MarketingSherpa Blog

This week Ford gets a major slap on the wrist.

Ford’s Forddirect.com Web site must have launched a major traffic-driving campaign, because we received identical offers to visit the site from no fewer than five CPA mailers who send to junk lists on a regular basis: WhatanExtreme.com, Cosmic Offers, ForumXpress, and National Deal Club.

Industry-wise, consumer magazines’ were as a group the biggest offenders, including:

USWeekly
Body & Soul Magazine
Elle Magazine
Shape Magazine
Family Circle
Yoga International
Grace Woman
Budget Living Magazine (repeatedly)

More brands featured in mail clogging our junk address this week:

Oil of Olay
Target
Doubleday Book Club
Victoria’s Secret
Fredericks.com
Gevalia Kaffe
Fox Sports
DirectTV
LowerMyBills.com
T-Mobile
Disney Home Video
Frontline Phonics
iwon.com
Norton

Weirdly enough, both Harry Potter and William Shakespeare.

How it works: We have a junk mailbox here that’s not used by any human being, although the address is posted on one of our Web sites.

When mail hits that box we know for a fact that no one ever signed up to receive it. Once a week we pluck through the box, looking for brand names and add them to our List of Shame.

If your brand is listed here, you can get a copy of the offending email in order to track down the bad list owner by emailing me at AHolland@MarketingSherpa.com There’s no charge for this service.

Thanks for your support,

Anne
Anne Holland – Publisher
MarketingSherpa

#2. PR on a Low Budget: Combine 3 Tactics for Peak Impact

When Matt Pitchford started his new job last May, his boss gave him 10 months to make their Company a lot more famous. Here’s how he used classic PR tactics including:
– Getting reporters to pay attention to releases
– Planting articles in trade publications
– Gaining speaking gigs at conferences for his execs
If you’re a PR pro, you won’t find anything radically new in this Case Study. However, it’s a great tip-sheet for folks new to PR, plus a nice reminder of best practices for experts:
http://www.b2bmarketingbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2375

#3. Can Email Newsletters Sell Subscriptions to Print Newsletters? HCPro’s Tests & Results

If email is an important part of your marketing mix, definitely check out this Case Study for notes on how to database and report on your email list names (as opposed to your regular customers).

Also includes results data on using a printed postcard mailer to gain email names, and lifetime value of email-sold vs. offline-sold customers.
http://www.contentbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2376

#4. Tower Records Combines Print Catalog Plus Email Marketing: Sales Boost from 8% to 11%

Tower Records’ direct response team recently tested an integrated campaign, and we have the results for you. Their test cells included:
o Catalog only
o Catalog plus email offering no-cost shipping
o Catalog plus email offering 10% off any purchase
o Catalog plus email offering $5 off any purchase
o Control group � no marketing whatsoever
Find out what moved the needle:
http://www.greatmindsinmarketing.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2380

#5. Almost 40% of Kelly Clarkson CD Buyers Sign Up for Content Sent to Their Desktop (Bypassing Email)

Marketers at RCA who distribute the American Idol II and Kelly Clarkson albums are in the midst of testing a new relationship marketing tactic: Offering a desktop app that fans can download to get more news about artists on a regular basis.

If you are involved in loyalty marketing in any industry, this article may be useful for you. Applies to high-tech, finance, pharmaceutical and many other industries:
http://www.emailsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2377

#6. Marketing to the US Hispanics Online: 8 Tips, 6 Creative Samples, & Useful Links

US Hispanics spent an estimated $4.2 billion online last year, and they are one of the swiftest-growing Net demographics. We polled several top experts to find out how you should approach this market.

Includes creative samples of 6 email campaigns to inspire you:
http://www.consumermarketingbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2381

#7. How to Get Your Article Published in MarketingProfs

80,000 marketers and marketing students read MarketingProfs’ email newsletter every week. Unlike other publications, it’s comprised entirely of contributed columns, so if you’ve written a great article you’ve got a good shot at planting it there. Here’s how:
http://www.marketingfame.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2379

Doug Kneeland of www.faberkneeland.com just sent this note in:

“On Wed some hackers put up a mirrored version of the BestBuy website and then sent out a bunch of spam pretending to be the BestBuy customer service department. The email said that some purchases were recently made using your card but that BestBuy thinks the purchaser is not the cardholder. There is a link to click on to confirm that you did not, in fact, make those purchases. When you went to the form, it asked for your credit card and address to confirm. When I got the email I called BestBuy to tell them what was going on and they said they had received thousands of phone calls in the previous hour about it. ”

According to Online Journalism Review “News Sites Experiment With
‘Dayparting: Studies show that people want different content at different times of the day.'”

Who is going to convince advertisers of this? Because nearly everyone I’ve spoken to on the ad sales side says they can’t sell online daypart no matter how hard they try. Dumb but true.

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/aboutojr/1055792590.php

Thanks to Barbara Kaplowitz for this link to First Monday’s article on business models shaping eight Net-based news sites.

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_6/schiff/index.html

Back when Google launched its contextual editorial ads (ads which appear on content sites vs search results) a couple of months ago, I poked their spokeswoman a bit on the subject of how they chose the partner sites involved, which at the time had to have millions of visitors per month to qualify to join the program. After all, the best AdWords advertiser results invariably come from very niche keywords and search terms, the exact kind of stuff you find best on niche sites.

This morning Google announced it is throwing open the doors to all publishers who want to join, regardless of size. The new program, entitled AdSense, allows any publisher to pick up and carry Google AdWords content ads on their sites in exchange for a cut of click revenue.

I’ll be interested to follow results metrics of ads in future to see if the swarms of niche sites which will no doubt join will help advertisers get better results. (Results from Google non-search content ads so far have been generally abysmal in terms of clicks, and slightly below par in terms of conversions according to hundreds of MarketingSherpa readers surveyed earlier this
year.)

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2314

Wahoo! The average amount a Blogwriter makes by selling ads via BlogAds has gone up from $30 to $50 month, with the really red hot sites pulling $750 monthly.

My favorite part of this site is the personality with which many Bloggers write their little media selling blurbs. “7000+ blog traders are a prime audience for your gizmo or service. Expect good things from their evil capitalist machinations,” reads one. “Sell something to our readers. Click the clicky.” says another.

Makes mainstream media kits sound so stuffy.

http://www.blogads.com/order_html

Are blogs seriously entering the realm of business? Although numbers of bloggers have grown vastly in the past 2 years, and I
hear about some consultants and writers who use them as a publicity device, I have yet to hear about anyone making serious money with a Blog. Nor, frankly did I expect to because
they are very personal. More of a hobby and lite PR device than a for-profit product.

Which is why I was surprised when JupiterMedia did a business conference last week on the subject. Who would pay serious money for a ticket to learn about a business that is not that profitable?

According to the photos taken at the event (see link below), some people did. (I recognize enough faces as reporters, speakers and vendor sales reps through, so I can’t say what percent of this packed room is businesspeople who want to blog as a profit
center.)

The most notable shot is of speaker David Weinberg’s drawing of the inner-outer circles of Blogging. The inner circle is “private, authentic, real” while the outer circle is “public, artificial.”

This sums up the business potential of blogging to me. The more you start to market within a Blog and start to look for the kind
of traffic, reach and sales that would create a profitable business, the more you go to the outer circle (A.K.A. the dark side), leaving truly powerful Blog content behind.

http://danbricklin.com/log/jupiterclickz200306.htm

Mitch Ratcliffe, former head of content for ON24, has launched a new group Blog with a few friends called Correspondences.org. The goal, he explained to me, is to become the vastest local community news organization in the world. He wants content to be provided by the people for the people. “It’s a civic journal.
Citizens talking about life.”

Which means anyone can be a reporter in text, audio or video.

While he has grand visions of thousands of local “reporter-citizens” joining the non-paying staff, and someday dedicating entire sites just to local communities, he doesn’t think this will make much money. “I’ll be happy to break-even.”

He is considering selling text-links, and lots of logo-ed t-shirts, hats, etc., to anyone who ever wanted to embrace the glamour of being a member of the press.

http://www.correspondences.org

Are some emailers being duped by junk list owners?

Our Relations Director Aimee called me this morning to say, “You have to warn me next time before you publish a really controversial issue!”
Turns out she’s been deluged with calls and email in the 24 hours since I published an EmailSherpa article that named the names of 25 mailers we suspected could be using junk lists.

Several mailers were (very) unhappily surprised to see their names on the list.

I created the list by glancing over the mail that we get in an email box here at Sherpa that doesn’t actually belong to anyone. Since no one “owns” it, no one has ever used the email address to sign up for any list. Therefore, I figured the 300-odd promotional emails the box gets every day must ipso-facto be coming from mailers using non-permission junk lists.

As I said, it turns out some of those mailers were shocked to find their names published by us as people using junk lists. Turns out they were promised by whoever they rented the names from that it was a permission list. It wasn’t.

I’m not saying all rented lists are bad. Heavens no. In fact I strongly support the permission rental industry.

Personally there are some hobby lists that I sign up for hoping to get promotional mail, because as a consumer I’m deeply interested in offers in those niches. I’m sure many of you
feel the same way.

Anyway, tirade aside, you can find the article where I named names below: It’s #5.

Thanks for your support,

Anne
Anne Holland – Publisher
MarketingSherpa
AHolland@MarketingSherpa.com

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CASE STUDIES
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#2. How Tweaking a Business Web Site’s Design Can Increase the Sales Leads it Generates by 60%

If you agonize over your company’s Web site lay-out, you’ll love this Case Study because it includes before-and-after screenshots showing how to change home page and registration form can improve results.

Plus – if you wonder how asking many questions vs. few on a registration form affects the number of people who will fill out your form, this Case Study has an answer for you:
http://www.b2bmarketingbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2368

#3. Go RVing Integrated Online/Offline Ads Rank in Top 10% of All Campaigns Measured for Effectiveness

We hounded the folks at Go RVing to let us write this Case Study after we saw one of their ads, and thought, “This is so great looking, did it work?”

Learn how their multi-channel campaign, including radio, TV, print and online, did incredibly well by using best media buying, creative and offer practices. Yes, lots of creative
samples are included from online and offline media:
http://www.consumermarketingbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2374

#4. PC World Tests Selling PDFs and CD ROMs Online: What They Learned:

If there’s one lesson to be learned from this Case Study, it’s that sometimes you have to keep projects simple to get them off the ground at all. PC World’s Bruce McCurdy deliberately avoided fancy tests, tracking heaps of metrics, and investing in an ecommerce backend, when he decided to test selling PDFs and CD ROMs for the first time.

The point was to get the answer to a single question: Will people buy these items at all? Here’s what he discovered:
http://www.contentbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2370

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PRACTICAL KNOW-HOW
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#5. Big Threats for Emailers Part II: False Positives & Offers Sent to Junk Lists in Your Name

In Part II of our special report for legitimate mailers and brands trying to avoid problems posed by the increase in junk email, you’ll find:
a. What to do when your mail is stopped by Corporate filters
b. Junk Mail Still Arriving from 15 Legitimate Brands
c. List of Some Third-Party Offer Emailers Using Junk Lists

Definitely worth a read if you send any broadcast email at all or if you let third party mailers send on your behalf:
http://www.emailsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2371

#6. How Aubuchon Hardware Doubled Online Sales by Improving Search Engine Optimization: 5 Specific Tips

Fascinating fact: Aubuchon Hardware revamped their site entirely in September 2002 specifically to encourage search engines to notice it. However, it took until well into November for the new site to have any affect. So, while optimization is definitely worth investing in, you have to wait 60-120 days for real results. More info:
http://www.greatmindsinmarketing.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2373

#7. How to be Featured in a Baseline IT Case Study

Ziff Davis just launched Baseline Magazine fairly recently, so it may not be on your PR screen yet. However, it’s already got 125,000 avid readers, so this is definitely a place you want to plant a story if you’re trying to reach IT pros. Here’s how:
http://www.marketingfame.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2372

On the trendspotting front, although practically none of my EmailSherpa readers (13,000 major broadcast emailers) said they
think RSS is interesting yet, I’m guessing that same question six months from now will get much hotter response because this been- a-baby-forever trend finally is starting to build steam fast. For example, according to AdWeek’s Technology Marketing yesterday
Infoworld became the “first” publisher to build ads into its RSS feed.

http://www.technologymarketing.com/mc/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1910272