Topic: e-mail marketing lists
Issue: I get requests all the time from senior managers about how we can grow our e-mail database. Most of our data comes from our existing customers. There are a few ways we could create interest in doing business with us, but that is for another blog post.
Today, I got a sales rep of a list reseller company all worked up, hostile and offended, just from asking a few basic questions about their company. Preliminary research about their company showed that they manage two websites, one is registered in the UK and the other is registered in Ireland. It has one sales office in San Francisco and a data center in India. There is zero information about their company on either website, why wouldn't I think it's a subsidiary of a larger company? Mid-conversation I realized that the company had no identity and they were completely unaware of what differentiated themselves from other list firms.
What did I ask?
What process do you use to verify your e-mail marketing data?
What is your pricing like, could you give me an example?
Tell me about your company.
How long have you been in business?
How large is your company?
What I didn't get to ask was:
How often do you scrub your database?
What's the recency of your data?
What's your policy on opt-outs?
Is your company a member of the DMA (Direct Marketing Association)?
They probably started off with good intentions, but there's nothing on their website to suggest that they are CAN-SPAM compliant or value the integrity of their data. Heck, they offer e-mail lists for purchase. Standard practice is that qualified industry e-mail lists are for rent. Any prudent marketing firm knows that the database is the lifeblood of the company. A good list company will manage their relationships really well, be it a business buying a list to target prospective customers, or managing a publication's subscriber list.
It doesn't matter what position you hold within a company. When a stranger greets you at any random place: the mall, a party, a corporate event, a wedding, the park, or standing in line at the local deli, you need to be able to give good details about your company, who you are, what products/services your group is responsible for, and be proud of it in some way enough to generate interest about your company. After all, if you aren't interested in your own employer, why should anyone else be?
And, you can never lose your cool because once you do, you may never get that customer back.
Conclusion: When I was asking for specifics about the company, we got disconnected. Sure, that happens a lot if you're using a VoIP connection. While we were disconnected, the rep took the time to send me an e-mail with sample records of what their data looks like. The first file that I opened had a sample record of someone from my own company. Hey, that looks cool right? This is where I would have had my "data recency" question answered.
The contact name listed, supposedly an EVP of audit services, wasn't an employee anymore since they didn't show up on our intranet employee directory. Out of curiousity, I looked up the telephone number that was associated with that contact record. Guess what it came back as? Admin mail services. Yeah, I can see how *cough* accurate this data is.
One record does not make or break a company. But having erroneous data of the company you're trying to sell to is an inexcusable mistake.
Hot gadget? No pun intended..
I was browsing the top 10 gadgets on MSN today and read this:
TurboChef Technologies' Speedcook oven will cook a 12-pound turkey in 42 minutes instead of four hours and will shave an hour off the time it takes to bake an apple-cranberry pie. In addition to its speedy performance, the oven's brightly colored doors--hues include red, orange and blue--set it apart in a sea of stainless-steel appliances. The 30-inch oven has a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $7,495.
At first, I thought, hey that's great! Except, there's this similar product at a infinitismal fraction of the price...the Thane Flavorwave. It doesn't cook as fast, but it can roast a 12-lb frozen turkey in 2.5 hours.
These two products are for very different market segments. But, if you ever got around to read The Millionaire Next Door, you'd find out that prudent millionaires don't particularly have extravagant lifestyles.
TurboChef Technologies' Speedcook oven will cook a 12-pound turkey in 42 minutes instead of four hours and will shave an hour off the time it takes to bake an apple-cranberry pie. In addition to its speedy performance, the oven's brightly colored doors--hues include red, orange and blue--set it apart in a sea of stainless-steel appliances. The 30-inch oven has a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $7,495.
At first, I thought, hey that's great! Except, there's this similar product at a infinitismal fraction of the price...the Thane Flavorwave. It doesn't cook as fast, but it can roast a 12-lb frozen turkey in 2.5 hours.
These two products are for very different market segments. But, if you ever got around to read The Millionaire Next Door, you'd find out that prudent millionaires don't particularly have extravagant lifestyles.
Tools for the Digital Photographer
If you have ever worked for a marketing or ad agency, you may have been charged with finding images that help convey quality, service, freshness, or some other attribute for a product flyer, advertorial, datasheet, or website, only to find that the world of image rentals is a very pricey business. Thanks to technology, consumer awareness, and the vast plethora of search engine indexes, the web prices for images have come down quite a bit.
Today, it's easier than ever for non-technical professionals to have a professional-looking website without all the design costs. Digital Railroad built a user-interface for photographers (amateur and professional) to market, share, and sell their digital photographs in an easier medium than what is currently offered by sites like Getty Images, Corbis, or JupiterImages, with those who buy digital images.
I use a similar online photo hosting site, Smugmug, for my photography, mostly for the unlimited storage, no ads, registration-free guest viewing, and the ability to convert any of my photos into photo gifts. Aside from its 14-day free trial period, all of its user accounts are paid subscriptions. The site does this because they believe their web tools and services are worth paying for, and the 200,000 mostly paying subscribers agree.
Differences in UI (can you spot them?):
Digital Railroad
Smugmug
Reference links:
http://www.popphoto.com/inamericanphotomagazine/3514/2006-innovators-technology.html
http://www.ephotozine.com/freelance/fullstory.cfm?freelanceid=19
Today, it's easier than ever for non-technical professionals to have a professional-looking website without all the design costs. Digital Railroad built a user-interface for photographers (amateur and professional) to market, share, and sell their digital photographs in an easier medium than what is currently offered by sites like Getty Images, Corbis, or JupiterImages, with those who buy digital images.
I use a similar online photo hosting site, Smugmug, for my photography, mostly for the unlimited storage, no ads, registration-free guest viewing, and the ability to convert any of my photos into photo gifts. Aside from its 14-day free trial period, all of its user accounts are paid subscriptions. The site does this because they believe their web tools and services are worth paying for, and the 200,000 mostly paying subscribers agree.
Differences in UI (can you spot them?):
Digital Railroad
Smugmug
Reference links:
http://www.popphoto.com/inamericanphotomagazine/3514/2006-innovators-technology.html
http://www.ephotozine.com/freelance/fullstory.cfm?freelanceid=19
Soup to nuts
Nearly synonymous to "cradle-to-grave" and "end-to-end" phraseology, "soup to nuts" is an English idiom conveying the meaning of "from beginning to end". It is derived from the description of a complete meal, where the courses ranged from soup to a dessert of nuts. It is comparable to expressions in other languages, such as the Latin phrase ab ovo usque ad mala ("from the egg to the apples"), describing the typical Roman meal.
This antiquated phrase seems misplaced and is used to denote a new and improved way of describing an all-encompassing service. A Google search shows 110,000 hits to the search phrase "soup to nuts" +marketing. However, the phrase isn't just limited to marketing services. It is used today because many people, especially non-foodies, are not familiar with the reference; and thus, ignorance breeds creativity? Ahh, whatever. You simply don't want to give customers the impression that your service offering has anything to do with something as small and insignificant as a serving of nuts.
References:
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19961125
http://www.word-detective.com/back-m2.html
This antiquated phrase seems misplaced and is used to denote a new and improved way of describing an all-encompassing service. A Google search shows 110,000 hits to the search phrase "soup to nuts" +marketing. However, the phrase isn't just limited to marketing services. It is used today because many people, especially non-foodies, are not familiar with the reference; and thus, ignorance breeds creativity? Ahh, whatever. You simply don't want to give customers the impression that your service offering has anything to do with something as small and insignificant as a serving of nuts.
References:
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19961125
http://www.word-detective.com/back-m2.html
Google & Blogger
It was perhaps not such a good idea to migrate from the old Blogger standard to this new fandangled Googleishness. Ok, it's not that new and I'd been ignoring that login option for quite some time now. The new Googleish Blogger site shows up as one flagged and blocked by the company's WebSense filter for "proxy avoidance". It would seem that WebSense has a problem with websites that use frames.
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