March 2006
Monthly Archive
Increasing direct marketing conversion rates through mobile marketing
MattE 28 Mar 2006 | : Marketing, SMS
Below is an article reproduced from Media Insert. Written from a UK perspective, there are some subtle differences when the concepts are viewed from different country perspectives.
This aside, the statements made in this article speak for themselves…mobile marketing DOES work, as long as:
- The list your are marketing to is permission based (so get working on developing your lists!)
- The call-to-action IS be engaging
- You use the right technology for the right audience (such as MMS for MMS capable phones only, otherwise you are wasting your budget - there are methods to test MMS capability
)
Customer service - Why Customers Leave
MattE 27 Mar 2006 | : Communications, Marketing
It is something we are told all the time, but few businesses really get down to the core of the problem. The answer is summed up nicely in this post Why Customers Leave over at Marketing Journal.
The graphs speak for themselves. Look at this one:
Clearly it shows a staggering 74% of people leave your business, because of a customer service issue. Now look at the purple bar underneath - so business cares about customer service?
PayPal Text 2 buy will make m-commerce viable
MattE 25 Mar 2006 | : Marketing, SMS, Web
This article on PayPal’s new mobile payments system called text 2 buy is exciting news for anyone involved in, or looking at using M-commerce for their business.
I know I am keen to see how it goes, as PlusOne is involved in delivering mobile shopping applications at the moment (email me if you are interested).
One of the best aspects is it will help to minimise the huge amount taken by telcos for premium SMS sales, which currently makes a lot of potential use of M-commerce and mobile shopping commercially unviable.
SMS offers speedy test marketing
One of the key elements of any successful marketing campaign is testing your offer.
For businesses who regularly print advertise, this takes the form of changing one element of the advertisement at a time, and measuring the change in response. If the change is negative, undo the change and change something else until an optimum response rate is achieved. This is a proven process, even if time consuming.
SMS text messaging as a form of offer distribution (and even redemption) is ideally suited to test marketing for several reasons:
Cost.
SMS represents an affordable marketing channel, so matter what size the business. Test marketing can be achieved by initially splitting your target lists into two, three, or even four lists. Make each offer, strong and unique. Once sent, ensure that all responses are tracked. This tracking is ESSENTIAL in allowing you to compare response rates.
Should I start a website from scratch or buy an existing site?
MattE 18 Mar 2006 | : Marketing, Web
Andy Macdonald of Swift Media in the UK has some interesting thoughts on the value of starting your own website from scratch, compared to buying a ready-made site that has been around a while.
Often, an established website can be bought for quite reasonable money, gaining you and instant foothold in the market.
Read Andy’s views
When you decide that you want to run your own online business, the question will soon come up in your mind about whether you should purchase an established website, or build one from scratch. The answers may surprise you, and in this article I want to go over both strategies in detail.
The secret of not going broke operating an internet business
MattE 13 Mar 2006 | : Communications, Web
Many people view owning a web site business as a low risk way of running a business. In many ways this is true and an internet business is an ideal way of determining if you have the committment and focus to operate a real world business.
But there are serveral traps for the unwary that can turn your flegling online business enterprise into a financial black hole.
This was clearly demonstrated to me about a year ago. I had a request from a young couple for a free website appraisal. This was not the usual look at the website and how it could be improved, but a serious request to find out for how much they could sell their site.
More on effective communication plans
MattE 07 Mar 2006 | : Communications
Following on from the previous post, I had an email asking about the main components of a communications plan.
Just to rewind for a moment, you will recall the last post said that a communication plan should form part of the marketing plan, which in turn is part of the business plan. Rather than write these and then relegate them to a bottom draw - it is important to pull them out monthly - or at least quarterly and check progress against the plan and make adjustments as needed. The communications plan also affects the corporate profile or the business profile, so you can see, it is a document that requires diligent handling!
But back to the main elements of the communications plan.
Idealy the plan should be made up of two sections - the Communications Strategy and the Communications Action Plan.
The Strategy
