I Am Email-Exhausted. Here's How A Smart Marketer Got Through To Me.

©CC Exhausted Courtesy ofAglet

I got an email today. I didn't know the sender. I had never heard of the company.

But I read the email. I also Googled the company name to learn more.

What made me do it? Two things:

1. This pitch was a straight-forward text message just like the kind I get from colleagues and friends every day.  Not too long, not too short.

2. I was not invited to click-through, or visit a website, or download a white paper. I was invited to contact the writer if I was interested. Period.

I am "email-exhausted," but this got my attention.  Here's exactly what the mail said:

Hi Nancy,

I'm sure you placed a lot of effort making it perfect, but is it

reaching your target audience? Do you have enough time and the right

resources to channel it to the right prospects and even to your

existing customers?

CBI Marketing Solutions aims to deliver our client's messages through

our proven multi-channel marketing strategy. If you have some

Brochures, White Papers, Videos and other marketing collateral's, we

can help you get that delivered to your expected readers/viewers or to

a wider market by using phone, social media and email marketing

campaigns.

Let me know if you're interested to know the process.

Sincerely,

Charlene Adams

Sales Representative, CBI Marketing  Solutions

Oh, and here's a link to CBI's website. They deserve it. CBI Marketing

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“Urban Preppers”: Twelve Money Suckers You Can Go to War With Right Now!

©CCRockyRaccoonakaSeedThiefcourtesyofJerryMcFarland

We’re ALL guilty !

Consider the sort of “extravagances” the average American pours money into without thinking. But why? We can do it much cheaper by doing it ourselves, reusing/recycling, consuming less, cutting back, getting simple, and holding-on longer.

Curiously, we expend so much energy and so many resources on services and "luxuries" that we have no time left to do things cheaply! The best example I can think of is gym memberships v. … walking … or … biking … or running … or gardening … or mowing the lawn!

It’s as though we're too busy to do anything for ourselves. How did this happen?

1. Beauty
• Hair. We depend on others to cut it, color it, trim it, condition it. At least we grow it ourselves?
• Nails. Somebody else cuts our toenails. Yikes!
• Skincare. Machines and medicines, dermatologists and surgeons. And it still wrinkles.
• Weightloss. How many diets, how many drugs does it take to lose how many pounds?

2. Pets
• Food. What happened to table scraps?
• Vets. Accpuncture? Oh my, please don't get me started.
 • Grooming. Seriously?
• Training. Just watch "The Dog Whisperer." Cesar is all you need to know.
• Insurance. In case your dog bites [or kills] somebody [see Training above].

3. Clothes
• Chasing Fashion. Fashion changes faster than your weight. Who can keep up?

4. Technology
• Designer cellphones. If you need to make a call, you don't need fingerprint access.
• Computer choices. You can get it cheaper. You know you can.
• Entertainment. Pokeman go? But why? Why? Why?

5. Housing
• Size. How many siblings slept in your mom or dad's bedroom?
• Location. We pay a lot for "neighborhood." And then we never meet our neighbors.
• Furnishings. You can never have too many pillows or mattresses or patio chairs or ...
• Professional landscaping. Hmmmm....

6. Vacations
• Hotels. Airbnb.
• Destination vacations. Try Disney v. Yellowstone. Six Flags  v. Appalachian Trail ..

7. Automobiles
• Expensive Make. Because .... ?
• Latest Model. Because .... ?

8. Children’s Activities
• Special classes. For the super talented, maybe ...
• Sports gear. For the special classes, always ...
• Toys et al. For the uninspired and the unnecessary...

9. Medical Services
• Medication reliance. Doc on speed dial.
• Designer drugs. Versus generics.

10. Religion/Spirituality
• Special classes. Necessary? You decide.
• Retreats. Necessary or fun? You decide.

11. Entertainment/Leisure Time
• Bars. Cheaper at home.
• Restaurants. Cheaper at home.
• Gyms and Spas. Cheaper at  home.
• Yoga classes. Cheaper at home.

12. Food
• Dining out. More fun at home, at least part of the time.
• Buying full- or partially-prepared items. Parboiling costs a lot, prechopped blows the budget.

Clearly, without the service economy in America, a lot of us would be unemployed. But do we really want to pay somebody else to do everything for us?

Yes? No? Let's talk about it ...

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How to Choose the Editor You Need

©cc Courtesy of Jennie Robinson Faber

Robin Sullivan knows the publishing and book marketing industry in and out. Fortunately for Washington-area writers, Robin hosts regular seminars for the “Washington DC Write to Publish” Meetup Group.

Recently, Robin explained why book authors likely need several editors, each looking at a manuscript differently. I hadn’t heard these editorial distinctions before, but they are worth sharing. So thank you, Robin!

1. Line Editor

If your writing needs smoothing over and polishing, a line editor will do nicely. This professional helps your prose flow and your words communicate. When the line editor is done, your manuscript should simply "read better." Don’t expect a deep flaw-checking from your line editor, though. For that you need our next expert.

2. Copy Editor

Copy editors make sure your writing confirms to a standard style (AP, Chicago, whatever). They’ll find flaws in grammar, spelling, and style consistency. The American Society of Copy Editors says, "Some may think of us as grammar geeks, punctuation freaks and syntax-obsessed snobs." Many published writers probably would argue that their copy editor helped get the manuscript published. Respect! Note: Many copy editors freelance.

3. Structural Editor

Did you ever wonder what Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis did when she worked as a consulting “editor” at The Viking Press? I doubt she was proofreading. Most likely, Jackie was a structural editor. If so, she would have been reviewing manuscripts for the caliber of character motivation, flaws in pacing, the arrangement of information, the amount of descriptive detail — in other words the whole darn thing. Structural editors will make your manuscript sing like a choir, but they don’t come cheap. These folks have read — and written — a lot and they have minds that rearrange the parts to perfection. Note: Freelance structural editors are difficult to find. Most of them are already booked and they’re earning a lot of money.

4. Proofreader

And, yes, you need a proofreader. When all the other editors have had their say and your manuscript is in layout, bring in the proofreader. This final step leads to an error-free document.

For additional details, check out this post by New York Book Editors.

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Mad Marketing

Attorney Nicholas Wooldridge has been researching the marketing side of the legal business. What he learned took this lawyer from mad marketing to the peaceful valley.

After some thought, Wooldridge decided that one assurance ties all strands of legal service together. One promise covers every client’s need—from getting a will made, to cleaning up a tax issue, from overseeing a bankruptcy, to managing a high-stakes merger, to defending an assault charge. Every client wants peace of mind.

Mad Marketing Tactics To Replace

Mr. Wooldridge outlines some common sales pitches and mad marketing moments that miss the mark.

• Selling time. “Never in history has anyone bought or sold even one second in time,” he says. Time is not a commodity and, therefore, has no innate value.

• Selling expertise or excellence. Specialized knowledge has no intrinsic value, but proves itself only when applied to a client’s particular need. Ditto “excellence.”

• Selling solutions. Wooldridge thinks solution without context adds up to another meaningless buzzword. Before solutions, we need to hear the client’s problem … which may turn out to be less of a problem than a need for information, reassurance, or guidance.

• Selling value. Obviously, value doesn’t materialize until the client decides. Our job is to help clients pinpoint need and then offer specific solutions.

Hmmm. Our clients' peace of mind … a worthy aspiration to consider. Thanks, Nicholas.

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Do Millennials Read?

        

Yes. Especially print.

Iron Mountain Knowledge Center asks, "Do you think the world is abandoning the printed page? Research indicates that a trend toward the tactile—even among Millennials—is opening up exciting new creative opportunities for fulfillment collateral."

In 2014, more than eight out of ten American adults would rather read magazines in hard copy than online. Similarly, 67 percent would rather read a book with a spin than one that glows. This information comes from a report by JWT, the New York marketing communications firm formerly known as J. Walter Thompson.

Do you know what's even more surprising, midway into the second decade of the 21st century? This trend is consistent among generations, even the grew-up-online Millennials, according to the same report, "Embracing Analog: Why Physical Is Hot."

Eight out of 10 Millennials say, "Physical cards/letters make me feel more connected to people than digital notes (emails, SMS, etc.)." These findings, as well as other studies, are calling upon the printed page to play a larger role in your marketing collateral and fulfillment efforts.         

Yes. Especially plain vanilla text and “print-like” apps.

A September 2014 article in The Atlantic reports that 88 percent of Americans under 30 said they had read a book in the past year compared with 79 percent of those over 30. At the same time, American readers' relationship with public libraries is changing—with younger readers less likely to see public libraries as essential in their communities. But wait … there’s more.

         “Moreover, young mobile readers don’t want apps and mobile browsers that look like the future. They want apps that look like the past: 58 percent of those under 50 and 60 percent of Millennials, prefer a ‘print-like experience’ over tech features like audio, video, and complex graphics. That preference toward plain text ‘tends to hold up across age, gender, and other groups’.”

Yes. Except for “e-versions.”

In her June 24, 2014 LinkedIn article Millennials: Digital vs. Print, Anna Burnham, coordinator at Everthrive, Illinois, tells this story: “…I hate e-versions. I own a Kindle, and it has been sitting in a drawer dead since I received it as a gift. Of course I use Twitter to get the majority of my news, but that is because the quality of magazines and newspapers has devolved into what I believe to be tabloid quality news … It is tempting to say that Millennials are e-version addicts who don’t appreciate the ‘older’ ways of doing things; that we are the ones driving the market. But in reality, what Millennials all crave is a media source, a book, or a show, which guides us and shows us the meaningful side of aging into adulthood just as books, the radio, newspapers, and magazines did for the generations before.”

Comme ci; comme ça.

In April 2013, Edelman’s Research Insight featured an article by Alex Abraham, senior VP of Edelman’s 8095® Millennial Insights Group. His article was titled “Millennials Hate Traditional Media. Or Do They?” Here’s what Abraham came up with:

• 93 percent of Millennials had read a magazine in the previous 60 days.

• 23 percent of Millennials had read a newspaper the day before, which was not that much lower than the general population.

         Abraham concluded, “One thing I have learned from my research of the Millennial generation is that for every study proving a point, there is likely another saying the opposite. But the insights above do show us that we have not yet entered a world where everything has to be digital to reach Millennials.”         

Yes. With visuals, please.

The Millennial Marketing blog made a “Yes-But” case in its post titled, “Do Millennials Read? Yes, But They Read Differently.”

“Perhaps the biggest take away is that Millennials are capable of taking in a lot of visual information at once, probably more than older generations, provided it is presented in an attractive and easily digestible way. This makes good design as important, if not more important, than good writing. In studies where we have had an opportunity to compare age groups, it is striking how much more attuned younger consumers are to the way information appears on the page. Older consumers tend to overlook poor design and focus on the meaning. Millennials have a hard time getting past the way it looks.”

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This Is My Favorite Marketing Newsletter Because ...

I get about 60 digital newsletters a day. I love this one.

The graphic header is recognizable, yet shallow enough to show the crux of the blog post without scrolling down. So critical. 

Hubspot sends this out multiple times a day (two? three?). I always glance at it and I often read the intro. I click through maybe four out of 10 times.

Sometimes I tweet it. Every month, I draw from it for Marketing AdVents, the award-winning monthly newsletter of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DC), which I edit. 

This newsletter meets the objective: It makes me click through to the blog.

Yes, the blog content is superb, but the enewsletter design gets me there.

Finally, this is the only enewsletter I receive that looks like this and persuades like this.

Serving Enewsletters? Get to the Meat!

©CreativeCommons by Heather Joan

I got an e-newsletter today-- one of about 60. This one featured four boxes, each with a stock photo. Every box had a headline, 35 words of fluff copy, and a link to the company’s blog. The meat sat on the click-through. I never got there.

Here's a better recipe for electronic newsletter tidbits:
1. Skip the headline.
2. Cut the intro.
3. Jump to the meat.
4. Serve.
5. Repeat.


Details
This copywriter served four dishes and four headlines:
• 10 Easy Ways to Grow Your Social Presence Now
• Is Your Brand Too Bland? Avoid These Pitfalls of "Wallpaper Copywriting"
• Reputation Management — the Secret Weapon
• 3 Twitter Tips That Will Boost Your Twitter Marketing

Not horrible, but very commonplace headlines. “Nothing to see here. Move on."

So what brought me back?
Nothing tasty, that's for sure. Just curiosity. A couple minutes later I wondered if these guys could teach us all a lesson. I went back to my trash folder, retrieved the email, and checked to see if they had anything to offer.

Here's my review.
• I've seen those headlines too often.
• The short 35-word intros to each item were even more trite than the headlines (for example, “Twitter is a fast moving social network. New content pushes older content out of the way fairly quickly, meaning that it's easy for your tweets to go unnoticed. If there's an important tweet that you want your customers to…”) [yawn]
• The meat was buried on the click-through link. I never made it there.

Cure
If you want readers to look further, tell us one thing we don't know. A single item we don’t know is better than four items of old news.

Sadly, the meat (see below) was there! But it was buried in paragraph three on the blog post. Why not put this on the cover page instead?

"When you pin a tweet, it's the first thing visitors will see when they come to your Twitter page …Here's how to pin a tweet:
• Locate the tweet you’d like to pin.
• Click the three little dots (extra tools) menu at the bottom right of the tweet.
• Select 'pin to your profile page.'"

Forty-eight words of pure meat. So why didn’t the writer serve me this tasty morsel first?

Beats me.