Category Archives: Marketing Automation

Good grief, now LinkedIn staff are sending unsolicited social selling spam…

14 Friday Jan 2022

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

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At first I thought it was a joke, particularly given my post yesterday about the appalling social selling spammers on LinkedIn.

But alas, no. Today I get an unsolicited “LinkedIn Offer” in my personal messages – which is nothing near an offer at all.

An offer has two parts:

  • What the prospect gets
  • What the prospect must do to get it

It is as rank-amateurish as it is insulting. It is from someone I don’t know and am not connected to on the platform. And the author didn’t include his mug shot, to make his effort seriously low-rent.

Let’s dissect this anti-social selling message shall we:

There are a bunch of marketing words under the author’s name – Digital Marketing | Performance Marketing | E-Commerce | Paid Media |

I’ve never understood the term “Performance Marketing” – as against Under-Performance Marketing; Cancelled-Performance Marketing; Non-Performance Marketing; Matinee-Performance Marketing? We work in “marketing” – be proud of the fact you are a Marketing Manager/Director et al. You don’t need to put adjectives in front of your job title to big yourself up – it works against your reputation, not for it.

WTF is a Performance Marketer?

There is “LinkedIn Offer” in the margin above the message.

The salutation is a dead giveaway it’s amateur hour – “Hi Malcolm!” – well the exclamation mark is the giveaway.

There are only two sentences that are supposed to sway me to part with my cash. The first breaks most rules of selling:

“Are you ready to start achieving your marketing goals?“

Never ask a question with a yes/no answer. The majority of readers will answer “no” and ignore the rest of the message. If you are going to lead with a question, use a rhetorical one.

What does this mean – “Am I ready to start achieving…” Well maybe I’m ready to start, maybe I’m not? Maybe I’m almost ready to start, but need to think about it? Or I maybe I’m ready to start but not really ready to kick-on to achievement, because I prefer to under-achieve?

The sentence should never have been written, but makes more sense as, “Are you ready to achieve your marketing goals?” Though it still uses passive language with a yes/no answer.

The second sentence is also abominable:

“With LinkedIn ads, you can generate higher quality leads for your business and build lasting impact.“

Higher quality than what? Higher quality than lower quality leads? Higher quality than the best quality leads I’ve ever generated? Higher quality at ten times the price, or half the price?

There is no support for this vacuous claim – no social proof that LinkedIn ads work for any business similar to mine. Nothing. Just a glib statement from someone whose job it is to sell advertising on LinkedIn and hasn’t bothered to understand their market.

Who trains these people? Why are they let loose in the marketing industry without any skills?

LinkedIn should be ashamed of itself, it this is what passes off as a professional way to generate high quality leads.

In case you’re wondering here is a rough breakdown LinkedIn’s revenue streams:

  • 65% recruitment advertising
  • 20% direct advertising by companies
  • 15% Premium subscriptions

So I am assuming he is selling the direct advertising service? I have no idea, as he doesn’t say.

The three calls to action aren’t worth commenting on, as they are so lame.

I repeat what I said yesterday: “Sending unsolicited spam through marketing automation tools, under the guise of social selling on LinkedIn, is a disgraceful reflection on our industry – and it needs to stop now.

Just because a marketing clerk can type doesn’t mean they can write. Hire professionals to write your copy, as you damage your brand every time you use amateurs.

And please LinkedIn, stop this nonsense, if only for the sake of the marketing industry’s reputation and we poor sods who work in it. You’re embarrassing us all…

Another example of social selling failure with marketing automation on LinkedIn…

12 Wednesday Jan 2022

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

≈ 2 Comments

It’s a simple truth – “the more that sales and marketing executives rely on technology to do their hard yards, the more likely they will fail“. So I open this article with a statement:

Sending unsolicited spam through marketing automation tools, under the guise of social selling on LinkedIn, while lying in the message content, is a disgraceful reflection on our industry – and it needs to be stopped now.

This sponsored example arrived today from a Marketing Manager who I am not connected to, nor have I ever met:

Let’s dissect it shall we.

“Happy Holidays!” – this arrived on the 9th January, so holidays are already over for most people, including me. It also smacks of wokeness – as it is the default message designed to replace “Merry Christmas” so as not to offend the outrage community.

This singular phrase is used – “I’m reaching out...” As everyone knows, only creeps and assailants “reach out” – and there is an existing protocol for using “reach out” in business.

The author then says: “my team noticed The Content Brewery is actively looking into topics around improving pipeline impact with marketing automations & new tech.”

Firstly, how does her team know I’m actively looking into said topics? How big is this team? Why is it spying on me?

The fact is, she is lying.

I don’t search using “The Content Brewery” and I’ve never searched for anything to do with “improving pipeline impact with marketing automations & new tech” – I don’t even know WTF it means. What is she talking about?

Why can’t marketers speak plain English? You don’t make a better impression by using a jargoniser – you just confirm the fake or amateur try-hard that you really are.

Then she switches from the singular to the plural – “We’d love to connect…” I don’t care a toss what you’d love to do. What’s In It For Me? This is a failure of fundamental 101 sales technique. And if we are not even connected on LinkedIn, why would I let you “explore my priorities?”

Continuing, the sentence says, “…share how our marketing & sales team uses Workato to build automations easily…” So she wants to show me how her company uses her product, not how companies like mine benefit from using the product. And WTF is an “automations?” I’ve never desired to “build automations” in my life.

The jargoniser rolls on: “real time lead routing” – I suspect she means “managing responses”. As for “improved pipeline forecasting” I have no need for whatever this is.

The sign off is just sad – “Let’s connect soon!” How soon? Tomorrow? Next month? 2023? Why wait? And it’s supported by a screen shot of a Zoom meeting – I have no idea who is in the tiny image.

The response devices don’t even allow me to contact the author by return message. I can only do one of these:

  • Schedule a chat now!
  • See MKT Automation eBook – (it appears to be a typo, as it makes no sense)
  • Learn more about Workato

I checked the Workato website and still struggle to understand what the company does. One of the subheadings on the home page says: “It’s easy to build complex workflows across your entire organization.” The last thing any marketer wants is complex workflows – we all want simple, uncomplex workflows.

This unsolicited digital-drivel – written by a typist not a copywriter – is another nail in the coffin of the reputation of the marketing industry.

Another nail in the marketing industry coffin…

So, I am going to take a stand and demand that marketers look harder at their marketing activity and invest in professionals to do the work. Just because you can type does not mean you can write marketing messages – as this unsolicited sponsored post demonstrates. Again I say:

Sending unsolicited spam through marketing automation tools, under the guise of social selling on LinkedIn, while lying in the message content, is a disgraceful reflection on our industry – and it needs to be stopped now.

There, I’ve had my rant for the day – let’s hope 2022 only gets better for all of us and professionalism prevails – despite that little thing called a pandemic, raging outside…

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.

Is it time to bring offshore call-centres back home?

25 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by in Customer Service, Marketing, Marketing Automation

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Before I start this post dear reader, I declare I only speak one language – Australian. I respect anyone who can speak multiple languages. But because someone can speak a language doesn’t mean they can communicate in the language they speak.

I assume my international colleagues experience similar frustrations as we Aussies do, when you call a local company’s “customer service centre” that is located in a country where English isn’t the first language. This outsourcing of alleged service has been one of the great cons of modern capitalism.

Firstly, the service is worse, it’s never better. Secondly, the income earned by the call-centre staff doesn’t benefit our local economy. Thirdly, the poor service really pisses-off customers, the people who pay the salaries of the call-centre staff.

One of the worst experiences is when the call-centre representative gets into a circular loop reading from a script, usually because they don’t understand the language or its nuances, and are unable to solve the problem at hand. The conversation ends up as “I understand your situation…” Of course they have no idea or understanding of the situation. But some call-centre psychiatrist, or human capital expert, has convinced management that this phrase helps diffuse the customer’s frustration, when in reality it makes matters worse.

“I have no idea how to solve your problem, but it says here I should say…”

So, given the COVID-Crisis and the massive unemployment it is creating, isn’t it time we returned call-centres to Australia?

Qantas is an example. Today it announced it is sacking around 6,000 staff in order to survive. Why not relocate the Qantas call-centres to Australia and employ some of those staff, where the income will benefit the local economy? It will also improve the customer service.

Telstra is another one. I’ve yet to speak with a customer service person without “I beg you pardon” being the most common phrase I use. Even worse is the Voice Recognition software that doesn’t work. Here’s a typical day in the life of a customer. You call the Telstra hotline. A computer answers and asks you to state why you’re calling. After stating your reason to the computer, it replies with something such as “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you, please repeat the reason for your call.”

This goes on until the computer forwards you to a human in another country. You go on hold until an English-as-a-second-language representative starts talking to you, usually to advise you’ve been put through to the wrong department, so “please hold while I transfer you“. Then the line goes dead, or if you’re lucky you get through to a queue to wait to speak to another representative, blah, blah.

“What do you mean, how do I spell Kim?”

It may be naive, but I believe we should use this opportunity to create jobs in our local economy – we have the talent pool. It’s the largest since the Great Depression. Let’s bring our call-centres home!

Gotta go, I’m having internet problems and have to call Telstra – aaaggghhhh!!!

A simple phone call goes a long way in good and bad times…

14 Thursday May 2020

Posted by in Advertising, Branding, Customer Service, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales, small data

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As most of you readers already know, in tough times the marketing rule of thumb is to keep investing in your marketing. Though it’s easier said than done if your business is closed and your customers don’t have jobs.

But that being said – there has never been a better time for real contact, as against digital contact. As I’ve shared previously, there is a heap of COVID-CRAP in our inboxes, most of it is a complete waste of effort and completely ignored.

So I ask you folks, “How many of you have rung your customers recently to have a real conversation?” Just put in a call to check in and see how your customers are and if you can help them – with anything?

If not, may I suggest you consider a phone or video call – sooner rather than later. The reason is simple: if you’re not, your competitors are probably doing so. If you are claiming as you read “I cannot afford to call my customers” – you may want to revise your business model. If you can’t afford to call or mail a letter to your customers, you will lose quite a substantial amount of business – in good and bad times.

Why didn’t you call?

Most SaaS companies lose huge volumes of clients because they never call them – they rely on marketing technology (martech for the buzzword lovers) to deliver their personal communications, immediately de-personalising the experience for their customers.

LinkedIn is guilty as charged. I tried the “Premium” service and after a year of not enjoying any premium service, I didn’t renew. All I got from LinkedIn was email to remind me to pay my renewal. Now, because LinkedIn is not very good at its “small data” I keep getting offers to trial the Premium service.

How hard is it for LinkedIn to pick up the phone and ask why I left them, or to block advertising a service I cancelled, so as not to irritate me? But hey – maybe they don’t understand lifetime value?

Here’s a simple example of the value of talking to your customers:
My elderly father is a member at his local licensed sports club – he no longer competes, but visits for dinner or lunch regularly. He isn’t known, he’s just one of thousands of members. Last week his phone rang – it’s a landline. The club’s welfare officer was checking in to see how my father was doing and if he needed anything. They were checking on all members aged over 70 – a  simple use of small data that made a big impact.

Nobody from the club has ever rung my father in his life. But he thought it was wonderful that the club would consider calling him – he’s told everyone and can’t wait for it to reopen so he can enjoy a meal with a glass or three of wine.

Can’t wait to get back to the club to splurge on a Schnitty…

Imagine what your customers might say if you called them?
Here’s another example – I’ve written about this previously. A major office supplies company in Australia was keen to migrate its customers to online ordering to reduce the call centre workload – and cut some costs. They company mails annual catalogues to customers and research shows the catalogue stays on file until the next edition is mailed. Customers usually order with the catalogue on their desk.

It didn’t take them long to discover a problem with sales. The customers who moved to online ordering were ordering less per order than those who rang the call centre. They weren’t shopping more frequently either. So sales dropped as business moved online.

They company launched a new strategy – before they shipped the online orders, they called the customers (by phone) and advised the order was about to be dispatched, asking if the customer wanted to add anything to the order. Inevitably, using historical order data, the customer service representative up-sold the customer and increased the order value. The company has increased its call centre to accommodate both types of online ordering – telephone and data lines.

And by how much can I increase your order today?

So, if you’re considering migrating your business to online-only because of the pandemic, consider accompanying the service with real people on the telephone if you really want to succeed.

Receptionist is marketing genius
Another former client of mine takes orders by email and website. Each time an order arrives the company receptionist calls the customer to confirm the order. She started doing this because she thought it was good manners – you know, the right thing to do.

I suggested that during the call she agree a delivery date that was later than the earliest her company could deliver. The company now delivers each order before the agreed delivery date. The clients love the service as it exceeds their expectations and there is rarely any dispute over paying on time.

Thank you for your order it will be delivered on…

How $2 helped make $millions
Speaking of paying on time, a very successful cousin of mine sold his business for a premium, partly due to his excellent cash flow and a simple phone call. Geoff (his real name) would ring the accounts payable department of each of his debtors and confirm who was responsible for the processing of his invoices – most were small to medium size companies.

Each month he would mail his invoice in a personally addressed envelope to the accounts payable clerk – complete with a $2 scratch lottery ticket attached. His debtors loved getting his mail – and they paid his invoices ahead, or on time, every month. His cash position added enormous value to his business when he sold it.

Thank you for paying my invoice on time…

So, regardless of whether you are able to sell anything or not to your customers, due to lock-down or delivery issues, make and keep real contact with them. They’ll appreciate your effort and the investment will pay off – either immediately or in the “new-normal”.

It also allows you to gain some knowledge about each customer. Because the old adage still applies:

One thing you know about your customer is worth more than anything you know about your product or service.

That ‘one thing’, gives you a reason for a conversation – and that conversation can turn into business for you.

The other reason you should keep talking with your customers is also very simple:

If your customers don’t make you rich…who will?

Gotta go – the phone’s ringing, I wonder who it is…

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 (continued)…

04 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by in Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Mobile marketing, Sales

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Continuing from my article published last week about poor old Adobe’s problems, here is another example of computers getting in the way of sales because humans aren’t involved. This time it involves SMS – plus a late addition to the Adobe issues.

The sad part about this error is how easily it could have been avoided, as the perpetrator, Vintage Cellars, has my purchase history on file. Each bottle of vino I buy is linked to a loyalty card/app.

I do like my wine – in fact I enjoy both colours (red and white) in almost equal measures. Over a six year period in the Hunter Valley, I made wine as part of my membership of a wine club (now defunct). One vintage even won a trophy and my team also made a semillon in steel, not barrels, in the true Hunter Valley style.

If you’re a friend of mine, you’ll know I regard sauvignon blanc as a crime against humanity. It tastes like a batch of your neighbour’s lawn clippings, filtered by a garden hose through an old pair of your grandmother’s stockings. But that’s just my palette – others do enjoy it.

So last October, I received a text message from Zoe at Vintage Cellars – trying to flog me some sauvignon blanc:

Why I received this message is beyond comprehension. I’ve never bought sav blanc in my life, let alone from Vintage Cellars. Isn’t marketing automation messaging supposed to be linked to customer purchasing data to ensure the fabled “personalised customer experience/journey?”

I suspected Zoe was a fake customer service person, or possibly a bot, but I replied to her regardless, sharing a couple of my thoughts on sav blanc:

I assumed (wrongly) that the marvels of marketing technology would automatically process my message and stop the computers from trying to flog said sav. But unfortunately, the Vintage Cellars computers aren’t very smart. Even worse, it appears the humans in the marketing team don’t bother to check what their customers say to these computers. I know this to be true because a couple weeks ago, the computers sent me this message:

It would be funny if not so sad – well it’s sad that humans assume marketing automation works all the time, like a set-n-forget TV dinner in the microwave. It has obviously failed this time. But it’s sad for other reasons too:

Firstly, there is no way they could have missed me, given my wine buying in the last six months. I know this because I get my discount vouchers physically mailed to me each month and they are based on my household purchase history. And lately I’ve received a few vouchers – mostly linked to my bride’s champagne drinking I’m sure.

Secondly, because the message that was from Zoe, is now from “we” and is not signed off by anyone except the disclaimer.

And thirdly, it’s just bad marketing. Vintage Cellars has my data. They contacted me on a personal channel. I replied to them in the same personal channel. Yet they lie to me about missing me, are too lazy to check my sales history and are too lazy to write a decent message. It’s a bloody disgrace and enough to drive a man to drink.

But wait, there’s more – and it’s just arrived from Adobe as I type…

It’s an invitation to a webinar on mobile marketing, by the people who brought you “epic fails in marketing automation“. The image is of a human hand writing a WORD CLOUD in reverse on a glass screen. Why anybody would do this to their wrist is beyond me?

It appears the creative idea here, is to make the most prominent words the same as the topic of the webinar – enterprise, mobility, business, technology. Genius stuff. The first two sentences are:

“Your customers, your business, your market are mobile-first. But 80% of all workflows today are at least partially paper-based. This is expensive, time-consuming and not very user friendly.

Don’t get left behind! Best-in-class companies leverage digital and mobile-first workflows to eliminate clunky, manual steps, removing inefficiencies, increasing revenue growth and improving customer experiences.”

You can imagine dear reader that I may be a tad sceptical. After all, it’s the very fact that Vintage Cellars and Adobe didn’t have manual steps involving humans that caused their marketing technology failures. It was their very investment in digital marketing technology, with complete disregard for the compulsory layer of human intelligence, that cost them dearly.

The copy appears to be written by a typist, not a copywriter. After all, if your business is mobile-first (whatever that means) yet your workflow is 80% paper-based, how can your business be mobile-first? It’s obviously paper-first! The writer is contradicting themselves. This strive for marketing mediocrity is giving me a headache.

I’m off to medicate with a drink. Hmmm, red or white…

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

≈ 12 Comments

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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/

Ignore the Personalisation Paradox at your peril…

29 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by in Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Remarketing, retail, Sales

≈ 4 Comments

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Personalised marketing messages have been around for centuries – think mail-order catalogues posted to individuals, using those individual’s name and address data. The personalised customer experience, including face-to-face customer service, is not new to the world.

Personalised customer experiences are not new…

But now in the digital age, we can personalise almost every communication we have with consumers. We can use names, images, facts, charts and other data linked directly to individuals, to customise our communications – be they email, landing pages, websites, ads, SMS and more.

We can go even further by using cookies to chase individuals around the web, based on their behaviour on a landing page, website, email or other digital asset. I’ve written about the remarketing problem of leaving cigarette burns on your customers before.

But here’s the rub…

When you use direct mail and write a letter to someone, it is common courtesy and good manners to personalise your letter with the correct name, address and other relevant details of your relationship with the recipient. In fact, if you don’t personalise correctly your recipients are offended or lose respect for you the writer. Your lack of good manners can damage your brand.

Dear John…

Conversely, in the digital world, the holy grail of a “seamless personalised customer experience” can be disastrous for a brand. The more a marketer uses personalisation and demonstrates they are using digital surveillance to track an individual, the more the marketer offends the individual and possibly damages their brand.

Here’s one example I’m still experiencing. In January I searched online and visited a couple of retail stores before buying some gym equipment. Almost three months later, I am still being chased around the web via remarketing, by one of the companies from which I bought some equipment and one that I didn’t buy from – I just looked at its merchandise.

I’ve written before about how this type of remarketing mistakenly tried to sell breast pumps to a granny. It seems marketers are not learning from their mistakes – which is the best way to learn.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should

Marketers have fallen in love with technology and the various tracking tools now available to monitor customers. And it could be argued it’s costing them more in negative attitudes toward their brands and lost sales, than positive results.

After all, you don’t see a greengrocer chase a customer out the store and into the carpark, throwing a free banana and special deal through the customer’s driver-side window, just because the customer fondled the fruit but didn’t buy it?

Don’t leave, I’ll give you a free banana and a discount of you buy more now…

Marketers need to consider if the marketing tactics driven by their online surveillance tools pass the pub test. If they don’t, then don’t use them – simple.

Most marketers I’ve asked about remarketing and digital personalisation use words like “creepy”, “sleazy” and “not on” when describing how they feel as recipients of surveillance-based marketing. So why do we do it to the people who pay our salary – our customers?

Mind your manners

If you are writing directly to a customer or prospect, by all means personalise your message – be it mail, email, or even a PURL. It’s good manners to do so.

But if you are going to use surveillance-based marketing tools to “personalise the online customer experience” you need to ask yourself if it is worth doing. Would you like to be treated the way you are treating your customers? Are you practising good manners and respecting them?

The reason you consider your options is simple. The marketing industry is among the least trusted in the world. The last ten years has seen its reputation trashed by the digital marketing practitioners. Your surveillance-based marketing will only reinforce this negative attitude and reduce the effectiveness of your marketing budget.

Trust me, I’m a digital marketer…

And this is the Personalisation Paradox that marketers face. It’s a delicate balancing act and you need to take it seriously – particularly if you want your customers to take your brand seriously.

Gotta go now – I was going to search for some lingerie for my bride’s birthday, but am concerned by what might follow me around the internet afterwards. Think I’ll just visit the store at the mall instead….