Tony Attwood's Blog

There’s an old joke that says there are two types of people in the world. Those who divide everything into two groups, and those who don’t.

In advertising it could be said that there are two types of companies – those that change their advertising approach quite regularly, and those that don’t. In my view, those that change from time to time tend to be the more successful – particularly in relation to the current environment.

This is not to say that companies that have not changed their advertising approach have failed – rather that additional success could have been theirs, if they had experimented a little further.

In this approach I don’t mean that I recommend the wholesale tearing up of old plans. Rather I mean a touch of experimentation.

Let me give a couple of examples.

About 15 years ago I did an experiment by writing a sales letter that was mildly amusing. It was sent out to a small selection of our list of potential customers, and got a good response, so it was then sent to the full list. At the same time a second letter was written in this style, and that was sent to the test group… So it went on, and we had another approach to marketing: using humour in the covering letter. It worked so well we are still using it – but not to the exclusion of other types of marketing.

Last year we started experimenting with blogs, and found (after a number of months or trial and error) that there are ways of building up quite a readership in this way. After a while sales began to follow and blogs are now part of the repertoire. However we are still experimenting, and are currently running six different blogs each with its own style and approach, to see what works and what does not.

My point here is that these approaches don’t have to replace existing marketing styles – they can be additional. Likewise they don’t have to be expensive – because they can be tried out in small ways to see if they work. Start with the experiment, and see how it goes.

Put like this it all seems so obvious – and yet as I look at the advertising that I see around me each day, I am struck by the fact that much of it is following the same line as before. Of course maybe these companies are making so much profit that they never need to change – but I do wonder…

I suspect that more often than not, advertisements are put out because they need to be hitting the market quickly. “January is our best time of year,” I am told, “so we need to mail everyone now – we can’t just try an experiment.” My response to this is, yes you can. Take just a small number of people out of your mailing list and try something quite different with them. Then monitor the sales – if that little group buy more than the others, then you know the new approach is worth taking further.

When there is a bit of time, one way to take this matter forward is to get an outsider to take a look at your marketing, and to make a suggestion or two. Obviously you don’t have to take the advice, but it does give you an option.

I’m more than happy to have a chat with you about anything from a specific advertisement, through to the whole approach. Let me give just one final example of how this can work.

Some firms have regularly undertaken direct mail, and have tried a spot of email marketing, but without much success. I’ve had a look at the work that they’ve done and then suggested why the emails were not working, and what could be done to transform the situation.

Hamilton House doesn’t charge for this, because where we do get it right (which is not always, but is most of the time) we find that such companies often choose to pay us a modest consultancy fee to carry on giving the advice each month, as well as engaging us in other fields, such as writing advertisements for them, supplying email lists etc etc.

There really is no obligation – if you’d like to have a chat do give me a call on 01536 399 000. Alternatively send me a copy of an advertisement, or direct me to your web site, or give me detials of a recent campaign, and I’ll give you my thoughts. Tony@hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood

According to new research, companies are getting more concerned about the effectiveness of their email marketing. And I have to say, from what I am seeing, I think they are right to be so. But it is possible to do very well from email marketing.

44% of people who responded to the third annual Email Census by Econsultancy and Adestra, said they were worried, as opposed to 32% last year. 69% of email marketing agency people said this was a problem as opposed to 53% last year.

I believe that many companies don’t have a proper thought through strategy for email marketing, and instead just say, “budget is a bit tight so we thought we would do email”. And when that happens, usually it does not work at all.

There is no doubt at all the email can work – but it takes a bit of care over the way the advert is presented, and style of communication.

The tragedy of email marketing is that just knocking out an email advert to save money generally results in very poor results, and that results in the advertiser believing that “email doesn’t work” when in fact it can work with a bit of care and attention.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that around 98% of email marketing that we all see each day is fairly awful – and although no one deliberately copies mistakes, it can become easy to believe that this is how it ought to be done.

If you would like to discuss email marketing and how it can work, do give me a call. No cost, no obligation, and I’ll willingly tell you all I know about the subject (although that could involve a long phone call.) Or you can email me a copy of your email ad and I will call you and tell you what i think.

You don’t have to take any notice but it might help

Tony Attwood 01536 399 000

I have been arguing for some time that attitudes to advertising have changed radically in the past two years and that any advertisements that go out using a style that was appropriate two years ago, are unlikely to win through.

It was interesting therefore to hear an exec of one of the big supermarkets (Tesco?) this morning on the radio saying much the same about shopping – that the way people buy in the stores is changing, and that those companies on the high street that have not changed their policies and their approaches to meet this sudden change in customer perception are suffering as a result.

The common thread is that when the background to life changes – for example when all the banks we trusted turned out to be run by people who really didn’t have much of an idea how to run a sustainable business, or when all the MPs we voted for had their snouts in the trough – we then start changing how we react to what is around us.

There is no doubt in my mind that this has happened in advertising, and that the adverts of 2 or 3 years ago which worked are now complete flops.

The evidence for this is not just the experiments that my colleagues and I at Hamilton House undertake each day, but also the calls we get from people saying “we always got 2% on this in the past, now it is down to 1%. Did you send it out on time?” And we prove that we did – and again explain that last year’s advert won’t work any more.

If you would like to discuss any advert that you are considering putting out, or in more general terms, how to introduce the notion of conversation into your advertising, do call me on 01536 399 000 or email Tony@hamilton-house.com

Open rates: a review of statistics in email marketing.

Many people talk about “open rates” in email marketing – implying that they are able to judge the number of people who have actually seen an email, and that there is a clearly understood definition of what the word “open” actually means.

HHM is not an expert in this field. However we do send out a lot of emails through a series of news services that we run for ourselves and some of our clients, and so it is important for us to understand what “open rates” actually means in terms of email marketing.

Our research has revealed several things – including some information on what the crooks are doing with emails. That might seem a bit off topic, and I’ll leave that bit until last but it does give a clue as to where the market might go.

In the meanwhile, here’s what we found out about “open” rates.

Depending on the software you use, open rates can mean any of these things:

The number of emails actually received by people you emailed (even if the email went straight to a delete box through the use of some “message rules”). This will be the number sent minus those that never arrived because the mail box was full, or the system down, or the address discontinued.

The number of emails clicked on by readers – but this clicking could mean clicking to delete the item as much as clicking to read it further.

The number of emails where the recipient has clicked to reveal blocked images that are on a website that links to the email. The problem here is that our trials and research shows that when we put in such a link many people read the email without clicking, and others just delete it at once – thus the stats can be quite misleading. We feel the latter option (delete at once when the “reveal pics” message is shown) is growing, because of the increased awareness of the sophistication of cyber crooks (see below).

So the situation is unclear, and it is made worse by the fact that some software actually seems to record open rates twice for some emails. For example an email received might be clicked on once to open it up, but then if one clicked again to reveal the images or to go onto a site linked from the email, that produced a second “open” statistic. So the number of “opens” would include some emails where one recipient counted twice.

It’s all a horrible mess – made worse by the example of Outlook Express. Most people using OE can look at the content of their incoming email without clicking or doing anything else. Typically one window shows the sender and subject line and another shows the email itself. The recipient can read, and then delete. Is this “open” or not? No one can agree, no one knows.
Now I should add that I know that the response of some email statistics software companies is to say, “yes, there is a lot of rubbish out there, but ours works”. And I am perfectly ready to believe this – but all I can say is that we have not been able to lay our hands on any software which we can trial, which gives us sensible results.

The situation is exacerbated by the growth in agencies that handle email distribution for companies, rather than sell software that allows you to do it yourself. They email for you, and give you a set of statistics which cannot be verified. Worse, they often fail to define “open” – particularly in reference to Outlook Express where one can see the email without actually clicking on it.

The one statistic that does have a consistent meaning is “click through” – obviously defined as the action of clicking on a link within the email to a web site. The software can measure this clearly and straightforwardly and always gives us consistent results.

Indeed the fact that this statistic always works throws further doubts on all the other stats. If we can always measure “click through” and can verify the measurement through a set of tests, why do the “open” figures vary so much?

This raises another issue: what is the point of “open rates” at all? If I “open” your email, read a line, think it is rubbish (no offence) and press delete, and you count me as “opening” – so what? I haven’t read much, I haven’t clicked on the link…I don’t like what I read. What have you learned from this statistic?

I can see the point at one level – if 80% of people you sent the email to “opened” it but only 1% clicked on the link, we could say that your subject line was obviously good, but you lost it all in the message. But to do this I would need to be sure that “opening” was a real choice, and wasn’t incorporating within the count messages that were simply delivered.

In reality, because emailing is cheap, it is possible to sort this out in a much more positive and clear way by undertaking a set of experiments based around either

the number of enquiries or sales you get or

the number of people who click on your link.

To turn to the other issue that I raised, SC Magazine has published an interesting piece (full details below) about emails from cybercriminals. They point out this scenario…

The user clicks on the link and is directed to a site where a Trojan file automatically downloads onto the user’s computer.

The trojan then downloads an additional spyware file that captures sensitive information, such as bank account numbers (known as spy-phishing).

http://www.scmagazineuk.com/Cybercriminals-move-with-the-times/article/112273/

Now what strikes me is that by and large people are getting more and more cautious about email. They will look at emails (and using the Outlook Express example above they will do this without actually clicking on anything), and then decide if they want to read on.

At the moment I believe most professionals feel that they can recognise a criminal email when it pops up and hits them between the eyes because it is so obvious – the Nigerian scam, the sex pills, the tax refund, Britney Spears pictures, the bank website update (please re-enter you account details and password)…

What we all know is that the writers are sophisticated in their IT skills, but we rely on their lack of other skills – such as knowledge of grammar, an ability to spell…

But supposing the criminals start to get more sophisticated in terms of their ability to copy legitimate sites and in their use of the English language?

At that point fewer people would be willing to click on a link even if it looked perfectly reasonable and related to their profession. In which case the only way to sell by email will be to give information and offer not only the link to the online shop but also a phone number, a fax number and an address.

In fact, most serious players in the market do this, but a fair number of smaller firms don’t supply such background detail at all, and this could ultimately be their undoing.

In a sense I am predicting a movement in email marketing which moves away from all the high tech “click here” approach of the last few years, and back to treating the email as if it were a bit of direct mail, which is forced to rely on words to excite the readers. The links can still be there for readers willing to take the risk, but over time I suspect fewer will be willing to give a website a try, no matter how well the email is presented.

To conclude, if you supply a piece of software that measures open rates in emails, and you are willing to allow Hamilton House to test it for a week in a way that allows us to verify the answers, we’d be delighted. If the results fail to be consistent, then we won’t tell anyone, but if the results actually match our figures we’ll happily report the news through our news groups and on this web site.

If you would like to know more about our email services, open rates, click throughs and anything else please click here or call 01536 399 000

Tony Attwood