There’s a ‘black hat’ marketing technique that predates search marketing, search engines and the Internet itself. It’s buying press. We’re all familiar with it.
Publishers try to avoid compromising editorial integrity at all costs, I thought. But maybe I’m naive. A recent AdvertisingAge article on buying press says otherwise.
MarketingSherpa data indicates that 59% of consumers and 90% of business email users view some or all of their email with images turned off. This includes people who may view email in their preview panels with images turned off (remember, this is the default for many email clients including Gmail and some versions of Outlook). It also includes people who view their email on a mobile device, such as a BlackBerry.
All of us in the email marketing world have known for ages that images aren’t always visible. But few marketers have redesigned their campaigns to get around the problem. Today, I’d like to celebrate one of the few email newsletters I receive that breaks the mold: HomeAway newsletter.
HomeAway is a vacation lodgings firm. Just as you’d expect, their newsletter is loaded with photos of enticing destinations. However, HomeAway’s email team obviously includes a smart designer and a great copywriter. If you open the newsletter with images blocked, it’s loaded with text descriptions of enticing destinations.
You don’t have to scroll past lots of dead white space looking for the text either – it starts right at the top of the screen. All of the links are usefully worded, explaining where the URL will take you (instead of a generic “more” or “read on”) and formatted in easy-to-skim vertical lists.
If you have an image-heavy or image-dependent email newsletter, take five seconds right now to click over to the real-life examples I’ve had posted of HomeAway’s newsletter. You can see the image version and the blocked-image version. Both have ideas your email designer and copywriter might be inspired by.
The link for samples is here:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/cs/homeaway/study.html
By the way, if you have redesigned your email program templates to work better with images blocked, or perhaps with mobile devices, let us know at ChrisH(at)MarketingSherpa(dot)com. Sherpa just might want to profile you in a future issue!
One of the newer ways of marketing to consumers lies in the idea of being green. It’s pretty simple: If you can convince environmentally conscious folks that you care about running your operations responsibly, that sizable group becomes much more inclined to spend money on your products or services. Read more…
Three weeks ago a co-worker told me about great deals she gets shopping at Target online. It immediately sparked my interest. I never thought of shopping online at a store I could easily drive to. When she told me I could return merchandise purchased online to any of the physical stores … I was sold. Read more…
Mr. Phinney was a genuinely nice science teacher in my high school. He liked to relax and chat casually with students while not in class. Like many science enthusiasts, Mr. Phinney (or occasionally Phinn-dog) knew a lot of strange things about the world.
Even after about a decade, the jury is still out on email open rates. Some marketers disregard them as pointless. Others check them daily to guide subject line and content decisions. Personally, I think there is value in measuring open rates — even if it is limited.
It’s the time of year when I get emails from Sherpa readers who are proud parents, aunts or uncles of new college grads. They want to know, “How can my kid land a job?”
The good news: Even in this economic downturn, many companies are hiring junior marketers. The bad news: Most kids are woefully inept at marketing themselves properly to get these jobs.
Fact: When you’re new to an industry or job function, your resume is NOT going to help you much. Not even if it’s polished by a professional writer. Not even if it’s plastered on every job site on the Internet. Not even if it’s emailed out to the universe. Your resume doesn’t contain enough evidence or proof that you can do the job. It can’t – you’re new!
So, what do you do? It all comes down to networking. I’m not talking about an influential mom or dad making a call. That kind of hand-holding won’t help your child build job-seeking skills for the rest of his or her career. Instead, help your child stand on his or her own feet by suggesting these two tactics:
#1. Informational Interviews
Inspired by the perennial bestseller, ‘What Color is Your Parachute?’, I’ve personally used this tactic four times over my own career and, next week, my newly graduated son is launching his own career the same way.
Pick a particular niche you’d like to explore, such as marketing for a publisher in Washington DC. Then, write letters to people in that field asking for an informational interview. Be clear that you’re not asking for a job, you’d just like to hear what it’s like to be in their position because it’s your goal. Also, let them know you’re not asking for much time – just 15-30 minutes at a time of their convenience anytime in a particular week.
Key – the interview must happen in person so you can make that connection. Go armed with questions, including: “How did you start your own career in this?” and “What do you like and dislike most about this career?” Last: “Is there anyone else you’d recommend I meet with in this industry/area to learn more?”
In the end, you’ll have a much better idea if this is the right career for you; plus, you’ll have honed your in-person interview skills to help you land it. And, if a position does come up later at any of the organizations where you did an informational interview, your chances of landing it are 1000% better than anyone else’s in the stack of resumes.
How do you find the people to interview with? Try your college alumni center (the president of Google told me earlier this year he’s always happy to interview an alum), as well as LinkedIn (this is where your parents’ connections can help you) and, of course, the blogosphere (execs who blog are very likely to say yes to info interviews.)
#2. Targeted Temping
Again, pick a target city/area and industry. Then, contact HR departments of your target companies and ask them, “Which temp agency do you use?” Often, most of the companies will use the same couple of temp agencies. From there, it’s a quick day’s work to go down to each temp agency and sign up. Remember that typing tests, a suitable outfit, and office experience count.
Your goal is to get sent into one or more of your target companies in any position at all. It doesn’t matter if you’re at the front desk or back in the files. It doesn’t matter what department you’re in. Don’t be picky. You’re getting a golden chance to schmooze, networking within the company itself while you “work” there, if only for a few days.
Most executives would rather hire that bright young temp for a junior job than sift through the awful pile of resumes trying to figure out who the best one is. I know since that’s how I got my first job in marketing.
By the way, here’s a link to my past blog on how to break into the Internet marketing field specifically:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=30191
There’s been lots of talk for some time about the convergence of online marketing with the print advertising world. Of course, as this blog has discussed in a past entry, there’s the virtual catalog with its ‘thumb-through-the-pages’ technology. And there’s been new ‘online magazines’ debuting in recent years.
Well, Yahoo! has announced a program designed to target online viewers with display ads that originate from the Web versions of retailers’ newspaper circulars. Now, on its face, this is not entirely new. Specifically, grocery chains, drug stores and other retailers have made their circulars available for printable download.
Some marketers try to test every tactic at least once. If it doesn’t work, they stop. Then in a few months, they try it again. The marketing team at Basement Systems, which sells basement and crawl space waterproofing and other products, does this constantly. Read more…
