WinM@il-WinBlogger

Highlight of the Week - To Kill A Mockingbird

I find comfort in repeating this lesson: It's the message, not the medium.

What is remembered is the message.  With all the hype about Mobile Marketing, YouTube, Email, Instant Messaging and now Twitter, it's important to remember the basics of communication.  Great ideas, words with depth and value, images full of life and meaning - these fundamentals build long-lasting messages regardless of the medium, new or old, high-tech or not.

We watched "To Kill A Mockingbird" the other night.  Whether you watch this classic on a video cassette, a DVD, streaming video, clips on YouTube, or even whether you read the original novel by Harper Lee, it's still a classic.  The message still resonates.  Atticus is the hero, but even heros can fail - as he did in his battle against racism. Boo Radley is the misunderstood villian who wins friends in the end.

In email messages that go out to business acquaintances, customers, organization members, or in any capacity, spend an extra minute to make that message meaningful.  Reword your idea for clarity, replace mundane phrases with something more creative and thoughtful.  In the end, you'll be better remembered.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYQOWfMGA_k

Best Practices - Benchmarks for Success

Measuring Success by "Emails Opened"

1. "Opened" only happens when an email application displays the pictures within an email. When a subscriber reads your email with the images "blocked, or "images off," this is not recorded as "opened."  *blocked images: when an email application is set to disallow automatic appearance of all images within the emails received.
2. 59% of online customers routinely block images. – MarketingSherpa (2007) 
3. This means that whatever number of emails are showing up as "opened," there may be half as many more than that who have read the message.
4. Try measuring "emails opened" over time, set a goal to increase the average number.

Expectations for an email campaign should be related to business goals. Just like the sales rep, these goals should be tangible. For example, do a short survey to collect feedback on how well customers like your newsletters. Query conference attendees to learn how many are there as a result of the email announcement. Check sales data to determine the relationship between actual sales and your email campaign. Ask the receptionist how many calls came in the afternoon of an email delivery.