Straight into it!
We’ve lost some time. I got called away during the week to an emergency board meeting. Three days of such intense scrutiny that I haven’t touched the blog because of the brain drain.
Never fear…I’m back.
Is EMAIL Sexy? Can EMAIL Be Sexy.
I’m not talking about the bombardment of emails purporting to enlarge certain parts of one’s anatomy…that’s not sexy.
In an earlier posting we talked about the subject line (aka headline or “banana”) and I mentioned that this line is the most important part of your marketing. Remember that 75% of users won’t open the email if the subject line has 60+ characters. OUCH. Have a go right now at making a subject line under 60 characters. Don’t forget that characters include spaces. Just the other day I sent an Electronic Direct Marketing message with the heading “Is there a doctor in the house?” That’s a short line isn’t it? It totals 31 characters. Make you subject line as short as possible.
LIFECYCLE MARKETING
Your campaign must take in all contingencies. I don’t know too many serious online marketers that do not ensure that absolutely every recipient of their message is taken care of. Think Lifecycle. So you should plan a campaign and its schedule of responses based on triggers.
Here’s an example of this. ABC Business Coaching are developing some fantastic business courses. As part of our development program we don’t just create the course, we test market the course during its development to ensure when its released to the wider market its a hit. So in a normal course of strategic development we did this:
We sent a select few an email about out new course. Then our campaign moved like this…
- Those who opened it got sent an invitation to an event.
- Those who didn’t open it got sent a similar message again (just to be sure…).
- Those who RSVPed to the invitation got sent a confrimation email.
- The RSVPers then received an SMS on the day of the event.
Hey, we covered all bases. Even when they were confirmed we still advertised to them. As they say (ask) in the classics (of marketing) “When is the best time to sell to your customer?” “When they have just bought something!”
CREATIVITY
Wasn’t it creative of me to write that headline in red? Ah, no it wasn’t! OK, creativity can be acheived by mere mortals such as us. Creativity is not an exclusive domain of pony-tailed “dudes” around boardroom tables in North Sydney. Nor is creativity an exclusive domain of those long-haired characters sunning themselves on university lawns. YES, you can be creative. Even in business. Especially in business!
There is a trick that most people don’t use. It is a trick that, when applied, can accelerate your business into the stratosphere. It’s basically “thinking on paper” (or white board). I’ve witnessed some extraordinary ideas come to life when teams go about thinking together like this. There are some rules. Here are 3:
- Define every challenge on paper.
- Research your challenge.
- Process ideas by making connections (make your ideas happy by connecting them with other ideas…)
Try this at home… Pick a random word. Write the word down and then write words related to the first word. This way, guaranteed, you will solve your challenge.
Watch this… There was a soup company that wanted to come up with new flavors.
Random word – ROAD
Related words – HIGHWAY…BEND…FORK…BITUMEN…DRIVING…CAR
Idea – What if you could eat soup with a fork?
Result – Campbell’s CHUNKY SOUP
True story.
Today’s challenge: Come up with an Innovation Statement just like you do a Mission Statement.