Category: Marketing

My Grandfather’s Name

When I was seven (maybe eight) years old, I decided that I was going to start my own company one day. I come from a long line of entrepreneurs and DIY’ers. My dad has run his own business my entire life. My grandfather before him did the same and dabbled in a number of areas. I blame my dad and “Grandpa Frank” for my compulsion to have my own business, and to dabble myself in many different areas of entrepreneurship from marketing to publishing to racing to a music label to a few things I haven’t made public.

When I decided to make my own business at that early age, I knew I needed a good name and a good logo. I had notebooks full of drawings for imaginary baseball teams and comic book characters that hadn’t found their homes yet, so I knew my company logo would need to be something special. One Sunday morning, I remember seeing a piece of crystal in my family’s china cabinet in our living room that had a very calligraphic “H” etched into it. I decided that the logo would be an H and I would name my company “Harrelson Corporation.” I didn’t know what Harrelson Corps was going to do yet, but I had a name and a good idea for a logo.

Decades later, I sit in my office in downtown Columbia and look over our company’s client list. Things are going well. I was right all those years ago.

When I’m in my hometown of Mullins, SC I like to visit my Grandpa Frank’s grave. He passed away when I was only three and I’m sad to say that I really don’t remember him as a person. However, he’s been a large presence in my life and I always use his name when I get that silly “Who would you want to have an hour long conversation with if you could talk to any human – living or dead – for 60 minutes?” question. I think we would have much to talk about and I know he could give me some good advice on running a company / companies and what it takes to tread down the untrodden path of starting your own business/es.

I was back in Mullins for just a few minutes on Tuesday and stopped by his grave where I took a picture of that H above. His gravesite has four H’s at each corner and it matches the font on his tomb. I think it’s a great stylistic choice and I was taken aback for a moment when I realized that Grandpa Frank still has such a large role in my own professional and personal life as to inspire me with the font on his grave.

When you start a company, you have to know the starting point. You might never get to the end point or finish line, but you have to have a point where you know that this is what you’ve decided to do and understand that after this singular point in your life, nothing will ever be the same. That realization came at an early age for me but has been an extended realization over the last 25 (or so) years.

You also have to know where you come from in terms of your own identity and backing. Even though Grandpa Frank has been dead for some 32 years, he’s been there (in my own head at least) coaching me on the way to starting this agency and helping me to find people to surround it and make it into something that will last so that my children will one day be able to work with us (if they hopefully choose to do so).

So start your business. Go out on a limb. But don’t forget where you come from and don’t let those 3 A.M. panic attacks keep you from hearing the still small voices of your biggest supporters.

Pinterest Suggestions from Sony

Interestingly enough, Sony has been a great study for how businesses (large and small) can leverage Pinterest to drive traffic and revenue back to a site.

Sony has done a great job of not just community evangelization and using Pinterest as a place to engage current and potential customers, but they have also successfully cross promoted their own account there with promotional emails to existing newsletter subscribers.

The one thing many companies, especially in the performance marketing industry, look over when creating social media campaigns is the need to promote accounts via something like an existing newsletter subscriber base. By combining those two, there’s a great potential left on the table for many companies…

Pinterest Suggestions from Sony

1. Send a dedicated Pinterest email to showcase your boards and encourage following

2. Add the Pin It button next to product shots in emails to get people pinning

3. Create unique boards that appeal to different groups of people

via Sony: Making email more interesting with Pinterest | Pinterest for Business.

Welcome Back to CostPerNews

After a long day of yard work, I rushed into my office and registered the domain “CostPerNews.com.” For some reason, mowing the lawn and trimming hedges always causes me to brainstorm about online marketing. I had an idea of what I wanted to do with the site but only had a vague sense that it would be read by anyone. Initially, I saw CostPerNews as a bridge between the advancements that were happening in the online marketing world (primarily CPA networks, search and email) and the leaps that were being made by new companies such as Twitter and the soon-to-release Tumblr. It was an exciting time to be in tech.

Looking back on those first few months of posting in October, November and December of 2006 and January of 2007, I was averaging about 100 posts a month. That was while having a full time agency and also teaching as an adjunct professor. I was on fire and I remember those passionate days of micro-chunking, widgets and RSS delivery fondly.

Life happened and I eventually joined Wayne and Vinny in a group called incuBeta that rolled ReveNews and CPN into one entity. We had a great time and I came back to CPN full time after a while. Life continued to happen, CostPerNews grew and I decided it was time to go back to the classroom as a teacher. So in 2009 I left CostPerNews in the good hands of Evan Weber.

Seven years after this whole thing started, we’ve decided to reboot the site into something that both Evan and I really believe in… passionate and hard-hitting analysis combined with the ability for companies and affiliates to discover each other. We’re both excited and this is going to be a great step for the site.

So here’s the gameplan:

– CostPerNews will be both a blog (with the same type of content we were lovingly producing in the “good old days”) as well as a directory for networks and offers. You’ll be able to add your CPA, email, or coreg offer in the directory and have access to our still loyal and soon-t0-be growing readership. More on that later this week.

– My former marketing blog, MarketingTrends.co (and its predecessor PayPerTrends) is now folded back into CostPerNews. So in a way, it’s oddly satisfying for me that the content I’ve been making and the comments you’ve been writing are finally back under one umbrella.

– Evan will be heading up the directory side of things and I’ll be focusing more on content. That will overlap some, of course, but we’re excited about the partnership and the possibilities that exist between those two parts.

I can’t tell you how happy we are to be back on the “front page” and front lines of performance marketing both in terms of blogging and what we’re doing with the directory.

Here’s to the next seven(teen) years-

Sam

 

Your Newsletter Will Be Deleted if Users Can’t Read It On Their Mobile Devices

From a new study by Constant Contact and Chadwick Martin Bailey on newsletters and mobile interaction:

The survey of 1,497 consumers found that 80 percent of smartphone owners say it is “extremely important” to be able to read emails on their mobile devices. The study also exposed what could be unfortunate results for marketers who have not yet taken mobile email display into consideration: 75 percent said they are “highly likely” to delete an email if they can’t read it on their smartphone.”

It’s worth your time to go read the full report.

Quotes like this should send a shiver down your spine if you’re still sending out long and non-mobile friendly newsletters to your subscription list:

“The fact of the matter is that consumers are opening emails on their phones first with increasing regularity,” said Jim Garretson, mobile product manager at Constant Contact. “The great thing about mobile emails is that shorter content and fewer calls to action actually perform better than complicated and dense messaging. By simplifying email marketing campaigns, marketers can take an essential and effective step towards becoming mobile-friendly.”

While the study was done by email newsletter provider Constant Contact, the data still points to something that I regularly try to convince clients of… less is more when it comes to newsletters.

Email newsletters are still an incredibly important piece to most, if not all, marketing campaigns. Making sure that your company’s mailings are mobile friendly is not just a nice feature but a requirement in 2013 and beyond.

Women in Marketing

When I first started in the marketing business, I was in way over my head.

And now, two years later, I’m still in way over my head.

The transition from being a teacher in a classroom into the real world that we only talked about as we gazed out the window wasn’t too easy for me. My first problem was I was a pretty good teacher. I got good reviews. I solved parental issues. I even had the kids who had started the throwing erasers (they were the small pencil top ones) at me stop by Christmas. I still made mistakes of course, but overall I held my own.

But you can’t get buy just holding your own in marketing because even if you try your hardest and even if you blog everyday and even if you learn how to embed affiliate links (not to mention even learning what affiliate links are!), it doesn’t amount to anything if people don’t click and buy. You have to close. No questions. No discussions.

I can spend all day on lead generation and follow up from last week’s lead generation and in the end, it can amount to no money, no gas in the car, no groceries for the week. That was a wake up call to me. I couldn’t just show up and expect someone to give me a gold sticker and pat me on the back.

The second issue I encountered was moving from a profession in which females greatly outweighed males to a profession in which women were almost non-existent. There were many times I was the only woman in the room and many times I wasn’t even spoken to because the assumption was that I was a secretary or personal assistant of some sort.

I’m not going to lie, I spent time whine and whimpering over how unfair and hard it was to be a woman marketer (especially when the contracts I was preparing weren’t being signed), but it didn’t change a thing.

Marketing is hard. It’s hard for the people who have been in it for 15 years, it’s hard for the person who just signed her first contract. It never stops. There aren’t vacation days. Your whole day could change at a moment’s notice.

And here I am…still at it.

Why? Because there’s not another profession that doesn’t allow you to coast…that is if you’re doing it right.

How Many Clicks Does it Take?

Worth your 2.5 mins for pondering how your click path is best resulting in conversions…

via Forward3D: Are Men Out-Shopping Women Online? – YouTube.

Brands vs retailers aside, this type of data (not sourced but evidently part of an internal study by the presenter) is particularly important for thinking about how your average or median site visitor goes from landing on your site to making a decision.

What type of analytics and tracking are you using to track that route? If you’re looking at only the number of page views, you’re missing out on very valuable data. Do yourself a favor and connect your site to at least Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools and start learning from what your visitors are trying to tell you.

What Social Networks Drive The Most Sales?

Interesting…

Social Media Drives In-Store Buying Nearly As Much as Online Buying – HootSuite Social Media Management: “Interviews with close to 6,000 social media users found that Facebook is the social network that drives the most users to purchase. Contrary to popular belief, the data also indicated that social media drives in-store buying at an equal rate as online buying.”

This kind of data is great because many local businesses don’t realize that social media can drive local sales as well as online sales. Many businesses who don’t rely on online sales are reluctant to test social media campaigns for their own efforts because what frequently exists is the belief that full-on social media campaigns (as opposed to social media presences) are only for businesses who make most of their profits on the internet.

Social media is an invaluable resource that you should either be using already or testing extensively to see what it can do for your business.

(And if you need help, we’re always happy to help.)

Foursquare Rolls Out Ads for Businesses

Very exciting news from Foursquare today:

Expanding Foursquare Ads to more small businesses around the world | Foursquare Blog: “The idea behind these new ads is simple – connect people looking for somewhere to go with businesses that want to drive traffic to their stores. Foursquare is the best way for those businesses to reach nearby customers. In our ad pilots over the past year, we’ve been honing our targeting technology, using the same algorithm that powers our Explore recommendation engine.”

Foursquare rolled out post-check-in ads for brands last week, but this is good news for businesses since Foursquare is a unique but diverse community that’s ultimately very locally focused.

The reason these ads are so unique and will matter a great deal to local businesses in the coming year or so is that the return rate on them is fairly solid. 78% of people who search on their smartphone end up making some kind of purchase. Foursquare has long needed a solid business model that could drive revenue its way and the ad program is pretty much the icing on the cake.

On the business side of things, the ads are billed to businesses on a CPA (Cost Per Action) basis, meaning you don’t have to pay for the ad unless a check-in at your business originates from it:

Foursquare Ads — Foursquare for Business: “You won’t pay a cent for your ad to show up. You’ll only pay if people visit you.”

Pretty cool.

I love Foursquare and I’m happy to see them moving forward. Advertising on mobile, particularly geolocation-based, has long been an enigma to many companies and marketers alike and I think Foursquare is definitely on the list of companies to watch.

Blogging Isn’t Dead

I’d have to disagree with this…

Blogging is Dead – But Long Live the Blogosphere – exploreB2B: “While the thought process remains the same today (‘Here is what I think, read my blog’) – the effect is minimal, if anything at all. A viewer may read an article on your blog, maybe even find it interesting, but then never return. Memory of the author, ideas in the post (and certainly the URL), are long forgotten amongst the array of activity online.”

The main reason I would disagree with the sentiment that “blogging is dead” is because it isn’t. Sure, the concept, tools, and way we write our blogs today have changed since the inception of blogging back in the late 90s and early 2000s, but blogging is far from dead.

Even though people aren’t doing the type of hyper-personal blogging which they were doing back in the late 90s and early 2000s anymore, blogging as a medium is still very valid and a great way to carve out your own space on the web. Blogging is a key part of what we consider the open web since it uses “old-school” components like RSS and a blog isn’t a walled garden you have to log into. The type of trade-offs you have with walled gardens such as Facebook are nonexistent when you start your own site given that you run it on your own server, etc. It’s a geeky process and takes a little bit of heavy lifting here and there, but it’s worth it considering that you keep control over what you do.

I started my first blog (and I still write there) on a whim back in July 2011 and I can honestly say it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done on the web. The magnificent thing about writing your own site is that you can learn so much from others and yourself. You practice and become a better writer and as you devote a little more time to it here and there, you learn about a few other things too (like design, SEO, moving things around on a server, and what you should and shouldn’t put on a site). Looking back at some posts I wrote in 2011 and last year, I have to cringe and scratch my head a great deal, but that’s part of the learning process that comes with anything on the web.

I’ve learned a ton and continue to learn from writing my own site and writing here on MarketingTrends. I’ve blogged elsewhere in the past, but there’s something about writing your own blog that’s so satisfying and in a way, fulfilling to yourself as a writer and user of the internet. While folks who say that blogging is dead have a point because the way we view blogs and publishing in 2013 has changed and adapted a lot over the years, declaring blogging “dead” isn’t justified. Blogging, while old-school (also see email marketing and RSS, neither of which are “dead”), is still one of the best ways to build a solid reputation and name for yourself on the web.

I’d say the feeds that I’m subscribed to in my RSS reader of choice (currently ReadKit) are a solid 50/50 split between bigger sites and smaller blogs written by folks in the industry or just people whose stuff I enjoy reading.

One of the first things I tell anyone looking to go beyond the walled garden principle on the web is for them to go buy a domain name. It’s dead simple and pretty inexpensive. If they want to go beyond that, I’d tell them to go get their hands dirty with a hosted solution first (Tumblr is great for this and I also love Shareist) and eventually move their stuff over to a self-hosted WordPress site (or Movable Type if you’re into that). With all the things we have at hand in 2013 (Squarespace, WordPress, etc), there’s no excuse for why you shouldn’t have your own space on the web.

“And if your words are good, people will read them.”

Thanks for reading our blog.

Devin

Creepy GMail Ads In Your Inbox

Well, this is really creepy (but an easy fix):

New Gmail Inbox Features Ads That Look Like Emails, Above Promotional Email Subscriptions | MarketingLand: “If you’ve converted to the new Gmail inbox, you may have noticed in-line ads that resemble regular emails at the top of  your Promotions tab. These new native-style ads function as paid-for-placement email messages, and essentially circumvent standard email marketing practices. The ads do have a shaded background and ad symbol to differentiate them from the other promotional emails and newsletters users have to actually opt-in to (theoretically, at least).”

I hadn’t noticed these new ads since I don’t have the “new inbox” enabled, but it’s super creepy. GMail is just a business and I know they have to make money somehow, but there’s better ways to do it than placing CPC ads directly in your users’ inboxes. It’s basically spam.

Good for advertisers though… Wonder what kind of click-through rate they’re getting though (I presume a lot of people overlook the “Ad” sticker on them a few times)?

Strange days indeed.

Foursquare Rolling Out Post-Check-In Ads for Brands

AdAge reports that the beloved location-sharing service Foursquare is rolling out check-in ads (with Captain Morgan, in this case) that show up directly after you check in to a certain venue. Captain Morgan and Toys R Us are leading the way with their new ads:

Foursquare Rolls Out Check-In Ads With Captain Morgan | Digital – Advertising Age: “The new ads are also being used to help retailers or merchants lure consumers who check in outside of their locations. Toys R Us has started to use this capability by targeting people who check in at family-friendly locations such as parks, playgrounds and daycares. A June 19 post from website About Foursquare shows the author being served a 20% off, limited time use coupon for use a Toys R Us or Babies R Us after checking in at a public swimming pool.”

In the past, Foursquare has frequently had specials pop up after checking in to a restaurant and the various venues that show up when you launch the check-in menu oftentimes have ribbons indicating a special offer (like so):

For right now, this new ad option is huge for bigger brands and could be largely beneficial to small businesses in the future if Foursquare continues to develop and add to the program.

Whether you’re looking to get new customers to come to your venue based on a similar venue they’ve checked into or wanting to offer a coupon to existent customers who come in and check in via Foursquare, this new ad placement allows for both. While the targeting that Foursquare currently offers doesn’t go as deep (or creepy?) as that of Facebook, brands can still narrow down a solid demographic to display their ads to post-checkin.

I’ve loved Foursquare since I got my iPhone last year and have a few hundred check-ins there. It’s a great, clean service that allows me to keep a private (or public) journal of where I’ve been and when. I’ve even set up a Foursquare channel on IFTTT to grab my check-ins and a map image and post them privately to my own site. (Feel free to copy here).

If your business depends on walk-ins or local customers and you’re not on Foursquare, you’re missing out.

Go add your business or update your details if one of your customers has already added it on Foursquare.

Instagram Videos Get More Brand Engagement Than Vine

Interesting…

How does Instagram video stack up with Vine? | InsideFacebook: “Some findings, studied among the Interbrand 100 from June 20 to 26:

  • Instagram videos are being used by twice as many brands, and more videos are being posted.
  • Instagram videos are seeing significantly higher (over 2X) engagement than Instagram photos, suggesting brands should focus more time and energy on them.”

Instagram is the older company of the two, so brands were already familiar with the medium prior to its addition of video back in June. On top of that, Instagram gives users 15 seconds rather than Vine’s 6 which enables brands to create longer videos that push out bigger messages.

Instagram has a key advantage over Vine: it also has pictures. Instagram originated as a picture-sharing service which had a huge adoption rate, so it had a strong user base even before it launched video. Vine, on the other hand, originated as a pure video sharing service and had a niche user base which is hard to build on, especially when it comes to trying to get brands to use their platform.

In my own circles, I saw a very quick shift from Vine to Instagram when their video feature launched. There were lots of comments along the lines of “well, if Instagram has video now, why should I have an extra account on Vine? I’m already on Instagram.” Users (especially the prized 18-24 demographic which lots of brands market to) want a syndicated experience rather than having to jump from service to service just to get caught up.

These brands know that and have seen significantly bigger engagement from the audience on Instagram.

In simple words, Instagram tends to get better results and higher engagement for businesses looking to foray into the video space with their marketing campaigns.

Update Your Email Lists Before July 15

Shawn Collins has a good post this morning explaining why you need to update your mailing lists before July 15 since Yahoo! is cleaning out inactive email addresses by then:

Clear Old Yahoo Addresses Off Your Email Lists – Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins: “So you’ll either be mailing to dead addresses, which can impact your deliverability, or the new owners will start getting your newsletters, and will be upset that you are emailing them.

They will either unsubscribe or mark you as spam. The latter can negatively affect whether ISPs such as Gmail and Outlook accept your emails.”

More specifically, Yahoo! will be deleting any email accounts that have been inactive for 12 months or more. The folks at AWeber also have a good post outlining what you need to do to clean those addresses of your mailing lists:

Updated: Yahoo Releasing Email Addresses Monday, July 15: “You need to identify what email addresses on your list will be released. Search subscribers from Yahoo who haven’t opened an email from you in 12 months – but were added before that point (so you don’t unsubscribe recent subscribers who haven’t yet opened an email). Save them as a segment.”

Go update your mailing lists and make sure you’re not going to be sending email to the wrong people (in case some of those deleted accounts get claimed by new owners). Yahoo! has said they’re taking measures to unsubscribe accounts on the hit list, but there’s no way to make sure they catch everything.

We use MailChimp at Harrelson Agency, so here’s their post on how to clean up as well:

Yahoo Is Recycling Email Addresses | MailChimp Email Marketing Blog: “If you don’t perform regular list maintenance, let me suggest you start. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to segment out any inactive Yahoo addresses.”

MarketingTrends v2

It was time for a redesign:

» theme :mnmlist: “I developed a pretty minimalist WordPress theme for mnmlist.com, and I’d like to share it with my fellow bloggers.

This theme is offered for free, uncopyrighted, as is.”

As you can see, we changed the site theme, added a logo, and there’s a few more links in the nav bar up top (we’re also going to start a weekly newsletter on the fantastic MailChimp service soon).

Let us know if you see anything weird on the site. I’m still working on getting some older images to look right with the new theme and we’ll have commenting functionality back by next week.

If you’re not subscribed yet, go grab the RSS feed.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Devin

Content Is King In Marketing

Coca Cola’s marketing agency (evidently) has a magnificent video on their content strategy for the next 7 or so years:

It’s an in-depth look at what Coca-Cola wants to do to grow its content marketing strategies over the next couple of years and leverage the idea of storytelling via social media. Rather than try and dominate by doing everything themselves, CC also wants to use consumer stories to drive their brand success. The video also has some great examples of other companies that have done this successfully. Go watch the whole thing.

SixRevisions also has a great post about creating and maintaining good content now and in the future:

Content is All That Matters on the Web (SixRevisions.com): “Instead of aiming for a spectacular one-time-big-time viral success, it’s necessary to build a solid foundation and plan for the long haul. It can take months, even years, to develop an effective content strategy.”

Rather than try and create something yourself that will go “viral”, tap into existent spaces, memes, trends, etc for your own needs. Take advantage of what’s already on the web and build on it for the long haul rather than trying to aim to create something that will be relevant for x amount of time and then fade out. It’s not worth it and your business is more valuable than that.

Todd Crawford the Podcast

Todd Crawford joins Sam for 45 minutes of fascinating talk about domains, online marketing, mustard bbq and knives (and what exactly Impact Radius is doing today and in the next few years).

There’s a different performance marketing landscape in 2013 and Todd has a great vision of what might lie ahead for networks, advertisers, agencies and publishers.

Fascinating.

(Cross published with our Thinking.FM network and about 45 mins and change)

Why Content Is Important for Your Marketing

Whether you’re creating unique content or curating existing content into forms that your viewers/users/readers will find relevant, having some notion of a content development strategy is essential to doing successful business on the web going forward.

The PR World’s Play For Content Marketing Clout – Holmes Report: “I just cannot envision how any organisation cannot have a content-first approach to their communications, whether’s it’s for reputation management or marketing purposes,” states Perry. “Clients are attracted to some of the shiny object stuff – what’s far less sexy but more important is making sure your organization is oriented to a new way of doing business.”

Folks like Scott Jangro talk a great deal about content marketing (and curation) as a rapidly growing channel for marketers, advertisers and publishers to find solid footing in what can often feel like a topsy-turvy media landscape.

The real trick to understanding content marketing is that there is no one template for doing it right. Content marketing is a very subjective exercise and should be carefully planned (even if you’re doing spontaneous events or collecting and curating web media for your audience in a “real-time” manner).

As the interesting article above points out, content marketing is becoming essential across various channels of advertising from PR to branding and leaving this variable out of the equation will cost you in the long-term. It’s a major part of what we mean when we talk about discovery marketing.

Original link via Steve Rubel on Twitter

The Golden Gut Exists

Why Don Draper Shouldn’t Be Your Ad Guy – Forbes: “As appealing as Don Draper’s (and your in-house guru’s) perfect instincts are, they are indeed fiction. Even experts often fail to correctly predict which ad will perform better than other ads. Chris Goward, founder & CEO of WiderFunnel and author of You Should Test That notes, ‘In every presentation I give to marketers, I ask them to vote on which test variation won. Remember, these are the cream of the crop of digital marketers. In most cases, their gut intuition is wrong.”

I would disagree with this.

As would Steve Jobs… sometimes you get what you pay for and you get a passionate person who knows that if you asked enough people what they wanted in a car, you would have gotten “faster horses” as a response.

There’s room for testing but don’t forget the innovators and the crazy ones.

We love data and testing. But we love guts, intuition, the liberal arts and humanity even more.

“The people who think they are crazy enough to change the world are the ones that do.”