Tag: weeklystory

This is a tale about how to annoy email subscribers and encourage them to opt-out.

I signed up for Nordstrom Rack’s email list last year after I bought a couple of shirts from them.

Men’s shirts (I’m a man).

Since then, I’ve received almost-daily emails from Nordstrom’s. Eighty percent of the emails peddle women’s products.

Intimate apparel: “Enhance your favorite assets.”

Dresses: “Breezy silhouettes that are always in bloom.”

And handbags. So many friggin’ handbags!

Dooney & Bourke handbags two weeks ago. Rebecca Minkoff handbags last week. And Kate Spade handbags yesterday — TWICE.

10 a.m.: The “Online Flash Event” for Kate Spade handbags (“Bring A Little Fun With You Wherever You Go.”).

5 p.m.: “The kate spade new york Event ends soon.”

I’m finished with the breezy, bloomy, asset-enhancing emails. I’ve opted-out.

So what’s this mean for you?

Don’t make the same mistake Nordstrom’s made. Don’t send everything to everybody every time.

If you’re going to send an email that resonates with only a segment of your audience, send it only to that segment.

Nordstrom, should know I’m a man. They can check their sales logs. I buy only men’s products. They can mine third-party data. They’ll see that the guy named “Thomas Ruwitch” with the credit card they have on file, with the address they have on file is, in fact, a man.

So they can put me in the “interested in men’s stuff” bucket. And, please(!), take me out of the “interested in women’s stuff” bucket.

Clients tell me all the time that they’re afraid of sending too many emails.

Too many emails is not the reason people opt-out.

Frequency is not the issue. Irrelevance is the issue.

If you pound the inbox with emails that are not relevant to your subscribers, they’ll stop opening your emails.

Or they’ll opt-out.

Or, worse yet, they’ll click the “this is spam” button even if they originally opted in.

It’s easier than you many think to segment your list and send the right information to the right people at the right time.

Check out the p.s. below and sign up for one of our webinars if you’d like to learn how…

Tom
MarketVolt

p.s. On-demand webinars are here. We’re offering 5-in-25 Webinars (five great marketing ideas in less than 25 minutes) 24/7. Show up any day, at any time, and the webinar will be starting within 15 minutes. We’re currently running two webinars, both of which dive into how you can segment your list to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time. 

• 5 Ways B2B Businesses Use Email Marketing To Simplify & Accelerate Connection-Building & Sales
    
  
• 5 Ways B2C Businesses Use Email Marketing to Increase Profits

I watched a rerun of Curb Your Enthusiasm yesterday in which Larry David gets into it with a guy who asks him to lunch. Larry and this guy are both from LA, but they run into each other in New York.

The guy suggests that he and Larry grab lunch the next day.

Larry refuses.

“So let me get this straight,” the guy says. “I’m going to eat alone tomorrow!?”

Larry: “Why do you want to eat with ME?”

The guy: “Because we never get a chance to eat in LA.”

Larry: “Because we’re not friends.”

The guy: “We’re not friends because we never spend time together.”

Larry: “We don’t spend time together because I don’t want to spend time together.”

It’s the typical Curb Your Enthusiasm gag:

Larry says out loud the things that many of us think but are afraid to spit out. He is so blunt and so emotionally clumsy that he usually comes off as the fool. We laugh at Larry — the manner-less clown.

But how foolish is he, really?

Forget Larry’s sloppy delivery and focus only on the core message.

He says, in effect: I see no value interacting with you so I’m not going to waste my time doing it.

In life and in business, that’s a wise approach.

Business people spend so much time on worthless interactions. Meanwhile, they complain that they don’t have enough to get everything done.

I’ve been to countless breakfasts, lunches, dinners, coffees, live meetings, virtual meetings and other get-togethers with people who bring little value to me and, most importantly, to whom I offer little value.

Why was I there?

Sure, in some cases, I discovered this only after meeting.

But too often, I should have known before I met.

I should have asked (at least to myself, if not out loud), “Why do you want to meet with me?”

If you don’t anticipate mutual benefit from the relationship, don’t take the meeting.

Better yet, turn the tables when you’re chasing a meeting and ask, “Why do they want to meet with me?”

If you don’t have a clear answer that has something to do with mutual benefit, don’t chase the meeting.

Sometimes, as difficult and awkward as it may be, you have to say “No.”

Thanks for reading!

Tom
MarketVolt

p.s. I got some great feedback from some subscribers who said they want to attend some our webinars, but they can’t make it at the times we’ve offered. We’re fixing that. Beginning in the next few days, we’re going to offer on-demand webinars. Rather than joining us live, at pre-set times, we’ll pre-record the webinars, and you’ll be able to attend whenever you wish. Stay tuned for details. 

When I was a dumb kid, I feared my IQ would drop if I had my wisdom teeth pulled.

I was over that by the time I was 19 and dating Kathy.

She had her wisdom teeth pulled the summer we dated. She couldn’t stand the pain.

I suggested she rinse with warm salt water. I had a tooth pulled, and warm salt water helped.

Her reply: “We don’t have any salt water around the house.”

Hmmmmmm.

“Do you have any SALT around the house?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“How about WATER?” I asked.

Long pause. And then she said, “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. Yeaaaaah. Thanks. I’ll make some salt water.”

Maybe she once knew you don’t have to buy salt water at the Salt Water Store — but she forgot when her dentist yanked that wisdom from her.

Maybe she never knew…

We often have the ingredients. The recipe is easy. But we don’t realize how simple it is to put it all together.

So it goes with marketing and content creation.

I hear it all the time:

“I understand the benefits of email marketing, blogging and other content strategies. But I don’t have any content around the house. And it’s such a pain to create it.”

I used to think the same…

…Until I found the ingredients in my Gmail “Sent” folder.

Before I ever launched a blog or sent an email newsletter, I covered key topics — in individual emails to prospects and clients.

Here’s an example…

Over the years, multiple clients have asked me whether it’s OK to purchase an email list for their marketing. That’s a great topic for a blog post or an email newsletter.

If I search my “Sent” folder for “purchased list,” I find multiple emails in which I answered the question.

Cut the answer from my “Sent” folder. Paste it in a word processor. And I have a rough draft for a post or newsletter.

Sure, it needs some tweaking. But that’s a lot easier than starting from scratch.

What’s in your “Sent” folder? You may have the ingredients to make some great content.

That’s just one simple recipe for overcoming the pain of content creation. If you want some other recipes or generally need some tips or help with content creation, click here and see the “p.s.” below.

Thanks for reading!

Tom
MarketVolt

p.s.  MarketVolt helps businesses overcome the pain of content development so you can garner the benefits of email marketing, blogging (etc.) without the headache and hassle.

Shoot me an email (tom@MarketVolt.com) if you’d like to:

• Figure out what topics will resonate with your audience and help your business. 
• Discover simple recipes for creating effective content. 
• Have someone create and deliver/post content for you — quickly and affordably (we have a team of marketing experts who can do it for you). 
• Get some free advice on how to make your existing content marketing be more effective. 

The meeting went off the rails when I asked, “How are you going to build your email list?”

The nonprofit executive director replied, “We’re going to borrow lists from some other nonprofits we partner with.”

“I recommend against that,” I said.

“But we do that all the time with direct (postal) mail,” she said.

I tried to explain the difference between direct mail and email. I tried to explain the difference between SPAM and opt-in email.

But she wasn’t listening. I lost her at “I recommend against that.” She didn’t invite me to meet again.

I was thinking about that meeting yesterday when the news broke about Missouri Governor Eric Greitens. Before running for Governor, he founded and ran a nonprofit called The Mission Continues.

Greitens allegedly “borrowed” the nonprofit’s enormous email list — without permission — and used the list for his political campaign.

I’ll presume the Governor is innocent until proven guilty.

But for the sake of a marketing lesson, let’s imagine that thousands of people who opted-in for email from The Mission Continues received unsolicited emails from the Greitens Campaign.

I don’t know whether the nonprofit with which I met borrowed those lists from partner agencies. But for the sake of a marketing lesson, let’s imagine that the nonprofit sent unsolicited emails to thousands of people who didn’t ask for them.

Most people don’t like to receive unsolicited email. It frustrates and angers them, and it reflects badly on the sender.

Like it or not, that’s more the case with email than with postal mail. Sure, people don’t love getting piles of junk postal mail. But they tend not to hold it against the companies that send it.

More importantly, the United States Postal Service doesn’t have filters to block future deliveries from those who send junk mail.

SPAM filters will flag you and block future deliveries if you send emails to borrowed or purchased lists.

List-building is a quality-over-quantity game. Communicate with people who know you — existing clients, prospects with whom you’re already conversing via email, subscribers who give you permission to contact them.

Your list may be smaller than the one you borrow or buy, but your results will be better.

Here’s a free resource from our site that will help: Nine Proven List-Building Techniques.

Thanks for reading!

Tom
MarketVolt

The last time I ate a Red Delicious apple, I thought, “Hmmm. ‘Red Delicious?’ That’s half-true. Red? Yes. Delicious? Not so much’?”

Bad texture. Bland taste. All beauty. No substance.

How can something so pretty and shiny be so terrible?

I discovered the nasty secret in this great article in The Atlantic.

Reds used to be delicious. But a chance genetic mutation “made the apples redden earlier (and) also given them a deeper, more uniform color,” according to the article.

“The cosmetic changes were a boon for industrial agriculturalists: Apples that turned rosy before they were fully ripe could be picked earlier and stored longer, and skins with more red pigment tended to be thicker, which extended shelf life and hid bruises. But as genes for beauty were favored over those for taste, the skins grew tough and bitter around mushy, sugar-soaked flesh.”

Apple growers opted for beauty over substance.

So it goes with too many marketers, too.

I’ve seen so many marketing pieces that are prettier than a Grand Canyon sunset but otherwise bland and ineffective. Red Delicious marketing.

Business people spend big bucks and countless hours making their stuff bright and shiny while often neglecting the more important stuff:

Are you targeting the right audience?

Is the copy concise, compelling and persuasive.

Are there good calls-to-action?

In general, is their good marketing strategy in place or is it just a bunch of mush behind a shiny red facade?

I’m not suggesting you have to deliver ugly emails or launch dull-looking websites. I’m saying focus first on the substance: Great marketing strategy, strong copy, calls-to-action, etc.

Then add the sparkle and the shine if you wish.

Want some tips on how to add the substance? See below…
April

Tom
MarketVolt

p.s. Want to add substance to your marketing? Check out MarketVolt.com/Resources. Tons of free downloads, including tips to:

• Improve your website.
   
• Make your marketing messages more persuasive.
   
• Get more referrals.
   
• Increase email open-rates with better subject lines.
   
• Build your email list more quickly.

On April Fool’s Day 1998, Burger King ran a full-page advertisement in USA Today to introduce the new “Left-Handed Whopper”

The ad proclaimed: “Finally, after years of neglect, left-handed eaters will no longer need to conform to traditional right-handed eating methods when enjoying America’s favorite burger.”

Highlights:

• “Whopper rotated a full 180-degrees to ensure better grip on bun…” 
• “Rearranged orientation of condiments, allowing left-handers to have it their way.”
• “Sesame seeds meticulously placed to ensure least amount of loss during consumption.”

Good joke.

Here’s the funniest thing: Thousands of lefties visited Burger Kings that day and asked for the new sandwich.

“Many others requested their own right-handed version,” according to Burger King’s next-day news release. 

Some hear that story and think, “stupid people.” I hear that story and think “smart company.”

Sure, the left-handed Whopper was a joke, but it still promoted the idea that you, the customer, should “have it your way.”

That’s a good idea. That’s the essence of hospitality.

And it’s a good model for all businesses…

Know your audiences and cater to them. Your customers value you more if they think you’re on their side. That should happen in your business transactions. That should happen in your marketing.

When marketing, that means we deliver the right messages to the right people at the right time.

That means messages that are pertinent and valuable.

That means messages that are customized for different audiences — kind of like a left-handed email for lefties. 

I know this may sound a little pie-in-the-sky or difficult to master, but it’s easier than you may think.

If you want to discover how, attend one of my upcoming webinars (details in the p.s. below…)

Thanks for reading (reply with feedback if you want to share some thoughts) and see you next time…

Tom
MarketVolt

p.s. They’re back: 5in25 Webinars — Five Powerful Marketing Lessons Delivered in Less than 25 Minutes. 

We’re offering left-handed and right-handed webinars (just kidding).

We ARE offering separate webinars for B2B and B2C businesses (also webinars for nonprofits coming soon).

Discover how to put the right messages in front of the right people at the right time so you can build connections with your subscribers and grow your business. Webinar times and registration here…

Back in high school, I had a crush on Amanda, but she had a boyfriend named Cam.

A few days before her 16th birthday, she was flirting with me, bad-mouthing Cam, hinting that he was toast.

So I made my move. 

During the birthday party at her house, I snuck up to her room with a dozen long-stem roses and placed them on her bed — without a card.

A few hours after the party, I called her and said, “Do you like the roses?”

“I love them,” she said. “I knew they were from you.”

Then she told me she and Cam were finished. She wanted to “go with” me.

Alright!!!!

But wait…

There was a catch.

The Rolling Stones concert was in eight days, and Cam had two tickets.

“I don’t want to miss The Stones,” she said. “I’ll break up with him AFTER the concert.”

She was going to spend the next eight days pretending she still liked Cam, go to the concert on his dime, break his heart after the concert, and become my sweetie the next day!?

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

In retrospect, I wish I could have rewritten the script.

I wish that voice inside my head told me: “Hmmm… I don’t think this is going to turn out well.”

I wish I had mustered the courage to tell Amanda, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

I wish I had anticipated the inevitable: A month after The Rolling Stones concert, I was toast.

Fast forward a few decades to this morning.

Minutes before I drafted and sent this email (really), I called a prospect who wanted to hire my firm or a big project.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I told him.

This prospect is a great guy with a great business. The opportunity was lucrative. But it wasn’t the right fit.

That voice inside my head told me: “I don’t think this is going to turn out well.” And I listened.

I had struggled with the decision. Marketers and salespeople are taught to “get to ‘Yes.’”

But sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves and our business is know when to say “no.”

That voice that says, “This might not go well…” It doesn’t just magically appear. You have to summon it.

You have to take the first step and think, “How will this turn out?” And you have to respond honestly.

You have to have the courage to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Impossible for a 16-year-old boy wooing his crush.

Still not easy for a (relatively) mature businessman with decades of experience.

We work so hard attracting leads, wooing prospects, trying to close the sale.

We cherish the sale. We want the thrill of victory.

In this case, though, it was more thrilling to choose a different path: 

I referred my prospect to another company I trust. The folks at that company are grateful. The prospect is grateful. And I’m relieved and grateful to bypass a project that would not have turned out well for the prospect or me. 

Thanks for reading (reply with feedback if you want to share some thoughts) and see you next time…

Tom
MarketVolt

The following story discusses one company’s marketing failure related to the pedestrian bridge collapse in Florida. I hesitated before sharing this story. I didn’t want to make light of the tragedy or dishonor the six people who died in Florida. I’ve chosen to proceed with the email because I think it contains a valuable marketing lesson, and that is the point of these emails…******Two days before the pedestrian bridge collapsed at Florida International University, a Colorado-based engineering firm trumpeted its participation in the project by posting a video about it on Twitter and Facebook. Minutes after the bridge collapsed, the company, BDI, deleted all references to the project from its social media and website. Bad move. A local television reporter caught wind of this and called the company. No response. So he posted this on Twitter: “Hi @BDITest. Please contact #9NEWS. We have questions about your decision to scrub any mention of your structural monitoring work on the collapsed bridge as well as questions about local projects.” Before speaking to the reporter, BDI posted a reply-tweet: “We are deeply saddened to hear that the pedestrian bridge has collapsed at #FIU. Our hearts go out to the individuals and families that have been affected by the collapse.” BDI posted the same message at the top of its Twitter and Facebook feeds. I learned about this while vacationing in Colorado. I turned on the 5 p.m. news and the lead story was about BDI and how… …It participated in the project. …It scrubbed its social media of all references about its role in the project. …It didn’t post a condolence message until a reporter (and others) cried foul. …And, finally, it claimed it deleted the posts “out of respect for the victims.” The twitter-sphere wasn’t buying it. Here’s a selection of the posts you’ll find if you search “BDItest” on twitter: “Why did @BDITest delete this tweet after the #FIUBridge #FIUBridgecollapse not good” “Why did you delete this tweet, hmmmmmmmmmm?” (followed by a picture of the deleted tweet). (Before BDI posted the condolence message): “You deleted your post celebrating the bridge that collapsed, but won’t even post a tweet of sympathy for the victims?” And my favorite: “Sorry, you’re not gonna get away from this one, @BDITest. The internet remembers.” Yep, the internet remembers. That’s a lesson for all of us. You can’t hide in the internet age. You can’t erase history. As one tweeter said, “You effed up. Own it!” The irony: BDI most likely had nothing to do with the collapse. It was responsible for safety monitoring when the pre-constructed bridge was transported from the construction site to the campus where it was installed. But BDI neither designed, nor built the bridge. And it was not responsible for safety and monitoring after the transport.  The company might have been able to explain this if it had owned its role in the project. But, instead, it was busy answering why it tried to outsmart the internet that always remembers.  Thanks for reading (reply with feedback if you want to share some thoughts) and see you next time… Tom MarketVolt

I ran across an article the other day about a dumb dude in Michigan who smelled gas coming from his newly installed water heater. He checked for the leak by lighting a match. He shoulda died, but he got off easy… …with singed eyebrows. Mixing fire and gas leak — that wasn’t his first mistake.  Installing the gas heater himself — THAT was his first mistake. Soon after the installation, he smelled that funky odor… …which really isn’t how gas naturally smells. The odor is an additive designed to warn people to…you know…NOT light a match. As soon as that odor hit Dumb Dude’s nose, he had a few options: Option 1: Call a qualified expert to check for the leak and fix it. Option 2: Check for the leak himself by choosing tools that won’t result in death and destruction. Option 3: Check the leak with a match. Options 1 and 2 have pros and cons. Option 3? All cons. A match is simply the wrong tool for the job. Grab a flashlight. Then…after realizing that you have no idea why the heater is leaking (and that it’s unsafe for you to attempt a fix), go for option 1 and call an expert. So it goes with marketing. I know, you’re not going to set your hair on fire, and you’re certainly not going to blow up, if you misstep while marketing. But your marketing can backfire if you choose the wrong tools for the job. For example, email is great for keeping prospects and customers interested and closing sales. But if you send tons of email to people who have never met you (aka SPAM), you can tick people off, generate tons of complaints, damage your brand, and undermine your marketing program. There are better tools to help you make your first connection with leads. Social media is great for building a following and increasing engagement, but not as great at closing sales. And just like fixing a water heater, fixing your marketing sometimes is easier and safer if you engage a qualified expert to help you. Sure, you have to pay the expert. But if you choose the wrong tools or misuse the right ones for your marketing, you waste your precious time (which isn’t free) and you miss opportunities to grow your business. That’s dangerous for your business. Do it too much, and your business may (figuratively) blow up in your face which could (literally) make your head hurt. Thanks for reading (reply with feedback if you want to share some thoughts) and see you next time… Tom MarketVolt

Did you hear the one about the ketchup bottle and the hardcore pornography site?

Whoh! Settle down now. It’s not what you think.

This is a G-rated story that is super-pertinent for anyone marketing a business.

Turns out that the good folks at Heinz sold ketchup bottles in Germany that promoted a contest website.

But after the contest ended a few months later, Heinz failed to renew the website domain.

Dagnabbit (that’s G-rated swearing), some clever pornographers grabbed that domain and pointed it to their own site.

Meanwhile, lots of Germans still had their bottles of Heinz ketchup sitting in the fridge.

So now, instead of sending ketchup fans to a site about condiments, the address led the unsuspecting to a place that was much more saucy.

This was really, really satisfying for the pornographers.

For the Heinz customers? Not so much.

Let’s just say the ketchup bottle aroused…wait for it…

…RAGE!.

So what does this have to do with you?

I’m gonna go PG here now:

Keep track of your sh%&#$!

Maybe the folks at Heinz forgot to renew the contest site domain. Maybe they thought, “Why renew the domain? We ran that contest six months ago?”

Either way they didn’t keep track of their sh%&#$!

They didn’t realize that if you publish a link to a website, you have to assume that link will live somewhere forever, and you better keep track of where it points.

This is no joke. Those of us who manage businesses have websites, landing pages, SSL certificates, software licenses and all sorts of other odds-and-ends that are part of the marketing and operations mix.

I’ve seen businesses held hostage by “domain squatters” who scoop up an expired domain: “Pay me $5,000 to get your domain back or…”

I’ve seen e-commerce sites grind to a halt because their owners forget to renew the SSL certificate that encrypts credit card transactions.

I’ve seen businesses crushed by mistakes similar to the one Heinz made.

This could happen to you.

Here’s the good news: Keeping track of your sh%&#$ is not rocket science. It’s not as hard as developing good business strategies or writing good copy or planning email campaigns.

But keeping track of stuff may not be your thing.

So here’s more good news. It’s not expensive to pay someone to keep track of your sh%&#$.

Establish a system to record all those accounts and renewals that have to be tracked. Delegate to someone who has the time, focus, and willingness to handle this job for you.

You and your customers are counting on you… to keep the pornographers at bay.

Thanks for reading (reply with feedback if you want to share some thoughts) and see you next time…

Tom
MarketVolt