Here are the worst three
No. 3. Boost Mobile’s Jim McMahon in a thong. Good music bad shuffle and what’s with Ditka’s mustache?
No. 2 and 2A. Both Go Daddy spots. Cheap service but crass commercials — I don’t want to “See more now.” Here’s one.
And … the worst of the worst ….
No. 3. Careerbuilders.com’s Casual Friday, “Expose yourself with something better.” Watch a different commercial.
And there also were some dishonorable mentions:
Oh, and I do want to mention the only wardrobe malfunction of note: Guitarist Pete Townshend’s shirt out of his pants that showed his belly. Maybe he was auditioning for the Casual Friday Commercial.
Regarding the “old actor,” it’s Abe Vigoda — He’s just a little older than me.
And that’s it until next year. These were my opinions only. If you have others that you think should have made the lists, please let me know.
Divide and Conquer
July 13th, 2010List segmentation is key to increased e-mail success
Everyone is unique. Everyone has similarities. So why and how should you segment your mailing list?
The “why” is easy;Â better results, more readership, more targeted offers and content.
The “how” is less easy because there are so many possible variables, and it’s often difficult to decide on the segmentation criteria. You need to think through:
Only you can judge what’s best for your organization.
Don’t Be a Dunce
July 13th, 2010
Study mailing reports for your roadmap to success
History, social studies, mathematics, English, reading, spelling  you know the drill: Study well and you succeed in passing the tests. In the same way reading a report card provides insights into strengths and areas of needed improvement, so does reading your email reports.
The subjects are different - open rate, click-through rate, bounces, unsubscribes, unique clicks, feature, call-to-action, Website visits, forwards, reader history, survey results - but the need to know them inside and out is the same.
Study every aspect of your e-newsletter mailing, and you’ll become smarter and be able to make informed decisions on future mailings that should lead to better results.
Here are some good strategies link to remainder of article below
Premailing reports
Even before you send your email effort, there’s a report you should read: The spam score report. Will your email get through most spam filters or will it be considered spam and never get to your intended recipient?
Run your mailing through a variety of spam checkers and judge your spam score. If it’s high, rewrite, reformat and resubmit.
Another premailing report
Just as in early elementary school, there were checkmarks for good or bad or satisfactory or unsatisfactory, you should run a checklist report on important things to be sure everything is perfect before sending. Here are some items to put on your checklist:
* Did you do a test run though spam checkers?
* Did you proofread the mailing?
* Is the call-to-action prominent?
* Did you add new names to mailing list?
* Have you permanently removed opt-outs?
* Does the list require segmentation?
* Are different versions aligned to list segments?
* Do all the links work as intended?
* Is the tracking set up?
* Have you tested the subject line?
* Are the tests set up properly?
* Have you notified the sales force about the mailing?
* Do images appear as intended in various browsers?
This checklist will vary by sender, depending on the number of tests involved, whether you are sending different versions, or your sales force is involved, the number of regions to contact, and other factors unique to different marketers.
OK, you checked the spam score, went through the checklist and emailed the mailing. Results begin, and now, what do you analyze?
Important things to measure
For direct marketing attempts, only four things matter in the following order:
1. How many prospects ordered or took the step you wanted?
2. How many recipients opened the email?
3. How many unique clicks did you receive?
4. How many people opted out?
If tests are involved, then measurements of each test are important. Don’t rely on memory. Write down the results in a testing log so that future tests are not repetitive or impractical based on previous results.
E-newsletter reports, open and click-through rates
For e-newsletters, measurement is more extensive because there is more content to measure and study. But again, the four most important things are:
1. How many prospects ordered or took the step you wanted?
2. How many recipients opened the email?
3. How many unique clicks did you receive?
4. How many people opted out?
Open rate is the number of emails that people open divided by the number of emails you deliver. Since some recipients open an email more than once, unique opens are the true open rate, a tally of how many different recipients opened the email or viewed it in their preview panel. Unfortunately, an email snared by a spam filter and sent to a spam file counts as an email delivered but not opened.
The click-through rate (CTR) is not as clear cut as the open rate. Some say it’s the number of clicks divided by the number of emails you deliver. Others say it’s the number of clicks divided by the number of emails recipients open. Whichever you use is up to you, but be sure to count unique clicks rather than total clicks because some people click more than once on the same item.
For more information about these rates and how to improve them, see How to improve open and click-through rates.
Learning from readers’ actions
The most important measurement, of course, is the link associated with your call to action. How many people clicked there and took action. How many clicked there but didn’t take action. Is your offer worded well? Could it be more compelling? Is there a follow up to those who clicked but didn’t act?
An often-neglected but very important measurement is the opt-out rate or how many decide to unsubscribe from your newsletter. Try to learn who these folks are (job titles, male or female, SIC code of company, new or old subscriber, other attributes that may give you some insights as to why they are deciding to depart). On your opt-out link, have a dialog box with a question like, “Why are you unsubscribing?”
Since you intend to mail them future issues of your newsletter, you want to know what interests the readers. Your reports should rank the most popular articles (links readers clicked) from highest to lowest. Who read what? Look at a report segmented by job title or, perhaps, by SIC code to determine which types of articles interest which types of readers.
What has a particular reader read in past issues? Look at this, and you can develop an interest profile.
Visual reports at a glance
A very effective report includes a visual of the front page of the newsletter with color-coded highlights on the links (red, orange, yellow and blue) that rank the links on unique clicks. Red highlights are the best (top 25 percent), orange 26 to 50 percent, yellow 51 to 75 percent and blue the worst (lowest 25 percent). This type of report shows you in one quick glance what’s hot and what’s not. It also provides an easy way to see how placement or size of a link or image impacts results.
This is a very interesting report and one that you can forward to others in your company. And speaking of forwarding reports, which type of reports can you tailor for your sales force?
Sales team interest
What amount of information do you want to share with the sales team? You don’t want to overwhelm them with too much data that they will eventually ignore or tune out, but you need to provide relevant information that will help them start a dialog with a prospect to get the sale.
Obviously, a report of the call to action respondents and also those who clicked but didn’t act will be quite valuable. What other information should you provide?
Consider a report filtered to show only a particular salesperson’s prospects and their reader reactions on the past issue and clicks on previous newsletters. These can provide clues into prospects interests and possible hot buttons.
Whatever you decide, provide it in an easy-to-read format and segregate it by salesperson or sales region.
Will your emailing make the grade?
Don’t be a dunce and neglect to study. If you measure past efforts and analyze your reports and adapt, your emails will get better and better – and surely pass the test.
Are Your Calls to Action Compelling?
July 13th, 2010Easy Does it Best
If you think your prospects look forward to your sales pitch, think again.
We’re all inundated with commercial message after commercial message. Why would anyone want more of these from you?
Could it be they may need something that you offer?
Since calls to action are tricky, I think it’s best to make them uncomplicated. Some businesses offer too many choices and actually cause the potential customer to delay. Others are too imperative, like “act now” or probably not true, like “this offer is limited to the first 100 people†or misleading, like “get a second one free, just pay the extra shipping” (which is exorbitantly high).
Consumers and business buyers are more educated and skeptical than ever. They are much busier. In today’s economy, they are also more cost-conscious than ever before. So, what calls to action work best and where do you put them in email offers and email newsletters?
Read complete article
What Were They Thinking?
July 12th, 2010Spitting on a Star
As a Philadelphia Eagles football fan I was appalled to learn that an Eagles employee, one that writes their blog and posts items on their Website, videoed himself at Dallas’ new stadium spitting on the Dallas Star (logo) at midfield. He then posted the video on the Eagles’ Website.
This, of course created a PR problem, an apology, and removal of the video from the Website. I wonder if it will give the Cowboys another reason to beat the Eagles in the Wild-Card playoff game. I hope not. [Unfortunately, Dallas beat Philadelphia in that game.]
But the lesson to learn here is to be sure all personnel who can impact public and corporate sponsors’ opinions are intelligent enough to know what’s proper.
“Stupid is as Stupid does” and this guy was stupid, probably too stupid to continue as one of the voices of the Eagles.
Three out of four sales leads die of neglect!
July 4th, 2010
Why?
Salespeople chase short-term opportunities and don’t nurture long-term leads.
If you want to get up to three times more sales, set up a B2B lead nurturing program.
Want to learn how to do this? Read this insightful article by Mac McIntosh.
Remember the “power of nine?” Phooey!
June 21st, 2010
Oh yes, the Power of Nine: That’s the half-baked theory that nine is the optimum number of times to contact a prospect to get the desired action. Baloney! Hogwash! Bull!
I’ve been a marketer for more years than I care to admit. Ok, I’ll admit it – since 1964. And in those 46 years, I’m proud to say I’ve sold literally billions of dollars in goods and services in B2C and B2B.
There is no power of nine. It could be the power of one or two. And, if you’re really good, it could morph into the power of 1,000, where you develop long-term relationships with customers and contact them with a variety of successful offers for many, many years.
See Jack’s Power of Nine below
Maybe the “power of nine” exists in nine different powerful types of email contacts. For example:
1. Acquisition newsletters
2. Customer retention and support newsletters
3. Solo email offers
4. Drip campaigns that start after some action takes place
5. Order confirmation emails
6. Happy birthday or anniversary emails
7. Service policy emails
8. Renewal emails
9. Surveys
And there are many others, like Webinar invitations, alerts, meet our new [insert staff position], polls, what’s hot on your blog¦ you name it, and email can probably deliver it.
Content Truly Is King
June 20th, 2010Make it relevant to the reader
Bore me twice, shame on me.
This twist of the “Fool me” axiom applies to email newsletters and campaigns. Recipients often opens the first mailing to see what it is. If the content is not relevant or interesting or entertaining or educational, the chances of them opening a second mailing are slim.
Each potential reader considers: Is this worth my time? Is there something here I should know? Is there a good idea here for me? Did I enjoy reading this?
Unless a reader answers “Yes” to at least one of these questions, your mailing slides into the boring category, and the recipient will likely opt out or remember to delete future mailings.
Want to learn what determines relevancy? Want to see seven easy sources of content?
Event Marketing Assessment Survey
June 13th, 2010One of our clients, MCA², used a self-assessment survey in their eNewsletter to help their prospects get organized and think about changes to improve results.
Prospect involvement always helps results.
Learn Changes to Improve Payback on Your Events
This Event Marketing Self -Assessment is designed to help you identify, based upon your own practices and experience, the changes you can make to improve payback on your event marketing programs. The model evaluates your activity on multiple dimensions of effectiveness. At the end of the survey, you will see how your answers compare to those of your colleagues and you will have access to your individual answers, graded as “Best Practice” or “Opportunity for Improvement.” You may print these reports out and take them with you to use as a checklist.
