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7. Get ready for permanent change

dc6534@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 10:10:56 CST

“It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” – Charles Darwin.

A brilliant eMarketing strategy depends on thinking and people not technology.

Successful people today not only know about the right marketing strategies and tactics, they are also seen as trusted networking hubs. They have certain key values and attitudes in common. And they have the specific mental skills to leverage the business potential of the Internet and deal effectively with its continuous change.

Insight

In today’s networked world, your reputation is your most precious asset. Your individual profile is now more important than the authority of your company or organisation.

How to apply

Become a HyperThinker (see http://www.hyperthinker.com)
Once you have started this be prepared for an amazing experience of constant change and learning.
Be ready to challenge your assumptions every week. Change is no longer a bad moment to go through, it’s a permanent feature of your work.
Develop the right thinking and atttitude to deal with this, test everything and become a change fanatic

Sources & References

The HyperThinker Experiment (also download the book and/or a summary)
www.hyperthinker.com
HyperThinker Forum on business networking site on OpenBC
https://www.openbc.com/net/hyperthinker/

ZN eMarketing Agency develops and applies HyperThinking to the new communication world
http://www.zn.be

Insight 6

6. Integrate your marketing

dc6534@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 10:07:24 CST

The web challenges conventional thinking on marketing and communication. It doesn’t make any sense to separate communication disciplines with PR, PA, corporate communication, advertising etc. One day your chairman talks about your annual report, then a product is launched and then crisis hits and the products is pulled. This all happens in the same place: the web.

Insight

The one shot piece of communication is over. The media landscape it too noisy, too cluttered. There are too many channels, too many choices and too much span.

How to apply

The Internet has brought marketing and sales closer together. You should no longer divorce sales, marketing, PR, advertising as separate discipline. eMarketing requires an understanding of these different fields and how they all lead to a business result.
- You need an integrated strategy where all the players in your organization (even the guys incharge of TV or print or Public Affairs) have the same overall measurable objectives – defined by business goals.
- Make the web a mandatory strategic hub of your marketing plan. Ok, this is a tough one but it is the only way to start pulling together the different threads of your communication activties into a focused a highly effective effort.
- Make sure everyone is on board for this. PR, sales, marketing, IT and product development; they should all feel that the site is the voice of your company – a voice that never stops talking, but does so in a human language not like a corporate clone.
- Never approve an advertising brief without having thought of how it was integrated in the web strategy.
- Make sure all your online and offline communication have an memorable URL on them.
- Think your communication and your customer interaction as dialog with a start, a continuous exchange, different cycles and different stories.
- When your customers follow a campaign URL, they should see the relevant content first. They must not get lost corporate information. A good standard practice is to create specific ‘landing pages’ for each campaign.
- When you create your next campaign

Think of the business objectives you want to achieve, write them down and share them with the whole team (from designers, to programmers, and all the relevant players internally)
Examine all the existing communication efforts that you are planning (brochures, flyers, site, e-mail, tv) - and make sure they are seamlessly connected to a business goal (with a URL visible on each piece of communication which drives traffic to your site)
Create a team of people from the different departments so that they can all help contribute to the campaign
Set clear and measurable objectives that you will be able to track (number of visits, registrations, sales leads, etc)
Make sure the whole team has regular access to information on the campaign progress – give them a digest of key information so people can react and adapt to change and opportunities
Encourage everyone to share new ideas of things they seen online that could be used for your campaign – on the web the true secret of success is learning by imitation

Sources & References

Want to raise landing page conversions by up to 40%? Here are step-by-step instruction
http://www.sherpastore.com/Landing-Page-Handbook-Raise-Conversions.html?8930
Cross media research
http://www.eiaa.net/research/cross-media.asp
The future for Agencies – Brand Republic, September 2006
http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/br/article/590547/the-future-agencies/
7 Ways to integrate online with TV
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/10908.asp
eBook from Brian J. Carroll : Start with a lead, eight critical success factors for lead generation
http://blogstartwithalead.com
“Attracting More Customers, how to create an irresistible “elevator speech” that attracts clients to you” from Jill Konrath
http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com/
RainToday.com. Online source for insight, advice, and tools for service business rainmakers, marketers, and leaders.
http://www.raintoday.com/
Free prize: The one peace of advice you can’t sell without This ebook gather views from 11 experts including Seth Godin
http://www.raintoday.com/pages/1562_download_the_one_piece_of_advice_you_can_t_sell_without.cfm?redirect=yes
Excellent white papers and articles on marketing and leadership.
http://www.whillsgroup.com/
eMarketing forum on business networking site OpenBChttps://www.openbc.com/net/emarketing2/

ZN eMarketing Agency can help you with your strategy and the integration of all your communication efforts
http://www.zn.be

Insight 5

Insight 7

5. Make friends with the barbarians at the gate

dc6534@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 10:00:50 CST

“We want to be more customer focused”. It’s the intention of every major company, but they often fail to deliver. Today, the web is forcing companies not only to live up to their claims, but to actually follow where customers are leading.

The web is empowering customers to take control of the communication process. There are thousands of customers who are using the web to express their views, feelings about companies and products.

They do this through personal blogs - where people would review their favourite brand of MP3 players, ice cream or fishing equipment - or through organised customer forums like tripadvisor.com, where you can rate the hotel you went to during the last holiday, or epinions where you can rank and review products. Or on Amazon, where your can rate books and CDs.

Insight

Customers are taking over. Marketers should closely follow what is being said about their company, products and competitors. Instead of trying to control what people will say, you need to join the conversation.

How to apply

Encourage people in your company to start a blog on your products – giving customers real, authentic insights on these products (if you don’t do it, some else will)
Respond constructively to criticism about your products and services on forums – show that you listen and that you care.
Create your own platforms to gather comments on your products – call this C&D (connect and develop). Make your customers part of your virtual R&D team so that they can help make it better
Find blogs of fans of your products and point to them on your site, show them that you appreciate them and that they matter to you
Let go and don’t be afraid of loosing control of the process: you have already lost it – this is about adapting to the new rules of the game
You’ve reached the next level of marketing when - instead of creating messages for your target audience - you start creating stories together.
Use the things you have learned on the blogs and forums to adapt your message, language and learn from the ones you sell to.
Co-create content with your audience, let them be a part of the campaign.

Ultimately it is your customer who holds the key to the success of your next campaign. Think about ways of ensuring that he will want to promote your products to his peers. How can facilitate this? What information does he need, what mechanism can you create to help?

Sources & References

Among the audience, New Media Survey – The Economist 20 April 2006
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6794156
Attentio Attentio is monitoring and analysing social media such as blogs and discussion forums.
http://www.attentio.com/
Technorati. Search engine for blogs. “Who’s saying what. Right now.”
http://www.technorati.com/
How to Build Traffic Virally: 3 Buzzworthy Tips
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/barrier.cfm?ident=27530
ClueTrain Manifesto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluetrain_Manifesto
“The authors assert that the Internet is unlike the ordinary media used in mass marketing as it enables people to have "human to human" conversations, which have the potential to transform traditional business practices radically.”

Business Blog Consulting is a site devoted to demonstrating how effective weblogs can be for communicating with customers and marketing to new customer prospects
http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/

For Immediate Release: twice weekly podcast commentary on public relations and technology by Shel Holz and Neville Hobson. Impressive: they recently did their 179th show.
http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/

Podleaders – Thought Leaders podcast, hosted by Tom Raftery
http://www.podleaders.com/

ZN eMarketing Agency can help you identify opportunities in with the chaos of the social media: blogs, wikis, forums, personal ezines
http://www.zn.be

Insight 4

Insight 6

4. Target people to get Traffic

dc6534@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 09:53:41 CST

In the early days of the Internet, people believed that if you built a truly great website, this would be enough and visitors would flock in automatically. This may have been true of a web with only a few thousand websites, but with millions of sites competing in a cluttered environment you cannot succeed without a clear plan to first attract visitors – and then keep them engaged.

Insight

To attract traffic to your site, you need to communicate to people when and where they are open to your message. This means finding out which information your target group is looking for on the Internet.

How to apply

Some of the most effective tools to generate ‘qualified traffic’:

Google Adwords: One of the most effective communication tools on the Internet. The basic principle is simple; when you search for a keyword on Google, you will see a box appear on the right hand corner of your screen. If you click on this box, it will take you to a site of an advertiser, who has chosen to pay for that specific key word. If people don’t click, you (the advertiser) doesn’t pay.
e-Press releases: the web has a number of wire services that enable you to spread the story of your company, your new product or new idea to thousands of people.
Search Engine Optimisation: Make sure that your info can be found in the relevant search engines when people search for your key words. You can improve your ranking with a strategy to get sites to link to yours. But we recommend starting with Google Adwords as SEO performance is more difficult to scan and a bit slower to deliver actual results.
Portals, ezines, and relevant communities: Find out where this audience is currently surfing and target them with tailored messages.
eBay as a promotional channel: eBay is one of the biggest online platforms where products are being sold and bought. It is increasingly being used by companies to promote new products and as a way to get free publicity. BMW launched a new car on eBay. Why not develop an exclusive range of your products, get them signed by a celebrity and sold for auction on eBay – this will get you PR, buzz and visitors.
Benefit from the eBay traffic. You are selling something and you’re trying to attract people to your merchant website? Think of moving some products to eBay shop. Their site has millions of daily visitors. eBay offers a wide panel of merchant services (nearly) for free.
Decentralize your traffic. Instead of expecting people to visit you, why not consider the other way around? You may look for communities discussing similar matters, and take part in blogs, forums, etc, supplying comments or actual content (news feeds).

Sources & References

What’s an eBay store
http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/start.html
eBay Sellers Go Back to School: 10 Tips
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2006/sb20060907_223337.htm?campaign_id=bier_sms.g3a.rsssd33
Google Adwords
https://adwords.google.com/select/Login
Press Release Distribution Services
http://www.e-consultancy.com/about/advertising/press-release-distribution.asp
https://prndirect.prnewswire.com/
http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/

ZN eMarketing Agency can help you find ways to build traffic to your website. ZN is a certified Google AdWords company
http://www.zn.be

Insight 3

Insight 5

3. Think Like A publisher

dc6534@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 09:45:01 CST

“Markets are conversations” – The Cluetrain Manifesto (http://www.cluetrain.com)

However basic this may sound, most companies struggle to keep the content of their site updated and relevant. They still approach their site like an ‘interactive brochure’.

For a site to work, you need to think about it like a living, evolving publication. This means treating it like an editor, with a publishing strategy to create, renew and improve content on a continuous basis.

Insight

Your online content is critical for your offline sales.

How to apply

Keeping your content - articles, videos, pictures and audio files - fresh and compelling is the simplest, yet one of the toughest of all your challenges.

Approach your website like a news editor would. Which story will excite the audience? What facts are they looking for? Remember it is the place everyone can go to learn about your company – customers, suppliers, staff, journalists and even your family. Ask your son what he would put on your website.
Develop an editorial policy for your site. Don’t push sales content. Go for educational content that is focused on your latest issues.
Have team of writers to keep it current and consistent. Make sure this is not the IT team. Use a Content Management System (CMS) to enable your communication people to do it.
B2B: Publish exclusive reports and white papers on a regular basis. Offer them for free, or consider selling them.
B2C: Create entertaining online experiences, such as a quizz or a game
Publish content produced by third parties (this is called ‘syndication’). Invite your suppliers to showcase their exciting stuff.
Need a quick win? Recycle your offline material. Just put it all online; print ads, tv commercials, radio clips - but work with an ‘interaction scenario’ that lets the user see certain content when it’s relevant.
Or… even better: Let your consumers do the work. Ask them to rate your service, design your products, share their experiences, write articles >> also see Insight 6 “Barbarians at the Gate”

Sources & References

Content Critical: Gaining Competitive Advantage through High-Quality Web Content
http://www.amazon.com/Content-Critical-Competitive-Advantage-High-Quality/dp/027365604X/ref=cm_lm_fullview_prod_3/103-9322367-9367052?ie=UTF8
Check out the site of Gerry McGovern, author of 'Content Critical' and his theory of the long neck - practical stuff: http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/
Makeover Case Study: From Print Publisher to Web ecommerce Powerhouse
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/barrier.cfm?contentID=2951
Channel to expand your knowledge of the various content management options in the market and how to get the best out of them
http://www.e-consultancy.com/topic/content-management/

ZN eMarketing Agency can help you with your editorial plan, information architecture and content management
http://www.zn.be

Insight 2

Insight 4

A HyperThinker’s Guide to eMarketing

dc6534@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 05:10:49 CST

7 Tips and How to Apply Them

Beta Version

This short guide was designed for marketers who want to start shifting towards emarketing in their organisation.

It offers you some practical ideas that you can implement today and some insight into what works and what doesn’t in online campaigning.

This document is work in progress, so help us improve you by giving your input on this wiki[1] version of this guide. Why not adding your own tip?

Also, the Web is rich of tutorials, references, resources, guides, etc., please help us to populate the reference section at the end of each tip. We are very eager to see what you are reading about.

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[1] A wiki is a type of website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring.

1. Start exploiting the ultimate Marketing Machine

dc6534@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 05:07:55 CST

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” – John Wanamaker, father of modern advertising.

‘If it moves measure it’ - Meg Whitman, CEO eBay

The biggest attraction for most senior executives towards using the Internet in marketing is the ability to measure the impact of almost every action you undertake. This is in stark contrast with traditional TV or magazine or even billboard advertising where although executives new that in the end it worked, it was impossible to tell what worked.

Insight

The Internet has truly transformed John Wanamaker’s axiom. Marketing people are now forced to understand the art of measurement like never before.

How to apply

What to measure? Here are a few simple variables that you can start looking at. As you become more familiar with the measurement tools you are able to understand an increasing number of links and trends and observe their impact.

Traffic to your website: Whatever campaign you undertake, one clear indication of success will be the number of people who came to your site as a result of the campaign.
You should track this carefully, looking for Unique Visitors (the number of people who came to your site once or several times over a period of time). Try to correlate as much as possible the number of visits to the actual actions you were doing at the time. If traffic increases on Thursday was it because of a banner, a magazine add, or simply an item in the news?
Second look at where people go on your website, which pages do they visit most often and how long to they stay there. You can use a range of software to do this, but why not start with the best one that also happens to be free: Google Analytics ( http://www.google.com/analytics/)
Referring links: another good indicator of how well your site is doing in a given community is the number of sites that connect to you site. You can do this in Google simply by typing “link:” before your URL in the Google search engine (e.g. “link:www.zn.be”).
Blogging: you can check how many times people are talking about your products, services, and issues in the blogging community. To start with, use a service like Technorati.com that allows you to search in the content of blogs. You will be able to assess the frequency and quality of what is said about the keywords that you are interested in. More advanced tools also exist to in depth monitor the buzz around a specific topic or campaign.
Newsletter registration: If you don’t have a registration module on your site; get one. You will be able to measure how many people choose to sign up to your site. This is a strong indicator of the interest people have in your company and product. Apart from name and email address, be careful with the additional information you ask for. Always explain why you need it. It should have a direct relevance for your campaign objective.
Sales: This is a simple but obvious indicator of the success of a marketing campaign: how many sales did you generate online or offline? If you sell online – measure who buys, when they buy and how they get to your site.
If you are running an online ad campaign: Measure how many people clicked your ad, how many people find you via Google. Try out different banners and measure which worked and which ones didn’t.

With each new communication effort you should look for ways to measure your impact. Decide upfront which variables to track, so your team can prepare the setup accordingly. Think about your campaign in terms of measurable objectives and create a performance dashboard to monitor it. This will keep you focused. It also allows you to take corrective action based on what works and what doesn’t – a quantum leap forward compared to John Wanamaker’s time.

Sources & References

EIAA Online Branding Effectiveness Study 2004
http://www.eiaa.net/research/adeffectiveness.asp
This study conclusively demonstrates that online marketing works as a means of building brands and increasing purchase intent. It also reveals online advertising has a significant impact on FMCG brands, a sector not traditionally seen as a widespread adopter of online marketing.

“The Ultimate Marketing Machine” - The Economist 6 July 2006
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7138905

ZN eMarketing Agency can help you with Web traffic monitoring tools and with Website Audit
http://www.zn.be

Insight 2

2. Start with email and keep it simple

dc6534@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 05:03:22 CST

When you start a project in the eMarketing space, start from what is simple, something that you understand. On the Internet, often the simplest ideas have the most power.

Insight
Email, one of the most basic and simple technologies of the Internet is still one of the most powerful tools that any marketer can deploy in a campaign.

How to apply
Of course the technology being simple doesn't mean that you don't need to have a smart and well-thought strategy to make your email campaign work. Here are a few simple steps to get started on an email campaign that allows you to measure impact and ROI:

Start with an eNewsletter: plan to write a regular update for your friends, prospects and suppliers
Build a permission database: use your website to invite people to sign-up and communicate to them about your products and services. If possible, avoid purchasing a list from databases – this rarely works and often backfires. And always encourage people to forward your email to a friend by adding a button on your communications.
Prepare email with - a good subject line, clear, short and compelling content
Keep the design simple – HTML design is not always useful. We found that simple emails (without layout and graphics) often deliver better results than graphically designed ones.
Measure the results of your campaign (how many people clicked to open your e-mail or on a link inside).
Innovate within a simple framework. You can easily start introducing simple innovations in your email newsletter, from a podcast (sound file) to a video so that people can get more information and a better feeling for who you are and what you do.

Once you get comfortable with this tool, you can start a step-by-step process of introducing more sophisticated elements to your email campaign, from automated responses, to one-to-one marketing.

Sources & References
Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/14/permission.html
http://www.sethgodin.com/permission/
Email marketing to your own list (newsletters, sales alerts, autoresponders)
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/search.cfm?contentCode=thd
The laws of simplicity
http://www.amazon.com/Laws-Simplicity-Design-Technology-Business/dp/0262134721
http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/SIMPLICITY/
ZN eMarketing Agency can help you set-up your eNewsletter approach and implement it
http://www.zn.be

Other Useful Resources:
1. Email Design and Deliverability Tips
http://www.spinnakerpro.com/emaildesigntips.html

Insight 1

Insight 3

Workshop Insights List

JoostvandeLoo — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 08:24:43 CDT

1. Last year 69 per cent of Americans said they are interested in “products that enable them to block, skip or opt out of being exposed to marketing and advertising”.

2. YouTube serves up 100 million videos a day online

3. CUSTOMER MADE is a trend. Last summer Nokia invited consumers and non-Nokia designers to share ideas and design their next new cool phone. Entries came from all over the world.

4. "Forget China, India and the Internet: economic growth is driven by women" – Tom Peters, backed by the Economist

5. “Free is the natural state of things, money only optimizes” – Kevin Kelly, editor at large at Wired Magazine.

6. There’s a shift in what gives people status. People are boasting less about traditional symbols like their car and more about their lifestyle, experiences and creative skills.

7. 45 percent of workers want to change jobs at least every three to five years.

8. Wikipedia now has more than 2 million registered voluntary contributors.

9. About 850 000 people are currently registered to a 3-D virtual world called Second Life (SL). Users are modifying the SL world and participate in its virtual economy, which has begun to operate as a "real" market.