MarketingSherpa Blog

This week, MarketingSherpa published the results from our third annual reader study on viral marketing. Viral is the art of creating a message so engaging and compelling that people can’t help but tell other people about it.

Given the number of calls our own research department has been fielding recently from reporters at places, such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, it seems viral marketing itself is going viral. Viral is hot, hot, hot!

In fact, 57% of the 2,914 Sherpa readers who took our questionnaire said they were planning at least one viral campaign this year. However, this overall number is misleading. Why? Newbies who were interested in viral but had never conducted a campaign were two to three times *less* likely to conduct a viral campaign in 2007 than their more experienced competitors.

There’s a chasm in viral marketing — an experience chasm. It gives anyone with viral experience a significant edge over the competition.

For example, marketers who’ve tested viral in the past are more likely to:

o Pick the right goal — 13% of newbies hope to make direct sales from a viral campaign. Experienced marketers use viral as step one in a relationship or brand-building campaign that ultimately leads to a sale.

o Use multiple tactics — experienced marketers are more likely to pour it on, using video, audio, microsites, games and email. Newbies may test one tactic.

o Budget realistically — the numbers that newbies gave for videos, ecards and microsites were often laughably smaller than those from experienced marketers.

Anyway, you can see 15 charts of detailed data from this new study at the link below. In the meantime, based on the data, you can bet I’m going to consider launching a quiz or cool microsite (or, better yet, both) for marketers in the coming year.

Useful links related to this article

Special Report: Viral Marketing 2007 – 15 Data Charts, Top Tactics & ROI
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=29941

Two weeks ago I asked if you knew of any research into online typography that dug beyond general understandings from usability and eyetracking studies.

The problem is that while these studies are very valuable in their place, they don’t completely resolve nitty-gritty typeface disputes that marketers often find themselves in with the Web and email design departments. Such as, which is better for body copy: Times New Roman or a sans serif font, such as Arial or Verdana?

Sherpa reader Sarah Naasko of Market Strategies Inc. wrote to let me know about a great collection of related studies placed online by the folks at The Wichita State University Software Usability Research Laboratory. The studies don’t resolve all my questions (such as ragged right vs justified right or 10 point vs 12 point vs 14 point), but at least they are a pretty good starting point.

The most interesting findings from my perspective across several of the studies listed in this collection are:

o Web surfers like Times New Roman and read it roughly as quickly as a sans serif font. So the “sans serif is better online because people read it more quickly” argument many Web designers have tried out on me isn’t true all the time.

o Researchers almost invariably used type in 10 or 12 point size for the reading comprehension tests. Few seem to have tested much smaller fonts, such as 8 or 9, mainly because they assumed that small wouldn’t be a good idea (i.e., no one will be dumb enough to put type that small, so why test it?).

o Researchers also didn’t test color type such as pale gray vs black on white. Again, I assume because they knew from offline type tests anything that’s not black on white is harder to read, so what Web designer would think putting body copy in other colors is a good idea?

Obviously, most of these tests were conducted before blogs made tiny gray type fashionable. And, just as obviously, what’s fashionable is not always what’s comfortable. Not for my feet, nor for my eyes.

In my opinion, using type smaller than 10 points and/or body copy that’s not black on white is the equivalent of asking your Web visitors to wear extremely pointy shoes with 5-inch spike heels as they walk around your site. Sure, some young women (my stepdaughter in particular) would be more than happy to. But she does not represent the vast majority of the Web population.

Anyway, rant over. Here’s a link to that useful collection of font studies:
http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/INDEX%20FOLDER/ABCindex.htm#F

20 years ago, I put together my very first direct marketing campaign. The tiny publishing company I had just joined was in a cash crunch. This campaign *had* to work so we could meet payroll.

It was quick and simple. I wrote the copy and had the Kinkos around the corner print the fliers. Then, I personalized each one with sticky labels that I had printed on my little inkjet printer with our past customers’ names and addresses.

As I folded and stuffed each flier into the envelopes, I found myself fiercely thinking to the imagined recipient, “You are so psyched to get this flier. This looks great. You’ll respond right away. Yeah!”

Then I carted the campaign down to the local post office and held my breath.

Within two weeks, checks were rolling in. We wound up with a double-digit paid response rate and met payroll just in time.

Of course, the list and offer had nearly everything to do with that success. Past customers are great responders, especially when you offer them something directly related to their last purchase.

But, I’ve always suspected that my strong, mental visualization of success played a role as well. From that day forward, I’ve felt in the pit of my stomach that when I really believe in a product and in the benefits customers will get from it, then my campaigns always have better results.

The key is in really believing — solidly, calmly and completely. Over-the-top hypey excitement doesn’t work. It has to be centered in your stomach and dead honest.

I always suspected that top ad agencies knew this secret tactic for success, too, because they rule that account execs must personally use the client’s product. You can’t brush your teeth with Crest and write ad copy for Colgate.

This secret for success is also the reason why I suspect some B-to-B high-tech marketers create such horrible ads. They can’t believe in the product from their guts, because they can hardly understand — much less personally use — the product. So, they throw a lot of buzzwords and BS-y happy talk around (“We’re the leading blah blah blah”) hoping to obscure the fact that they can’t visualize the true benefits customers would get.

Anyway, the power of visualization and gut-level-belief is not a marketing tactic I’ve ever mentioned publicly before because, well, I was a little afraid I might get laughed at. After all, where’s the science? Where are the A/B test results? What are the numbers?

As it turns out, there’s a bunch of scientific data already out there related to this, as well as a big experiment under way that all of us can join in on to learn more.

I heard about it thanks to Sherpa Reader Steve Kayser at Cincom, who sent me a new book that’s *packed* with science from highly reputable labs (think Harvard), all about how the human mind really does affect reality — including marketing campaign results — far more than we suspected.

Just published Jan. 7, 2007, the hardcover book, ‘The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World’ is *not* new-age gobbledegook or get-rich-quick dreck. Instead, it’s an educated, well-footnoted, review of the science — especially quantum physics — around your thoughts’ power over reality.

The best part is: author Lynne McTaggart has issued a call for additional experiments. Her goal is to continue the science and add to the knowledge already collected on this topic.

I like that a lot. She doesn’t just ask you to trust her research but to help extend it for the good of all.

If you’re as interested as I am, here’s where you can learn more about the book and how to participate in global experiments testing how the mind influences reality:
http://www.theintentionexperiment.com

And, before you launch your next campaign, close your eyes and picture the legions of thrilled recipients. Trust the science — it works!

In 1984, the Newspaper Ad Bureau of Australia published a research pamphlet that should have been laminated and hung on the walls of every single marketing art department in the world.

In fact, to this day I think every graphic designer should be forced to take a quiz on this data before you allow them anywhere near your marketing design project.

Why? Because it spells out what typefaces and layout design people can read most easily … and what’s nearly impossible for the human eye to comprehend.

For example: Headlines set in Times New Roman upper and lower case have a 92% comprehension rate. However, headlines in sans serif type (think Arial) all caps cause a 59% drop in comprehension rate.

Another example: Reverse type, such as white lettering on a black background, has 0% good comprehension (that’s right, zero.) Ink colors, such as bright red on a white background, aren’t much better at 10% good comprehension.

One more example: 80% of readers will look at a vertical shape or graphic before they’ll look at a horizontal one.

Does this data carry over to the Web? Whenever I ask Web designers for research about comprehension and online typography, they have told me they make choices based on what they see on most other sites. I guess designers think, “If everyone else is doing it, it must be right.”

MarketingSherpa and other organizations (most notably the Poynter Institute, which studies what works for newspaper publishing online and off) have conducted eyetracking tests that indicate certain broad rules about online design that works. (The fact that the eye skitters about fairly quickly and does not read everything on the page in order, nor often entire headlines or sentences from start to finish.)

However, to my knowledge, no one has conducted a specific study on online typography. Example: Are sans serif fonts used extensively online because science told us to do it, or is it just design habit based on a decade of common usage?

Solutions? Well, first of all, if you oversee or sign off on any print marketing materials, such as brochures, space ads, marcom, PDFs that are meant to be printed, etc., get yourself a copy of the 1984 study. Get your art director a copy, too.

It’s now available as a paperback book at most major bookstores. Ask for the title, ‘Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Just Making Pretty Shapes’ by Colin Wheildon.

Also, if you know of any true research (not just opinions without referenced data) on the topic of online typography please do post a reply to this blog so Sherpa’s research department can look into it for everyone right away.

Third, we’re strongly considering conducting our own research on the topic. It will be a giant undertaking, but I think well worth the work. Wouldn’t it be nice to at last be able to walk into Web design meetings with data in your hands? So, watch this blog for a posting when we start the project. We’ll definitely need test subjects to come into the lab and read Web pages to help us. If you’d like to volunteer, let us know.

Thanks!

14 Microsoft employees who are signed up for MarketingSherpa emails aren’t getting them. Seven Nortel staffers are in the same boat, not to mention three at Eagle Creek Travel Gear.

And while Nationwide may be on your side, it’s not on Sherpa’s. 15 Nationwide staffers currently are not getting Sherpa newsletters despite signing up for them.

Why? Mainly corporate email filters. If you, like Sherpa, email opt-ins at their work addresses, you’re highly likely to be blocked by at least a few of them. It’s not about permission, it’s usually about content. Unlike public email services, such as AOL, which mainly filter based on mailer reputation, the filters companies use are more likely to filter partly based on old-fashioned content rules. (See below for link to stats on this.)

If they see certain words in an email, they leap to conclusions that this must be junk and block it from getting through. This is called a “false positive,” and it’s nuts-making for the person trying to get *wanted* mail through.

IT people who chose which filters their companies will use are for the most part blithely unconcerned about false positives. In fact, when I met with Sherpa’s own IT guy a few weeks back to discuss filters, he was unaware of the problem.

He showed me a thick stack of brochures and CNET printouts detailing each of the filtering software solutions. Each had big fat headlines blaring about how much junk mail it stopped. He suggested choosing the one with the highest filter rate.

I suggested he squint at the fine print to see which software had the lowest false positive rate instead.

Want to know how much your sends are being filtered? Your email bounce report will not show you the complete picture. (It only shows which email recipient’s systems replied with a message. The vast majority of filters do not reply; they just silently block.)

One way is to pull a list of your non-responsive names by domain. If 100% of your names at a particular domain have not opened and/or clicked anything you sent recently, you’re probably filtered.

B-to-B marketers are most at risk and should be pro-active about pulling this report. Especially if you are marketing to large organizations and are relying on your email program to educate and warm prospects. You need to know if mail to a particular account simply isn’t getting through.

Then, you take the next step, contact that organization’s IT staffer via your connections or emails to “postmaster@”. You’ll need to assure the IT department that you are an opt-in mailer with permission. You’ll also want to share a sample copy of a typical email sent to their company so they can see for themselves it’s not junk.

Good luck!

If you’d like to add your own advice and/or comments, please click on the Post a Comment link below.

Useful links related to this article

Here’s a link to the presentation I mentioned above where our research team showed charts about how public and corporate email is filtered:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=29823

Is email no longer a super-personal medium? 10 years ago I used to train marketers in the art of email best practices. “Make your creative personal,” I’d say. “Email is a more personal medium than direct postal mail. It’s one-to-one. Not mass.”

But, after looking over our latest Creative Samples Gallery of Email Awards (see link below if you missed it last week), I suddenly realized email-creative-that-works has changed a lot in the past decade …

I and other email “experts” used to counsel against the mass-marketing look and feel for email creative. However, I’ve seen the (often private) results data for hundreds of campaigns in every marketplace you can imagine in the past 12 months … and, the truth is, email creative that works has changed.

Email creative that looks like an advertising flier; that looks like a mass communication; that looks punchy and promotional; absolutely can work gangbusters in the right market.

I guess consumers who used to think of their in-box as a personal, private space don’t anymore. The email box has become much more like a real-world mailbox. People expect to see, and respond to, a range of styles — from glossy fliers to multi-offer catalogs to plain transaction notes.

In fact, the old adage about making your email creative appear to be from one person to another is probably far more true of mobile marketing for now. If you’re going to text message (AKA SMS) your mobile opt-in file, then it should be personal.

Now, I’m NOT saying email marketing that works isn’t one-to-one. One-to-one really, really matters. But it’s a different kind of one-to-one. It’s all about personal relevancy.

Is the offer (or content) being presented in the email truly relevant to the individual receiving it? Or are you sending the same offer (or content) to the masses? If you segment carefully so each part of your list gets what really matters to them individually, then they’ll respond. Big time.

So, the big shift for email creative boils down to this:

Instead of making our email creative appear or read like it’s from one human to another human (which was nearly always a lie, after all), it’s OK to let it look promotional. However, that promotion *should* be targeted to the individual as much as possible.

You’re sending an ad, so use your best (tested) ad creative. One-to-one in email is now all about sending the right ad to the right person instead of the same personal-looking ad to everyone.

Useful links related to this article

If you didn’t get a chance to review Sherpa’s Gallery of Email Awards 2007 here’s the link — it’s incredibly inspirational and open year-round for the benefit for the marketing community:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=29889

If you’d like to learn about other marketing awards, you can nominate yourself for, Sherpa tracks a grand total of 251 for you here:
https://www.marketingsherpa.com/awards.html

In November 1999, I woke up abruptly at about 3 a.m. in a hotel room outside Phoenix where I was attending a marketing conference.

I’d had this strangely intense dream. The vision was so overwhelming that I fumbled in my bag next to the bed for a pen and paper and started furiously scribbling.

The result: a blueprint outlining every aspect of what would become MarketingSherpa — an encyclopedic resource with practical research data, inspirational real-life samples and instructional how-to to help marketers get better results.

I’ve kept that piece of paper tacked up on my office bulletin board all these years. Although the ink is now faded, it still inspires me.

Today, at long last, we’re officially launching beta versions of not one but five major new services all initially envisioned in that dream:

#1. MarketingSherpa Membership Beta

Many of you have emailed and called over the years to complain that buying Case Studies one at a time was inconvenient. Now that pain has ended. When you join as a Sherpa Member, you’ll get complete access to everything year-round, including 744+ Case Studies and 526 how-to pieces.

And, yes, we’ve improved search and added 52 topical microsite sections so it’s easier to quickly find what you need.

#2. Research Database Beta

I’ve had a team of four, headed by a research librarian, working behind the scenes for more than a year now to make this for you. They’ve created more than 2,000 searchable records of every type of research to do with marketing, ads and PR from more than 500 organizations.

If you’re looking for a number, chances are you’ll find a source referenced in this handy, ever-growing database.

#3. Creative Samples Library Beta

We’ve gathered, organized and cross-referenced more than 2,200 creative samples from MarketingSherpa Case Studies into a searchable library for you. Each one includes hotlinks back to the original story so you can see how effective the campaign was.

Yes, you can search by brand name so you can see what we have for your company and your competitors.

#4. Awards Calendar Beta

A personal favorite of mine, we track 254 different awards in marketing, ads and PR throughout the year. It’s easy to search by topic, location and — most importantly –nomination deadlines!

#5. Events Calendar Beta

Many of you write in asking if we know of good events for marketing professionals to attend, sponsor or speak at. That’s why our research team created this calendar for you tracking 577 events and trade shows throughout the year.

You may be wondering why all of this is called “Beta.”

I stole the idea from Google, who call lots of their new services Beta. Beta to me means that I’m very much looking for your input as you try the new services so we can improve them further. You understand the site is not locked in stone, but rather a work in progress based on your feedback and demand.

It also means that as a Beta user, you’re one of the first. Some people don’t like being first; others really do. The choice is in your hands. You can learn more at:
https://www.marketingsherpa.com/membertour.html

In closing, all this weekend I thought a lot about the past seven and a half years — what an incredible journey it’s been from that waking up alone in that hotel room with a Big Idea to an office packed with researchers and reporters working to make it a reality.

So, I’d like to quickly thank some people for their help along the way:

o Andy Bourland, Founder ClickZ, and Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director MarketingExperiments, for sending in two of Sherpa’s very first reader testimonials years ago.

o Aimee Kessler Evans, employee No. 1 and now one of our very first Beta Members.

o Tad Clarke, our editorial director, for leaving his decade-long position at DM News and moving from Manhattan to Rhode Island to take a chance with Sherpa.

o Stefan Tornquist, our research director, for making the exact opposite move so we’d have a New York-based research presence.

o Reporters past and present, especially including Jennifer Nastu, Mark Brownlow, Dianna Huff, Alexis Gutzman, Chris Heine and Sean Donahue.

o Longstanding team members Sharon Hamner, Ron Perry, Aimee Croke, Kim Pezzetti, Terra Hughes, Meinhart & Associates and the guys in our Sombor, Serbia, branch office.

o Newer Sherpas including Cintia Miranda, who’s taken on the, perhaps, daunting task of running the marketing department.

o All the programmers and designers from Matrix Group to CVanek Studios, who made the site’s evolution possible. Plus, Holly Hicks on the newsletters front.

o Tech suppliers, including Omniture, ExactTarget, WebSideStory Search, Kowabunga and SurveyGizmo, who make our services possible.

o Hope Hopkins, Membership Services Producer, and Erin Donovan, Research Librarian. To you two falls the now even bigger task of keeping our new services growing healthy and strong.

And, last, but overwhelmingly not least, you, our 237,000 weekly readers, who have made this incredible journey possible — and who give us the reason to keep on building a newer, better Sherpa every single day.

Thank you for your support and guidance.

Wow — loads of you wrote in letters of support and advice in response to my blog last week about the agony of choosing new site colors. Thanks so much!

Finally, after a quick live test of ‘Dark Gold’ (I adored it; pretty much everyone else in the Sherpa universe complained vociferously), we ended up with the color scheme I fondly call ‘Manila Folder.’ It’s calm, warm and professional. Or at least I think so.

So, we’re sticking with Manila Folder for good. Period. End of discussion.

Except, of course, because on the Web, the discussion never really ends. Got feedback, color choice tales of your own, or other ideas to improve our new site?

On a completely unrelated note:

I would like to apologize to the 60+ Sherpa readers who waitlisted themselves for Sherpa Email Summit tickets. Despite adding 30% more capacity than last year, we just didn’t have enough room for everyone who wanted to attend.

Which means our Events Director Aimee Croke is touring larger facilities in Miami this week looking for a bigger space for Email Summit 2008. (She’s gloriously pregnant, so her progression through the city’s conference centers is rather like that of an ocean liner majestically entering a tropical bay.)

In the meantime, she has asked me to warn you that the room capacity for our upcoming May 7-8th Summit in New York City is *only* 220 seats, including speakers. Which is tight indeed.

The New York Summit in May focuses solely on the topic of selling online subscriptions. Case Study speakers include TheStreet.com, Blockbuster, NASCAR.com, Books24x7 and Symantec.

If you’re considering attending, please reserve tickets as soon as possible to ensure you get a seat. Sherpa’s Subscriptions Summit sold out for the past six years in a row, so you can see why Aimee is concerned. You’ll find the 2007 agenda and info at:
http://www.sherpastore.com/selling-subscriptions.html?1150

These past two weeks, I’ve been in endless debates and design meetings trying to choose new colors for our revamped and expanded Web site.

If you’ve ever had to choose site colors, you’ll understand completely. The three biggest problems:

(1) Everything’s really subjective. What a color “means” can be personal or cultural, but it’s not the same for everyone. Did you know baby girls wore blue and boys wore pink 150 years ago? Did you consider the green-means-money rule doesn’t work outside the US?

(2) Everything looks slightly different on differing computers. Non-dithering hues notwithstanding, most people’s screens look a little different. Laptops vs desktop monitors, old vs new screens, Macs vs PCs, varying background glare … the differences are not massive. But they are enough to make a pale brown appear to be pink.

(3) There’s virtually no data on marketing and color.

I know because I checked our site’s new Research Database, which has more than 1,800 records, for stats on color. Very little came up.

Turns out, you can find loads of articles on the Web about color choices. However, most are based on hearsay instead of lab tests, cultural associations and/or broad generalizations that don’t help much when you’ve got a palate of hundreds of hues to choose from.

My next step was to check out our Case Study Library with nearly 750 Case Studies. Did anyone test color choices?

Well, yes, they did. However, results were disheartening to a marketer stuck in a design meeting. Aside from the twin factors of legibility and good taste (based on target demographic), color tests were *never* a big factor in improving conversion rates.

The important factors were invariably things such as:
o Traffic source
o Offer
o Specific words in copy
o Ease of navigation (including lack of distractions)
o Relevancy of images
o Trustworthiness
o Reading comprehension (type size, type color, background color)

The last item on the list nearly always resolved to fairly big type (11-12 points+), in black “ink” on a white background. So that’s not color so much as eye-enablement.

So, you could say to yourself, well, since color doesn’t matter like this other, far more important stuff, I’m not going to pay attention to it. Let’s pick something quickly and end the debate.

Except for one thing: branding.

It’s how I found myself in this pickle in the first place. If you check the Wayback Machine — http://www.archive.org/index.php — for 2000, you’ll see Sherpa’s first site colors were bright red and yellow. These were chosen non-scientifically because they are my absolute personal favorites.

However, nobody else liked them, so I was shanghaied a few years ago into picking new colors so MarketingSherpa’s brand would feel more “corporate.”

What’s corporate? We ended up with red and gray. Which looked fine, if a bit boring to me. Unfortunately, red and gray also looked fine to a bunch of our competitors. If you’re a color-sensitive person, Jupiter, eMarketer and MarketingSherpa all looked pretty much the same.

We needed a new color scheme to stand out from the fray. Our first choice, nicknamed ‘Operation Desert Storm’ was finally vetoed because sometimes a palette of khakis and dark red don’t have thrilling associations.

Our second choice, nicknamed ‘Kindergarten’ was far more cheerful, but also vetoed because, well, you can guess why.

We actually went live last week with our third choice, ‘Brownie.’ And then too many people on staff complained the softer hues looked unpleasantly pink on older laptop monitors. (I got emails from folks with the words ‘Pepto-Bismol’ in the subject line.)

Anyway, all of this is to explain, if you’re in color choice meetings yourself, I feel your pain. Deeply.

And also, if you’ve been confused by the odd changes our site colors have been going through over the past few weeks (and days to come), this is why. Please bear with us. It will all be over soon, and then we can concentrate on the
important stuff.

If you want to improve email campaign conversions — at least incrementally — the answer may lie in your customer service department. Here’s why:

Every time you send an email broadcast, instead of clicking on hotlinks or order buttons, some percent of recipients will click on “reply to” and send you back a message.

What percent? Sherpa Reader Don Hoyt at Deerfield.com (who admittedly is in the business of helping companies handle these replies) says his own house mailings get 20% replies for big offers and 5% for non-offer messages, such as informational newsletters. That sounds a little high to me, but it probably varies a lot based on the quality of your list, your marketplace and your relationship opt-ins. Hoyt’s list is B-to-B and includes customers.

Campaign replies fall into roughly four topical groups:

o Questions/response about the offer in the email – lion’s share
o Questions about buying your other offerings – 10%
o Technical or service questions about past purchases – 10%
o Email preferences (i.e., Take me off your list) – tiny %

Hoyt’s customer service team has a goal of personally responding to all these replies within 30 minutes of receipt. Their conversion rate from answers to the first two reply topics is 30%.

30% is a darn high close rate on an emailed offer.

So, you might consider a quick research project. Reply four times (once per topic above) to one of your own email promotions as if you were a “real” recipient. This will work best if you use a personal email account so it’s not obvious that you’re with the company.

Then sit back and see how long it takes customer service to reply to each and what’s in that reply when it comes.

If it’s gloriously and swiftly handled, give them very public kudos at the next interdepartmental meeting. If it’s not, don’t blame them. Instead, start a research program of your own to find out:

o What percent of campaign sends get reply-tos?

o How do the replies break down into topics by percent?

o How long does your email program or ESP take to sort these and get them back to your company for handling? (It can be as long as two days.) What would it take to speed this up?

o Who at your company receives them now and what training and tools has marketing given them?

o What about reply-tos for rented lists, affiliate campaigns or other partnered sends?

Your goal is to estimate how many possible conversions you’re currently leaving on the table due to slowly answered or uncompellingly answered replies. And how much would it cost you to fix the problem.

You may discover that handling reply-tos will continue to be imperfect. The conversions won’t be worth the extra work. Or you may find that you can optimize right away.

By the way — I had a meeting with our own ESP on Friday on this very subject, so I’ve just started my own research project into this same thing for Sherpa. We’ll see how it turns out.