Direct Marketers Guidebk 2012

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK
2 SIPA
HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.
Editors Note
Direct marketing is a pretty simple conceptnd a prospect, communicate why your prospect needs (wants, desires) your product and, voila, sell your product. If only it were that simple. Direct marketing, like the media industry itself, is changing rapidly. Marketers today are reaching prospects by both traditional methodsdirect mail, email and telemarketingand by creative Next Generation marketing methodsthrough paid search, on social media, and on their mobile devices. The holy grail of direct marketing is nding and reaching our prospects where they live. At one time, nding them was both easy but at the same time limited as a marketers single access point was almost exclusively behind their desk (b2b) or at home (consumer). In todays mobile, always-connected environment, the opportunity to get your message in front of your prospects is almost limitless. The key to todays marketing is understanding where your prospects live beyond their home base. Are they active in social media and if so, which kind? Are they a highly mobile audience who consumes information on the go? Do they rely on the web for paid search? If the answer to all these questions a year ago was no, youd better check again. Mobile and social media are gaining in relevance among all age groups and keeping pace with this evolution is a critically important role for todays marketers. The best way for you to monitor the evolution of your audience is to make it a part of your daily life. Join Facebook groups, tweet, search the web for products like yours and evaluate the user experience. Sign up to receive information in your market from organizations, associations, tradeshows and competitors and see how they communicate with you. Understanding the changing dynamics of your market is critical to achieving success. In light of the complex challenges facing marketers today, we quickly recognized the need for a companion product and reference tool that simultaneously supports and enhances your conference experience. This e-guidebook was conceived to be part marketing fundamentals, part best-of-breed solutions and part visionary. We have tapped into SIPAs members, who have generously contributed their expertise and know-how to share those marketing techniques that work best for them, and how they are using new marketing channels and technologies to successfully test the boundries of where they might go. This book has inspired and motivated us to do what marketers do best; seek results, test and steal smart. We hope youll be inspired to do the same. Best, Heather Farley and Greg Krehbiel Co-Chairmen SIPAs 28th Annual Marketing Conference
3 Editors Note
4 SIPA
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals ............................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2: Telesales/Direct Sales .................................................................................................................32 Chapter 3: Ffts And Ets ................................................................................................................................48 Chapter 4: Seo/Adwords And Keywords ..................................................................................................54 Chapter 5: Landing Pages: Design And Impact .....................................................................................68 Chapter 6: Ecommerce And Shopping Cart ............................................................................................76 Chapter 7: Renewals: How To Keep The Ones Youve Got ..................................................................88 Chapter 8: Social Media And Community Building ..............................................................................96 Chapter 9: Mobile: What It Is And What You Need To Consider About Its Use......................... 108 Chapter 10: Direct Mail ................................................................................................................................ 120 Chapter 11: Lists, Lists And Lists ............................................................................................................... 130 Chapter 12: Marketing Plan Waiting For This From Denise ......................................................... 136 Chapter 13: What To Measure And Why ................................................................................................ 146 Chapter 14:....................................................................................................................................................... 155
5 Table of Contents
6 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA
1
Email Marketing Fundamentals
7 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals
Your Guide to Email Marketing

A Cost Effective Way to Reach your Customers and Prospects
ACT! by Sage
Executive Summary
Email marketing is proven to be one of the most cost eective ways to reach out to your customers and prospects. Through email marketing, businesses are able to target the needs of their contacts. ACT! E-marketing provides you with the tools to create, track and send beautifully crafted email campaigns. It also combines email marketing with robust reporting tools to reveal the results you want to see. The goal of this white paper is to provide you with a guide to email marketing so that you will ultimately increase your return on investment. After reading through this white paper, you should be well on your way to creating your rst email marketing campaign.
PART ONE:
Permission-based Email Marketing
You may be asking yourself what is permission-based email marketing? Permissionbased email marketing is dened simply by who you send email to. Permission-based emails are sent only to people that have requested or opted-in to receiving your emails. When emails are sent unsolicited it is called spam and can destroy a companys reputation if followed through with. Permission-based email stands out beyond spam as a valuable source of communication that allows businesses to reach thousands of clients purposely. Email marketing has risen to be one of the most cost-eective forms of marketing, and creates the highest return on investment (ROI) than any other form of direct marketing. According to Marketing Sherpas 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, email marketing budgets have increased across all industries despite overall marketing budgets decreasing.
Just in the Business/Financial services industry alone, 51% of companies increased their email marketing budgets. These results also show that tactics that take more time are that much more eective. Delivering content that is highly relevant to the segment at 50% increased eort is 70% percent more eective overall.
PART TWO:
Email Marketing Tips
A successful email marketing campaign has the potential to generate higher open rates, obtain a greater response, and ultimately create more revenue. Here are a few tips to help you create an eective, well- crafted email campaign.
Subject Line is Key

Everyone has heard the saying, Dont judge a book by its cover. Unfortunately, there is a reason for the sayingbecause its a natural instinct. First impressions are a key in any form of communication. When people receive an email, the rst thing they see is the subject line, which has the potential to either gain or lose the interest of a reader. Subject lines that include you companies name as a reference and provide specics to your main point of the email will gain higher open rates.
Pay Attention to the From Address of Your Emails

To help understand how important this one is, think about your own inbox. Would you be more likely to open an email sent from advertising@xyzcorp.com or annie.cooley@sage.com? People dont want to feel like they are receiving an automated email. If readers dont feel like you put the time into personalizing the from address, they will not want to take the time to pay attention to what you have to say. Readers will be more likely to open your email, and if they have any questions or comments they can respond to Dear Sara, instead of Dear xyzcorp.
Mail Merge
People love seeing their own name. It makes them feel as though the email was written to them personally and not send to them as recipient #432. This is another simple option that can be directly inserted into your template using ACT! E-marketings Online Template Editor.
Variety
Sending an email can be one of the most eective ways to grab the attention of your readers. However, if you abuse the power email marketing provides (in terms of ease of communication), readers will stop showing interest in your emails. Consistency is essential with any marketing campaign, but remember that variety is just as
important. How often do you send out newsletters, event invites and updates? Are you getting an active response from the recipients? If not, try something new. Be conscious about how many emails you send out each week, each month. How are individuals interacting with your emails? Are you following up accordingly? How are you engaging the people that seem uninterested? We will go into further detail about how to specically target your recipients to create variety in the following pages. Variety can be seen in many forms of communication including email, call lists, and direct mail.
Quality Over Quantity

It is far more important to send out content-rich emails than it is to send out long emails and/or multiple emails. When you provide your contacts with quality content, they are more inclined to read your emails and forward them to friends. Gain the trust of your contacts by emphasizing quality of communication over quantity.
Content Suggestion
How can you personalize the content of you message? Listen to your readers because the people who take time to contact you are the ones who are most likely to pay attention to your email campaigns. Focus on their emails, their questions, their likes and dislikes. After all, if it was not for your loyal customers and readers, you would not be as successful as you are today. Help build your products with your customers input and they will understand that you appreciate them and will stay loyal to you. Social media can be one of the most eective ways to listen and engage your readers. Pay attention to what they are saying about your services and industry at large. You can take that information and create valuable content in your emails.
Test Everything Before Sending

Test the way your email looks, not only through your own email service provider, but in several email providers. Test all your links in the top, middle and bottom of your message to make sure they all work. Test your graphics. Pictures are a great way to grab someones attention. Remember that pictures do not always show up in email messages, so test the eectiveness of your email by covering the pictures and making sure your message is still easy to understand and the call-to-action is clear. Finally, test your email with a spam check tool before you send. Spam check services review the content of your email to see what might tip o spam lters.
A/B Testing
Your email has passed all the tests of looking good, having working links, images properly placed, a call to action apparent and has made it through the spam check, but it is not getting the open rates you were looking for. How come? There are many reasons for this including time of day, day of week, frequency of emails, etc So why not test it? Start with one change at a time. For example, lets explore what days your recipients are more likely to open your email. Split up your list and send each set the same email on dierent days. Does the open rate stand out more on one day than another? The next step could now be to determine the time of day on this particular day people are more willing to open and interact with the email. Again split your list up and send out the same email at dierent times of the day. A good starting point would be the start of the day and the middle of the afternoon. Studies have shown these are the best times of day to send emails. So now you have a specic day and time your recipients are most responsive. It is time to dig into the content. What sort of subject line gains the highest response? Do my recipients react more to graphics or text? Consider the placement of your call to action. Is one position more eective than another? Do your recipients appreciate the lengthy, very informational emails or would they rather have a quick and to the point email? Again, test each one of these one part at a time. Always keep in mind that as the rest of the business world changes so could your recipients. Continue testing and never settle for one formula.
PART THREE:
Building Your Email List (and Your Loyal Customers)
Oer Incentives
Incentives can come in the form of content rich materials such as white papers to discounted products and services. Place an email opt-in form on your website with an incentive attached. Other great places to put an optin form are on your social media pages, on the side bar of your blog site and attached to white papers and post event resources.
The Easier, the Better

Make signing up for your email list as easy as possible. First of all, make sure it is not dicult for people to nd where to sign up. Post a link on every page of your company website for people to subscribe to your email list. Secondly, once someone clicks on your link, do not require a lot of unnecessary information. All you really need is an email address and name at this point. People will be more likely to provide you with these two pieces of information than they will be to ll out a form including their address, telephone number and more. Use Your Current Contacts Always make sure to include the option to Forward to a Friend at the bottom of your emails (ACT! E-marketing automatically includes this for all emails). If you produce content-rich information, people will be more likely to forward the information on to friends and colleagues. Those friends and colleagues will be receiving it from someone they know and trust, and will be more likely to look at what you have to oer. By forwarding an email, your current contact is saying, This is great information from a company I trust.
Business Cards
Passing out your business card is natural and even expected in the professional worldtrade shows, seminars, business meetings or even small talk with a stranger can be opportunities to network. While the basic informationname, title, company, phone, address, email and websiteis standard on a business card, have you thought of promoting how someone can opt-in to your emails or newsletters? Doing so can be as simple as directing the person to a short landing page URL (e.g. http://xyzcorp.com/newsletter) to opt-in to your email on the back of your card.
Use Direct Mail

If you already have a large direct mailing list, take advantage of this list. On every piece of direct mail you send, oer information on how to sign up for your email list. This way, you are marketing directly to people you know are already interested in your product. To provide them with a reason to actually go to a computer and sign up for your email list, oer them some form of an incentive: a whitepaper, discount, a special online oer or even grant access to exclusive company specials. People love gifts, which make them a great tool to use to gain information.
Make it Worthwhile for Your Readers

It is a rule of thumb in email marketing to always make it easy for your customers to opt-out of the Email newsletters and updates that you send. However, if you make it worthwhile to stay subscribed, they will continue to follow you over the years and may even become evangelists of your business.
PART FOUR:
What to Consider When Designing an Email Template
Your email represents you, your company, and your product or service, and it is very similar to the cover of a book: the cover is a huge selling point and often dierentiates the best sellers from the duds. Here are a few simple ways to create a bestselling book cover for your business.
ThemeGoal
The theme of a book is represented in all parts of its cover and should speak directly to the target audience as well as giving them an idea of what lies within the pages of the book. This relates to your email because the theme, brand and goal of your email should encompass everything youre communicating. Your text, images and links should clearly show why your contacts should read your email, and what they should do as a result (call-to-action). The best way to drive your contacts to action is with the use of links.
Subject Line and Headlines

The subject line and the headlines within your email are as important as title and chapter titles are to a book. You only have one subject line to get your recipients to open your email and three seconds to grab your recipients attention when they open it. Brian Clark denes a headline as a benecial and relevant promise to the right people. When creating a headline, you need to ask yourself who the RIGHT people are.
IllustrationsImages
Illustrations on a book cover are very compelling. Your images should not be overlooked or overbearing, but should communicate your goal and represent your brand. Keep in mind the hierarchy of text and images to create a well balanced ow of information. Remember that some of your recipients will have images blocked on their incoming emails.
ContentText
The content of your message should be authentic and concise. The key to success is to oer concrete, eye-catching material that sparks the readers interest; you typically have 3 seconds for your recipient to decide if your email is worth reading. If you have more to say, utilize links to continue your communications with your recipients. Embrace your story. Make sure your content represents your company and your voice. Market your services keeping in mind how they stand out among your competitors. Constantly be answering the question, Why would a person choose us over our competitor?
PART FIVE:
Targeting your Results
One of the major benets in investing your trust in an email service provider is the advantage of being able to directly target your customers. For example, if you create a list of 500 of your customers who have shown most interest in your newest product, you can enter their email addresses into an email marketing campaign and track exactly what takes place in the campaign, knowing who opens, clicks, and forwards your email.
Campaign Summary
Once you gather your open and click results, you will be able to determine the most qualied leads to build a call list from. Someone who opened the email three times and clicked on four links would be more interested than another person who opened the email once and didnt click on any links. The call list can be sent to your sales team so they view this valuable information on the leads before they even pick up the phone.
You can target other recipients depending on what they specically click on in any given email. For instance, if a group opened and clicked a link, thank them for their interest and offer them more information on the specic link they clicked on. This report shows how many times specic links were clicked on. Depending on the link, you can target specic recipients with further information focused on what they are most interested in. For the inactive customer, try a dierent subject line and content for the second email or seek a new form of communication such as direct mail or a phone call. There are various marketing strategies, but email marketing allows you to know your audience before you contact them increasing the possibility of turning your leads into loyal customers.
PART SIX:
Practical Use
Scenario 1: A small business owner who has never used email marketing before.
Suppose this small business is a bakery that never spends time on the internet. The main focus of the small shop is dedicated employees and customers. Fortunately, email marketing does not take a large time commitment. For example, the bakery could send out news about special oers and upcoming events in a monthly newsletter to their loyal customers who choose to stay up to date with what the bakery has to oer.
Scenario 2: A business launching a new product.

Company X wants to get the word out and is proud of its newest oer, but doesnt know how to spread the word. They could rst send out an email to all of their customers and monitor the results. If certain customers are more interested than others, Company X will know exactly who the hot leads are by generating a Call List. If customers are not interested at all, a second email can be sent to those contacts hoping to catch their attention or reach them by another method, like a postcard.
Scenario 3: Driving people to an upcoming event.

Do you want to get a numerical estimate of attendees before an event takes place? Send out an email allowing guests to RSVP online. Once a guest RSVPs, enter them into an event reminder campaign. If they never RSVP, enter them into a sorry we missed you campaign. All of this can be automated with ACT! E-marketing Drip Marketing. Set the campaigns up initially, sit back and enjoy the show.
Scenario 4: New to Social Media?

How are you ever going to gain followers? Send out an email to your customer base announcing that you are now taking your presence in the social media world seriously. By doing this, you will gain loyal followers who actually respond when you ask a question. Social media is perhaps the most eective contemporary marketing tool.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Commonly Used Email Marketing Terms
Above-the-fold
Above-the-fold items show up on the screen when an email is openeda recipient does not need to scroll down to view them. It is benecial to put your most important information (links, product or event details, etc.) abovethe-fold because that information is more likely to be viewed. If you can catch the reader attention here, they will be more likely to scroll down, read on and take action.
Blacklist
A blacklist acts as a lter to block email from a particular server. If a recipient of one of your email campaigns reports the message as spam, the recipient companys Internet Service Provider (ISP) may block any future correspondence from your entire domain. This can be very costly, as it impacts not only marketing, but also sales, accounting and customer servicevery department of your business attempting to contact your customers. If the email recipient was an existing customer, his or her company may not receive important information about meetings, billing and so on.
Call List
The Call List is a valuable tool that converts your email campaign reporting into essential information for your sales team. The Call List ranks contacts in order from Hot to Mild based on their interaction with your email. For instance, someone who shows the most interest in your email campaign by opening it and clicking on links is considered one of your most valuable contacts and is grouped into your Hot leads category. Someone who opens your email but does not actually click on a link is grouped among your Warm or Mild leads. A person who does not open your email or click on a link within it is not included in your leads, as they are considered to be less interested.
Click Rate
Click rates signify the amount of people who click on at least one link in your email. A unique click represents the rst time someone clicks on a link, whereas total clicks represents the total number of times a person clicked on a link in your email. On an ACT! E-marketing Call List, recipients who click on at least one link will most likely be rated as Hot leads.
Email Service Provider

An Email Service Provider (ESP) is an organization that provides a web-based email tool. ACT! E-marketing is an example of an ESP.
Hard Bounce
A hard bounce is an email that bounces instantaneously at the recipients server level. For example, an email will hard bounce if the server nds that an inbox is invalid. At this point, ACT! E-marketing is still connected to the recipients server, and when the email bounces, ACT! E-marketing collects it and reports it to the sender as a bounce. Essentially, a hard bounce occurs because the recipients server never really accepts it.
HTML Email
Using HTML format when sending your email campaigns allows you to include more features than a plain text email. HTML allows the sender to format their email with images, headers, links and more. ACT! E-marketing oers an online template editor where you can create your email templates in HTML. We also have a template library where you can nd outlines and ideas for your next template. You can also import your own HTML templates designed in HTML editors like Dreamweaver, Frontpage, or True HTML.
Marketing Automation
Marketing Automation is the use of software to automate your marketing processes. It allows you to focus on other details during your business day because it removes the tasks you would have had to perform manually and adds new processes that would not have been possible. You can construct an entire marketing campaign that includes email marketing campaigns, call lists, direct mail, and more. Also, if someone signs up for a certain oer in one email campaign, you can establish lters so they are transferred to a second campaign to better target your audience. With every sign up, contacts are automatically entered into the second campaign.
Open Rate
An open rate signies the amount of people who open your email campaign. It is a great way to track the interest of your contacts and to compare and contrast what marketing methods work brings the best results over time. Open rates also help group your contacts into Call List categories to ensure you are contacting the most interested recipients. ACT! E-marketing tracks opens through embedded image tracking. When the recipient opens the message, the image is accessed and an open is counted.
Opt-out
An option for the recipient to opt outin other words, to be removed from your email listmust be included on all email campaigns. Opt out allows your contacts to stop receiving emails from you, and is required by the federal 2003 CAN-SPAM Act. ACT! E-marketing automatically adds an opt-out option in the footer of your emails, and makes the opt-out process very simple. The ability to opt out is considered best email marketing best practice, is necessary for CAN-SPAM compliance, and is an integral part of ACT! E-marketings user policies. The ACT! E-marketing footer also includes your companys address, and information on contacting ACT! E-marketing as the third-party provider.
Soft Bounce
A soft bounce is an email message that gets to the recipients mail server but is sent back before it ever reaches the recipient. One of the main causes of a soft bounce is a full inbox on the recipients end, or an inbox no longer existing
Spam
In most cases, spam in unsolicited and undesirable email. Spam is almost always email that is sent without the recipients permission. If someone perceives you as spam, you can get blacklisted by them.
Whitelist
Whitelist is the list of email addresses or domain names from which a spam lter will allow messages to be received. You are added to a recipients whitelist when your customers establish your email address (or domain) as a trusted sender. It is always a good idea to ask your customers to add you to their whitelist (or Safe Senders list) when they rst sign up to be on your email list and to also encourage them to add your companys email address to their address book.
About ACT!
ACT! by Sage makes it easy for you to have meaningful conversations with customers by giving you an organized view of the people you do business with. Like the millions of small businesses and sales teams who use ACT!, youll always be prepared with recent emails, meeting notes, task reminders, and social media proles, because all of these details live in one place. Important Note: Review ACT! system requirements at www.act.com/2010systreq. You must purchase one license of ACT! per user. Scalability varies based on hardware, size, and usage of your database. Compatibility: Visit www.actsolutions.com or contact your add-on product provider to determine compatibility. 2010 Sage Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Sage, the Sage logos, ACT! and the Sage product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc., or its aliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Page 1
Turning Email Experience into Social Success

Mastering the newest Permission-Based channel
Mike May
Head of Insights, Real Magnet
Marketers rely on email because it is inexpensive, scalable, easy to manage using in-house resources, and drives immediate results which are measured through rich analytics. The exact same thing could be said about social media, with one notable exception. The rich analytics so central to email adoption are absent in social, so learning is slower, adoption more cautious, and ROI incalculable. Until now. For the rst time, marketers can integrate social media with email marketing, shedding bright new lights on accountability, attribution and ROI. Marketers who have taken a wait-and-see approach to social will now see the channel in a whole new way, and realize the time to wait is over.
INTENDED AUDIENCE
This white paper is intended for marketers at B-to-B companies and organizations that rely principally on email as a communication channel, and are interested in integrating social media to improve engagement, reach and messaging eectiveness.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Despite dierences in tactical execution, email and social media are strategically very similar in that they are the only two permission-based channels. Marketers skilled in email enjoy a competitive advantage when adopting social media, as they understand how to earn, develop and engage an audience over time. Despite an ambient atmosphere that appears more conducive to socializing than doing business, b-to-b organizations nevertheless can achieve signicant ROI through social media, by expanding reach, lifting engagement and generating more referrals.
Key Findings
The value of social media to b-to-b brands is not as apparent as b-to-c, but the opportunity nevertheless exists for b-to-b to reach new customers and drive greater engagement. Social media requires diferent tactics than email, but both channels spring from the same strategic similarity: they are the only permission-based channels. Marketers who have mastered permission-based marketing with email are uniquely qualiied to manage social media marketing successfully. New analytics tools are now available to give marketers insight into how social media integrates with email, paving the way for greater adoption of social initiatives among b-to-b companies.
1: The Social Media Opportunity for B-to-B

Ask marketers about the opportunity aorded by social media and the rst place they turn is statistics. By the numbers, social media is enormous, reaching a huge audience and playing an increasingly irreplaceable role in many peoples lives. Recent statistics bear this out: 46% of people worldwide access social media sites daily 70,000 tweets are posted each minute Over 2 million companies have LinkedIn pages 1 in 6 minutes spent online in the United States is on Facebook
Brand marketers from b-to-c companies see these statistics and salivate; direct marketers from b-to-b companies see only hype, and shrug. The reason is that b-to-b marketers are not in a position to take advantage of great masses of people. Their communication strategies are based more on targeting than sheer tonnage, and on placing their messages in context instead of inside a community. The objectives of these campaigns is typically transactional or lead generation, and not the branding opportunity that b-to-c brands recognize in social media. Still, the opportunity in social media does exist for b-to-b companies. They just need to approach the channel dierently from b-to-c brands.
Social Media in B-to-B Reality Check

B-to-b organizations love best practices, or following paths to excellence and success that are well-established. For this reason, any exploration of a new channel typically begins with an assessment of how other brands are using the channel, to determine its viability and the resources required. But looking at best practices in social media can be like chasing prey down a rabbit hole for b-to-b brands. If we start by looking at the top social media brands, b-to-brands are immediately led astray: Top Social Media Brands, 2011 Starbucks Coca-Cola Red Bull Oreo Skittles Victorias Secret Windows Live Messenger Monster Energy Victorias Secret Pink Zara These companies may have learned how to amass large and engaged social audiences, but as b-to-c brands, the tactics they employ simply will not work with the smaller, more targeted b-to-b audiences have. Noticeably absent from this list are brands that b-to-b companies can better identify with, such as Ernst & Young, WB Mason, Con-Way Freight, IBM, Freeman or anything ending with Association. There is no shortage of coverage of scintillating social media campaigns to regard as examples, many of which are festooned with superlatives like best or most successful or awesomest. But 99% of these are b-to-c brands like the ones listed above, and most are b-to-c brands with multimillion dollar budgets hiring the most progressive agencies and allocating considerable internal resources as well. What works for Starbucks will positively op for most b-to-b brands.
B-to-C Social Media Best Practices are Warnings, not Examples for B-to-B
Following are a few of the more popular social approaches employed by major b-to-c brands. While the results 18 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA
they achieve are appealing, theyre out of reach for b-to-b. Worse, poor response to social campaigns like these can make a brand appear less relevant than it is. When you have a million customers and disappoint a few, its a problem but not a crisis. With b-to-b however, alienating even a single important client can have immediate ramications on the bottom line. Its better for b-to-b brands to hit singles consistently than to swing for the fences and whi. For example: 1. Dont crowdsource or run user-generated content contests. B-to-c brands love these, as they are able to harness the creativity and passion of a few of the most engaged fans and make it appear like a groundswell of brand enthusiasm. But the success of initiatives that rely on followers to create media, generate ideas, and otherwise propel the campaign forward publicly rely on a sizable audience. One of the most famous is MyStarbucksIdea.com, a social media site create by Starbucks for their fans designed to solicit and vote on great ideas to roll out in their stores. The initiative won Starbucks accolades across the industry for its inventiveness and social underpinnings, but the data on the initiative reveal the massive scale necessary to perpetrate it. When Starbucks launched the program they had about 10 million Facebook fans (today its over 25 million). From those 10 million, they generated just 53 ideas for their community to vote on. Thats a participation rate of .0005%, or one entry for every 200,000 fans. Most fans particularly for brands that have sizable followings are more casual than impassioned. Soliciting creative participation requires not only a very high level of engagement, but also followers who are creatively inclined in the rst place. Absolutely these people exist within your own B-to-B brands fan base, but unless you have tens or hundreds of thousands of fans the probability of generating participation great enough to support a campaign is slim. 2. Dont rely on going viral. Going viral is the holy grail of social media marketing, as it fans your message out to thousands or even millions of people without costing you a dollar in media. The viral message that dawned the concept was an email sent to millions of people containing a spoiler plot for the nal episode of Seinfeld (which was actually either a hoax or just inaccurate). Since then, viral dreams have moved out of the inbox and onto YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Videos, articles, blog posts and other messages go viral when there is some attribute within the that is not just appealing to millions of people it has to resonate so soundly within this population that each person it touches is transformed from a passive consumer of media to an active sharer of media. Look at your email open rates to see the challenge of even nding passive consumers of media. Your click-through rates represent active consumers of media. What percentage of these do you believe are actively sharing what you send? It is possible that a B-to-B brand could put together a successful viral campaign, but the content would almost have to be so far removed from the brands central tenets that the brand would hardly benet from it. Its very hard for a b-to-b brand to be relevant to millions of people, and also not necessary. Instead of aiming for viral supremacy, targeted pass along makes more sense for b-to-b. Leave the teeming millions to the Old Spice Guy and laughing babies everywhere. 3. Dont ask for input you dont intend to use. Many brands social strategies can be summed up as were listening to our customers. This is perfectly appropriate, provided that the brand is genuinely listening and intends to act on the input it receives. In the My Starbucks Idea above, the 53 suggestions from 10 million fans only resulted in 6 actual initiatives by the company, the most successful of which ended up receiving a relatively low number of votes. The challenge for all brands with feedback initiatives like these is that the brand often believes (correctly or not) that it knows better than its customers. So these programs end up as exercises designed to pump an idea that already exists under the guise of a customer-generated suggestion. For b-to-b brands in particular, audiences are smaller and the people who are engaged enough to provide suggestions publicly are very often the same people actively involved in other ways as key customers, highly active members, conference speakers or committee members. B-to-b customers often regard the brands they do business with not as mere vendors or suppliers, but as business partners or industry colleagues. Not using their ideas often requires a personal explanation, and can risk bending a nose out of shape. Even if bold new ideas were to come from the exercise and be adopted by your b-to-b brand, the backlash still is not worth it. 19 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals
Top Social Activities Reveal People at Play, not at Work

So the tactics that the biggest social media brands employ will not work for b-to-b. What about the type of activity between users of social media is that conducive to b-to-b activity? Here is what the tens and hundreds of millions of people on social media are doing there: Top Social Media Activities Read posts or view pictures of friends Play games Update proile Comment on posts or pictures of friends Participate in quizzes or polls Post pictures or videos B-to-b brands will quickly note the absence of submit purchase order or send a message to a conference speaker in advance of the presentation. The principal activity within social media is, naturally, social people interacting with family members and friends.
The B-to-B Upshot

Clearly, social media is not the direct it for b-to-b brands that it is for b-to-c. B-to-c is better able to take advantage of the massive populations, and to insert their brands into the social conversations. But the reality for b-to-b brands is that everyone is on social media. Your customers are somebodys friend, or cousin, or college roommate. The people b-to-b brands do business with every day are among the people on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. So too are prospects, as well as many other people who would do business with you if they knew your brand existed. Even if most are there to have fun, some are always ready to do business. Bto-b brands can recognize a sizable opportunity by engaging these customers, prospects and new contacts in the immersive social environment that makes them more receptive to recommendations and discoveries.
The ROI of Social Media for B-to-B

A recent study by research rm Chadwick Martin Bailey sought to get at the heart of how valuable Facebook fans are. (The data to follow is specic to Facebook, but similar trends are apparent regarding Twitter followers.) Social media, particularly with respect to b-to-b companies, suers from the perception of suspect ROI. And while not all of these statistics will remain true for every brand, the data is nevertheless directionally encouraging, and does help to conrm what many marketers nd so irresistible about social media that all of the personal and social interaction there can be a huge boon to brands that have successfully inserted themselves into the conversations between friends. Fans recommend: According to the study, a fan of a brand is 56% more likely to recommend the brand than someone who is not a fan. In email, I talk a lot about relevance how relevant messaging makes a brand more important in a persons life. That concept is channel agnostic, and were seeing evidence of it in this study. If your brand is on Facebook or Twitter, and you are interacting with your customers there just as you always have in the inbox and trade shows and direct mail and your other channels, you are more in that persons world. And because social media is permission-based, like email, youve been invited into that world. You are more relevant to those people, so it is no surprise they are more likely to recommend you. Fans are selective: The threshold for becoming a Facebook fan is theoretically lower than it is to sign up for a companys email, due to the nature of the content stream. With email, every message from every brand you subscribe to hits your inbox and has to be managed. You need to read, sort, skip, delete, lter or otherwise triage that message, or else your inbox loses its vital utility. With social media however, the news feed in which messages appear is transient. If you miss a message it just moves on, with no backlog for you to work through in order to recognize the utility of the channel. So it comes as a surprise to me that the number of brands people become fans of is relatively low. According to the study, 78% of people who like brands on Facebook are fans of 10 or fewer 20 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA
of them. To the marketer, this means a relative lack of clutter in the news feed. The fewer other brands your fans follow, the more likely they are to see your posts pop up. As email marketers, we already know the challenges associated with clutter. Curiously, they may be somewhat mitigated in social media. Fans are already customers: 58% of a brands Facebook fans are already customers, according to the study. The upshot here is due to the social nature of Facebook. People talk to each other and, as we see above, recommend the brands they follow. If these people are already your customers, they have a more informed perspective and are better able to tell your story, particularly through their own lens. Someone who says, I bought from them and loved it, has more inuence than, I like them a lot and intend to buy from them one day. Fans are loyal: Only one in four fans ever unlike the brands they follow. True, that is higher than your unsubscribe rate for any given message, though over the course of a year losing 1 in 4 email subscribers is very likely. Owing to the transient nature of the feed content, this data does not surprise me. It is much harder to annoy or cloy a fan through Facebook than it is overwhelm in the inbox (though of course it does happen). But the other reason I think loyalty abounds in social media is that the channel can drive some pretty deep engagement. Not only are people not annoyed by the brands they follow: successful social initiatives create even greater engagement and expectation. Many people keep an email subscription active just in case or because they dont mind it so much. But increasingly brands are using Facebook to drive meaningful two-way interaction. Fans buy more: The study also revealed that a Facebook fan is 50% more likely to buy (or buy again) from the brand after becoming a fan. Its not clear what the causality is here whether people become a fan in the course of their research and intent to buy, or if becoming a fan and interacting with the brand socially is what compelled the purchase. Regardless, the correlation is meaningful, so moving your prospects towards your social presence does drive results.
SECTION 2: SOCIAL IS MORE LIKE EMAIL THAN YOU MAY THINK

Marketing objectives are an end, not a means. Many companies rely heavily on email, but a b-to-b organization looking to sell subscriptions, drive conference registrations or renew memberships is awarded no bonus points for email purity. Finding other channels to drive the same engagement and response required to meet the objective is a powerful shortcut.
Social Media and Email: Surprising Similarities

While some b-to-b marketers have not embraced social media as eagerly as their b-to-c brethren, there is still considerable interest in the channel. In fact, in many marketing departments, social is now joining email as the principal communications channels. Here are the reasons b-to-b marketers most commonly cite for their interest in social media: Inexpensive: It costs $0 to set up a Facebook page or open a Twitter account. And messages sent into those channels also cost $0, whether they are reaching ten people or ten thousand. As budgets constrict, cost alone places social media into marketers choice set. Scalable: With the huge audiences that social media enjoys, scalability becomes a clear proposition. 250 Americans have Facebook accounts, or 81% of the population, cutting across all demographics. That means it is statistically likely that 81% of your target audience however niche is on Facebook. What other channel can boast the same reach? Unspecialized: Managing a social media initiative does not require a specialized agency or consultant, or any technical education. There is a learning curve, to be sure. But existing sta is not only capable of executing the job due to the conversational nature and authentic voice social asks for, company insiders are better qualied than external experts. Immediate: Social messages can be conceived and sent in minutes, with responses coming equally instantaneously.
The channel aords tremendous exibility and oers near real-time feedback. ROI: Owing to the low cost and vast reach, the potential ROI of social media cannot be ignored. Once an organization accelerates along the learning curve, the channel can be highly protable. For marketers, that is an irresistible list of attributes. In fact, it is the same exact list of attributes that marketers nd appealing about email. Like social, it is inexpensive, scalable, unspecialized, immediate and oers remarkable ROI. Beyond attributes, email and social have additional similarities, despite some of the myths that perpetuate in contrasting the channels.
Mythbusting the Dierences Between B-to-B Email and Social

The dierences between email and social media are often cited, but not often challenged. Here are some of the more popular myths that often serve to slow b-to-b brands adoption of social media, as well as the counterarguments that begin to debunk them. 1. I dont really know who my fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter are. With email I know who they are. If you have open subscription for your email list, I would posit that the same is true you dont know who your subscribers are, either. Sure, you may know their names and companies (unless they use Gmail or Hotmail or Yahoo, which is common even in b-to-b), but you also know the names of your Facebook fans, and most Twitter accounts use or reference real names as well. What you dont have in social is the ability to see who exactly is reading or clicking. Instead, you know who is commenting, liking and retweeting. Isnt that just as valuable? 2. Not everybody uses social, but everyone is on email. 81% of the US population is on Facebook, so this myth loses its statistical relevance over time. But statistics aside, is everyone you want to reach already on your email list? And if they are, do you enjoy 100% open rates, consistently? Most of the population on Facebook and Twitter is not a direct hit for b-to-b marketers, but your audience is there and your business would benet from reaching them. 3. Business doesnt get done in social media. Its where people talk about where they went to lunch and look at pictures of high school reunions. On Facebook / Twitter and at their desk, doing work are not mutually exclusive. Your audience may be doing both at the same time. Even if they are snickering to themselves at the 25 pounds Cli gained since prom, theyre still only a quick shift in attention back to doing their job. And if they are completely immersed in Facebook, you may nd its easier to get their attention there than to try to lure them back to the inbox. Its a water cooler environment. Conversations happen there that you are only privy to if youre present. 4. My brand isnt right for social media. Is Vistaprints? It has 33,000 Facebook fans and 9,000 Twitter followers. What about The American Society of Mechanical Engineers? Its industry recruiting program on Facebook earned 10,000 likes in only a few months. Both of those brands, as well as Omni Hotels & Resorts, Optify, Lexis Nexis, Sybase, Cisco Systems, EMC and others, were all B-to-B Magazine 2011 Social Media Marketing Award Winners. If your brand says something to your customers, then it is absolutely right for social media. 5. I can control my message in email, but in social media its up to everyone else. Point taken, but is that such a bad thing? Look at it this way: Which would you rather have an unqualied email address, or a visit to your website from an anonymous in-market prospect referred by one of your customers? Good things can happen when your customers help tell your story, even when you have to give up a little control to let it happen. 6. I like email because of the one-to-one targeting. With social, youre just talking to a sea of nameless, faceless, largely anonymous people. Lets be honest here. How much 1-to-1 targeting happens in b-to-b email, aside from inserting a subscribers rst name or segmenting by geography or some other fairly wide attribute? Truer one-to-one conversations hap22 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA
pen in social media, owing largely to the expectations that customers have about their questions being answered. Whole Foods reports that fully 80% of the companys tweets are part of individual conversations with customers. And one of the reasons Vistaprint has been so successful in social (see above) was a company policy to respond to every Twitter mention directly, whether it was positive, negative or neutral. As a result, its Twitter followers more than doubled and its NetPromoter score (a scoring of customers who would recommend the company to others) also increased.
SECTION 3: TACTICALLY DIFFERENT, BUT STRATEGICALLY THE SAME

Where the most salient dierences between email and social exist is in the tactical execution. While they share many attributes, email and social are very dierent channels, and require unique approaches in order to use them successfully. Much of the conversation about email and social, in fact, focuses on these tactical dierences in execution. Here are the most relevant tactical dierences with respect to b-to-b marketing execution: Ambient Atmosphere: The inbox resides on a work computer, usually attached to a business domain name. Flanking your messages are email from colleagues, customers and suppliers, as well as industry newsletters. Work gets done in the inbox. In social channels, however, your message is bookended by photos from a college roomates trip to Vegas, and a check-in at the new gourmet hot dog place around the block. The belief that social channels are not as conducive to business is understandable. (It may not always be accurate, but it is a defensible point of view.) Message Length: When asked how long a direct marketing communication should be, Lester Wunderman (the founder of direct marketing) replied, as long as you can make it and still hold a readers attention. That applies to email even today, though competitive clutter has lowered the ceiling of available attention for most of your subscribers. On social channels, however, messages are measured in characters instead of paragraphs. Communicating in staccato bursts requires skill and practice, and no single tweet or status update can do the work of a well-composed email. This does not make social channels better or worse, just dierent. Message Frequency: What social messaging lacks in its compositional thoroughness it makes up for with frequency. Many businesses publish to Twitter or Facebook several times per day, and it is even permissible to repeat the same message at dierent points in the day (particularly in Twitter, where feeds are especially eeting). What passes for healthy activity in social channels would be lambasted as spam in the inbox. On the one hand, this makes social channels appealing, but added also requires more constant attention from internal resources. Social channels are not just managed they need to be tended. Conversational Expectations: This is the greatest dierence between email and social channels the expectations for conversation, or at least a response, from customers who choose to follow your brand. There is no do-not-reply address on Facebook and Twitter. Compounding the challenge is that whenever a question comes in through social channels, it is not just the equivalent of an email inquiry; rather, it is an email from a customer who has cced 100 or 1000 or 10,000 other people, all of whom are able to eavesdrop on your reply (or your lack of one). The more successful a companys social marketing is, the more conversations it generates for the brand to participate in. But as success increases so too does the resource requirement, creating the hidden cost of social media marketing. Planning for success means having resources at the ready to engage customers in their many conversations. Owing to these many tactical dierences, social requires a dierent content strategy, stang requirements and marketing objectives. But the strategy for approaching social is fundamentally the same as email, and separates the two channels from every other marketing media available. This strategic similarity between email and social is what makes email marketers eminently qualied for social media, even if they have not yet published their rst tweet.
Social and Email: The Only Permission-Based Channels

The most important aspect of social media which it shares with email marketing is that the nature of the relationship between the customer and the brand is the same. Both email and social are permission-based. Whats more, they are the only permission-based channels. This strategic similarity gives email marketers a leg up on social media compared to marketers grounded in advertising, search and even direct mail. The distinction is one of control. In permission-based channels the customer not the marketer controls the spigot. Full bore, trickle or o altogether is entirely in the customers control. This means that the communications within these channels must not only avoid failing; they must genuinely succeed in order to hang onto the customers attention. In other media, the price of failed messaging (insipid ads, poor targeting, clumsy creative) is mere non-response. In those channels, non-response is the norm, so they are built around high volume to compensate. In permission-based channels the price of failure is far greater. Unsubscribes and unfollows mean that the open line of communication with a customer who previously elected to hear what the brand has to say is now closed. With search or advertising or rented mail lists, marketers can simply buy their way into more audience. With permission-based channels, each new pair of ears has to be earned. Yes, the actual format of the communications in email and social is dierent: 4 paragraphs or a rich graphical design in an email, compared to 140 characters or a conversation-provoking query in social media. But they are both built on the same foundation, common to permission-based marketing: Respect: As email marketers, we have learned not to take our subscribers attention for granted. They have lent us their attention and to be successful we have to nd the balance between rewarding them for the attention they give, and taking some advantage of that attention to fulll our own business purposes. But we know that the golden rule of do unto others inboxes as you would have others do unto yours applies. The same holds true for social. Even though the execution is dierent, social messages that show a lack of respect for our audience will compel them initially to disengage, and ultimately to turn o the spigot entirely. Empathy: In email, we talk about relevant and targeted messages. In order to send them we need to know what our subscribers are interested in. This is the double-edged sword of permission-based channels. On the one hand, because they have opted in (either through a subscription form or a purchase or some other means), we know that our subscribers are at least interested in us in some capacity. And the greater our history with them, the better we are able to tailor messages so that our communications with them do show empathy that we know what they like, and that we are happy to provide it. The other edge of the sword is that by giving us permission, our subscribers expect empathy. Our relationship with them is on their terms, so relevance is not just a successful tactic; it is the cost of doing business. Social channels are similar, though we know less about the people who fan or follow us than we do through email. In social, the empathy test is less about targeting messages to individuals (which does not exist in the same way that it does with email) and more about targeting messages to the particular channel. Being relevant is social means knowing what your customers want from you within Facebook or Twitter, which may not be exactly the same thing they look to you for in the inbox. Expectation: Messages in permission-based channels work better when they are anticipated. If someone expects your messages in the inbox, it may be because they arrive on a regular schedule or you send with enough frequency so that the communication channel stays open. It may also be because they have elected to hear from you by subscribing or making a purchase. Whatever the source of the expectation, it is always improved the more your brand appears in your customers lives. Social media is the same way. Your customers will pay more attention to your posts and tweets if they are meaningful to them and appear (and engage) often enough so that your brand becomes more relevant to them. Here is one of the greatest opportunities for email marketers moving into social. Having a strong social presence does make your brand more relevant to your customers, which can improve the expectation and performance of your email messages. And the better your email program is working, the more engaged your subscribers are with your brand, making them more likely to engage further on social channels. When executed well, social and email can be a truly virtuous cycle. Succeeding in social media requires exactly the same skills marketers have honed through email.
SECTION 4: ANALYTICS HOLD THE KEY TO B-TO-B SOCIAL INITIATIVES

In section two, I discussed the attributes that social media shares with email: it is inexpensive, scalable, unspecialized, immediate and promises impressive ROI. There is one key attribute of email that social lacks, and it is a critical one. Social does not enjoy nearly the analytics and metrics of email, making ROI dicult to calculate. Without calculable ROI, businesses that normally make calculated investments are forced to take a leap of faith with social. Because of the teeming millions reachable there, many consumer brands are ready and willing to take that leap, but b-to-b marketers, whose budgets lean more toward direct marketing than branding, are not as eager to dive into social. In an April 2011 research report from BtoB Magazine entitled, Emerging Trends in B-to-B Social Media Marketing: Insights From the Field, this lack success metrics shows up as the second leading obstacle to social media adoption in b-to-b, trailing only Lack of resources. Also on the list are Lack of knowledge about social media, Management resistance, and even company policies prohibit social media. See chart below:
Organizational Impact of Social Media Analytics

What are the top 3 obstacles to adopting social media marketing at your company? That sure sounds like a lot of obstacles, but in truth its really just one. Once the analytics are in place to measure the contribution that social media makes to marketing campaigns, many of these other obstacles will disappear. The rst to fall is the Lack of knowledge, as the analytics will be able to show marketers what works and what doesnt. Then the Poorly dened success metrics and KPIs become a non-issue as marketers develop more experience with social and can identify suitable objectives and measure success against them. Show senior management that these KPIs are in place, and with them the analytics to measure success and Management resistance, prohibitive policies and lack of resources will all fall by the wayside as well. These analytics tools are now available. For the rst time, marketers can see how social integrates with email and other messaging channels, what communications tasks it is uniquely qualied for, and what percentage of a campaigns results are attributable to social channels. If your b-to-b organization has been reining in your social strategy, now is the time to let it run. Start building your fan and follower base, and begin integrating social into your communications. It takes time to cultivate audiences in all new channels, and to learn each ones nuances. Resource allocation is also going to be important for social, just as it is for email. Now is the time to identify who will spearhead social initiatives, and others who will be involved, and to make sure that these folks have the bandwidth to take on this new responsibility. All the analytics in the world dont create success in an initiative nobody is driving. As an email marketer, you have the skills to run a successful social media program for your organization. With the advent of new analytics and email + social integration software, you now have the tools to use social as strategically and eectively as email.
Real Magnet is the creator of Social Magnet, an integrated communications platform combining email and social management, messaging and analytics, enabling unprecedented insight into multichannel communications. For more information about Social Magnet and other Real Magnet solutions visit blog.realmagnet.com.
32 Chapter 2: Telesales/Direct Sales SIPA
2
Telesales/Direct Sales
33 Chapter 2: Telesales/Direct Sales
3-Lessons On How To Solve The Cross and Up-Selling Rubiks Cube Puzzle
By Rick Longenecker
The Cross and Up-Selling Situation and Conclusion

Whats the best approach to expedite cross and up-selling revenue by direct selling? Thats the million dollar question that information, research, SaaS, eLearning and publishing companies are grasping to answer so they can: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Replace revenue from declining impersonal selling methods Expand within existing product categories via new oerings, delivery platforms and/or pricing models Enter new product categories like eLearning and SaaS Penetrate larger/multi-user companies Generate post merger revenue from both companies oerings
Finding the answer is as elusive as trying to solve a Rubiks Cube Puzzle. With every twist and turn it seemingly gets more complex and impossible to solve. The situation is complicated by three things: 1. Desire for a simple solution with little eort and no distraction 2. Pre-conceived notion that direct selling is about the pitch and presenting company messages to the buyer 3. Limited understanding of what sales organization practices are and how to quickly and cheaply synchronize them Like the Rubiks Cube Puzzle there are two ways to approach solving the cross and up-selling puzzle. You can approach it as a: 1. One-dimensional challenge that requires simple, random, one-o solutions. Its simple to implement, but slow to generate results as it does not address the cause-and-eect synchronization required to solve the puzzle. It actually wastes time, money and morale! 2. Multi-dimensional challenge that requires disciplined synchronization of all 3-layers of the puzzle. Its complex to implement, but expedites revenue results by systematically synchronizing the 3-layers. It saves time, money and energizes morale. Therefore the answer to the question whats the best approach to expedite cross and up-selling revenue by direct selling is to treat the challenge like solving a Rubiks Cube. So the real question is whats the fastest way to solve a Rubiks Cube Puzzle? You have three options: Option 1cheat; which is not a sustainable option in business Option 2jump in and start working on the puzzle with is frustrating Option 3review a tutorial on how to solve it to speed resolution Consider the following pages as a tutorial on how to expedite cross and up-selling revenue. There are Three
EXERCISE
Take out a pen and pad and create three columns: 1. Sales Practices 2. Sales Management Practices 3. Sales Strategy & Structure In the three columns write down every cross and up-selling initiative and action that you and your company are: 1. Working on today? 2. Have previously worked on? 3. Planning to work on?
1. Frustrated buyers that dont purchase and sales pros that cant close 2. Haphazard sales management practices lled with distractions 3. Ineective sales strategy and organization structure that will be in consent ux as you randomly change to try something new 4. Eventual disillusionment with direct selling as a viable approach for cross and up-selling The key is to stand tall and use the following pages to provide your team with a framework for quickly deciphering the code for solving the cross and up-selling Rubiks Cube Puzzle. Its the shortest, least expensive path to revenue results from direct selling. Lesson #2 will arm you with a 5-step approach for synchronizing two of the 3-Levels for cross and up-sellingSales Practices and Sales Management Practices.
LESSON # 2
The Complexity of Your Buyers Purchasing Environment Dictate Your Sales Practices and Sales Management Practices...Not You
Solving the cross and up-selling Rubiks Cube Puzzle requires synchronization of your selling tools, skills and behaviors with the complexity level of your: 1. Buyers purchasing environment 2. Selling environment When theyre synchronized you will be two-thirds of way through solving the cross and up-selling Rubiks Cube Puzzle and the results will be inspiring to say the least: 1. 2. 3. 4. Buyers will purchase two to three times as much In half the cycle time With twice the close ratio At the same cost of sale
There are Five Steps that you can take to expedite synchronization of your selling tools, skills and behaviors with the complexity of your buyers purchasing environment and your selling environment: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Assess the complexity of your buyers purchasing environment Assess the complexity of your selling environment Build selling tools to match purchasing and selling complexity Establish selling skills to match purchasing and selling complexity Establish selling behaviors to match purchasing and selling complexity
The most common mistake is to skip the rst two steps and jump right into building selling tools, hiring sales pros, training selling skills, and setting up incentive compensation plans to motivate cross and up-selling. Skipping these two steps is typically unintentional. We tend to be under pressure for results and in such a hurry to just do it and take action toward cross and up-selling that we: 1. Unconsciously make assumptions about the complexity of the buyers purchasing environment 2. Start working independently on selling tools, skills and behaviors so it looks like were doing something
The bad news is that this rush to action results in: 1. Random experimentation with oneo solutions that yield little to not results and waste time, money and worst of allmorale. 2. Frustration from a never ending do-loop of trying solutions, failing and repeating the cycle. Step 1 will show you how to understand the complexity of your Purchasing Environment.
EXERCISE:
Review your past actions to generate cross and up-selling revenue. Place each action next to the pyramid level in the graph below. How many of your actions are next to the purchasing environment and/or selling environment levels? If no initiatives are next to these two levels this is a leading indicator that your selling tools, skills and behaviors are not aligned to sustainably generate cross and up-selling revenue.
Step 1 Assess The Complexity of Your Buyers Purchasing Environment

Its time to take a break from trying random initiatives to solve the cross and up-selling Rubiks Cube Puzzle. Just for a moment stop building sales pitches, scripts, promotions, training programs, hiring , CRM systems, compensation plans, and promotional oerings for cross and up-selling. Stop and answer a simple question. What level of internal complexity will your buyer face when trying to purchase additional oerings from you? Not complexity with your company. Complexity within their own company. Take a look at the graph below and assess the level of complexity your buyers face within their internal purchasing environment. Think of it as a continuum of purchasing environment complexity: 1. Complex on one end led with chaos and confusion with multiple decision makers,
EXERCISE:
Take a look at the criteria in the graph and determine whether your targeted buyers for cross and upselling are in a transaction or complex purchasing environment.
face within your selling environment. Think of it as a continuum of selling environment complexity: 1. Complex on one end oering multiple product categories, with multi products within each product category, and multiple pricing models 2. Transaction on the other end with single products with a single product category with a single pricing model While most B2B sales pros operate in complex and B2C sales pros operate in transaction selling environments there are varying degrees along the continuum. For example: 1. B2C sales pros operate in complex selling environments when selling nancial services, insurance, real estate and automobiles. 2. B2B sales pros operate in transaction purchasing environment when selling sunglasses, pens, pencils and printer paper The most common mistake to avoid is skipping this step and jumping into building selling tools, skills and behaviors, and/or making cross and up-selling sales call. When you skip this step you magnify your risk of: 1. Building the wrong selling tools, hiring the wrong sales pros, and incenting the wrong selling behavior. 2. Experiencing high levels of frustration as random attempts to solve the cross-selling Rubiks Cube Puzzle are met with little to no results. So takes a few minutes to get everyone literally on the same page with your buyers purchasing environment complexity Step 3 will show you how to match your Selling Tools to your purchasing and selling environment complexity.
Step 3 Build Selling Tools To Match Purchasing and Selling Complexity

With a thorough understanding of the complexity of the buyers purchasing environment and your selling environment its time to build cross and up-selling tools to address four situations: 1. Gaining access to buyers e.g. appointment setting 2. Winning prospective buyers e.g. completing sales calls 3. Retaining existing buyers e.g. maximizing the value they take 4. Growing additional revenue from buyers Take a look at the graph below to understand the continuum of selling tools. Think of it as a continuum of selling tool complexity: 1. Complex on one end where the buyer and the seller require visualization so they can gain immediate context and prioritize, navigate in a modular taxonomy so they can quickly go where they want to go, and have everything they need at their nger-tips to avoid call-backs and follow-ups for merely exchanging information. 2. Transaction on the other end where the buyer and seller simply need to see features/benets and pricing in a linear navigation, focused on visualizing the demonstration or sales pitch portion of the sales call only, and assume the buyer has context already. The most common mistake to avoid when cross and up-selling is using transaction
EXERCISE
Gather all materials, information and websites that your buyer could possibly see during your cross and up-selling eorts. Review each one against the criteria in the graph below and create two piles: one for transaction selling tools and the other for complex selling tools. The pile with the most selling tools in it provides you with a leading indicator of what selling environment your sales and marketing organization is operating.
EXERCISE
Gather your sales job descriptions, recruiting materials, job postings, interview questions and guides, and your sales training programs. 1. What selling skills will be required to meet your buyers purchasing environment complexity and apply your selling tool complexity? 2. What selling skills does your sales organization currently have?
The most common mistake to avoid is hiring transaction sales pros and training transaction selling skills when the buyer faces a complex purchasing environment and requires application of complex selling tools. This tends to happen when the buyer faces a complex purchasing environment and the seller faces a transaction selling environment. Its common to hear things like we only hire seasoned sales pros so we dont need to train them on buyers purchasing and our selling environment complexity. Unfortunately, seasoned sales pros bring little to no knowledge of your buyers purchasing and your selling environment complexity in relationship to what youre trying to achieve through cross and up-selling. The consequences of this mis-match include: 1. High sales pro failure and turnover rates 2. Long cycle time for new sales pros ROI and productivity 3. Low sales pro morale 4. High volume of pricing and deal making exceptions Step 5 will show you how to match your Selling Behaviors to the complexity of your buyers purchasing environment.
Step 5 Establish Selling Behaviors To Match Purchasing and Selling Complexity

Were down to the last major hurdle for synchronizing your sales practices and sales management practices for cross and up-sellingSelling Behaviors. Its time to match your cross and up-selling behaviors to your buyers purchasing environment complexity, selling skills and selling tools. Two priorities need to be addressed: 1. Incentive compensation, rewards and recognition to motivate the right selling behaviors 2. Sales call coaching to reinforces the right selling behaviors Take a look at the graph below and select the selling behavior complexity level that matches your selling skills, selling tools and buyer purchasing environment complexity. Think of it as a continuum of selling behavior: 41 Chapter 2: Telesales/Direct Sales
EXERCISE
Gather your compensation plan, reward and recognition plan and performance evaluation plan. Review them against the criteria in the graph below. The result will be a leading indicator of the type of selling behaviors youre incenting, rewarding and motivating.
1. Complex on one end where the behaviors must motivate a relationship with the buyer, ongoing interactions with the buyer, involvement with multi inuencers and buyers, and emphasis on share of wallet. 2. Transaction on the other where the behaviors must motivate getting the order quickly, one-time or infrequent interaction with the buyer, and emphasis on gaining market share. The most common mistake to avoid is aligning your incentive compensation, rewards and recognition, and coaching to motivate transaction selling behaviors when the buyer faces a complex purchasing environment. This tends to happen when the buyer faces a complex purchasing environment and the seller faces a transaction selling environment. Its common to hear things like we value our customer relationship and our priority is to satisfy our customers needs. Unfortunately incentive compensation plans and sales call coaching speak louder than words. The results of this mis-match include: 1. Disillusionment with ever changing comp plans 2. Talking head sales pros 3. Overuse of pressure tactics to get buyers to purchase You now have the 5-steps to solving two-thirds of the cross and up-selling Rubiks Cube Puzzle. Lesson #3 will show you how to use a 3-step approach to synchronizing the third dimension for cross and up-sellingSales Strategy & Structure
LESSON #3
Making Your Financial Commitments Operationally Viable Dictates Your Sales Strategy and Structure
Continuously synchronizing your sales practices and your sales management practices gets you two-thirds of the way to solving the cross and up-selling Rubiks Cube Puzzle. To nish the puzzle and expedite revenue requires making your companies cross and up-selling nancial commitments operationally viable. This is achieved by continuously synchronizing your sales strategy and structure, which includes:
1. Sales requirements plan 2. Market and sales plan 3. Sales organization structure When theyre synchronized you will have solved the cross and up-selling puzzle and enjoy daily, monthly, quarterly, annual and long term predictability, with 99% accuracy, of your: 1. Cash ow revenue 2. Sales pipeline/funnel activity requirements 3. Sales productivity activity requirements 4. Sales stang requirements
EXERCISE:
Review your past actions to generate cross and upselling revenue. Place each action next to the pyramid level below the blue line in the graph below . How many of your actions are next to each? What foundation are you using to guide the alignment of your initiatives strategy and structure initiatives and actions? The lack of a foundation is a leading indicator that your cross and selling results will be ineective.
5. Selling expense requirements There are 3-steps that you can take to expedite synchronizing your sales strategy and structure: 1. Make your sales requirements plan operationally viable 2. Make your market and sales plan operationally viable 3. Make your sales organization structure operationally viable The most common mistakes to avoid are 1) skipping the three steps and starting to cross and up-sell, and 2) ignoring the cause-and-eect relationship between the elements of strategy and structure and working on the them independently. This rush to action results in: 1. Random experimentation with one-o solutions that yield little to not results and waste time, money and morale. 2. Frustration from a never ending do-loop of trying solutions, failing and repeating the cycle. Step 1 will show you how to make your cross and up-selling Sales Requirements Plan operationally viable.
EXERCISE:
Take a look at the criteria in the graph below and determine whether your cross and up-selling sales requirements plan is operationally viable.
Step #1 Make Your Sales Requirements Plan Operationally Viable

Its time to take a break from pressing your organization to make cross and up-selling sales calls and trying random solutions to x or build your organization structure, and working on your sales forecast. Take a moment and answer a simple question. Can every employee and manager quantify what it will take to make your cross and up-selling nancial commitments operationally viable? Specically can you quantify what is required by day, month, quarter and year in the following areas: 1. Cash ow revenue requirements? 2. Sales pipeline/funnel activity requirements? 3. Sales productivity activity requirements? 4. Sales stang requirements? 5. Selling expense requirements? Take a look at the graph below and assess the viability of your cross and up-selling sales requirements plan. Think of it as a continuum of operational viability from: 1. Viable on one end where all of the elements above are synchronized 2. Not viable on the other end where many of the elements do not exist 3. Partially viable as some elements exist but are not synchronized The most common mistakes to avoid include: 1) skipping the creation of a sales requirements plan and just starting to cross and up-sell, and 2) establishing independent forecasts and requirements plans for each area. Its common to hear things like we dont have time for this we need to make sales calls or youre making this too complex, we just need results. Jumping in and making sales calls feels good and appears simple. The reality is that its actually adding complexity and delaying revenue results. Skipping this step or working on the elements independently magnies your risk of: 1. Building the wrong market and sales plans and sales organization structure. 2. Experiencing high levels of frustration as random attempts to solve the cross and up-
selling Rubiks Cube Puzzle are met with little to no results. Step 2 will show you how to make your cross and up-selling Market and Sales Plan operationally viable. Lessons For Solving The Cross and Up-Selling Puzzle (continued)
Step #2 Make Your Market and Sales Plan Operationally Viable

Now that youve documented your sales requirements plan and have a clear forecast of what sales revenue, activities, productivity, stang and expenses are required to make your nancial commitments viable its time to synchronize your market and sales plan to focus your eorts. Take a moment and answer a simple question. Can every employee and manager quantify and articulate exactly what market and sales plan is required to make your cross and up-selling nancial commitments operationally viable? Can they specically state what: 1. Market segments we must cross and up-sell in priority order? 2. Relationship goals we have with each market segment? 3. Target companies and buy-points we must sell in priority order? 4. Revenue targets exist for each segment, company and buy-point? Take a look at the graph below and assess the viability of your cross and up-selling market and sales plan. Think of it as a continuum of operational viability from: 1. Viable on one end where all of the elements above are synchronized 2. Not viable on the other end where many of the elements do not exist 3. Partially viable as some elements exist but are not synchronized The most common mistakes to avoid include: 1) skipping the creation of a cross and up-selling market and sales plan and just starting to sell, and 2) establishing independent plans for each area. Its common to hear things like we dont have time for this we just need to make sales calls or youre making this too complex, we just need results. Jumping in and making sales calls feels good and appears simple. The reality is that its EXERCISE:
Take a look at the criteria in the graph below and determine whether your cross and up- selling market and sales plan is operationally viable.
actually adding complexity and delaying revenue results. Skipping this step or working on the elements independently magnies your risk of: 1. Randomly selling to markets, companies and buy points that have no need for your services or only have a small need. 2. Experiencing high levels of frustration as random attempts to solve the cross and upselling Rubiks Cube Puzzle are met with little to no results. Step 3 will show you how to make your cross and up-selling Sales Organization Structure operationally viable.
Step #3
EXERCISE:
Take a look at the criteria in the graph below and determine whether your cross and up-selling sales organization structure is operationally viable.
Make Your Sales Organization Structure Operationally Viable

Now that your sales requirements plan and market and sales plan are synchronized its time to take a break from changing your organization structure, hiring and ring sales pros and managers, and shifting sales territories and synchronize your organization structure. Take a moment and answer a simple question. Can every employee and manager quantify and articulate exactly what sales organization structure is required to make your cross and up-selling nancial commitments operationally viable? Can they specically state what: 1. Sales channels will be used to serve each market segment? 2. Sales territories should be used to serve each market segment? 3. Sales job responsibilities will be used to serve each market segment? 4. Sales managers are responsible for each market segment? Take a look at the graph below and assess the viability of your cross and up-selling sales organization structure. Think of it as a continuum of operational viability from: 1. Viable on one end where all of the elements above are synchronized 2. Not viable on the other end where many of the elements do not exist 3. Partially viable as some elements exist but are not synchronized The most common mistakes to avoid include: 1) trying to use the same sales channels across all market segments, and 2) blending sales job responsibilities for account management and business development into one job description. Its common to hear things like we dont have time and money for multiple sales channels or our sales people have to handle sales and service we cant aord hiring all kinds of people. Jumping right into hiring sales pros and managers without synchronizing sales channels, territories and responsibilities feels simple and quick. The reality is that its actually adding complexity and delaying revenue results while magnifying your risk of: 1. Using the wrong sales channel for your buyers needs 2. Hiring too few or too many sales pros and managers 3. Experiencing high levels sales pro frustration from the lack of clarity and alignment to buyers Now that weve covered Lesson #3 youre armed to solve the Cross and Up-selling Rubiks Cube Puzzle.
B r i n g i n g P r e c i s i o n t o S a l e s E x e c u t i o n Armature Group 2011 rlongenecker@armaturegroup.com (973) 985-4254 Bringing precision to sales execution so you can double revenue with no additional costadditional cost
48 Chapter 3: FFTs and EFFTs SIPA
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FFTs and EFFTs
49 Chapter 3: FFTs and EFFTs
Forced Free Trials

What is a Forced Free Trial?
FFTs, also known as Gracing, Trials, or Mini Subscriptions is when a paid product is pushed out for review by a prospect with a goal that the prospect will subsequently purchase the product.
Why try an FFT

FFTs give prospective customers the opportunity to receive live sample issues of a publication free of charge. For many prospects, they are reluctant to order a high-priced publication sight-unseen in the fear that the publication wont meet their needs. By giving your target audience several live issues to review, the customer is able to see the underlying value and subscribe with condence that the publication will meet his needs. When the client subscribes, the vast majority of orders received come in as paid orders and since they have already reviewed the product, returns and cancellations are historically very low.
Identifying a Good FFT Prospect

These prospects have not requested to receive these issues (hence the term forced). The key to list selection in this case is that a FFT consists of multiple mailings so renting a list for 6x-8x usage can be costly. In general, FFTs are most cost eective and protable when deployed against owned lists and smaller, highly segmented portions of your database. Buyers or attendees to other paid information products or events would be the optimal target, supplemented with prospects who have purchased from others or who have an anity to related goods and services you provide.
Components of a FFT
The initial eort usually consists of a Trial Welcome Letter to inform the prospect that he has been selected to receive the Trial subscription, the number of issues they can expect to receive and the rst live or sample issue. Subsequent mailings consist of additional sample issues and Continuation Notices asking if the prospect would like to subscribe. Other letters or lift notes can be included, either with the issues or with the notices, reinforcing the benets of the subscription. Since the prospect has not in fact ordered the product, all Notices should clearly state this is not an invoice and that there is no obligation to subscribe. Usually, if no action is taken, the trial will cancel automatically.
Sample Trial Series 4 Issue FFT for a Weekly Publication:

Trial Welcome Carrier Enclosures: TW Letter 1st Issue (Mails with Trial Welcome) Additional Inserts (optional)
50 Chapter 3: FFTs and EFFTs SIPA
Publication Issue #2 (Mails 1 week after Trial Welcome) Carrier Enclosures: 2nd Issue Trial (continuation) Notice #1 (T1-Mails mid week after 2nd issue) Carrier Enclosures: T1 Letter 1st (T1) Continuation Notice Publication Issue #3 (Mails mid week after T1 Notice) Carrier Enclosures: 3rd Issue Trial (continuation) Notice #2 (T2-Mails mid week after 3rd issue) Carrier Enclosures: T2 Letter 2nd (T2) Continuation Notice Trial (continuation) Notice #3 (T3-Mails mid week after T2 Notice) Carrier Enclosures: T3 Letter 3rd (T3) Continuation Notice 4th Issue (Final Issue Mails with T3) Trial (continuation) Notice #4 (T4-Mails mid week after T3 Notice) Carrier Enclosures: T4 Letter 4th (T4) Continuation Notice (Last notice to continue subscription after the trial has expired)
Timing
Timing can make or break a campaign. Always seed yourself and other colleagues to evaluate mail dates vs. mailbox arrivals. Your series timing, as well as campaign start and end dates can greatly aect response.
Requested Trials
This type of campaign is the result of a customers request to receive a trial. Trial requests are generated from a trial order form or other response device at a tradeshow or conference, via your website, email promotion or through your customer service department. Direct request trial prospects that do not naturally convert to paid subscribers during the trial process, are good candidates for telemarketing follow-up eorts. Prior to receiving a trial, all direct request prospects should be screened and approved by a marketer, editor or customer service person to verify the prospect is valid and to avoid misuse. While uncommon, there are prospects who will repeatedly request a trial subscription as a means of receiving your product for free.
Testing-Dont implement and forget it!

As with all direct marketing eorts, FFTs should be periodically tested and tweaked to optimize results. Timing, oers, price, number of issues are all variables to be tested.
FFT Tips/Tactics for Print

To change, improve, and evaluate your gracing series: Add Business Reply Envelopes to all notice mailings Seed yourself on all eforts to assess the efectiveness of your timing and series in general; track drop dates and look for problems/errors Create new promotion codes for every trial notice to track the efectiveness of each mailing in your campaign; you need to know which notices pull orders Use 1st class presort for the mailing of sample issues Weigh the pros and cons of using blind or corporate branded carriers vs. teaser copy vs. the product brand in the return address ield on the issue carriers; or test each option Create match criteria for inding dupes and/or keeping repeat trials down or see if you can use your fulillment system to stop repeat trial requesters during a period of six to 12 months When possible craft your welcome letter and newsletter content to it your prospect list. For example, if your prospect list is an association that caters to medical practices that bill Medicare make sure your publication content as well as your welcome letter copy speaks to that audience. If you use a premium that performs particularly well in your other direct marketing eforts you can test using that same oer with your FFT campaigns. The premium would be fullled only upon paid conversion.
Electronic-FFTs
Print FFTs, once a direct marketing staple for many large publishers, are being replaced by eFFTs. eFFTs are highly eect as a cost saving method or when a publication is available in an electronic format. Issues are fullled electronically, however notices can be a mixture of both print and email.
Customized eFFTs (4, 5 or 6 Part Email Series)

One of the benets of an eFFT is that email deployment provides a highly customized, nimble environment for marketers to hone their messagemarrying marketing copy with content-- in real time. A series of strategically timed emails written with your specic prospect list in mind, using sales copy integrated with actual editorial content from your publication can draw in the prospect. Here is an example of this type of campaign: In the rst email try a subject line which is very simple and focuses on what your readers need to know. News regarding contract awards or Changes to Laws Regarding Medicare are some examples of general subject lines. The email can start out with a short introduction paragraph and a sales message but youll want to quickly get to the editorial content that has driven them to open your email. Use a short portion of content from the most current issue of your publication and allow the prospect to click on a link to view the entire issue. This works best when you provide breaking news or content that people in your niche need for continued operation or business development in their industry. After the article copy, follow up with more sales copy and links to an order page. After the rst email is deployed schedule three or more emails to deploy a week apart as Deadline Reminder (subject line) and Final Reminder (subject line) or an industry specic news headline to push your prospect to continue opening the emails and experiencing your content. All emails can use your exact same sales message but should feature a new article in each email. The idea is that with more exposure of your content you can appeal to a variety of prospects and remind them that they need to buy this in order to continue receiving this valuable information after the trial period ends. The weekly timing works when you are selling a daily or weekly. Monthly publications require more thought as you may want to schedule your emails closer together than your fulllment schedule allows keeping your message top of mind for the prospect rather sending a monthly reminder when each issue comes out. For instance, if you publish on the rst of each month, you can hold back your promotion start date until later in the month, de52 Chapter 3: FFTs and EFFTs SIPA
liver that issue, then two weeks later on the beginning of next month your can follow up with the next issue. Two weeks later when you dont have a new issue you can deliver other content, an electronic premium or a white paper until your next issue is ready. The main idea is to keep valuable content coming which represents your brand.
Costs
Forced Free Trial costs can include fees for printing of notices, letters, envelopes, BREs, fulllment, postage, and sometimes list rentals. These costs are incurred for each issue/notice sent to a prospect which can range from as few as 6 touch points (for a monthly or bi-weekly) up to 20 touch points (for a daily publication). For print FFTs it is usually necessary to use 1st class postage and several enclosures for FFT mailings. Additionally, be sure to include costs for premiums, if applicable. These expenses make FFT campaigns an expensive option, often reserved for highly targeted, pre-screened prospect and/or premium priced publications.
Campaign Analysis
FFT campaign analysis metrics mirror other direct marketing campaigns. Commonly tracked metrics include: Budgeted & Actual Mail Quantity Budgeted & Actual Gross/Net Orders Budgeted & Actual Revenue Budgeted & Actual Response Rate Budgeted & Actual Total Cost Budgeted & Actual P/L Payments (Cash Flow)
54 Chapter 4: SEO/Adwords and Keywords SIPA
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SEO/Adwords and Keywords
55 Chapter 4: SEO/Adwords and Keywords
The SEO Copywriting Guide

How To Build Your Keyword Universe & Write Content to Achieve High Rankings in Google
By Don Nicholas
INTRODUCTION
This guidebook is intended to introduce you to the process of identifying the keywords your website should be targeting. It also touches on the basics for writing keyword-rich content that will increase your chances of being found online. Our 48-page SEO copywriting handbook, available at www.seocopywritinghandbook.com, shares additional tips for writing keyword-rich rapid conversion landing pages that can help boost you to the top of Googles search results and increase your web to email conversion rates. Over 500 changes will be made to Googles search engine this year. As the algorithm that dictates the search results constantly changes, we will continue to monitor these changes and share our knowledge with you. If youre an SEO copywriter, online editor, audience development manager, or have any responsibility for Internet copy, you know that the competition in the online publishing world is increasing daily. A big component of this competition involves the constant battle for page-one dominance in Google search results. The realization that having a page-one ranking on Google can mean a lot of visibility has become a focal point for the industrys professionals.
CHAPTER 1: SEO COPYWRITING BASICS

The Internet has forever changed the rules for selling products via direct response advertising. Not long ago, the little known and widely misunderstood world of direct response sales promotion copywriting was dominated by a relatively small group of talented wordsmiths. Their stock in trade was, and still is, the art of persuasion. But today, the copywriter needs additional skills. Master them, and youll have virtual job security. Fail to learn them, and youre skills are incomplete -- and obsolete. Heres why: Writing for the Internet -- especially landing pages -- is dierent. It requires a mastery of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that elude many print medium copywriters. Direct response copywriters, most of whom cut their teeth in print direct mail, are experts at crafting challenging, mesmerizing headlines that demand the attention of even the most jaded reader. They follow these with practically irresistible product oers. Their long, captivating sales letters can evoke emotions, inspire the readers imagination, and create a nearly insatiable desire for a product or service. Blend into this consumer fervor sucient benets, features and plausible reasons (or rationalizations) to justify the purchase, and readers are primed to whip out their credit cards, call a toll-free phone number or click a few on-screen buttons, and achieve nearly instant gratication by ordering the product. At least, thats the general idea behind a standard sales letter. And for the website landing page, it is still the objective, with one important dierence. In the early 1970s, Chester Bowles, of the now defunct Benton & Bowles advertising agency, said, Its not creative unless it sells something. True enough. And today he might say, If Google cant nd your website, it doesnt exist. Also true. Because today, the best direct response sales promotion copywriting is being published on the Internet. But if the Google search engine robots dont nd and index your web pages, even the best sales letters in the world will never be read by your prospective customers. Your product virtually wont exist because it cant be found.
New challenges for online sales-promotion copywriters

So, the rules have changed. To stay in the game, or gain a competitive advantage, heres how you need to model your online sales letters. First, recognize that more people than ever are shopping online -- usually not for a product, but for information. Most Internet users seek answers to questions or problems, prior to committing to buy a product or solution. Second, recognize that every page on a website that isnt password protected is a potential landing page. That means any web user could land on your webpage as the result of making an inquiry to Google or one of the other popular search engines. But how? How does the user land on your website rather than at a competitors site? Well, its not by chance. Todays most popular website pages achieve their top search engine rankings owing to very careful research and copywriting. If you want to obtain a top Google ranking, i.e., have your landing page returned in the top 10 - 30 page links for any given word or search phrase, youve got to seduce Google with meaningful, useful copy and an amalgam of keywords and phrases. While Google.com is the most popular, Yahoo.com, Bing.com, AOL.com and Ask.com round out the big ve search engines. Mergers and acquisitions account for frequent changes in the rankings, and challengers emerge and retreat at regular intervals. Google is the king -- the most used search engine on the web -- and unlikely to be knocked o its throne. So, if you optimize your website landing pages for Google, they will invite the search bots of Googles competitors, as well.
CHAPTER 2: GOOGLE KEYWORD TOOL BASICS

When you search for something with Google, the results you get are organic. You cannot pay Google to put your results in the organic search; you can only pay for a spot on the right or at the top of the listings, which Google refers to as sponsored links. Sponsored results get only a fraction of the clicks that organic listings get. Thats because users know that organic results are less likely to be blatantly commercial and more likely to contain what they are looking for. So you need to begin your search engine optimization eorts by asking some fundamental questions. Why does your website exist as an entity? Who is your online audience? What are people searching for online that your product or service will help them answer? What interests your audience? How will they be gratied by the information or product that you have to oer? The answers to these questions dene the core of your online business and are the basis of your keyword strategy. For example, a publisher of gardening information products must understand what kind of information its particular audience is searching for online, in order to remain competitive and gain advantage. What are users who are interested in gardening searching for online? Beautiful photography and aesthetic inspiration? Step-by-step information on how to plant, prune, weed, etc.? Information on buying plants, tools, and seeds? Strategies for saving money? Gardening community information? All of the above -- and, if so, in what balance? By answering these questions, and determining what keywords users are typing into the Google search engine query box to nd that information, you can begin to build an audience-driven, multiplatform, media management system.
Partnering with Google by choosing the right keywords

The ultimate goal of todays online copywriter is to choose and use the right keywords, attract targeted website trac, and optimize landing pages to ensure your site gets found. The intricacies of SEO are constantly changing, as Google continually renes its criteria and algorithms. But if youre an honest online information marketer not trying to use any deceitful tricks and youre willing to do a little more than your competitors when creating content, youll soon realize that SEO is a logical extension of the editorial process. That means youll write content that Google likes. The SEO process begins with researching keyword phrases, which must be chosen carefully and realistically. Conversion rates -- the number of times someone visits your site and clicks on something -- increase when the exact keyword phrase for which a user is searching appears overtly on the page returned by the search engine. As a copywriter, you must make certain that the terminology and keywords you employ in the content you write are the same keywords for which users are searching. Obviously, it helps to know your customers and how they think, especially the vocabulary they are likely to use. For example, people who work in the food service industry probably dont think of themselves as food service workers, so you dont address them that way. Instead, they probably think of themselves as restaurateurs or executive chefs or specialty food buyers or restaurant owners, so you should address them as such. If you sell pet supplies and optimize your site only for that keyword phrase, it doesnt help if the user is searching for dog food. You get the idea. Chunk down from the general to the specic. Dont just think automobile accessories. Instead, think fuzzy dice. Think as a customer would think.
Think like a customer: Developing keyword strategy and business goals

The very rst step in the keyword research process is to brainstorm with your editors the primary keyword phrases that youd like your site to be ranked on. These are usually two-word phrases. You then take those primary keyword phrases and expand them into a group of secondary keyword phrases, which are usually three and four-word phrases. The next step is to gure out how popular those keyword phrases are, or how many people are searching for each of your keyword phrases each month, using the Google Keyword Tool. The Google AdWords keyword tool is at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal is a free to use after you register.
Wordtracker.com also can help you identify keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business and are most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors. Now that you know the demand, or popularity of each keyword phrase, its time to determine the competition. How many other websites are competing for that top spot in Google on any of your given keyword phrases? Enter each and every keyword phrase into Google.com with quotes around the term. This will show you, in the bar on the upper right corner of the Google results page, the number of websites that are using that phrase in an exact order (e.g. Results 1 10 of about 1,100,000). Most users, when searching casually, will enter whats called a broad match, not using quotes around their search query. This leads them to results where they could find the keyword phrase in any order on any given page. For example, if you Google the term good cooking, without quotes around the term, you would get results where the words good and cooking were on the same page but may not appear side-by-side, in that exact order. So the word good may appear in a completely separate paragraph from the word cooking.
Why exact match is more precise

The variation on this is called an exact match, and if you instead Google a term with quotes around the phrase, Google will display only the pages that have the phrase exactly as it was entered, so that good cooking appears together, side-by- side as a two-word phrase. In most cases, the number of competitive pages on an exact match phrase will be far fewer. For example, the number of competing pages could go from 1,000,000 down to 100,000 or even 50,000. Or in the case of good cooking, from 228,000,000 to 496,000.
The reason to care about this is not because users are always going search in Google with quotes around their query. But through research and repetition, we have discovered that roughly 90 percent of the websites that are going to appear on pages one, two, or three in Google for a broad match search will be exact match websites. Google favors exact match; it very much tries to give page one, two, and three rankings to those web pages that have exactly the phrase the user is looking for, in the exact order they entered the phrase. In summary, here is a simple ve-step process for brainstorming the 1500-2500 keywords that your users use most frequently to search for the content on your site. 1. Use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal to conduct a keyword popularity search to determine how many times per month users are searching for a particular word or phrase. 2. Do a Keyword Competition search to learn how many pages are currently competing for this phrase. Google the keyword phrase youd like to own with quotes around the word. Google will show you an exact match result and you will know who on the web is competing for that exact phrase, not some version of the phrase. 3. Determine the Keyword Competitive Index (KCI) of the keyword phrase you would like to dominate. From Google, take the annual search volume on the keyword phrase (monthly average X 12 months) and divide it by the number of competitive pages. 4. Import this data into an Excel spreadsheet to create a Google Visibility Report (GVR).
5. Load all of your keyword phrases into another tool, Advanced Web Ranking, and walk away for a day while AWR does its work. AWR will query Google for each of your keyword terms and determine where your website ranks -- position one, position ve, position seven or somewhere farther back.
CHAPTER 3: BUILDING AND MANAGING A KEYWORD CLUSTER

Use the data from Advanced Web Ranking to create your Keyword Universe. This will be a list of two- or more- word phrases that prospects are known to type into a Google search query box to nd products and services like yours. Copy these keywords into the GVR (Mequodas exclusive Excel spreadsheet template for monitoring your SEO keywords and their ranked position in Google). The main tab of the GVR is a list of all your keywords and keyword phrases in your universe, as suggested by Google, all clustered into groups of similar phrases.
Mequoda Online Publishing & Marketing System Lexicon

Google Visibility Report A proprietary Excel spreadsheet list of your keywords, clustered into groups of similar phrases. The GVR is a full report of extensive keyword research that identies where all of your keywords rank. It also helps you determine how likely you are to be found on a keyword phrase, based on the number of previously published web pages that contain the same keyword phrase. Keyword Universe All the keywords and keyword phrases that are applicable to your website, that you choose to track and manage. Keyword Cluster A group of related phrases, led by a primary keyword. The primary keyword identies the Keyword Cluster. Secondary Keyword Phrases All the additional words and phrases in the keyword cluster that are not the primary keyword. The GVR helps you determine how likely you are to be found on a keyword phrase You will use the keywords in your GVR to drive your websites architecture, its editorial content creation, the SEO campaigns, and the organic trac you generate from Google. Additionally, the Mequoda System GVR includes a valuable subsection that tracks the trac you get from other publishers who have linked to your web pages.
Little-known ways to get 100% Google visibility for your landing pages
When your website or landing page turns up on page one in Google, youre getting 100% visibility. But making it to page one is only half the battle. You must also make it enticing for the user to actually click on your result. And the way you do that is by writing a compelling and relevant title tag and description tag. If youre giving away a free special report, its important to add those words into your title description because those magic words draw attention and get clicks. Even more importantly, once youve gotten attention to your Google listing, and because what you are oering on your landing page is free, you will generate unsolicited inbound links to these pages from other site that think your report or product is relevant to their audience. But what happens when your landing page ends up on page two or three? We estimate that youre getting about 32% Google visibility on page two, meaning only about 32% of users ever click through to page two, and a meager 7% visibility on page three. If youre on page four or beyond, you simply dont have a chance of being seen by your potential customers. Once you nd keywords that have a good search volume, go into Google and search for those keyword phrases with quotes around them to gure out your competition. For example, say you want to write an article or a handbook on making apple pies. Take a look at the competition below, depending on how specic you make your title.
Now of course, the shorter you make your keyword, the more people will be searching for it, but the less trafc you will get from it. Do you have a chance of getting ranked on apple pie? Probably not, there are 6.1 million other apple pie pages out there. Apple pie recipe from scratch gets 46 searches a month according to the Google Keyword Tool. Thats 552 searches happening on that phrase per year. The golden jewel here is that there are only seven pages in Google that target that exact keyword. That means, if you write a report, youre going to end up on page one, and youre going to get an opportunity for those 552 searchers see your Google result. It might seem like a small niche to target, but this is only one recipe. You could create a hundred dierent recipe handbooks like this and get found on page one in Google for all of them. Other places to use your keyword phrase: Book title. Write a title for your book that includes the keywords, and then optimize the landing page for those keywords. A good title for this book is How to Make an Apple Pie Recipe from Scratch. Alt tag. Use the keywords in your image alt text and even in the image lename. Example: apple-pie-recipefrom-scratch.gif. Email ask. Every time you ask the user for their email address, use those keywords. Example: Yes, I would like to download a copy of How to Make an Apple Pie Recipe from Scratch right now. Use HTML or CSS buttons so that you can easily include the text in the button rather than with graphic images that Google cant read. Lists. Add to your landing page a list of take-aways from the free report you are oering. For your apple pie handbook, you might begin your list with Apple Pie Recipe from Scratch Tip #1: Pick your own apples, dont buy them, and dont use canned apples. Of course, once youve picked your main keyword and report title, you can also research other keywords to target in your report title (perhaps as the descriptive subhead) which you can pepper throughout your landing page.
CHAPTER 4: CHOOSING THE BEST CLUSTERS & PHRASES TO TARGET

All SEO keywords are not equally importantvolume and competition matter! On the surface, aiming for the most popular SEO keywords seems like a good strategy. But in reality, it can be like trying to slay a dragon with a peashooter. The big guys with the bazookas may have you outgunned. The little-known fact is, if your SEO keyword strategy is targeting only highly popular and competitive terms, your odds of SEO success are minimal. Alternatively, you might want to settle for aiming at smaller targets that oer the possibility of greater success. Heres how to decide whats a reasonable SEO keyword strategy for your website. As discussed in chapter 2, an eective SEO strategy begins with extensive research. Sure, you need to know the keyword phrases searched most frequently by customers in your market. But that information alone is not enough to guide your SEO eorts and create the right keyword-rich editorial content. You also need to know how many searches are done each month on each individual keyword phrase in your keyword universe. The simple but often overlooked fact is this: Theres a popularity contest going on within your keyword universe, and some keyword phrases are used much more often than others. That can create an intense competition and often your website wont have the gravitas to win. If you do the math, youll realize that there is a keyword risk ranking inside each keyword cluster in your keyword universe, and this information can help prioritize your choices. If you discover there is a lot of competition for those phrases, you may decide it is unwise to target the most popular keyword phrases. The best SEO keyword strategy might be to target keyword phrases that are more modest in popularity, and for which there is little competition. To use an economic metaphor, youre looking for modest demand and low supply. The Google Keyword Tool can tell you the demand. The Keyword Competitive Index (KCI) reveals the relationship of demand to competition. The KCI is your estimated annual search impressions (monthly average searches taken from the GKT times 12 months) divided by the number of exact match search engine results (the competition) at a point in time. The sweet spot for your SEO eorts is often a keyword phrase with a high KCI. We generally consider any keyword phrase with a KCI of 1 or better to be a high value, low-risk target. Any keyword phrase with a KCI of .50 to .999 is a B- grade target. A keyword phrase with a KCI of .1 to .49 is a C-grade target.
The subtle power of how to

Heres a tip that every online editor and copywriter should know. Many people start their search by typing the words how to and a verb in the query box. Adding how to and verbs to your primary keyword phrases can result in optimal rankings. The full Mequoda Daily GVR reveals a KCI of 37.71 for the phrase how to make a membership website, and a KCI of 1.42 for the phrase how to build a membership website. Mequoda Daily currently holds top 30 search results listings on more than a dozen variations of these two phrases that have enough volume to be tracked by Google and the GVR. If you dont consider volume and competition, your SEO success will be random. The Google Visibility Report enables you to target, track and manage your SEO eorts and results. Over time, it will reveal whether your have correctly evaluated the risk of a particular SEO keyword target. Perhaps most important, the GVR will enable you and your online publishing team to discover the best SEO keyword phrases to target for attracting the most high quality organic trac to your website.
CHAPTER 5: HOW TO WRITE & SEO AN ARTICLE POST

The organic content on our website, which is intended to attract customers, results in trac from Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask and MSN searches. You cant control what pages the search engines will drop this trac on; they may be article pages, glossary pages, or topic or category pages. As a copywriter and a website architect, how can you make your web pages as attractive as possible to the search engine spiders? What do search engines -- especially Google -- look for in article posts and other landing page copy? Well, after you have identied and targeted your keyword phrases, its important to use them properly in all the elements of the webpage, including the meta-tags. The goal is to write eective, search engine optimized headlines, subheads and summaries that can be easily found by Googles search engine spiders. We have found that for most copywriters, the best strategy is to simply write the article or post as usual, without much concern for the keyword phrases. Then revisit the rst draft, optimizing for the keyword phrase, and rewriting as needed, without changing the original intent, in order to repeat the keyword phrase as often as possible. Insert your target keyword phrase wherever it makes editorial sense to do so. Often this process is as simple as swapping out pronouns for the full keyword phrase. Its important to achieve the ideal balance of keywords to copy, and to avoid over- stung your keywords in a way the makes the copy unnatural or pedantic. To become a better SEO writer, practice rewording your copy to achieve a healthy balance of keyword usage and eective writing. Next, optimize the meta-title, meta-description, meta-keyword, and URL tags. For instance, if your keyword phrase was landing page copywriting secrets, your meta-title, meta-description, meta-keyword, and URL tags might look like this: Title: Landing page copywriting secrets| Article reveals landing page copywriting secrets Description: landing page copywriting secrets for attracting, engaging and monetizing customers Keywords: landing page, copywriting secrets URL Tag: landing-page-copywriting-secrets.php Note that the phrase landing page copywriting secrets can appear twice in the meta-title, without Google penalty, when separated by the pipe or vertical bar and another word or two. Note, too, that Google pays close attention to the meta-title tag, especially if the article title does not use any words for which there is erce competition. The meta-title tag weighs heavily in determining the page ranking. Additionally, if the search engine spider likes the title of the page if it is keyword rich it will pick up the title tag and return it verbatim in the search results. If it is not keyword rich, the spider will analyze the content on the page, look for the rst occurrence of the keyword phrase, and make up its own title and its own description tags. Similarly, if you dont put anything in the title tag, or you chose words that dont have the keyword phrase in it, Google will make up its own description and return it in the search results.
CONCLUSION
This information in this guide provides the basic fundamentals of building a keyword universe and writing content to be found. Its about choosing keyword ghts you can win, as volume and competition play a hand in helping you select the targets that are right for you. There is much more to SEO and running a successful online business and we encourage you to continue your learning. Start by downloading the full SEO Copywriting Handbook and check out our favorite SEO blogs in appendix A.
Download the full 48-page handbook SEOCopywritingHandbook.com
Copyright 2011 Mequoda Group LLC Terms of Use All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, faxing, emailing, posting online or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the Publisher. All trademarks and brands referred to herein are the property of their respective owners. All references to Mequoda and the seven Mequoda Website Publishing Models are trademarks of the Mequoda Group, LLC. Legal Notices While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for error, omissions or contrary interpretations of the subject matter contained herein. The purchaser or reader of this publication assumes responsibility for the use of these materials and information. Adherence to all applicable laws and regulations, both referral and state and local, governing professional licensing, business practices, advertising and all other aspects of doing business in the United States or any other jurisdiction, is the sole responsibility of the purchaser or reader. The author and publisher assume no responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any purchaser or reader of these materials. Any perceived slights of specic people or organizations are unintentional. ISB - 978-0-9792048-0-7 For More Free White Papers http://www.MequodaFree.com
APPENDIX A: SEO AND COPYWRITING BLOGS

The following list of blogs oer additional information on SEO copywriting. Also, be sure to visit us at the Mequoda Daily [www.mequoda.com] for more posts on SEO copywriting and additional relatable topics. Ocial Google Blog http://www.googleblog.blogspot.com Search Engine Land http://searchengineland.com/ SEO Moz http://www.seomoz.org/blog Search Engine Watch http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/ Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google and SEO http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ Copyblogger http://www.copyblogger.com
About Don Nicholas Chief Executive Ocer, Mequoda Group Don Nicholas is a media consultant specializing in new business development and organizational management. He serves as the CEO for Mequoda Group and is the author of hundreds of books, white papers and articles on media management. His most recent books include Internet Business Models & Strategies, Building Subscription Websites, and The SEO Copywriting Handbook. Over the past three decades, Don has guided the development of hundreds of successful legacy and new media brands including Ceramic Arts Daily, Consumer Reports, Eating Well, Farm Progress, Golf Vacation Insider, HR Daily Advisor, Harvard University, Investing Daily, Johns Hopkins Health Alerts, Knitting Daily, Mens Health, Mother Earth News, Morningstar, Real Simple, Sunset, TechRepublic, The Motley Fool, TSI Network, and Vida Y Salud. In addition to strategic direction and management coaching, Don and his team provide their current clients with comprehensive consulting, development and training support related to every facet of starting and running a successful multi-platform digital media business. Each year Don leads dozens of public and private training programs for Mequoda Group, FIPP, MPA, SIPA and other organizations. Don sits on the board of SIPA and Aspire media, LLC. He is a graduate of CSUS and Capella Universitys Graduate School of Business.
68 Chapter 5: Landing Pages: Design and Impact SIPA
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Landing Pages: Design and Impact
69 Chapter 5: Landing Pages: Design and Impact
Landing Pages: Design and Impact

By Robert W. Bly
How do you drive trac to your Web site without burning through your available cash in a couple of weeks?
HERE ARE 8 COST-EFFECTIVE WAYS TO GET HITS TO YOUR SITE:

1. Google.The worlds largest search engine, Google facilitates 250 million Web searches per day for its users. As an advertiser, you can buy preference in Googles search engine, based on key word, on a cost-per-click basis. It could cost you as little as a dime a click or more than a dollar a click, depending on the popularity of the key word you want to buy. If the cost of the key word is 30 cents per click, and 100 people click on your site that day as a result of a Google search on the key word you bought, Google charges you $30. Google lets you put a limit on how much you spend per day, so the cost can t any budget. 2. Overture. Another search engine that lets you buy preferential rating on key words. Overture reaches over 80% of active Internet users by displaying your business in search results on leading sites like Yahoo!, MSN, and Alta Vista. How to you determine what you can aord to pay? Say your product costs $100 and out of every 100 clicks on your site, you get one sale, for a total of $100. You can aord to pay $1 per hit if breaking even on the initial sale is your goal. 3. Aliate marketing. Find Web sites that cater to the same market you do. Arrange for them to feature your products on their site and in their e-mails. Online ads, e-mail blurbs, and Web pages talking about your product link to your site where the user can purchase the product under discussion. The aliate receives a percentage of the sale ranging from 15% to 50%. To recruit aliates or make money being an aliate for other marketers, visit http://www.aliatesdirectory.com. Amazon.com runs one of the largest aliate programs, enabling you to feature books on your site that are related to your topic and of interest to your audience; when the user clicks on the book page, he is automatically linked to www.amazon.com where he can buy the book online. Its a service for your visitors, and you earn a small commission on each sale. 4. Co-registration. In co-registration marketing, the user who visits a Web site is served a pop-up window containing a number of special oers; most frequently these are subscriptions to free e-zines. By arranging to have your e-zine or another oer featured in these co-registration pop-ups, you can capture many new names for your online database at a relatively low cost compared with traditional e-mail marketing. There are a number of companies that can nd such co-registration deals for you. One of these is VentureDirect Online, www.venturedirect.com. Another is E-Tactics, www.e-tactics.com. 5. Banner ads. Banner ads have seen a resurgence thanks to the increasing sophistication and popularity of Macromedia Flash; in an attempt to recapture the attention of the overloaded Internet user, animation and
eects in banners have become more sophisticated and dynamic. Banner ads can work but should be tested conservatively and cautiously, and dont get your hopes of a breakthrough up too high. Banner ads usually supplement other trac generation methods, and are only occasionally a primary source of unique visits. Exceptions? Of course. 6. E-mail marketing. Sending solo promotional e-mails to a rented list of opt-in names is an expensive way to acquire new names. Say you rent a list of 1,000 e-mail names for $200, get a 2% click-through, and 10% of those sign-up for your e-zine. Your acquisition cost to acquire those two new subscribers is a whopping $100 per name. Business-to-consumer marketers have a better chance of success with careful testing of e-mail marketing, since consumer lists are more reasonably price than business-to-business names. 7. Online ads. While sending a solo e-mail to a companys e-list can run $100 to $400 per thousand, a less expensive option is to run a small online ad in their e-zine. Cost can be as little as $20 to $40 per thousand. The e-zone publisher species the format and length of your ad, which are typically 100 words of text with one URL link. The higher up (earlier) your ad appears in the e-zone, the higher the response. 8. Viral marketing. At its simplest, viral marketing entails adding a line to your outgoing e-mail marketing messages that says, Please feel free to forward this e-mail to your friends so they can enjoy this special oer. To work, the e-mail you want the recipient to forward must contain a special oer, either a free oer (typically free content) or a discount on merchandise. According to Bryan Heathman of 24/7 Media, 81 percent of viral e-mail recipients will pass the e-mail on to at least one other person.
5 WAYS TO CAPTURE E-MAIL ADDRESSES OF LANDING PAGE VISITORS

Most Internet marketers I know who use landing pages to make direct sales online focus on conversion: getting the maximum number of visitors to the landing page to place an order for the product being advertised. Other Internet marketers, when writing landing page copy, focus not only on conversion, but also on search engine optimization: key word selection and meta tag creation that can increase trac by raising the sites search engine rankings. But in addition to conversions and unique visits, savvy Internet marketers are also concerned with a third performance metric: e-mail address capture. If you have a two percent conversion rate, then for every 100 visitors to the landing page, only two buy and of course, during these transactions, you capture the e-mail addresses of those buyers. What happens to the other 98 visitors -- those who do not buy? You will not be able to add their e-mail address to your list unless you incorporate a deliberate methodology into your landing page to capture it. Here are four dierent methodologies for capturing the e-mail addresses of landing page visitors who do not purchase. Every landing page you operate should use at least one of these methods: 1. E-zine sign-up box. This is a box where the visitor can get a free e-newsletter subscription just by entering his name and e-mail address. You can see an example of a simple e-zine sign-up box at www.bly.com and countless other Web sites. The e-zine sign-up box placed prominently on the rst screen is a widely used method of e-mail capture for Web sites. But it is less commonly used for micro-sites and landing pages. The reason is that, if your headline and lead properly engage the readers attention, he wont bother to sign up for the e-newsletter instead, hell start reading. Then, if he loses interest or reaches the end but does not order, and instead clicks away, you havent captured his e-mail address. 2. Squeeze pages. Also known as preview pages, these are short landing pages that require the visitor to register by giving his name and e-mail address before he is allowed to go on and read the long-copy landing page. To see a squeeze page at work, visit: www.squeezepagegenerator.com. In some cases, the long-copy landing page itself is positioned as a report which the visitor can read only if he 71 Chapter 5: Landing Pages: Design and Impact
submits his name and e-mail address rst. For this to work, your landing page should be written in an informative, educational style. Many squeeze pages oer a content premium, such as a free report, just for submitting your e-mail address. Those seeking to capture snail mail as well as e-mail addresses make the premium a physical object that must be shipped, such as a free CD. Squeeze pages work well when your primary source of trac is organic and paid search. Reason: search visitors clicking to your site are only mildly qualied, because they are making a decision to visit based on only a few words in a search engine description or paid Google ad. Therefore, they may not be inclined to read long copy from a source they are not familiar with. A squeeze page lets them absorb the gist of your proposition in a few concise paragraphs. The main advantage of the squeeze page is that it ensures capture of an e-mail address from every visitor who reads the full landing page. In addition, these prospects have been pre-qualied, in terms of their interest in the subject, and so are more likely to stick with long copy. 3. E-mail capture sidebars. These are forms built into the main landing page as sidebars, again making a free oer. In a long-copy landing page, the e-mail capture sidebar usually appears early, typically in the second or third screen, and may be repeated one or more times throughout the page. Example: www.rocketfrench.com. The drawback of the e-mail capture sidebar is that the prospect sees it before he gets too far in the sales letter, and therefore before youve sold him and ask for the order. Therefore, the risk is that if your product teaches, say, how to speak French, and the e-mail capture sidebar oers free French lessons, the visitor will just take the free oer and feel no need to spend money on the paid oer. 4. Pop-under. When you attempt to click away from the landing page without making a purchase, a window appears that says something like, Wait! Dont leave yet! and makes a free oer. To see how this works, go to one of my sites, www.becomeaninstantguru.com. The big advantage of the pop-under is that the visitor sees it only after he has read to the point where he is leaving without ordering. Therefore, the free content oer doesnt compete with or distract visitors from the paid product oer. The disadvantage is that about half of Internet users run pop-up blockers on their PCs, and these blockers will prevent your pop-under from showing. 5. Floaters. A oater looks and functions much like a pop-up window, but its actually part of the landing pages HTML code, and therefore, wont be blocked by a pop-up blocker. You can see a oater at http://bhg.com/. The oater blocks a portion of the landing page when you click onto the site. You can enter your e-mail or click it away without doing so. Either action removes the oater and allows you to see the complete landing page. As you can see, all of these e-mail capture methods oer some sort of free content typically a downloadable PDF report, e-course delivered via auto-responder, or e-zine subscription in exchange for your e-mail address. Why bother to maximize capture of visitor e-mail addresses on your landing pages and other Web sites? There are two primary benets. First, by sending an online conversion series a sequence of e-mails delivered by auto-responder to these visitors, you have another opportunity to convince them to buy and increase your overall conversion rate. Second, the best names for your e-mail marketing eorts, far better than rented opt-in lists, are in your house e-list. So the faster you can build a large e-list, the more protable your Internet marketing ventures will become. How much more protable? Internet marketing expert Fred Gleeck estimates that, for information product marketers, each name on your e-list is worth between ten cents and a dollar or more per name per month. Therefore, a 50,000-name e-list could generate annual online revenues of $600,000 a year or higher. In other businesses, the sales could be signicantly higher. Hewlett-Packard has 4.5 million e-zine subscribers, from whom they generate $60 million in monthly sales.* * B-to-B, 4/4/05.
10 TIPS FOR INCREASING LANDING PAGE CONVERSION RATES

Theres lots of buzz about blogging, viral marketing, social networking, and other new methods of generating eyeballs and trac online. But all that trac wont make you any money unless you can convert those unique visitors to leads or customers. Depending on whether you are selling a product directly from your landing page, asking visitors to download a free white paper, or promoting a Webinar or demonstration, conversion rates can range from as low as one percent or less to as much as 50 percent or more. Here are 10 keys to writing landing pages that maximize online conversion rates: 1. Build credibility early. People have always been skeptical of advertising, and with the proliferation of spam and shady operators, they are even more skeptical of what they read online. Therefore, your landing page copy must immediately overcome that skepticism. One way to do that is to make sure one or more credibility builders is clearly displayed on the rst screen the visitor sees. In the banner at the top of the page, use your logo and company name if you are well known; universities, associations, and other institutions can place their ocial seal in the upper left of the screen. Within or immediately under the banner, put a strong testimonial or three above the headline on the rst screen. Consider adding a pre-head or subhead which summarizes the companys mission statement or credentials. At www.bnasoftware.com, the positioning statement is: The nations denitive income tax management solution. 2. Capture the e-mail addresses of non-buyers. There are a number of mechanisms available for capturing the e-mail address of visitors who click on your landing page but do not buy the product. One is to use a window with copy oering a free report or e-course in exchange for submitting e-mail address. This window can be served to the visitor as a pop-up (it appears when the visitor arrives at the landing page) or a pop-under (a window that appears when the visitor attempts to leave the landing page without making an inquiry or purchase). These are both blocked by pop-up blockers. A oater is a window that slides onto the screen from the side or top. Unlike the pop-up and pop-under, the oater is part of the Web site HTML code, so it is not stopped by the pop-up blocker. 3. Use lots of testimonials. Testimonials build credibility and overcome skepticism, as do case studies and white papers posted on the Web site. If you invite customers to a live event, ask if they would be willing to give you a brief testimonial recorded on video. Have a professional videographer tape it, get a signed release from the customer, and post the testimonial on your Web site as streaming video. Require the customer to click a button to hear the testimonial, rather than have the video play automatically when the visitor clicks on the page. For written testimonials, customers may suggest that you write what you want them to say and just run it by them for approval. Politely ask that they give you their opinion of your product in their own words instead of having you do it. Reason: what they come up with will likely be more specic, believable, and detailed than your version, which might smack of puery and promotion. 4. Use lots of bullets. Highlight key features and benets in a list of short, easy-to-read bulleted items. I often use a format where the rst part of the bullet is the feature, and after a dash comes the benet; e.g., Quickrelease adhesive system - your graphics stay clean and - dont stick together. Online buyers like to think they are getting a lot for their money, so when selling a product directly from your landing page, be sure all major features and important benets are covered in a comprehensive bullet list appearing on your landing page. When generating leads by giving away white papers, you dont need a huge list of bulleted features and benets. But using bullets to describe the contents of the paper and the benets that information delivers can raise conversion rates for download requests. 5. Arouse curiosity in the headline. The headline should either arouse curiosity, make a powerful promise, or otherwise grab the readers attention so he has no choice but to keep reading. The headline for a landing page selling a training program on how to become a professional property locator makes a big promise: Become a 73 Chapter 5: Landing Pages: Design and Impact
Property Locator Today - and Make $100,000 a Year in the Greatest Real Estate Career That Only a Few Insiders Know About. 6. Use a conversational copy style. Most corporate Web sites are unemotional and sterile: just information. But a landing page is a letter from one human being to another. Make it sound that way. Even if your product is highly technical and you are selling it to techies, remember that they are still human beings, and you cannot sell something by boring people to death. 7. Incorporate an emotional hook in the headline and lead paragraph. Logical selling can work, but tapping into the prospects emotions is much stronger - especially when you correctly assess how the prospect is feeling about your product or the problem is solves right now. Another eective tactic for lead-generation landing pages is to stress your free oer in the headline and lead. Example: Kaydons landing page shows a picture of its catalog with the bold heading above it reading, FREE Ceramic Bearings Product Selection Guide. 8. Solve the readers problem. Once you hook the reader with emotional copy dramatizing her problem or a powerful free oer, show how your product - or your free information - can help solve their problem. For example: Now there is a better, easier, and more eective solution to wobbly restaurant tables that can irritate customers and ruin their dining experience: Table Shox, the worlds smallest shock absorber. To maximize landing page conversion rates, you have to convince the visitor that the quickest route to solving his problem is taking the action indicated on the landing page, and not - as you might be tempted to let him do - surng your site. Thats why I prefer landing pages to appear with no navigation, so the readers only choice is to respond or not respond; theres no menu of click buttons and hyperlinks to other interesting pages to distract him. 9. Make it timely and current. The more your online copy ties in with current events and news, the higher your response rates. This is especially critical when selling nancial and investment information as well as regulatory compliance products in elds where laws and rules change frequently. Periodically update your landing page copy to reect current business and economic conditions, challenges, and trends. This shows your visitor that your company is current with and on top of whats happening in your industry today. 10. Stress the money-back guarantee or lack of commitment on the part of the user. If you allow customers to order products directly from the landing page, make sure you have a money-back guarantee clearly stated on that page. All your competitors give strong money-back-guarantees. So you cant get away without doing the same. If your product is good and your copy truthful, your refund rates can be as low as 1 percent or even less. If you are generating leads, stress that your oer - which might be a white paper, online demonstration, or Webinar - is free. Say there is no obligation to buy and that no salesperson will visit.
Robert W. Bly is a freelance copywriter and the author of more than 50 books including The Complete Idiot s Guide to Direct Marketing (Alpha). His e-mail address is rwbly@bly.com and his Web site address is www.bly.com.
76 Chapter 6: eCommerce and Shopping Carts SIPA
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eCommerce and Shopping Carts
77 Chapter 6: eCommerce and Shopping Carts
Making More Money Online

eCommerce Success Factors For Publishers
by Thomas Chaee
As a publisher in todays fast-paced market, youve grappled with how best to transition from print to complete platform. The traditional print subscription business has given way to a multi-channel, multi-platform model focused around online delivery and eCommerce a shift you can leverage into both improved productivity and increased revenue. Many have already found that making money on the web isnt as simple as moving their content online or following a avor-of-the-month marketing or sales tactic it requires a thoughtful approach. There are numerous methods for thriving online the challenge is to determine which are best suited to your business, your vertical and your reader preferences. The goal is to formulate and execute a solid strategy for success in a changing market one tailored to your audience and built on the proven tactics youve always used. If this approach looks like your traditional publishing business model, it is, at its core. The key dierence is that delivering products and services online oers more and varied tools for identifying and evaluating customer preferences, and associating products and services with those preferences. Thus delivering relevant content or services in the format and context or moment at which they are most valued. At its most basic, there are three revenue models for publishers: users pay (subscriptions, events, webinars, content by-the-drink); advertisers pay (ad model, lead generation model, sponsorships); and/or transactions pay (books, products or services). There is obvious value in having all three sources, as it diversies your revenue base, creates more opportunity and delivers greater insight into new products and markets. Choosing between subscriptions or space advertising to start with is only part of the puzzle as either model forms a solid foundation for a successful eCommerce strategy that may include many other diversied revenue sources such as events, lead generation, conferences, alerts, advice, research, webinars, directories, guides, archives, books and much more. In a dynamic advertising and subscription sales market, maintaining value and increasing your revenue through a direct economic relationship with your subscribers is paramount. Embracing the metric of Average Revenue Per Reader (ARPR) quickly stimulates a holistic view of your business, as well as its revenue potential. This metric is useful for several reasons: it helps you evaluate investments in additional online revenue streams, by calculating the lifetime value of product sales over time, it provides a measure to value the customer as a lead for advertisers and encourages you to think more broadly about a platform strategy as the way to build and deliver value. The publishing model has not changed much; it is still about targeting your audience and creating content for that audience. But how do you handle the increased competition, changing customer preferences and a new model for commerce in online publishing? It is as simple as A B C D E: Analyze Your Approach Build Your Strategy
Create Your Goals Dene Your Tactics Execute!
Analyze Your Approach | Assess Your Current State

First, youll want to lay a solid foundation by identifying the state of your online enterprise and asking yourself these questions: 1. What are you selling? a. How can you present it dierently? b. How can you add value? c. Can you change your original products for online consumption? d. What new products can you oer? e. Where do your e-consumers interests lie in relation to your products? f. Who else is selling these types of products and how? 2. Where is the money? a. What are they buying? b. Can you increase your average revenue per reader (ARPR)? c. How do consumers relate to your products? d. What are your online assetsbeyond subscriptions? e. Can you oer your original products for a dierent price? f. Where do new products t into your pricing tier? 3. Who is your market? a. What can you learn about your readersbeyond their contact info? b. What are their interests? c. How do they use your content? d. How do they navigate the web? e. Can your markets/readers be segmented dierently? f. Why are they interested in your business? As you move forward, ensure you are focused on the high level strategies that emerge from your answers they should inform all decision making with respect to revenue generation.
Build Your Strategy | Four eCommerce Success Drivers

Real value (and thus revenue) comes from knowledge information that is categorized, reliable and presented in context A good strategy is always considered a fundamental building block to achieving any objective (which itself should be specific and quantifiable). Since we are discussing eCommerce, we are going to assume the objective is to make more money online. In order to do that, there should be four pillars forming the base of your online strategy. Relate. The key to driving more revenue is to present a full range of resources articles, guides, newsletters, conferences, events, research, books, etc. relevant to each reader at the right time. Contextualize. The introduction of context-aware eCommerce opportunities will provide you the most direct lift to your bottom line. Context is any information about a customer from behavior as simple as the article they are reading, to data about the customer: eNewsletter subscriptions, products purchased, pages visited, social media sharing, eg -- that may be used by an eCommerce system to provide products and services of value to each customer.
Deliver. You want to provide knowledge wherever you can. Data is widely available, information (the organization of that data) is less so, but real value (and thus revenue) comes from knowledge information that is categorized, reliable and presented in context. Listen. It is important to understand that your customers must drive your context. Listen to them by paying attention to site metrics, comments, click streaming, questions, tweets, email and eNewsletter opens, sales trends and other cues.
Create Your Goals | Paint The Target

With the four strategic pillars rmly in place, the next step is to look at the goals of each of your main internal disciplines or departments or whichever hat you happen to be wearing at the moment. By denition, goals are the long-term aims that dene the accomplishment of your mission. The most eective goals are established for every aspect of your business, to help you sell more, more eectively. Consider these typical elements and associated metrics for success: Editorial Processes Better Search Engine Optimization/presence Improved customer communication/dialog Easier management do more without adding staf Phased, focused eforts and controlled growth Circulation & Fulllment Reduced Churn: revenue and renewal stability and predictability Creation of new products/new segmentation/new markets Lowered acquisition costs Audience growth Marketing & Sales Ad rate surge Introduction of new ad & sponsor models Increased page views Ampliied brand awareness More engaged site visitors Direct revenue growth Once youve assessed your capabilities and have staked out your denitions of success it is time to focus on the basic blocking and tackling necessary to get there.
Dene Your Tactics | Craft The Roadmap

Tactics are those specic steps you need to take (by whom, by when and at what cost) to implement a strategy. Following are some key tactics that directly map to the four pillars strategy and will help you hit your primary objective of making more money online.
Tactic 1: Know Your Audience

Selling successfully requires more than presenting your products and leading your customers to a secure shopping cart. You have a great opportunity to learn more about them their interests, content preferences, buying behavior and more. Staying in close contact with them, as well as fostering multi-directional communications, will translate into higher Average Revenue Per Reader (ARPR). If you already place renewal calls or send emails to your customers and prospects, you are o to an excellent start. However, the most eective method for generating more revenue is to make that contact more meaningful. Simply knowing a consumers contact information is not enough. You want to recognize and utilize the charac80 Chapter 6: eCommerce and Shopping Carts SIPA
teristics that identify them as a particular kind of user. These characteristics can include, but are not limited to: Their geographic location The mode or network through which they communicate: email, RSS, Twitter, LinkedIn The devices they use to access your services: computer, tablet, smartphone When (time of day or year) they show interest in particular products/services The nature of their common/frequent transactions The type or category of product they typically purchase Their identiied interests The following checklist will ensure that your site features help you gather customer intelligence and eectively segment your audience. Use web analytics to track how users move through your site, their consumer behavior and where they get stuck. You want to know their interests and habits (this relates to context awareness see below), as well as their ability to nd all the information/content oered on your site. Use this information to make your site as user-friendly as possible for your particular audience and to follow-up with excellent customer service. Show some content before asking users to register or subscribe. This implies accessibility and fosters consumer curiosity which increases site stickiness. Gate your content. Once you have a readers attention, you can ask them to register to access premium content, web-only content, most recent updates, archives, or other content they consider valuable for use in their daily work, industry research, marketing, etc. Capturing basic contact information sets the foundation for future communications, which enhances your customer relationships and gives you a better understanding of their needs and preferences. Leverage your customer data with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System. Uploading your contacts information to Excel will let you handle basic tasks like updating email or telemarketing lists. To sell successfully online, however, youll need to add meaning to your data with information about each customer or registered user: Free eNewsletters: how many and which they have read Product purchases: how purchased Site visits/pageviews: which content is most popular, which is least useful Downloads: what reports or whitepapers ofer the most value A unied Content Management, eCommerce, and CRM platform that allows you to capture this information and integrate with your circulation or fulllment system will remove many obstacles to eCommerce with realtime downloads or site access, relevant communications, up-sells and easy account management. Promote two-way communication on your website. Encouraging visitors to interact with your site will increase trac and site stickiness. It can enhance loyalty to your brand and build viral awareness of your site and products. A word of caution: Some care is required when introducing interactive features; try posting a simple poll or adding comments to articles before introducing forums or content and product ratings. And, rather than reinventing the wheel, use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other networks to help readers interact with your site and share content with a wider network of contacts.
Tactic 2: Use The Information You Gather To Keep In Touch

Determine which method of follow-up is most appropriate for a particular type of user -- email, snail mail, text message, tweet, InMail, Facebook or phone call -- by asking on registration forms, testing, and then comparing response rates for each channel. Also, use the data to mirror the frequency and intensity of their interest with your chosen form of follow-up.
Make relevant and engaging contact. Find out how customers enjoy the product theyve purchased. Point them to related products available in dierent formats such as videos, books, conferences or podcasts of live interviews or roundtables. Re-engage users who have lapsed by referencing new products or content that relate to their past activity. Make your online brand familiar to print subscribers: Allow users some connection to your print product that is if you have a publication. Provide contacts, subscription and advertising information for Web and print products. Web users dont live in a vacuum; if they know you have a print edition, they expect to see some reference to it on your site. Display the current edition that is available to print subscribers. Include About Us & Contact Us sections to build credibility. Advertisers want fast access to media kits and advertising contacts, while readers want access to editorial contacts and customer service.
Tactic 3: Help Customers Find What They Are Looking For

In a break from what was practical in the traditional print newsletter or magazine business, publishers who sell successfully online typically oer a wider range of products and present content in a variety of forms. You can leverage assets and your unique industry knowledge to create archives, reports, indexes, video, webinars, guides and other content to monetize. This process requires that you know more about your audience, as discussed above, and how they use your site and consume content. Most importantly, youll want to help customers nd and purchase what they are looking for without leaving your site. Search & Sell! The search on your site is extremely important at the least it should return great content results weighted by relevance, frequency, and date. It also pays to recognize the signicance of returning search results across the entire platform. Alongside typical content or article results a great site search will include related events, conferences, books, whitepapers, videos and any other eCommerce opportunities preferably categorized on the site search results page. This creates both accidental and active participation by users to generate more opportunities leading to more revenue and lays the groundwork to build user engagement through context-aware eCommerce. Flexibility & Scalability. We hear these terms a lot, but what do they really mean to your strategy? Make sure that as you discover your customer preferences and what works for your audience, your site and underlying software can adapt and customize cost-eectively. This allows you to drive new features, streamlined processes and interactivity while encouraging experimentation, content/audience segmentation and new ideas for revenue generation.
Tactic 4: Build Context Aware eCommerce

The context aware publisher sells more content, subscriptions, products and services, but there are other benets: Better targeting of circulation eorts Increased transaction opportunities (more opportunities = more sales) Higher CPM-based advertising & sponsorship revenue Improved attendance at events & conferences More clicks with contextual content presentation Higher site & brand engagement
Essential tips for building context awareness are: Gather. As you capture every users contact information, put in place a drip communication program to track what people view and buy. Send regular communications of value to your customers, and ask for their feedback. For example, oer an industry report to determine interest in a specic topic, or oer survey results in 82 Chapter 6: eCommerce and Shopping Carts SIPA
return for participation in a survey that gathers user data and preferences. Over time, the drips of information will become a well of information about each customer: e-mail preferences, personal and company data, and media preferences. These are foundational elements for making informed marketing and merchandising choices and encouraging users to self-manage their relationship with you. Examine. Study audience behavior using analytics (page-views, time-on-site, goal pages accessed), buying behavior, eNewsletter subscriptions, trials, etc. Are they hungry readers? What are they willing to spend their money on? Business? Self-advancement? Education? Use this information to create a transparent experience for the user. You want to enable them to search, read, shop and purchase seamlessly and simultaneously. Typically, the nal action of an eCommerce user is checking out of their shopping cart; ideally, they will stick around and keep reading. Categorize. Classify your content preferably with semantic tagging (metadata or taxonomy describing your content). Choose topics that reect how your readers think about their lives and their business. What are their priorities? Experiment. Test dierent methods of delivering content: video, social media, newsletters, audio, books, DVDs, mobile, downloads, subscriptions, etc. Engage. Become the rst site your target audience wants to visit, and the one they trust to handle transactions and their privacy. Be sure to select the technology and a provider with the capacity and foresight to foster context awareness so that you may build greater levels of engagement.
Tactic 5: Create More Value

Base your approach on the idea that you have services, products and content of value to oer, you simply need to adapt it to the eCommerce environment. Recognize that in the Internets brief history, the general public has perceived it as a source of free information, but that doesnt mean you cant add value to your assets in hand and generate revenue from them. Clarify. Be clear about where you want to go. If you historically provided a single newsletter about a narrow topic, how can you evolve into a go-to source of a wide range of content for your niche audience, or add a variety of related topics to extend your reach? Can you provide business intelligence? Industry news and information? Industry data and analysis? Directory listings? Company proles? Expert advice? Resources for navigating the industry? Deliver. How can you provide these resources? White papers? Books? Case studies? Webinars? Can you oer complementary news, blogs, or commentary in combination with sponsored services and paid subscriptions? Who would be willing to sponsor some of your resources? How can you integrate tiered oerings? Socialize. Tap into social media and provide social components on your site, such as interactive blogs, article comments, sharing, content rating and Twitter activity related to your content or audience. Interact. Foster direct communication through survey forms and opportunities for comment/dialogue. Test. Conduct A/B tests on design, placement of call to action (subscription oers), media types, free and paid content oerings and other relevant components of your site. A/B testing helps you determine the most effective method for engaging your readers. You compare A method to B method by simultaneously testing both for a set period of time, then analyzing the results.
Tactic 6: Make It Easy To Select & Purchase Your Products

You can lead your customer to your product, but how do you get them to buy? Shopping cart abandonment (when customers select products but dont complete the purchase process) is not an unusual phenomenon. Recent statistics estimate cart abandonment at about 75% for a multitude of reasons, including: Too long of a checkout process 83 Chapter 6: eCommerce and Shopping Carts
Too much personal information required for checkout The customer changes their mind Hidden costs or the total cost is higher than expected Registration is required before purchase The site seems un-secure or unreliable The checkout process is confusing The shopping cart loses information and kicks people out The site is poorly constructed and runs slowly, crashes, or becomes unresponsive
As long as the underlying software is robust and easily supports your tactics, these issues can be addressed by incorporating specic shopping cart enhancements, such as those listed above, that make it easy for your customers to select the right items and pay for them.
Tactic 7: Create eCommerce Engagement

Creating eCommerce engagement starts by removing friction from every interaction. We can all take a lesson from one of the leading sellers of content Apple, Inc. Apples mantra is to make things simple and make them integrated. Simplify. Streamline your registration and checkout processes: Allow buyers to check out as a guest Add auto-ll to reduce the personal information registered users need to ll out Consolidate forms, to provide the option of automatically using shipping addresses as billing addresses Modify design to present check out, continue shopping, and other calls to action prominently and intuitively Integrate. With your content management, eCommerce, SEO and user management (CRM) working together you can: Use semantically tagged content to present products related to free content, and segment your audience based on purchases and subscriptions. Quickly capture new buyer information and give immediate access to premium content following each transaction and oer context-based upsells and cross-sells alongside content. Work in real time with your fulllment or circulation system to easily manage and test premium content, oers and user access for specic audience segments. Gate or paywall your content to subscriber type, allow the user to self-manage their account and give them the ability to re-download purchased items.
Tactic 8: Build & Maintain Trust

There is a relationship of trust inherent in the process of purchasing print subscriptions and other traditional forms of published content because people are comfortable with the process that is in place. However, even if your consumers trust you as a company, they dont necessarily trust the process of eCommerce. Thats why it is important for you to take the lead and build on that relationship of trust by adhering to current standards of protection for eCommerce and providing the infrastructure that helps your consumers feel at ease with the changing environment of commerce. Simply put: you want to give the customer condence in your online purchasing process. Basic Security means that you oer a secure shopping cart. These are necessary steps: Acquire an SSL certicate as evidence of SSL encryption, which creates secure transmission of information to the server and back. Post a clear and accessible privacy/security policy. Ensure that you have a built-in secure payment gateway or that you use a reputable company with secure payment gateway capabilities. Know the outward signs of a secure site: an https address and padlock icons at the base of each active commerce page. 84 Chapter 6: eCommerce and Shopping Carts SIPA
PCI compliance is the hallmark of a reliable and secure eCommerce site. The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard is a joint initiative of Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express. In response to the growing severity of credit card theft, the PCI-DSS Standard was created with the goal of protecting cardholder data wherever it may reside. PCI is an industry-wide standard for credit card security that must be followed by both merchants and providers. What you should know about PCI compliance: If you sell online and accept credit cards, you MUST be PCI compliant. If you are using a hosted solution, your provider must be Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP) certied and be on Visas approved list. Ask your provider to show proof of certication. CISP certication is intended to protect Visa cardholder data wherever it resides ensuring that members, merchants, and service providers maintain the highest information security standard. CISP certication provides the assurance that customers want to know - that their account information is safe. Non-compliant merchants risk class action lawsuits that can result in up to $10,000 in monthly nes, up to $500,000 in nes (per incident) and/or losing the ability to process transactions altogether.
Tactic 9: Deploy A Robust Infrastructure

Site infrastructure should build on PCI compliance to ensure speed, scalability and further reliability. A good provider will utilize state-of-the art systems, thoughtful processes and redundant hardware that can fail over to other working hardware if a problem is detected. Since generating revenue is your main priority, slow page draws and downtime translates directly into lost revenue. What to look for in site infrastructure to ensure your site runs quickly, is always available and can be updated without business interruption; your data can be recovered; and you receive a high level of service, available 24/7: Clustered Database & Application Servers High-Availability (HA) & Failover Environments Integrated Mobile Site Delivery Robust Caching Data Center Redundancy Bandwidth Diversity/Multiple Internet Uplinks Annual Audit By An Independent Third Party Regular Near-line Backups & Daily Of-Site Backup On-Site Personnel & Customer Support Multiple Integration Point Capability Workow Support High Content Throughput Real-Time Customer Interaction Separate Development, Staging & Production Environments Capability For Collaborative Interaction, Multiple Partner Input High Bandwidth & Low Latency To Ensure Consistent & Speedy Delivery Of Content
Tactic 10: Create Leverage With Your Site

Executing the above tactics will help you deliver on the objective to drive more revenue. The next step will further improve your ROI by generating increased leverage with your readers, customers and even your content to drive more ARPR. Base your Site Design on Usability, not Beauty Alone. You want simple, intuitive navigation that looks great. Follow best practices on user experience and user interface to engage your readers. You also want your content searchable by keywords that are most relevant to your readers this is where SEO and context awareness come into play. 85 Chapter 6: eCommerce and Shopping Carts
Relate Content to Products to Content. Your content, community and commerce should be integrated with an underlying taxonomy (metadata and semantic tagging) so that every aspect of your site revolves around the user. Presenting additional content or purchase opportunities relevant to what the user is viewing increases stickiness and is the most direct path to increasing revenue. Test, Test & Re-Test. eCommerce is an ever-evolving environment. The way you package, deliver and charge for your content should reect the dynamic nature of what you do. Dont be afraid to experiment with dierent tiers of free, registered and paid content. Find ways to increase the viral nature of content; with an email to a friend link and a number of share options across a broad array of social media. Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose. Adopt the multi-channel delivery mindset of your readers. With a unied content repository, you can create content once and re-use it in multiple delivery formats. If youre publishing on the Web, you can also publish and generate revenue from print editions, email newsletters, mobile, PDFs, digital editions, wireless delivery, RSS feeds, webinars and deep archives. This capacity also allows you to more effectively tap into social media and expand your market with a few simple clicks.
Execute Your Plan | Generate More Revenue

You can develop an eective strategy for making a successful transition from print to platform if you base your strategy on the needs of your business and the interests of your audience. Start by assessing your current status. Determine where you are and where you want to go. Make sure you know your audience and that you keep in touch. Take the time to gather meaningful information about your customers and encourage communication with them and among them. Help customers nd what they are looking for by building and integrating context awareness into all of your marketing strategies. Make it easy for them to select and purchase your products, by determining how to add value to your content and develop dierent methods for delivering your content. Then, nd ways to engage customers more deeply on your site. Streamline the shopping process to encourage follow through and lessen shopping cart abandonment. Test various methods of delivery and marketing tactics to determine which engage your customers the best. Help your customers feel secure with the online purchasing process. Maintain trust by taking steps to ensure that you have security measures in place and clearly visible to clients. Choose a provider who understands and automatically integrates PCI compliance with software and a robust site infrastructure that can accommodate your needs. Leverage your content and customers by continuously and seamlessly using your new knowledge of your customer base to develop an easy-to-use site; oering products they will nd interesting. Apply the multi-channel delivery mindset, so it is simple to navigate the ever-changing environment of eCommerce. Constantly test and re-test methods of delivery and new products to not simply keep up but rather, set the pace and win.
Thomas Chaee is CEO of ePublishing, a leading SaaS CMS provider helping publishers and media companies make more money online. With a focus on excellent service, the company provides web development, design and audience management tools integrating content management, workow, CRM, mobile, SEO, eCommerce, video, advertising, eMail newsletters and more. For more information about the ePublishing Cloud Content Management Platform and client success stories, visit ePublishing.com.
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Renewals: How to Keep the Ones Youve Got
89 Chapter 7: Renewals: How to Keep the Ones Youve Got
How To Boost Your Renewal Rates

By Robert Lerose
How often do you analyze your renewal series? If you dont look at your series, what makes you think your subscribers do? Many publishers invest considerable eort and money to come up with new acquisition packages, testing dierent promotions against one another ... yet theyre likely to ignore their renewal series, often setting them up and forgetting about them in their quest for new subscribers. This is a costly, even lethal, mistake! Renewals are where the real money is. Not only does it cost less to renew a subscriber than to nd a new one, but renewals practically guarantee a steady stream of revenue year after year. Without a hard-working renewal series, you leave money on the table. An increase of just 5% in your renewal rate translates into a windfall. For example: Lets say your publication renews for $147, has 25,000 paying subscribers and your renewal rate is 60%. If your renewal rate rose just 5%, your renewal income would rise an additional $183,750. A 10% rise would equal $367,500 in added revenue. Couldnt extra income like this help YOU right now? In a sense, renewal money is money in the bank. A strong renewal series is vital for sustaining your circulation base and maintaining your superiority over your competitors. So why do so many renewal series fail? Or, more precisely, why dont they live up to their potential? How can you collect all the renewal money coming to you? As a renewals specialist, Ive had the chance to write hundreds of successful renewal eorts. In the process, Ive been able to test and rene my strategies for creating series that pay big dividends. Here are 30 of my proven strategies for pumping up renewal prots. How many can you use? As a bonus, Ive also included a detailed case study that demonstrates these strategies in action, along with the results. 1. Theres no ideal number of eorts in a renewal series. Each series is dierent, just as each publication is. Whether it takes seven or 17 eorts to achieve maximum protability, youll discover the right number for your publication over time. 2. Many publishers dont send enough eorts before expiration. This contradicts subscriber complaints, but testing seems to conrm it. 3. If the last letter in your series makes money, add another eort. If that letter makes money, add yet another eort. Continue to add eorts until you reach a break-even point. 4. Make your best oer rst. State clearly and rmly that it wont get any better than this. Subscribers are smart. Because they know theyll get many chances to renew, they often hold out until the end in the hope of receiving an even greater deal. By sweetening the pot in a later eort, you reward them for procrastinating. Also, it costs you more money to mail and its unfair to early renewers.
5. Position a strong eort up front. If a later eort pulls well, move it up in the series. 6. Sell (or re-sell) your publication hard at the start. Publishers make a fatal error when they assume that the subscriber is primed to renew and doesnt require much selling in the beginning. On the contrary, your eorts should work for a renewal from the rst eort. Even loyal subscribers need to be lobbied and reminded of the benets of your publication, early and vigorously. 7. In addition to reselling the original benets, highlight any new, improved or updated content to demonstrate the indispensability of your publication in changing times. 8. Renewal series should repeat or mirror the arguments and tone used in the acquisition package. Obviously, prospects responded to the promises in the original promotion piece. It makes sense that theyll respond to a renewal series with a similar kind of appeal. 9. The urgency of your tone should dramatically increase as you get closer to expiration. Playing to emotions of fear, guilt and exclusivity work particularly well: show what the subscriber will LOSE, how his world will change for the worse without the publication, the fact that others have renewed and are enjoying benets he gives up, the pain of saying good-bye, etc. 10. Focus on whats coming up. Renewal letters that talk about future articles, developments or features are more seductive than rehashing past content. If possible, reveal specic pieces. 11. Alternate the look of each eort. Cheap but eective ways to distinguish renewal reminders include changing the envelope size, font, color and design. Omitting the name of your publication in the corner card on some eorts can be eective.
12. Instead of mailing all the eorts from the same person (such as the circulation director), vary the sender. A reminder signed and sent by the editor or publisher lets you talk to the subscriber from a new perspective. Further, it reinforces the bond between subscriber and publication by demonstrating that the renewal concerns everybody, not just the circulation department. 13. After expiration but before the series concludes, send the table of contents, an article extract or a torn issue -- something of value that gets their attention and inames their desire to possess the rest of the publication. 14. Expires make the best prospects. Store them in your prospect le and include them in a future campaign. 15. When you make an advance renewal, you need to make a good oer thats also dierent from the best oer in your regular renewal series. You need to reward subscribers for renewing in advance, otherwise theres no real incentive to act earlier rather than later. Be very clear that this is a one-time and one-time only oer (advance means just that). 16. Use a deadline with your advance renewal. 17. If you get a good response, should you mail it again? After all, by its very nature, an advance renewal is a one-time oer, correct? Yes ... and no. Try this: About halfway through to the deadline, re-mail the advance renewal but with a heightened sense of urgency that the deadline is fast approaching. Another way: send the advance renewal with a simulated handwritten personal note, such as: Maybe you missed this ... heres one more chance! Dont be surprised if your second mailing pulls as well as your rst. 18. Use reason why copy to explain and justify special oers. Its not enough to say something is special or urgent or important. Youve got to prove it. 19. Add extra value by sending an unexpected goodwill or love gift in between issues. Strive to deliver more than you promise.
20. Some publishers have found success with automatic or multi-year renewals. Oer a special discount or other free bonus as an incentive. 21. Once or twice a year, send a blanket renewal to your entire list. As with advance renewals, oer a unique incentive or special premium not part of your regular series ... something that rewards them for acting now. 22. Consider using a mix of renewal eorts. Issue wraps are an inexpensive reminder and usually add no additional postage to your mailing. 23. Send a Welcome letter or package before the rst issue. Some publishers report a boost in their renewal levels after mailing one. The Welcome letter accomplishes many strategic objectives: (a) it creates a family feeling between the magazine and the subscriber; (b) it reinforces the subscribers good judgment in choosing your magazine; (c) it previews benets to come; (d) it solicits his suggestions; (e) it gives you a golden opportunity to present any of your other products and services. 24. Renewals may be the only place in direct mail where you can use humor. Used carefully, humor can disarm the subscriber and turn a tough sell into something appealing. For an advance renewal, my headline read LAST CHANCE! and the rst line said: Renew in advance? Are you crazy?! and continued in a slightly cock92 Chapter 7: Renewals: How to Keep the Ones Youve Got SIPA
eyed vein. The letter beat the old control 2-to1. 25. When your publication is ready to observe an anniversary or a milestone, send out a blanket renewal to celebrate. But in addition to the regular renewal letter, include a remembrance letter, too. I wrote this kind of letter for a publication celebrating its 35th anniversary. I tied the concerns of subscribers in 1970 to those of subscribers in 2005 and positioned the newsletter as an on-going, evolving source of relevance. It worked like a charm, producing an unusually high response rate.
26. There are three common reasons for poor or declining renewal rates: (1) the readers dont need the information; (2) they want dierent information from what you provide or (3) they want information they hoped you might provide but dont. If you face this problem, consider this: look at the acquisition piece that brought them in, particularly the promises you made. If your publication isnt delivering on them, then you must either (a) change the package or (b) change your editorial content. 27. Do you create a whole new series at one time or do you create individual eorts one at a time? All other things being equal, developing a complete series at one time oers you strong advantages: it lets you think out the dierent appeals and look of the series lets you gure out where they t most eectively in the series and lets you do rough dummies to visualize the entire series in front of you to ensure that each eort looks dierent. 28. The fear of loss is more powerful than the pleasure of gain. Make this work to your advantage. If the subscriber feels threatened that hell lose something genuinely valuable from your publication, it creates a strong motivation to renew. 29. Be cautious about stating your guarantee or some subscribers will think about getting their money back. Instead focus their attention on the experience your publication provides and future benets. 30. In the last eort, divide the renewal letter into two columns. On the left side, write a short letter expressing your puzzlement at why they didnt renew and ask them to tell you. On the right side, put Your Reply and leave blank space for their answer. The real secret here is the psychology of obligation. Were asking for their comments or reasons for not renewing. Sometimes they cant think of any or cant articulate them -- and they gure its easier to renew than to write something!
Case Study: Utility Forecaster Advance Renewal

As many publishers have discovered, the real money is in back-end sales. Its cheaper and more protable to renew an existing subscriber that it is to acquire a new one. For many series, it begins with an advance renewal.
The Problem
How can you convince a subscriber to renew in advance of the start of the regular series and long before the expiration date? KCI Communications of Virginia faced this challenge with their investment newsletter, Utility Forecaster. Utility Forecaster, edited by Roger Conrad, focuses on safe, sound, high-quality investments in the utilities sector. Among other endorsements, UF was named the Best Financial Advisory Newsletter from the Newsletters Publishers Foundation two times.
The Solution
To leverage the close personal bond between the subscriber and the editor, and to prove why the oer was too good to pass up.
The Strategy
I wanted to exploit the subscriber/editor connection in the tone of the copy, and to dramatize the personality of the letter writer. The advance renewal begins with the headline LAST CHANCE! This grabs the subscribers attention and underscores the unique nature of the communication. After all, an advance renewal is a one-time only oer. The letter begins: Renew in advance? Are you crazy, Roger?! It explained the reason Roger was writing, clearly and concisely. The mock outrage disarms the readers skepticism. The second paragraph continues the theme: Well, yes, a little (you cant be in the newsletter business without being a little strange) but not when it comes to you and your money. This enlarges the surprise from the rst line with a stab of humor and contrasts the seriousness of protecting the readers money (a key benet) with the editors self-eacing tone (a rapport-builder). The third paragraph spells out the oer: two free issues for every year of renewal plus a new, free report. After stating the oer, three bold questions leaped out at the reader: Why you? Why this? Why now? followed by an answer for each. Why did I consider this section critical? They answer fundamental questions in the subscribers mind. They frame the oer in a believable context. They explain the singular character of the renewal, and they justify the benet to the subscriber. Too many promotions use words like important and special without proof, weakening the sales argument. A why and because force you to clarify and crystallize why the reader should pay attention. It documents your claim and gives you credibility. In the letter, ve enumerated points lay out the benets of renewing. The fth and last point is interesting: By eliminating the paper and production costs of future renewal notices, youll do something good for the environment. Appealing to a larger issue can be eective. The letter concludes: Well, I did my part. The decision rests with you now. A line like this empowers the reader: Youve made your case; now its up to them. You show respect for their judgment. The P.S. reads: I hate to belabor the obvious, but this is your one and only chance to seal up these values. Ad-
vance means just that. It wont be repeated. Subscribers are used to waiting for the end of a renewal series to get the sweetest deal. The copy had to prove that this is the best deal and it would be a mistake not to act.
The Results
A 50% lift in response that performed well beyond the marketing directors expectation. To sum up: a personal tone, a clearly stated oer, reason why copy, demonstrating your claims and respecting the readers power to decide can help any renewal eort generate steady prots.
Robert Lerose has been a freelance copywriter for the past 18 years. He specializes in renewal series, sales and marketing promotions, and content marketing. As a specialist in renewals, he was responsible for creating the renewal strategy for the journals division of Institutional Investor, developing 80 renewal eorts. His renewal letter for The Cabot Market Letter boosted sales by double digits and his technique was reported in a major story in The Newsletter on Newsletters. His advance renewal for Utilities Forecaster became the subject of a feature article in Inside Direct Mail. Robert has written for mailers across the country, both consumer and b-to-b publishers, such as: KCI Communications, The Cabot Heritage Corporation, Magna Publications, Consumer Reports, Harpers Magazine, Forbes, Better Homes & Gardens, Lessiter Publications, StreetAuthority, Institutional Investor and others. For more information, go to www.robertlerose.com.
Copyright Robert Lerose, 2011
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Social Media and Community Building
97 Chapter 8: Social Media and Community Building
Astek | The How of Social Media: Engaging via Social Media at Events and Conferences
This white paper provides an overview of utilizing social media platforms to market and engage with individuals during a conference or event. It showcases why social media are relevant and important to event management, and reviews the social media and digital platforms available for use. It also highlights a live example of a client in the publishing industry who Astek worked with for their conference in 2011.
By Rachel Yeomans
Conferences and trade shows are pivotal events for both businesses and associations. They are important for networking, connecting with existing business contacts, and making new ones. However, technology advancements and social media have extended the typical services one can expect from a conference.
The big question often asked is How social media can benet a conference or a trade show. Also, how does social media benet you as an attendee? Social media are new and exciting, but often are viewed as an add-on that arent necessary to growing a business or featuring at an event. Sure, events can get away with not having social media presence now. And you dont have to engage in social media while youre listening to a keynote speaker. However, will you be left behind if you dont? Heres what social media can do for your conference: 1. Market to gain more attendees 2. Allow both attendees and non-attendees to join in conversation about conference topics 3. Provide real-time customer service Heres what social media can do for you at a conference: 1. Market yourself as an expert in your industry by sharing news and tips from your conference experience a. For example, did you write an article about one of the conference topics? Why not tweet or share
the article and include the conference hashtag or post it on the events Facebook page? You may not be speaking, but others you can get the same notoriety if not more from an active social media presence. b. Are you speaking at the conference? Share the news! Join Twitter chats about your hosted topic. Write a blog post or newsletter recap. Host a tweet-up during the conference itself. Take the spotlight for more than just your hour-long panel. 2. Join in conversation about conference topics and share your insight with both attendees and nonattendees (i.e., networking, but online) 3. Take a fun approach to providing tips and even customer service. a. If you have a trade show booth at the conference, create a Foursquare check-in for your booth. Everyone who checks in can then be entered to win a prize. You get more people to approach your booth and can even make some potential new clients or business partners. b. Do you know that the line at the Starbucks across the street is shorter than the barista stand within the conference itself? Sharing it via Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare Tips, etc., will spread the word and cause attendees to perhaps even rely on you and reach out to you with other useful tips! This can be a very exciting advancement to embrace with your next conference however it can also be a scary one. Because...what if it doesnt work? There are ways that you can incorporate social media into your next conference, but you have to have a few things squared away before embarking down the path of hashtags and check-ins. 1. Know your audience. Your audience and industry will tell you how crazy you get with your conference social media presence. If you are in an industry of innovators and developers, then sure, feature that Scvngr campaign with food trucks and all. However, if you are in an industry that isnt quite there yet with social media, try starting with the basics and move your audience into the social realm slowly so you dont scare them away. By having social media active at your conference, you can encourage people to join in the conversation, but you can also turn them o with information overload or by posing too great of a learning curve. With that being said, how do you know how social your audience is? In order for you to nd this out, you can use a few dierent techniques. The rst is to ask them. Send out an email or conduct an online survey asking your audience what social networks they use, how engaged are they on these networks, and if they would nd social media presence at an event useful? The second is to do a little stalking. Search via Google and related social media platforms to see if your clients and partners are also on social media. If they are, then it may be time for you to be too. If youre hosting the conference, are the registered attendees and speakers on social media? Do some research and nd out you also can glean that information during the registration process. Third, do it yourself! Most of the time you dont know if you will engage protably on social media unless you get on social and take it for a test run. Launch a Facebook Page, open a Twitter account, start a LinkedIn Group, and start interacting with people and see how they react to you. 2. Plan ahead. If you only have two weeks before your conference begins, dont plan a big social media strategy. This is especially for businesses that dont have a large following on social media platforms. The last thing you want is for your brand to be the only one contributing to the online conversation purely because your attendees didnt know there was a hashtag with which to tweet. 3. Dont ignore other marketing eorts, and consider pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements. Social media are tools to boost engagement and conversation, and are indeed great marketing resources. However they should not be used to replace your other marketing eorts nor advertising. When you start engaging via social media, you are mostly conversing with those in your network. Yes, with outreach eorts you can reach others, but not nearly as eectively as with a combination of both push and pull marketing eorts. Push marketing ts within Facebook and LinkedIn ads - where you nd people by keywords, industries, etc., and 99 Chapter 8: Social Media and Community Building
you push an ad out to them. Pull marketing works as a method of advertising to people who are actually searching for keywords within that ad, such as Google Ads. Both are important, and can help leverage all the options that you have when it comes to online eorts. 4. Have a social media resource. Come the day of the conference, you will most likely be organizing details, answering questions, working with exhibitors, and of course handling those inevitable last-minute details. You will not have time to stay behind a computer screen and tweet during the conference, retweet others, and encourage others to tweet. And thats only talking about Twitter! Designate one or two people (depending on your social media coverage needs) who are solely responsible for social media moderation and outreach during the conference. How you divide their responsibilities is up to you; what you most need are people who know social media and can multi-task and produce content quickly (i.e. blogging, video editing, etc.). If you dont have the resources or the knowledge level within your business, see if your conference management team does. If they do not, hire an agency to assist you short-term. For those who are attending the conference, youre not expected to be a social media powerhouse, however you need to be consistent. Dont tweet actively at every panel the rst day, and then be completely inactive the next. You never want to overpromise and under-deliver. Also, dont be spammy. Yes youre trying to market your products services, but make sure your information combines both useful and promotional information. For example, if you have published copy that is directly related to the event content, then say so and ask for others feedback. Social media are about engagement, so be engaging and be engaging with others. Ask questions, provide thoughts and feedback, and be yourself. 5. Have fun! Social media may be new territory for some, but they wont hurt you, I promise. In fact, you can actually have some fun with it! Social media provide you with opportunities to engage with people and dig deep into discussions. You can joke, you can inform, you can use social media to show the personality behind your business. So dont be afraid to let loose a little bit! That doesnt mean you should curse or tweet about your lunch. But you can show people that you are someone they want to know, and a brand theyd like to follow, simply by having a quality conversation. And of course, there is the Why of social media. Why would you bother engaging with people at your conference? Why would you want to multi-task using social media while attending a conference? In the end, what is the ROI? Social media is probably the strongest branding tool outside of word-of-mouth marketing, into which it directly ties. If you are hosting the conference, social media are other marketing tools for you to get individuals to attend. If you are selling any publications or materials at the conference or as a recap to the conference, social media can assist in those marketing eorts and drive sales. You can track the eectiveness of this by simply creating trackable http://bit.ly links that you use in your social media messaging. For more in-depth analysis, create Google Analytics codes to tack on to your links as well. This also pertains to those exhibiting at the conference. You want 100 Chapter 8: Social Media and Community Building SIPA
to stand out among the other booths? You need more than a pen giveaway. You can get people to come to your booth by engaging with them, inciting them via games and contests, and also spoiling them with on-site power cords and maybe even coee or donuts. Once they are there, put your sales hat on and work your magic. For those who are on social media and they notice your online activity, they can still interact with you from afar, giving you the potential to be eective at the conference both on- and o-line. A conference is an event that takes place for a short amount of time and is held at a single location (most of the time). For those who host and run conferences, you not only market your conference beforehand to gain attendees, but you also engage during the conference to spread the buzz and build upon the attendees buzz to spread the word in one of the fastest ways possible. This will advertise and market your conference for you, dramatically increasing the likelihood of future attendees or even potential clients. If you send out a tweet during the conference and it is retweeted by just a few people who have 100 followers each, your business was just shared between 300 to 500 people. What you get out of it: Brand recognition. If you put a strategy and a goal behind social media, then youll work towards achieving that specic goal. ROI is what you make out of it in this case. If you just tweet to tweet, then you have some great brand recognition. However if you tweet strategically and regularly about a specic subject pertaining to a goal you want to reach, your chances of reaching that goal just increased. Plus if you engage with others about that subject matter, the chances of others sharing your information also escalate. Social media give you the chance to be inventive with what your want your ROI to be. Come up with some goals and strategies, put them into play, and then youll be given the numbers youve been looking for to put to practice for the next time! Now...lets get to the platforms! Im going to go through a number of social media platforms that you can use both to market to and engage with your conference audience.
Twitter
If you use any social media platform at a conference, it should be Twitter.
There are two ways Twitter works with your conference platform: 1. Engagement - People attend conferences mostly to learn news and information and network. You can achieve both of these acts also through Twitter. Now imagine taking both online and on-site education and engagement into one conference! You could be listening to a panel while following the designated hashtag on your smart phone or tablet. You could comment on what the speakers are saying, you could ask questions, and you can actually have conversations with others in the same room about what is being said on the panel! Better yet, you can technologically eavesdrop on what is being said in the session next door to yours through Twitter. One of my favorite examples of Twitter really taking conferences to the next level is from the social media 101 Chapter 8: Social Media and Community Building
presence during SXSW (an annual interactive, art and music conference in Austin, TX). I would be tweeting while listening to a panel, and the moderator would ask the panel questions based on what was coming in through Twitter. Also, people that I followed on Twitter who would also be at SXSW would see my tweets, and then reach out to me directly and see if I was free to grab a cup of coee in between sessions. 2. Customer Service - Have you ever wished that you could just raise your hand and shout across the room that the microphone for the keynote needs to be turned up? Or which coee stand had the shortest line? Twitter can provide conference attendees real-time customer support from questions as simple as What is the hashtag for this panel? to Am I in the wrong room for this session? and so on. Now, the looming question: How do you create a Twitter presence at a conference?
Here are some steps to follow to ensure and encourage conversation through this social media platform. Create a hashtag speciic for the event. No, you dont have to register the hashtag or create it through a software system. All you have to is type the phrase with a # symbol in front of it, and you just created a hashtag! Announce and market the hashtag before the conference. If people dont know that youre on Twitter, they wont tweet. Make sure on all promotional materials, you include verbiage to start following and engaging with the conference hashtag. Have an on-site Twitter kiosk. There are many people who havent yet jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon. Make sure you have one central location at the event that is clearly marked as the place to go if you have questions on how to use Twitter, if you have any feedback, etc. Host an on-site Twitter chat / Tweet-Up. At that same Twitter kiosk, make sure to include an in-person Twitter chat or Tweet-Up in the conference itinerary. This is a great way to add a fun networking piece in the middle of the event, plus it encourages those who couldnt attend the conference to contribute to the chat. Also, for the Twitter account of the business hosting the conference, Twitter chats are one of the best ways to grow and increase brand engagement. Your statistics will multiply! As I mentioned earlier, this goes to exhibitors and attendees as well! Just because it isnt in the ocial agenda, it doesnt mean you cant host it! Have a Twitter Wall! If people see it, they will tweet (at least theyll be enticed to do so). Make sure to feature at least one Twitter Wall in the main area of the conference showcasing the latest tweets. This can be a great place to project announcements and to call out the Twitter power users at the conference. Also it is recommended in each conference room, to show the live Twitter feed by simply projecting it on the presentation screen.
Host a contest. Its not a requirement, but hosting a contest through Twitter during the conference is a great incentive for those to contribute. If you are in an industry that still doesnt fully embrace Twitter, this is a strongly recommended tactic. The simplest incentive is to award a prize each day or at the end of the conference to a random winner who is at the conference and who tweets the conference hashtag. Say thank you and continue engagement. The conference is done. Its time to put up your feet and put your Twitter client to rest, right? Dont fall into this trap! Your Twitter engagement was probably never this high and people are still talking to you and about you. Make sure that you thank all of the Twitter account users who tweeted during the conference. Feature them in a follow-up e-newsletter. And most importantly, continue to engage with your Twitter audience on a regular basis so as not to lose your social media buzz status.
Track results. There are plenty of social media tracking tools that you can use to show how many tweets with the hashtag were published, who published them, what session was the most active, etc. Make sure to compile this data with your tracking tool of choice (the popular ones include Radian 6, Social Mention, Sprout Social, Hubspot, etc.), and then make sure to have it accessible to your conference attendees so they can access the information and read it after the conference has concluded.
Facebook
Facebook is probably best used for marketing your conference or trade show through message posting and ad campaigns. Also, if you are presenting at the event or have a trade show booth, you can even advertise your presence at the show.
A more high-tech use of Facebook is to have a tab on your Facebook page set up for live streaming videos and panels at the trade show. LiveStream.com is the most widely used video streaming application. This application can also be hosted on your website, but if you have goals of growing your presence on Facebook, this is a fun and social way to show the video, plus have people comment and interact with others via comments and chat. Just as you want to take advantage of the conference trac to boost your Twitter engagement, you can do the same with Facebook. Consider incorporating Facebook into a scheduled engagement platform. Work with your 103 Chapter 8: Social Media and Community Building
conference speakers and keynotes, and have them be available at a certain time during the day to engage with people who comment on a status update on Facebook. And as for you, conference speakers and keynotes, you can have your own Facebook campaign as well! As youll be marketing yourself at the conference, feel free to take matters into your own hands to get people there to listen to you (or to know how to listen online!). Videos and photos are also great fodder not just on tabs, but on the Facebook Wall as well. Create photo albums during the event and post the videos on the Wall from your YouTube channel. The one thing to be wary of, that one should not post to Facebook more than twice per day. So plan your engagement well, and spread your information out before, during and after the conference.
Video
Ive mentioned video a few times, and its a very important medium to consider. If you have a video presence at your conference, you have to commit to it. Have a person or several people dedicated to shooting video clips from each panel or featured panels and keynotes, and also to interview conference attendees. Make sure the camera is good quality and that you have an exterior microphone to avoid background noise overtaking the audio. This individual should edit and upload these videos (keep them short: 2-5 minutes max.) as soon as they can so people who arent attending the conference can keep pace. Post them on either a YouTube channel or a Vimeo channel. YouTube has higher rankings with search engines, but Vimeo features higher quality for commercialization. In fact, you may want to consider using both.
An enormous advantage of online video is that it greatly inuences Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking. When uploading your videos, make sure you include keywords in the title, description, and tags. Then when people type those keywords into a search engine, the likelihood of them seeing your videos greatly increases.
Podcasts
Podcasts are a growing phenomenon when it comes to live events. Podcasts are recorded shows that you can listen to on demand either through a website, RSS feed, or iTunes. Podcasts can range from informational to comedic. They also are available as audio, video or both. If you or someone in your industry hosts a regular podcast, you may want to consider having a live recording of the podcast at the event. Similar to the in-person Twitter chat, it creates engagement, and it adds another layer to your conference presence. Plus, its just fun. Having a podcast presence at your event is very similar to having a video presence. Make sure if you host a live podcast recording, that you have the equipment and sta to record, edit and produce the content appropriately, eciently and eectively.
Mobile
You may have noticed that many events and conferences provide a featured mobile application that you can download to your smart phone or tablet. These apps usually feature schedules, maps, news, and session information to help you keep up with the conference without having to carry around a brochure that may be out of date by the second day of the event.
Apps are very handy tools, but they are an investment. If you decide to build an app to support your conference, make sure you have the development team available to eectively test and monitor the app, especially during the conference in case it crashes or other things that need attention.
Geo-Location
You may have heard certain terms being thrown around such as Foursquare or Gowalla. These are geo-location services. Individuals can sign up for an account through either their smartphones or online. You then download an application on your smartphone so you can check in to places that you visit. Foursquare is the most widely used geo-location service with more than 10 million users as of early 2011.
Foursquare also works with businesses in very inventive ways. A business can create a Foursquare business page, which individuals can follow. This business page can leave tips at businesses that relate to the business industry. Therefore if your business is hosting a conference, its business page can leave a tip at the conference venue reminding people to use the conference hashtag during the event. Or better yet, the tip could be an announcement that if conference attendees check in to that venue during the conference, they have the chance to unlock a special. The special is another great feature of Foursquare. For example, if you check in the most to the conference venue, you become Mayor of the venue. The business behind the venue could decide that during the conference, whoever gets the title of Mayor receives a free drink at that evenings networking event, or they receive 15% o of registration the following year. You also have the chance to earn badges that appear on your prole to show others the overall themes of your activity. Foursquare is free to use and fun to engage with. You can have conference attendees check in to trade show booths, specic breakout sessions, etc. It takes the concept of social gaming to a level of on-site B2B networking.
Case Study SIPA

In June 2011, the Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA), hired Astek to manage its Twitter presence during its Annual Conference in Washington D.C. Astek performed the following services: Created and moderated content during the three-day conference beginning 30 minutes before the daily keynote and ending one hour after the nal session. Created the hashtag #SIPA2011 and separate hashtags per conference session. Organized and messaged an iPad giveaway to a randomly selected winner who tweeted the hashtag #SIPA2011. Delivered in-depth analytics each day with an over-arching analytic overview and summary following the conclusion of the conference.
Highlights included: Ranked a Trending Tweet in D.C. area the irst day of the conference.
10 Direct Messages on conference information and questions 34 Mentions asking technical questions and engaging in conversation throughout the conference 45 Mentions included photos and/or video 1574 Mentions of #SIPA2011 723 Mentions of individual session hashtags @SIPAOnline received 76 new followers
You can see the full case study on the Astek SlideShare account: http://www.slideshare.net/AstekWeb/case-study-conference-management-support-with-twitter
What Next?
You now know the tools available to you both as a conference attendee and as the business behind the conference. Your rst step is to become familiar with the platforms and decide which ones suit your needs and business goals. Then, take that technological leap and start tweeting, Facebook-ing, checking in, etc.! The industry of social media is still quite new. You have the opportunity to be among the leaders and early adopters in this eld. Dont be afraid that youre going to do it wrong or that youre going to embarrass yourself. Reach out to your resources who know these platforms, join forums, and dont be afraid to ask questions. Even those of us who are in the social media industry learn something new in the eld almost every day. Perhaps, the next thing well learn is at your conference! Well tweet with you there!
About the Author: Rachel Yeomans is Marketing Director | Social Media for the interactive Web marketing rm, Astek. Her background in Journalism and New Media provided her great experience working with companies such as Sears Holdings Corp. and McGraw-Hill Publishing. In 2009 Rachel published her work fashion blog, TheWorkingWardrobe.com, which received a Forbes recommendation in 2010. Along with writing about work fashion and consulting on social media, she also proudly serves on the board of local theatre company, Promethean Theatre Ensemble. About Astek: Astek is a boutique interactive agency with publishing expertise, a personal touch, and the ability to get it done. In addition to social media training and consulting, Astek helps you connect with your readership using engaging websites, mobile apps, SEO/SEM strategy, and email campaigns. From consulting to production, our proven solutions integrate rights-managed CMS, e-commerce, podcasts, webinars, custom database applications, and emerging technologies to fulll your publishing goals. Astek is an active SIPA member, an A rated BBB member, and has been in business since 2003. Please give us a call if you have any question regarding this white paper or Asteks services.
108 Chapter 9: Mobile: What it is and What You Need to Consider About its Use SIPA
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Mobile: What it is and What You Need to Consider About its Use
109 Chapter 9: Mobile: What it is and What You Need to Consider About its Use
Astek | Going Mobile for Publishers

Making your publication conveniently available for on-the-go readers is absolutely necessary to retain and grow readership in the future. The process is unique for each publication, employing editorial, marketing, creative, technical, administrative, and monetization disciplines. This white paper provides general guidance through the process and a case study of a successful mobile project with a SIPA member company.
By Andy Swindler
Why Mobile Publishing?
Simply put, for your publication to succeed your customers need to access your content in the most convenient manner available to them. We have seen a meteoric rise in mobile content consumption over the past two years, which will continue to increase exponentially. Cisco projects 2,600% growth in mobile data usage by 2015, two-thirds of which will be video content.* Since people typically replace mobile phones within two years, we have seen tectonic market shifts amongst the mobile industrys controlling entities within a relatively short amount of time. The technologies that are evolving and emerging to support mobile devices are numerous and diverse. The following chart from Nielsen demonstrates mobile app market share as of July 2011, framed within the context of smartphones versus normal/feature phones:
With Blackberry (RIM) usage rapidly withering due to numerous practical infrastructure limitations, Android (Google) and iOS (Apple) are poised to continue dominating the mobile market. Apples advantage lies with its consistent ecosystem and high customer retention rate. Googles advantage is a completely open platform with numerous manufacturers and telecommunications companies selling on its behalf. Sidestepping the app universe altogether presents a whole set of options around the HTML mobile optimization concept. While HTML 5 isnt quite ready for prime time (give it another year or two), there are numerous ways to create a pleasant mobile experience for your subscribers. As publishers, one advantage you have is an emphasis on contenttypically text, image, or videorather than highly advanced functionality.
*Source: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-520862.pdf
You know you need to go mobile, so now what?

Your starting point for this process depends upon unique aspects of your publication, including: 1. 2. 3. 4. Current technical infrastructure Editorial content and workow Revenue model Goals, budget, & timeline
Start by learning and documenting as much as you can about these issues, which are explained in more depth below. 1. Current Technical Infrastructure CMS You probably have a content management system (CMS) of some kind in place. This tool allows you to centralize your content and workow while decentralizing access to it (typically via the Web) for distributed teams. Ideally, your CMS will have mobile HTML optimization capability built-in or available as an add-on. If not, it may be time to move. This allows readers to view your website in a mobile-friendly format without downloading a specic app. They will need a smartphone with a capable web browser, which includes iPhone, Android, and many other devices produced within the past two years. CMS to App If you are interested in creating an app or series of apps for your subscribers, you will ideally still want to feed content to those apps from your CMS. This tends to get a bit more complex as your tech team will need to coordinate between systems using an Application Programming Interface (API), which may or may not exist on your system. There are numerous nuances to consider when getting these systems to work together reliably. User Authentication If you sell subscriptions to your digital publication, you must have a technical process for verifying that those readers have access to your content. You will ideally want your mobile solutions to utilize the same database of users for ease of managing that subscription data. This will require coordination between existing technical teams and your mobile team, or conversion to a new system. 2. Editorial Content and Workow Going mobile means that you will need to evaluate your content and make choices about the hierarchy of that content for your readers. Mobile devices are physically smaller, which means you have less space to display your content. Its critical to maintain or improve the eciency of your editorial process. Depending upon the size of your publication, you may or may not be in a position to alter that workow. Short-term downside is training for your editorial team. Long-term upside could be a more ecient and reliable process for everyone. If you have documented your editorial workow, its time to pull that out and determine if any adjustments need to be made before you add the mobile variable to the equation. If youre comfortable with your pro111 Chapter 9: Mobile: What it is and What You Need to Consider About its Use
cess but havent documented it, I would recommend doing so. Even a basic owchart will help you communicate the process with your mobile team. 3. Revenue Model Similarly, is your revenue strategy well documented? Its a good opportunity to make sure youve thought through the best strategy for monetizing your publication, whether through subscriptions, ads, up sells, or any other means. Since the mobile universe oers even more options and in some cases complications for maximizing your revenue, it is important to be clear about your publications overall strategy for this, which also speaks to the brand culture and expectations youve established with your readers. 4. Goals, Budget, & Timeline Your goals for going mobile should align with your overall goals for your publication and business. Like all tech-related buzzwords over the past decade (e.g., SEO/CMS/Social), you need to start with your business goals to determine how to approach the strategies and tools that will help you reach them. Common goals for publishers include: Distribute free or freemium content Generate revenue via subscriptions or ads Protect paid content from unauthorized distribution & sharing Expand audience by increasing brand awareness & trust in quality Cross-sell with compatible publications (internal or partner)
At the end of the day, your primary goal is to allow your customers to access your content in the most convenient manner possible for them. Mobile phones and tablets are rapidly becoming the most convenient way for most people to access information and communicate with other people. While you are setting your goals, be sure to put a stake in the ground regarding budget and timeline. This will likely need to be modied once you work out the details of your mobile plan, but it will help to have a starting point.
Pick Your Platform(s)

Once you are comfortable with your current assets, processes, and goals, its time to decide which mobile platforms are most important to you. The best way to determine this is to learn as much as you can about your readers and the technology they are using. A combination of studying your existing website usage data (such as Google Analytics) and sending a survey to your subscribers will help you learn what they are using now and what they want in the future. Go here for ideas about creating a survey: http://www.astekblog.com/index.php/marketing/going-mobile-how-to-survey-your-customers/ Armed with information about your customers preferred reading methods, you are ready to choose one or more of the following options: 1. 2. 3. Optimized HTML Mobile Apps Proprietary Content Platforms
Each of these is explained in more detail below. 1. Optimized HTML The most ecient way to publish your content on multiple smartphone devices or tablets is optimized HTML. Even before we all switch to HTML 5 in a couple of years, there are a number of well-proven tactics that allow you to publish content once that will adapt to the type of mobile environment your readers want to use. Here is an example of a website community we designed to cultivate knowledge within the nonprot industry and ultimately sell related publications:
And here is the same website on an iPhone:
The person using the iPhone did not need to do anything special to load the mobile version. The website detected the phone and automatically displayed the preferred mobile layout. As you can see, much of the information on the website homepage had to be removed to focus on the main content in the limited space 113 Chapter 9: Mobile: What it is and What You Need to Consider About its Use
of the iPhone. This is the root of HTML optimizationcreate a seamless user experience that doesnt force the user to make technical choices. Get your reader to your content as quickly as possible to avoid losing his or her interest. There is no limit to how you can organize mobile content or craft a mobile experience. For example, you may rst wish to present your readers with a menu of including various types of content, login, or accountrelated activities. Bear in mind that smartphones and tablets provide dierent mobile experiences and should be evaluated separately to optimize the experience for each device. HTML optimization for tablets is not as important as phones, since many websites display well on tablets already. HTML Advantages: Standard content formatting for Web and email Free available, lexible, and open Typically reduced production cost and time Typically easier CMS integration Easier viral distribution and sharing, with methods to deter unauthorized copying HTML Disadvantages (HTML 4): Reduced oline content viewing Reduced control of brand and user experience Fewer options for rights management Fewer ad revenue options Fewer interactive features Since NonProtCommunity.com is based on Wordpress CMS, we used the MobilePress plugin. Here are a couple of other good Wordpress mobile plugins: WPTouch http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/ Wordpress Mobile Edition http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-edition/ There are numerous plugins available for Wordpress, and as always you need to make sure that they are compatible with other aspects of your installation if you are using Wordpress as your CMS. One challenge with Wordpress is that you need to congure your mobile home page if you want to provide more options to a user than a list of your basic content/articles, as blogs typically do. 2. Mobile Apps If you decide to build apps, you then need to decide which app platforms you want to support. Keep in mind that building an app isnt just a one-time exercise or expense. You must keep your app up-to-date, sometimes making adjustments due to new hardware or software beyond your control. Do you need an app? 114 Chapter 9: Mobile: What it is and What You Need to Consider About its Use SIPA App Advantages: Maximum Control over brand, user experience, and rights management Expanded options for ad revenue Currently more capability for media-rich content Enhanced ability to view content oline (such as a plane) Cool factor
App Disadvantages: Typically higher production and maintenance cost and time Subscription access is limited to device platforms you can support Potentially more diicult to integrate with existing Web publishing solutions (CMS) Reduced lexibility for quick changes
The Two Leading App Ecosystems:
Apple versus Google:

Apple has largest and highest quality app store (software and hardware controlled by Apple) Google (Android) has the most mobile market share and fastest growing app platform with more free apps than Apple iOS available only on AT&T/Verizon/Sprint & Apple devices Android available on numerous devices and multiple networks Android is more customizable, but lacks user interface consistency
3. Proprietary Content Networks Beyond controlling your own content through your own HTML or apps lies a broad range of third-party content networks, including eReaders such as the Kindle, Nook, or iPad/iBook. Some of these networks also bundle your content into apps for you to publish or optimized sites, such as NetBiscuits.com. While content networks provide broad marketing benets due to the critical mass of existing users, many publishers with whom I speak nd these content networks unappealing for a few reasons, including:* They control your content distribution. They control your subscriber info or make it challenging to integrate subscriber info with your fulllment software. They inluence the price/revenue/proit of your product. They control how the purchase happens, which makes it harder to grant immediate access through y our fulllment software. How are eReader subscriptions synced with print and Web?
What efort is required to convert your content to their format and how does that afect your worklow? Will they allow you to access archives, search, bookmarking, notes, and discussions? Can they sell single issues versus subscriptions? Do they have adequate copy protection in place? Converting from your legacy data will be harder than you think. Subscribers think its all for free.
*With contributions from Greg Krehbiel, The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.
Go Mobile!
While the specic process will vary depending on a number of variables, these are the general steps you will take to make your publication available to mobile users: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Dene goals, budget & timeline Survey your readers and sta Pick your Platform(s) HTML is most cost-eective Dene your team (internal/vendor/project management/testing) Functional Specication Doc Get as detailed as you can, include items such as: a. Project overview b. Workow c. Common app elements d. Testing procedures e. Server/CMS interface & Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) f. Authentication/Login process for paid subscribers g. Languages/Caching h. Screen designs i. Privacy & Security Design KISS, mobile phones are small and ngers are clumsy Develop/Test Test as much as possible with real users/devices Launch Each app store is dierent. Test again after launch. Marketing Respond to Feedback & Improve Mobile Experience
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Whether you go app or optimize, youll need to think very carefully about your content. If you have one publication, this might be fairly straightforward. If you have multiple publications, you need to make some careful choices about your content hierarchy. As always, your home page is of critical importance, as it will orient the user, display the primary options for accessing your content, and begin to form your brand impression. You will typically design a mobile landing page with options that include a login, forgot password option, a menu of options for accessing content once they login, and perhaps links to free content if the user is not logged in. Its good to have a plan, and its good to be somewhat exible. As wishlist items come from all areas of your team, its best to be conservative about adding them to the rst build, as they will prolong the development cycle and can be added to the next version.
Case Study The Medical Letter (TML) Mobile App Development

The Problem: The Medical Letter is a well-established publisher of drug-related facts, with a strong paid subscriber base, mobile HTML-optimized website, but no apps. The Solution: Build apps across 3.5 platforms, including iPhone/iPad, Android, and Blackberry (BB), which at project start had the highest usage amongst TML subscribers. The Strategy: The Medical Letter has internal design resources, so they were able to approach us with some sample layouts of screens. These designs would go through much iteration, but served as a starting point for discussion. It was important to TML to accommodate all major mobile platforms, so we created a plan to develop complementary apps for iOS, Android, and Blackberry. TML decided to invest in an iPad-specic version to take advantage of the popular tablets screen size. TMLs Google Analytics data initially showed that most of the incoming mobile trac came from BB devices. Over a brief period of time, the data changed to show iPhone/iPad usurped the # 1 position, followed by Android, iPod & BB. The trend of BB losing market share was clearly reected in the data. We pursued the development steps outlined above, starting with a detailed (50+ pages) functional spec doc, which went through several iterations. As laborious as this step may seem, its always better to spend more time revising the spec than changing code. Testing proved to be a long process, especially with multiple platforms involved.
The Results: The rst goal was to increase the convenience of existing subscribers, allowing them to access their subscription content from the device of their choice without a mobile browser. The second goal was to increase subscriptions and therefore revenue by widening the potential market for The Medical Letters published information. These apps also position TML as a thought leader and progressive purveyor of technology. Since the apps recent launches, we have satised the rst goal and are getting good feedback from existing subscribers. More time is needed to quantify the second goal, but there is no question that TMLs market potential has been expanded.
Summary: Going mobile starts with content and goals.

Going mobile can be simple or complex, depending on your goals, editorial content, and resources including technology and personnel. Monetization strategies and existing infrastructure are important considerations that will aect each publication dierently. Youll likely need help with this process, especially if you have limited technical sta. Its best to start with something you can manage, and then grow from there once you can review the results. Be careful not to take on too much internally to avoid distracting you from your primary mission of publishing worthwhile content.
HTML and app development are long, complex processes that require a wealth of knowledge across several disciplines. Your publication has specic needs and strategies, and your mobile implementation is no dierent. Youll be hearing a lot about HTML 5 in the next two years, which provides a number of alluring possibilities and eciencies for publishers who need to go mobile.
About the Author: Andy founded Astek in 2003 building upon strong relationships with real estate, publishing, and arts clients. His goal was to create a Web strategy, design, and production agency to service the unique needs of clients in these diverse areas. Andys skills have grown to lead Asteks work in social media, mobile, and marketing with speaking engagements and publication. Combining a Communication Studies degree and Journalism minor from Northwestern University with years of practical experience in communication strategy, technology, user interface design, project management, and client interaction, Andy sees the needs of clients from a communication delivery and enabling perspective, rather than purely aesthetic or functional. While an understanding of the mechanics of the medium is important in delivering the appropriate message to the intended audience, the discussion of communication must begin with clear business goals. Andy contributes and shares knowledge of the publishing and real estate industries through participation as a member of the Specialized Information Publishing Association (SIPA) and the Chicago Chapter of CoreNet Global. When he is not beating drums or pounding ivories, Andy is active in the local technology and lm communities and supports non-prot organizations in these elds, particularly documentary lmmaking. He is currently President of Promethean Theatre Ensembles board of directors and Vice President of 137 Films, whose rst feature-length documentary recently aired on PBS. About Astek: Astek is a boutique interactive agency with publishing expertise, a personal touch, and the ability to get it done. In addition to mobile consulting and development, Astek helps you connect with your readership using engaging websites, SEO/SEM strategy, social media marketing, and email campaigns. From consulting to production, our proven solutions integrate rights-managed CMS, e-commerce, podcasts, webinars, custom database applications, and emerging technologies to fulll your publishing goals. Astek is an active SIPA member, an A rated BBB member, and has been in business since 2003. Please give us a call if you have any question regarding this white paper or Asteks services.
120 Chapter 10: Mobile: Direct Mail SIPA
10
Direct Mail
121 Chapter 10: Mobile: Direct Mail
Direct Response Marketing Handbook - Specialized Information Publishers Association

Direct Mail
OVERVIEW
Today there are more marketing channels than ever to reach your prospects: email, website, mobile, Facebook, and yet, for many marketers, reaching prospects via postal mail, one of the oldest direct marketing channels, remains the most eective. Direct mail creates a one-to-one relationship with your prospect, allows you to be creative, test mailing lists, formats and copy, and your return on investment is clear to see. Direct mail allows you to target very specic audiences in your specialized markets. Email is a cheaper marketing tool, but brings few new subscribers to an expensive product, whereas direct mail brings in more orders. People want to read many details about your newsletter before they commit hundreds or thousands of dollars to it. Most marketers nd it important to use as many channels as possible to achieve their goals. This sections purpose is to outline the basic components of a direct mail campaign within the context of a subscription or membership business. Most of these best practices are applicable to other industries.
Benets of Direct Mail

In most industries and markets direct mail can be the most cost-eective way to reach prospects directly, as they literally hold your oer and message in their hands. To be effective, direct mail campaigns require a combination of three basic elements: the right audience, the right message and offer, and the complementary creativethe design, layout and copy of your direct mail package.
Goals of Your Direct Mail Campaign

The goals of your individual direct mail campaigns should align with your overall marketing plan and revenue and sales goals. Your end objective for any direct marketing eort is the most paid sales or highest number of quality leads for the least amount of money invested. Your goal is to get existing customers to buy more, and/or acquire new customers. There are two broad campaign types: 1. Transactional: getting the order with or without payment 122 Chapter 10: Mobile: Direct Mail SIPA
2. Lead generation: getting the prospect to respond to the campaign as part of a two-step sales process. Popular lead generation actions are requests for pricing or a free trial subscription. If you use lead generation, it is imperative that you follow up quickly once the lead comes in. This two-step process, while initially more labor intensive, may be a more protable option if the product or subscription is expensive or complex.
Measuring and Tracking Your Direct Mail Campaign

Like other forms of direct marketing, direct mail is easily track-able and measurable. Being able to track, measure and analyze results is satisfying to marketers and management, who can gauge the eectiveness of the campaign and its elements. Also, because these mailings generate sales directly, your campaign protability can and should be measured. A campaign could bring in many orders, but if it costs too much to execute, it may not be worth repeating. Alternatively, even if an element of your direct mail initially seems expensive, if the mailing generates more orders and is protable, then it is successful.
Testing
A challenge we all face, irrespective of industry and market, is that all of our marketing eorts, no matter how brilliant, will become less eective over time. It is therefore important to continuously test new marketing eorts to make sure your overall marketing plans continue to be as protable as possible. When executing direct mail, you should have an idea of which element(s) to test and why and then measure the results carefully. As with all best practices, each market and industry behaves dierently and has its own set of exceptionsthe only real way to know if something works for youtest it. Two examples of direct mail elements to test: 1. Price - if you feel like there is low price sensitivity you may want to test a higher price in a campaign. Always test on a portion of your lists, 20% is a good rule of thumb, so you have the same list (not the same people) receiving two dierent prices. You may be surprised that the same percentage will buy at the higher price. Audience - nding new audience segments and mailing lists is a challenge, especially in very small niches. Use a list broker and try to swap lists with others in your industry. Add a new list to your campaign and then compare its results against the other lists.
2.
Testing is a process of continuous improvement and requires some discipline around tracking and execution. Its best to test one element at a time unless your mail quantities are so large you can create multiple testing panels. Start o slowly, one element and one campaign at a time and then use those results to inuence future campaigns. If your price increase works consistently, you should raise the price on all marketing eorts. A dilemma for many specialized information marketers is that theyd like to test but the size of their prospect universe is not very large, returning too few orders to show relevant test results. The cost of a test should also be considered in such cases.
COMPONENTS OF A CAMPAIGN
Audience (lists)
This is the most important part of the campaign. It will not matter what you are oering if its not in the hands of the specic target audience.
Lists, lists, lists...

Direct mail doesnt stand a chance without qualied, healthy data. So, long before you even start thinking about what youre going to say and what your mailings going to look like, research and understand your target market and nd the appropriate lists. Getting your marketing piece in the hands of the right person at the right time is the most important success factor in direct mail or any direct marketing eort.
Examples of direct mail lists: 1. 2. 3. 4. House lists - compiled internally, conference attendees, other product buyers Expired/lapsed customers - they bought the product once before and they often come back Exchanges - with compatible, non-competing and competing organizations and associations. Be open to deals, especially when considering a list swap with someone with a much larger or smaller list than yours. Rented lists - the quality of these lists varies greatly - a way to protect yourself is to use a reputable list broker and ask a lot of questions about the le, such as how was the list compiled, are the names buyers (what you want most of the time) or just prospects, how often is the list updated, etc. A good broker should act as your partner - making suggestions, oering advice. Test these lists by renting a small portion of the le the rst time. Check - Always look at your rentals or exchanges to be sure you received what you expected. Mistakes in selections by the processor, such as getting nurse names instead of doctor names for your promotion of Investing for Doctors, will waste your money.
5.
Note: When merging your mailing lists together it is important to purge out duplicates among lists and those who are on your do not mail le to avoid angry recipients and expensive double-mailings.
Oer
Your oer shows the value of your subscription or membership. What are you oering? What is the term of the oer? How much is it? Are you oering a premium? Typically, the most eective oers are focused and singular, oering more than one product in a campaign generally suppresses responses. The more choices people have, the worse the results.
Oer ideas
1. Soft vs. hard oer: a soft oer requires no payment with order, generally you will receive more gross orders, but the net revenue could be far less. With a hard oer, you are asking for the payment (or a bill-me) up front which usually suppresses the number of initial responses, but often is more protable. Premiums - a premium is a free gift that you promise with the order in the direct mail package. a. Editorial premiums - white papers, reports, data, past webinars etc. tend to work very well in B2B media. Be sure to tell people the value of the premium. b. Related items - computer accessories, umbrellas, etc. Automatic Renewals with a subscription or otherwise renewable business, consider an automatic renewal at the time of order.
2.
3.
Creative - The Direct Mail Package Messaging
Before you write one word of copy or design one brochure (or hire the creative agency), make sure you have a clear value proposition, also called USP, unique selling position. It will guide your message and focus your creative eorts. Your value proposition is a statement that validates your customers unmet need and instills a condence that this unmet need will be totally satised by your product. In other words, what dierentiates you from your competitors - what is your unique value - what can you do better than anyone else? Be careful that you are selling solutions to problems and not product. People care about their own needs, not 124 Chapter 10: Mobile: Direct Mail SIPA
you or your products. Your prospect does not want a newsletter or just information; they want to be better at their job or be more informed to make better choices. For example, dont say how wonderful you and your newsletter are. Instead tell them how they will benet: Youll sell more gadgets as a subscriber. The message, the USP, is most important; the design or look follow.
Typical Components of a Direct Mail Package

Go to your mailbox or inbox at work and you will see a myriad of direct mail package styles, ranging from the humble postcard to much more elaborate packages. Which is best for you? A few of the most common are outlined below, but, as always, try dierent kinds of packages to nd what produces the best returns for your products. But above all, make the package clear: telling people what you want them to do and how to do it is the best way to maximize response. A special note about personalizationgenerally, the more personalized the package, the better the response rates. Also note that certain formats, such as self-mailers or yers, work better on one-os, such as reports and books, but not so well for subscriptions.
Letter Package
This package is common in almost all industries and usually includes: 1. Outer Envelope - exists to compel the recipient to open it, to read more. You have to decide what size envelope a campaign should use, whether to have a closed face or window, meter or stamp, and more. Here are some popular approaches: a. Make it look like personal mail b. Treat like a headline with interesting teaser copy, or not c. Make it look like a check, invoice, ocial business or other imperative material The Letter - it wont win any design awards, but if written well its one of the few types of marketing that people will (sometimes) actually read all the way through. Its always good to repeat your message throughout the letter, use subheads, and include a strong P.S. at the bottom that summarizes your oer. The signature on the letter is also important, as its one of the rst things readers check out. Longer copy generally sells more product than short. Response vehicle - something that the prospect can return to you, such as an order form and envelope, a postcard. Be sure your order form is easy to ll out; has your full contact information, a title, an expire date and a guarantee; and doesnt oer dicult options to the prospect and that it restates the important message from the sales letter. Brochures, Inserts and Lift Notes - make sure they support or extend your message, brand and oer.
2.
3. 4.
5.
Note: Any and all of these elements can be tested to increase response.
Forced Free Trial (FFT)

A very popular direct mail channel for frequently published content like newsletters - the FFT puts the product in the hands of the prospect for a predetermined period of time, say three issues. Instead of mailing a typical marketing package you set up a list of prospects on a mini-subscription. This is a costly campaign choice, but works well for expensive B2B newsletters. Some marketers are doing email FFTs. An FFT includes: 1. 2. 3. 4. Letter or some messaging about why they are receiving the trial Response vehicle so they can pay for the subscription Conversion eorts mailed/emailed to them - similar to invoices or renewal forms. Months after the FFT has ended another continuation notice is often eective Telesales follow-up if possible
Self-Mailer
As the name indicates a self-mailer acts as both the envelope and the brochure all in one. There are endless ways to do these and they give you an opportunity to ex your creative muscles. These self-mailers work well to sell books, conferences, etc.
Cover Wrap, another type of self-mailer

Similar to the Magalog below, but unique in that you send a full issue of the newsletter with a front and back cover holding the letter, order form and benet copy. These became almost prohibitively expensive with a postal increase on ats a couple years ago. You can fold the wrap in half and mail at regular letter rate, but risk losing the wow factor.
Postcards
Postcards remain a strong direct mail vehicle, especially in the B2C arena. Your oer should be simple and direct, as you dont have much space to work with. Every bit has to count. Pros Easy to print and less costly to mail Good way to use graphics and photos to grab attention Larger sized postcards ofer more space for information and graphics Drive traic to websites Good for conference alerts: save the date Cons May not have response vehicle; no way to get the order Lack of space leaves little room to introduce anything new or explain/highlight the beneits of a complex product B2B efectiveness is not good, except as a lead generator. Clearly a marketing message, it may get tossed rather than read
Invitations
These probably get opened because people like be invited to things - events, parties, even oers for a trial subscription to your newsletter. The design of these packages, while simple, is easily recognized in a pile of mail and that increases the chances of being opened and read. Once inside the package, the elements themselves can be similar to a typical letter package. This is a great way to present an oer that feels simultaneously personal and important.
Special Delivery
FedEx and other quick delivery services are far more expensive than regular mail, but this can be an eective technique for a special micro-list of best prospects or even a stubborn renewal. Measure the return on these efforts carefully. They may be a waste of money or they may be a surprising new marketing channel.
Magalog/Flat (oversized)
If you have a print product, a magalog might be a good option to test. A magalog looks like an issue of your publication, but is actually a brochure, with sales copy interspersed among editorial content. These can mail in a large envelope with a letter, order form, etc. Some magalogs can be self-mailers with the reply card and envelope tucked inside.
A Few Proven Direct Mail Tips

Although there is no set of universal techniques that applies to all circumstances and with dierences between B2B and B2C, these tips are largely acknowledged by marketers. A yes/no ofer usually outpulls ofers without a no option
An ofer with a time limit usually outpulls an ofer with no time limit An ofer with a free gift usually outpulls discount ofers (especially when the gift closely matches your prospects self-interest) Sweepstakes usually increase order volume, especially for impulse items Beneits outpull features in your copy and messaging If you ask a question in your copy, be sure the answer will be yes Dont ofer choices to the reader, as indecision will set in and you may not get the order The more involved you can get people, and the more they read, the greater your chance for success Envelope packages usually, but not always, outpull self-mailers; can vary by product
Measuring results
To eectively measure response rates make sure each order corresponds to a unique list code or testing panel. You want to see how many orders came in from each list to measure its eectiveness.
Sample Direct Mail Campaign results
Marketing Campaign X
Oer= Lists List A List B List C List D List E Totals Budget $100 Mailed 20,000 20,000 20,000 20,000 20,000 100,000 100,000 Gross 421 309 23 899 223 1,875 2,000 Gr Rate 2.11% 1.55% 0.12% 4.50% 1.12% 1.88% 2.00% Net 129 295 19 542 186 1,171 1,000 Net Rate 0.65% 1.48% 0.10% 2.71% 0.93% 1.17% 1.00% Net $ $12,900 $29,500 $1,900 $54,200 $18,600 $117,100 $100,000 Costs $15,000 $17,000 $10,000 $25,000 $40,000 $107,000 $110,000 ROI $0.86 $1.74 $0.19 $2.17 $0.47 $1.09 $0.91
In the above example, the marketer chose to mail ve lists, each with 20,000 addresses. List A shows that 421 gross orders came in, which is a 2.11% rate of response. However, only 129 net orders actually paid for the product, $12,900 in revenue, with mailing costs of $15,000. Therefore the overall return on investment for List A was $0.86, which isnt too bad, but you usually want to break even at $1.00, even knowing youll have renewal sales down the road. Each company will have its own tolerance for expected ROI. This campaign had been predicted to bring in $0.91 ROI and the results came in at $1.09. Its doubtful anyone would re-use List C or List E. The marketer will likely go to List B and List D to see how many more of these winners are available.
CONCLUSIONS AND NEXT STEPS

When planning and executing your direct mail campaigns remember the most important component is the audience - getting it in the hands of the right prospects is vital. Make your oer clear and valuable and try to test dierent elements. Tie it all together with a strong, benets-focused message and creative that doesnt distract from your message. Measure and analyze your results carefully, and attend SIPA events to stay sharp and know whats working for colleagues.
Looking Ahead
Many marketers nd great success integrating their mail campaigns with other marketing channels: Email Telesales -internal vs. external you control scripts Online Events Video Mobile Social Blogs Broadcast Print Ads Often using mail in conjunction with other channels can increase response rates because the oer is being reinforced through multiple channels. But as with all tactics, test before making sweeping changes.
130 Chapter 11: Lists, Lists and Lists SIPA
11
Lists, Lists and Lists
131 Chapter 11: Lists, Lists and Lists
Direct Mail List Basics

By Denise Elliott
When you are planning a direct mail campaign, a very important component is the list to whom you mail your oer. You can have the best product and the best oer, but if you dont get it into the hands of the right people, it will fail. There are several types of mailing lists. They vary in price and eectiveness. I suggest you test all of them and nd out what works best for your products. Dont assume, however that one failed type of list means all of lists of that type will fail. You need to constantly test lists, dierent types and dierent selects. Selects are the way you can narrow a broad list to something more specic to your market. You can pick such traits as active or expire, recency of the purchase, gender and zip code. A House List is a list of your buyers and prospects including expires and cancels. We wont spend much time talking about house lists. Those are no brainers. House lists should be your best responding lists and you should mail them often with short rest periods in between use. The rest period depends on your market, but typically three to six months is required. Without a doubt you will want to expand your marketing to more than those who have previously purchased from you. Thats when you will want to consider renting or exchanging names with others. The marketing piece that a list owner creates to sell you on renting his/her names is called a datacard. Bethesda List Center has created a very handy How to Read a Datacard document. http://www.bethesda-list.com/howtoreadadatacard.html. It is important that you understand what you are looking at and what you are being sold when considering renting a list. Read a datacard then question, question, question. Here are some things that should make you concerned about the reliability of a list: The description claims that the ile is a buyer ile, but when you look at the unit of sale it is blank or doesnt contain a dollar amount. There is no source direct response, internet, package inserts. There is no description. The ile is very large and shouldnt be. You cant tell when it was last updated or it has been more than six months since an update. The list of others who have used the list shows companies you never heard of or arent in your market.
If you see any of these suspicious issues on a datacard, ask your broker to investigate further. The list may be ne or it may be a junk list that you want to avoid. There are several types of Rented Lists you can test; each has its own strengths and weaknesses. We will rst talk about Response Lists. A Response List is a list of individuals or institutions who have responded to direct-marketing oers either by mail, email, web or phone and therefore are more likely to respond again. Response lists that are related to your industry or topic, are typically your best lists after house les. They can be expensive to rent ($130 per thousand or more) but with careful selecting and negotiating, you will likely nd these more eective than other types of rented lists.
Note: Your competitors will probably have response lists and Ive always found competitive lists to be very responsive. You may wonder why a competitor would allow you to rent or exchange. Its because they want access to your list also. Magazine and Newspaper Subscribers are a type of response list. A publication that has a paid circulation is typically a stronger list than one that is sent to a targeted audience for free (controlled circulation). When you are considering paid lists, be sure to pay attention to the many selects available. The obvious ones are active, recency of the purchase, gender and zip code. The less obvious but maybe even more important are: Direct To Publisher (DTP) This selects subscribers that ills out subscription card, via web, email, etc. and returns it back to Publisher. Not an agency. Direct Mail Sold DMS - Anything sold through direct mail. (Not telemarketed, etc..)
Controlled Circulation magazines are sent free of charge to a group of like-minded readers. Advertising pays the full freight for the editorial and production. There is no revenue generated from the circulation. These readers tend to be less committed because they did not pay for the subscription. In some cases, the specicity of the topic can often provide a nice universe of business readers in a particular industry segment. It is important that you learn how to read a BPA statement before you pick controlled circulation lists. This audit statement is used by advertisers to view the makeup of circulation of controlled publications. A BPA State ment will teach you a lot about the publication and can save you money by helping you select names eciently. You can ind instructions for understanding a BPA statement at: http://www.bpaww.com/Bpaww_com/Pages/ MediaBuyer.aspx Conference Attendees can be excellent prospects for your products. You can rent conference attendees and approving managers (attendees often are required to tell the conference sponsor the name of their boss whose names are then rented and promoted). Larger seminar companies (such as AMA and Careertrack) will make available various demographics such as gender, title (CEO, Manager, etc) and geographic selects. For smaller, industry-specic conferences, sponsored by trade associations or government agencies, be sure to try to get the attendee list and have it keyed into a useable format. If it is a government-sponsored meeting, the attendee list is most likely available through a Freedom of Information Act request. Compiled Lists are names and addresses derived from directories, newspapers, public records, trade show registrations, surveys, etc. identifying groups of people, companies or organizations with common characteristics. They are available to rent at rates about half of response lists from many sources such as Dun & Bradstreet and InfoUSA. A compiled list that is Enhanced has additional information appended to it to add selectability. The information can be demographic (age, income, presence of kids, etc.) or psychographic (purchase traits, behavior patterns). Many dierent companies put their names together into a pool and call it a Cooperative Database. That data is then enhanced with all types of information including demographics and buying habits. You can then take selects such as a specic SIC (Standard Industrial Classication is a US government system for classifying industries by a four-digit code), title, age, zip codes, etc. Generally, the prices are less expensive than response lists and more expensive than compiled lists. There is a lot to learn about mailing list opportunities from modeling databases. For a full description of databases that can be used with sophisticated models, please refer to the SIPA whitepaper How Modeling and Database Mining Strategies Can Help You Proit in the Direct World Getting help nding names to rent. You will ind a list of SIPA member brokers at: http://sipaonline.com/ext/resources/pdfs/Buyers-Guide---Word1.pdf BONUS: You can save money on rented lists by asking for: Test pricing. If youve never tried a list before, ask your broker to ofer a lower rate to the list owner. They will often agree to get you in the door. If you are willing to share your results with a list owner, you can show them that the only way you will con133 Chapter 11: Lists, Lists and Lists
tinue to use their list is if you can get a lower rate. They will often opt for something over nothing. Most lists require at least 5,000 names be rented at a time. If the only selects you can get to work falls below 5,000, you can often get a list owner to waive minimum charges. Occasionally you will strike it rich with a list and youll want to mail it again, exactly as before. A list own will give you re-use pricing if you simply use the same le they sent you previously. It is often 20% less than your original order. If you can only get a very select group of names to work for example: purchased in past 3 months, men, business address, C-level titles, SIC code = 2525 the cost of making all of those selections really adds up ($5+ per thousand each). You can often get a waiving or capping of select fees. If you use a large quantity of a list often, ask to pay for only the names that you mail after you merge/purge them from your house les and other rented lists. Negotiate for your list broker or manager to track your exchanges for free.
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137 Chapter 12: Marketing Plan
How Modeling and Database Mining Strategies Can Help You Prot in the Direct World
By Je Kobil and Denise Elliott
Fallen on Hard Times
In late 2007, direct mail spending began to trend down due to higher postal prices and lower response rates.
Publishers were having a hard time maintaining appropriate subscription levels. When revenue from print advertising dropped, publishers had to save money by closing publications and by cutting rate base (the guaranteed number of subscribers that advertisers are promised). Publishers were also afraid to spend money to test new publication ideas. As publishers looked around for other ways to cut costs, one of the biggest targets was the direct mail budget. They rediscovered modeling.
What is Modeling
Modeling is another way to rene your list of names before you mail, and to get access to names you might otherwise have missed. By applying the right model, a publisher can change an underperforming list into a reliable source of new business. The process relies on large data companies that house lists from many dierent clients (in this case, publishers). The client companies provide the data warehousing company with data on their own customers and prospects demographic information as well as transactional information. With this aggregated data from many dierent publishers, its possible to see trends and relationships any individual publisher would not be able to track. If a client publisher wants to do a campaign for Magazine A, the data company looks at what they know about subscribers to Magazine A based not only on the individual clients data, but all the rest of the data they have obtained from other clients. From this they create a model of the kind of prospect the publisher should solicit. They are then able to apply this model to prospective marketing lists to remove people who do not match the appropriate criteria, or nd other lists that do. Modeling has been around for a long time, but it was hard for small publishers to take advantage because of Order minimums The cost of developing a model Limited modeling choices The fact that it was mostly only available for B2C publishers, not B2B The need to make a large commitment of time and resources (providing transactional data, working with the data company to develop a model) The cost of the data, and The long turn-around time
New Options for Modeling

Fortunately for publishers, the technology has improved and the market has changed, and modeling has become easier for everyone. Even small, B2B publishers are able to look at modeling today because More data elements are available as the data warehousing companies have access to more sources There have been improvements in the technology and the data analytics Modeling is now available for B2B not just B2C True behavioral targeting is available for direct mail Modeling can now be done across channels (e.g., applying a direct mail model to email lists), and There is a lower cost to participate
Any publisher that does direct mail or e-mail marketing should consider using a model to rene their lists and nd new lists. Here are some of the benets for publishers: Acquire new subscribers or buyers Reactivate older expires or former buyers (who have stopped performing at acceptable levels) Optimize buyers from other sources: web, TV, online, inquiries A publisher can optimize the entire campaign (e.g., across multiple lists) in order to score customers and improve performance by dropping the least likely to respond There are multiple model choices Each modeling company has a variety of types of models that rely on various data aspects. Pricing platform has changed dramatically Names are cheaper than direct list rental $35/M - $90/M versus $150/M+ Increased information to drive your marketing eforts The data overlays used by the modeling companies are robust and can ofer the publisher insight into their buyers habits and demographics. 139 Chapter 12: Marketing Plan
Since the modeling company has your house iles, the names you get on rental are net of your house iles.
There are several dierent options available for publishers of specialized content. They include data cooperatives, B2B prospect databases, publisher-specic models, and national databases.
Data Cooperatives
Data Cooperatives are membership driven, and are available for both B2B and B2C companies. Usually the membership base of a data cooperative relects a particular industry, such as publishing, nonproit/fundraising, consumer retail, or catalog sales. Each member in a data cooperative submits their own transactional data. The more data available in the cooperative, the better the models will be, and the more choices members have for their selections. There are many vendors that are data cooperatives. They include: Abacus (Epsilon) Blind database Prospect driven members rent names from the coop 178 million consumer households; 256 million individuals; 8.6 billion transactions 700 publishing titles B2B data: 400 participants, 18 million biz sites, 4.8 billion transactions, 821 million 0-12 month transactions, 42 transactions per locations Multiple model choices including: Prospecting Optimization Reactivation Cross Model/Sell Site Model Alliant Data Blind database Does not rent names from the coop Goal is data mining campaign optimization Score campaign iles based on your criteria Focus on reducing acquisition costs Finding more names to mail Aect ROI Multiple model choices including: Gross response Net Paid Renewal Lifetime value Modeling and analytics for inbound lead order scoring, website/call center optimization, online display advertising I-Behavior (KBM) Blind Co-op More than 1,800+ participants; 171 million individuals B2B: publishing, catalog, online purchases; 300+ members, 50 million individuals, 18MM + businesses, 82 million transactions B2C: publishing, solo/continuity, online, retail, nonproit/fundraising 140 Chapter 12: Marketing Plan SIPA
Multiple model choices Prospect Models Reactivation Model Optimization Company Site Models
Experian B2B Base from Merit Direct Public Participant Roster Competitor blocking 1+ billion transactions, 44+ million contacts, 500M monthly hotline multis, 5 year level contact level buying history, business demographics, buying data, item level data, order level data, contact & site level Customer proile report Firmographic detail appended Multiple model choices Prospect Models Reactivation Models Company Site Models Wiland Direct Blind Co-op Transaction data on over 250 million individuals, over 85 million active subscribers 1,600 + Members across multiple industries Multiple model choices Prospect Models Reactivation Models Company Site Models Cross Title/Non Subscriber Reactivation Renewal Series Optimization Net File & Balance Modeling Outside List Optimization B2B Prospect Databases B2B prospect databases grew out of a private database environment. If you choose to join one of these, you know the names of the members. Membership can cover merchandise catalog members, seminar attendees/approving managers, or paid and controlled trade pubs. With a B2B prospect database you will have access to licensed and deduped multiple compiled business data sources: D&B, Accutrend, Marketforce, Experian and other specialty compilers. At this time, there are two major prospecting B2B databases. They include: Infogroup B2B Datawarehouse 30 Million locations 100 Million contacts 1,500 Sources 20 Million email addresses 70 Million telephone numbers Names delivered net of house ile Multiple modeling solutions 141 Chapter 12: Marketing Plan
Industry and site targeting
Meritbase from Merit Direct 2000+ Individual B2B lists List speciic B2B Co-op (370 Million gross names input per month from 2,000 lists) Annual output by 200+ mailers Single source for multiple compiled names Houses customer, rental & compiled iles 500+ data elements Names delivered net of house ile Multiple modeling solutions Industry and site targeting
Publisher Specic Databases

Some large publishers, either multi-title or single title, and usually with at least 750M names, have their own databases they oer modeling services against. They do this to get additional list rental income. Smaller publishers can submit their data or model, have that model applied against the larger database, and get a list of prospects that match their criteria. Modeling options for publisher-speciic databases fall into 3 basic categories. Regression nth Good customer match Mailed match model
There are more than a hundred publisher-sponsored modeling programs like this. Here are some examples of business partner models, and the size of their list. Forbes Wall Street Journal Penton Media Farm Journal Media 3D eBusiness (Dow Jones) 3 million 2 million 5 million 1 million 7 million
There are also options for consumer publishers. Here are some examples. Bonnier Conde Nast Hearst Meredith Readers Digest Rodale Time Inc 11 million 13 million 11 million 45 million 16 million 6 million 104 million
National Databases
Publishers can also work with modeling programs from large, multi-sourced databases. This includes compiled data as well as other publisher data and mail order buying data. Examples include the following. Infogroup Consumer Database Masterile Dataline Consumer Modeling Database Datran Direct Modeling Masterle M-Gen Modeling Buyerbase 142 Chapter 12: Marketing Plan SIPA 132 million 235 million 10 million 58 million
MH2 Consumers + Credit Modeling Targetsource (Epsilon) Wealth Window
223 million 71 million 12 million
How to Get Started

If you want to try one of these options, youll need to submit your transactional data and monthly or quarterly update. Your prior mail campaigns should be agged with paid orders. There is not real size limitation on publishers in a coop, but a mailer generally must have at least 1,000 names that match the database in order to create a model. After you submit your data, modeling recommendations come back to you through a gains chart. For an example of a gains chart, look at the case study below for The Kiplinger Tax Letter site model. Case Study: The Kiplinger Tax Letter Site Model The chart below is a gains chart for The Kiplinger Tax Letter as supplied by the modeling company. As you can see by looking at the Percentage Gains column, names from Group 1 should perform considerably better than Group 10. The percentage gains column should be used simply as an indicator as to how well a group of names should perform, not necessarily the percentage lift in response. Model Group 1 2 3 4 9 10 Percent Gains 236 217 196 .. 74 Names Available 8,800 8,800 8,796 .. 8,784 Cumulative Names 8,800 17,600 26,396 .. 87,976
This site model also revealed the following information about Kiplinger Tax letter subscribers. These variables contributed to the model. Gender: Male Positive correlation Occupation: Finance Positive correlation Financial Newsletter Solo Buyers Positive correlation Weeks Since Last Order Negative (meaning those with older transaction histories got pushed down in the model) Magazine Subscription Buyers - Positive correlation
After mailing to lists using this model, the results proved it accurate. Model mailed in 3 campaigns in 2010 total 33,000 names The lists performed at twice the response rate of the average rented list.
Case Study: The Kiplinger Letter Using Wall Street Journal Model The rst WSJ model was built in 2007 as a balance model (meaning that Kiplinger was able to get hotline names to work, but wanted to model the balance of the actives in order to have a larger universe available). We have rebuilt the model with fresh data several times, most recently in 2009. The top variables that inuenced the Kiplinger model using The Wall Street Journal database included the following: Paid date in past 4 months Positive correlation 143 Chapter 12: Marketing Plan
Original start date 6-9 months Positive correlation Net sales $5 or more Positive correlation Health/Institutional Contributor Positive correlation Nielsen Code: D Positive correlation Age 46-65 Positive correlation : NC,MS,OK,LA,GA,SD,NE Positive correlation NY,NJ, CA Negative correlation # Renewals: 3-4 Positive correlation Lifestyle Interest: News and Financial Positive correlation Health/Fitness Magazine Subscriber Positive correlation
The results were very positive. From 2009 thru 2010, Kiplinger was able to mail well over 200M+ names producing an average response 10% higher than the average rented list. At the same time, Kiplinger continued to mail traditional selects. The balance model opened up additional universes that would not have been possible without targeting older names Case Study: The Kiplinger Letter: Alliant Kiplinger supplied net names from a May 2010 campaign. The objective of the campaign was to save direct mail costs by dropping o the poor performing names. The gains chart ranked predicted gross response indices into 20 segments. We tested segments 1 and 2 vs. lowest performing segments 19 and 20. (An index of 100 is Average, anything above 100 is better than average and below 100 is below average.) Actual Mailing Results Segment 1: Segment 2: Segment 19: Segment 20: Gross Index Net Index 298 293 134 102 50 47 50 54
As you can see, the results proved out the model and we now score and drop under-performing names thus resulting in a better return on investment for our direct mail. Case Study: The Kiplinger Letter Mail Volume From 2007 through 2010, The Kiplinger Letter maintained roughly 4.5 million pieces of direct mail each year, but the mix changed dramatically all thanks to Coops and modeling. Without the availability of those names, we would have had to cut our direct mail volume drastically and our circulation level would have plummeted.
2007 % Names Mailed Category Prospect Database Coop Database Prospect Modeling Investment Pubs Banking/Finance Lists Business Compiled Regional Business Pubs Business Newsletters Trade Pubs Health Membership Personal Finance General Self Improvement/Seminars Controlled Circ Enhanced Rental DB By Category 0.5 4.9 3.0 4.0 1.6 33.4 2.7 2.3 5.0 2.8 1.1 1.2 26.2 0.2 1.3 5.0 4.7
2010 % Names Mailed By Category 10.7 27.8 11.0 11.2 2.5 30.1 1.1 0.8 1.7 0.5 0.2 0.2 2.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 % Change 2053% 471% 262% 177% 58% -10% -60% -64% -66% -82% -82% -83% -92% -99% -100% -100% -100%
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What to Measure and Why
147 Chapter 13: What to Measure and Why
Key Marketing Performance Metrics for Circulation Managers

Sip From The Fire Hose
Data is overwhelming all businesses, so much so that The Economist published a special report on Managing Information. Circulation marketing is no exception. With todays content-display devices such as iPhones and iPads, and expanding social-media channels with which to market publications, how can we hope to grasp this vast amount of new data? It feels like there is just too much to report, or even to understand. As masters of content, marketers in the publishing world have a lot to track. We all want to follow results, see circulation by publication and have a deep understanding of our subscribers. But where to start? What if we manage 30 magazines, 40 newsletters, 15 websites or some combination thereof? Not only must we understand our net circulation, but we also need to delve into the underlying dynamics that aect our circulation. For example, is a corporate sale for unlimited subscribers contributing 1,000 to our net circulation, but at a very low price per subscriber? What if a telemarketing promotion has pushed gross subscribers higher by 2,000 while our invoice series only converts 10% of those to net subscribers? Furthermore, we can easily see the web content that generates the most trac, which landing pages convert best, and those keywords that give us the most conversions. But to identify what works means that we need to look both backwards and forwards in our funnel. Do the high-trac visitors convert to paid subscriptions? Do high-converting keywords provide new orders at an acceptable cost? Do those conversions lead to long-term subscribers? Not only does it feel like there too much data to feasibly analyze, and too little precision to give us the answers we want, but none of us operate in a vacuum. Competitor moves and content will shape our successes and failures. New questions arise such as, how does our mix of publications compare against those of our competitors? When advertisers look for an audience, what determining factor will they nd with our magazine that they will not nd elsewhere? We need to combine our disparate data into a narrative, a story about which dynamics mean success or failure for our publishing properties. If our tactics include converting web visits to free trials to subscriptions, tracked by media kits to push advertising sales, then we will want to know the results at every step. Furthermore, the makeup of those subscribers becomes crucial to reaching the right audience for advertising sales.
Work Backwards
In order to build our analytical narrative, we rst need to understand our goals. Creating the right dashboards requires starting at the end with our objectives, not at the beginning with our data sources. Starting with data will too often lead us to do the sort of precise, irrelevant analysis that is interesting, but useless. Put simply, move from
We tend to view our goals through the lens of our jobs. Retention managers think about renewal rates, and ad sales managers look at bookings. But from a high-level, business perspective, a publisher will have two simple objectives: increase revenue and decrease costs. These goals are not to be confused with strategy, which delves into what point(s) of leverage our company will use to beat competitors in a specic market. For example, our strategy could involve focusing on a small selection of content as a way to dominate a niche market, requiring increased editorial cost to build that content and decreased revenue as we lower our price in an initial push for subscribers. But eventually our tactics will shift to charge premium prices and nd editorial eciencies to make our business more protable. In terms of presenting metrics, increasing revenue and decreasing costs are the two places to start. We will delineate these into lower-level goals that circulation marketers concern themselves with:
From this, we can select among the plethora of metrics that deal with circulation, promotions, web reach and market research.
An Overview Of Metrics & Dimensions

Below is a list of metrics with dimensions in (brackets). A metric can be classied as any piece of data for which there is also an element of time. Dimensions are extra segmentation we can apply to those data. For example, gross new orders can be tracked by source or segment (where segment is a demographic or other demarcation of subscribers, such as group vs. individual).
Circulation, Renewals & New Orders

Basic circulation metrics by publication are absolutely necessary for our managers, advertisers and employees to understand the health of our publications. Dividing between gross circulation and net circulation shows whether a large promotion is distorting the size of our audience. Segments will result from the particular dynamics of our particular business. Free trial conversion rates and the funnel that leads from interest to free trial to paid subscriber are important in pinpointing where we should optimize tactics. If we receive a lot of web visitors, but very few conversions, that may lead to further analysis around keyword ecacy, free trial oer positioning or homepage calls to action. Renewal rates are essential for any circulation marketing professional. A subscriber saved is cheaper than a subscriber earned. Various dimensions by which to judge renewals are critical, such as renewals by expire pool, by years into subscription (separating out 1st year conversions, 2nd year renewals, etc.), and by eort. For new orders, understanding gross new orders, net new orders, pay up rates and average price per subscription will shed light on which channels contribute most to our bottom line.
Promotion Metrics
We look at ROI as the end-all-be-all of our marketing metrics. But knowing the revenue from a promotion (price x number of net new subscribers) vs. how much we paid for a promotion (cost of printing + cost of mailing) are only incremental measures. A marketing director will need to know ROI by promotion, by source and by segment (or list), but a CEO must also judge the overall Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI). Where ROI is incremental, ROMI is an all-encompassing measure including the salaries we pay our marketing department, the referral rates of our subscribers and the lifetime value of each subscriber.
Lifetime Value & Return On Marketing Investment Formulas
Lets say we have a 50% conversion rate and an 80% renewal rate. That means 50% of subscribers drop after one year. The other 50% renew at a rate of 80% for their remaining life cycle, meaning they stay for ve more years (six years in total since they converted after the rst year). Of 100 subscribers, 50 stay for a combined 50 years (1 year per sub) and 50 remain for a combined 300 years (6 years per sub). 350 years / 100 subscribers = average lifetime of 3.5 years. Now, at a price of $1,000, we could take 3.5 years x $1,000 and conclude that the average value of a subscriber is $3,500. But we should discount future values by our companys internal rate of return, which is typically the average return on equity for a company (values usually range from 5% to 20%). Assuming R = 10%, the rst year would be valued at $1,000, the 2nd at $909, the 3rd at $751, the 4th at $683. The total lifetime value would be $1,000 + $909 + $751 + $683 x 0.5 (only 3.5 years, not 4.0) = $3,001. If we nd that our 100 subscribers each refer an average of 0.2 new subscribers in a year, then we take $3,001 and multiply it by (1 + 0.2) = $3,600. In sum, any brand new subscriber to our publication is worth an average of $3,600, not just $1,000. For ROMI, lets say that in September we spent $50,000 on salary, $50,000 on promotions, $20,000 on customer service and fulllment and $10,000 on renewal eorts, and we incrementally brought in 50 new subscribers with a lifetime value of $3,600 each. Our monthly ROMI would have been (incremental revenue - total marketing investment) / total marketing investment, or ($180,000 - $130,000) / $130,000 = 38%.
Website Metrics
We must understand how and where subscribers (and potential subscribers) engage with us online. Most web analytics platforms contain hundreds of dierent reports and path analyses. The metrics above are some of the most used. However for specic, web-involvement related questions, more custom work is necessary to answer questions with the variety of reports in Omniture, Webtrends, Google or Coremetrics.
Market Research Metrics
Sometimes the data we want will not be readily available. For example, how our own subscribers view our 151 Chapter 13: What to Measure and Why
publication as a whole and by dierent content sections can help us develop an eective circulation strategy, a focus to leverage against competitors. Knowing the features that play a determinant role in convincing prospects to subscribe (or subscribers to renew) is critical in deciphering our publications position in the market place. By breaking down determinance by other publications considered, we can create an inventory of strengths and weaknesses vs. competitors that looks like this:
This graphic shows how political and business news & analysis are strong for this magazines survey respondents across the board, but that The Economist competes well on international news and analysis, and other magazines (namely Business Week and Wired) on technology news and analysis. This sort of study will help us know what makes our publication special among our competitors. Other parts of a reader survey include responsiveness to ads. Online and other pay-per-response advertising represents a real threat to publishers. This makes it imperative to show the advantages of advertising in print publications. Surveying our subscribers can illuminate the added value provided as part of a buyers overall marketing mix, showing how subscribers pay attention to magazine advertising and have more interest in the products we showcase within our publications context.
In Conclusion
First, we must determine our goals. Only then can we gure out which metrics will help us track or meet those goals in an actionable way, putting those metrics into an easy-to-understand format that can be standardized over time. But do not make tables or graphs so simple that they t onto a 3-point, 7-word-per-point PowerPoint slide. To fully comprehend the metrics that drive success, we cannot simplify away our data. Many visual analytics tools allow us to showcase many numbers using color and size as dimensions, as well as interactive lters that everyone can use to seek an overall narrative. Data is everywhere, and marketing analyses of our business are proliferating. We need to choose wisely those metrics to measure and present. To choose the right metrics, we have to know our business objectives. Do we want to grow circulation? Why? What is a new subscriber worth, and therefore, what are we willing to spend? Does our search engine marketing actually yield a prot or a positive ROMI? When we remember to think of our goals before we analyze our data, we stay relevant to our businesses.
ABOUT SPYGLASS INTELLIGENCE LLC Spyglass Intelligence LLC helps circulation marketers at B2B and consumer publishing companies with independent, actionable market research and strategic guidance. We provide insight into how to grow and retain your current business and attract new prospects. We rmly believe in using the scientic method in every project, formulating a hypothesis as to which strategy will work best for a client, then testing that hypothesis through primary research methods. Unlike other marketing strategy and research companies, we excel in making our information actionable and accessible to your team. We are innately curious; we will listen to and evaluate all your suggestions. We will not give you an academic report no one uses, but rather formulate an eective, focused strategy that can become the living, breathing heart of your business.
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Creative Scorecard
155 Chapter 14: Creative Scorecard
Creative Scorecard
By Curt Wilcox
The Creative Scorecard is a tool designed to help provide enhancements to your email(s). Focusing on the perpetually moving target of best practices, we will be assessing your creative based upon 12 points of criteria and will be providing you with suggestions to optimize your creative. Our goal is to better assure that your emails will not only reach the intended destination, but will achieve better results once they are there. The email channel is entirely too valuablewelcome to the art of email. Client: Template: Your Creative will be scored on a scale of 1-4; (4 = very email friendly, 1 = needs attention/improvement)
1. LOGO PLACEMENT
Notes: - Logo should be in upper 2 inches to ensure it shows on preview pane- Original best practice was keep logo in upper left but companies now investigating putting it on center or right hand side to allow for offer to be in upper left and better manage real estate.- Check the from address, often the company name already appears there, making it less crucial that the logo is front and center in email design.- Dont want it TOO large or it takes up space especially if it is in from eld or throughout rest of document.- Recommend testing Logo placement vs. Call to action to determine optimal use of this critical real estate in the message- Logo be consistent with and link to their web site 4 3 2 1
2. IMAGE VERSUS HTML TEXT
Notes: - Highlight copy to determine if it is HTML copy vs. Image - Promotional email messages: 50/50 image to text ratio. - Newsletters: 30% images and 70% text. - Ensure images are relevant to message and copy -- avoid stock images 4 (50/50 or 30/70 split based upon content) 2-3 (all text or minor use of irrelevant images) 1 (one big image)
3. DIMENSIONS
Notes: - Best Practice state that table cell width of an email message should be between 550-600 pixels. To determine dimensions right click within the message and click view source. Then locate the table cell width. If email dimensions are greater than 600 pixels there is a chance that the recipient will need to scroll right and left to view the content of the message. If the email is designed with width less than 550 pixels space becomes constrained and the marketer losses valuable design space. 4 (width between 550 and 600) 2-3 (width slightly outside of 550-600smaller is ok, but more constrained and wastes space) 1 (very large width or if they dene cell spacing as a percentage (causes major viewability problems) 4 3 2 1
4. CALL TO ACTION
Notes: - Should see a clear call to action in the preview pane - Should look at it with and without images turned on basically should have a call to action even if images are turned o. - Oer should be eectiveness (strong, of value, and ideally exclusive to recipient) - Include an action verb - Be Explicit about the action you want them to take - Should be consistent with the objective, content, and subject line of e-mail - - Ideally should be multiple calls to action, one above and one below fold - Avoid burying call to action within copy 4 (Multiple calls to action, Call to action available with images turned o, Call to action is CLEAR and obvious and makes sense within oer excellent CTA placement) 2-3 (1 CTA + additional elements to score) 1 (no clear CTA and/or buried within copy) 4 3 2 1
5. CONTENT
Notes: - How clear and concise the content is as a whole? Does it describe what youre oering (or in the case of newsletters, is the content well organized)? - Some of this is perception and preference, but the more you understand the audience, size of the list, acquisition / retention, how do you sign up for the list, the frequency of the message, goals, etc.. - Few Suggestions: Quick, brief, and easy to read Use of bullets, keywords, and bold headers to allow for easy scanning Short paragraphs and white space makes it easier on eyes and ights clutter Obviously, no grammatical or spelling errors Images should use alt tags (help what is this??) and optimized for web (72 DPI), and under 30K)
- Message size should be <75K - Conditional content is a positive thing Look for information about their part # or other inserted text See if image is speciic to recipient (e.g. dropping picture of printer into ofer. In the case of newsletters, are they building content based upon the proile.
- Look for overuse of certain keywords - e.g. free (put it through enhanced deliverability module). 4 (Very clear content, Dynamic / conditional content, Reasonable message size) 2-3 (Content is clear but not specialized) 1 (Spelling errors, message is to large or takes long to download, oer / content is unclear or un-viewable) 157 Chapter 14: Creative Scorecard
6. LINKS
Notes: - Look for key links - Opt-out - Privacy Policy - Viral / Forward To A Friend - Add to address book instructions and email - Possibly links to prole / subscription management page - Check for useful navigation links within e-mail (particularly with newsletters - Eectiveness Of Links: - Do all links work - Do they bring where you would expect (ar they specic and descriptive)? -Does the link make you WANT to click? - No two links should say the same thing - Should not word wrap or be too long - Avoid words like click here 4 (all areas above covered) 1-3 (subjective based upon areas above) 4 3 2 1
7. ABOVE THE FOLD DESIGN
Notes: - Refers to top 300-350 Vertical pixels (2-4 inches) - Look for logo, call to action, and table of contents (if it is a newsletter). - Should include headline (text that shows through if images turned o ) - Promotional E-mail: Headline should be denition / explanation of oer - Newsletter: Headline is title of newsletter or feature article - Navigation to website is also highly recommended - Consider use of space above fold watch for overuse of whitespace - Including a recommendation to add them to address book as well as LINK to the address book is a good idea 4 (Includes all areas based upon content) 1-3 (subjective based upon areas above)
8. HIERARCHY OF INFORMATION
Notes: Based on Heat mapping research, email recipients read HTML emails in an F shaped pattern. Recipients rst read across the top of an email. They then read down the left rail and nally read across the upper middle section of the email. When reviewing the hierarchy of information it is crucial that all critical elements of content occur in this F shaped design. Also, be certain that all calls to action and conditional content appear above the fold to enhance the campaigns performance. 4 (message ows well and helps user focus on key areas, consideration for fold) 2-3 (some consideration for ow - typically primary info in upper left) 1 (key content scattered throughout e-mail without consideration for eyetracking)
9. USE OF COLOR AND FONTS
Notes: - Best practices recommend the use of white backgrounds and dark copy. - Email marketers should not use more than three-ve fonts in an email. A new font is considered to be any change font type, font size or font color.- Colors should compliment brand image and match tone of message 4 (3 fonts, easy to view on eyes) 2-3 (5-7 fonts, too many colors) 1 (7+ fonts, WAY too many colors or use of colors that may cause spam problems (e.g. red)
10. MESSAGE LENGTH
Notes: Promotion Messages - 2, no more than 3 screens Newsletters: 3, no more than 4 screens (longer newsletters must have table of contents) 4 (within guidelines) 1-3 (lower if longer)
11. SUBJECT LINE
Notes: - Ideally subject lines are 37 characters or less (including spaced and punctuation - Testing subject lines is important as some companies nd longer subject lines eective (denitely not longer than 50 characters) - Avoid spammy words like Free. - Is subject line relevant and ideally personalized. - Most importantly, does the subject line accurately describe the content of the email? 4 (eective subject line 35 characters or less) 2-3 (long subject line, still eective) 1 (much too long of a subject line or includes multiple spam keywords)
12. **SOCIAL**
Notes: - If your email calls for social, make sure that you are including a sharethis link as well as the follow us strategy. (Make sure you understand the dierence) The Key with Social is to give unknowns the impetus to want to optin/ enroll/subscribe be sure to be a part of special interest groups on LinkedIn, etc not all campaigns need socialthink this through as to what would make sense re social. In terms of placement, go with your gut at the least, I would include the sharethis in a prominent area of the footer and the follow us above your unsub link at the bottom of the email 4 (Intuitive leap made follow us and Sharethis both incorporated tastefully in some instances, incentive is built around sharing the content) 2-3 (Social in play not using both follow us and sharethis but with some issues re Gaudy/In Your Face SHARETHIS..too many instances) 1 (NO Social play at all (when called for)opportunity missed)
OVERALL SCORE: XX / 48
Closing Notes:
Real Magnet Curt Wilcox eMarketing Consultant cwilcox@realmagnet.com 803.547.3812 159 Chapter 14: Creative Scorecard

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THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

6 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

Your Guide to Email Marketing

8 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

Subject Line is Key

Pay Attention to the From Address of Your Emails

9 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

Quality Over Quantity

Test Everything Before Sending

10 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

The Easier, the Better

Use Direct Mail

Make it Worthwhile for Your Readers

11 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

Subject Line and Headlines

12 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

13 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

Scenario 2: A business launching a new product.

Scenario 3: Driving people to an upcoming event.

Scenario 4: New to Social Media?

14 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

Email Service Provider

15 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

16 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

Turning Email Experience into Social Success

17 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

1: The Social Media Opportunity for B-to-B

Social Media in B-to-B Reality Check

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

Top Social Activities Reveal People at Play, not at Work

The B-to-B Upshot

The ROI of Social Media for B-to-B

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

SECTION 2: SOCIAL IS MORE LIKE EMAIL THAN YOU MAY THINK

Social Media and Email: Surprising Similarities

21 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

Mythbusting the Dierences Between B-to-B Email and Social

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

SECTION 3: TACTICALLY DIFFERENT, BUT STRATEGICALLY THE SAME

23 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals

THE 2012 DIRECT MARKETERS GUIDEBOOK

Social and Email: The Only Permission-Based Channels

24 Chapter 1: Email Marketing Fundamentals SIPA

HOW TOS, TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DIRECT MARKETING SUCCESS.

SECTION 4: ANALYTICS HOLD THE KEY TO B-TO-B SOCIAL INITIATIVES