Marketing Ideas!

How do you create your email marketing campaigns? Is it typically one big blast that gets sent out to promote a specific event or offering? Do you follow up on that promotion? Do you measure and learn from what went wrong? Even something as “simple” as email marketing can be made better with a little effort.

The following video shares some insight on how we can all learn from our mistakes, and by taking some chances, we might actually succeed beyond our wildest dreams. Special thanks to Guy Kawasaki for sharing this video with me via Twitter.

In the Star Wars universe, the Force is a binding, metaphysical, and ubiquitous power, described by Obi-Wan Kenobi as an energy field created by all living things, that surrounds and penetrates living beings, and binds the galaxy together. Jedi masters learn to harness the Force for the purposes of doing good. Being a Jedi Master requires patience and understanding.

There are, of course, some who learn to control the Force and are tempted by their powers; these individuals are not Jedi, but Sith — followers of the Dark Side. They are aggressive in their use of the Force, impatient, and can justify their actions as important or needed — when it is frequently not the case.

However, regardless of whether one is a Jedi or a Sith, those that are able to use the Force are some of the most powerful, respected, and feared beings in the universe — because they can make things happen.

There is an equivalent to the Force in the marketing universe. It, too, is binding, metaphysical, and ubiquitous and surrounds virtually all marketing activities. Those that master it for good are patient and use their powers responsibly. But there are those that overuse their powers; they are impatient and justify their actions with the typical “the ends justify the means” mentality.

What is this marketing force? It is email. It is binding (according to a 2006 Jupiter Research survey, 87% of consumers in the United States cite email as the top reason for connecting to the Internet), it is metaphysical (unless you send it to a printer), and it is ubiquitous (in 2007, Omniture reported that more than 21 trillion emails were sent in the United States alone).

By referencing email, I’m not overtly referring to it as email marketing, but as a way to communicate. Email doesn’t always have to be about marketing messages. In fact, the intent of email has always been about facilitating our lives.

Of course, there is the dark side of email — SPAM. These are the people and organizations who lack patience, are overly aggressive, and can view any mention of their own selves as important to everyone. But those that use email responsibly can do a lot of good, for both their organizations and those that receive their emails.

Many people seem to believe that email marketing performs best when it is not integrated with other efforts. Obi-Wan Kenobi described the Force as an energy that surrounds all living things. Is this where the metaphor of email-as-the-Force breaks down? No. Just as Obi-Wan describes the Force, email surrounds virtually every marketing effort. It is the entry and exit points for almost all marketing channels. It has an impact and is impacted by everything happening in both online and offline marketing.

So, when you think about email, don’t just think about it as a single email or campaign, or even marketing. Think about it as a way to welcome new visitors to your Web site or store, as a way to share information, build relationships, and to help make the lives of your prospects and clients easier.

With this level of clarity, with some patience, and an understanding of your marketing goals, you might become a Jedi Marketing Master.

President Obama’s inauguration was yesterday.

He became President, in part, by being a good marketer (as they said on Mad Men, the President is a product, too). He has been a good marketer by being a transformational figure in the realm of communication (the first Blackberry President, some say).  The Obama campaign is now the case study on how to use social media or Web 2.0 marketing or whatever you want to call it.

This is not news, by any stretch, but it is so significant that it’s worth stating. And it’s something the savvy small business owner should be paying close attention to. The Obama story is one that any small business owner or entrepreneur can identify with: a come-out-of-nowhere, unknown-to-hero, overnight success theme runs throughout. If you are a small business owner, Obama has proven that this is how to communicate in the 21st century. Especially if you want to beat larger, more well known competitors.

Why was the Obama campaign so successful? Because their strategy was sound on the fundamentals of marketing and they had a secret weapon. What was the secret weapon of the Obama campaign? Email.

Through email, the campaign was able to build relationships with activists and sympathizers. I recently spoke with a client of mine who was (and is) an Obama supporter. She had never met him personally, but she received emails from him regularly. Through these emails, and the fact that he addressed her by name, she felt as though she was an important part of his campaign. Because of her growing relationship, she was motivated to do more. She wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

Think about that for a moment. Email, which we all take for granted, was potentially the most important marketing tool used by the Obama campaign. Sure the videos on YouTube get all the glory, but it was email that paved the way.

When messages were created, produced, and posted on places like YouTube, it was email (and to a lesser extent Twitter) that got the message out to supporters, who in turn got the message out to a larger audience. Obama supporters knew who the Vice President candidate would be at the same time as the press, because he kept supporters informed via email. When he needed to raise money, he asked via email.

Email is not new technology; it was invented in 1972. So many of us take it for granted. It’s so simple, it’s easy to overlook it and assume it couldn’t be a credible, viable marketing tool.  Obama may (or may not) be able to affect change on the economy or the war. But he is the best case study out there on how to use email marketing and to bring communication strategy to the 21st century.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Here’s a few more bits about the inauguration and the direction the White House is headed with it’s communication strategy:

• Macon Philips, Director of New Media for the White House writes about communication, transparency, and participation.
• Change.gov has transformed into WhiteHouse.gov. Tim O’Reilly (of O’Reilly books) has a good take on this.
• Obama’s chief speech writer is the youngest such writer in recorded White House history. He wrote the inauguration speech (after much research) in a Washington, D.C. Starbucks.
• How well did our young speech writer do? Bert Decker, communication expert, evaluates the Obama Inauguration speech.

As this is the very first post for the new blog, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the lost art of the “welcome.”

One of the single most important things we can do for our customers and prospects is to welcome them. When clients are added, they expect to be welcomed. Welcome letters say “we value you.” This not only simplifies and strengthens relations, but also creates a bond of mutual appreciation and value between the two individuals or organizations.

So, how do you welcome your newest customers? Do you just take their money and hand them a receipt? Do you send them a hand-written note? Hopefully you at least said thank you. Maybe next time you can send them an email.

A common myth about email marketing is that people receive too many emails. The fact of the matter is that people receive too many unimportant emails. According to a JupiterResearch/Ipsos Insight Individual User Survey (2006), 87% of people in the United States log onto the Internet to check their email. In other words, people are looking for and expecting email. They’re just hoping to receive something useful, is all.

If you aren’t welcoming your newest customers (and prospects) via email, you are missing out on a great opportunity to engage your community. A well-crafted welcome message can help set your customers expectations about how much you value them, where they should expect to find your communications (train them to look in their inbox) as well as showing them that you respect them by sending quality content.

What kind of quality content? Well, that’s up to you, of course, but here are some of our ideas:

• Inform them about some of the hidden gems on you site, like specials, partners, or the like.
• If you already have good, useful information in your corporate wiki, blogs, etc, this is a great time to invite them to those communities.
• If you have a Twitter account, or anything else that might be useful, tell them how to find you there. Amazon and Woot do a great job with using Twitter and engaging their customers.

The key, of course, is sending useful information. If you can do this, you are well on your way to building a solid relationship with your clients. And, since so few businesses (especially brick-and-mortar stores) do this at all, this could be a huge advantage for getting and keeping business this year.

If you are a brick-and-mortar shop, especially a small retailer, you MUST do this. And you can do it much more easily than the big stores out there. Get people’s email addresses and start sending useful emails!

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Here’s some more bits that I found interesting:

• Interesting bit from DoshDosh on what we can learn from email spammers.
• CampaignMonitor put together a rather comprehensive look at using various video technologies in different email clients. There’s a very useful chart there for reference, but the easy take away: if you must use video, use animated GIFs.
• And, lastly, if you don’t already know about this, check out Timebridge. It’s one of my favorite online tools for planning meetings of any type.