Posts Tagged ‘Web

A lesson from the Red Cross

Posted at January 21, 2011 // Web

Like you, I get spam emails. Too many of them. So, for an email blast to cut through the clutter, it needs to be relevant to me or just really special. I received an email today that belongs to the latter category, a rare occurrence!

It came from the American Red Cross.

It carried a subject heading of “Re: Thanks and Resolutions”. That immediate was a trigger for me. It’s a reply? Did I send them something?

Then, as I opened it, it had simple text ahead of the graphic element. It was designed to look like a personal reply. Of course I know better.

It came as a follow-up email to one sent in your regular pretty spam fashion 15 days ago. It’s designed to re-engage you again. If the first email ended up being deleted, this one should get you.

It’s a very well designed campaign. We can all learn a few lessons from this:

Know your audience. Speak to them genuinely. Even in a mass email, speak to each recipient as a person, not as one of many.
Follow up. This applies to emails, snail mails, cold calls, etc. People could have ignored you. People could have forgotten about you. People could be busy and responding simply fell off the to-do list. Follow up in a timely manner.
Evolve the conversation in the follow up. Add a new flavor to the original engagement, but reinforcing the message of first contact. This achieve several things. First of all, doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of being crazy. So, if they didn’t respond to the first engagement, evolve it a little and perhaps they will now. (However, don’t steer too far away from the first engagement, because they may have actually liked the first one and just got busy.) Secondly, it reminds them that this is not the first contact. You’re demonstrating that you’re putting an effort toward building this relationship. Now, the recipient may feel a little guilty to not put forth some effort as well.

Of course, even a well designed campaign can be failed by poor creative, poor execution, etc. But it’s always starts with a good plan.

Tags : crm, email, Web

Facebook is the new gym

Posted at January 5, 2011 // Web

It’s January. How do you know? Go to a gym. It’s pack with people who have made this year the year to lose those extra pounds. Where were they last month?

This happens every year. Everyone is enthusiastic in January. People join aerobic classes. People sign up for gym memberships. People commit themselves to showing up at the gym every night. A month goes by, that long wait for a treadmill disappears. Another month goes by, the classes become less crammed. By March, well, no one keeps resolutions anyway!

It’s easy to make resolutions, but it takes dedication and commitment to keep them.

It’s easy to make a jump into the social media bandwagon. It takes dedication and commitment to maintain them and make social media work.

This was the thesis of Tom Fishburn’s cartoon this week. He highlighted a particular example where his local diner still calls attention to a Facebook page that hasn’t been updated for months. A Facebook page doesn’t run itself. Online dialogues with your fans won’t magically happen. Just like those extra pounds won’t magically disappear. You have to commit to make it happen.

Coincidentally (or perhaps timed purposely), Tom launched his Facebook page today. Go friend him!

Photo Credit: Tricia Wang

Tags : Facebook, Social media, Social network, Twitter, Web

Social Media is still Media

Posted at March 22, 2010 // Public relations, Strategy / Tactics, Web

Marketers like to talk about social media as a marketing platform. How can we get the message out? How can we control the message? How can we leverage this? Well, here’s the thing. The thing about social media is that it is in fact a media venue. (I heard about the health care reform on social media channels before I caught it on traditional news channels.)

Recently, I learned an equation from Michael Levine’s book, A Branded World: Adventures in Public Relations and the Creation of Superbrands. Branding = marketing + advertising + public relations.

Branding is the all encompassing effort of building a brand. It starts with marketing. Marketing defines the strategy. Marketing defines the 4Ps. Marketing defines the positioning.

Marketing’s plan gets translated into words and visuals through advertising.

Public relations builds on the advertising campaign and turns marketing’s plan into actions. Such actions include gathering media attention.

In that case, social media really falls into the realm of public relations. You build a relationship with bloggers the same way you build a relationship with traditional journalists. You “control” the message the same way – truthfully, honestly, and organically. It’s the same idea as controlling the press. Today, in addition to asking the question “What would the press say?”, we need to also ask “What would the world say?”

The world may be changing, but the basics still hold.

Photo credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid