Category Archives: B2B Marketing

Social selling has become the new spam…

06 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Social Media, social selling

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Marketers are a strange lot. They actively ignore the lessons of history rather than learn from them. And then repeat the same mistakes, over and over. So-called digital marketers are exemplary performers of this behaviour.

Around 35 years ago, as a result of marketers flooding residential letterboxes with too much irrelevant mail, the “Do Not Mail” register was created. It allowed consumers to opt-out of mailing lists so they wouldn’t be sent unwanted marketing messages.

Then around 30 years ago, as a result of marketers abusing the privilege of calling people on their home landlines, the “Do Not Call” register was created. It allowed consumers to opt-out of telephone lists so they wouldn’t get unwanted calls from telemarketers.

At the turn of the century, and in record time from the commencement of a new marketing channel, the “Spam Act” was legislated to stop marketers sending unsolicited emails. It only took marketers a few years to fully abuse email, forcing laws to be introduced globally to stop them.

So now it is illegal to send unsolicited commercial marketing messages to consumers and workers via their email address, unless they opt-in to a list or database. Though some dodgy operators are still scraping email addresses from websites and trying their luck.

But we never learn do we?

Because, rather than do the right thing, marketers are now getting around the Spam Act.

It’s hidden behind the fancy buzzwords of “Social Selling” and here’s how it works. Ironically it’s completely anti-social selling, but who cares about the details?

Step 1 – Somehow get convinced by an alleged social selling expert to ignore what has always worked, as the future of B2B marketing is social selling on LinkedIn.

Step 2 – Use LinkedIn’s automation tools to solicit massive numbers of (often irrelevant) connections.

Step 3 – Once an executive accepts a connection, go to town spamming them with unsolicited automated messages – most of which you’d never email or mail to said executive. The assumption being that because of the ‘connection’, the social seller has carte blanche to send as much spam as they like without repercussions.

Step 4 – Increase your illegal spam. Some social sellers also double-up and replicate their unsolicited LinkedIn messages via unsolicited email, in case the new connection missed their messages on LinkedIn. This is entirely illegal and in breach of the Spam Act. They’ve simply scraped your email address from your LinkedIn profile, wrongly assuming they have permission to do so.

Maybe LinkedIn should create a “STOP SOCIAL SELLING” digital badge to put on your profile? Though I doubt it – they’d lose too much money.

I’m unsure what qualifies as the worst part of social selling spam:

  • Firstly, there’s the one-size-fits-all automated solicitations.
  • Then there is the one-size-fits-all follow-up message to get an appointment, despite knowing nothing about the prospect. For example, I have a brand called The Content Brewery – I regularly get proposals from salespeople selling beer and coffee equipment, because the stupid social selling algorithm is using keywords to target prospects. After all, why should a salesperson use their brain to think, when they can use an algorithm instead?
  • Then there are the “definitive guides” – that are only definitive for the product or service the salesperson is flogging.
  • And of course, the fake thought-leadership articles, most likely created by outsourcing to Fivver.com.

There are legitimate consultants in the social selling space

They practice what good B2B salespeople have done since the 1950’s when Account Based Marketing (ABM) was invented – there’s nothing new in B2B marketing. They manage a database of prospects and a database of customers, using appropriate contact strategies for each. (more here) They communicate with relevance and respect. LinkedIn is just another way to add contacts to your database and do what has always been done in lead and sales generation. To think otherwise is simply naive.

But I often get the feeling that many of the alleged social selling experts have never sold anything in their life except: “How to get rich by selling the secrets of how to get rich with social selling“.

It’s why so much social selling has become the new spam

Driven by marketing automation, and devoid of any copywriting skills, salespeople blindly pump out vacuous messages in a numbers game, while ticking off their KPIs for ‘total contacts made‘.

If you’re in B2B marketing, you need to tread carefully using digital-first tactics. Direct mail with QR codes linked to landing pages is still the most powerful lead generation channel, apart from face-to-face. And as social selling zealots have ignored direct mail, the opportunities using mail are enormous.

It’s easy to test the success (or otherwise) of social selling spam

Simply reply to one of the automated solicitations and say you’re not a prospect. One of two things will happen. Either nothing, because the reply isn’t monitored, or you’ll get a thank-you response from a shocked salesperson. They are stunned that a human replied.

Apparently very few executives respond to social selling spam – I wonder why?

If you have similar experiences, please share them with me.

But I have to go now, I just got a LinkedIn invitation: “I’m glad we have a platform where we can connect with like-minded business people. Would love the opportunity to connect and share insights with you if you’re open to it?“

Everyone can type, but not everyone can write…

01 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing Automation, Uncategorized

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As any experienced marketer knows, one of the casualties of the digital marketing industry has been the quality of marketing communication. The majority of digital marketing messages don’t communicate at all, let alone persuade.

The reason is simple – the marketing messages are written by typists, not copywriters.

I’ve written about this problem before. It also afflicts photography – but that’s another story.

Today I was again reminded of this sad reality. This time in an email from Facebook – more frequently known as Facecrook.

The From Line said the email was from ‘Lara F. from Facebook‘. Any person writing to you who doesn’t reveal their surname, instantly creates a red flag. Are they a human or a bot? Is this phishing or sp*m? Can they be trusted?

The first sentence said: “I wanted to reach out because I noticed you haven’t yet had a chance to take advantage of your free consultation with our team of Facebook Marketing Experts.“

Firstly, only creeps and assailants ‘reach out’ – there is a rule for using the term ‘reach out’ in business:

The sentence is moronic in its meaning. I have had a chance to take advantage of the free (best written FREE) consultation – but I just haven’t bothered to take a chance. I don’t want a consultation – let alone from a ‘team’ of alleged Facebook Marketing Experts – all with initial capitals in their job title.

Lara F. then continues: “We’ll be available to connect during business hours, Monday through Friday.” Again, what does “available to connect” mean? Talk on the phone? Have a video conference call? Chat on Messenger? Swap messages using homing pigeons?

Let’s connect…

And thank you for wanting to do business during business hours – very generous. Why would I want to do business with Lara F. after hours?

She continued: “We know you’re new to Facebook Ads, and that’s okay. You don’t need to prepare anything before the call because we’ll start by:”

Wrong! Thanks for playing.

I’ve been doing Facebook ads since Facebook ads were available. Why make such a false claim? And why is it OK that ‘they’ know I am supposedly new to Facebook ads? Poor Lara F. doesn’t even understand the subject of the sentence she wrote.

Here is what followed “…because we’ll start by:”

  • Learning about your business and typical customers.
  • Understanding your goals and how best to help you.
  • Providing resources tailored to help you grow your business.

If you are “reaching out” to me about my business, wouldn’t you do some homework first? Rule 101 of B2B marketing – understand your customer. If Lara F. doesn’t know about my business and typical customers, why the hell does she assume Facebook is a channel worth using?

And why would I share my company goals with a strange team I’ve never met, or a person without a surname?

The email was only three sentences – but had way more than three fundamental errors. The first sentence started with “I”. The second with “We’ll” and the third with “We”. Not one sentence started with the word ‘you’ or ‘your’ or ‘you’re’. In the three sentences there were six uses of “I”, “we” and “our” – completely abusing “The You Rule” of copywriting. (See Below)

The subject of the message was mainly Facebook, not me the recipient of the message, whose business Lara F. is chasing.

There are two major problems with this email:

  1. It was not written by a copywriter, it was written by a typist with a poor grasp of writing
  2. It relies on marketing automation, which suggests minimal human involvement, hence so many errors or ability for me to respond

I did try to reply to Lara F. but the message didn’t really come from her. It came via a marketing automation system with the address donotreply@facebookmail.com – another giveaway of the low trust and quality of the message and sender.

I’m sure if Lara F. needed surgery, she’d want an experienced surgeon with the requisite skills for the job. She wouldn’t want someone who claims they are a surgeon just because they’ve hung around a casualty ward. So why do digital marketers like Facebook’s Marketing Experts use inexperienced typists to do the valuable (and money-making) task of copywriting, just because the typists hang around digital marketing offices?

So I am pleading with digital marketers. Please use copywriters and save us from wasting our time digesting your word vomit – or leave the industry now. Both outcomes will make the industry healthier. Go on, do it for the good of the industry.

You might find this worth reading too:

The You Rule

The most powerful word in business writing is ‘You’. Far too much business writing is about the writer, the writer’s organisation and the product, service or point of view the writer is trying to sell. Far too little is about the reader, out of whose pocket flows the money that keeps us all employed. Or not, as the case may be.

Make your business writing about the reader. This is especially true if the reader is already a customer. When this is the case, the first two words out of your computer – in almost any form of business writing – should be “Thank you”.

This does two things, both beneficial to your cause:

1. It grants the power in the relationship to the reader. The reader is the patron; you are the supplicant or servant.

2. It reminds the reader that he has a relationship with you or your organisation. It identifies you as someone with whom he has done business in the past, and therefore with whom he may want to do business again.

Here’s a summary of the You Rule:

  1. Write about the reader, not the firm or its products.
  2. When you use the word ‘YOU’, always make it singular.
  3. If you’re writing to customers, open with ‘Thank You’.

And always use you, your, yours, you’ll, you’re way more often than I, we, we’ve, we’ll, us, our, ours, my or mine, throughout your message.

QR codes are dead, long live QR codes…

30 Tuesday Mar 2021

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Customer Service, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, retail, Sales

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As you know dear reader, more often than not, the latest shiny widget hailed as the new-new-thing in the digital marketing world, dies a rapid death and is soon forgotten as the next new-new-thing takes its place. Google glasses being an example.

And so it was with QR codes. Relegated to the digital dustbin, they had a short life mainly due to the hassle of downloading an app for scanning the code. Not all apps scanned all codes. Some were proprietary to certain code types – for example those used by magazine publishers to link you to more of the story on a website.

Sometimes they just didn’t scan easily, and not all phones worked with the apps as the phones weren’t so smart back in the day – mid-90’s to early 2000’s. So inevitably, frustration and impatience eventually killed off the humble QR code.

Then along came a global pandemic. Who’d have thought hey?

Thanks to smart phones and contact tracing, QR codes are now ubiquitous in our lives. Every retail store, cinema, theatre, restaurant et al, requires the humble punter to scan the QR code upon entry. Right now we cannot live in society without QR codes, so it’s only natural marketers tap into this new habit.

Publishers, religious organisations, real estate agents, packaged goods manufacturers and more have jumped at the opportunity to use QR codes as a response device – or should that be ‘engagement device’ for those limited to marketing to digital channels.

Ironically, in a digital world, QR codes are helping to lead an already resurging interest in direct mail – the codes appear on the envelope, letters and brochures as the response device that takes you to customised landing pages. A seamless measurable link between the real and the virtual worlds.

The smartest B2Bmarketers know, direct mail is by far the best performing media channel to generate hot leads – always beats LinkedIn, email and online advertising hands-down. Until QR codes, the mailings linked to PURLs (Personalised URLS) – but you had to enter the PURL into your keyboard. But who wants to type when it’s much easier and faster to scan and link to the PURL on your phone?

Here is an example from the Jehovah’s Witnesses for an Easter mailing that arrived in my letterbox this week:

The QR code in the letter links to landing page…
The QR code in the brochure also links to the landing page

Here is the landing page:

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/memorial/

Here is a real estate sign in my neighbourhood – though why you would restrict your marketing to just social media is beyond me:

Why limit your marketing to a single channel?

My local Mayor uses a QR in his letters to the constituents:

A modern mayor…

This is a mailing I did two years ago to promote an event on how to use direct mail. The QR code linked to a landing page to buy tickets.

Everywhere you look there is a QR code being used to encourage consumers to scan and link to a landing page, website, app or shopping cart. Or even to start a bit of virtual reality – though the VR experience is still a tad frustrating.

Just as the barcode changed retail as we know it, the QR code is here to stay and I suspect all brand advertising will start to include QR codes to encourage response.

However, there is also a seedier side to QR codes that I will reveal in the next article. I’ll share how some brands are using the codes to steal customers from their existing retailers. Retail is going to get nasty.

As they say in adland “Watch this space“…

How your LinkedIn connections can lose you business…

01 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Digital marketing, Marketing, social selling, Thought Leadership

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Prior to the invention of social media, your business card holder, Rolodex, or contact list was private property. Only you used the file and nobody else had access to it. Certainly, nobody could see who you were ‘connected’ to in your business life. It was your personal property and quite a valuable asset.

But then along came social media – and in the business world, LinkedIn.

Now, everyone you are connected to on LinkedIn is public property. You’re encouraged to make your contacts public knowledge, even praise them with ‘endorsements’ and promotion of their ‘skills’. The LinkedIn computers use algorithms to prompt you to connect with people, based on the profiles of your current connections.

Even worse, these machines suggest you wish your ‘connections’ happy birthday or happy anniversary – something most executives would never do if they didn’t have the online connection.

Almost everything you do on LinkedIn is public. Nothing is private any more. And that’s why you can lose business.

In my early days of creating a LinkedIn network, I decided to try a few of the ‘tools’. A client of mine (let’s call her Josie) with whom I’d worked a number of times in different roles in her career, asked me to recommend her on LinkedIn, as she was looking for a new role. I was a reference on her resume and had spoken with recruiters when she applied for previous roles. I thought “why not” – though I was a tad concerned about the public nature of my endorsement. But that’s just me.

So I wrote a glowing endorsement of her skills and expertise, and thought nothing more about it.

Once Josie started in a new role, she decided to review her agencies and invited my agency, along with others with whom she’d worked over the years, to present our credentials based on a real brief.

Obviously the incumbent agency wasn’t happy at the possibility of losing this piece of business. The principal of the agency, who I know well, checked Josie’s LinkedIn profile and noticed my recommendation.

He immediately contacted Josie’s boss and argued that the ‘pitch process’ was not a level playing field given the obvious relationship between Josie and myself. The boss agreed and Josie called me to say my agency was not allowed to pitch – despite the fact she has the upmost integrity and was reviewing more than one agency she had worked with previously. There was no guarantee my agency would get any business from her.

If I had simply remained a reference on her resume, this would never have happened. But because of the public nature of content on LinkedIn profiles, my endorsement had cost me a valuable business opportunity.

I’ve discussed this with others and they have had similar problems, where naive executives make decisions based on a few words in a LinkedIn profile. It’s why many of my C-Level contacts aren’t even on LinkedIn – they don’t need to be. And they don’t want others to know who is in their business network.

It’s why I no longer give public recommendations or endorsements to anyone on LinkedIn, though I do offer to be a reference as needed. For me, it’s not worth the loss of business or potential damage to my reputation.

This is certainly something none of the Linkfluencers and other fake LinkedIn ‘thought leaders‘ will share with you – as it’s not in their interest to do so. You may have a different experience dear reader, I suspect it’s horses for courses.

I have to go now and contact a bloke about a pitch – where’s my business card holder???

Oh, I nearly forgot – if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld/

Your Marketing 101 Guide by the Numbers…

20 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Content Marketing, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Media, Mobile marketing, Remarketing, Sales, Sales Promotion, Social Media, social selling, Telemarketing, Viral marketing

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Hello again. I’m currently writing a book on B2B marketing – adapted from my training courses. The B2B category has a lot of executives in marketing roles who have no prior marketing qualifications. They have sales, product or technical backgrounds. Some even call themselves social sellers.

So, I’ve put together a little “Marketing 101 Guide by the Numbers”. Keep these in mind when planning your marketing executions, as they’ll keep you focused.

The three goals of your marketing communications – and there are only three…

  • Acquire new customers
  • Get customers to spend more money with you more often
  • Get customers to keep spending with you for as long as possible.

If your marketing communications are not helping you achieve one or more of these goals, you’re probably wasting your money, regardless of the media channels or vanity metrics you use.

The two ways of marketing – and there are only two…

  • Mass marketing
  • Direct marketing

Mass Marketing – you communicate with as many consumers* as possible for the lowest media cost, to position your brand in the mind of the consumer, so they consider it when they are in the market to buy – online or offline. Generally used in broadcast, print, outdoor and some online channels.

Direct Marketing – any marketing communication delivered directly to individual consumers* or to which they respond directly to you. All responses are measured and there is always an exchange of either data or dollars – online or offline. Generally used in broadcast, mail, email, telephone, print, events, social, search, mobile and online channels.

*Consumers is generic for both prospects and customers

The two reasons people use the internet – and there are only two…

  • To save time
  • To waste time

That’s it. You need to design your website, landing page, email, social channels, apps etc to make it easy for your customers and prospects to either save time, or to waste time, depending upon their reason for visiting.

Saving or wasting time?

There’s no such thing as a customer journey – just two contact strategies…

People don’t go on customer journeys. This is a marketing buzzword designed to make the user sound sophisticated – it’s complete bollocks. There are only two contact strategies to use, and they’re linked to the most relevant touchpoints. After all, a prospect isn’t a customer until they buy something:

  • Prospect contact strategy – to generate new customers
  • Customer contact strategy – to keep profitable customers and generate referrals

Marketers determine the most appropriate touchpoints to reach prospects and customers, then communicate as necessary in the most effective channels for those touchpoints. These touchpoints can be mapped for easier visual interpretation.

For example, a prospect may identify themselves by responding to an advertisement by telephone, downloading a white paper from a website, or at a trade show. This is the beginning of the prospect contact strategy designed to get them to either request a presentation (if required), to trial the product/service, or to buy. This can involve lots of channels, some of which can be automated.

Once the prospect becomes a customer, they join the customer contact strategy. This involves communicating with personal messages designed to create a positive customer experience, encourage loyalty, obtain referrals and generate further sales.

The customer contact strategy can also be divided into two separate executions. One execution is linked to the date the product or service is bought and includes messaging around warranty, service, renewal, upgrade and the like.

The other execution is linked to time of year and includes messaging such as monthly newsletter, seasonal offers, event invitations and more.

Obviously, the customer contact strategy uses more personal media channels including; face-to-face meetings, mail, telephone, email and social channels. And all the while, there is the 24/7 continual flow of marketing content on blogs, websites and social channels, as well as advertising.

People DON’T go on customer journeys…

The numbers that matter when budgeting…

There are a few key numbers to understand when budgeting your marketing activity:

  • Lifetime value – how much revenue you customer is worth over their lifetime of buying from you
  • Cost per lead – how much you can afford to spend to generate a qualified lead
  • Cost per sale – how much you can afford to spend to generate a sale
  • The advertising allowable – what you can afford to spend to generate a sale at either break-even or a pre-determined profit percentage

When you know how much a customer is worth, you can determine how much to spend to generate a qualified lead and therefore how much you can afford to spend to get a sale – based on conversion rates. This helps you determine the most appropriate media channels to use, as they are defined by your advertising allowable.

Remember:

Marketing creates the need, while sales fulfills the need…

Your marketing activity helps to create the need for your brand by building desire for it and reinforcing your decision after you’ve bought. Your sales people use selling techniques to fulfil the need and complete the sale.

Your direct marketing activity can both create and fulfil your prospect’s needs in a single execution. It also integrates your marketing and sales teams to ensure they both work together successfully.

So now you know, what you need to know, about you know, that thing that everyone thinks they know – marketing…

Online sales can reduce your revenue…

22 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Branding, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales, social selling

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A couple of years ago my agency created catalogues for an office supplies company – different catalogues for different areas of their business and different types of customers.

They had a catalogue for typical office stationery, another for bulk purchases of products delivered on pallets, and other specialty catalogues. They did some sophisticated testing, with the objective of moving clients to order via their website to reduce the dependence upon the call centre, as it took the majority of the orders. They also believed they’d make more money with online ordering.

The test results revealed some interesting insights. When the company migrated customers to online orders, they lost revenue. The average order size via the website was much less than the average order via the call centre. The reason is simple and one which any salesperson can explain.

down-decline-graph

Online sales reduced average sales value and revenue…

Once the customer was on the phone, the customer service person could upsell via questions and sell even more products than the customer might have bought if they simply went to the website. The customers who did use the website for orders, usually only bought a small number of items.

Another insight they discovered was that most customers had the catalogue with them when they called to order by phone. This gives the customer service person another way to engage with the customer, by referring to the catalogue pages and discussing them together.

Woman reading magazine at coffee shop

customers have the catalogue with them when they call…

The grim discovery was that the move to online ordering had the potential to damage the business and reduce sales. While website sales can possibly cost less to process, the average sale value was less than telephone sales.

The company had to work a delicate balance of telephone and website sales and eventually hit on a strategy of telephone follow-up to online sales. As online orders were received, the outbound telemarketers would call the customer and upsell based on the products in the online order.

This became a productive use of the call centre staff, giving them options for inbound and outbound selling. Customers appreciated the ‘service calls’ and nearly always increased their order value.

virtualStaff365_callCentres_img1

let me help you spend more money…

So don’t believe everything you hear about the marvels of digital disruption – it can damage your business rather than improve it.

The old adage continues to apply – just because you can doesn’t mean you should…

Nothing fails as badly (or regularly) as a marketing automation fail…

31 Friday May 2019

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales, social selling

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As robots and “automation software” increasingly take over the tasks of humans, the number of customer service problems and technical glitches seem to be increasing. Yet ironically, in most cases, the simple reason for the failure is the lack of human involvement.

Here is the first of a couple of examples I’ll share with you:

Adobe is a very successful company and makes some great products, some of which I use. They were a client years ago and I also have friends who work there. On 14th May Adobe sent me an email with the subject line: “Gartner Magic Quadrant names Adobe a Leader in Multichannel Marketing Hubs“. Now as I’ve owned an email SaaS business, I thought I’d see what the Magic Quadrant had to say, though I wondered if I was supposed to be puffing on something when reading stuff by the Magic Quadrant?

The email is an image with the ridiculous headline: “Your customer has many sides. Engage them all.” There were no images of customers, just technology.

I laughed so much I just had to click on the link to see how many sides my customers now have – apart from the obvious backside. And as I’m already married I don’t want to engage any of them.

The link was for a report titled: “Connecting with People Across Their Every Dimension” so I was a tad confused given the subject line. The link took me to this page:

It’s not immediately obvious what to click on for the report. There is a “request a demo” button but that’s not the report button. Eventually I realised the headline “Gartner: Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs” was the link, so I clicked on it and it opened to this:

The page simply says: Access to this content has expired

So I went back to the email and tried again – same result.

I scrolled through the email to see how to contact Adobe. But like most marketing automation brands – they don’t want to provide customer service to customers or prospects. They force people to do everything themselves via (often useless) websites, rather than provide humans (or at worse, chat bots) to help. It’s the equivalent of going into a retail store and asking the salesperson if they have a product in stock, and getting told to go look out the back in the storeroom yourself.

The email fineprint tells me not to reply to the email, even though it was personally addressed to me (well to my subscription email name – Ted). I have to go to a damn website and search for the contact information:

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE. To obtain information on how to contact Adobe, visit the web at: http://www.adobe.com/company/contact.html

This is so wrong on so many service levels, not to mention the language: “To obtain information on how to contact Adobe” – I don’t want to obtain information on how to contact Adobe, I just want to contact Adobe.

Apart from the link not working and not being able to contact Adobe without opening up a website, the message itself indicates what’s wrong with many digital marketing businesses these days.

Like so many of these companies, Adobe obviously doesn’t employ copywriters or art directors – it employs graphic or industrial designers – people who know how to design, but not how to communicate. And they employ typists not copywriters.

Some of the obvious giveaways:

  • Centred headline across more than one line
  • Widow or orphan in the headline
  • Full stops in the headline (these tell you to stop reading)
  • Two full stops in the headline (stop reading or else)
  • Centred body copy – with widows
  • Breaking a publication title across two lines, with the final words hanging as widows
  • Reversing white out of black type in a sans serif font – significantly reduces readability and comprehension
  • Use of the jargon-monkey button on the keyboard – this message is full of it:

Let’s deconstruct:

“Today’s customer expects personalised content when it matters most” In simple terms, this is complete B.S. Today’s customers are no different to yesterday’s, last week’s or last century’s customers. They just want good service – if it involves personalised content so be it. But they are not “expecting personalised content” – most don’t want any more damn content. Marketers are the ones who want to create content – not consumers. Read more below.*

“And when you understand all the human complexities that drive customer decisions,” “understand the human complexities???” It’s not brain surgery – it’s marketing. Maybe this refers to a complex customer decision like “I think I’ll buy a cup of coffee” or “I will click here to download the report” – definitely need to understand the associated human complexities for such decisions. We’ll fail otherwise and never be able to “deliver experiences that speak to them, get them to click, and make a lasting impression.”

#changehands #fingersdownthroat

These types of messages are contributing to the reason the majority of people don’t trust online content as much as they trust printed content. It’s why the marketing industry is ranked near the bottom on the consumer trust barometers.

But wait – there’s more…

A week later on the 21st May, Adobe sent me this message:

The message has a report attached, a week after I had tried to download it. How long did it take the humans at Adobe to realise the link didn’t work? Didn’t a human test the link when it went live, so to speak?

This message also demonstrated the wrong people are creating the emails:

  • The Adobe team is singular not plural – so ‘we mistakenly linked you” cannot be. An individual created the email link, not a team of people.
  • Teams don’t send emails, individuals do – did a bunch of marketers sit around a send-button each waiting anxiously to push the button together as a team?
  • “We care about the quality and relevance of our communications and have taken measures to fix the issue.” No. No. No. Stop the passive language. There is no need to say “we…have taken measures” just say “the problem is fixed.”
  • Stop talking about yourself – there are numerous ways this message could have been written with more relevance so it delivered in Adobe’s words, “experiences that speak to them, get them to click, and make a lasting impression.”

BUT WAIT, there’s even more…

The report that I tried to download on the 14th is titled:
“Connecting with People Across Their Every Dimension.”

The report the Adobe team sent me on the 21st May is titled:
“Analysts Report Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs“.

So now I’m confused. The report I was sent reflects the subject line of the email. It talks about SaaS that delivers messages in many channels to customers. But it doesn’t talk about the many sides of the customer, as per the headline in the email message, or the title of the report I tried to download.

So is the subject line and the landing page correct, but the email message incorrect? Or is the report title in the email message correct, but the subject line and landing page incorrect? It’s enough to make a simple marketer reach for the Magic… I suspect you get my drift.

This is so typical of what happens when technologists pretend to be marketers. What is going on at Adobe? Where are the experienced marketers? Where are the people who care or are accountable?

If you would like to learn some facts about readership, comprehension and designing to communicate, read the brilliant book by Colin Wheildon – “Communicating or JUST MAKING PRETTY SHAPES.” If you contact me on inquiry@madmail.com.au I’ll send you a FREE PDF of the book – no downloading or teams involved.

Gotta go now – am going to download a definitive guide to downloading definitive guides…

You can read more here:

* https://themalcolmauldblog.com/2016/03/03/content-infobesity-is-clogging-digital-arteries/

* https://themalcolmauldblog.com/2015/07/29/leading-legendary-lamb-leg-linkfluencer-looks-like-losing-the-lot/

* https://themalcolmauldblog.com/2018/10/25/theres-a-reason-the-first-three-letters-of-content-marketing-are-con/

How digital marketers destroyed one of the most profitable media channels…

19 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales, Social Media, social selling

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As many of you will know, one of the major weaknesses of digital marketers is their lack of knowledge of marketing history.

They naively assumed that just because a technology was new, all previous technology was useless, all existing media channels no longer worked, proven techniques suddenly failed, and human DNA changed forever. So they ignored everything that had worked pre-internet.

The nature of technology is to constantly evolve. Experienced marketers have lived through a constant stream of technical innovations – in television, radio, outdoor, mail, print, sponsorship and of course online. So for most, the digital channels just offered additional media options for marketing purposes.

One of the most profitable channels – for both the media owner and marketers – was the humble mailing list. Mailing lists existed for every consumer and B2B category. You could rent them or create your own and reach every person on the list. Many list owners rented their lists both for profit and to keep the list current.

But then the marketing toddlers in their digital nappies arrived. When they realised the power of direct marketing via email, they really went to town – spamming, abusing privacy, ignoring unsubscribe requests and generally operating without any ethics. They were so appallingly bad at the use of email lists, governments around the world were forced to take action to stop them.

In countries across the globe new laws banning spam, banning the sending of unsolicited emails, and protecting the privacy of consumers, were legislated. These were the direct result of digital marketers abusing their privilege – to communicate directly with consumers.

The backwash from these bans was devastating. Here’s why:

The new privacy and opt-in laws, spilled into the databases of mailing list owners, not just email list owners. These new laws meant once-compliant mailing list owners had to comply with laws designed for email list owners.

So, if you owned a list and it contained contacts from more than one country, you now had to comply with multiple privacy and spam laws. The cost of this compliance became prohibitive. When coupled with the reduction in subscribers to printed magazines, the cost versus revenue for list ownership and maintenance became unsustainable. The penalties for non-compliance were too high and not worth the risk of human error.

For the uninitiated, prior to these new laws, any marketer could rent a mailing list and send direct mail for business purposes. Let’s say for example, you wanted to reach IT professionals. You didn’t have to advertise and hope you reached them. You could rent a list and mail them anything from a letter to a white paper, even include an involvement device. Then you managed responses and followed-up the non-responses by phone.

Here’s one of the world’s most successful B2B campaigns from a pre-internet age. It paid for itself within 4 hours of delivery.

But that simple way of doing business has been severely damaged. Thanks to the spam and privacy laws, there are way fewer lists available to rent – particularly in niche markets.

Now B2B marketing for example, has become much more complicated and open to abuse. It is reflected in the growth of the fake influencers and fake thought leaders. Instead of renting a list or building one, marketers are being told they have to do social selling. As against anti-social selling? What sales process isn’t social?

Here, according to the digital marketing experts, is what you have to do today to reach a B2B prospect.

  1. Connect to as many executives as possible on LinkedIn or other social channels.
  2. Pay a third party, usually in a third-world country, to create a white paper, or ‘content’ for you to send to every contact you have, via the social channels.
  3. Don’t use proven sales techniques in your messaging, as selling is evil.
  4. Just hope the contact has nothing better to do but read your content and love it so much they contact you.
  5. To convince your connection your ‘content’ is worth consuming, call it “thought leadership” and call yourself “an influencer” – for no reason other than to big yourself up in your own eyes and hopefully fool some poor sucker that you know what you’re talking about.
  6. When your social selling fails to work, use the KPI of “thought leadership” and “content marketing” to fool your boss that things are OK. One way to do this is to send your boss all your content when you send it to your connections.

This process takes way longer and costs much more than simply mailing your prospects and customers with relevant information and reasons to respond (known as selling). But hey, it has digital buzzwords attached to it so it must be worth destroying a profitable media channel.

I’m not saying that contacting people on LinkedIn and gradually converting them to a customer doesn’t work. Though most social sellers don’t practice what they preach. Instead, they connect and start flogging their wares immediately, without any credibility, using puff-words like “awesome”, “killer”, “secrets”, and “mind-blowing” in their message.

Here’s an example of one I received this week from a person who asked to join my network, I didn’t invite him. It arrived courtesy of marketing automation: “…5 killer LinkedIn tactics we used to generate 50 appointments and 13 closed deals in 2 months” I have no idea why he thinks I’m a prospect, these killer tactics are the last thing I need to grow a business. The message has zero credibility.

Interestingly, many of the thought leaders on social selling have never used direct mail, so they have no credibility when claiming social selling is the solution. You can prove it too – do a split run test. You might be surprised at the results.

In my experience, using mail supported by the digital channels will get the best result – but I’m only speaking from experience. Given current marketers don’t care about marketing history aka “experience” the message will probably fall on deaf ears.

Blatant Plug…

If you live in Brisbane and want to know how to make your mail work in a digital world, here’s a blatant plug. Join Steve Harrison, the man Campaign magazine described as “The greatest Direct Mail creative of his generation“. He’s won more Cannes Lion awards for direct mail than anyone else. You’ll learn how to do award-winning, effective direct mail at this event on 11th March 2019:

www.creativemail.com.au

There’s a reason the first three letters of ‘content marketing’ are ‘con’…

25 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing

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Marketers are a weird lot. We love to over-complicate things. We also have a strange penchant for renaming existing tactics and marketing techniques that have worked sometimes for more than 100 years, just because a new media channel has been invented.

Take social media. Please, take it. I mean, is there any media channel that isn’t social? By their very nature, media and the messages published/broadcast in them are social. After all, we don’t have anti-social media channels do we?

As you know dear reader, since the introduction of digital channels, the resurgence of the emperor’s new clothes is complete. Cyber-hustlers everywhere have claimed new things exist where they don’t. Fake thought leaders try to convince gullible marketers that human DNA has changed forever, particularly when it comes to consumption of marketing messages and buying stuff.

the resurgence of the emperor’s new clothes is complete

And of course there’s the great content con. Apparently until the internet, there was no such thing as content for marketing purposes. I ask you, what do the content zealots believe has been filling every advertisement, brochure, video, billboard, sales presentation, media release, article, etc since year dot, but content?

To clarify the content situation I have created two lists:

“Content marketing” before the internet

“Content marketing” after the internet

As you can see, apart from a handful of new channels, marketers are still creating exactly the same content they always have – they’re just distributing it in these new channels as well as the traditional ones.

So why rename what has always been done just because we have digital distribution of traditional analogue content?

The illiterates are creating the content

But there is a bigger problem at play. Prior to the internet, content was in the most part written by professional copywriters and journalists. Art directors designed how the words were displayed.

In todays content-filled world, every unqualified executive who can type creates content. They operate under the mantra of “I type therefore I am…a content marketer“. In fact, many marketers avoid using trained and experienced writers and do their best to get Josephine Junior, or a mate’s son to write their content, manage their social posts, create their online ads…

If you weren’t aware, the OECD Adult Literacy Study revealed at least 82.5% of the population struggles to read and write competently. Yet it’s these illiterates who are creating the marketing content.

The mind boggles as to how marketers justify their folly. It’s one reason why I created www.thecontentbrewery.com a couple of years ago – it’s an anti-content marketing, content marketing website.

So if you’re looking to create content…..

 

Here’s some more content about content marketing:

Why there’s really no reason to ever use the term “content marketing”…

The 3 essential questions for content marketing success

How the content paradox and your A.S.S. Time ruin content marketing performance

Shell’s content marketing turns 40 and still sells

Good manners will always trump marketing content

Why most shared content has almost no impact on your brand

Here’s how personalised magazines always over-engage readers for an outstanding CX…

13 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, BIG DATA, Branding, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Media, QR Codes, small data, social selling

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Please accept my apology for the jargon overload in the headline. Back in pre-history, around 2004, I helped a number of competing print companies launch their Variable Data Digital Printers via a series of seminars, trade shows and other marketing activity.

This disruptive technology delivered what many now call data-driven marketing. It was simply the use of relevant data to digitally print personalised publications and link readers to personalised landing pages. An undigi-believable omni-channel breakthrough. But let’s just pretend data-driven marketing is only five year’s old like most digital marketers believe it to be, so as not to confuse them.

One of the most successful promotions and product demonstrations we did, was to personalise the cover of a number of Marketing magazines for individual subscribers. We also personalised the accompanying advertisement to the subscriber inside the respective issues, as well as the landing page.

At the time, the Editor of Marketing magazine said the covers were the most talked about in the history of the publication. They had never had such a positive response. He said subscribers were ringing and writing to congratulate them. It was massive engagement to use today’s jargon.

Leap forward to 2018 and a few months ago I was asked by Kellie Northwood, the Publisher of VoPP magazine, to be the Guest Editor. I readily accepted and suggested the magazine be customised for those on the database. Kellie agreed.

Well VoPP has just hit the streets, and this customised version demonstrates the power of print when it comes to engaging susbcribers via personalisation.

Here’s the outer envelope:

Here’s the personalised magazine cover:

There is a customised message on the cover for each of the key subscriber groups, as well as a custom background colour. If you scan the QR Code it takes you to a PURL where you can complete a survey. There is a segmented group title printed below the code – mine is Agency/Retailer on this edition. And to add some polish there’s a spot fluoro ink printed on the QR code too. The story of how it was produced is in the magazine.

Here are examples from 2004/5:

Fuji Xerox – personalised message on the screen:

Personalised ad on back cover:

Personalised ad inside the front cover:

PURL – Personalised URL:

Direct Smile font printed via HP Indigo:

Personalised advertisement on back cover:

.Another issue:

Penfold Buscombe printed these versions with personal message written on the street sign and the image of the relevant capital city in the rear view mirror:

Customised versions by State printed using postcode data:

VoPP stands for Value of Paper and Print. If you’d like to get a FREE copy of VoPP Mag, visit the website to subscribe: http://valueofpaperandprint.com.au/subscribe/

I’m off to read this issue, there’s an interesting guest editor…