Archive for June, 2006
June 27, 2006
It Is What It Is (And Not What You Want It To Be)
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A few months ago I received an email from an organization I used to belong to that had the following subject line:
“JOIN XYZA IN APRIL AND SAVE $50!”
They must have really meant it because a few days later I received a postal letter emblazoned with the headline:
“JOIN XYZA IN APRIL AND SAVE $50!”
Now I’m sure these are very nice people. And I’m sure that if I asked them what their marketing message as an organization is (I refuse to use the phrase “value proposition”), they would say something like, “We help our members get ahead in their careers, stay ahead of the curve, keep up to date with the latest technology” — you know, the usual sorts of things professional associations say. They might even have been bold enough to say, “We help our members make more money!” (Which is what all those other things are supposed to mean but few seem willing to lay it out on the line.)
Which is all well and good, except that’s not what their marketing message is. Their marketing message is:
“JOIN XYZA IN APRIL AND SAVE $50!”
Based on the message this organization was sending me, even taking into consideration the fact that I used to be a member, there are only two things I know for sure about it:
1) I’ll save $50 if I join them in April, and
2) I’ll save even more if I don’t join them at all.
If you must offer a “special” on your membership dues (and I’m not purist enough to insist that you must never do so, even though I’m not a big fan of the tactic), please make it a postscript. Not the headline.
June 26, 2006
BostonBlog
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The ASAE Conference blog has launched. I’ll be posting there, though so far not as often as Jeff (or I) would like.
June 26, 2006
Too Slick for Slick
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I can’t help it, I love to produce marketing and communications pieces that look good — and by look good, I mean look expensive. There’s just something about a really well-designed, attractive brochure/flyer/email/etc.
Except the problem is slick sometimes doesn’t pull as well as not-so-slick. Markets vary, of course, but we’ve found that for some of the things we sell — books, meetings, membership — we get more pull from relatively simple, black-and-white, text-focused, well-written pieces. (The key is that last one — well-written copy that sells tangible benefits.)
I thought of this today when I read on an ASAE listserver someone reference a marketing tactic his organization uses they call an “ugly letter” — a two-piece black and white mailing they use to promote seminars, which pull well. (I deleted this email and don’t recall who wrote it, so if it’s you, feel free to chime in on the comments.) We’ve found the same thing. In a price-conscious market, something that looks expensive can make the recipient immediately think of the price (expensive) instead of the value (the benefits). Which can cause them to move on to the next thing in their in-box.
Remember, our first goal is to get stuff read. And:
– A black-and-white piece stands out in a stack of mail these days, since color is cheap and everyone uses it.
– A thick four-page letter is more noticeable than a glossy one-page flyer. Obviously, you need to have good direct mail copy, but paying a graphic designer to produce a flashy flyer is actually the easy way out — and not necessarily as cost-effective as paying a good writer to come up with a meaty message that sells.
– HTML email usually means “advertisement” while text email that’s written like a personal email to someone doesn’t. (If you want an email to sound like it’s really coming personally to someone, then write it like most people write emails — with the occasional grammatical error and run-on sentence.)
We all love to pass around the nice award-winning piece that makes everyone at the staff meeting go, “Ooh, that looks nice.” But personally I’d rather pass around the results that show the highest possible return on our investment.
(Oh, and one other sneaky little trick about emails that you should use sparingly if at all. I’ve subscribed to a particular Internet marketing newsletter for years now, one that I almost never read but have never bothered to unsubscribe. But I have noticed every couple of months or so he sends a follow-up email with the subject line, “Corrected link for [whatever he was pushing in the last newsletter]“. He didn’t have to do this more than twice for me to realize that there was something going on here besides an itchy email trigger finger. Manipulative, you say? Well, I opened them …)
June 18, 2006
Presentation Links
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I’d promised the folks at the SNAP workshop last week that I would put up the links to the various pages that were mentioned during the presentation, so here they are:
- AARP home page
- EEI home page
- SitePoint newsletter example
- WOMMA WOMBAT 2 conference page
- ASAE Annual Meeting main page
- Nation’s Health magazine
- E2 magazine
- NEI press room
- ASHSP press room
- HFMA Resource Library
- Association Forum flash animation
- NAA webinar examples
- NAM blog
- NSBA blog
A couple of the examples I showed from our organization — one of our newsletters and the mini-app CalcuNow — require authentication to view online, so if you would like to see those again, shoot me an email.
June 15, 2006
Coupla Things
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The other day I gave a presentation at SNAP’s pre-conference workshop on effective online practices. Just wanted to say to the attendees that I haven’t had a chance to post the links to the website examples I gave yet but will in the next day or two.
Today I’m actually attending ECEF here in Washington. Finally got to meet Rich Westerfield, who’s providing coverage of the event with some photos and his usual insightful commentary over at his blog.