Refresh Leadership Live Event Contest

Project: 2011 Refresh Leadership Live event engagement
Company: Express Employment

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION:

Email Marketing: What You NEED to Know after the Epsilon Debacle

The Email Marketing breech has been all over the news. It seems like many of our favorite brands were the victims of this egregious hacking of what might be one of the largest “vaults” of opted in email addresses.

In the marketing world, email marketing is more important than ever before. More and more consumers are using email as a major form of communication, task management, social media access and storage for coupons. Even with all the talk about social media in the blogi-sphere (and twitter-verse) it is still impossible to escape the fact that more people use email than any other medium for digital communication and sharing content (according to Read Write Web). The truth is, you can’t create your account without an email anyway.

So what does the tyrant that hacked Epsilon‘s client databases have access to? How can you protect your company from being subject to the same kind of breech?

For the most part, they only have access to what your customers might now give them. The biggest threat is the criminal mind blasting the lists using the identity of the client to gain information that they don’t have. Of the several large companies that have been affected, several are banks and financial institutions, including JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Capital One and others. If you’re bank sent you a message prompting you to log in, many consumers would click and log in without even thinking to verify it is not a phishing site. The same kind of danger is with posing e-commerce sites, but what can you do to help ensure your customers aren’t affected? Here are some practices from the marketing point of view that will also protect your customers from being fraudulent damage.

1. Unique design and practices. It’s well designed email that generates high response rates, but it’s also a branding effort. If you are consistently building your brand with a unique format, and design presentation, something that deviates from this will trigger a red flag for your customers.

2. Trust reputable and knowledgable marketing providers. Let’s be fair, Epsilon is one of the worlds leading providers. They are definitely knowledgable. This only alerts us to the fact that it is important to protect your sensitive information, and make sure it is in the hands of professionals who know the ins and outs, and how to respond in the rare case of a crisis.

3. Reassure your customers that you value the relationship. Inevitably, people will be more protective of their email after a news story like this. Perhaps the most important thing marketers need to be aware of is that the standard for the level of trust needed to gain a direct marketing relationship is likely higher. Show this trustworthiness in your marketing practices. Don’t share your list from one division to another, allow customers the opportunity to opt in or out, and use the best resources for protecting that information.

We (At Indianapolis Marketing Company redwall LIVE) believe permission based marketing is more valuable and important than any other form. It’s important to protect this model especially when dealing with people’s personal information.

###

redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that Provides Campaigns Strategies and Tools for Successful Marketing.

Using Key Messaging for Targeted Marketing

As long as marketing has been around it has been important to speak to your audience. Even when Jesus himself was sharing his message of the Kingdom of Heaven, he still tailored his message with parables to better direct the message to those he was reaching. Today, crafting a message to your consumer is no less important. What we find most different today is that with technology, it is much easier to reach large numbers of people. Often times the group you are targeting is contained in a much larger group which you are reaching. This calls for you to use key messaging that will resonate most with those you wish to reach.

This is not an SEO blog, if you are looking for one you should read this SEO Blog. On the other hand you might find some connections between the two topics. You see, SEO is all about having relevant content for your customers search effort. Your customer is searching for certain things, using certain key words. If your messaging is so specific that it is a perfect match, you will cut through the clutter and be found by your targeted customer. If you have a billboard in a subway station, you are likely to be exposed to people that will not ultimately be your buyers. If you’re message is crafted for the right person it will cut through the clutter and resonate with the individual that is a best fit to buy your product.

Weather you are designing a printed ad, building a website, writing an article, or doing search engine marketing, you need to start with identifying your ideal customer. Here are some specific tips to craft a razor sharp message:

1. Use familiar people in images. People are naturally inclined to identify and relate to people. The subject of an ad should be a person that your customer looks like, or wants to look like. If you’re buyer is the mother of the household, having a motherly character is going to help her relate to your message. If them advertorial mom has it all together, that will subconsciously suggest that buying your product will help her achieve that result. This is why celebrities are great spokespeople. People identify with them to some degree, yet that celebrity status lends to people wanting to be just like them.

2. Use very specific phrases. A general statement can get lost very easily among many other general statements. Focus on something that is very specific to the kind of person you are going after. Consider an example, you are selling homes and young couples just married seems to be a good customer. the slogan “New homes for you” is not as specific as “Planning your wedding and then planning your life”. Clearly if you were in the wedding planning mode, the second would catch your attention.

3. Keep the messaging short: You get the picture. Don’t lose their attention before they forget.

4. They’re being searched for a reason: Often the choice of words that people are searching online are being searched for a reason. If your product is one that people will learn about or purchase online, then it would make sense to use the same language. Using these words on content on your website will ultimately draw  traffic, but in real life, a sense of relevancy is important. People block out things they don’t deem relevant. Make sure you learn what is and catch their attention with it.

4. Personalize it. This is the simplest one, and people often forget it. When your message is “Get your copy today!” it is more effective than “Get a copy today”. Personalizing the message is  simple and it’s a must.

###

redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing company that produces campaigns, strategies and tools for successful marketing.

Is word of mouth a marketing tactic?

I posed a question on twitter today, asking about other people’s marketing tactics, quoting:

@danielHERNDON What marketing tactic is the most critical/valuable in your business? Thoughts?

It lead to some very interesting comments from two Business to Business focused companies in the digital marketing space. They both felt that word of mouth was their most important and powerful tactic. While all of the points that each party made were good and true, I would like to pose the thought that Word of Mouth is NOT a tactic, and why it is important for you to know this.

Well then what are tactic? Dictionary.com (the closest dictionary to me at any time) says:

1. ( usually used with a singular verb ) the art or science of disposing military or naval forces for battle and maneuvering them in battle.

2. ( used with a plural verb ) the maneuvers themselves.

3. ( used with a singular verb ) any mode of procedure forgaining advantage or success.

4. ( usually used with a singular verb ) Linguistics.

One individual suggested that you “cannot plan word of mouth”. I suggested a tactic is something that you do. The above definition supports this. So here is my conclusion: word of mouth is the desired result of effective marketing. Assuming that your product and service is of quality, if most of your product was purchased because of word of mouth than all you can do is wait for more customers to talk, correct? Word of mouth is merely the results that you hope your marketing campaign will bring.

Here’s why this is important to know: If you can’t plan it and you can’t measure your efforts than it is not a tactic that you can “implement”. If you want to create word of mouth, implement tactics like:

1. Referral fees: People rarely become a part time sales person just to make money or discounts from referral fees. On the other hand if they were willing to share anyway, a referral fee would just increase those chances and perhaps create a way to track it.
2. Put the word out there: If your business is a word of mouth based business, thank your customers for doing so. Send out a thank you card every time you meet with a client or receive a customer. Create a database of customers by asking for their email at point of sale and always ask them who sent them. This method varies widely depending on the kind of business. For example, Sprint can easily attach each sale to a person’s name, but it’s not as easy with a bottled water purchased at a grocery.
3. Create a good will charity promotion: Supporting and involving your company in a charitable cause get’s people more engaged appreciatively. Charity often invites people to volunteer and share. Be a part of the sharing by sharing from the point of view of the brand.
4. Create contests: when people enter contests that require some form of voting, they clearly are compelled to share by word of mouth. A contest can be designed in a format that fits with nearly every type of business. People who aren’t supportive of your product won’t enter anyway so it’s not disingenuous. We’ve grown databases by thousands just by a well crafted contest allowing customers to play a role in the marketing process!
5. Provide great service, product and marketing messaging: The truth is, everything you do is marketing. If you’re billing process is difficult, I may not want to do business with you. Do great work and make great product. People will talk.

How do you market by word of mouth?

###

redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that provides Campaigns, Strategies and Tools for successful marketing.

Advertising: 3 Key Tips to Choose The Best Options

So there are a bunch of people who have decided that they were going to focus their advertising spending on social media. I’m excited that people are opening up to new and innovative ways of enlightening their target audience about their product. Let’s be honest though. If you don’t in some way make people aware that these platforms you are using that you are “Joining the conversation” all by your lonesome. You have to advertise, there are many traditional and non traditional ways to do this but it is easy to lose site of why and where. Denny’s is assessing their advertising situation this year as AdAge explains.

In one of the more noticeable absences in the ad lineup, restaurant chain Denny’s dropped out this year, despite two consecutive Super Bowl appearances, in 2009 and 2010, during which it promoted free-breakfast giveaways it claimed at the time were a great success. -Rupal Parekh from Advertising Age

When you begin choosing where you are going to advertise, you should put each option through the following discovery process to make sure you are choosing wisely.

Who is the Audience, really?
This is one that many advertisers spend more time on. This is only the beginning but it is arguably a great black and white way to choose or eliminate options. If you are a Business to Business company and your product appeals to business people, your first choice would not be Better Homes and Gardens. This is reducing to the ridiculous, but it helps to start there and work your way to some more specifics. Consider the Indianapolis Business Journal for this example. We know that business people read this but I can suggest two possible types. (1) A Small business person that is interested to see the business news so he can use it for sales data or lead generation (such as a copier sales person). They might be eying for expanding companies to call one. (2) High Level CEOs that are looking to assess the market place to either “keep up with the Jones’s” or know what their colleagues are up to. These two very different examples that may not be clear in the demographic. Start by defining your existing buyers and use that data to match to future events you will sponsor or print ads you will place, etc.

What is the attention situation like?
The Attention at an event vs the page in a magazine or a commercial on a TV show are all very different. It is furthermore very different for the type of audience. This will not only help you to define what your ad should look like but also if it fits in the environment. The attention of the consumer is very different in different environments. Perhaps people browse in Car magazines and do more reading of the news. If your product is visual, you might find the first is a better place for you even though the “attention” is arguably “less”. Don’t forget, a picture is worth a thousand words, which brings me to my next point – maybe you’re product requires educating the client – maybe blogging and article writing is the better choice. The same might loose the visual consumer but it improves conversion with the “left brain” individual.

What is the cost to close ratio?
How many people are going to potentially be exposed to this advertisement? How many of those people will respond? How many of those responses will turn into buyers? How many of those buyers will repeat purchase? Once you do the math, you can determine if it is cost effective in a space. It is possible to pay more money to be in front of more people and have it be a better choice, that is if it is more targeted to your audience (see tip #1). Also consider that ratio for $2500 furnace sales is different for $30 dog food that is purchase every week. You have to consider more than just the audience.

###

redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that provides Campaigns, Strategies and Tools for Successful Marketing.

Indianapolis Marketing: Where do I start?

So the question was posed to me “where do you start?” when planning your marketing plan for the new year, new product, etc. Many times we go with gut feelings that seem right, or overplan and never execute. It’s not uncommon to even be a “deer in the headlights” with no real clue on where to start. Below are what might be your first 5 steps when addressing your marketing approach.

1. Determine a Goal
   What are you shooting for? Knowing the specifics helps to fine tune what your tactics should be. If you don’t have a place to aim you won’t hit it. A Goal should never be unclear or too general. Try specific numbers, market penetration or successes. It’s surprising how much more you can accomplish when you clearly define the end result desired.
2. Determine the Team
   This is where you establish a group of people tasked with carrying out the efforts to achieve your goal. The point is to have them involved in the planning phase so they can buy into the ultimate plan. It is extremely helpful to have your execution team involved in the planning stages. If you’re working with an agency, this suggestion is all the more important so they can get familiar with your companies culture. Often, you’ll find that a good agency or marketing company can help you with phases 3, 4 and 5. An outside look makes a big difference.
3. Know the math
   It’s important to be prepared to invest, weather a small budget or a big one, you have to know your budget and you need to validate it. If your budget doesn’t match the goals, then either the goal needs to change or the budget does. The way to determine this piece can be covered in another blog post (or a whole book if desired). To keep it simple, it costs $X to be seen by X number of people. Only X% will respond and X% will purchase, which equals our cost per conversion. Click over here to Contact me if you need help planning a marketing budget.
4. Put together the plan
   It’s helpful to have two major factors lined out including the timeline, tactics and use of budget. Often a binder full of marketing strategy details does not get viewed much beyond creation. Don’t overplan, create a plan that people can actually use. It is important not to be too conceptual and not too detailed. Every plan should Include your goal, the target market, your key message and your tactics. Tactics are everything from advertising, social media, website launch, television and even distribution and sales strategies. Starting with the goal at hand and target market will help to uncover what tactics make sense.
5. Commit to a timeline and metrics
   If you can’t grade the elements of your work than you can’t assess and improve. Set this in motion from the outset. Determine how you will measure each major component of the marketing plan and pay close attention. Even more important, commit to the timeline. If you’re correctly doing all that is planned, it will take time. Set a reasonable timeline and make sure that you don’t lose heart when it actually does take time. A fast moving company can still commit to a realistic goals and timelines.

So that is merely a brief overview of how to get started when developing your marketing direction. It is no secret that a whole lot goes into a successful marketing year. Be strong, but don’t forget to draw a map. It’s easy to get off track if you don’t.

###

redwall LIVE : Experiential Marketing is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that Provides Campaigns, Strategies and Tools for Successful Marketing.

Spend a lot of money on Branding!

I firmly believe that the image of a successful organization is vital and valuable. It’s also very important to protect your companies image and identity – I say that in terms of the message that is being sent. A Good brand image (referring not just to the logo itself) sends a message to the subconscious of the viewer that creates a memory and enforces the value that your company represents to them.

With all of the above in mind, I also believe that a brand and a logo is something that should not be over thought. We created our new brand image by accident.

We had our design team messing around during some down time with literally no expectations. This logo was presented and we said “that’s it!” We’ve launched our new logo along with color scheme and website today. We have much work yet to be done, but we are happy with it so far. Tell us what you think?

##

About us:
redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that provides campaigns, strategies and tools for successful marketing.

Facebook allows you to log into business pages today.

So today, facebook changed things tremendously. If you were online this morning you were not entirely lost… but you may have found yourself trying to figure stuff out after about 3:00 pm. So evidently facebook (who has a team of people that focus on facebook and millions of dollars also focused on facebook) decided that they wanted to add some functionality as well.

Why would you want to log into your business page? Well let’s start first by recalling the questions from a long time ago about business pages: “Why would you NOT want to be able to log into your business page?”. The fact is companies don’t “be social” but people do. Facebook is trying to allow companies to share their message but keep social interaction driven openly by people (which would be the case fundamentally regardless).

So if you are wondering what the hiz-eck (ghetto for Heck) is happening to your company page – rest assured of the following:

1. Facebook does this full time so they know at least SOME of what they are doing.

2. The things that they don’t know they are figuring out based on real data by trying things.

3. You really cant do anything about it anyway.

You don’t really know what they will come up with next so just stay tuned throughout the next few days. Enjoy your new business page!

Marketing Fight: iPhone get's Whipped by Android

So in recent news and at coffee shops we’ve seen a surge in Android Users, making online and mobile marketing a much broader market. Some say the Iphone is better, some the Android. I have not seen an official survey to get a good balanced view of the pros and cons but one thing that we have seen is a surge in Android Users. According to Business Insider (dot com) the Smart Phone Market is being dominated by Android’s growing market share.

For now let’s set aside the differences of the platform, and focus on their marketing. What makes one viable competitor increase market share over another viable competitor?

1. Android gave their users fewer restrictions. In short, Android allowed the customer to design their own device, carrier and other factors. Giving the buyer more freedom to decide what they want allows you to structure your product more to them. I’m not talking about making more choices, and introducing information overload. I’m talking about an open source model (which can apply to any industry) that leaves future product improvements to the user. Case in point, some of the OS updates were simply making feature and function add on apps a standard feature in the OS.
2. Android has Movability. People who joined the iPhone society when it was a new device have become extremely loyal. this is a strong point for iPhone. Apple has always been innovators and they have great hardware. One of their biggest drawbacks is that the iPhone is currently only available on one carrier. If the quality, price and coverage of the carrier was an uncontested – than who cares right? The fact is, some people are dissatisfied with AT&T’s coverage quality and will pass on the iPhone for that reason only. Android offers you the choice.
3. Device Choice. I have at one point stated that the variety of devices can lead to app design issues, the differences from device to device mean not all devices support an app equally. I will not comment on this further, call a developer and ask them, but setting that aside, I believe it to be the best move they have made. They are able to create demand to more users by tapping into the manufacturing capabilities of 3 or 4 mobile device manufacturing companies. This means that there is constantly a new product available and new marketing resources (not to mention the various carriers marketing efforts). Apple’s product is phenomenal, but Android is within reach to more.

The fact of the matter is that innovation is what increases market share. Both companies have shown this to be a benchmark in their success. The Quality of the Android products improves quicker and expands quicker all around because they have tapped into you and many more resources instead of attempting to keep it all in house. Think of how this can apply to your business. How can your customers be a part of your innovation team? How can you create powerful partnerships that cause your market penetration to explode?

redwall LIVE : Experiential Marketing is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that provides Campaigns, Strategies and Tools for Successful Marketing

Indianapolis Marketing: 5 Ways to Making More With Less

OK, those of us that deal with marketing budgets, we know they are usually never big enough. Weather you are a small business with limited resources or a business with a million dollar marketing budget with 2 million dollar ideas, you have to be frugal at times. When I ask a company about their marketing budget I always proceed with the statement: “If for every dollar you spent, you would get 3 back how many would you spend?”. The answer is “As much as possible”.

Now that being said, you have to be balanced and reasonable. Inevitably, marketing budgets tend to have limits. If you can create an annuity stream for a small investment, then do it! I believe your goal should be to get more out of your marketing. Here are five ways that a company can get more milage out of their marketing dollars.

1. Build Databases to Drip Market To

Think of every touch with a potential customer as a chance to build your database, like a Facebook Page or an Email Marketing database, at the point of sale, through your website or through any advertisement. Television ads get real expensive but they reach a lot of people (for example). Your goal is to get those people to stay in your pipeline or stay top of mind. If all of your marketing efforts end with growing your facebook page or subscribing to your newsletter than you have gained permission to continue to market to that audience. The best part is that this form of marketing is extremely cost effective in comparison.

2. Focus Your Marketing to the Ideal Market

If someone is using local television commercials, marketing Heating and Air Service to homeowners in Indianapolis, then their marketing is targeted at the right people. How much better would it be to market to a homeowners association in a neighborhood that is about 30 years old? The marketing would be targeted to homeowners that might be in need of their services possibly immediately.

3. Spend a Lot on a Little

Sometimes Marketers are proud of the long list of marketing tactics and placement of advertisements. Consider concentrating your budget on fewer efforts, but putting more into those tactics. If Social Media is an important part of your marketing campaign, putting some money towards Facebook ads might prove to increase the likelihood of finding engaged Facebook users within your market.

4. Utilize Crowd-sourcing

We all know we like it when our brand is the topic of conversation. Try using this to your advantage. We’ve found that when you give people something to talk about they do. Some Examples are Successful Social Media Contests or Publicity Events, which can focus less on getting a few people to buy a product as much as on getting them to share your information through conversation or fun. Methods can include voting, consumer suggestions and many more. Let the consumer’s voice be heard!

5. Get Some Publicity

They say advertising is the back of Time Magazine and Publicity is the Front. Publicity is free, but getting it is not easy. As mentioned before, publicity can play a role any any campaign and typically should. When you are launching a new campaign, the perfect ad on is to let the media know that you are doing something new, something worth talking about. At times, publicity can be the cornerstone of a successful marketing campaign. Most importantly, don’t miss the opportunity to get the most out of your efforts. As always, let us know if we can help.

redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that provides Campaigns, Strategies and Tools for successful marketing.