Tony Attwood's Blog

Note: the examples in this story are drawn from the education market, but as the references later on show, this approach can be used with all markets.

In September 2009 I started posting advertisements from Hamilton House customers on www.blog.schools.co.uk I did this for free, as part of our preparation for setting up www.ukeducationnews.co.uk – which picked up these items.

To my surprise the readership of www.blog.schools.co.uk went up and up, despite the fact that we were not advertising the site, linking to the site or anything. All we had was content. Here are the monthly individual readership figures – each person counted read at least two articles – but each individual is only counted once, irrespective of the number of times they came back to the site.

September 8,172

October 12,988

November 19,111

December 24,149

So where did these people come from? My guess was they found the site through searches using Google etc, and because they were using Google Alerts.

But I had no way to prove it. Until now.

Here is a note from Marketing Vox (link at the end). It refers to a study by Post Release. They refer to a “sponsored forum” which is their name for a site like www.blog.schools.co.uk

If you want to get your post onto www.blog.schools.co.uk or one of our similar sites, it is free – just book a listing on www.ukeducationnews.co.uk or use one of our email lists or shared or solo mailing lists. Call me on 01536 399 013.

Here’s the Marketing Vox article

The study also showed that 60 days after a typical sponsored forum post’s appearance, the total number of click-throughs increase by an average of 40%. After 180 days they increase by an average of 77%.

The reason for this effectiveness, according to PostRelease president Justin Choi, is that the posts remain in place for the life of the forum and contain content that can be discovered in search engine results long after the campaign is over. This enables the post to continue driving traffic to the ad not only from the audience of the forum in which it appears, but also directly from organic search listings.

“Consumers don’t have to be browsing a particular forum to discover an advertiser’s message there,” said Choi. “If a post offers useful content, it’s likely to show up when it is relevant to a consumer’s search for information – boosting traffic to the ad and to the forum. The click-through rates increase over time because posts are discovered by people who are actively searching for that content, and therefore are highly motivated to click through.”

Specific findings about reads and click-throughs of sponsored forum posts:

After 60 days the reads increased 28.8%

After 60 days the click-throughs increased 40.7%

After 180 days the reads increased 49.2%

After 180 days the click-throughs increased 77.1%

After 360 days the reads increased 60.6%

After 360 days the click-throughs increased 103.6%

In commenting on the increased effectiveness of sponsored posts, Choi also noted their durability vis a vis traditional display and search ads. “This is traffic they receive after the campaign has ended – for free. Whereas display and search ads turn ‘off’ as soon as the media buy ends, sponsored posts can play a powerful role in helping companies build a repository of online content that is available to be found by consumers searching relevant topics for weeks, months, even years to come.”

About the analysis: The company analyzed all PostRelease campaigns – which enable companies to insert clearly labeled, sponsored posts into targeted online forum discussions – that have at least six months of historical data, to see what residual traffic they were receiving after the campaigns had officially ended. Posts can include text, pictures, hyperlinks and links to video. A “click-through” is defined as when someone clicks one of the advertiser links that is embedded within the post. A “read” is when someone goes into the post – either from the forum discussion page or from a search engine. Overall, PostRelease click-through rates average 33%, with highs reaching nearly 90%.

http://www.marketingvox.com/sponsored-forum-posts-increase-response-by-more-than-100-046025/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=mv&utm_medium=textlink

Two years ago I read a detailed study by MarketingExperiments.com where they compared the hiring an employee to blog, create content, and in general work to drive traffic to sites, with the much simpler approach of using Google Adwords to drive targeted traffic to the web site.

The research took place over 12 months and in summary the research showed that the blogs / text / discussion approach yielded more than 93,000 visits to the site.

This was compared with a 30-day test of Google Adwords, bidding up to 75 cents per click on a variety of keywords related to the test websites which drove 2,047 users to the site at a cost of $1,250, So this compares with the “word-of-mouth” efforts which yielded 93,207 unique visitors at a cost of $3600.

Thus as Marketing Experiments.com points out, the word of mouth approach yielded a 1427% greater return on investment than the GoogleAd approach.

As the report says, however, pay-per-click advertising was a much easier to run and was much quicker, but it was much more expensive and gave a much lower return on investment.

I’ve just done a survey of my own. As with my previous surveys of this nature I have chosen an area of work away from my company, so that we can see the results without any sort of interference from other advertising.

What I did was to seek out any references to the phrase “Woolwich Arsenal” via Google Alerts.

Of course many of these were irrelevant to me because they related to property in the area, or events concerning the Docklands Light Railway, which has a station of that name. Today I read the awful news of a terrible murder in the area.

But each day I also got hits relevant to my interest (which was the football club of that name that existed until 1913), and I was able to reply to these blogs and articles with a message answering or expanding on their point or question, and then going on to say there was a book “Making the Arsenal” which dealt with the topic in more detail – leading the reader to a web site www.woolwicharsenal.co.uk where the book is described.

In terms of hits on the site it has been very successful – and of course what one does get is some of these replies of mine being picked up and printed on other web sites.

It is slower than Google Adwords, but much more effective I have proved to my own satisfaction that word of mouth advertising in this way really does work. If you would like to talk about it, or explore it in relation to your work, please do email me or phone 01536 399 013.

And indeed if you have any experiences yourself of successful word of mouth advertising, please do write in and share. Tony@hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.

Let’s imagine that you are looking afresh at your marketing campaigns, or maybe wanting to try something new. Or even coming to direct marketing for the first time.

Where to start?

I want to make two suggestions.

First, take a list that is likely to do well and mail just a small percentage of that list to see how many replies you get. How many you need to mail depends on the profit you make per sale, but if you want me to go through the calculations with you, I am happy to – just give me a call.

Second, I would take the email list of past clients, and email them with an offer.

My point here is that if these promotions don’t work, then there is no point running the campaign, and one needs to re-think the advert. You are using the best responding approaches (straight direct mail to potential new customers, and email to existing customers).

This may seem fairly obvious, and yet most firms don’t use either of these approaches, and so if any campaign fails to make the grade they don’t really know what to do next.

If you don’t have your own list of customers and interested parties’ email addresses, or you don’t have a mechanism for emailing them, then please do give me a call on 01536 399 013. No obligation, I am happy to have a chat through with any of the issues.

If you would like to see costs relating to building your own email list from those people who click on your emails to go onto your web site, as well as those who call and enquire, please do take a look at http://www.emails.gs/ownlists.html

Tony Attwood

I wrote yesterday about how my stories of the Toppled Bollard gained attention. So much so that one reader, wrote in with his own Bollard story. It just shows what a great approach this is to developing customer relations.

A traveller’s tale

Half way through a recent sales trip through Northamptonshire, I was initially dismayed when my old VW finally gave up the ghost somewhere in the environs of Corby. Casting around for the nearest source of succour, the loom of a disreputable looking hovel caught my eye. Any port in a storm, I thought and, leaving the car with a few well directed kicks, I crossed the cratered tarmac of a car park and blundered in through the back door of the shabby hostelry.

The effect of my entrance, somewhat spoiled as I tripped lightly over a disused trouser press, could not have been more marked. The strident discussion I’d heard as I approached, stopped as if choked in the collective windpipe of the crowd who, as one, now regarded the intruder with an equal mix of suspicion and loathing. My dismay increased as a threatening figure stooped over me. “You’ve broken our darts trophy” it snarled, “that’ll be a fiver.” Glancing at the object of my downfall, I noticed, with a shiver of recognition, that it bore a small chrome plaque emblazoned with the words “Corby Finals – 1992 – Fecund Place – The Toppled Bollard”

As I proffered an apologetic twenty pound note, the lowering visage softened and a hand, extended by its owner, helped me to my feet. I retrieved my brief case and, picking up the contents liberally strewn about by my maladroit entrance, sat heavily upon a bar stool. “Any change?” I asked hopefully, ” or maybe a pint or two? – I won’t be driving anywhere for a while.” With a look of supreme unconcern, the barman, for such he was, slid a consolingly foaming pot across the bar. “Salesman?” he asked suspiciously.

“What?” I spluttered, inadvertently spraying him with foam, “Oh, the leaflets? Yes, sort of. I sell toilet cubicles and washroom vanities to Schools and Colleges.” Unfazed by the sniggers from the nearest of his customers and snide remarks about U-Tube, he brushed the spray over most of his sweatshirt and leaned forward confidentially. “Lucky you dropped in,” he said, “we know a bit about selling to schools here.”

“Really?” I said, my doubt evidenced by more flying foam.

“Really” came the assured reply.

“Fantastic!” I said, “I’m desperate.”

“So are most of this lot.” my interlocutor opined with a jerk of his head towards his clientele.

“No,” I protested, sliding the bit more firmly between my teeth, “What I mean is, our lot produce some damn good products but not enough of the school and college decision makers know about us. You’ll have heard of BSF?” I continued, “PFI, Public – Private partnership, consultation between local authorities,architects and main contractors, that sort of thing? Well, getting in front of those decision makers at the right time is a serious problem, let me tell you!”

Shaking the increasingly glazed look from his face with a considerable effort, he leaned suddenly closer – any nearer and I would have suffered from his shaving rash. “Bit difficult for me perhaps if I’m honest,” he breathed, “but there’s a bloke comes in here from time to time. likes a beer, tells a good story, does a lot of ‘mailings’, he calls ‘em.”

As he stared insistently into my eyes, I realised he was pressing something into my hand. I looked down at a comprehensively soiled piece of pasteboard. “Tell him Billy “The Dog” sent you.”

Simon Rosser
Decra Ltd

For a number of years I wrote occasional sales letters which aimed to be slightly amusing. They told the story of a mythical pub in Northamptonshire where the “marketing elite of the East Midlands” gathered for a quiet drink.

However events at the Toppled Bollard were never straight forward and usually ended up in disaster. But quite a few people liked the pieces and they brought us in a lot of work.

The Bollard was actually a very successful invention. By and large the stories had little to do with what I was trying to sell (something I often admitted in the PS of the letter). But they struck a chord and brought us clients who could have gone to any one of a hundred other direct marketing companies.

As I say, most people liked the Bollard stories, but I must admit some felt they were stupid. There was one irate reader who occasionally sent me very rude notes back, the essence of which was, “Do you really think anyone finds any of this funny. You should…” I will leave you to imagine the rest.

Unfortunately I was unable to take the person off the mailing list because he or she always wrote anonymously.

Perhaps my favourite response (and one that happened quite a large number of times) followed these lines. I would take a phone call in the office and the caller would say that he (usually he) wanted to talk about direct mail.

I would confirm that he had phoned the right place, and we would start talking.

“Of course I never read junk mail,” the caller would say. “But I like your stories of the Toppled Bollard. Don’t believe it works though.”

“Ah,” I would say. If you have ever spoken to me on the phone you will know I am quite nifty with the occasional “Ah.”

“You don’t read junk mail.”

“No – but it seems to be the way things are going, so tell me about it.”

“It works,” I would say.

“Really?” The voice at the other end would be disbelieving.

“Let’s put it this way. You never read junk mail. And yet you can tell me the name of a mythical public house that only ever appears in the middle of my sales letters. It doesn’t even turn up in the headline.”

There would often be a silence at the other end of the phone, followed by a chortling sound, and then, “So you think it works?”

As you can imagine, if I didn’t think using a bit of humour in a sales letter actually worked, we wouldn’t have run the campaign for several years. Indeed we’ve hardly sent out any Toppled Bollard stories for the past year, but people still talk about it.

I only stopped when I got so many companies wanting me to write for them, I felt the need to take Hamilton House’s promotions in a different direction, to ensure I didn’t use any idea twice.

I thought of all this having taken a call from a potential customer who took the trouble to send me in a piece of his own, based on the Bollard stories. I’ll put it up on this site tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, if you want to talk about direct mail, email, blogs, or any other direct way of talking to customers and potential customers, do give me a call. 01536 399 013 is my direct line. Or email Tony@hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood

Last week I was asked by a customer if I knew who invented the postal system. I said that the information was lost in the mists of time.

“Ha, ha,” said my customer. “Caught you out! I was told you knew everything!”

I pointed out that total knowledge was never a claim that I had personally made, but my client was not to be put off.

“Do you want to know?” he crowed.

I told him that I would indeed welcome enlightenment.

“Roland Hill,” he said with triumph.

And this gave me a problem. Because by chance I happen to know about Roland Hill (as you might imagine I do, given that I have worked in the direct marketing industry for 30 years). Did I tell my customer he was totally wrong, or did I save the account, and let him get away with it?

As I pondered these difficult issues, my mind swept back to the start of my interest in Roland Hill.

By chance I knew about him even when I was in primary school. Because not 200 yards from my family home in Tottenham, north London, and no more than a mile from my primary school is a road called Roland Hill – so named because the famous man lived there. Aged 10 we were taught all about him.

In fact Hill didn’t invent the postal system – there was one in the UK long before he came along. What he did was reform the system and introduce the universal tariff paid by the sender – which in turn led to the introduction of postage stamps.

Before Hill came along, letters were paid for by the recipient. But to avoid payment, many people would write something on the envelope in code, so that the recipient could see the essence of the message, and then refuse the package, and so not pay a penny.

After the lesson on Mr Hill my teacher (whose name I have now forgotten) then asked the class to evolve codes which might convey a simple message, and which were flexible.

I am not sure I enjoyed much of my primary schooling – I think I have enjoyed writing sales letters, web sites, blogs and emails more. But those lessons about Roland Hill stayed in my memory and quite possibly led me to where I am today.

Want to get in touch? Call me on 01536 399 000 or drop me an email to Tony@hamilton-house.com

And in case you are interested, I backed off and let my customer think he was right. Feeble I know, but I prefer to call it being “diplomatic”.

If there is one thing that I would stress as a fundamental of writing emails and direct mail – and indeed blogs – it is “talk about the reader, not about yourself.”

For me, the worst type of sales pitch is the one that begins

“XYZ Ltd supplies….”

Or, “XYZ has been in the business of supplying the computer industry for 25 years…”

My reaction to such letters is “so what?”

Sales letters, emails and the rest should always begin with an issue that is of major concern to the reader, not something that boasts about how good you are.

One great start is, “One of the biggest problems facing our industry today appears to be xxxx. Many solutions have been put forward, but I particularly like the approach that…”

That’s hardly a perfect sales letter, but it gives the idea, I think.

If you would like me to have a look at anything you have written, or if you would like to discuss the writing of sales letters, emails or blogs for your company please do get in touch.

Tony Attwood Tony@hamilton-house.com
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd Phone 01536 399 000.

Strangely, for many companies the most valuable type of marketing list and the most under-used type of marketing list are one of the same thing.

Indeed, so underused is this email list that it is often ignored completely.

The list I have in mind consists of three groups of people:

1. The people who have bought from you in the past year or two

2. The people who have enquired of you, even though they have not bought. (These might be people who have asked for a quote or have simply emailed in to ask about a product).

3. The people who have clicked through from an email onto your website.

If you can put a list of these people together, and add to the list regularly, then you have in place the most responsive list imaginable.

Of course, certain safeguards have to be built in. If you are using email you need to ensure that there is an automatic opt-out process that works, and that the same address doesn’t appear twice on the list.

But with these built in you can set up your list of existing enquirers, and then keep adding to it. Occasionally you can do an advert to a cold list, and pick up all the people who clicked through from your advert to your website.

The only other issue is, what do you say to them? The best answer is to try and find a topic that not only advertises your services but is also interesting to read. Something of benefit to the client in fact.

If you would like an example or two, give me a call and I will talk through with you what could be done and send you an example of how I have written such pieces in the past. Although I would stress, the service can operate without my input as a writer.

The prices when using this approach via email are very modest, and the response rates can be very good indeed. I’m not putting the prices in here because there are all sorts of variations in this type of work, so we tend to quote each one individually, but I can promise that you will be reaching potential customers for under 1p each, including all the above services, and sending the emails out.

If you are interested please call me or one of my colleagues on 01536 399 000, or email me details of your requirements and I will give you a quote.

Tony@hamilton-house.com

These days I feel fairly solid on the subject of blogs. Last year one of the blogs I write got 1,600,000 hits – that is the site was visited 1,600,000 times (also known in the trade as “page impressions”)

And just before you think that maybe I sat at home going onto my own site 4500 times a night, I would add that by the end of the year we were getting 120,000 individual readers going onto the site each month. It wasn’t just me.

One of the great bonuses of the site is that in the past year more and more of the pieces I have written have being copied onto other sites – usually in full, and usually citing my site as the origin. This has helped make the blog one of the most popular in its field. All from a standing start of zero readers two and a half years ago.

During last year I also started writing regular blogs for other companies, and in doing this, I began to get a deeper understanding of how firms see blogs, why some feel that the blog concept is not right for them, and why some blogs don’t get high levels of readership.

The point is that the blog is not an advert, but is a way of engaging with customers and potential customers. It does not always make a complete sale, but it puts the customer into a more positive frame of mind about you. It builds a brand, at a very low cost. And it means that when you do advertise to people they are more likely to accept what you say, rather than think “just another advert”.

This lack of understanding about blogs can also be a huge benefit to those who do use blogs successfully, because it means that in most industries if you start writing a successful blog, you can be sure most of your competitors won’t be doing this.

I am happy to send you an example of a blog I have written for a client, and to talk with you about how a blog might work for your company. I’ll even sketch out an idea or two for you if you are interested. Call me on 01536 399 013 or email Tony@hamilton-house.com and write Blogs in the subject line.

Tony Attwood

Throughout last year my colleagues and I analysed hundreds of emails, looking at how they were constructed, to try and find the key features that determined why one advert worked and one didn’t.

Here’s what we came up with. It is impossible to say that any one factor is more or less important than the others. But they all are important, and from all our analyses I would say that they are all far more important than other factors.

1. From

Who the reader sees the email as being from is very influential. If you send it from a name, that tends to be less effective than sending the email from a name that the person believes sounds important. For example if you are sending to users of concrete, an email from Concrete Info Service (assuming that there isn’t one!) is better than from Bloggs and Co, or John Bloggs.

2. Subject line

A short open question (or implied question) seems to work best at the moment – as in “What’s the most efficient way to buy concrete?”

Most people seem to think about the subject line as an afterthought, but it really is a major force in terms of the success or failure of the ad.

3. Headline

Very few emails have headlines but it is certainly a worthwhile consideration. We have been experimenting with taking the subject line and then expanding it as a headline into something akin to that which one would use on a sales letter. If the text is in 10 point Arial the subject line could be 14 pt Arial Bold.

4. Conversational style

I wrote about this many times last year – shouting at people or just announcing your product, or indeed talking about yourself and not the customer, works far less well than having a conversational style.

5. Why buy this and why buy it from me?

This is the big question – if you can answer it for the customer in a way that makes your offer or your firm unique, then you can get the sale.

I hope this brief summary is helpful. If you would like to explore any of these ideas in relation to your adverts, do give me a call on 01536 399 000, or email me a copy of your email ad and I will call you back to discuss it.

Tony Attwood Tony @ hamilton-house.com