February 16, 2008
SUMMARY: Pitching bloggers isn’t easy — especially if they’re considered among the best in their business. Their in-boxes can bulge with emails.
To have any chance of grabbing their attention, you should know many dos and don’ts of pitching them. And the pitch should start well before you write.
Before You Pitch
- Do think like a blogger. Yes, they blog because they enjoy the subject matter and want to share opinions and expertise. But there is another issue to consider: a little something called money. So, while newspapers think, will this story sell copies, bloggers reflect on whether the advertisers will be impressed with the traffic.
That thought translates to the more immediate reflection: will the post inspire readers to comment? Also, bloggers question whether their visitors would want to share what they read about with their friends and colleagues by linking to the blog or by pasting a portion of the post on their own sites with the intention of inciting discussion.
- Do check out the sidebars for content categories. Know in advance what is relevant to each blogger. In short, be familiar with what they like to write about.
- Do send your pitch in advance of your news happening or your product release. If time constraints are an issue, make sure the blogger understands and honors embargoes.
Craft Your Pitch
OK, so now you’re ready to make your pitch.
Do follow these steps:
- Write a precise subject line.
- Briefly introduce yourself at the start and mention the blogger’s name in the greeting.
- Explain why you have chosen the blogger as recipient of your pitch. If a blogger suspects you are merely crossing a name off a long list of contacts, you will probably be ignored.
- Reveal why you think your pitch would interest a typical reader. Be straightforward and secure in the importance and value of your news, but not overconfident. Keep in mind that objective descriptions work better than personal notes. Facts are preferable to flowing prose.
After Your Pitch
You’ve made your pitch to a blogger. Now what?
- Do consider time zones while awaiting a reply.
- Do give the blogger a chance to digest what you have pitched. Remember bloggers’ overflowing in-boxes.
- Do more than simply ask if your pitch was received. If you get a reply from a blogger or if you follow up with a phone call, do provide some interesting information that your pitch didn’t include.
- Do carry on a conversation, but remind yourself that bloggers are the ones with the final say. Besides being the creators, the bloggers are most likely authorities on the subject matter. Treat them with respect. Relinquish control unless asked to provide more input.
- Do be honest when answering questions. It’s important to suppress the urge to exaggerate the benefits of your product and the positive aspect of your news.
-Do consider the nature of the site where your piece will appear and realize that the truth will eventually be revealed (think of all the fairy tales you read as a child). So, fess up any potential conflicts up-front.
- Do link to the blog you are pitching if you have a blog of your own.
- Do send swag. Bloggers like complimentary products that they often review, sometimes without having been asked. Exercise caution, however. Bloggers want to maintain their own credibility by remaining objective. So their reviews might not be positive when they offer an honest opinion. Before sending anything of value, in fact, contact the blogger to see if they are interested.
What Not to Do
Here are tips so you don’t get on a blogger’s bad side:
- Don’t make the huge mistake of being pushy with a blogger. Bloggers are usually their own bosses; they are in charge. Dictating when you want your information to be blogged or by what date your product needs to be reviewed is a no-no.
- Don’t pitch old news; keep it fresh. Move onto something else if your info has already been featured on popular blogs dealing with Web 2.0, social networking and content-sharing sites (e.g., del.icio.us, Facebook).
Remember — bloggers like to be a step ahead of journalists. Otherwise, you will be wasting their time since most popular marketing bloggers receive their news via RSS feeds. If they see a stale pitch, they’ll know you are not offering exclusive content. Bloggers all look for original material, not info that makes them look like they’re jumping on a bandwagon.
- Don’t include the entire press release in your email or attachments. Bloggers usually prefer a bare-bones pitch. Write no more than 50 words or so, but offer a URL that a blogger could include to direct readers who would like more information. That’s particularly useful in instances where bloggers don’t have the time or desire to cover your topic. Never attach a Word document, PDF or PowerPoint presentation.
- Don’t flatter. If you don’t read the blog on a regular basis and are not a huge fan, don’t claim that you are. Buttering up a blogger to try to get coverage can backfire.
- Don’t be exceedingly familiar. Even though personal information about a blogger may be readily available, try not to think of them as your acquaintances. They may be completely ignorant of who you are and turned off by the informal nature of your email.
- Don’t leave advertorial comments. Be relevant and professional; otherwise, you’re going to make a bad name for yourself. Why? First, your comments are probably moderated anyway. Second, you are looking to establish a solid relationship with the blogger.
- Don’t put words into a blogger’s mouth. Present your information without telling them they will just love the subject of your pitch. Asking for their opinion on how useful it might be for their readers is the way to go.
- Don’t try to control the write-up. If a blogger bites at your tidbit, act as an assistant rather than as a director.
- Don’t retaliate. You have done everything correctly, but your news still haven’t been featured. Refrain from sending an angry email reply unless you want to risk being ridiculed in a post. Bloggers are not obligated to write anything; they are the masters of their own domains. Don’t take their lack of interest personally.
- Don’t violate someone’s trust. If a blogger mentions your product or service, don’t assume it’s acceptable to use them in a future testimonial without their permission. You still need to ask. If you don’t, you will lose a potential advocate.
From Marketing Sherpa
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=30342
Posted by copiasolaris under How To's | Comments (0)
October 26, 2007
SUMMARY: Online video advertising is coming into its own. But can you simply use a TV commercial? What length have marketers found to be the most effective?
We have the answers to those questions and more in our latest Special Report. Discover essential marketing know-how, formatting and creative tips. Plus links to lots of useful resources to help you get started.
We’re in the calm before the storm of online video advertising. Rich media and video advertising now account for 8% of the total revenue being generated online, according to the first-half 2007 revenue report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. This represents a 2-point jump industry wide over last year.
But eMarketer predicts online video ads revenue will hit $775 million this year, and grow by more than five times by 2011 to $4.3 billion.
“Pretty soon, you are going to see video icons all over Web pages,” says John McIntyre, CEO, PixelFish Inc. “The key to making videos work will be putting the different types in the right environment.”
Why Consider Video Ads?
Here are three reasons why online video ads are seen as the industry’s *next big thing*:
- Visual or fluid ad formats attract more consumer attention than static ones.
- Consumers don’t like to work if they don’t have to. They would rather watch a five-minute product video demonstration than read three to four Web pages.
- Google’s distribution of videos via AdSense could mean an explosion in the marketplace, with online video ads about to go local.
Major players, such as Google, Yahoo!, AOL, Yellow Pages, Yellow Book, Super Pages and Local.com, are going to be an absolute boon to national marketers with local chain-store interests.
Still, video advertising has a couple drawbacks worth mentioning:
- Costs can get out of control if you’re not careful.
- Execution can be complex compared to other marketing tactics, in terms of tapping expertise for creative, production, post-production delivery via networks and tracking results.
3 Types of Video Ads
There has been a lot of discussion about videos running on third-party networks that include big user-generated-content sites, such as YouTube, MySpace, MetaCafe and blip.tv. To protect marketers, these sites weed out inappropriate videos before they’re posted. And users aren’t running scared. But what’s out there right now?
First of all, the most widely used ad units running on UGC sites are the following:
o Pre-rolls (ads appear before the content)
By most accounts, these are the top performers. The benefit to pre-rolls is that viewers have just begun playing the video and are unlikely to abandon before experiencing the brand.
o Mid-rolls (during the content)
These have been around for awhile, but they are still kind of the baby in this family — especially at UGC sites. Many marketers are leery of the “interruption factor” of television. But if you can place them in popular programs, the stickiness factor could succeed for you. People are not going to click out before they see the end of the show.
o Post-rolls (after the content)
These can be tricky. “Right now, the post-roll often only performs at a 40% level compared to the pre-roll,” says Neil Perry, CEO, XLNTads.com. “People get to the end of the video clip and they tend to click out before the ad gets going.”
Other Video Formats
Other types of online video ads also exist. Here are four basic formats that are most relevant now:
-> Format #1. Banners. It seemed that streaming Flash banner videos would trend downward as marketers’ choices became more dynamic. But statistics over the last two years show that in-line banners can perform almost as well as pre-rolls.
An increasing number of vendors also have premiered rollover technology that reportedly works well on banners on content sites and blogs. The systems let viewers mouse-over the ad to start and stop the video without having to click on it.
-> Format #2. Video listings. These let marketers show product demos, testimonials and repurposed TV commercials to reach a large, targeted audience via search marketing. National chains, for instance, can use these to help promote their local businesses with video ads.
PixelFish’s McIntyre says this type of advertising will take off in a matter of months. He suggests that marketers would be wise to start off with documentary-styled DIYish productions that cost less than $1,000 to create.
“CNET is doing that style of video brilliantly. The reason why online videos are attractive to consumers, too, is that it’s so much easier than going across town to see and learn the same things about a Chinese restaurant or car repair garage.”
-> Format #3. Branded entertainment videos. This longstanding medium is being reinvented online at sites dedicated to original content, such as Heavy.com. Brand managers for CPG firms should be particularly interested in this area due to the potential for product placement. (See T-Mobile’s success story below.)
-> Format #4. Text-based overlays. These widget applications allow a marketer to send copy inside the video content itself or at the top or bottom of the player. They’re similar to tickers that roll across the bottom of your TV screen.
What Works Best?
You want to avoid producing a TV vibe, which doesn’t normally work online — especially at user-generated content sites. And while repurposing broadcast commercials should be avoided, if you must, chop them up and present them in a different fashion than what is aired on TV. Nothing tunes viewers out faster than seeing an ad on YouTube that they’ve already repeatedly caught on FOX.
To bolster the impact of any of the ads, consider buying a display ad to accompany the video. Most sites accepting video ads offer the display ads, which will appear nearby the video player.
However, be sure that the network of sites receiving the video-and-display combo doesn’t include ones that are unfriendly to advertisers in general. Make sure your agency handling the media buys is cognizant of this concern.
“With the display ad, the extra visual impression helps overall branding,” says B. Scott Taylor, President & Founder, TAOW Productions. “But, it will work much better at an automotive site or a television network site where you expect to see the tactic than it will at an online destination with a lot of Mac users, who really hate feeling like they are getting hit over the head with ads.”
Mort Greenberg, President, MetaCafe, says normal campaigns at his site usually run about three months with a median cost of $45,000. He has found that shorter is better but that longer lengths can work in the right situation.
“The best pre-roll for our environment is less than 10 seconds. Ideally, we will [someday] be able to work with the ad community and create a standard of five seconds, plus or minus a few seconds. I know from abandonment curves that you want to keep pre-roll short-form.”
Success Story: T-Mobile
T-Mobile is one marketer using online branded entertainment on Heavy.com very well. The company has been sponsoring the Internet-only “Ashford Lawrence” series by comedian Donnell Rawlings, which involves 4- and 5-minute episodes or clips.
Before clicking on the first clip, the viewer sees a three-second ad for T-Mobile’s campaign, “Talk Longer. Find Out More.” The static ad splits into two and then slowly leaves the screen like a set of playhouse curtains opening up.
The episode begins and is flanked by static ads that are viewable and clickable throughout the video. In addition, at least one subtle T-Mobile product placement occurs in each episode. Viewers who choose to watch another episode see a 30-second ad that’s similar to a mid-roll.
Of the nine episodes that have been added to the site since spring, each has received at least 400,000 views and some episodes have had more than 700,000 views.
The cost for these campaigns is lower than for a TV spot, as the brand is not responsible for making the video content. And, repurposing broadcast commercials for the mid-rolls doesn’t have the same “ugh factor” that seems to permeate their appearances on user-generated content sites.
7 Creative Tips
You’ve seen the types of online video ads out there and what some marketers are doing with them. Here are some dos and don’ts:
-> Tip #1. Do keep your online video ads short. Industry players agree that it’s better to make a 5- or 10-second spot instead of a 15-second one. In fact, 60.6% of consumers surveyed by Advertising.com cited “shorter ads than TV” as the No. 1 factor that would make video ads better.
-> Tip #2. Do get the ball rolling by contacting your agency. Brainstorm to determine the type of ad you need and to work out details, including length of the video, online location of placement, etc.
-> Tip #3. Do keep it real. Simple yet innovative messaging often works best online. “I think it’s important to come up with original ideas when preparing for this space,” says TAOW Productions’ Taylor. “It’s worthwhile to try to separate yourself from what everyone else is saying and doing.”
-> Tip #4. Do test and measure, test and measure. Through your analytics, pay attention to the percent of your entire video being played by the viewers, the abandon rates and, when possible, directly attributable sales conversions.
-> Tip #5. Don’t do something funny in the video unless everyone in your target audience will get it. Instead, do create a campaign that will work at various UGC and content sites so that you can optimize an entire network buy.
Networks aggregate videos from multiple sites, providing you with incremental reach. Because networks gather inventory from multiple channels, they are often priced more competitively than single-site buys. You’ll get more bang for your buck if your ad is funny at both MySpace and ESPN.com.
-> Tip #6. Don’t follow rules of television advertising; they simply don’t apply to the Internet. “Consumers are not looking at this as just some other way to watch television. They want the experience to be different,” says XLNTads.com’s Perry.
-> Tip #7. Don’t immediately sour on post-roll or mid-roll opportunities because there’s more buzz for pre-roll. “It comes back to what are you using video for,” says Shawn Gurn, Interactive Media Director, Moroch. “For instance, if you’re using video to be entertaining and to add that sort of value to it, you can definitely use post-roll.”
Next time: A marketer’s guide to vendors with online video ad services
Useful links related to this article
Past Sherpa articles—
Video Surges While Search Lags - 5 Trends to Watch in the Online Content Industry:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=29864
How to Use YouTube to Generate Leads: 7 Video Posting Strategies & Tagging Tips:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30150
Research data sources –
Advertising.com:
http://advertising.com/index.php
Interactive Advertising Bureau:
http://www.iab.net/
Online Publishers Association:
http://www.online-publishers.org/
PricewaterhouseCoopers:
http://www.pwc.com/
Google AdSense formats page, including video information:
https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/AdFormats.h
ml
NewTeeVee - industry site and blog dedicated to online video:
http://live.newteevee.com/
Online Video: It’s a small world! blog:
http://prerollvideo.blogspot.com
Example of a Macy’s mid-roll ad:
http://www.harvesteating.com/public/729.cfm
Links to key video sites –
YouTube:
http://youtube.com
MySpace:
http://myspace.com
MetaCafe:
http://metacafe.com
blip.tv:
http://blip.tv
Heavy Inc.:
http://www.heavy.com/
Uvouch.com:
http://www.uvouch.com
Imeem.com:
http://imeem.com
Superdeluxe.com:
http://superdeluxe.com
CosmoTV – a video-based search engine site that allows consumers to query for TV shows:
http://cozmotv.typepad.com
Blinkx.com – a video-based search engine site:
http://www.blinkx.com/
Links to sources’ sites –
XLNTads.com:
http://www.xlntads.com/
Moroch:
http://moroch.com
PixelFish Inc.:
http://pixelfish.com/
Taow Productions LLC:
http://www.taowproductions.com/
From Marketing Sherpa
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=30178
Posted by copiasolaris under How To's | Comments (0)
April 17, 2007
SUMMARY: Renting a permission list for the first (or even third) time can be a bit confusing. What’s normal for transmission fees? How speedy is the turnaround? Should you pay extra for brand endorsement? Should you rent more names than the minimum to run a test? etc., etc.
Here’s a handy toolkit from MarketingSherpa to help you (also useful for training staff). Includes two sample contracts with key legalese noted, as well as a How to Read a Data Card PDF.
This MarketingSherpa Toolkit comes in three parts, each of which you can download as separate PDFs. (Note: If you share the word about this resource, please give folks the direct hotlink to this page. It will remain good for years to come.)
Part I: How to Read a Data Card
Every list on the market has an official “data card” for shoppers to review. The data card may be available online and also may be postal mailed to you. Although data cards from different managers can look slightly different, most share similar information.
It’s not everything you need to know to rent a list — but it’s enough to add the file to your “under serious consideration” pile. Discover what each part of the sometimes mysterious card means, and what critical questions you should ask in further research before making a buying decision:
How to Read a Datacard
Note: Yes, this is a real-life data card. We chose it fairly randomly and do not have an opinion as to the wonderfulness of the list it promotes.
Part II: Document of Legal Compliance
In addition to standard list rental contracts, some best-of-breed list owners and managers also distribute a Document of Compliance to elaborate on how their list gathering practices match the law and, most importantly, how they require your broadcast to be legal as well.
Laws are often shaded in gray until enough court cases define nooks and crannies of confusion. So just saying, “We obey the law and expect you to as well,” is not enough. It’s better to spell things out.
Most importantly, be sure to review the “Suppress File” information on page three. We recommend that no marketer or manager do rental business without agreeing to this.
Here’s the PDF link:
CAN SPAM Compliance Document
Note: The Document of Legal Compliance we chose for this exhibit is a real-life document from a list manager we regard quite highly. It’s extremely well worded, and we feel it could be taken as an example of best practices. That said, we’re not lawyers. If you’re considering signing a document or creating your own, please consult legal counsel first.
Part III: List Rental Contract
No one should ever rent you a list without requiring that you sign a contract first. Some things to be sure to look for in the fine print:
o Landing page requirements:
Is a hotlink to your privacy policy required on your landing page? It’s a best practice … however, in our experience many Web designers forget to put that link on landing pages or registration forms. Make sure you conform.
o Advertisement disclosure:
If the list owner wants to include language on your creative making it clear your broadcast is an ad, that’s fine and dandy. Except, the word “advertisement” may be filtered by content-based filters (especially a problem for B-to-B sends.) So, you may need to negotiate to a less problematic, albeit equally clear, word.
o Suppression list:
Are you ready to hand over your Do Not Email (DNE) list for suppression purposes? If you’re renting with a reputable firm you’ll be required to. However, you may be able to negotiate using a third party merge/purge house to run the suppression on your behalf as an intermediary if you are extremely concerned about security. Also, be sure to check your own privacy policy wording to be sure if you need to use that third party or if you can hand over the DNE list directly.
Here’s the PDF link:
List Rental Contract
(note: sample is as of April 2007)
Note: This real-life sample is one of the more thorough contracts around. Many are only one page long. Those are not bad at all — we chose this one because we wanted you to see the full realm of contractual possibility. If your legal team is cool with this, getting them to sign off on shorter contracts will be a breeze.
More Useful links related to this article:
Companion Sherpa Tutorial on renting email lists:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=29930
List managers and brokers that assisted with this toolkit:
Bethesda List Center:
http://www.bethesda-list.com
DM2-DecisionMaker:
http://www.dm2decisionmaker.com
IDG List Services:
http://www.idglist.com
Millard Group:
http://www.millard.com
From Marketing Sherpa
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=29939
Posted by copiasolaris under How To's | Comments (0)
April 11, 2007
SUMMARY: Renting email lists can be tricky (think bad lists, CAN-SPAM and filtering). But here’s the good news: Three years ago, only 10% of rentals were deemed safe for reputable emailers, but that figure has nearly doubled because marketers are getting smarter and demanding cleaner, more targeted lists.
How do B-to-C and B-to-B marketers get their hands on a good list, and what are the best practices? In the first installment of a two-part series, we’ll tell you everything you need to know before sitting down with a broker.
Several attendees at last month’s MarketingSherpa Email Summit raised basic questions about list rentals. With search prices so high and email prices relatively steady, many marketers are taking another look at list rental. So, we figured it was time to research the topic again and talk to experts about the latest concerns.
There are plenty of email lists to choose from, and they cover just about every niche imaginable. From talking to several list brokers, the size of the industry is anywhere from 5,000 lists to 20,000. The B-to-B list rental business is healthy and centered on reputable publishers who still command value and trust. The B-to-C list industry is less organized, and many lists aren’t worth a dime. But if done properly, you can succeed.
“Marketers have gotten smarter at viewing email and list rentals as part of an overall mix rather than a golden-egg, end-all solution,” says Andrew Sambrook, VP Brokerage, IDG List Services. “What you are seeing now is an evolution of the medium. More and more people I deal with see it as one of the touchpoints they need to move someone progressively down the sales cycle.”
-> Step #1. What’s a list rental and what should you ask your list broker
First a definition: A list rental is the purchase of a third party’s email list for one-time use (unless negotiated otherwise). The emails are sent on your behalf using your creative and your subject line to a list of people who have knowingly signed up to receive email offers from the named list owner. Other points:
- You review the lists on the market by looking at their data cards. List managers and brokers include these on their sites. (In Part II, we’ll include sample data cards and show you how to read them.)
- This is not affiliate or co-registration (see hotlinks below for more on that).
- You never get access to the list of email names.
- The name of the company in the “From” line is the list owner’s, not yours.
- You and the list owner agree on the number of recipients and the send date/time.
- You forward the creative.
- Have the list run against your supression Do-Not-Email list (see CAN-SPAM below).
- The list owner sends from their server.
If you haven’t rented before, be sure to not only research which list brokers are best for your niche, but also request tests and negotiate for the best trial prices. Plus:
o You have to be experienced at measurement if you want to be successful at renting
o You have to be good at measuring lifetime customer value
-> Step #2. Lists that work best, plus costs to rent them
Before testing a list — much less renting one — ask who else has been renting the list in continuation to get a feel for what marketers are having success with the brand and if it makes sense for your brand. Look for marketers with good direct response reputations who repeatedly use the list. They must be seeing decent metrics on the back end.
“You never know how many emails are going to break through the clutter,” says Elizabeth Arnold, Associate Marketing Manager with Rand McNally, who has tested B-to-B lists to generate leads for their mapping/locator API. “You have to make sure it’s targeted. Small lists are usually better.”
You’ll hear a lot of different pricing numbers out there (and we’ll address this more thoroughly in Part II of this Special Report), but for the time being, let’s state that targeted consumers lists are running anywhere from $90 to $160 per thousand names (CPM). Prices range from $65-$125 per thousand names for larger, aggregated databases.
For B-to-B, lower-end aggregated small business or opportunity seeker lists start around $75 per thousand. The higher-end lists targeting controlled circ publications and taking aim at specific groups, such as CFOs, can run as high as $300 per thousand names.
Make sure you’re renting lists that are double opt-in (emails are gathered, but rather than added to the list immediately, the names are sent a secondary email requiring a response to opt in to the list). To be completely sure:
o You may want to check the opt-in form personally to be sure it’s clear.
o Sign up for the list yourself and watch what else you get.
-> Step #3. Deliverability and CAN-SPAM considerations
Anyone marketing with a rented list — especially heavy emailers — needs to ask the list owner/broker to run a suppression file. In short, suppression files remove records from a database that are no longer accurate or current, or a name and address that one has an obligation to remove.
More specifically, for both CAN-SPAM and branding concerns, you have to ask the list owner to run their names against your “Do Not Email” file and “Unsubscribe” file.
MarketingSherpa also advises that you provide two kinds of opt-out links for campaigns involving rented names: a regular unsubscribe button and a “Do Not Email” option.
The difference between the two is that unsubscribes get scrubbed from *your* list, while people getting placed into the Do Not Email file represent a faction who haven’t joined your list in the first place. You need to have the mechanism in place to act on their request that they do not want to hear from your brand via email. You do not have the right-of-way to email them more than once simply because you paid for their name.
You also have to include a physical street address at the bottom of your creative to keep in accordance with CAN-SPAM. And, make sure to have the time/date stamps for all of the rented addresses at your disposal. The good news is that these types of datapoints are becoming more granularly available.
“When a recipient complains, what you should do is go back to that record and find out where that person opted in,” says Rob Fitzgerald, VP Interactive Division, Walter Karl. “And you can say, ‘On April 5th at 2:30 p.m., you might not remember, but you opted in to receive third-party information.’ You can validate what you are doing.”
Another tip: give a staffer the subtitle of “Reputation Manager” to keep an eye on blacklists and abuse email groups. He or she should check these weekly if not daily, while also keep watch of both partners’ and competitors’ campaigns by opting into all of their programs. They also should keep separate email files for each partner and/or competitor, vetting affiliates’ campaigns to make sure they are maintaining best practices. You cannot wait for your prospects to complain.
And, of course, your offers have to be relevant to what they opted in for; otherwise, your message is going to be treated by the recipient as junk and your reputation will suffer. Other suggestions:
- Watch to see if the list owner switches IP addresses
- Set up dummy mailboxes to catch junk
- Verify the original point of name collection
-> Step #4. Creative that works best
Do not assume that your top-performing house email creative will test well with a rented file. In fact, Sherpa recommends that you develop completely separate creative for your acquisition campaigns. Many marketers new to renting will test their best campaigns on a rental, see crappy results and say, “Whoa, rentals don’t work!”
Not necessarily.
Remember that the recipients are in a different point in the relationship than your past customers — they are brand-new to you! And do not hold the belief that since you are a well-known brand (if that’s the case) that the identity will equate into an automatic email relationship. Email relationships have to be established on their own.
For introductory campaigns, use benefit-driven copy (as opposed to offer-driven copy, which works better for your house file). You want to give them an idea of who you are.
Most consumers and businesses are a little afraid of getting hoodwinked online, so give them evidence that suggests credibility. For instance, use an “About Us” box on your landing page to say, “Here’s who we are and what we offer.” Or, tell them if you have 2 million repeat customers or have been in business 17 years.
In short, establish “trust points.” If the list owner comes from a high-trust brand, mention “as recommended by Business 2.0” or “brought to you with permission from Business 2.0″ on the landing page.
-> Step #5. Measurement and considerations when conducting a list rental test
You don’t know how bouncy the list really is — because we can only truly measure hard bounces. For instance, 97% delivery rates don’t take into account the number of emails going into filters. So, the only certain way of accurately assigning value to the list is to look at the opens, clickthrough rates and what percentages of those numbers are converting to sale in your test.
“There are thousands of email lists on the market, but less than 20% of them [B-to-C and B-to-B together] are worthwhile,” says Josh Perlstein, President Response Media, a list brokerage firm. “It’s important to test, and it’s key that you use single-source lists or transparent-source.”
And, don’t be afraid to ask a broker how many names on a list should equal 100 clicks. That equation can take you a long way in the test assessment. Then, do the math to determine what results meet your criteria.
Generally speaking, if you run a test for 5,000 names, you can’t always be sure about the trial’s accuracy. It’s not exactly earth-shattering news, but the fact remains that a minority of less-than-above-the-board list owners/brokers might quietly send your test campaign to 10,000 in order to raise the response rate and get you on board for a huge buy. (Of course, no list company that we would be caught dead speaking to.)
Also ask if the list has a recency selection. Recency makes a big difference in response rates. Many list owners don’t charge extra for this, but it’s often not on the formal rate card. Plus, only 25% of lists offer recency.
Really large list buys can contain names already in your house file. Both B-to-C and B-to-B publishing marketers should be especially wary of paying for those names.
“Certain lists — we’ll see up to 40% duplication,” says Nicole Delma, Email Marketing Coordinator, Conde Nast. “We often request a sample in order to run a test. Or we will have a third-party vendor run a check of our list against theirs, and that will help us with the pricing. When we do go to a third-party vendor, the reason is because there’s a code or a demographic that we do not collect in our database.”
4 Specific B-to-C Tips
Tip #1. Study all of the possible demographic segments and values — because it can be a lot like car sales in that they will try to sell you a lower-valued demo and mark them up. If you overpay, you’ll lose the profitability.
Tip #2. Give yourself enough time to get at least three to five quotes.
Tip #3. Try to rent from marketers who don’t email more than twice a week.
Tip #4. Advertisers need to know where the addresses originated from. Find out where the names are collected URL by URL. Know what they opted in for.
4 Specific B-to-B Tips
Tip #1. There are more opportunities for more targeted lists than there were just a few years ago. You can target the IT market by renting CIO Magazine’s list, as just one example.
Tip #2. Don’t be surprised to see a list deal where you also have to buy a webinar and a space ad. Such arrangements may or may not be in your favor.
Tip #3. Take note of domain name expirations in the news (publications/vendors/software firms) and scrape them from your campaigns.
Tip #4. Selects are still important, but don’t forget about source. You can tell a lot about the potential effectiveness of a file by looking at the source.
Useful links related to this article
Past Sherpa articles on email list rental:
https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=2331
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=204
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=29333
Past Sherpa co-reg reports:
https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=2281
https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=2281
https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=2283
IDG List Services
http://idglist.com/
Response Media:
http://responsemedia.com/home.asp
Walter Karl:
http://www.walterkarl.com
Conde Nast:
http://www.condenast.com
Rand McNally:
http://www.randmcnally.com
From Marketing Sherpa
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=29930
Posted by copiasolaris under How To's | Comments (0)
July 1, 2006
SUMMARY: MarketingSherpa is pleased to be the first to bring you new study results from a 2006 survey by PartnerCentric.
Discover what 1,041 affiliates — including marketing partners for The Company Store, FootSmart, Domestications, National Geographic, LifeScript and ClubMom — say are the biggest challenges holding them back in 2006.
Surprise: bigger commissions were not the biggest want. Most affiliates just want better landing pages from you… more details here, including a hotlink to the 16-page PowerPoint:
As MarketingSherpa has reported for more than six years now, the biggest problem with affiliate and CPA marketing has always been the merchant-affiliate relationship.
You’d think they’d get along. 9-40% of typical online merchants’ sales are affiliate driven, and 100% of the affiliate’s business is dependent on third-party offers. Yet like marketers and resellers in many industries, distrust runs rampant.
This February and March, affiliate marketing consultancy PartnerCentric (formerly Affiliate Goddess) set out to help resolve part of the communication gap. They convinced 16 merchants, ranging from financial services such as USA Dental Care to apparel shops such as International Male, to send out an affiliate survey.
A grand total of 1,041 affiliates responded, with average monthly revenues in the tens of thousands. These ranged from coupon sites to paid search advertisers and niche content sites.
You can scroll below to download a 16-page PowerPoint on the results. In the meantime, here is MarketingSherpa’s take on the data:
Classic Online Ads Currently Dominate
Two years ago, if you’d asked affiliates for the primary ways they promoted programs, the top two answers would have been search marketing and email marketing. Thanks to increasing search marketing competition and email privacy concerns, neither of these made the top answers for early 2006.
Instead, affiliates’ most used tactics were:
Text links 19.88%
Banners 18.80%
Content 18.40%
Wow, did anyone expect banners to make such a comeback? Partially this can be explained by the fact that the largest chunk of respondents — 44.5% — were themselves niche content sites. The second-biggest group was coupon and discount shopping sites at 26.9%. The smallest groups were freebie sites (0.7%)and bloggers (0.6%).
This indicates to us that the nature of successful affiliates has changed somewhat from salesmen-without-brand-names (email promo list owners, SEM specialists) to branded sites.
And, in turn it indicates the nature of the customer driven through affiliate marketing may have changed somewhat as well. Instead of a what-the-heck click on an ad served by whomever, they are more likely to be clicking on a “we recommend” link on a trusted site. This means the consumers may be more likely to convert. However, they also are more likely to stay loyal to the brand they came from rather than going direct to a merchant in future.
We’d love to see some data on this. Unfortunately, very few merchants have tracked the quality and loyalty of their affiliate-driven traffic over many years (too few, in fact, track it now.)
Affiliates name their biggest marketing challenges:
Nope, contrary to many merchants’ expectations, “commissions/payout” was the LEAST named challenge by affiliates. So, yes, affiliate marketing is *all* about the money. The affiliates themselves are smart enough to know increased commissions won’t help them the way other factors can.
Biggest problem? Bad conversions. 441 respondents (27.04%) said they wished merchants could improve everything from landing pages to checkout processes so the clicks they sent would convert into cash. “We’re sending you good shoppers,” the affiliates seem to be saying, “but then you’re lousing it up on your end.”
Next biggest problem: merchant inaccuracies, such as outdated coupons and data feeds at 17.78%. Again, the affiliate is sending a perfectly good click over, but your product or special offer isn’t there anymore to convert them.
If you are a merchant more on the 9% of the affiliate-driven-revenue pie slice, we bet you don’t dedicate as many resources to keeping up your data feeds and promotional info for partners as you should. Which in turn means you may slip to 5%-8% next year … all the while convinced by the data that affiliates aren’t any good so it’s not worth investing in.
It was nice to see that 8% of affiliates said they had no challenges at all. (Awfully confident bunch though, huh?)
What would help affiliates generate more business? Results
When asked what merchants could do to help affiliates generate more business … well then, yes, 24.67% said a higher commission would be nice. This makes sense for the search and other paid advertisers in the crowd who simply can’t afford certain media buys (or arbitrage) without a certain amount of back-end.
So, if you want to in essence pay more for media, these affiliates are more than willing to buy it for you.
However, commissions were only answer #3. Top of the wish list at #1 was “more content”.
In fact 30.02% of affiliates said if merchants would only hand over more articles, reviews, etc, they could place that content on their sites and generate clicks for you from it. The great thing is, content *is* essentially free. And you don’t have to ask your IT team for help. Often a little extra copywriting time per week can work wonders for your program.
Second hit on the wish list — 25.09% wanted better datafeeds and coupons. This makes sense given what challenges affiliates said they were having with non-updated feeds currently.
Only 15.40% wanted more training, and we suspect these are the newer, less profitable affiliates. That’s not to say they won’t be profitable or big someday. However, there’s such a mountain of training material available online for affiliate marketers, that we suggest you license the best of it, add an icing of specifics for your niche to the cake and then offer it to promising new affiliates to help them along.
After all, growing your own super affiliates is probably easier than convincing any more of the roughly 125 true super affiliates to come be your programs’ best friend.
Answers: What would motivate you quickly to promote a merchant’s program?
If you’re counting on affiliates to serve as your best recruiters for more affiliates, this is where commissions are king. 21.66% would recruit more affiiates if you gave them a VIP commission rate.
However, instead of forking over more cash, you could just fork over the same old cash only more quickly. 16.62% of affiliates would eagerly recruit others if you agreed to pay on a weekly basis. In addition 15.72% would be thrilled if you offered wire transfers and/or direct deposits instead of mailing checks. 12.77% said they would like guaranteed payments through a 3rd party; but only 5.24% were impressed by the idea of an advance on the first commission check.
So motivation is less about immediate money than it is about ensuring consistent cash flow. After all affiliates are running a business, too, with plenty of regular bills that have to be paid on time. Without consistency, they are lost.
Final note — only 1.2% said they’d be motivated by “good products.” So, no matter how proud you are of your new whiz-bang offering, the affiliate just wants to know can you be trusted to send funds consistently. If you can, they’ll consider marketing you and telling their friends to do so as well.
How often should you communicate with affiliates?
Although many affiliates are fed up with bad data feeds (see above), they don’t yearn to hear from you frequently *unless* you have something new to announce that affects them.
Think: You are one of many merchants competing for their attention. They are running a (probably) small business. They are insanely busy trying to make a buck on a smaller margin than you may allow your in-house marketing staff for new accounts. They don’t want to be your friend. They don’t want to buy into the glories of your brand.
Brand and relationship marketing, such as regular chirpy newsletters, are how you should be reaching out to consumers to increase loyalty. When it comes to affiliates, just get them the updated information they need to get their jobs done.
No happy talk, just the facts please.
Which may in itself explain part of the communication gap between merchants and affiliates. Merchants are used to *marketing* themselves to the world. Affiliates in the end don’t want to be marketed to.
Instead, they want regularly updated tools to maintain and improve their results. That, plus a consistent cash flow will make them your best friend.
Useful links related to this article:
Download your copy of the 16-page formal results PowerPoint here:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/cs/amscr2006/study.html
PartnerCentric
http://www.partnercentric.com
From Marketing Sherpa
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=28526
Posted by copiasolaris under How To's | Comments (0)