Tony Attwood's Blog

There are three things that I believe companies need to do to stay ahead of the game in the current market place.

And sad to say, my experience is that most firms are not doing these things – even though they are not necessarily expensive.

Here they are:

1.  Build an email list of your own customers and enquirers, and make sure you can mail it in accordance with current guidelines.

I am getting to the point of thinking that the second part of that sentence is more important than the first – because time and again reps of companies that I am working with tell me that they have such a list, but when I ask questions about it, a certain vagueness (if not downright coolness) reaches the atmosphere.

Typically I am told that “yes we have one” and that a certain other member of staff deals with it.  It is only later that I find that there is no such list, or it is not up to date, or it is being sent out without a proper “unsubscribe” button, or it is just being sent via a normal email program, and so ending up being blocked at half the addresses it reaches.

The fact is, having an email list of recent enquirers and past buyers is the single best thing you can do in marketing terms.  It is not hard to do, and yet somehow it isn’t done.

2.  Look at the stats when you do email marketing, and compare the number of people hitting your web site, with the number who then go on to order.

When emailing potential customers you should be able to see how many click through from your email to your web site.  The key issue here is…

a) is the email working in delivering a good number of people on to your web site? (if not, change the email)

and

b) are those people buying? (if not, re-write the landing page)

The fact is that many companies with whom I speak can’t or won’t change their web site, either because I cannot make myself clear in my suggestion that just one page is changed, or because the web site designer is a part timer who is currently working for the Venezuelan government and won’t be back for three months.

The point is that getting this information (that it is the email that is at fault or the web site that is at fault) is wonderful – it really takes you a long way forward.  If you then do nothing with it, it is a dreadful waste.

Take this information and use it in the right way, and it can transform your business all by itself.

3.  Run a regular (at least weekly) commentary service via your email and/or blog (ideally “and blog”) which is not utterly sales based, but gives advice, guidance, or deals in a light-hearted way with the issues.

Blogs are not complex things to run, nor are email lists.  They are great at getting new customers, and at staying in touch with existing clients.  The only complexity comes with the writing – because a blog is only as good as the writing.  Screaming details about discounts doesn’t work – you have to talk with the recipient, and have an (admittedly one sided) conversation.

Blog writing is just about the fastest growing part of the Hamilton House workload at the moment, so I am more than happy to send on some samples to you if you want.

Finally, I am going to suggest a blog to read.  For several years I wrote occasional stories set in the Toppled Bollard public house – light hearted and silly tales about direct marketing.  I still get calls from people who remember them – to which I generally reply “do you get calls from people who can remember your promotions from two or more years ago?”

I am not in any way suggesting that you should write something as eccentric as the Toppled Bollard stories, but the fact is they are remembered by some of our potential customers, and that makes them read more.

If you never saw the stories, or if you remember them with a certain bizarre affection, a new series is appearing regularly at www.blog.toppled.info

Tony Attwood

01536 399 000

When writing an email there are rules to be obeyed.  But… if your creativity is riding high enough you can break the rules.

Here’s a list of rules that can be broken, or not, as the case may be!

1. PUT ALL THE WORDS IN THE SUBJECT LINE IN BOLD CAPS

I don’t like it, but I have seen it happen AND I HAVE SEEN IT WORK. But… it only seems to work if you do it regularly and consistently, and you have a really good message to put in that line. When they work they probably work because most people shy away from them. If everyone changes, then CAPITAL HEADLINES will flop again.

2, Write lots of text, cut out the links, and don’t bother with the old call to action.

In fact I generally write lots of text, and tend to have one link only – the one I want the person to go to. This is because I treat the reader as a friend, and I try to have a conversation with that person.

The industry will tell you that email copy should include opportunities for people to click, but that can treat the reader as a simple child. Keep it like a conversation – without pushing people to “click here” (most users of email know what the “reply” button does), and people start to treat you more as a source of information, and less as someone who is trying to push a sale down your throat.

3. Standard boring ordinary templates work.

In the past year there have been experiments in the US and they have shown that just because an email template looks ultra pretty and swish, it doesn’t necessarily sell more.

The point is that although a pretty template is nice to look at it doesn’t actually sell anything. Take away the distraction of the nice to look at, and suddenly all the focus goes onto the words you write – which is what sells.

Templates can distract from the text message.

4. Stop putting in all those “need to click to activate” images.

A picture is worth 10,000 words – oh how many times I have that said to me, and how often I say, “prove it” and get a blank look.

Maybe it is true somewhere but not in email.

When the recipients of your email view the message with images “on” as default, they will see your nice picture. With images “off” which is the default of most of us, there’s nothing there except a little red x in a box.

5. Personalisation is good – or bad.

Personalising an email can work in some circumstances. It works generally if the recipient knows your company and has a relationship with you (that is it is not a cold email) and if you get the name right. Get it wrong (as in “Dear Mr House Mailings” that I sometimes get, along with “Dear ,” and you look stupid.

But getting it deliberately wrong can enhance sales. “Dear Mr Trouser Press” works for us.

So, there you have it. Call to action, well, you know, click reply. Oh and there is a phone number below.

A study by Ovum, commission by StellaService, has discovered found that customers are willing to pay a 10.7% premium on prices for ‘excellent’ online customer service!

It is an amazingly high price - and it is one that people generally don’t recognise.

It is something that can affect many firms, and its application is simple.  Take anything from selling equipment B2B to selling books to consumers.  If you can offer the product or service immediately then you will get buyers.   Certainly Amazon’s on line service that guarantees the book you order arrives the next day, without delivery charge, seems to be something of a success.

“It was quite a shock for us, actually, especially considering that so few companies meet the criteria for offering this level of service,” said the people who did the survey.   According to the survey, ‘excellent’ online customer support includes online tools, interfaces and content, easy to use return policies and a human operator if needed.  (And I would add to that, a human operator who speaks English in a way that I can understand).

It is interesting that for once political parties are getting interested in what creative people do. Indeed I can’t think when it last happened.

Personally I am not sure I want too much interest in creativity from government, but still, it is nice to be recognised as actually existing.

Addressing delegates at the ISBA conference in London on 18 March the shadow culture minister Ed Vaizey has said the self regulatory system administered by the Advertising Standards Authority is working well and there is no need to change it.

The shadow minister also assured marketers that the Conservative response to the “emotive” issue of marketing to children would be considered.

This is utterly different from the speeches of David Cameron who has recently called on marketers and broadcasters to “think about the messages that you’re putting out to our children” and aggressively attacked what he called the “offensive marketing tactics” used by some companies. He has demanded new arrangements allowing parents to protest against adverts more easily.

Cameron’s view to me seems to be in line with the long term demonisation of people who write adverts – I get the feeling we are seen as some sort of horned beast skulking in the corner, saliva dripping from fangs, forcing unsuspecting ordinary folk to buy stuff.

Except if a creative person writes a party political ad.

And I am not myself being party political here. I’ve never seen a broad understanding of creative advertising within any party.

Which is probably why no one has ever asked me to contribute to a political campaign – but I have written a lot of other things. If you’d like me to review anything you are putting out, and have a jolly chat on the phone, give me a call. 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

In this market, if there is one thing I think virtually every company should do in terms of marketing at this moment, it is to build email lists of clients and prospective clients.

Now when I say this to people, they mostly come back to me and say, “oh we’ve done that”. But when I get a bit closer (if they let me get a bit closer that is), it then turns out everything is not quite as I think it should be.

Here’s what I feel is the perfect scenario…

First, all enquirers’ and purchasers’ email addresses are added to a database showing their postal and email address. These people are then emailed each week or two with an informative item – not just pure sales but also giving some interesting background. Something that they will want to read, because of their area of interest.

If you are interested in seeing examples of such emails, give me a call and I will forward you a few samples.

Second, email lists of potential customers have to be built up. Of course you might be lucky and find you can buy these readymade, but most of us don’t have this luck.

To give an example, let’s assume you sell software to businesses. You can go out and buy a list of most businesses selected by what they sell – but those lists are likely to be just addresses to the MD or an administrator. They can work, and I would not knock them, but it can also be incredibly beneficial to build a list of the email addresses of the actual people who will decide to buy your product.

Doing this it not nearly as complex or expensive as people think. True, an email address researched in this way might cost you £2 – but the fact is that once you have that address, it is yours, and you can use it quite a few times. (Also if you need to get two or three people’s addresses per company the price remains much the same, but the volume of addresses increases).

Next you load these addresses into a database attach to a specialist email marketing program, write your interesting copy, and send it out. Of course you have to have an unsubscribe button on the email – but how many unsubs you get depends on how good your copy is. If it is really exciting and lively you will get more people asking to sign up, than you get people leaving.

Obviously this is a quick summary – but having this list of potential customers which you mail every few weeks with interesting copy, and having your list of people who have shown their interest or actually bought, is a major step towards having a business that really makes use of digital technology.

And it really does work.

As always, if you want to know more email Tony@hamilton-house.com or call 01536 399 013

I like lists. This one was recently done for a potential client – you don’t have to buy into all of it, but if it ensures you think, “why don’t we do that” and come up with a good answer, that’s fine.

Ten things you must do to get good marketing results….

1. All marketing must be exciting and interesting to read. Look at anything, read the first line, and think, would I, as an outsider, bother to keep reading when I have another 100 emails in my inbox?

2. Always write about the reader and the benefits to him her, or about things that will interest the reader. Never about you.

3. Consider why a customer should buy this product from you, rather than someone else.

4. Consider why the customer needs this product and reflect that.

5. Write regularly – if your writing is really good people will want to read it. If it isn’t there is nowhere to hide. Nothing compensates for poor writing – people will delete within a second.

6. Use the best lists possible which go directly to the person you want to reach. If such a list is not available, research it – it will be worth its weight in gold.

7.. If emailing ensure that you have a facility for instant auto unsubscribe for readers. And then constantly improve the quality of the writing so they don’t unsubscribe.

8. Know what your competitors do, and make sure you are different.

9. Always ensure that you are applying the laws of the psychology of perception. If you have not heard of this start with http://www.theory.bz/factors.html – not every article is on this topic, but even those that are not are still interesting.

10. Measure the results. Measure the open rate, the click through rate and the purchase rate. Note the problem and improve that area. Then do it again and again.

Here’s a simple example of “word of mouth” advertising in practice.

A few months ago I published a novel about my favourite football team. It is set in 1910 – the year in which they went bust. (Fortunately they did recover, and came back to greater glories later).

Faced with the problem of getting publicity for the book, I set up a Google Alert so that every time someone mentions the name of that team in a blog etc, I get an email, and can go and look at the article.

Of course I get a load of false leads (people using the name but not talking about the club), but a lot of them come up good – and about two or three times a day I can get onto a site (be it a national newspaper or an individual writing his/her own blog) which talks about this football club in the past.

Since blogs generally include a comments section, I go in, and add some information that the writer of the original didn’t have, and then say, “there’s more about this in my book”. I then tell them the title and how to buy it.

So each day, my book gets another few mentions on the internet, and my website gets the same. As a result a few more people buy the book. But better, the web site address for the book gets established further and further – and since readers of each of these sites is there because of an interest in the club in the first place, the awareness grows.

The key point to remember here is that all this is cumulative. If four people get notes about my book today, then by the end of the week I might have 20 items up. Those items stay there and can be found by anyone next week and the week after. After a year there might be a couple of hundred extra mentions.

That will have the effect of improving the ranking of the web site on the internet, and some of those mentions will be seen by others who will pass them on to friends…

Now some people say that this is a ludicrous approach since it is so expensive. In fact, in terms of its effectiveness it has been proven to be about one tenth of the cost of Google Adwords.

If you would like to talk to me further about this sort of approach, give me a call on 01536 399 013 or alternatively email Tony@hamilton-house.com

The phrase “viral marketing” – a bit like the phrase “word of mouth” is one of those that is floated around here and there.

The concept that these phrases encapsulate can seem rather like geese and golden eggs – the route to free marketing. But equally they are rather vague.

Unfortunately neither “viral marketing” nor “word of mouth” are ways of advertising for free, but they can be a very powerful approach to marketing which can be very cost effective. Below is a brief outline of the how these approaches can work. As always if you would like to know more, please do get in touch.

These approaches basically relate to having a promotion which customers and potential customers pass on to each other. At its simplest you send out an email, and the person to whom you send it is so impressed that he or she sends it on to others, who send it on to others who….

The variation used by many firms is to put an advert on the internet, and people then tell each other about the site, and so go and look.

Obviously the key here is to have something that people want to look at or see. A very funny You Tube piece can draw in a lot of viewers, not just because they have been told about it by friends or colleagues, but also because others find it through searching for key words on Google.

But most of us don’t have the ability or finance to make a You Tube movie, so we come back to text – and here again it is possible to write pieces that others will refer on. But you do have to get the text right.

Here’s one example. We send out an advert for the Royal Academy to 2068 people, and 422 clicked on the link we gave, which went to their web site.

Now a 20% click through rate is incredibly high – (the average for the sort of list that we were using is about 6.5%) and when we checked what had happed it was clear that many of those clicking through were not the people we had mailed. They had in fact sent the advert on to colleagues.

Articles that appear on blogs and web sites can be forwarded too. The experimental blog set up by Hamilton House two years ago now regularly has its articles cited by other blogs – sometimes with phraseology such as “there’s an excellent piece on this at….” sometimes with phrases such as “this guy might be a bit of a pain when he bangs on and on about finance in football, but he really does know his onions….” Either way the article gets read, and the word gets out. Through our tracking program we pick up about three or four such referrals which give the full web address of the original article, each day.

Another approach is to use other people’s blogs and news services. Here one reads what others are saying (for example where they are discussing a subject close to your product or service) and then one jumps in with one’s own comment, which relates back to your product. Obviously you need to be sophisticated in the way you do this, but as a method of advertising it is ten times more cost effective than Google Ads.

As I mentioned, I am happy to talk about this further – but if you would like to read a bit more background on this final point, there’s an article on http://www.mailing.org.uk/Adwords.html

If you would like to read a sample blog which is not at all about direct marketing or other subjects Hamilton House is associated with, try www.blog.emiratesstadium.info. It is about football, but don’t be put off even if you are not interested in football. Just flip through some of the articles, and note that this gets approaching 200,000 individual readers a month (a figure achieved with an advertising budget of £200). Such success can be found with all sorts of topics.

If you would like to know more please call me on 01536 399 013

Tony Attwood