email marketing
Bad e-mail marketing. (What is it that you do again?)
My friend - and Opinionated Marketer Emeritus - John Whiteside just forwarded me a prospecting e-mail he’d received.
I’m not going to give things away here - who wants to embarrass an eager young sales guy just trying to make a buck. (And for all we know, his approach may be very successful. Just not when [...]
Test Messaging
I had an interesting little test messaging experience the last couple of days, and it got me thinking about the best ways to go about doing this.
First, I will disclose up front that the two e-mail messages I received were from a political candidate whom I can say with about 100% surety I will never, [...]
Half the battle
The other day, I got a letter in the mail that kinda-sorta looked personal. The reason it kinda-sorta looked personal was because, rather than using a printed return address on the enveloped, they used a sticker with a real person’s name on it.
Now, because I don’t know this particular Colleen T, I really knew it [...]
Recession-Proof your company with VoIP? Come now, marketers, there’s really no need to lie…
I’m all in favor of situational marketing, in which you take advantage (within reason) of whatever circumstances are floating around out there. Headline news, sporting events, seasonal doings, and ongoing situations like the current knock-down/drag-out recession.
in fact, marketers should be explaining how their goods and services can help their customers survive hard economic times. Contributions [...]
Things for B2B tech marketers to think about on Cyber Monday
Let’s face it, there’s not much in it for us on Cyber Monday.
It’s not as if IT is going to go out and hunt online for a bargain-rate firewall today. It’s not like the CFO is going to look for free delivery and a $10 coupon on an enterprise ERP system.
No, today the online consumer [...]
A few thoughts on direct mail vs. e-mail
I recently recommended that a client test a direct mail program to augment their online efforts. Sure it’s expensive, but when I looked at the company’s demographic, which didn’t exactly scream ‘tech-oriented’ or ‘I live online’, I thought it was worth a try.
But it did get me thinking about the pro’s and con’s of [...]
So you say it’s your birthday
Well go and get marketed to!
I’ve just had a birthday. Along with various notes and greetings from friends and family, I’ve gotten heartwarming messages from companies I do business with.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, as long as it’s not overdone - you are not my friends, marketers! In my email I found one good [...]
Waste of Bandwidth e-mail marketing
It doesn’t happen all the time, but occasionally someone who has read one of my blogs - or somehow discovered me somewhere out there - contacts me to request a meeting for some reason or another. I’ve had people who want to talk to me about potential project work, about job searches, about my reviewing [...]
Defining permission down
This week I got an email with this subject:
Please confirm your registration for _______
My reaction: Huh? Did I register for that?
I did recognize the name that’s blanked out above, so I opened the message, and here’s what I found:
Dear John,
I am writing to let you know that I have signed you up to receive [...]
Email marketing: frequency counts
What’s one of the most important factors in the success of your email marketing campaigns? Frequency. You don’t want to overwhelm customers too many messages, or they’ll tune out. But you have to send enough that they remember you.
I received this message from Eurostar, operators of the train through the Chunnel, this week:
Now, a nice [...]
