Maximizing the deliverability of your email marketing
Getting the highest percentage of your messages to your subscribers’ Inbox is one of the primary goals from an email marketing perspective. At the same time, it is also the main hurdle to overcome. Innumerable little things can effect whether or not your communications end up in the inbox, or in the junk mail folder of your recipients. The job is made even more difficult as different Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and email clients have very different rules, filters, procedures and policies on bulk email.
The success of any campaign is influenced by all areas of the process, requiring the close co-operation of everyone from the IT/Server guys to the designers and database handlers.
One of the main contributing factors to the failure of a campaign can be the number of hard bounces and complaint rates. AOL, one of the world’s largest ISPs, recommends maintaining a <0.1% complaint rate. That’s a threshold of 1 in every 1,000 emails that you send out. That may sound harsh, but by adhering to some rules it’s entirely possible.
Even if you beat the spam filter there is no guarantee that your mail will ever be read. Finicky recipients who are unhappy at having received your mail may just click that “Report as spam” button. On local email clients the effect is minimal, but on web-based services like Hotmail or Google Mail, this can have a serious knock on effect for other recipients on the same service as these are tracked, recorded and taken into consideration in future (as if you didn’t have enough to worry about already).
Over the next few weeks I will cover some of the specific problems that the aspiring email marketer would encounter during the course of a campaign, from set up through to the post-send fallout. For this first part we will look at where it all begins: your server and domain.
Read MoreTo-do: write a blog post
To-do lists are an essential daily tool!
Not only do they organise our day, but they cross over and affect other people’s tasks as we interact and help each other out. They may not bring joy to those who are constantly nagged by electronic reminders, but they do serve the purpose.
Once a goal or task becomes part of a to-do list, it can feel more concrete/critical/real/important – take your pick. It can be invaluable to break down seemingly insurmountable undertakings, into bite-sized chunks of effort. For instance, my little daily to-do list often blossoms into the semblance of a fully fledged project and with the combined effort of the RT Team becomes reality!
Read MoreHow to name a new business
We met a business last week that had just launched 6 months earlier, what became apparent during the meeting was the total failure of process and thought by the original designer/agency in one of the most basic fundamental elements of branding. The name was clearly a barrier for success, let alone the confused visual treatment. It is often hard to assess the value of one name over another and when personal opinions are considered it can be a very stressful decision.
Below are some ways you can think about your company and make the most of what is available to you. Of course you can pick a range of names and if you have time, money or an idea that will create such traction of it’s own it becomes less critical. However in the crowded environment we live it is esential to select your name and identify the visual elements of your brand mark carefully. (I will post soon about some other critical choices including typography and colour).
The right name has the potential to become a self-propelling publicity campaign, motivating word of mouth, reputation, recommendations and press coverage.
Here is some advice on the types of name you can select:
Founder – Many companies are names after founders: Ben & Jerry’s, Martha Stewart, Ralph Lauren, Mrs Fields. It might be easier to protect. It satisfies and ego. The downside is that it is inextricably tied to a real human being.
Descriptive – These names convey the nature of the business, such as Toys “R” Us. Find Great People, or E’TRADE. The benefit of a descriptive name is that it clearly communicates the intent of the company. The potential disadvantage is that as a company grows and diversifies, the name may become limiting. Some descriptive names are difficult to protect since they are so generic.
Fabricated – A made-up name like Kodak, Xerox, or TiVo, is distinctive and might be easier to copyright. However a company must invest a significant amount of capital into educating its market as to the nature of the business, service or product. Häagen-Dazs is a fabricated foreign name that has been extremely effective.
Metaphor – Things, places, people, animals, processes, mythological names or foreign words are used in this type of name to allude to a quality of a company. Names like Nike and Patagonia are interesting to visualise and often can tell a good story.
Acronym – These names are difficult to remember and difficult to copyright. IBM and GE became well known only after the companies established themselves with the full spelling of their names. There are so many acronyms that new ones are increasingly more difficult to learn and require a substantial investment in advertising. Other examples: USAA, AARP, DKNY, and CNN.
Magic spell – Some names alter a word’s spelling in order to create a distinctive, protectable name, like Cingular and Netflix.
Combinations of the above – Some of the best names combine name types. Some good examples are Cingular Wireless, Citibank, and Hope’s Cookies. Customers and investors like names that they can understand.
Qualities of an effective name
Read MoreBuilding brands with glue.
Today I gave a presentation to company who we have been working with for the past six months. The unveiling to the staff a new re-brand, critical to the success of the change and strategic repositioning we are aiming to achieve are the employees.
A fundamental mind shift and belief will build on the foundations this new vision and decide it’s success.
The company’s position as one of the South’s largest and most visible driving schools is about getting a much needed enhancement with the launch of their new branding. So much more than just a fresh logo, this project has taken New Driver’s management team over six months to complete and involved them working closely with us.
With full implementation planned for the next few months, the resultant strategic and operational changes will positively impact everything from the company’s literature and website to stationery and vehicle livery.
One of the most innovative and important changes to come out of New Driver’s re-branding initiative has been a complete restructuring of how the school works with its Accredited Partner Instructors. We have developed some industry first packages that will truly differentiate them in the market.
For me today was about ‘Employee Alignment’
Read MoreThe 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
- The Law of Expansion: The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope. Trying to be all things to all people undermines the power of the brand. The strength of brands lies in becoming synony-mous with a single category. Brands that spread themselves across categories lose brand focus, identity, and ultimately market share.
- The Law of Contraction: A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus. By narrowing the focus to a single category, a brand can achieve extraordinary success. Starbucks, Subway and Dominos Pizza became category killers when they narrowed their focus.
- The Law of Publicity: The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising. A new brand must be capable of generating favorable public-ity in the media or it won’t have a chance in the marketplace. Anita Roddick built the Body Shop into a global brand with no advertising, but with massive amounts of publicity. On the other hand, Miller Brewing spent $50 million in advertising to launch a brand called Miller Regular. The brand generated no publicity and very little sales.
Your name matters!
Your name matters!
I read an eye-opening book a few years ago when I was on holiday in Egypt. It’s part of a series of two: Brand failures and Brand Royalty. Brand failures tells the truth about the 100 biggest branding mistakes of all time. What can we learn from other people’s mistakes?
As the economic outlook is dismal, even with the media reporting retail sales are better than this time last year, as we rush to buy Christmas gifts which will mostly end up on ebay by February, I am thinking how can companies make sure they survive in difficult times.
When things are hard, when we are under pressure, when we sense loss, we revert to type. Old habits, basic strategies and remove over complication. A fighter will look for the punch that saved him last time he was in the corner, companies look to cut costs, adapt to become more flexible and consolidate.
I think when times are tough it is even more essential to FOCUS on strengths to survive. It’s not the time to work on the weak aspects, during the time you spend working on improving your poor right jab you will have been knocked out.
How do we a) know what we’re good at, and b) use it to survive? That can be tricky as what you were good at 5 years ago or even last year may not be right for today and tomorrow. But what stays the same are the basic rules of the game.
What I want to help people to understand is that by removing complications, by focusing and keeping it at the most basic level you will have a fighting chance.
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