Marketing Matters Blog

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Improving Your Call to Action

Although a relatively simple concept, all too often I see that marketers/companies are so excited about all the information they can cram into their marketing message, that the simple “what am I supposed to do with this?” message gets lost. The call to action (CTA) is the basis of your entire campaign. Offering something for your audience to act on is critical to measuring engagement, and can mean the success or failure of your campaign.

Most people’s attention span is generally pretty short; I’ve seen some research state about 10 seconds is average, whereas this research says 0.7 seconds. I’m more willing to believe the shorter amount of time, so if you’re not impacting someone to take action immediately, or at least offering content enticing enough for them to continue reading, they’ll hit the delete button without a second thought.

The rule to keep the most relevant information “above the fold” has not changed. Although initially a newspaper concept, this continues to be relevant online, as most people’s screens are not large enough to show your entire message. Keeping your CTA at or near the top, prominently, means everyone will know how to act.

This really can be a tricky thing to maintain. Marketers spend lots of time coming up with great headlines, or we want to feature social media links at the top, or there’s this great image that you or your clients like… All of this means nothing if the recipient doesn’t take the action you want them to. If your call to action is to take advantage of a deal, and instead they “like” you on Facebook, it’s likely that they won’t circle back to take advantage of the deal. Don’t confuse people with multiple calls to action.

Most people’s brains work generally the same, in that I mean our eyes move from left to right. There are great studies that continually come out of Eye Tracking Research, the results are generally the same. Keep the most interesting material aligned left. If you have a multi-columned newsletter or website, don’t put your call to action in the far right column, since it gets little attention. This article explains a bit more about how eyes move in an “F” pattern on a page, moving along the top, across an area slightly below, and then down the left side of the page browsing for relevant info.

There are lots of great ideas as to what a successful CTA would be, but at a very general level, coupons are a great call to action for electronic pieces. In short, the receiver will ask “what’s in this for me” before they react to anything. If it’s not relevant in a very short amount of time, they’re more than likely going to pass.

If you want the receiver to learn more about you, or just want to go a little more in-depth on a topic, create a landing page specifically for this campaign. Fairly easy to do, and even better, you can get some much stronger analytics to measure engagement. Instead of just getting a click-through rate, which you’ll get with e-newsletter campaigns, you’ll be able to gauge length of time spent on the page, where they came from, and more. Creating a landing page is something you should consider for most direct email campaigns. Further reading of CTR vs. Web metrics can be found here.

In fact, if you have multiple products in a direct email campaign, creating multiple landing pages (not linking directly to the products on your website) will give you more metrics as described above. Again, try to avoid confusing the user with multiple CTAs. Check out our products and buy our products now are are different CTAs.

The entire piece should support your CTA. Keep messaging short, maybe a 50 word description and short blurbs or bullets. The point is to not detract from your CTA. Supporting images are important, but make sure they don’t compete with the bottom line: your CTA.

The biggest aspect to take away from this is to keep your messaging enticing, and don’t confuse people or detract from your CTA, which is the single most important aspect of your marketing piece.

Kyle E. Glass is the Director of Marketing at Marketing Matters (http://www.marketingmatters.net), a communications and design firm specializing in technology, consumer and custom electronics, audio-video and related industries.

Special thanks to Residential Systems for posting this content at http://residentialsystems.com/blog/73956.aspx

Help Your Brochure Endure

How often are you handed a brochure for a company that you know absolutely nothing about? We’ve all been there. We’ve attended the walk-a-thons, seminars and sporting events that are enough of an assembly of like-minded people that local businesses, salivating at the captive audience, find their way in armed with a treasure trove of printed promotions. You take them, begrudgingly or not, and find that they resemble everything from popular office software templates to bulleted lists as extensive as the day is long.

These poor print-outs need help. Some of them struggle to stand out in an environment that is already saturated and others are injured before they even exit the gate, destined to failure due to missing a vital piece of the puzzle.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You can be a star producer who gives voice to the voiceless and lets the brochure sing all the details of your organization without always needing to be there to fill in the missing notes.

Help your brochure endure by following a few accepted and honed best practices.

BBBS Godparents brochure front

BBBS Godparents brochure back

 Featured above is an annotated brochure that was originally produced for the “Godparent Journey,” a community engagement and fundraising project  of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Broward County. Big Brothers Big Sisters, the nation’s largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network, carefully pairs children (“Littles”) in need of a role model with screened volunteer mentors (“Bigs”) to create enduring matches that help children achieve in the face of adversity. Using this example, the following suggestions highlight elements that any great brochure should consider including.

A) Catchy tagline
Imagine for a moment that you know nothing about your business. What could you say quickly and generally that would pique most people’s interest. Lure the casual passerby with an intriguing tidbit. Try varying degrees of boldness or cleverness to see what works for your target audience.

B) Clear illustration of benefit
There is a sweet science to print marketing. To use a boxing metaphor, great visuals are the cross that follows your tagline’s jab in the one-two combination that draws your audience in and will have your competition on the ropes. If you gave the brochure to a ten year old, would the imagery be visually interesting, applicable and clear enough that they would be able to articulate what it is that you do?

C) Call to action
Tell people what you want from them. Maybe it is more important to your bottom line to have people register for your newsletter so you can keep in touch with them regularly. Perhaps you offer the kind of good or service that most people research at length and “Buy Today!” isn’t as effective as “Come visit us for a free trial.”

D) Corporate logo
Your logo is the first thing that people recognize as they move between your brochure, website, Facebook page and various other communication tools. Make it prominent and ever-present.

E) Boilerplate message
As a representative of your business, you should always have your pitch in mind. What will I tell a customer who has 5 minutes to dedicate? What if I only have 15 seconds of their time? Being concise is key. Fun fact: it’s called a boilerplate because text meant for widespread production used to require a heavy cast metal plate, like those found on boilers, that could stand up to heavy use. Make yours strong and succinct, not one word too many.

F) QR code
As has always been the case, the more time goes by from when your business is a fresh thought in someone’s mind, the less likelihood that they will act on it. Popular QR technology can produce a unique code that, when scanned by a smart phone, directs the user to the chosen custom link. Depending on the call to action, being able to quickly scan and find out more information may make the difference between capitalizing on temporary interest and a short attention span that just cost you a sale.

G) Contact information
“I like to call and talk to someone.”
“Well I usually go into the store and see for myself.”
“You’re both wrong. It’s the new millennium, everything is online now.”
Give them the details they need to find you using the method they prefer.

H) Branding standards
Whether you are part of a national chain or have a business accreditation, proudly displaying campaign language is beneficial to aid in recognition. Aside from being required in some circumstances, listing prominent branding can also serve to legitimize your organization, providing another familiar phrase or visual cue.

I) Copyright or trademark
Your concepts and creations are just as unique and valuable as your business model and they merit the same protection. By noting a copyright on your original written and printed work, you are laying claim and reserving the right to protect the contents as your own intellectual property. No one else should have the ability to copy or profit from your ideas without your express permission, and this notice protects you. There is no reason not to include it in the fine print. While you’re thinking about it, protect any registered trademarks as well.

Keep this best practice advice in mind for your original printed works and they stand a much greater chance of enduring in the commercial and digital world to stand out prominently and speak effectively about your organization when you can’t always be there personally.

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Eric Lachs is the Marketing and Public Relations Manager at Marketing Matters (www.marketingmatters.net), a communications and design firm specializing in technology, consumer and custom electronics, audio-video and related industries.

Improve Your Email Campaigns

You may already be using email as a vehicle to deliver messages to your audience, or you may just think it’s a good idea and want to get started. If you’re in either group, you should read on to gain useful tips that can make your email campaigns successful.

Email continues to be an incredibly cost-effective and efficient way to engage your customers. With little cost to maintain, some form of email marketing should make its way into your marketing bag of tricks, if it’s not there already.

Where to start

Begin by doing an analysis of what kind of data you possess. Do you have a puny list of emails, or have you been gathering emails for years and just haven’t used them? Do you have lots of fragments from different departments? Regardless, now’s as good a time as any to begin building the list.

One thing to remember is that although the information may be coming from multiple locations – accounting, marketing, etc. – your email communication (all communications actually) should be coming from one central location. It is preferably that this central location is your marketing/PR department, as they are best suited to manage the messages that are being released to the public.

Build you list

There are many great ways to begin building your list. But there are a few prime options that I’ll focus on; the first being your website.

Individuals visiting your website are potentially already heavily invested in, or at least marginally interested in what you do. You can begin by making sure that every page (or at least the majority) has an opt-in form on the sidebar. Many of the top email services offer complimentary customizable forms and provide HTML that can be easily inserted into your web-pages.

Whenever someone has direct contact with you, they should be considered for, and have the opportunity for, inclusion on your email list. If someone registers for a training, fills out the contact form on your website, or forwards your email to a friend, they should all be given ways to opt-in to your list.

Offering an incentive to sign up can also be extremely valuable. If individuals feel that your messaging can benefit them, they’ll be more than happy to join. Include messaging like “Join our email list to receive monthly coupons on our products” may be a good tactic. Another option is to offer whitepapers, which is a great way to get people to sign up for your email list: by gathering  their information in exchange for permitting them to download.

Test, execute and measure

With just a little more forethought, you can drastically begin increasing your ROI (return on investment) by A/B testing. A/B testing is changing and testing emails with variations to see what performs better. From this process, you can figure out which types of subject lines work better for your audience, which design may catch the eye, etc.

You should also consider changing the sending times and frequency of emails. A couple of years ago, the rule of thumb was to send emails mid-week and mid-day (i.e. Tuesday-Thursday, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m). However, recent research indicates weekends and late afternoons may perform better. This type of research is all well and good, but from my experience, different audiences react and behave differently. We’ve had clients send emails that perform much better after normal business hours, while others maintain the mid-week, mid-day rule. In short, although research can be a great start for deciding when to send emails, you don’t have to trust the research, unless it’s your research.

You can also cut right to the chase. There’s no reason you can’t ask your customers directly with a survey. If you see one, or even a couple of times that customers enjoy getting communications from you, consider segmenting your list and sending the same email to those sub-groups at different times.

Other tips

Put the time into making the campaign work, and it will reward you. List management is key. If you’re getting a bounced email, dive in to find out why. Sometimes you can get this corrected by getting white listed on a server (earning approval by sending useful content that is proven not to be spam).

Integrate with social media. If you’re performing a direct email campaign, find a way to make it sharable by social media. Your email list is finite, but allowing it to be shared across vast networks of interconnected friends and followers is huge. Even one additional Facebook “like” could earn you a lot more exposure. If you see a particular message is particularly engaging or successful, repeat it.

Although content may change, keep your branding and look of the email consistent. You wouldn’t want the receiver thinking they just received something they didn’t ask for, marking it as spam and disassociating themselves with you permanently.

Offer a clear and prominent call to action. I’ll be creating another blog in the next few weeks on how to bring more value to your call to action, but in short, if the receiver hesitates, you’ve likely lost them.

There are many things you can do to increase the ROI of your email campaigns. I’ve only scratched the surface. I’d love your feedback as to tips you might have run across, or items I missed that might be helpful.

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Kyle E. Glass is the Director of Marketing at Marketing Matters (http://www.marketingmatters.net), a communications and design firm specializing in technology, consumer and custom electronics, audio-video and related industries.