May 27, 2014

Attention Deficit, Part 1

Issue #329

Does Your Focus Need More Focus?

There is a famous line from the movie Karate Kid (the 2010 remake) when the Mr. Han, the Karate teacher, tells his pupil — who insists he is concentrating intently — that “Your focus needs more focus.”  Despite the student’s insistence that he was focused, his level of focus was lacking.  It is a problem that possibly everyone grapples with today.  With all the diversions and noise that compete for our attention and energy in today’s world, it can be very easy to fall prey to distraction. Continue reading →

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May 19, 2014

The Power of A-B Testing – Part 2

Issue #328

Best Practices for A-B Testing

Last week we looked at the power and purpose of A-B testing.  We defined A-B testing as a simple random experiment with two variables or options, A and B, which are the control and treatment in the experiment.  As the name implies, two versions (A and B) are compared, which are identical except for one variation that might affect the behavior. Version A might be the currently used version (control), while Version B is modified in some respect (treatment). Continue reading →

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May 12, 2014

The Power of A-B Testing – Part 1

Issue #327

WHAT, WHEN AND HOW TO TEST

Imagine this scenario.  The sales manager and production manager are working with marketing to create a promotional email for the company.  After deciding on a message, they discuss what time of day to deploy the eblast.  Sam thinks it should be sent at the beginning of the workday, around 9am, as usual.  Mike disagrees and thinks it should be sent at the end of the day, around 9pm.

To make his case, Mike cites a recent study by Experian Marketing Services which analyzed the best time of the day to send emails.  The study found that emails sent between 8pm and 11:59pm had the highest unique open rate (21.7%), highest unique click rate (4.2%), and highest transaction rate (0.34).  Those were all considerably higher than during any other time of day.  It was also the time of day when recipients received the lowest volume of emails.  Sam is unconvinced.  He cites a DEG study that found that the highest email open time ran from around 8am to about 1pm, with a small dip around 11am.  Moreover, the DEG study indicated that statistically the worst open rate time was 8pm.  With such different results and opinions, what should the marketing department do?  If the marketing department is savvy, the answer is to do both.  Say hello to the power of A-B testing. Continue reading →

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May 5, 2014

When to Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way

Issue #326

In every organization, business or department, there are times when a leader needs to step up and lead… chart a course, share a vision, give direction, motivate, encourage and guide.  There are other times when a manager or director needs to listen to the wise counsel of one who knows more, hand the reigns over and follow his/her lead.   And then there are times when management just needs to get out of the way and allow the company stakeholders to move forward… let a group function or allow a process to unfold. Continue reading →

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April 28, 2014

Forget the ‘Sales Pitch’… The Seven Cs of Collaborative Sales Conversations

Issue #325

Every company or business must ‘sell’ its products or services to survive.  As long as there is competition, there is a need for sales.  It used to be that salespeople would lob fast balls of information about a product or service at a customer to make a sale.  Hence the term sales ‘pitch.’  The problem with pitching information is that the customer’s response is to either swing to bat it away or duck to avoid it.   Perhaps that is why the old-fashioned ‘sales pitch’ is being replaced with a better approach. Continue reading →

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April 7, 2014

Effective Email Marketing in 2014 – Part 3

Issue #324

Email Sender Reputation and Authentication

Email is one of the most popular and effective yet complex and frustrating methods of marketing used today. On the one hand, email marketing is cost effective, instantaneous and has the highest ROI of any type of digital marketing. On the other hand, email deliverability is unreliable and can be technically-challenging. Beyond the basics of good message, good design and email list validity / cleanliness, there are factors involved in the email delivery process that are beyond the sender’s control. That’s because an email does not go in a straight digital line from the sender’s outbox to the recipient’s inbox. Why? Well, it basically boils down to a fundamental flaw in the system. Traditional SMTP (email) servers were never designed to deliver bulk, outbound email. They were designed for individual emails. The primary workaround for bulk email, especially those that involve large lists, is batch deliveries and that causes delays and problems. Continue reading →

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March 31, 2014

Effective Email Marketing in 2014 – Part 2

Issue #323

Improving Email Deliverability

The four letter word in the world of email marketing is SPAM.  No marketer wants its emails to be considered spam.  No company wants to be labeled a spammer.  Certainly no business wants to be blacklisted.  And yet, it is estimated that there is anywhere from 200 billion to upwards of 1.5 trillion spam email messages broadcast daily.  Just exactly what is considered spam email and what isn’t spam?  Email spam — also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email — involves identical or nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients via email.  Definitions of spam usually include that the email is 1) is unsolicited, and 2) sent in bulk.  However, based on that, when any company sends an email to all of the contacts in its database (for whom typically it does not have explicit permission to email), that is spam.  Spam email was named after Spam — the luncheon meat — which is considered ubiquitous, unavoidable and (to many) undesirable. Continue reading →

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March 24, 2014

Effective Email Marketing in 2014 – Part 1

Issue #322

Factors That Impact Email Deliverability

Many marketers feel that email marketing has a better return on investment than pay-per-click advertising, content marketing, social media, offline direct marketing, affiliate marketing, online display advertising, and even mobile marketing.  Perhaps that’s because 91% of consumers check their email at least once a day.  It would explain why about two-thirds of in-house corporate marketers rate emails as having “excellent” or “good” ROI..  In fact, it is estimated that email marketing has an ROI of 4,300%.  Even if that percentage is grossly exaggerated, it is hard to deny that emails are an invaluable and cost-effective marketing vehicle for most businesses. Continue reading →

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March 17, 2014

Clean Data is the First Step to Effective Sales and Marketing

Issue #312

What is the biggest source of waste for many businesses?  Few would guess that at many companies it is ineffectual sales and marketing efforts resulting from poor database management.  If the contact information for prospects and customers in a company’s database or CRM system is muddy, missing or just plain wrong, it cannot be used effectively for sales or marketing.  Bad contact data also makes it impossible to effectively service existing clients.  Data quality is crucial to operational and transactional processes within every enterprise and to the reliability of business intelligence and reporting. Continue reading →

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March 10, 2014

How Are Smartphones Revolutionizing Business? – 2

Issue #320

Streamlining Business and Solving Problems

It is a bit hard to believe that the first mobile phone was invented only four decades ago and smartphones have been around for only 22 years. Considering that nearly 80% of all adults in the U.S. are expected to have a smartphone by the end of 2015, practically no other technology in the history of the world can boast such lightning-speed adoption.  For that reason, the future of every business today resides squarely in the palm of the leadership’s hands – figuratively and literally — in how well they embrace and adapt to the world of smartphone users. Continue reading →

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