Pom Perspective: Getting Your Inactive Email Audience Members Back in the Game
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011When was the last time you reviewed your email audience list for inactive subscribers? If you have idle audience members and haven’t made an effort to reach out to them with a re-engagement campaign, you may be missing out on an opportunity to get them back in the game.
So how do you launch a re-engagement campaign?
Define what ‘Inactive’ means: Depending on the frequency of your emails, inactive can mean difference things to different folks. You’ll need to review your audience list and identify members who have not taken action (open/click/convert) in a specified period of time. A typical inactive time-period is the past three to six months.
Create an opportunity for action: When attempting to re-engage an inactive audience member, your primary objective should not be to sell them something. Instead, consider alternative ways for them to take action. Ask them to participate in a survey to find out what is top of mind – what do they think or want to hear. While you have their attention, be sure to ask them how often they’d like to hear from you and if they’re still interested in receiving emails from you at all.
Remind them why they wanted to hear from you in the first place: Cite the values and benefits they receive just by being an active member of your audience. What will they learn? What will they get? There has to be something in it for them to keep your audience members coming back for more.
Remember to say Thank You: Once an audience member decides that they want to hear from you (or not) remember thank them for their time. Consider sending a re-engaged audience member some form of compensation for sticking with you: whitepapers, articles, discounts. If your inactive audience member decides to opt-out completely, say thank you and let them know that you’ll remove them from your list (and be sure to do it)!
Go get ‘em!
Pom Perspective: Think Globally, Act Locally
Tuesday, January 25th, 2011Free links, Listings and Reviews
Tech companies that primarily market to global or national audiences may be able to tap in to new traffic sources right in their own digital backyard. Local search was one of the top online marketing trends in 2010 and this year it’s even hotter. Here are a few reasons why it pays to get into the local search scene:
Free links. Most local business listings are free, easy to customize (hello, keywords!), and include a link from a popular domain with search authority. Links to your website from reputable sources also help your site rank higher for non-local searches. Google Places, Bing local business listings, Yelp, and City Search are good places to start developing online local listings.
More SERP real estate. In Google, most search queries now return global results mixed with local results. Focusing on building local business listings increases the likelihood that your company’s website will show up in the search results for both local and non-local searches. After investing in local SEO, one Google search could potentially display results for multiple pages on your website, your company’s Google Places page, and several of your local business listings. Throw in a targeted PPC campaign and there is a good chance that your company will dominate the results for your most important keywords.
Reviews and Deals, they’re not just for brick and mortars. Several local directory sites, such as Google Places and Yelp, allow companies to promote deals and special offers at no charge. Deals and coupons can easily be added to a business profile to promote free trials and demos, product and service discounts, training and webinars, and more. In addition, most local business listings also allow customers to leave reviews about your business. Online reviews are now just as important to global and product-centric companies as they are to local storefronts. With the launch of Google Hotpot, Google is placing an even heavier emphasis on online reviews, yet again blurring the lines between local search and social media. Think of reviews as a way to boost your company’s online reputation and showcase its stellar customer service.
In this mobile world, you never know where your customers will be when they search for you online. So don’t just think global or local. Go glocal!
Pom Perspective: Targeting C-Level Executives?
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011Spend More, Personalize and Optimize
IT Insider polled 47 C-Level executives in technology companies throughout the Mid-Atlantic region to find out how to capture their attention in today’s information overload world. Here’s a recap of the findings and tips on how to get in front of these tough-to-reach prospects:
Get past the assistants: All of the C-level execs surveyed said that they rely heavily on their assistants to parse through the deluge of communication that comes their way. Consider sending two pieces of collateral — one targeted to the assistant and the other to the executive.
Do your homework: To standout with C-suite executives, you have to fully understand their roles, responsibilities and concerns. The C-level execs surveyed said this is where most people miss the mark. To get their attention, make sure you do your homework and understand their business enough to truly know if your product will fulfill their needs.
Be hyper personal: Generic mailings like postcards and letters result in a one-way ticket to the recycle bin when it comes to the C-suite. Use dimensional mailers — something that isn’t flat, like a box or tube — that are more eye-catching and hard to ignore. Incorporate personalized URLs that drive them to a personal landing page.
Be a thought leader: CEOs surveyed say that they rely heavily on word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations via their network of other CEOs. Leveraging personalized and peer-to-peer marketing opportunities in combination is the most effective path to influencing the influential. Often, WOM is spurred by thought leadership — truly outstanding and provocative content packaged and distributed through direct channels, webinars, conference events, speaking engagements and so on.
Pom Perspective: Go Mobile or Go Home
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011Android, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, iOS, RIM, Symbia. What does it all mean?
It means that if you thought smartphones were going the way of the lava lamp — a loved, but short-lived accessory, it’s time to think again. Smartphones are here to stay and they are making a noticeable impact on web design & development, and thus, how you represent your brand online.
Today, wi-fi, tethering and increasingly ubiquitous high-speed mobile coverage make it possible for us to stay connected. Always. That means when Joe’s boss asks him to cut IT costs by 30% in Q2, you better believe he’s taking advantage of his 40-minute train ride to explore vendor websites, check-in with his twitter network and update his Facebook friends to let them know he’s under the gun — again — at the office.
So what does this all mean for marketers? At a minimum — and I do mean minimum — it means that Joe is expecting that your website is going to work on his Droid. So, how do you make sure it does?
Here are 3 simple tips to get going in mobile:
1. Know your audience. What phones and platforms does your audience use most? Don’t forget to include tablets here — have you seen the feeds coming from CES 2011?!
2. Test, test, test. Find out what phones and mobile browsers your potential customers are using and get them. Then test your site on them to determine what, if anything, needs to be fixed.
3. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s ok if not all aspects of your site work in all mobile browsers. Like life, mobile is a journey, not a destination. Don’t be afraid to try things and don’t be afraid to ask for help!
Why IT people hate most websites
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011A recent poll of 262 IT and business professionals in the Mid-Atlantic region identified the Top 5 things that irk them about technology-related websites:
1. Too much fluff. They think most technology-related websites make too many expansive performance claims and don’t include enough specifics on how things work.
2. Instant gratification. They dislike having to dig deep to find adequate information about technical specifications and system requirements. They want to know how things work!
3. Not enough proof. They want evidence that the technology works and that it’s better than what else is available. They like things like competitor charts with features and benefits. They also like white papers with hard data.
4. No demos. It annoys them to be required to fill out a form to request a demo and then be harassed by a sales person. They want to see a demo first and then decide if they want more information.
5. Too hard to see the benefits. Tell them straight up how the technology will make their life easier. Will it help them sleep better at night? Will it reduce their workload? They want to know what’s in it for them right upfront.
Don’t Underestimate the Power of Social Media
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010A recent poll asked 123 IT consumers if social mediums influence their purchase decisions. The response: An overwhelming, “Yes.” Read on to learn why social media is something that consumers consider worthwhile
Emergence of new evangelists. Consumers value peer reviews, and social media provides a platform for this sort of communication. New experts are able to voice their opinions about products and services and let their prophecies be heard.
Newspapers are so yesterday. People no longer cut out deals and product news from the Sunday morning paper, they create “favorites” tabs on their internet browser. The internet is the new newspaper clipping. Consumers use these virtual clippings as ways to collect interesting and important information.
Hit the blogosphere. Blogs have become an important part of the average consumer’s everyday life. These portals of information feature the opinions of real people, and consumers feel like these peer-broadcasted opinions are genuine. With blogs, there is no hidden agenda, and this facilitates trusting relationships.
John Smith likes this. The notorious “Like” button on Facebook has certainly made its mark in the social media sphere and has enabled consumers to show their interest in certain products, services and ideas. This provides an outlet for peer-to-peer interaction and helps track trends.
I Gotta Feeling…
Thursday, April 29th, 2010I love running to the Black Eyed Peas song “I Gotta Feeling”. It makes me feel like I am Wonder Woman. It’s so upbeat and motivating.
I want to pass the feeling that I get from this song on to you and your business. The last year and half has been tough for most businesses. Many have gone into their shells like turtles, hiding out until it’s safe to show their faces.
Well, I gotta feeling that things are looking up for the economy and business overall. I see businesses every day that are pumped up and ready to get out there and go after it. They’re taking a hard look at their market positioning and determining if there are ways they can make themselves more relevant in today’s world. They’re getting real about their web presences and realizing that they need to do what it takes to have a stronger site that is search engine friendly. They may not get what search engine marketing is all about but they know they can’t bury their heads in the sand about it anymore because their competitors are showing up and they are not.
Yeah, I realize that our economy is complicated and one thing impacts another and so on. But Americans are resilient people and we get bored sitting around waiting for the sky to fall so we start coming up with new ideas and ultimately roll up our sleeves and get busy. This is what I am seeing every day with companies all over the country. They’re gearing up to kick some serious booty.
What’s it going to take for you to “get the feeling” that things are going to be good for your business? I say do whatever it takes to wake this feeling up because chances are, your competition is already feeling it.
Your Website is Snowmageddon-Proof
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010If you live in the Mid-Atlantic region, especially anywhere near Baltimore and Washington, D.C., you’re likely trying to shake off the disoriented haze that has taken over the region. Life literally came to a stop as we had a ton of snow dropped on us within a four-day period. You know the creed of the U.S. Postal Service — “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”? Not true anymore. Most people and businesses haven’t received mail in over a week.
And while business has gone on thanks to conference calls and email (if you had power), if you happened to be a company that had some of your biggest business-driving events in the last week, you are out of luck— big time. It turns out this was the situation for one of our clients. They had not one but four events scheduled within the last week. All four have a proven track record of bringing in new business. All four were cancelled. Needless to say, they are bummed.
We learned about this because we had a conference call with them yesterday to discuss the plan for revamping their website, optimizing it from top to bottom and getting a program in place to use all of the tools that are now available to transform their site into the lead generation machine it’s meant to be. They are committed to this project and the philosophy behind it like never before. They see the value in investing in their website and using it as the hub of their marketing strategy. Even when it snows four or five feet within a four-day period and they can’t get out to fill their sales pipeline the way they know it needs to be filled, they will be able to count on their website to reach out and bring them leads. Maybe there needs to be a creed for the Internet now. Hmmm.
Marketing Isn’t Easy… Even for a Marketing Agency
Monday, February 1st, 2010Our agency just launched a new website in the fall. We launch new websites every week for our clients but launching a new one for ourselves was a Herculean task. First, we took a look at our branding and decided to update our logo a little as well as our color palette. We liked our Pomerantz purple but we were also using this “olivey” green that was feeling a bit drab and dated. We wanted our new palette to be happy because these days people can use all of the happy they can get. Getting all of the pieces of this initiative perfect took forever and a day because creative people, like myself, can be super picky. And, fitting this stuff in with all of the other daily goings-on was pretty much impossible. Can you relate?
But the logo exercise actually was easy compared to designing our new website. This required us to dig deep because we had just brought on a new Internet Marketing specialist to our team and needed our positioning to be more focused on this arena but we also didn’t want to lose the reputation we have built as an award-winning creative shop. Needless to say, we figured it out because, well, we always do. We have to.
Next, we needed to “act like a client” to Amanda, our new Internet Marketing specialist, so we could learn the ropes of what is involved in optimizing a site properly in order to sell the services and to do right by our website. Amanda had the patience of a saint (one of the reasons she’s a good match for us and our clients) and she took us through the process step by step. We reviewed our current analytics to understand them the best we could. We weren’t using Google Analytics at the time so they were kind of a mess. We poured over lists of keywords to identify the ones that best fit the strategic direction of our agency. We looked at our competitors’ keywords. We learned about site wide optimization, on page optimization, pay per click campaigns and how to use Google Analytics to guide our online and offline marketing efforts. We also learned about social media communications including Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and blogging and how they fit in the marketing mix. It was a total immersion in web marketing because we used our new site as the learning tool.
Now, several months later, we get leads off our website on a weekly basis – much more than ever before. It’s a very satisfying feeling. Amanda and I work together regularly to “feed the machine”. This is really what it takes in today’s business environment. Your website has the power to be an incredible business-driving machine for your business but putting all of the pieces together requires dedicated people with the right skill sets and insight into the systems and processes for keeping things running.
So, if a marketing person that is in the trenches doing this stuff everyday tells you it’s not easy, it’s really not. If I were you, I’d outsource it to someone like us. 
Google Analytics: The Must Have For All Marketing Campaigns
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009For decades, business owners and marketing professionals have had to rely on some pretty unreliable sources to determine the success of a marketing campaign. Guestimates, gut instincts, and the always reliable answers to “how did you hear about us?” were usually the best we could do. Today, with the accessibility and affordability of website analytics tools, those days are long gone.
At Pomerantz, we strongly believe that a website is the hub of all marketing strategy; it’s the being that supports your sales and marketing efforts. So if you have a website, it doesn’t matter what type of marketing campaign you are initiating– email, direct mail, social media, print, pay-per-click, banner advertising– everything and anything can and should be measured. Tracking campaigns using an analytics tool, such as Google Analytics, will give you insight into each marketing campaign’s impact on leads, revenue and ROI, as well as the ability to compare the results of different marketing activities to determine where you are getting the most bang for your buck. You will be able to determine which campaigns send the most qualified visitors to your website, assess campaign performance by product or region, discover if new visitors or returning visitors convert more often, and predict future outcomes.
Unless all you care about is website traffic, which hopefully is not the case, the catch is that you can’t track the effectiveness of your marketing strategies if you don’t use analytics goals. A goal, or conversion, is any action that you desire a visitor to your website to take, such as filling out a contact form or completing a transaction. You could have one goal or many goals, it’s up to you. Once you establish your goal(s) and set them up to be tracked in your analytics application, you can start tracking the conversions generated by your marketing efforts.
Here’s an example of how to integrate analytics and goal tracking with a marketing campaign:
Company A launches a marketing campaign consisting of direct mail and email marketing. All pieces drive recipients to a microsite specifically dedicated to the campaign which has the conversion point front and center on the home page of the microsite and on all interior pages on the site. Google Analytics works behind the scenes on this campaign to track visitor behavior and the data obtained allows Company A (or their marketing agency) to quickly determine the success of the campaign and gain insights to help finesse the strategy for future purposes.
The bottom line is– you should not run a marketing campaign without being able to understand and evaluate its success and learn from the results. Take the guesswork out of marketing and let data drive your strategies. Google Analytics is free so there is absolutely no reason not to!
For decades, business owners and marketing professionals have had to rely on some pretty unreliable sources to determine the success of a marketing campaign. Guestimates, gut instincts, and the always reliable answers to “How did you hear about us?” were usually the best we could do. Today, with the accessibility and affordability of website analytics tools, those days are long gone.
At Pomerantz, we strongly believe that a website is the hub of all marketing strategy; it’s the being that supports your sales and marketing efforts. So if you have a website, it doesn’t matter what type of marketing campaign you are initiating– email, direct mail, social media, print, pay-per-click, banner advertising– everything and anything can and should be measured. Tracking campaigns using an analytics tool, such as Google Analytics, will give you insight into each marketing campaign’s impact on leads, revenue and ROI, as well as the ability to compare the results of different marketing activities to determine where you are getting the most bang for your buck. You will be able to determine which campaigns send the most qualified visitors to your website, assess campaign performance by product or region, discover if new visitors or returning visitors convert more often, and predict future outcomes.
Unless all you care about is website traffic, which hopefully is not the case, the catch is that you can’t track the effectiveness of your marketing strategies if you don’t use analytics goals. A goal, or conversion, is any action that you desire a visitor to your website to take, such as filling out a contact form or completing a transaction. You could have one goal or many goals, it’s up to you. Once you establish your goal(s) and set them up to be tracked in your analytics application, you can start tracking the conversions generated by your marketing efforts.
Here’s an example of how to integrate analytics and goal tracking with a marketing campaign:
Company A launches a marketing campaign consisting of direct mail and email marketing. All pieces drive recipients to a microsite specifically dedicated to the campaign which has the conversion point front and center on the home page of the microsite and on all interior pages on the site. Google Analytics works behind the scenes on this campaign to track visitor behavior and the data obtained allows Company A (or their marketing agency) to quickly determine the success of the campaign and gain insights to help finesse the strategy for future purposes.
The bottom line is– you should not run a marketing campaign without being able to understand and evaluate its success and learn from the results. Take the guesswork out of marketing and let data drive your strategies. Google Analytics is free so there is absolutely no reason not to!