Talk Nice and Other Tricks to Make Your Email Kissable

In April, SilverPop released a white paper useful to any marketer responsible for “talking to” customers, particularly when the channel of conversation is email.

The essential message of “5 Tips for “White Space” Emails,” is keep it useful and make it look good.

To that end, fill promotional emails with useful, educational, enteraining content—photos, humorous stories, info graphics, tips from other customers/donors. 

For example:

1. Seasonal tips and stories that tap into your customers’ time-sensitive needs: spring clean-up, holiday recipes, December charities, March madness, etc.

2. Personality and humor. Write chatty copy that reflects your customers’ attitudes and interests.

3. Other-user-generated content. Search out customers’/ donors’ own words. Find them in social media comments, letters to customer support, etc. 

4. Buying tips: Customers don’t just buy; they interact with products and services for a reason. Broaden everybody’s buying experience through education. Political donors go to the polls and have experiences to share; nonprofit supporters embrace values and belief systems with a community of people; folks who “like” products are interested in how other customers make choices.

5 Usage tips. Focus copy on innovative ways customers can use your product or get involved in your charitable activities. For copy ideas, talk to customer service reps who hear feedback in customers’ own words.

Source: SilverPop white paper,  5 Tips for “White Space” emails, April 2014, http://www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/overview/

-- scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

Generate New Traffic with Old Content: It’s Easy!

Every week, Square2Marketing adds a new video to its “Video Marketing Minute” series. On April 17, Chief Marketing Officer Eric Keiles detailed five ways to easily repurpose content and get more hits.

1. Pull a report that indicates your highest performing content.

2. Pull a report that shows which of your web pages has the highest traffic.

3. Repackage high-performing content by adding a fresh cover page.

4. Create a new call-to-action button.

5. Link the call-to-action button to your refreshed content and post the button on high performing web pages.

Now, really, what could be easier?

Source: Eric Keiles, chief marketing officer, Square2Marketing.com/resources

-- scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

Put Your Pitch on Pinterest

London Street Art by RebeccaW, CC BY

Yesterday we posted some stats about Tumblr. Today we pin our post on Pinterest, yet another visual social media powerhouse.

What is it?
Pinterest helps users set up any number of “bulletin boards” to which they can “pin” (that is, embed) visuals and film urls from all over the Internet, including their own desktop.

Stats
On March 4, 2014, Craig Smith, director of marketing by day and digital marketing blogger by night, had plenty of Pinterest stats to offer.

• Total number of Pinterest users on July 10, 2103 (last update) … 70 million
• Percentage of Pinterest users who are women …  80%
• Percentage of Pinterest daily traffic coming through mobile apps … 75% (2/6/14)
• Number of Pinterest business accounts on …  about 500,000 (7/1/13)
• Monthly Pinterest Pageviews …  2.5 billion (5/9/13)
• Average number of daily article pins … 5 million (9/24/13)

According to ShareThis, Pinterest outpaced email to become the third most popular sharing channel in the fourth quarter of 2013. Meanwhile, Pinterest shares increased 58 percent, making it the fastest growing sharing channel in 2013. On May 16, 2014, Pinterest enjoyed a new infusion of $200 million in funding and boasted 70 million users, with more than 70 percent of those in the U.S.

Background
Pinterest went live as an invitation-only website in March 2010. By December 2011, Pinterest had made number five in Hitwise’s list of top ten social networks, beating out Linked and Google+.  By January 2012, the website was a popular means of self-expression for some 12 million enthusiasts sharing their idea of visual “cool” with the world. 

Marketing Uses
Erica Ayotte, former social media manager at Constant Contact, calls Pinterest "a virtual bulletin or cork board that allows users to find and curate images and video." Does Pinterest have a corporate application? Yes. Pinterest is ideal for inspiration, exposure, ecommerce, market research, and—perhaps most important—building brand devotion.

Pinterest appeals to consumers who want to know something about “who you are” without an attached sales message. Interacting on Pinterest offers consumers a sense of personal connection with a brand or, as Chris Litser, senior VP of sales and marketing at Constant Contact, puts it, "Success on Pinterest is all about engaging visitors and suppressing the urge to overtly sell."

Finally, Pinterest is an excellent way to promote a blog. Add the "pin it" button to every post and page on your site, making it simple and easy for readers to pin your posts.

More Info
Some reports indicate that Pinterest is more effective at driving traffic that other social media sites, even Facebook. Check Hubspot for their free eBook, “How to Use Pinterest for Business.” This report notes that any business that relies on driving a high-volume of website traffic to increase sales should consider joining Pinterest. 

 -- scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

Tumble On Over to Tumblr and Score!

Tumbling Pandas by Alan Wolf, CC BY

Two years ago, in February 2012, Bloomberg reported that some retailers had abandoned Facebook because ROI wasn’t there. Since then, users have been flocking to visual social media like Tumblr. 

What's Tumblr?

A so-called microblogging platform, Tumblr lets users post content to a short-form site that’s rich with short posts, videos, links, and photos.

Purchased by Yahoo in May 2013 for $1.1 billion, Tumblr may not be Facebook yet, but it might be the future. The company isn’t new—it launched in April 2007—but as of January 26, 2014, this little powerhouse had some amazing stats. 

Stats

On February 19, Tumblr had 45.1 million users and more than 17 billion total posts. On July 21, 2013, Tumblr had 199.1 million monthly visitors and on January 26, 2014  74.7 billion posts.

Who Goes To Tumblr?

Popular with teens and college-age user segments, 50 percent of tumblr’s visitor base is under the age of 25. Moreover, teenagers age 12-17 are about twice as likely as the average Internet user to visit Tumblr, while 18- to 24-year-olds are nearly 2.5x as likely. Staying in touch with Generations Y and  Z, in October 2011, the Obama campaign launched http://barackobama.tumblr.com (Note: This link format is how you find folks on Tumblr). 

Insights

Writing for 360 Digital connections, Matt Wurst suggests that Tumblr may be the answer to excessive options marred by short attention spans. “No one wants to sit through 1,000-word blog posts .. because words alone no longer tell the story.” Wurst calls Tumblr “a cross between a blog, a Twiter feed, and a Facebook profile.” Still not convinced?

Well, maybe if it’s good enough for the New Yorker, it’s good enough for you. Check it out here. 

Sources:

1. http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/tumblr-user-stats-fact/#.UzNEVK0eIkw January 26, 2014

2. http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/20-tumblr-stats-marketers-cant-ignore.html  October 21, 2013, Bernadette Coleman

Scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

  

Leftovers To Feed the Content Beast

1. Turn an ebook into a series of blog posts, or a series of blog posts into an ebook.

2. When you host a webinar, create a ride-along transcript so content “snackers” can scan the information. Later, turn the transcript into a slideshow.

3.  Capture a real-time tweet chat and republish it as a crowd-sourced blog post.

4. Pull sound bytes out of a long-form report or white paper and use them as tweets and Facebook updates.

5. Give quotes a new life as graphics; use them on visual platforms like Facebook and Pinterest.

6. Always read blog comments; they serve as both fodder and inspiration for tweets and short blog posts.

7. Use Evernote to snatch tidbits from all over the web; use liberally.

8. To keep readers abreast of change, revisit last year's article as the basis for a retrospective (e.g., "That Was Then, This Is Now.")

9. Rely on white papers for blog wraps like this one. (And thank you, Curata, for your ebook, “How To Feed the Content Beast.” You inspired me.)

-- scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

The Evolution of Twitter and Me

Common wisdom has it that Twitter growth is sliding. Maybe. But, in some unexpected ways, I find myself more attached to Twitter than ever.

You see, my use of Twitter has evolved from promotional outreach to community reach. Here's what I mean:

1. I really don't want to build a huge Twitter list. I want a select list and I'm fanatical about dividing my Twitter followers (from all three accounts) into specific categories. Admittedly, sometimes I'm not sure why I do this so religiously. I do have a feeling that some day I'll be glad I did; maybe it's the database marketer in me.

2. Twitter is a community. For instance, I can't watch the nightly news without turning on the Twitter account where my progressive friends hang out. I not only learn a great deal about what's going on, I can exchange thoughts with like-minded friends.

3. Twitter is a secondary key news source. If anything significant (or even of personal interest to me) happens nationwide or globally, I follow the hashtag. That's where I get the most current news and the opinion.

4 Generally speaking, hashtags are a vital search method for me -- less commonly used, perhaps, but equal to Google. Likewise, I don't tweet without hashtags.

5 Twitter is my search engine of choice for matters close to my heart: politics, marketing, writing, etc. Here's where the experts I know and respect hang out.

So, yes. I've noticed some key differences in my Twitter use lately. Anyone else?

-- scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

Short-Form Content Gets the Look

Marketers today need content and plenty of it. Ebooks and whitepapers make great giveaways, but, increasingly, users demand their info in bite-size chunks. Enter short-form content.

By definition, short-form content is created quickly and consumed even faster. Widely used examples include tweets, Facebook and/or LinkedIn status updates, Instagram photos, and even truncated blog posts and articles.

Josh Schwartz, a data scientist at  traffic analysis firm Chartbeat, took a look at how people scroll through Slate articles. His data shows that readers can’t stay focused. "When people land on a story, they very rarely make it all the way down the page. A lot of people don’t even make it halfway."

Popular apps and software like the following confirm that users are hungry for short and sweet.

• Vine, a mobile app that features seven-second video clips. Example: Airbnb.
• Tapestry, an app that employs digital index cards by which users tell a "short story," one card at a time. Example: Patch.
• Infographics that turn complex textual information into a picture. Example: 10 Ways To Use Infographics.
• Pinterest, a collection of photos gathered from around the web to tell a particular story. Example: Amnesty International.
• Flipboard, software used to "build" your own magazine on any subject, simply by aggregating web content. Example: Evernote.
• Snapguide, an app that lets users create and share concise step-by-step "how-to" guides. Example: School of Architecture, Kingston University London.
• Snapchat, a mobile photo and video sharing service developed by Stanford University students. Talk about short! Messages posted to Snapchat self-destruct after they're viewed. (P.S. Snapchat is H-O-T, having recently turned down a $3 billion buy offer from Facebook.) Also consider SnapChat Stories, eager to grow in ever smaller ways with  VC money  waiting in the wings. Example: Sorry, no examples are available; they've all self-destructed.

There's one more short-form app I'm compelled to add because it's so futuristic. This app -- Summly  -- generates short content for users automatically. Developed by a 17-year-old Brit and recently sold to Yahoo for a rumored $30 million, Summly delivers machine-generated news summaries to mobile users.