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For all my Malaysian Readers... First of I'd like to mention... GONG XI FA CAI or a Happy Chinese New Year! Yes, its the celebration of a new lunar year for us Chinese in Malaysia... Just fresh of the heels of my break I would like to bring you a few thoughts on email marketing campaigns. First, this posting was based on Seth Godin's recent posting on his blog. You can find the whole posting here.
There are a few do's and don't when it comes to email marketing:
Do:
1) Ask permission - Consumers will hit that delete / unsubscribe button faster than you can shout stop if the sense that they are being sold to. Get their permission to communicate with them before you send them your newsletter or HTML Ad.
2) Be Personal - There is a saying, if you can't take the time to be personal, I won't take the time to read your newsletter or mail. Don't cc everyone your newsletter or blog insert. Take the time to address each one of them personally. I know it takes time... but such consistency which ultimately lead to trust.
3) Consumer Rights - Yes, if you believe that you have a right to email all the addresses in your contact list, You're Right! But remember, your consumers also have rights... the RIght to IGNORE you and HIT DELETE when they receive you mail.
Don't:
1) Mass Mail - Dn't mass mail your newsletters out... Nothing stinks worst than companies that mass mail their newsletters out... you're not speaking to a company. Well technically, yes you are but behind each company receiving your mail is an individual and trust me that person is busy enough already with his/her own life. There probably not interested in your newsletter what's worst and mass mailed newsletter.
2) Mailers list - you have your own contact list, do not ever sell this list or rent this list out to anyone or any company. Once your consumers find out that you sold their contact details away, whatever trust you have gained with your consumers will be lost... FOREVER!
Taking the time to build an e-mail marketing campaign that works and is effective takes time and of course patience. An honest SPAM campaign may seem like a great idea in the short run but will hurt your brand in the long term. Till next time, market effectively & responsibly.
Been thinking about all this branding hype that's been going around lately. And the branding issue is something which I think is clearly misunderstood.
For me, branding or brand building is made out of 2 components... your products / services and your users. First is of course your product... you go out and hire a fancy branding specialist and he develops a identity for your product / service by giving your product / service a savvy new name, new packaging design, some clever designed brochures and does a PR launch and then tells you.. YOU NOW HAVE A BRAND!
So what's next? Well the part that I think most brand specialist do not focus on is the part of your consumers.... The point is that, you can develop a new look for your product or service with some fancy PR and claim you have a brand but you don't really have a brand until and unless your consumers acknowledge it!
What do I mean? Think about it? would Mac really be considered a branded product if nobody talked about it? Would Dockers or Levi's be a hit if the people who wore them didn't acknowledge that they did?
So in essence, my opinion is that the crucial part of branding is not the new look or identity but its about gaining consumer recognition or your product or service. An example of a company who has done this brilliantly is Apple.... Think about it, the Ipod is just a MP3 player. Do other brands like Sony or Creative not have MP3 players? Why the Ipod?
Well, its a case of great branding. Its about getting your consumers and turning them into fans which Apple has done an incredible job... In essence its getting consumers to talk about your products/services, rave about it and ultimately if possible swear by them!
As such, don't be deceived by people who mention great branding is about just building an identity for your product / service. There is a 2nd part and the most important part, getting consumers to acknowledge and ultimately live your brand.
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First of A Happy New Year to you! A new year in many aspects represents a new beginning. So what is your New Year's resolution? Could it be to take your company's brand more seriously?
There's no better time to do that than in the year 2009! As markets become harder and more difficult and as recession effects become more apparent, its clear that the companies with a good brand base would find it easier to survive.
If you have spent time building your brand, you will already have a consumer base or fan base with which to roll out your branding activities for 2009. If not again I urge you there would be no better time than to start now.
So, 2009 should be a great opportunity to build brands the only question remains is are you ready to do it?
Lately with the economy being as it is, I've been asking myself this question. How well do I know my customers? For myself, I have to admit that it is at times trying to get to know all your customers, but lets focus on the 20% of clients which give you 80% of your business (i.e. the 80/20 rule).
How well do you know your customers? If your answer is not very well or not at all, perhaps some of these ideas could be of use to you.
1. Newsletters: Use this technique to engage your customers in a discussion. The best method to do this would be to create a newsletter which gives your customers interesting bits of information and ultimately there could also be a Q&A section where the readers of your newsletter could submit question to you to seek your advice. This would really demonstrate your expertise in your business.
2. Co host an event with another business: This would apply to companies targeting the same consumer base but not selling similar products or services. Examples could be:
- A bank hosting a small seminar with a marketing consultant to give tips and advice to customers on the best way to market their business.
- A financial planner and an insurance agent teaming up to run a talk on savings, retirement planning, etc.
- A caterer and wine specialist hosting a wine tasting and food event entitled "matching the correct food with the correct wine".
These ideas could help you to create a better relationship with a your customers and you won't have to resort to spamming them just to remind them that you are still around. These ideas are enduring and like all marketing efforts they take time to build up momentum and gain an audience.
Its been a while since my last posting. My apologies for the absence.
Of late, I've been receiving quite a few value meal vouchers. In my last entry on delivering value, I advocated the importance of delivering value into your business. But recently, I've come across a restaurant which I felt did not quite delivery value or to be more precise, I felt they were cheating their consumers. Lets be very professional here. I've blotted out the name in order to save guard the restaurant.
When you first look at this voucher it says CRAZY FOOD OFFER... 1 For 1. But if you look at the bottom right corner of the voucher, 2 things stand out. First off, it says Saturday & Sunday Only... and of course Terms and Conditions apply. No problem with the first condition...
Most businesses always try to draw business towards their slower times and maybe for this restaurant this could be the case. But, let's take a look at the back portion of this voucher.
If you take a look at bullet number four you will notice this statement there, valid for dine-in only with a minimum spending of RM 100 (i.e. USD 27.00). My point of contention is this, for you to be able to spend RM 100 when your food meals are half priced would mean that you would probably have to order an appetizer and desert and probably booze.
So if I'm going to half to spend a minimum or RM 100 before I can get my meals at Half price then why bother giving me the discount at all...
The point is this, if you are going to create a value promotion of any kind, its important to take note of a few points:
1) That you can actually afford to and are willing to give such a discount. 50% off meals from my experience is quite a hefty discount.
2) Try not to have terms and conditions which are too stringent. If not, my bet is that the promotion will most likely not be very successful.
The above example of the restaurant clearly contradicts these 2 points, having me fork out RM 100 before I qualify to use the voucher only tells me either that the restaurants is not able to really give this kind of discounts or they are not very sincere in their marketing by inserting such ridiculous terms. Either way, my feeling is that this campaign may not do very well.
So, a good thing to remember is that in delivering value, more often than not this can be a double edge sword, do it right and you'll have a tremendous increase in sales. Be too stringent and the promotion will probably fail and could possibly hurt your brand image. Till next time.
Been thinking a lot recently about the key words "value deals". As a lot of businesses are now undergoing a slowdown of sales, I've noticed recently that there has been an increase in most retail outlets using value deals as part of their marketing promotions to reach out to customers.
This is primarily happening in most if not all food service businesses. You see a lot these days on value meal promotions where restaurants are pushing set meals (i.e. lunches, tea time, dinner) which they hope the customer will see as good value deals and thus make the decision to come in to have a meal.
Now this is not necessarily a bad thing but what surprises me is this, companies are using this method more frequently now then before. I mean when times were good, I would rarely see established restaurants or business using value promotions. Most would rather just throw their money into advertising or worse still, act as if customers will visit their store because they are an established brand.
So my question is this. Is delivering value to your clients only important when times are tough? My advice to my clients is that delivering value in their products and services should be carried it irregardless of whether times are good or bad. The reason I advocate this is because, when a business is seen as delivering value in its products / services this creates a message to the consumer that the company
1) Stands for giving its customers the best possible quality product / service it can.
2) It creates the notion that although this business exists to make profit, this business has principles and one of these principles is that all its products are priced fairly and of good value.
Not matter how much advertising budget you may have, you just cannot buy perception like the above. If your products / service already has this perception in the minds of your consumers then good on you. If not, perhaps its time to start thinking of implementing this "value deal" promotion into your business?
Hey there, I'm sure you've been reading on the news about the current economic situation. Well, instead to just subscribing to all that doom and gloom I think perhaps we should draw our attention to what this current situation is doing to our businesses.
First and foremost you have to understand, if you believe at this juncture that what's happening now is going to make you go bust you're most certainly correct. Thus a good point to keep in mind here is attitude. Keep that attitude in check. Franklin D. Roosevelt once said during America's Depression that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself".
In a manner of speaking he's right, if we submit to the paralyzing fear of the times, we'll most likely shock ourselves into doing nothing!
Secondly, I think it important to remember that continuing your marketing efforts is a must at this point. Yes, so times are bad, you don't have much cash flow to carry out much marketing efforts. Instead of worrying how much money / cash flow you have to carry out marketing activities, why not focus on what kind of marketing activities that can be carried out at a low cost. Think guerrilla style marketing.
After all that's said and done, you can't be paralyzed by the current turn of events, instead times like these are probably a call back to real marketing efforts and a cut back from all that advertising which you've probably mistaken as marketing effort. Till next time...
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