Promotional Products International Association

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Promotional Products International Association
Jeanne L. Allert, M.Ed. Ellipsis
Partners Baltimore-Washington

• E-Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business

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First, a few questions

• What aspect of your business are you trying to
  grow?
• Does growing your business mean generating
  more business or does it mean doing business
  better?
• MORE
• Expand customer base (by geography? number?
  Industry diversity? )
• Expand inventory offering (and make market aware
  of it)?
• Increase transactions (frequency, repeats,
  upsell, dollar amount)?
• BETTER
• Expand brand awareness
• Improve customer service/responsiveness
• Offer contemporary services
• Do you have the infrastructure to support the
  growth you desire?

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Agenda

• Email Marketing - PUSH
• Building Managing Your Lists
• Refining Your Emails
• Website Marketing - PULL
• Improving your Sites Visibility
• Enhancing the Visitors Experience
• Learning from your Website
• Gathering Customer Intelligence ASK
• And a few new tactics on the horizon

Prentice Hall eMarketing report indicates that
marketers have found online promotions achieve
three to five times higher response rates than
direct mail.
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Email Marketing Strategies
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Build Your Email Lists

• Blind Email Campaign
• Ask for visitors email address on your website
• Offer incentives for online customers to give you
  their email addresses.
• Ask your recipients to forward your email onto
  their network of contacts
• Provide your call center (receptionist) with
  script to ask for email addresses and get opt-in
  permission
• Always ask for email addresses on your printed
  and Web order forms
• Have a sign-up form on each page of your website
• Encourage sign-up on signature lines
• Sign-up requests on receipts, invoices,
  confirmations
• Footer on Press Releases

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Manage Your Lists

• Ask for preferred email address and state what
  you will use it for
• Practice Opt-in or Double Opt-in
• Attend to Opt-outs immediately
• Offer a gracious youre welcome to come back
• Let members manage their own Opt-in and email
  address changes via your website
• Use Subject Line to remind recipients to reply
  for Double Opt-In

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Use Your Email Signature Line
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Message Presentation

• Use of branding/imagery
• Use of stationery and colors
• Do you expect the email to be printed?
• What is the likelihood your audience can support
  the presentation youve created?
• How important to have your brand associated with
  the content?
• Does the graphical treatment lend value to the
  message or detract from it?

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Wasted Effort?
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Timing Your Campaigns

• Consider
• When do you want them to receive the email?
• How long does it take for your emails to be
  received?
• What offline media might coincide with the email?
  (news broadcast, magazine?)
• What are the psychographics (behaviors) of your
  readers?
• 62 of emails opened between Tuesday Thursday
• 80 of emails opened between 5am and 5pm PST.
• News-oriented emails are best (expected) early in
  the morning
• A high of SPAM sent during middle of the night
  and on weekends dont compete with them

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SPAM Management

• DEFINITION
• Unwanted email, sent in bulk, to unfamiliar
  audiences for the purposes of solicitation
• INCOMING
• Teach staff how to set up their own filters
• Inform staff what filters are operating at the
  server level
• Know the difference between blacklists and
  whitelists and how to manage those
• Preview pane display Read
• Outlook 2003 does not automatically display
  images in HTML also offers personal whitelists
  and blacklists
• Do you list staff emails on your website ?
• ONE IDEA jallertATellipsispartner.com
• ANOTHER IDEA type first initial last name _at_
  xyz.com
• Set up departmental email boxes and manage them

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SPAM Management

• OUTGOING
• Avoid SPAM-prone words like free, give-away,
  or questionable adjectives
• Use a consistent email address for sending
• Use an external email service for large mailings
• Send email in small, irregular batches
• Post your privacy policy on your website
• Train your market to look for your email (and
  whitelist it)
• Have instructions on your website for
  whitelisting your emails

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Fighting Back !

• Forward "unwanted or deceptive spam" to
  spam_at_uce.gov maintained by the FTC. The data
  collected is used to prosecute perpetrators of
  scam or deceptive advertising
• Cut and paste email header and full text
  and submit
  to www.spamcop.com
• Look up the source of some SPAM
  mail by
  true domain at www.abuse.com
• SPAMem back

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A Good Example for Marketing
Identifying logo
Engaging photos
Call to action
Peer testimonial
Personal tone
Opt-out instructions
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SMS (short messaging service) Marketing
Text messaging enables information to be sent to
groups of people quickly. The development of 3G
(third generation) and smartphones, which have
larger screens and can play music and video
clips, has made multimedia messaging service
(MMS) possible.

• Advantages of SMS marketing
• Personal nature of cellphones make SMS marketing
  a powerful tool.
• Most people take their mobile phones everywhere -
  effective for time sensitive messages.
• People tend to read virtually every text they get
• Potential disadvantages of SMS marketing
• A maximum 160 characters.
• Get their permission and ensure that your SMS
  marketing complies with privacy and data
  protection rules.
• Required to make it clear who the message is from
  and commercial communications must be clearly
  recognizable as such.
• You need to use a mobile phone company to send
  out the texts for you.

the amount of money spent on advertising on
mobile phones has been small but it has been
growing rapidly. In 2005, advertisers spent 45
million on such messages, and should spend around
150 million in 2006, according to Ovum Research,
which projects that such spending will reach 1.3
billion by 2010."
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Web Marketing Strategies

• Bring them in
• Serve them well
• Learn about them
• Bring them back

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Your Name and its Visibility

• Secure a domain name that is recognizable,
  relevant, and memorable
• If feasible, secure domains that are too
  similar and create a redirect to your site
• Use branded email for staff. Most consumers
  dont interpret free ISPs as a serious business
  email address
• Optimize your website for Search Engines
• List your site with Web Directories
• Promote website on offline channels,
  publications, correspondence and merchandise

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Search Engine Optimization

• Set up Tags and Design for Search Engines
• Update Metatags based on site stats,
  organizational changes and seasonality
• Pay special attention to the TITLE tag !

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Register Your Site
Register with Directories Yahoo, Google, AOL.
Switchboard, CitySearch, Local Directories,
Shopping portals, Chamber of Commerce, etc.
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Register your Products
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Linking Strategy
Create reciprocal linking relationships with

• Local teams, organizations, companies, schools,
  colleges
• (client) Conference or event archives
• Suppliers, Distributors, Partners
• Product brands
• Your clients
• Complimentary businesses
• Related products or services
• Local web calendars

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Paid Placements

• Google Adwords
• no minimum budget
• choose terms
• pay only for CPC/click-thru

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Navigation Options

• Audience Segmentation
• Searching
• Indexes
• Context-Grouping
• Site Map
• Ask Jeeves model
• Anchor your brand on each page

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Use THEIR language

• Communicate so as to be understood
• Create website sections for markets where the
  language shifts dramatically
• Watch search terms to review user lexicon
• Have someone outside your industry proofread
  your site
• Dont dub-dub-dub

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Test Your Own Transactions

• Be very cognizant of what steps you are asking
  the customer to take
• Provide options
• Anticipate errors
• Communicate the PROCESS
• Provide help at all junctures
• Provide immediate confirmation of transaction
• Be clear on how the customer can follow up

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Personalization

• Products, services and communications targeting
  the individual
• Based on robust database rules

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Interactivity

• Message Boards
• Discussion Forums
• Surveys/Polls
• Member Networking
• Images
• Virtual/Interactive tours

What can the visitor DO on your site?
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Offer options for Communicating with you

• Provide a range of options for communicating with
  you
• Communicate service levels and turnaround times
  for those options
• Anticipate their questions

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Online Tutorials
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Instant Messenger/Chat

• Real-time response to customer questions
• Requires staffing during off hours
• Requires minimal technical skills
• Aids customer use of the website
• Transactions can be recorded/ tracked for
  business intelligence

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Dedicated Customer Support Page
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Site Concierge

• Uses video animation to simulate a personal
  assistant
• Limited interaction
• Impacted by users desktop
• Impact on 508 compliance

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Bulletin/Message Boards

• Encourage your customers to talk about your
  products online
• Regularly mine public boards for postings about
  your offerings
• Periodically search the archives
• Monitor boards for opportunities to provide
  information, resources and links back to your
  programs
• Volunteer to moderate a public board
• Seed the conversation with (legitimate) topics
  that promote your value

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Blogs

• Have a purpose and stick to it
• Offer real and unique value
• Push customers to use it
• Blog SPAM danger

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eCoupons

• frequent shoppers are rewarded when they reach a
  certain level of value or purchases
• shoppers are encouraged to return with an
  e-coupon towards future purchases
• incentives to encourage customers to purchase
  immediately rather than waiting for a better deal
  or shopping elsewhere
• first time customers are offered special deals in
  order to help turn them from browsers into
  purchasers
• Coupons usually include a code that the customer
  is required to enter before they finalize their
  order to receive the discount.

• used to encourage customers to sign up for
  e-newsletters, with the newsletter helping to
  increase sales and build your customer database

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Rebate Coupons

• For growing repeat business
• Make the rebate meaningful to the customer
• Be VERY clear about your offer and what you will
  do with their information
• Test and adjust

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Whats Important to Learn about your Online
Customer

• Classic Market Segments
• Age
• Gender
• Income
• Education
• Geography
• Industry

• Web-Relevant Characteristics
• Technology Access/Reception
• Technology Reliance
• Motivation
• Time
• Past Web performance

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Market Intelligence Gained By Asking

• Interval Surveys / Polls
• Constant Survey
• Focus Groups

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Market Intelligence Gained By Profiles

• Customer profile forms
• Interest Inventory
• Preferences

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Market Intelligence Gained By Tracking

• Forums
• Discussion Boards
• Email Response
• Chats
• IM usage
• Web Stats

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Remember those questions

• What aspect of your business are you trying to
  grow?
• Be clear about your business goals
• Does growing your business mean generating
  more business or does it mean doing business
  better?
• Consider technology investments in both areas
• Do you have the infrastructure to support the
  growth you desire?
• Better to do less and do it well than try to do
  more and fail

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SUMMARY

• EMAIL MARKETING
• Requires ongoing diligence to build and maintain
  your lists
• May have to train your market to be on the
  lookout for your emails
• Doesnt have to be sizzle should be mostly steak
• Track performance and adjust
• WEB MARKETING
• Be active about bringing them to your site (out
  of sight, out of mind)
• Design from the users perspective
• Create opportunities for interaction/engagement
• Anticipate their needs and provide for them
• BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
• Ask them!
• Mine your data
• Learn and adjust