Anhueser-Busch to cut radio spending

An article in Ad Age says that brewing giant Anheuser-Busch is cutting it's radio budget by about $38 million over the second half of 2008. A-B is embracing costs cuts in an effort to fend off a hostile takeover.

This is actually a pretty big blow for the radio industry. It's not just the money they are losing, but A-B has been a huge proponent for the medium and it would hurt radio greatly if the appearance was that someone like this didn't think it was as important anymore.

Plus, now we'll hear less of the "Real Men of Genius" commercials, which were perhaps the only radio spots that I ever got excited to hear.

Our brains like new things

Great article in Scientific American magazine about how our brains get turned on by the fresh looks of things.

From the article:

"Scientists have discovered that novel objects perk up the reward system of our brains, indicating our sense of adventure—exploring or learning something new—may be just as tempting as cash and other prizes in the choices we make. Researchers say the finding may explain why marketers are able to bolster sagging sales by simply repackaging old products.

"Brain processes "might encourage you to sample [products previously dismissed] again—even though it doesn't make much sense," says Bianca Wittmann, a neuroscientist at University College London's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and co-author of the study published today in the journal Neuron. "Just because it has new packaging doesn't mean it has gotten much better."

Best and worst of the Web

BusinessWeek has an interesting read on the best and worst websites on the internet. Lists like this are great.

Amazon.com makes it into both categories. One guy panned it for being so ugly.

Ebay makes it into the worst. Malcolm Garrett, joint creative director at AIG, tells us why:

"Aside from the visual naiveté of the whole look and feel, and the inevitable jumble of typographic styles employed, navigation is poorly organized, rendering site structure a confused mess. Moreover, prime functionality is often severely compromised."

Google makes a double appearance on this list too. Lisa Strausfield of Pentagram offers this explanation:

"I hate that Google is gaining full access to our e-mail, family photos, finances, medical records, and every thought in our heads that gets translated into a Web search—and no one seems to care. Should we?"

Check it out, there is some good information about what traits are good and bad in websites.

Getty Images' Moodstream

Ok, this is neat. Getty Images is best known for their huge database of beautiful photography. They pretty much photograph life. But now, they have come up with a really neat way to stimulate creativity and it's called Moodstream.

Click the wheel of emotions to get a unique collage of photos and video set to music. It's free and could help give you some ideas so you aren't dealing with a blank slate when trying to be creative.

More fun with Craigslist

I think I'm going to start posting fun stuff from Craigslist. Here is a particularly ridiculous one:


"We are looking for a web designer who is excellent in creating attractive, professional websites for small to mid-size business clients. You will need to be able to build the entire site and have it up and running yourself. It is not important what program you use to build the site. What the websites may and will need is personalized layouts, quality designs, graphics, internet marketing and the ability to support e-mail and e-commerce. You should know Photoshop and Flash is a plus.
This is an at home job. Your location is not important.
Send me your portfolio or links to your portfolio.
Reply back or contact us if you have any questions."

Ok, fine. Compensation? $400 for the whole site. Get friggin' real! I'm going to go to a Mercedes Benz dealer and ask for an E-class model for $5,000.

Actual good PR advice

Entrepreneur.com has some good PR advice on how you should approach journalists. Not that nonsense I showed you last week about how to write a press release that is line-by-line just like an article in your target magazine.

A quick excerpt of how to prepare:

"Read everything they write. Do a Google News search by name and subscribe to the e-mail alert or RSS feed--you'll receive updated e-mails with your targeted journalists' latest stories.

"A lot of journalists now have blogs and podcasts. Find their blogs and subscribe to, comment on and write relevant trackbacks to them from your blog or website. This can be a great way to start getting on their radar screens. But don't spam them. Make sure you offer thoughtful comments that add to the conversation."

Internet ads for kids suck?

They do according to Andrew Monfried, founder and CEO of Lotame.

“One of the reasons why kids are turning off advertising is they are seeing ads that are absolutely horrific,” he said, explaining the relatively low click-through rates. “And often times, they’ve seen it 4,000 times. So they’re not clicking.”

Monfried’s solution: “How about this. Less ads. Less ads period. And make the ones you have more valuable.”

Craigslist

I'm not going to completely knock Craigslist because I do go on there quite a bit. It is phenomenal for so many things. But, I want to give some of the people on there some advice: get real.

For example, you are a small clothing company that wants PR. Chances are, you aren't going to find a stud PR person who would be willing to execute a comprehensive PR program for two shirts from your new clothing line (I really saw that one).

Also, the web people. "Looking for rockstar intern who is proficient in Flash, e-commerce, MySQL, PHP, Cold Fusion, Ajax and Ruby on Rails." I don't know that a person like this exists even at the executive level, let alone an intern. Are you serious with this stuff?

I understand that people and companies want a lot for a little, but c'mon. Just remember this when looking for help on Craigslist.

Guess the Logo and Win... Well, Nothing Actually

Here's a fun little diversion (translation: time-waster) that nonetheless underscores the importance of a strong brand identity. See how quickly you can guess the actual logo of these well-known websites. Ready? Begin.

Get your website recognized

Inc.com has some interesting basic suggestions for making sure your website doesn't hang out all by itself on the internet:

Search engines: The major search engines include AltaVista, HotBot and Lycos. Submission is free.

Prepare your site first by optimizing your pages for search engines' indexing procedures. Advice on how to do this can be found at the SearchEngineWatch site.

Pay-for-performance (PFP) search engines: The top PFP search engine is GoTo. Others include Sprinks and Kanoodle.

While many search engines offer free submission, there's no guarantee your page will get a good ranking even if you make every effort to optimize it. The only way to guarantee good placement for your chosen keywords is to pay for it.

PFP search engines allow you to bid for placement of your chosen keywords. Workz.com offers an explanation and some examples of how to calculate how much you should spend on PFP search engines, based on your budget.

For a list and reviews of PFP engines, see the PayPerClickSearchEngines site. Advice on how to maximize your click-throughs can be found at GoTo.

Directories: The major directories, such as Yahoo!, are usually run by human editors, not the spiders search engines use. Prepare your Web site by putting valuable information on its pages; this is what editors look for.

Most major directories now require payment. The cost is well worth it as many of them distribute their listings to large directories, search engines and portals.

* LookSmart.com: $199 one-time fee.
* Open Directory: free.
* NBCi LiveDirectory: free.
* Yahoo!: $199. (The fee is for review of your site and doesn't guarantee your site will be listed.)

Avoiding "me too" marketing

We love this piece from Entrepreneur.com on avoiding "me too" marketing. Here are three basic tips to get you started on your way to standing out from your competitors.

1. Scope out the competition.
Before you can effectively differentiate your business, you have to understand your competitors' marketing messages as well as you do your own. Conduct a simple analysis by gathering the marketing materials from all your competitors--everything from their ads and copies of the main pages of their websites to sales brochures. Identify their key marketing messages and special offers.

Once you know how your competitors attempt to differentiate themselves, you can evaluate your similarities and differences. If there's overlap between what you promise and what you see offered by your competitors, you may need to retool more than your marketing. Sometimes, an overhaul of the way a product is offered or the addition of new services is essential to make a formerly ho-hum company stand out.

2. Take the customer's point of view.
Put yourself in your customer's shoes after you've gathered the marketing materials from your competitors. If you were trying to make a choice between their products or services, which would you go for? Why? Often, the primary deciding factor is value. That's the little bit extra that one purchase yields over another. Value is relatively subjective, and it can be tangible or intangible. For example, superior customer service can add intangible value by giving customers peace of mind that post-purchase problems will be handled better than if they were to buy from anyone else.

To find the right point of differentiation, learn what you can provide that your target audience will value the most. This may take research with members of your target audience, such as a telephone survey or roundtable discussions, to guide your message development.

3. Introduce your new message.
To be effective, your new core message--with a unique point of differentiation--must be communicated throughout your marketing campaign and sales support materials. But you don't want to roll out the wrong message. So a preliminary, short-term test using one form of media, such as a group of magazines or websites, may be the best way to determine if you're on the right track.

After you're confident your target audience is responding effectively to your new message, expand it into all media. If it represents a radical departure for your business, kick off your new advertising and sales support messaging with the support of a PR campaign. And add any interviews or coverage you get to your website. Be sure to communicate your new messaging to current customers in a way that is reassuring and helps you upsell or resell this important group.

Depending on your budget and the media you use to communicate with your prospects and current customers or clients, allow six months or more for your new message to penetrate and for your company to pull away from the pack.

Our take: Case in point, I'll use FeverPitch as an example. We were ready to vomit when he looked all the other sites for PR/marketing companies that were "results oriented" (who the hell isn't?) or that utilize "strategic thinking." What a bunch of crap. For the most part, people want a PR agency to get their name in the media. Plain and simple. Can the marketing speak.

We tried to speak to our clients like normal people and not blow smoke. That's why our site is written more conversationally as opposed to tricking potential clients with pie-in-the-sky talk.

Nine tips on designing your emails for marketing

Gail Goodman gives us nine tips for designing the emails that we use in our email marketing campaign. From entrepreneur.com:

Tip 1: Include your logo in the same location each time.
Build your brand with every marketing e-mail you send. One way to do this is to include your logo in all of your e-mail communications. The best practice is to include it in the same location each time you send out an e-mail. It may be in the header or somewhere else in the e-mail (preferably above the point where a reader would have to scroll down to see it, but don't take up the whole preview screen).

Tip 2: Keep the preview pane in mind.
A recent study by Marketing Sherpa found that 70 percent of recipients that have the capability to read e-mail through a preview pane do. What this means is your subscribers may only see a portion of your e-mail before deciding to open it and look at it in its entirety. Make sure your logo, as well as some enticing information about the e-mail contents can be seen in the preview pane.

Tip 3: Use color for emphasis
While it might be tempting to use a lot of colors in your e-mail campaigns, resist. When deciding which colors to use, start with your company's colors. All of your e-mails should represent your visual brand, and a key component of that is using your colors consistently.

Colors outside your brand should be saved for emphasis. Use it to call attention to something that is important in the e-mail--to make it really stand out to the reader.

One of our designers here at Constant Contact likes to use a cooking metaphor when he talks about using color. He makes the point that just because you have every spice on your rack doesn't mean you use each one. You use a little bit here and there to add a little flavor. It's similar with design; you want to use colors to add flavor.

Tip 4: Limit the number of fonts you use.
A good rule of thumb is to use a max of two fonts in your marketing e-mails. You may use one for the body and another for the headlines and subtitles. Use standard fonts like Arial, Times New Roman or Verdana for the greatest readability. If you use a less common font that not all the people on your list have, their computer will make a substitution that can change the format of your e-mail.

Tip 5: Make your point clearly and quickly.
When it comes to writing the copy for your e-mail, get to the point quickly. The reality is that most people scan. They don't give you much longer than a second to capture their attention. If it takes much longer than that for them to engage, you may lose them. With every moment, a reader is determining if he or she will keep reading or abandon your e-mail.

In the case of newsletters, your copy will be longer than with a promotional e-mail, but the concept of getting to the point still applies. I've found that most first drafts of articles can be chopped down to as much as half their original word count while still conveying the article's message.

Tip 6: Pick photos that support your message.
Including images in an e-mail campaign can make it more attractive and help you communicate your message. (A picture is worth a thousand words.) But this isn't true of any image. If there is too much going on in your photo or if it's poor quality, it can distract the reader and reflect poorly on your business.

When choosing an image for your campaign, look for something that is simple and easy to focus on and relates directly to your content. You don't want readers to look at an image and question what it has to do with your message. If the image doesn't support your message, it will only take away from what you're trying to communicate.

Tip 7: Don't embed your text in an image.
Many of the programs people use to receive and read e-mail have images turned off by default. To ensure that people with this default setting get your message, include text in your e-mail that is not embedded in an image.

Tip 8: Remember that white space is your friend.
What is white space? It's a resting place for the reader's eyes. Without it, your reader will not know where to look. Make sure that you have plenty of room between headlines, articles and any other content you've included in your e-mail.

Tip 9: Keep it simple.
In design, less is more. E-mails that are uncluttered visually and have a clear message get a better response. The goal of your e-mail is to get your readers to take some kind of action. You want them to visit your website, buy now, get more information, etc. A well-designed e-mail will get your readers to pay attention and make it easy for them to take the action you desire.

PR Tips aren't always helpful

Not when they are, you know, wrong. I found this article with "tips" on getting your PR campaign started. They are as follows:

Step 1: Identify a Successful Story or Model

Select your top media or publication, and find an article you wish could be about you. Study it carefully. What you are looking for is an article that is just like what you wish would be written about you. Look at and analyze a few articles. Then settle on one.

Evaluate this article’s writing structure, and glean ideas about what the editors want and publish for their audience. Identify and review the number of words in each article. Identify the number of words per paragraph. Identify the number of sentences per paragraph. Identify the number of paragraphs.

Step 2: Imitate the Structure and Content of the Success Model

Study the article and develop real understanding of the structure and purpose of each sentence and paragraph in your chosen success model. Do this, so that your own article will parallel the outline of the successfully published article. Then start at the headline. If they have a five-word headline, you now write a five-word headline. Then go on to the first sentence, then the second, then the third, and so on.

Understand what each sentence is all about and what the editor is writing, and how he or she is communicating with his or her audience. Now you can write each sentence of your news release and know it is as close to what the editors like and want you to produce.

Step 3: Innovate With Your Own Information

Write the sentences in your news release, one at a time. Match the length, tone, and function of the sentences and paragraphs you see in the article you are using as a model. Bring in information about yourself. Bring in your facts and your news and information. Tell your own stories. Add in the color and personal facts and human interest. .

With these techniques, you come close to matching the editorial interest, the readership interest, and the style of the publication you are using as a model whether it is your local newspaper or USA Today, or whatever publication you are aiming at.

You also create an article that the editor knows has been written just for them. They see and realize that you’ve done your homework. They see that it is really close or even absolutely ready for publication. This makes it very easy for an editor to use as is, with very little revision. You make a very good impression when this happens.

Our take: We don't recommend following this process at all. They are basically suggesting that you try write a release about you and your company that the editor will be able to take and put into their editorial content.

Good luck with that. Unless it's a small trade journal, VERY few media outlets accept submitted articles. There are some that do, but the problem is that you write all about you, it looks like an advertisement and most credible outlets (except for some trade outlets) aren't having that.

In order to save time, see if you can get the editor on the phone and if that's not possible, send him/her an email. If you can open a dialogue, they will tell you the most useful information for them and the best way to supply it.

Or, you can spend hours upon hours guessing.

Same-sex marriages to boost the economy?

Advertising Age says yes. According to this article, California should haul in some $683 million of additional revenue over the next year due to the new ruling that will allow same-sex marriage.

Hotels, retailers, florists, bands, photographers, caters etc. rake in a lot of money from the wedding industry this year, with the average cost of a wedding just over $28,000.

This makes perfect sense to us. I don't want to get political, but we have a crappy economy and a government (Dems and Republicans alike) that thought giving people $600 would stimulate the economy. All the while, treating people like equals and ignoring a law that is religion-based (separation of church and state) could be a huge help to stimulate our economy.

Frustrating.

This information comes from a study by the Williams Institute at the University of California.

"For over 20 years, analyses of other states' consideration of opening marriage to same-sex couples have argued that the first state or states to do so would experience a wave of increased tourism from out-of-state couples that would bring millions of additional dollars in revenue to state businesses," the report states. "In the spring of 2004, the issuance of gay-marriage licenses in Portland, Ore. and San Francisco provided support for these predictions. ... Furthermore, in anticipation of the availability of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, cities in that state experienced a spike in hotel reservations, catering requests and other wedding-related orders."

Shift to online advertising partly responsible for slow down

Good article today by Joe Mandese on MediaPost.com today talking about the shift from traditional advertising to online advertising and its effect on ad spending.

Advertising economist Jon Swallen actually thinks that this transition is a huge reason for the decrease in ad spending and that it really doesn't have as much to do with the economy as we might think.

"Some of what we are seeing continues to reflect that shift from traditional to digital media," said Swallen, senior vice president-research at TNS Media Intelligence.

"I think we are starting to realize that our expectation for what constitutes normal growth in advertising has been diminished from earlier in this decade," Swallen said. "We used to think of 3% to 4% growth as our birthright. Now 3% may be the high end of what we can expect."

Makes sense to us. People are terrified of the unknown and don't forget that the internet is still largely unknown to many people. The internet is so easy to track as far as ads, if you haven't already, we suggest doing some testing.

Ad spending down

Crain's NY Business cites a Wednesday report from TNS Media Intelligence that advertising expenditures are up just 0.6% in the first quarter of 2008.

Not surprisingly, newspapers have taken the biggest hit and are down 5.2% with automotive and real estate advertising cutbacks. Radio is next in line, dropping 4.5%.

“That [slowing momentum] points to the larger uncertainties that advertisers face,” said Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research at TNS Media. “They’re hesitant about the overall economy.”

I don't know that that's really news. Pretty obvious I would think.

"Consumers are the ultimate engine behind the advertising economy,” said Swallen, who sees the second quarter winding up much like the first. “As long as the current economic situation is as pessimistic or cautious as it is, it’s unlikely there’s going to be a resumption of robust spending.”

Three cheers for gas prices and a real estate debacle!

New GM ad campaign to say no to Big Oil

According to Ad Age, General Motors is to begin a corporate campaign that will tackle the ridiculous oil prices head on.

"Dear Oil," a new TV spot begins. "We've had this great relationship for many years. We think we will both be a lot happier and healthier if we see less of each other."

The new spots, aimed at hammering home a Green message, will begin airing on NBC's Meet the Press on June 22nd.

10 Reasons not to buy the new iPhone

Anyone else feel like the iPhone has been jammed and marketed down our throats? Hell, I own one and I still feel iPhoned out. All the major tech sites and blogs are iPhone post after iPhone post. They are going to have to play catch up with the other tech news that is happening now, but that they are too busy to cover.

Well, Jim Lynch of ExtremeTech.com offers 10 reasons why he won't buy one. Just thought it was something a little different.

His #1 reason? 3G not worth it:

1. 3G
Do I really care about having 3G? No, I don't. While Edge is slow sometimes, it's quite usable for the time that I spend out and about. When I'm home using my iPhone I don't care about Edge or 3G since I use my own network via WiFi and it's very fast.

Now don't get me wrong, I know that some of you probably are thrilled that 3G is available and more power to you if it floats your boat. But I'm lukewarm about it and I just don't see a reason enough to buy a new iPhone.

And what about AT&T's price 3G price increase? An unlimited 3G data plan will cost $30 per month instead of the $20 per month for an Edge based plan. Is 3G worth $10 more per month? No way! Not for me it isn't! And shame on AT&T for ripping off iPhone owners by raising the price!

One has to wonder why Steve Jobs didn't put the smack down on AT&T for this. Or perhaps Apple doesn't care, especially if it means more $$$ flowing into Apple's coffers? $10 more for 3G connectivity is a rip off.

Dead businesses

Great article on Fortune.com (or whatever URL it becomes once I type that in) on dead businesses. I agree that there are a lot of BS artists out there and Stanley Bing lists some of the crap that they will spew regarding dead businesses/industries:

* The theater
* Movies in movie houses
* Public schools
* Radio, because of satellite radio,
* Satellite radio, because of Internet radio and ITunes
* Broadcast television, because of cable and Internet video
* Cable television, because of satellite TV and Internet video
* Satellite television, because of digital television conversion and Internet video
* Internet video, because of digital television conversion and downloading
* DVDs, because of downloading
* Downloading, because of the ubiquity of broadband streaming
* Personal computers with hard drive capacity, due to cloud computing
* Land-line telephones, because they’re so 20th Century
* Any internet company that is not Google (GOOG), for obvious reasons
* Google, because, well, how long can they keep THIS up?
* Books, of course
* Magazines, except the ones that we’re on the cover of, and…
* Newspapers

The crux of his article is about newspapers and the growing belief that they are a dead business. My personal belief isn't that they are dead, but just being adjusted as we grow through the internet. Do I think the days of the two-newspaper cities are coming to an end (aside from NYC)? Yeah. Do I think newspapers will dry up and die? No. Stanley goes on to defend newspapers and why he thinks they won't die:

* I like newspapers. I look at a few every day and even read some of each;
* I don’t believe everything I read in the paper, but I’m interested in what they think is interesting;
* Newspapers have been around a long time, from medieval days through the time of Horace Greeley (above) and beyond. Radio didn’t kill them. TV didn’t kill them. The internet will not kill them;
* If there were no newspapers, all we’d have is the Internet, whose capacity for the promulgating and dispensation of bulls**t is unparalleled;
* I am NOT interested in a PERSONAL, daily e-mail informing me only of the stuff I pre-select as of interest to me. What’s the pleasure in that?
* If we all had a euro for every article in some medium that declared another medium dead, we’d all be Europeans;
* Aggregators can only aggregate content if there is content to aggregate. No content, no aggregators;
* Contrary to popular belief, journalism is an actual profession that takes training, talent and skill, and one of the most rigorous and necessary places in which it’s pursued is in newspapers;
* 89% of all citizen-journalists are just full of it.

What not to do

Sometimes in life it's just as important knowing what not to do, as knowing what to do.

This can't be the right way to create an ad. I am embarrassed for this commercial for Mohegan Sun. I know that good commercials aren't necessarily entertaining (the Head On commercials are brilliant), but I don't see what this does to promote the brand. I will never think of Mohegan Sun when I hear the real version of this song.

Book recommendation

This book isn't new, but it's filled with excellent information. It's called The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell.

About the book from their own site:

"It's a book about change. In particular, it's a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. For example, why did crime drop so dramatically in New York City in the mid-1990's? How does a novel written by an unknown author end up as national bestseller? Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill? Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? I think the answer to all those questions is the same. It's that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us."

You'll definitely learn some valuable information that you can apply to your business.

Make sure your emails are getting through properly

23% of retailers that send emails with images in them are having their messages come through . That's like when I get an email that is completely in Russian or Japanese. It's nothing less than completely annoying.

"The results of this study underscore the importance of proactively designing email to compensate for image suppression," said Jordan Ayan, CEO of SubscriberMail, in a statement. "Specifically, email marketers must design emails to work with and without images present and test to ensure optimal image rendering. Marketers whose design accounted for image suppression reported impressive lifts in key performance arehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifas. Still, a significant percent of email marketers realize this issue, yet fail to take action to address it."

Other findings from this study:

•14% of retailers compose their navigation bars with HTML text rather than images.

•3% of retailers used HTML call-to-action buttons rather than images.

•88% of retailers include a "click to view" link in their preheader text.

•63% of retailers include whitelisting instructions in their preheader text.

•The emails from only 21% of retailers displayed meaningful snippet text.

As a non-email marketer, I urge those that are to get it together. We get enough annoying nonsense.

Ads we like

We're just going to keep it going. This time, in the spirit of the NBA Finals. The Lakers and Celtics are renewing their 1980's rivalry on Thursday night as they battle for the title for the first time since 1987. What better way to get things going than with this great rap commercial. What's worse: the shoe or the rapping?

Also, why do we think that with today's NBA, the name "weapon" wouldn't make it past the first Converse brainstorming meeting?

Ads we like

Thank you, Trigon BlueCross BlueShield. Thanks to Ron for forcing me to look this up and watch it. We don't know if it will influence you to change insurance carriers, but so what? Pretty damn funny:

Gawker rips "experts"

We've got to agree with Gawker.com here. They rip all these so called "experts" in a variety of fields (especially marketing) and tell you how to become an expert in any field:

"Take a group of things in that field that have already proven themselves to be successful. Then find common characteristics among the items in that group. Put forward those characteristics as your own personal advice about how to be successful in said field. Then, when your audience discovers that simply staring at a bunch of characteristics of things successful in the past does nothing to help them make the hard decisions about the future, you can just shrug and say, "Hey, these things are complex!""

Specifically, they lay into Al Reis of Ad Age for giving four tips on how to write great slogans.

It's not the worst example of an "expert" serving up a steaming pile, but we kind of see where they are coming from. But, Reis isn't alone, millions of people do this stuff.

Fixing your email marketing campaign

Stephanie Miller at MediaPost.com offers some help to battle a slagging email campaign.

There are three main problems to combat:

1. Subscribers are fickle and unpredictable. They change their minds immediately after subscribing, they complain when they mean to unsubscribe, they even complain when we just send messages during their busiest days, and they often ignore our best sales messages.

2. At the same time, ISPs and Receivers lump our carefully produced marketing messages in with all bulk mailers and apply the same level of mistrust and cynicism to our mail streams as they do the non-permissioned mail streams of mortgage ads and get-rich-quick schemes.

3. Still further, others in the interactive marketing team and executive management are just as likely to view the email channel as “free” and dismiss requests for resources for data integration or analytics.

So what can you do? Here is some of Stephanie's advice:

"Instead of only batch and blast, insert two to three more relevant messages into your promotions stream. Include a few tips to help readers make their living room more comfortable, get a jump on spring cleaning, or be more productive at work. When readers find value in your messages, they are more likely to open the next message, and so on..

"If you don’t have triggered message technology (although every MTA/ESP worth their salt can provide this), batch up everyone who is new in the past week, purchased in the past month or hasn’t opened or clicked in the past three months. Sending a relevant follow-up message after these behaviors has boosted campaign response by up to 600% for many marketers. Of course, it’s on a small base, so the trick is to cover as much of your file as possible."

We love the first tip. Quick tip lists (can be about anything) are always fun to read.

Creating a great package for your product

Kathleen Ryan O'Connor of Fortune Small Business talks about the importance of packaging and how to come up with packaging that is right for your product.

It sounds basic, but there should be greater emphasis on function rather than look. I know it sounds stupid, but they give several examples of people whose products were arriving damaged. How much money did that cost to fix?

How to deal with bloggers

We love bloggers (and why shouldn't we?), and here is a great piece on how to treat the bloggers that you will help you with exposure. According to Entrepreneur.com, here are some tips:

1. Create a great product. Bloggers have a very low tolerance for bull shiitake--even lower than journalists do because bloggers seldom rely on editors to "cleanse" their writing. It's easy to say you're going after bloggers, but this assumes that they'll like your product or service. The most important thing you can do to attract bloggers is to create a great product.

2. Cite and link. Linking is the sincerest form of flattery. It's hard to trash a company, product, service or person that links to your blog. Personally, I've never met a person who linked to my blog that I didn't like.

3. Stroke them. Marketers are already inundating popular bloggers with generic praise like "Not a day goes by that I don't read your blog," or "I've forwarded your blog to many of my friends." To break through the noise, craft a compliment about a specific entry. For example: "I found your entry about rainmaking very helpful, and I'd like to make you aware of a new customer relationship management software product that we make."

4. Give swag. Most bloggers don't make a lot of money from their blogging efforts. Thus, product samples, T-shirts, tickets to the Stanley Cup finals and so on can go a long way. I'm not saying you can buy bloggers, but you can make them happy pretty easily. Dollar for dollar, swag for bloggers is one of your best marketing investments.

5. Make connections before you need them. Mediocre marketers try to befriend bloggers when they need them. Good marketers befriend bloggers before they need them. Great marketers befriended bloggers while they were working at their previous companies. Make lots of connections. Today's egocentric, self-indulgent blogger with five page views per day may well be tomorrow's Technorati 100 stud.

6. Be responsive. This common-sense "duh-ism" is violated almost every day: If you want buzz, you have to return bloggers' phone calls and e-mails. You are operating on their schedule; they are not operating on yours.

7. Use a rifle, not a shotgun. Any person who carpet-bombs bloggers should be shot. The effect is the same as sending two dozen people in a company the same e-mail requesting help. Not only will this approach fail, but bloggers will also conclude that you're a bozo.

8. Be a foul-weather friend. Anyone can be friendly, happy and available when times are good. But the biggest test occurs when the weather turns foul: Your company screws up, or the blogger writes something negative (justified or not). Some companies erect barriers and hunker down--a big mistake.

9. Be a source. There are times when your company simply isn't worthy of coverage. Don't take your ball and go home. Instead, pay it forward and help the blogger out by acting as a source of information, introducing him or her to other sources and offering insightful analyses. The next time, you may be the subject of the blog, not just a source.

More companies offering free gas

With gas prices spiraling out of control, more companies are offering free gas to consumers. Rite Aid is offering one consumer a week a chance at $2,600 of gasoline if you switch to their prescription fills.

"With gas prices continuing to climb, pretty soon one of the only trips people will be making is to their local pharmacy for necessities like prescriptions because we are in such nearby convenient neighborhood locations," said John Learish, Rite Aid SVP/marketing in a release.

But get this, it's not valid in New York or New Jersey. Screw you, Rite Aid!

Re-branding the Franklin Institute

We think this is neat. The Franklin Institute, a well-known museum in Philadelphia, recently underwent a re-branding, but they started "curiously" in-house.

Overnight, the campaign began by planting questions marks all over the building, with the employees completely unaware. On May 8, they found the question marks everywhere and received t-shirts with the new branding message "Curious?". They discovered the ?'s in the same way that consumers would discover them in the city.

This got the employees all amped up and behind the new three-week campaign before it even began. Then, the question marks showed up on dogs, shaved heads, in the grass at LOVE Park, Rittenhouse Square and Washington Square, and projected videos ran on the PECO Building and the Cira Center.

Everything in the campaign directed you to this microsite.

Neat!

9 ways to take care of your email subscribers

If you are lucky enough to get people to subscribe to your e-newsletter or whatever emails you plan on sending them, it's important to treat them right. From Mediapost.com, here are nine ways to do just that:

Be sensitive to their needs. A preference page offered at the point of email registration is the best way to start the relationship off on the right foot. Tell them what you have to offer in your email program, and allow them to select the number and kind of communications they want. This respects their boundaries, and provides you with instant segmentation data, so you can send information about just the categories they are interested in.

Don't ramble. Confusing emails that are hard to navigate and jammed with offers will frustrate or bore most subscribers. Most emails - even long ones - can be made a pleasure to read and respond to if written and designed with great care.

Listen. Do you have feedback mechanisms for your subscribers? Insert a link to a customer ratings Web page or directly to customer service. Then subscribers can tell you when they have a question or problem, want to express a wish, or even send you kudos. Before you know it, you will be engaged!

Flowers or candy? The age-old question of incentives should be tailored to the preferences of your subscribers. You can find out what they like best by testing promotions and incentives to see which ones are more effective. Free shipping, discounts, and buy-one-get-one offers are popular (and nonfattening) ways to treat your customers.

Don't be a pest. What is the right amount of email to send? It depends. A friend received 34 emails in one month from an airline rewards program. Now that smells of desperation. Coming on too strong or stalking the inbox is a real turn-off. Test how much email your market will bear lest you find yourself being marked as spam.

Say you're sorry. "Love means never having to say you're sorry," sighed the characters in "Love Story." Notwithstanding the movie, sometimes love does mean saying, "Sorry." Did you have a technical breakdown and accidentally spam your subscribers with 12 copies of the same email? Did you send an out-of-date offer? Did you miss several cycles of email updates because of an internal crisis? Do own up to your error and say you are sorry. (Maybe wait a day if you are apologizing for accidental spam.) Be humble and gracious and make it up to them with the promise of paying more attention to your processes. This is a good time for flowers and candy, too (see above) to reward their understanding.

Make love, not war. How would you respond to a suitor who described you as a "target" and waged a never-ending campaign to lighten your wallet? Now you know how consumers view aggressive email streams that inundate them with urgent exhortations to buy. Treat your email subscribers like friends and family, adding value to their lives with useful information and genuine reasons to try your offerings. They will reward you generously.

Spread the love (responsibly). What better way to build your list than to have your subscribers do it for you? When they love you, they will tell their friends, especially if you make it easy for them. Include "forward to a friend" functionality n every email, and make it possible for your subscribers to enter a personal note on the forwarded emails. Don't forget to make it easy for the new friends to subscribe directly.

Tie the knot. As long as all is going well, you can take the relationship to the next level and ask your subscribers to join a program with special benefits reserved for loyal supporters. Offer them an attractive two-way commitment, and shower them with rewards when they meet their obligations. After all, you want that special guy or gal to stick around forever.

Good news in bad economy: Direct mail is down

Marketing analysts at Mintel Comperemedia estimate that direct mailings from financial service companies (banks, credit cards, etc) are down about 13% in the first quarter of 2008. That's , which is a great thing if you hate unsolicited mail.

According to Mintel, the bad economy is the main reason, but there were also other factors such as a rise in postage and oil costs.