Email: How Hard Can It Be? (Dallas, TX)

June 21, 2008 · Filed Under Email Marketing · Comment 

Chief Idea Officer of MarketingMeasureSeth Godin, master marketing pundit and velvet-throated soothsayer recently published a lengthy list of do’s and don’ts for email marketers. All good points, some of them reaching a bit, others dead on. But Seth isn’t the first to publish such a list and he won’t be the last. One of the ways you can tell a relatively simple subject is being worked to death is by the volume of similar blog and article topics and content. Most articles on email marketing don’t vary by much and in fact I contend that if we applied all the filters and rules that are offered up to sanitize email marketing it might go something like this:

1. Start with your house list of email contacts. Beginning record count: 25,000

2. Mail only to those who initially double-opted in twice, and at least once on a yearly basis. Records remaining: 4,286.

3. Send email only to those contacts who have signed a waiver of prosecution. Records remaining: 389

4. Prospects born in a month ending in an “R” are notoriously fussy. Let’s not mail to them. Records remaining: 46 (we began our email collection at the November company birthday party)

5. Remove anyone who has specified in their account preferences that have nothing else to do but take offense at capitalism in progress. Records remaining: 3

6. Now go ahead and safely distribute your email but make sure whatever it is you’re selling has a one million dollar price tag, you’re gonna need it. Good news is you only need to sell one.

If we’d all put as much time and energy into answering our business phones with live humans and not so much with the perfect email, I think we’d be a little better off. Please don’t send me any emails or comments; my tender sensibilities are offended easily. I’ve got to go lay down…

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Solid Foundation Necessary For Efficient Marketing (Dallas, TX)

June 20, 2008 · Filed Under Email Marketing, Local Search, Marketing Plans, Tracking Results · Comment 

Chief Idea Officer of MarketingMeasureI attended a local seminar last week given by ExactTarget, the world’s premier email marketing service provider. ET has a traveling medicine show and the nomadic lot stopped in Dallas. Joel Book, ExactTarget’s Director of eMarketing Education was the ring-leader and he and his crew staged a fine event.

Far and away the best thought I was able to take away from the day was a diagram of foundational marketing tactics that summed up what is needed by business of any size regarding a solid marketing foundation. A solid CRM tool and philosophy for wielding it is paramount. At the center of the matrix is a web site, an email program, and a good web search presence. Surrounding that is a competent web analytics program (not software) capable of measuring, analyzing, and optimizing your overall efforts. These are the necessary and required elements of a good marketing effort in 2008. Other channels and tactics will probably be utilized but they’re not considered foundational.

Very interesting stuff. So do you have a CRM program in place? Proud of your website or did a friend of your nephew hack it out for you? Communicate with your people via email? Prospects? When someone searches for what you do, do you show up on pages 1 and 2 of the search results? And if someone asked you what your online conversion numbers are or where your trouble spots are situated would you have a clue? We can help you with that.

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Leveraging Marketing Tools For Small Business (Dallas, TX)

April 2, 2008 · Filed Under Direct Mail, Email Marketing, Marketing Tools, Random Thoughts · Comment 

Chief Idea Officer of MarketingMeasureA small business has to take advantage of every opportunity and angle that comes along. Small business usually means small marketing budget and while the internet has leveled the playing field, on some levels, for all players the fact remains that big business has fatter wallets and can afford to do more things on that playing field than the small business owner. So what’s an entrepreneur to do?

Leverage is the answer. Certain tools are capable of moving more work for the same dollar than others and we absolutely must identify those tools and use them to their fullest. Lacking not only the fatter budgets of their larger cousins, small business is quite often short on man-power which makes the task of consistent marketing exponentially more difficult. Read more

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