There's a major shift in the media world which you may not be following closely. It goes like this: the old rulers of media are losing ground to internet media (the new rulers). I know. It may not be so earth shaking. You already know this to be true, right? However, what you may not realize is the extent to which the ground is shifting, and how fast.
Today's stock market report on the Tribune and Los Angeles Times reports more red ink. Just when they thought they were getting a handle on their online ventures (local websites) in stemming a losing tide and repositioning their brands, etc., more bad news comes along: Jobs, Autos, and Housing sectors, which were deemed to be on a gentle upswing, are clearly not showing the expected stabilizing trend.
Now, as a marketer you may be saying, "so what? I wasn't planning to do more newspaper advertising anyway." So be it. It may be incidental to everything else for your company right now. Yet, I think the current media picture is also suggesting a bit more than this.
The web is no longer a playground of experimentation. It's now solidly established as the main thoroughfare of news, personal communications, entertainment, texting, mobile computing and wireless technology, etc. It is now the dominant (if not dominating) media growth trend in the U.S. and the world.
So, here's a question: Have you changed your marketing approach to take advantage of this trend? Or, have you been slowly sticking your toe into the online waters? If you have been pro-active, is your web presence reflecting the new standards of usability and complaince?
If not, do you realize the price you may be paying for the delay in redoing your web presence?
When you click on a search link in Google or Yahoo and proceed to a website... hosted somewhere, anywhere in the world... and find the exact nugget of information, or the product you're looking for (at the right price), you experience the web at its best, as a medium conforming to high usability standards and compliance. Your search was seemless, and the results page satisfied your query with an appropriate ranking of relevant information.
Assuming the site you visited met your needs, for the information you needed, the download that took place, or the product you purchased, it will have been in large part due to the new standards of web development that have taken place in the last few years.
Now, statistically, only a few sites truly perform in this way. A very large majority of the millions of sites created and hosted, in the last five to six years don't satisfy the criteria set forth by the WC3 (World Wide Web Consotium). They do not use XHTML architecture, or CSS style sheets for design. They use bloated code, take a long time to download, and are largely inaccessible to people with disabilities. These sites simply don't fare as well in the search engines. In a CSS driven site the structured markup makes the site more friendly to the search engine spiders.
So what happened to all those other sites? Where were they during your search query?
For the most part, these sites appeared in the anonymous listings that fell below the top ten as ranked by Google, MSN, Ask.com and Yahoo.
Yes, they're still there. Perhaps the site publishers still think of them as a great bargain.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Trusting Your Gut Instinct
It's soooo "scientific" these days, trust your gut! Of course, you won't get promoted. But you'll feel good.
Just finished reading another Email Insider by David Baker (11/20/06 from Media Post). I really should stop reading them. There must have been a rash on getting past the data measurement fix at Media Post (http://www.mediapost.com), which may be putting some direct marketers into the Constant Spin Cycle.
Baker's core message in, "Don't Believe Everythng You Hear," deals with the unmasking of Urban Legends in E-mail Marketing. For example...
• He takes on the one about putting all of your content on the top left of the preview pane. Yet, it's not so air tight as it may seem. What's the Reality? "Test different layouts," he says.
• Then, there's the one that says, "don't put your main content below the fold." So what's the reality behind this Urban Legend? If it's just clicks you're using to measure success, think again. Maybe you should consider measuring sales, or leads, or opens over time and put the content where it works best in the final analysis which may be above, or below, the infamous fold.
• Finally, there's the legend on long copy, which says that all copy must be short, that no one has time to read anymore, etc. Yet, as long as marketers continue testing copy length, they'll rediscover the truth about long copy, that it often performs much better than short copy.
Okay. So the data can take you only so far.
Innovation is the art of doing something unexpected, finding new patterns in old things, engaging the reader or vistor. The value of your product of company may require longer treatment. If that's the case, you can chalk it up to "good writing and solid content" which translates into more copy, e.g. the old direct mail mantra: the more you tell the more you sell.
I guess you can trust your gut if it's working properly. However, maybe it's not such a good idea if you haven't got any gut or instinct, or hunch to invest. We tend to forget this point. The fixation on data happens because many otherwise bright people won't automatically know which way to go next, without a few objective correlatives to fall back on.
Data is what the brain wants to see when it comes time to analyze.
Information is what we use to confirm our gut instinct.
It' okay to trust you gut if you take the time to become well informed. That's why measurement is so important. Why scientific analysis should be done carefully, each step of the way. Why you should read widely in the emerging field of internet marketing.
With regard to the web, on-going usability analysis has emerged on the study of interfaces and how people use them which are nearly immutable.* Yet, on closer inspection, you'll see many points of analysis and observation which are changing, as the technology changes, as people become more accustomed to using the web.
This too becomes of primary importance to the practice of email marketing. We may have reached a point where the fascination with metrics and analytics has nearly driven everyone mad with an over-abundance of conclusions which have not necessarily been confirmed as universal.
There's still a whole lot of learning going on.
*See "Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger, from New Riders Press
Just finished reading another Email Insider by David Baker (11/20/06 from Media Post). I really should stop reading them. There must have been a rash on getting past the data measurement fix at Media Post (http://www.mediapost.com), which may be putting some direct marketers into the Constant Spin Cycle.
Baker's core message in, "Don't Believe Everythng You Hear," deals with the unmasking of Urban Legends in E-mail Marketing. For example...
• He takes on the one about putting all of your content on the top left of the preview pane. Yet, it's not so air tight as it may seem. What's the Reality? "Test different layouts," he says.
• Then, there's the one that says, "don't put your main content below the fold." So what's the reality behind this Urban Legend? If it's just clicks you're using to measure success, think again. Maybe you should consider measuring sales, or leads, or opens over time and put the content where it works best in the final analysis which may be above, or below, the infamous fold.
• Finally, there's the legend on long copy, which says that all copy must be short, that no one has time to read anymore, etc. Yet, as long as marketers continue testing copy length, they'll rediscover the truth about long copy, that it often performs much better than short copy.
Okay. So the data can take you only so far.
Innovation is the art of doing something unexpected, finding new patterns in old things, engaging the reader or vistor. The value of your product of company may require longer treatment. If that's the case, you can chalk it up to "good writing and solid content" which translates into more copy, e.g. the old direct mail mantra: the more you tell the more you sell.
I guess you can trust your gut if it's working properly. However, maybe it's not such a good idea if you haven't got any gut or instinct, or hunch to invest. We tend to forget this point. The fixation on data happens because many otherwise bright people won't automatically know which way to go next, without a few objective correlatives to fall back on.
Data is what the brain wants to see when it comes time to analyze.
Information is what we use to confirm our gut instinct.
It' okay to trust you gut if you take the time to become well informed. That's why measurement is so important. Why scientific analysis should be done carefully, each step of the way. Why you should read widely in the emerging field of internet marketing.
With regard to the web, on-going usability analysis has emerged on the study of interfaces and how people use them which are nearly immutable.* Yet, on closer inspection, you'll see many points of analysis and observation which are changing, as the technology changes, as people become more accustomed to using the web.
This too becomes of primary importance to the practice of email marketing. We may have reached a point where the fascination with metrics and analytics has nearly driven everyone mad with an over-abundance of conclusions which have not necessarily been confirmed as universal.
There's still a whole lot of learning going on.
*See "Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger, from New Riders Press
Friday, April 13, 2007
Friday the 13th Musings On Metrics and Data
It's Friday the 13th. I'm closing up. Ready to go home and enjoy the weekend with my family.
Perhaps we'll see re-runs tonight of the old slasher movie which has memorialized this infamous Friday. Is it Freddie Kruger or Michael Meyers? I don't know which one to worry about. That's my problem I guess.
It's also true that I may be running the risk of appearing contrary to e-mail marketing and the chase for data supremacy. This 'losing the forest through the trees' stuff in my last post may make some you smile at me as naive and out of step. Especially with my last posting to this space. But, I've got to follow up once more. The subject of harvesting data, perhaps at the expense of strategy, remains unresolved. Which is probably useful to me in continuing to pique my curiosity.
Today I found one more "Email Insider" article from Media Post (11/16/06, by Amy D'Oliveira entitled "Going On A Data Diet") while wandering through my little binder of good stuff. She brings three points to the table on how to differentiate between the "interesting 'so what' and the actionable 'now what'... when looking at all the performance data, and how to tell the difference. Here's her key action points...
• Define program succss measures upfront and identify the relevant metrics.
• Track these metrics over time and keep them consistent.
• When data mining, ask the hard question: "what will we do with this information to improve our program?"
With more information coming along so quickly and readily through the digital dashboard on emailings, you have a choice of how to analyze your data and what you're going to pay attention to it, based on your strategic goals. In essence, you still need an overall strategy to guide you in digesting all this information and fine tuning your program.
The abundance of data, now so quickly harvested, easily accessed and analyzed (correctly we hope) brings real prospects for automated marketing. But the essential questions shall always start with the customer and the individuality of their relationship to the product.
That's it. That part isn't going to go away any time soon. We're dealing with people and not just data. There is an essential level of psychology and understanding which must preceed, any key stragegy decision.
To investigate and ask questions, even if they're rhetorical, is compelling to my interest in writing these entries.
So, who's it going to be: Kruger or Meyers?
Which slasher do you fear the most?
Perhaps we'll see re-runs tonight of the old slasher movie which has memorialized this infamous Friday. Is it Freddie Kruger or Michael Meyers? I don't know which one to worry about. That's my problem I guess.
It's also true that I may be running the risk of appearing contrary to e-mail marketing and the chase for data supremacy. This 'losing the forest through the trees' stuff in my last post may make some you smile at me as naive and out of step. Especially with my last posting to this space. But, I've got to follow up once more. The subject of harvesting data, perhaps at the expense of strategy, remains unresolved. Which is probably useful to me in continuing to pique my curiosity.
Today I found one more "Email Insider" article from Media Post (11/16/06, by Amy D'Oliveira entitled "Going On A Data Diet") while wandering through my little binder of good stuff. She brings three points to the table on how to differentiate between the "interesting 'so what' and the actionable 'now what'... when looking at all the performance data, and how to tell the difference. Here's her key action points...
• Define program succss measures upfront and identify the relevant metrics.
• Track these metrics over time and keep them consistent.
• When data mining, ask the hard question: "what will we do with this information to improve our program?"
With more information coming along so quickly and readily through the digital dashboard on emailings, you have a choice of how to analyze your data and what you're going to pay attention to it, based on your strategic goals. In essence, you still need an overall strategy to guide you in digesting all this information and fine tuning your program.
The abundance of data, now so quickly harvested, easily accessed and analyzed (correctly we hope) brings real prospects for automated marketing. But the essential questions shall always start with the customer and the individuality of their relationship to the product.
That's it. That part isn't going to go away any time soon. We're dealing with people and not just data. There is an essential level of psychology and understanding which must preceed, any key stragegy decision.
To investigate and ask questions, even if they're rhetorical, is compelling to my interest in writing these entries.
So, who's it going to be: Kruger or Meyers?
Which slasher do you fear the most?
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
How to See The Forest Through The E-mail
My thanks to David Baker for his insightful brief ("Simplify Your E-mail Marketing Programs," Email Insider, 10/2/06, Media Post). His article is one of several we have been keeping in a binder for internal discussion. This particular entry owes a lot to his comments.
Here's a quote: ""Many of you have patched together teams of multiple vendors: one for the business brief, another for the creative brief, an agency to build the e-mail, and then a provider to deliver your precious cargo. As a result, many programs suffer from the complexity... leaving no time for applied learning."
Or, as I might say more generally in expanding on this topic: technique for the sake of technique often contributes to needless complications and distractions. Even perhaps to the formation of bad marketing ideas.
It so happens, e-mail marketing thrives on technique. It's part of the nature of the medium. However, as marketers we must be concerned with the habitual chasing of 'best practice du jour.' Many benefits of marketing take time to develop. The voice and personality, not to mention brand formation, takes time. It should not be baked and served too quickly. Not if you want to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.
In a world transifixed by technology, many marketers pursue short term gains at the expense of long term goals. It is common to see people chasing technique, when they should be re-asking basic questions along the way: what are we trying to do? What are we trying to share in this new space (e-mail) that will reinforce customer perception and branding? What is the goal of this particular campaign or e-mailing? What are the objectives we need to reach in meeting them? Why should the customer care?
Chasing returns is counter productive in the stock market. But what about the stock we place in the brands we trust? Is it not counter productive to chase too many short term gains? What if these gains end up diminishing how the customer perceives our product?
Too many trees may obscure the forest. Just because the analytics and reporting are built-in, doesn't mean you should live and die by them with such fervor in every e-mail. Relationship marketing is a carefully built process. To your customer or subscriber, the choices they make in opening your message, or in becoming "engaged" with it, may have little to do with the metrics of testing, which may better reflect the sender's obsession with tactics and instant gratification (test, test, test, with lots of measurement, too little strategy?).
Your customer does not live with technology in the same way you live with it. She is definitely not sharing the fixation on measurement. We must always remind ourselves that measurement is often part of a larger more subjective analysis. It may be ironic that testing obsessions can end up becoming symptomatic of a continual misuse of data.
Let me replay the five guidelines from David Baker (in paraphasing his originals):
1. Be clear about your goals and don't get confused between goals and objectives. They are not the same.
2. If there is not going to be a measurable value attached to your test results, why do it?
3. Test only what you will be able to act on. Why measure what you cannot change?
4. (Quoted verbatim from Baker's post): "Quantify response -- both in cost to attain and cost to manage. If you don't interpret this, it will be an empty open rate or click through rate."
5. Stick to a six-words in summarizing your reasons for each new campaign or tactic. If you can't say it simply, it may be too complex.
Here's a quote: ""Many of you have patched together teams of multiple vendors: one for the business brief, another for the creative brief, an agency to build the e-mail, and then a provider to deliver your precious cargo. As a result, many programs suffer from the complexity... leaving no time for applied learning."
Or, as I might say more generally in expanding on this topic: technique for the sake of technique often contributes to needless complications and distractions. Even perhaps to the formation of bad marketing ideas.
It so happens, e-mail marketing thrives on technique. It's part of the nature of the medium. However, as marketers we must be concerned with the habitual chasing of 'best practice du jour.' Many benefits of marketing take time to develop. The voice and personality, not to mention brand formation, takes time. It should not be baked and served too quickly. Not if you want to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.
In a world transifixed by technology, many marketers pursue short term gains at the expense of long term goals. It is common to see people chasing technique, when they should be re-asking basic questions along the way: what are we trying to do? What are we trying to share in this new space (e-mail) that will reinforce customer perception and branding? What is the goal of this particular campaign or e-mailing? What are the objectives we need to reach in meeting them? Why should the customer care?
Chasing returns is counter productive in the stock market. But what about the stock we place in the brands we trust? Is it not counter productive to chase too many short term gains? What if these gains end up diminishing how the customer perceives our product?
Too many trees may obscure the forest. Just because the analytics and reporting are built-in, doesn't mean you should live and die by them with such fervor in every e-mail. Relationship marketing is a carefully built process. To your customer or subscriber, the choices they make in opening your message, or in becoming "engaged" with it, may have little to do with the metrics of testing, which may better reflect the sender's obsession with tactics and instant gratification (test, test, test, with lots of measurement, too little strategy?).
Your customer does not live with technology in the same way you live with it. She is definitely not sharing the fixation on measurement. We must always remind ourselves that measurement is often part of a larger more subjective analysis. It may be ironic that testing obsessions can end up becoming symptomatic of a continual misuse of data.
Let me replay the five guidelines from David Baker (in paraphasing his originals):
1. Be clear about your goals and don't get confused between goals and objectives. They are not the same.
2. If there is not going to be a measurable value attached to your test results, why do it?
3. Test only what you will be able to act on. Why measure what you cannot change?
4. (Quoted verbatim from Baker's post): "Quantify response -- both in cost to attain and cost to manage. If you don't interpret this, it will be an empty open rate or click through rate."
5. Stick to a six-words in summarizing your reasons for each new campaign or tactic. If you can't say it simply, it may be too complex.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Three More Points On Preview Panes
No sooner had I finished yesterday's post on preview panes, than I ran across Email Diva's take on the matter (Melinda Kruger, 9/25/06, Email Insider, from Media Post). She suggests all email marketers should be optimizing for the preview, assuming that blocked images are the norm, by giving the reader a choice on whether to open or delete.
Seems simple enough. Just pack your punch in the upper left corner, work to get on the friend's or safe list with each subscriber, and consider using Goodmail for Yahoo and AOL subscribers.
On the first of these, the advice still has me a little bit concerned. Perhaps so few are truly doing this. It may not be the 'numbing down' of the same layout over and over again which I'm so cautious about. As Melinda puts it, "While we are all tempted to put a big image and graphic headlines at the top of the e-mail, it more often than not comes through as boxes with red Xs in the corners." She suggests you determine what makes your e-mail a must read and put those benefits top left. On working to get on the friends safe list the suggestion is to ask for this on the registration screen, in the welcome e-mail and in every single e-mail that follows. Then there's Goodmail certification. Here the advice is to do it so your e-mails can arrive intact. Kruger says, "Goodmail certification also allows copywriters to curtail self-censorship... free is no longer a dirty word."
While I like and admire the writing I see in the Media Post, I'm still a little worried about the standard advice, which seems a bit too much like a common recipe, something we all must do in the same way if we want to see results. If awareness advertising is the art of marketing and direct marketing is the science of getting people to respond and make decisions, then the science has trumped art. It is the science of direct marketing that is truly winning.
There's no question that permission marketing has a defined set of best practices. However, the more we follow each other, the less true innovation in format and style we'll see.
Maybe it's just me. But I'm concerned with the straight-jacket that seems to be emerging.
Imagine the same restrictions on a print brochure. Or, a commercial. As consumers of media, we would go a little crazy with the monotony, redundancy and repitition if subjected to the same execution, over and over again.
Fashion icon Diana Vreeland once responded to the question, "what is style" by saying "True style has an animalistic, steely whip."
Now that's light years from permission marketing. But, the essence of it seems bear consideration. Real style, in anything you can name, will always be derived from genuine orginality. The challenge for the creative person is to "find new patterns in old things."
But how can do this, with so much imitation of technique?
I'm looking forward to learning more about real creativity in e-mail marketing.
Seems simple enough. Just pack your punch in the upper left corner, work to get on the friend's or safe list with each subscriber, and consider using Goodmail for Yahoo and AOL subscribers.
On the first of these, the advice still has me a little bit concerned. Perhaps so few are truly doing this. It may not be the 'numbing down' of the same layout over and over again which I'm so cautious about. As Melinda puts it, "While we are all tempted to put a big image and graphic headlines at the top of the e-mail, it more often than not comes through as boxes with red Xs in the corners." She suggests you determine what makes your e-mail a must read and put those benefits top left. On working to get on the friends safe list the suggestion is to ask for this on the registration screen, in the welcome e-mail and in every single e-mail that follows. Then there's Goodmail certification. Here the advice is to do it so your e-mails can arrive intact. Kruger says, "Goodmail certification also allows copywriters to curtail self-censorship... free is no longer a dirty word."
While I like and admire the writing I see in the Media Post, I'm still a little worried about the standard advice, which seems a bit too much like a common recipe, something we all must do in the same way if we want to see results. If awareness advertising is the art of marketing and direct marketing is the science of getting people to respond and make decisions, then the science has trumped art. It is the science of direct marketing that is truly winning.
There's no question that permission marketing has a defined set of best practices. However, the more we follow each other, the less true innovation in format and style we'll see.
Maybe it's just me. But I'm concerned with the straight-jacket that seems to be emerging.
Imagine the same restrictions on a print brochure. Or, a commercial. As consumers of media, we would go a little crazy with the monotony, redundancy and repitition if subjected to the same execution, over and over again.
Fashion icon Diana Vreeland once responded to the question, "what is style" by saying "True style has an animalistic, steely whip."
Now that's light years from permission marketing. But, the essence of it seems bear consideration. Real style, in anything you can name, will always be derived from genuine orginality. The challenge for the creative person is to "find new patterns in old things."
But how can do this, with so much imitation of technique?
I'm looking forward to learning more about real creativity in e-mail marketing.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Important Tips to Remember On Preview Panes
Though distinctly different approaches exist for marketers communicating with consumers, versus those who reach a business audience, it's a consistently held premise that HTML email must present a compelling design for the preview pane (that portion of the email interface that lets email readers partially scan their messages).
The reason is simple. Most readers use the preview pane to review their email before making a decision to open. If it ain't happening in the preview pane, you may as well anticipate a much lower open rate, not to mention click throughs to your site.
According to Kirill Popov and Loren McDonald in their Seven Steps to a Better Template, the issue comes down to a central question: "Does the email message deliver its punch in a space roughly 4 inches wide by 2 inches deep?'
The preview pane has been compared to newspapers, where the portion "above the fold" creates the impact for a newstand sale. If you're a publisher or an advertising agency, you're familiar with the idea of getting a compelling message across in limited space. For emails, this means packing as much information as possible up top, where the eye will see it quickly. Build interest and impact. Get them to click on anchor links to the text which follows, or simply use the upper left hand corner for a list of what's to follow.
Yet, or course, creativity doesn't stop on this point. Many designers now look at the top 200 by 300 pixels of an HTML newsletter or message, as a virtual banner. But this can lead to a uneven looking product for the reader, the experience of opening and reading an email can become so top heavy that there's not much flow to the content, or breathing room for the story that follows.
So as in everything else, the question of balance comes into play. Popov and McDonald suggest that you redesign your template for a more horizontal format and pack as much information up top. Yet, that leaves me wondering how conditioned readers will become to the repetitive stimulus. Will it be too much of a good thing? What about the newsletter or message that simply unfolds in an interesting way? What happens then?
As in everything, sometimes the exception proves the rule. Here's a quote from David Baker from the Email Insider (8/21/06) that says, "You e-mail should flow smoothly and be evenly distributed if your intent is for the reader to flow through content."
We think, that if you have an interesting story, you should tell it in an interesting way. This may mean toping up on flags, teasers, interesting link names, and anchor lists... or simply letting a great headling unfold into the story.
You'll want to use images carefully (with alt tags), especially if your are doing a business to business communication, since many email clients turn off the images by defalt.
Always think about what you're doing with care. Follow general trends carefully, but follow your instincts most of all.
The reason is simple. Most readers use the preview pane to review their email before making a decision to open. If it ain't happening in the preview pane, you may as well anticipate a much lower open rate, not to mention click throughs to your site.
According to Kirill Popov and Loren McDonald in their Seven Steps to a Better Template, the issue comes down to a central question: "Does the email message deliver its punch in a space roughly 4 inches wide by 2 inches deep?'
The preview pane has been compared to newspapers, where the portion "above the fold" creates the impact for a newstand sale. If you're a publisher or an advertising agency, you're familiar with the idea of getting a compelling message across in limited space. For emails, this means packing as much information as possible up top, where the eye will see it quickly. Build interest and impact. Get them to click on anchor links to the text which follows, or simply use the upper left hand corner for a list of what's to follow.
Yet, or course, creativity doesn't stop on this point. Many designers now look at the top 200 by 300 pixels of an HTML newsletter or message, as a virtual banner. But this can lead to a uneven looking product for the reader, the experience of opening and reading an email can become so top heavy that there's not much flow to the content, or breathing room for the story that follows.
So as in everything else, the question of balance comes into play. Popov and McDonald suggest that you redesign your template for a more horizontal format and pack as much information up top. Yet, that leaves me wondering how conditioned readers will become to the repetitive stimulus. Will it be too much of a good thing? What about the newsletter or message that simply unfolds in an interesting way? What happens then?
As in everything, sometimes the exception proves the rule. Here's a quote from David Baker from the Email Insider (8/21/06) that says, "You e-mail should flow smoothly and be evenly distributed if your intent is for the reader to flow through content."
We think, that if you have an interesting story, you should tell it in an interesting way. This may mean toping up on flags, teasers, interesting link names, and anchor lists... or simply letting a great headling unfold into the story.
You'll want to use images carefully (with alt tags), especially if your are doing a business to business communication, since many email clients turn off the images by defalt.
Always think about what you're doing with care. Follow general trends carefully, but follow your instincts most of all.