views, please visit www.QViewsOnline.com.
|
September 2009 |
|
|
What is marketkeeping? Many people equate marketing with creativity, but I prefer to equate marketing with accounting, or better yet, housekeeping. Whether you're in the office or in the home, the quality of your environment depends on keeping the books and sweeping the floors. Instead of hoping for a marketing campaign that 'knocks their socks off,' set up a marketing system that keeps the right audience involved month after month. Share your Views on Marketkeeping Give then receive Take a gamble on the value of the content on your web site. If it's actually valuable, your visitors will reward you by coming back, sharing and even registering. Another good point is that the people who register afterwards are a better match to what you provide (pre-qualified).
In fact, most users confronted with a form won't complete it....a reciprocity strategy works better - give them the info they want, and then ask for their information. In the impressively titled Embedded Persuasive Strategies to Obtain Visitors' Data, Gamberini et al found that twice as many visitors gave up their information if they were able to access the information first. Share your Views on Reciprocity Credibility from outside in Making your web site credible is more important than making it 'sticky.' In Edward Tufte's recent interview with MIT Sloan Management Review, he recommends sharing verifiable facts, using as many outbound links as possible so your visitors can get third-party support in understanding you.
People are inherently distrustful of them. And yet most of those sites are, in fact, about reporting facts. But they get softened up by the marketing people. You get all these pressures that tend to normalize design, that tend to make it like other corporations and that make things intellectually flabby and visually flabby. They turn into pitches. Share your Views on Credibility Beat subscription risk No one ever asks for more email. They may be anxious to know about your next sale or what new products are arriving, but they will never subscribe unless you make it clear that it's the only way to find out. Michael Katz of Blue Penguin Development recently explained it well.
Nobody in 2009 is looking for more stuff to subscribe to. you need to convince them. [You need a] page, somewhere on your web site, whose sole function is to convince people to take the plunge. Share your Views on Subscriptions Don't turn your customers into targets Recently I was describing what I do, when someone said, 'oh, that's target marketing,' and I was dismayed without knowing why. A couple of days later, Doc Searls resurrected something he wrote before The Cluetrain Manifesto, and the reason hit me. 'Target marketing' sounds like 20th century corporate warfare.
As more customers come into direct contact with suppliers, markets for suppliers will change from target populations to conversations. Feed news nuggets to your leads Over at Green Leads, Mike Damphousse has built a magnificent marketkeeping system. Although his business is focused on business-to-business lead generation, his comments are true for any audience—all people are hungry for news. (It's called the 'awareness instinct.')
Executives are information sponges. They want nuggets of data and knowledge that will help them do their jobs.... If they downloaded a whitepaper or clicked through a newsletter, it doesn't mean they are ready to buy. It means they are thinking of you and they will most likely be more receptive to additional touches. Share your View on News Nuggets Let my people sample Good commentary offers a way for people to sample your mind, to figure out if you are on the same wavelink. To find people who share my values, I want to sample their thinking. The article below is about physical samples, but mental samples count, too!
...sampling programs drove a 475 percent sales lift the day of the event compared to non-sampled households, per the "Report on In-store Sampling Effectiveness" conducted by Knowledge Networks-PDI. Those who sampled an item were 11 percent more likely to purchase it again during the 20-week period that followed. |
This Viewspage newsletter, formerly known as QViews, is a model for an innovative marketing communications system that outputs online, email and printed messages every month. The online version is updated 2-3 times a week, and then 6-8 stories are bundled sent out as both print and email newsletters once a month.
Every month we award a prize to the person supplying us the most valuable example of marketkeeping. Keep an eye out for businesses you think are doing a good job of marketkeeping. Submit your entry here. Each month one winner will be selected. There is no random drawing—the selection is based on judgment. Winners must wait six months to win again.
Our Story After a few years at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, and a few years as a marketing manager, founder Theresa Quintanilla decided to strike out on her own and design a service that would help companies grow closer to their customers.
|
Most business owners don't have time to entertain customers with fresh stories for the newsletter or web site, and most customers don't have any interest in company news and reminders.
A Viewspage is a brief, engaging monthly message gathering six to eight news items, enhanced with your company's comments to inform or entertain your customers.
When your customers find a Viewspage in their mailbox or inbox, they'll be glad to hear from you, and you'll have the perfect space for promotional messages as you need.
You'll receive the resulting responses immediately, plus monthly reports that show you how your audiences are interacting with your fresh monthly messages.
This work is licensed under a