The very FIRST things I do for a client is implement Net Promoter Score inside their company.

It is an absolute WEALTH of information. Here are just a few ways we leverage NPS:

• To give the company insight into what operational fixes they need to implement to make customers happier
• As an early warning system for potentially HUGE problems before they become PR and/or customer service catastrophes
• Give us an idea of what is really important to the Promoters (thinking about messing with a product or service? don’t even think about it until you’ve scoured the NPS data… it could be a major factor for Promoters doing business with you)
• Test new product ideas, services and/or options.

I’d like to talk more about this last one: Test new product ideas, services and/or options.

If one of my associates is cataloging NPS information and a trend shows the Passives (or Promoters) saying things like, “You know, I’d rate you guys higher but you don’t offer the X-7000 model with the Widginator attached. I love the price but it sure is a hassle to buy them separate and have an employee attach it here. I’d pay extra if it came that way so long as it wasn’t too much extra.”

Interesting feedback, huh?

But, how do you KNOW if it is even worth the effort?

Here’s what I do. Segment 5-10% of your email list and write an email subject line that says, “X-7000 Model with Widginator Attached.” The body of the email would say something like,

Hi Bob,

Jason here from Customer Relations at xyz.com. Recent customer feedback has shown great interest in the X-7000 Model with Widginator attached. However, we don’t know if it’s just something a few of our customers want or there’s a great demand for it.

Can you help me? 

Would you be interested in something like this provided it comes with the same great prices and support as the rest of our products? If it turns out it IS a great need then we’d love to add it to our product line in the near future.

A short email saying yes or no would help me a great deal.

Thanks,
Jason

 The email subject line is written simply describing the product or service. That way the open rate itself will give you a great deal of feedback. And, the body of the email should net you even MORE good data on whether your company should investigate further. If you do then you’ll already have a fair amount of prospects (those who opened the email) to market to.

It’s little techniques like that which make The Net Promoter Score such a goldmine.

Jason

Is there a Fundamental Rule of Email Strategy? I’d like to put one forward for you to consider…

There’s a great little blog post called “Dozens of Practical Tips for Higher Email Marketing ROI.”

A quote in the article jumped out at me and I wanted to echo it in this post:

“The biggest benefit to email is that it’s trackable,” says Jessica Harley, VP, Online Marketing, FTD.com.  “Not only does it work and generate a high ROI, but I can tie it back to a CRM-identified source.   It’s also custom.  I can give the consumer the offer that is right for them.”

The last line is particularly important. I’d like to elaborate by saying that the way to know what offer to send someone only becomes apparent after understanding WHO through the Email Marketing Strategy of Cutting Through the Noise with Relevance. RFM Analysis combined with a CRM system is the best way to do this… not terribly complicated to get up and running and a wealth of information that lets you:

Communicate one-on-one to the customer about what matters to the customer in a way that the customer gets it and understands what is expected of them.

Using this rule you could even begin to build a checklist to match up your email messages with:

Communicate one-on-one to the customer

• Is the email from a real person to a real person?

about what matters to the customer

• Does the email discuss what matters to the customer (not about what matters to the company or the sender)?

in a way that the customer gets it

• Does the email use the language of the customer in communicating?

and understands what is expected of them.

• What are you asking them to do? Is it CLEAR to them the one thing you want them to do? (aka the Call to Action).

Does it surprise you that you should expect something out of a communication? It really shouldn’t. You always expect something, even if it is only an agreement or reinforcement of a message. However, I would suggest NOT sending someone an email UNLESS you believe that what you are asking them to do is something they REALLY want or need to do or know about…

…anything else is just a waste of their time and your credibility.

That fundamental Rule of Email Strategy will lead to more revenue now and in the future.

Jason Bedunah

Seth Godin just posted a short blog post, Redoubling to system failure,  that begins with the following sentence

Every 18 months for the last decade, the world has doubled the data it pushes to you.

Amazing fact, isn’t it? It is especially noteworthy for marketers. What do you do when there are twice as many friend requests, twice as many emails, twice as much data flowing to your prospects as the 18 months before?

There are only a few ways to handle this to get to your prospects:

1. Cut Through the Noise with Relevance

2. Find Influencers/Hubs and Influence Them

3. Leverage Supply Chain Relationships

All three of them require you to really KNOW who your customers are and how to get to them in the first place. We’ll cover the first one in this post and the others in future posts.

Email Marketing Strategy: How to Cut Through The Noise with Relevance

One of the first things we see when we go into help a company with marketing is that they are treating their email list as one blob. Everyone gets the same email… usually one per week or 2-3 per month. The email normally has a coupon for a discount towards some product they’ve decided to push. Or, it’s a general percent-off coupon.

Their emails often resembles a postcard. In fact, you could usually print the email off as a postcard and send it through snail mail to the customer/prospect’s address.

In short, their emails are not relevant. The open rates show it. The clickthrough rates show it and the sales revenue shows it.

Yet, email marketing is one of the easiest things to fix. And, the revenue gains are immediate.

The Best Way to Become More Relevant

For our purposes relevance is simply communicating with the customer about what is important to them in relation to your business relationship. But, don’t think in terms of black and white: Relevant vs. Non-Relevant. It is a gradient scale. Further, there is nothing that is Completely Relevant or you’d have 100% open rates and 100% task completion rates. (And, if this ever did happen you’d know that your email list isn’t big enough).

As you get more and more relevant your email open rates, click through rates and conversion rates go up. As you get less and less relevant they go down.

One way to become more relevant, and the preferred way, is to stop treating your customers like a giant blob. Instead, segment them based on who they are. The easiest way to do this is to take your existing database and do an RFM analysis. Then, take the top 20% who create the most revenue for you and do an append through Claritas (or some other database marketing company) that will give you back all sorts of information like SIC, revenue, location, number of employees and more.

(If you are B2c it works even better because you can get Nielsen PRIZM codes which use lifestyle and consumer behavior to give you back the best segments for your business. You can then match all media to the PRIZM codes for ultra-targeted relevance!)

This will show you WHO is buying and who are natural fits for your company. If you break this down into segments you will plainly see how different segments are interested in different products and product clusters.

With those segments built out you can cut up your email list into segments as well. (BlueSky Factory is a great email service provider that has this capability. I use them almost exclusively now.)

Now, based on this and a little further analysis you will be primed to send out more relevant emails. For example, one of my clients was surprised to discover that Churches were a HUGE segment for them. Based on this we have expanded emails, media buys and even SEO to focus more on the specific product cluster that churches use in their organization. Now, our emails can be much better targeted. By survey, we can find out HOW churches are using the products. This information becomes ‘how tos’ in our future emails to that segment.

This is how you cut through the noise with Relevance.

I’ll be writing future blog posts on RFM Analysis and Email Segmentation. If you haven’t subscribed to the feed please do and you’ll be notified when they are posted.

Jason

Recently, I was doing an Email Marketing Strategy Analysis and investigating why one of my clients email open rates were so low, hovering between 10% and 20%.

I started by examining the offers.

Every Wednesday, the same promotion promotion goes out to all of their 40,000 customers. To begin with I knew that the open rates were lower because they were treating their entire list of 40,000 as one big mass.

This company has over 30 unique products. Each product can be modified in dozens of ways. They also have a few additional services that not everyone on the list would be interested in. (Can you see where I’m leading? Segmentation.) But, even without segmentation I still felt the open rates were too low.

I moved to examining the subject lines. They were pretty good. Don’t see a problem there. I moved on to the creative. That looked good to. (The only thing I added was to make sure there was a visible call to action in each email, but that affects Click-Through Rate (CTR) not open rates.)

In the course of this I noticed something unusual. It looked like no one who opened an email or clicked a link had joined the list in the last few months… in fact, no one from the last half of the year.

Digging deeper I discovered that no one had been added to the list since July 2009!

The IT dept had been in flux during that time and when they switched from one email provider to another the process to add emails to their list from the website to their email service provider never happened. (And, no one double checked to see that it did!)

It turned out to be an additional 12,000 emails addresses!

Their list went from 40,000+ to about 53,000 almost overnight!

I segmented their list by date added and wrote an “Oops!” email and let them know what happened, apologizing, giving them a special offer and letting them know they’d soon start receiving the offers/information they asked for. Open rates were 38%.  Now, that’s more like it!

Problem solved? Not quite.

I had the resident CRM guywrite a Workflow that sends a reminder email to a manager every 2 weeks to double-check to make sure email addresses are being added to the list daily.

With that solved I was still bothered that all offers were going out to the entire list. If you ask yourself WHY people don’t answer emails it basically boils down to Email Relevance. You aren’t sending them information they are interested in.

But, how do you get that Relevance in? When your email gathering methodology is to simply capture first name and email address, how can you possible know what they are REALLY interested in? (Remember, they have 30+ products and several other services that only apply to certain types of customers.)

You could always survey.

You could use CRM to create lists so that a person who has never ordered x-product in their history with you doesn’t get a special deal on it. But, just because they never ordered it from you doesn’t mean they wouldn’t ever… so, doing that may kill future sales possibilities.

How? How? How?

We need a way to figure out if they are at least INTERESTED in it. The company had been sending out promotional emails to their entire list every Wednesday like clockwork.

The email service provider (ESP) records the opens, the clickthroughs and the forwards. Ha! Now, we are getting somewhere. Do you open an email you are not at least somewhat interested in?

Through the ESP’s reports we can begin doing a little more segmentation of interest.

We did just that. The company has a particularly high-margin service that maybe a third or more of their clients SHOULD be taking advantage of but aren’t. Two emails have gone out regarding this service and have brought in a great deal of money (and almost all of it is profit).

The plan is to take the OPEN reports from both of those emails and mark those people as interested in this new service. About 15,000 unique opens on the two emails gives them PLENTY of prospects to boom that aspect of their business. Now, we can do more sophisticated follow-up via email, direct mail and outbound calling.

That’s the quick-n-dirty, let’s-get-somethin’-in-place-now solution. The email open rates have improved a great deal as have the Click-through rates. But, they are just a drop in the bucket. Now, customers will start getting less and less IRRELEVANT email messages which they eventually end up ignore altogether and getting more targeted and relevant emails that they open, read and benefit from.

The future holds even more possibility as my Omniture, CRM and ExactTarget integration plans move forward for this company, yielding some REAL, hardcore segmentation and follow-up possibilities.

Jason

P.S. If you’d like me to do the same type of thing for YOUR company, don’t hesitate to call me (817)734-6609.

The most influential management guru of all time, Peter Drucker (1909 – 2005) said “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”

As a successful company you probably have the innovation function covered, but you also need good marketing. It is a must… and it is changing quicker than ever.

This could be good news for you. Everyone is trying to understand how marketing strategy and advertising is changing in this new environment of the web, social media and the decline of traditional media outlets.

Or, it could be really bad. If your competitors understand this area before you do it could vault them ahead and keep them ahead.

You are probably barely able to keep up with tech news as it is, fortunately there are a few great blogs you can read to begin shoring up your marketing side.

I’ve listed them below, each one for a specific reason… I have these in my feedreader and I’ve read nearly every previous post on each one.

Those blogs will do the following for you:

• Give you a sound understanding of branding and marketing strategies using real world examples (Ries),
• educate you on real world use of Social Media in today’s environment, (Chris Brogan)
• show you how a CEO uses Social Media and Web2.0 to sell more of his companies’ software (Tim Berry), and
• show you tactical and optimization (where the rubber meets the road) (Grokdotcom)

1. Ries’ Pieces. This is Laura Ries’ blog. Her and her Dad, Al Ries, have published the best marketing strategy books bar none. The only book that comes close to any of their books is “Blue Ocean Strategy” which provides a step-by-step guide to DOING what Ries’ recommends.

2. Chris Brogan. From his website: Chris Brogan advises businesses, organizations, and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value. His recent post on “Social Media Starter Moves for Tourism” can easily be applied to selling more using Social Media.

3. Tim Berry. You probably don’t need his business plan software since you already have a functioning business. But, I think you should read his blog because he is one of the few Software company CEOs who “gets” how to use Social Media and Web2.0 to actually sell more of his company’s software. He doesn’t do it in a pushy way. He uses the “Strategy of Preeminence” to serve his target prospects.

4. Grokdotcom. They are experts at website optimization. Read it not so much for the technical skill of optimization but with an eye towards HOW they structure the experiments and the underlying strategies and principles.

As always, feel free to contact me with any questions.

Jason Bedunah

It is a common mistake to believe that the best product wins. History tells us that is not true. In fact, it is RARELY true.

Do you remember the “New Coke” fiasco? Blind taste tests ‘prove’ that more people enjoy Pepsi than Coke. With Coke losing ground to Pepsi at an alarming rate, Coke executives created a formulation that beat Pepsi (by a large margin) in taste tests.

When they made the switch to New Coke the public outrage was so intense and widespread they quickly replaced it with the classic formula.

This means that the market leader in Colas (Coca-Cola) is no better than third ‘best’ according to blind taste tests!

We could cite example after example but the REASON this happens is because “best” is more a function of perception, not objectivity.

‘Perception’ happens in the mind.

Many entrepreneurs have crashed and burned by the belief that building something better or having ‘the best’ will give them the greatest chance of success.

The ability to create and manage perceptions is what gives you the best chance of winning. (Of course, you have to have decent quality as well or you will create Detractors who will limit your growth and make you vulnerable, “Case Study: Using the Net Promoter Score to Boost Sales and Lower Attrition Rates.”

How? Here are 5 ways to help control perceptions:

1. Develop a Core Message and Stick to It. By constantly hammering your unique point of differentiation in all communications in the marketplace you will put yourself in prime position to attract the prospects most likely to become customers. Knowing your core message also allows you to more thoroughly target the prospects who need it. If done right, you should have almost no direct competitors. Most companies should look like “almost what I need but not quite” vendors. To read more about this read “To Sell More, Focus and Diverge.”

2. Leverage Social Proof to Sell More. People are busy so they use Social Proof to help them decide quickly (or narrow their choices to a more manageable level). If their “tribe” thinks it is a good idea then it creates the perception that it must be good for them. FreshBooks has a great use of social proof on their website. They display the following graphic prominently on the right side of their web page. The sheer number is a great sign. I think they can make it better by giving the exact number… perhaps even making it a live counter.

FreshBooks' Use of Social Proof and Credibility Indicators

3. Use Credibility Indicators to Dissipate Friction. Most people have a natural friction or sales resistance. A believable credibility indicator can help alleviate that friction and make selling more of your company’s product easier. An example of a Credibility Indicator is the Testimonial. If you have strong testimonials from customers just like them it goes a long way. Almost all companies use testimonials (though very few use them effectively) but very, very few use another version that can be even more powerful… the endorsement from more well-known and trusted companies, advisors or category celebrities. The ‘Watch an interview with FreshBooks on Fox Business News’ provides the perception that this is not some fly-by-night website… getting an interview on Fox Business News puts you in the big leagues. I’d see about using the Fox Business News logo underneath it to give it even more impact.

4. Use Social Media to quickly nip competing perceptions in the bud. With Social Media and tools like FiltrBox it is much easier to keep a pulse on market conversations around your product/service. Joining in the conversation while it is still ongoing will allow you to tighten the feedback loop and improve any areas that are causing the negative perceptions. Conversely, you can monitor market conversations around competitors.

5. Use the Strategy of Preeminence. Become a Trusted Advisor to your client in the category of your solution. If you sell Time Management software, you should seek to educate your clients all about Time Management. If you give, give and give so well that even people who DO NOT purchase your solution are getting value and passing your information along then you will go viral. It must be all about them. They should become better at time management just by reading your sales material! This is such a different outlook but if you “get it” you will have to do a lot less “selling” to boost sales. The following quote is from marketing genius Jay Abraham from his article “The Strategy of Preeminence (Secrets to Market Domination in Your Industry)”:

The strategy of preeminence simply means that you will not let your clients buy more or less than they need to get the results they seek. It’s a powerful yet simple strategy that can transform your business.

I’m always amazed at how many business people will say and do whatever it takes to make a one time sales rather than taking time to understand the client’s desired outcome.

And then having the courage and moral obligation to tell the client what they really need.

Sure, you may end up with a smaller initial sale, but you will have made a new friend. And they will buy again and again and send you referrals.

You must set the strategy of preeminence at the beginning of your relationship before someone buys from you. You can do this by becoming a trusted friend or advisor- so this needs to be a part of your presentation.

How many of these are you doing?

Jason Bedunah

When you use CPA networks you leverage the brains AND money of accomplished affiliate marketers to make you money. It CAN help you make more money selling your software, getting free trials or introductory offers.

Most people are familiar with Affiliate Marketing’s power to drive sales. About 6 weeks after I set up the affiliate program for a recent client they were making around $3000 per day in extra sales. It is probably over $10,000 per day now.

But, I think CPA networks could be just as good in the long run. Particularly IF you offer a free trial AND you deliver a great user experience. The way CPA networks work is you (the advertiser) pays the affiliates (also called Publishers) a set cost for each action a user performs. The action can be filling out a lead form, starting a free trial, downloading a white paper or any other action that can be measured reliably.

You provide the creative they use so you remain in control of the messaging and branding.

The top affiliates are absolute masters at finding out how to drive leads to your website.

But, will it work out for you?

To properly test CPA networks I suggest analyzing all the current ways a customer gets to your website (SEO, PPC, Affiliates, Banners, etc). Then, find out what percentage from each channel becomes a paying customer. Also, you want to use the data to make an assumption about the Total Customer Value from those channels (for more information see “The Biggest Marketing Mistake I See Software Companies Make”).

What you are trying to do is figure out how much the “Action” is worth to you and pay as much as you can to entice the affiliates leverage their expertise, brains and money to promote your offer. But, pay as little as you need to because you have to make a profit.

While it sounds like a lot of gritty, dirty work it is actually not that difficult when you put the right tools in place and get your team trained in USING the input to make decisions.

Your Affiliate and Banner channels are most likely to approximate your CPA numbers.

Once you have these numbers run a test through the CPA network and watch the results.

You are looking at ROI.

If you do your tracking right, you can look at individual affiliates and discover if the leads they generate for you are profitable or not. If not, end the relationship with them.

When you use CPA networks you leverage the brains AND money of accomplished affiliate marketers to make you money. It CAN help you make more money selling your software, getting free trials or introductory offers.

For a few thousand dollars you can discover if this is a rich new source of sales for you.

Worth a test, don’t you think?

Jason Bedunah

The Leader in Helping Software Companies Sell More Software Using Social Media, Web2.0 and Direct Response Advertising.

For those of you who don’t know about The Net Promoter Score (R) it is one of the best (and simplest) metrics to help a company grow.

I’ve written a case study about it here Case Study: Using The Net Promoter Score in Software Companies, ISVs and MicroIsvs to Boost Sales and Lower Customer Attrition Rate

And, I’ve come across a nifty little primer on it that takes only about a minute to read and get the ‘gist’ of it… It is a PDF called “The 2-minute guide to the Net Promoter Score: All you need to know about NPS in a cartoon format” and you can get it (without even giving your email address or registering) by clicking the link.

The folks at Directness BV in Amsterdam, The Netherlands created it.

Jason Bedunah
The Leader in Helping Software Companies Leverage Social Media, Web2.0 and Direct Marketing Principles to Sell More Software.

Yes.

I believe you should be using both. As great as Twitter and Facebook are, it is still difficult to scale. It would take me about an hour to get on the phone and have one of my database marketing friends hand me the name of every man and woman in the United States who is ever likely to buy your product or service.

For example, if I had a “stop smoking” product I could buy a list of 2,455,650 and have it at my Lettershop by end of business. (36,211 people were added to this list this month.)

Try getting that level of targeting on Twitter or Facebook. You can’t… but that’s ok because that is NOT what it is all about.

So, what is it about?

It is about conversations… finding them, joining them, adding to them, pushing them forward and helping EVERYONE out in the process.

How can Twitter, Facebook and other Social Media make your Direct Marketing Campaigns more successful?

Here’s how: Along with your direct mail (or print ad) include your social media information. The way direct mail works is that only a very small percentage of people will be ready to buy RIGHT NOW… that leaves a bunch of people who ARE interested but, for some reason, just won’t move ahead right now… and, others who aren’t interested and may never be.

Direct Response Advertising is structured to get the BUY RIGHT NOW part of that group. But… what about the WILL BUY BUT NOT NOW group? It is LARGER than the NOW group. Probably five times, maybe even ten times, larger.

This is where the social media comes in. Invite them to join you. I put the invitation OUTSIDE of the main sales pitch on another slip of paper or postcard. Appeal to their self-interest… “For more tips on curbing smoking cravings follow me on Twitter/Facebook/MySpace/Wherever”

Now, when they get ready they’ll know where to find you and your campaign becomes much, much more profitable.

Jason Bedunah
The Leader in using Social Media, Web2.0 and Traditional Direct Response to help companies sell more software.

Oh man…

My life just got easier.

Whenever I want to watch “market conversations” about a product and category I used to go to search.twitter.com and search for the product, the category, the search terms AND the major influential figures…creating a new “Feed for this query” and putting each on a tab in Google reader.

Then, I’d go to Google News… do the same thing and create Alerts. Same with blogs…etc, etc, etc.

But, now I don’t have to!!!

An ingenious piece of software has been created that does all this automatically and quickly! And, it does it with a LOT more sources than I can reasonably manage. It monitors MILLIONS of sources for your search terms and has them ready for you to peruse whenever you log in.

They monitor Social Media, Mainstream Media and Blogs. You can even add your own sources if they don’t cover them (unlikely).

It’s amazing.

I don’t have any special interest or a business consulting relationship with FiltrBox… but I DID become a customer a couple of days ago.

Imagine having someone in your company go through the blog postings mentioning your company/product and commenting corrections or adding to the conversation…

…imagine noticing a trend in user’s complaints via social media sites, investigating and responding hours later, to make sure a small hiccup doesn’t turn into a tsunami of discontent.

Watch your competitors like a hawk! Know MORE about what the market is saying about them than they do!

Hey, hopefully I’ve convinced you it’s worth a look! http://www.filtrbox.com

Jason Bedunah

P.S. If you currently use it and think it’s great comment below how you use it… Or, if you’ve used it and think it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, comment that as well.

P.P.S. Here’s a great blog post by Marc Harty on 30minutepr.com from a social media monitoring and PR stand point: “What’s Your Buzz Quotient? Social Media Monitoring with FiltrBox”