Tag Archives: email marketing

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

When technology companies mistakenly believe they’re marketing experts…

25 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, social selling

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If you work in marketing you will no doubt be a recipient of the vomitron that is the content marketing of the “martech” companies.

I’ve never understood the claims these companies make about their marketing expertise. It’s the equivalent of a medical instrument salesperson claiming they’re a surgeon. Just because a company supplies software used by marketers, does not automatically translate into that company possessing marketing expertise.

After I sell you this instrument can I do a spot of brain surgery before I leave?

Many of these companies are highly successful. Marketo for example, was just bought for a casual few $Billion by Adobe. Generally though, they’re successful because they sell very good software, not because they supply marketing advice. They also usually have bucketloads of investor’s money to throw against the wall to get themselves noticed.

Ironically, it’s their “content marketing” that is usually the giveaway that they’re not too savvy at marketing, despite their posturing. Here are a couple of examples that arrived in my in-box last week.

Salesforce posted a blog laid out as follows:
Holiday 2018 Predictions:
Mobile Will Ring Up Most
Purchases for the First Time
Ever

You can tell from the headline, you’ll need to suspend your reality if you’re going to believe what’s coming. The layout is almost incomprehensible. The article claims to be “based on the shopping data of over 500 million global shoppers, we’ve outlined the five biggest trends that will dominate headlines this holiday season“.

I’m not sure what this means? Is it 500 million people in the USA who shop for things across the globe? Is it 500 million people from around the globe who have bought something online? Have they bought once only? Is it just measuring online shopping data or does it include all the people’s shopping? So many questions unanswered…

Depending in which country you live, online shopping accounts for between 3% and 9% of total annual retail sales. So if this report is only measuring online sales, it’s the kiddie pool of retail shopping that’s being measured here.

I also have no idea where these headlines will dominate? Newspapers? Christmas catalogues? Outdoor posters? Blog posts? Trump’s Tweets?

So the premise is confusing before we even start on the so-called “headline trends”.

The first trend is a blatant lie. It states: Holiday shoppers will buy more on mobile than on any other device

This could be construed as people who are shopping for holidays, but let’s assume it means people who are shopping during the holidays. This is an outrageous claim as it is nowhere near the truth. There is not one customer in a supermarket with a full shopping trolley, buying their groceries using their mobile. They are picking them off the shelf and paying for them at the checkout using credit or debit cards, and in some cases, electronic payment devices.

To reflect the truth, the claim should probably read: “Of the overall sales made during the holidays, the small percentage made online will be done in the most part via mobile devices.”

This is not news. Anybody working in marketing knows that mobile devices are now the preferred way to access the internet and shop online. This activity has been trending for the last decade.

The second trend is gobsmacking bollocks. AI-based product recommendations will drive 35% of revenue

How do these people sleep at night? 35% of all revenue will be driven by AI??? If online sales are less than 10% of all sales, how can 35% of all revenue come from AI? Gartner will have to develop a new section for its Hype Cycle. The “Fabricated Lies to Drive Enthusiasm” section. It’s just before the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” section.

If you’re interested, you can read the whole article here, but it won’t help your marketing in any way.

On the same day as the Salesforce blog, three hours apart, I received two emails signed by “Team Marketo”. Even the most junior marketer knows that teams don’t send emails, individuals do. How often in your organisation does the whole “team” sit around a keyboard and collectively hit the send button? Ever?

Even worse than teams allegedly sending messages, is a message that doesn’t include a telephone number. If your business model doesn’t allow for a customer to easily call you, then your business is at risk.

It’s strange how the digital marketing industry seems to delight in only delivering a less-than-average DIY customer service, while prattling on about CX and UX. That is, the companies force customers to search websites in frustration, while trying unsuccessfully to find answers to problems, because the companies refuse to provide customer service by telephone.

To prove my point I had to use Google to search for Marketo’s phone number and then call the Australian reception, as there was no number in the emails. A computer put me on hold and then a very polite person named Claire answered. I asked if I could speak with Team Marketo. Claire was confused.

A team preparing to send bulk personal emails…

So I explained I had receive messages from Team Marketo and wanted to talk with the team. She explained that wasn’t possible but she might be able to help. I asked how can a team send an email? Do they all gather around one computer? Claire advised it was a martech problem. Ironically, Marketo is migrating data in a Salesforce CRM system and the system can’t read all the data. So Marketo has to send personal mesages from teams, rather than individuals. Go figure.

At least Marketo won’t have to worry about Salesforce much longer, given they’ll soon be doing another migration to their new owners at Adobe.

I also have no idea what “empowering the fearless marketer” in the signature file means? Does it only work for extroverts? What about the shy marketers? It seems to be just another glib strapline to try to build credibility where it probably doesn’t exist.

As Mark Twain (and others) have said; “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail“. And so it is with martech companies. They only operate in narrow channels in the digital space, but they assume the whole world lives their too. So they only ever provide alleged expertise for a handful of digital channels. They never provide expertise on TV advertising, male urinal advertising, skywriting, railway stair advertising, radio, mail, outdoor, letterbox, blah, blah.

The reason is simple – they know absolutely nothing about these media channels. Which means they only know a smidgen about marketing communications in general. Their sweeping marketing generalisations to attain credibility are often more dangerous than helpful.

Here’s another that arrived today.

Any art director worth their salt, knows you never reverse type out of a dark or image background. Comprehension is reduced to around 12% at best, as it is impossible to read. And you never centre blocks of copy. You either justify it or range it left.

As for the copy, well let’s just say anything talking about “engagement” of any sort is a dead giveaway it’s likely talking platitudes rather than facts.

Email marketing success is relatively simple:

The “From Line” gets the email opened, while the “Subject Line” gets the message deleted. Recipients ask “who is sending this – do I know them?” and then “what is the message about, is it of interest to me?” Then they decide whether to open or delete the message. The rest is just process. You don’t need a technology company to tell you how to succeed.

Maybe the technology companies should stick to their knitting – delivering Software as a Service. Let the marketers worry about doing the marketing education. After all, I’m sure they wouldn’t let a marketer tell them how to design the code for their software…

Why most shared content has virtually no impact on your brand…

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Branding, Content Marketing, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Media, Remarketing, Thought Leadership, Viral marketing

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Originally published 2016…

Any marketer, advertising agent, researcher or social scientist worth their salt, knows for any marketing content to resonate with, let alone influence, the typical punter, it must be consumed numerous times in a short space of time. Seeing something just once, rarely makes a serious impression (though it is rated as such in media terms – an impression that is).

Unless the message is designed as a direct response message, giving prospects all the information they need to ‘act now’, most marketing messages hardly penetrate our grey matter if only seen once.

Just look at the way we learn at school – through repetition. A message has to be repeatedly consumed for it to eventually make it through our distracted craniums and finally embed itself into our conscience. This is called learning. It’s a rare human indeed, who can read or view something only once and then remember the content.

raked-classroom1937

Information retention comes through repetition not from glancing at content

So what does this mean in the world of digital chewing gum for the brain? This is the world where the people mostly share content in social channels, which requires less than a metaphorical chew to consume. The receivers of said content quickly scan it, dismiss it, then start to chew on the next piece of content, ad infinitum.

digital chewing gum

The majority of content shared by consumers is mostly images, video, memes, jokes, fundraising appeals and personal stories. People rarely share words or phrases, particularly lots of words like those populating ebooks, whitepapers, brochures and the like. Of course people communicate back and forth using words, but it’s not sharing in the content marketing sense.

The act of sharing on social media often has less to do with the content being shared and more to do with narcissism. “Look at me, I’m sharing this before anyone else” or “look at me I’m sharing something – how many likes did it get?” or “look at me, I liked something”. Though sharing in business channels can have less selfish motivations.

The average adult attention span is now roughly 8 seconds (just less than a goldfish) and ASS Times keep getting shorter and shorter – less than 1 second for many image-based channels like Instagram. So the ability for any snack-size marketing content to resonate at all in the memory of consumers, is nigh impossible. Did you like that piece of digi-jargon – “snack-size”?

attention span

And what about all that thought leadership content floating in cyberspace? At best, much of it remains in the ‘download folder’ of computers, because we’re too busy to print it or consume it in any depth. It’s why good quality email messages to opt-in subscriber lists, along with blogs, are still the best performing content online.

Ironically the content marketing failure is being driven by the content itself and FOMO. I’ve talked about the infobesity problem before. The average punter is waterboarded with content from friends, strangers, government, institutions and brands every second of the day. Add to this deluge, the modern dilemma of FOMO forcing consumers to have minimal engagement with content, and you can see why brands gain almost zero benefit.

Consumers know there’s loads more content coming down the digital pipe and they don’t want to miss it. So they quickly and disengagingly ‘like’ something, or ignore it, before moving to the next set of pixels.

content hipster

Hipster training to consume marketing content…

Just as we chew gum without thinking and then spit it out, it’s the same with content. We consume it without thinking and with almost zero emotional engagement. We swipe, pause, swipe – in a constant process to churn through the non-stop current of content. And the pause is usually shorter than the time it takes to spell ‘pause’. And even if consumers do take a few seconds to read or view your content once, will it really make a lasting impression?

Hmmm that reminds me, I’d better check my emails. Oh look there’s a dog…

dog

P.S. Please feel free to share this content with as many as you like:)

You don’t become a brain surgeon by hanging around the casualty ward…

24 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales, Social Media, Thought Leadership

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And you don’t become a CMO by hanging around the marketing department either. It’s like those people who claim to be copywriters just because they can use a keyboard.

To really stand out from the crowd and get ahead of your marketing peers, you need to invest in yourself.

Furnish your brain with knowledge from those who’ve already succeeded (and failed occasionally). Tap into the expertise of those who’ve tasted blood. Learn from the experts.

High achievers don’t use hope as a strategy when it comes to their success. And they don’t fall for the fake thought leadership and definitive guides published by marketing wannabes and cyber-hustlers.

Which brings me to this unique opportunity in Australia. International legend of marketing, Drayton Bird, is doing his final ever events in Sydney and Melbourne.

Every marketer on the planet would kill to achieve a fraction of Drayton’s success**. And it will be a long time before any other marketer comes close to earning the same genuine industry respect. If he was any younger he’d be called a unicorn!

So if you want better results from your marketing, or to improve your career, I suggest you take the opportunity to spend 3 hours at Drayton’s final gig-  Cocktails with Drayton.

You won’t get another chance to meet, chat and listen to Drayton in Australia ever again. In his 90 minute presentation he’ll share his best tips, ideas and marketing secrets, compiled during a career spanning four decades, including 20 years of online marketing.

He’s also giving away 3 of his books FREE, including the 338-page international best-seller “How to write sales letters and emails that sell“.

So to quote a well known Aussie “Do yourself a favour” and book your tickets today. They are only $125, or if you book 5 or more people, they’re just $100 each.

That’s a damn cheap investment to get priceless information to boost your career and your marketing results.

Book Melbourne here: 15th November (5.30 – 8.30pm) Rydges Melbourne

Book Sydney here: 21st November (5.30 – 8.30pm) Rydges North Sydney

More information at www.draytonslasthurrah.com

See you there…

**P.S. Here’s just a snippet of Drayton’s resume:

  • The Chartered Institute of Marketing named him one of 50 individuals who shaped today’s marketing.
  • Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida
  • Founding member of Superbrands
  • One of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing
  • One of the first three people in the Direct Marketing Association of India’s Hall of Fame
  • UK magazine ‘Campaign’ called him ‘the only universally acknowledged point of creativity in the direct marketing world‘
  • His book “Commonsense Direct & Digital Marketing” has been a global best-seller on the subject every year since 1982. It’s published in 17 languages and sold around the world.
  • Advertising legend David Ogilvy said “he knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world”

How’s yours compare?

Get Drayton Bird’s books FREE at his Last Hurrah in Australia…

10 Tuesday Oct 2017

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

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A COMMUNITY SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR AUSTRALIAN MARKETERS

Drayton Bird

For those who don’t know, Drayton Bird was named one of the 50 most influential marketers in the world, long before the term “influencer” lost all credibility thanks to the cyber-hustlers. His marketing books have been best sellers in 17 languages for more than 35 years.

David Ogilvy stated:
“Drayton knows more about direct marketing than anyone else“.

I first met Drayton on a conference harbour cruise in Sydney in 1984, when he spoke at his first Australian marketing industry function. Most of the delegates jumped onto the early party boat, not realising there were two vessels. So the handful of us who remained, including Drayton and his then wife Ce Ce, boarded the second boat. We ate kilos of prawns and oysters, while drinking heartily for our respective countries, well into the wee hours.

Little did I know it would start a regular pass-time whenever we got together.

We eventually ended up at Ogilvy & Mather Direct with the same boss – David Ogilvy. We then both left Ogilvy at a similar time and have delivered marketing seminars together ever since – in the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia and NZ.

So it is with a slightly sad heart I announce Drayton is about to conduct his final two Australian seminars ever. One in Melbourne (15/11/17) and one in Sydney (21/11/17).

It’s his Last Hurrah – and we’re calling it “Cocktails with Drayton”

But it’s not the usual one-day affair. Instead, over cocktails and canapes, Drayton is going to share his infinite wisdom, gained through hard work and toil, during a career spanning some 50+ years in the marketing and advertising industries.

If you think we live in the age of disruption now, think again. You haven’t known disruption like Drayton has known it. He remembers when marketing moved from no computers to a big mainframe computer. To quote a famous Aussie actor “that’s not disruption…this is disruption!”

I suggest you’ll likely learn more about marketing at Cocktails with Drayton than many do in their entire career.

It could save you years of learning on the job, as well as make you lots of money.

Here’s what you’ll get at Cocktails with Drayton:

  • The big three marketing questions – (most businesses ignore them)
  • Millions down the drain – because of “upside down marketing”
  • The Creative Magic Bullet
  • Video reveals what Ogilvy REALLY thought about Drayton
  • Do people have any idea what the hell you sell?
  • What would your boss love you to do? Confucius tells you
  • THIS gives the best ROI. Yet it probably doesn’t for you – here’s why
  • The irresistible rise of bullshit – a warning!
  • The man who dared to tell the truth
  • Are you coddling your people enough?
  • The second wisest man Drayton ever worked with
  • What IS the golden rule?
  • The timeless realities of marketing so often ignored
  • A Guided Tour of Marketing Lunacy
  • Why does your agency talk such utter **it?
  • Does that slogan sell for you?
  • Why do the best people quit? An Ogilvy story explains.

PLUS three FREE digital books:

  • “How to Write Sales Letters (And Emails) That Sell”
  • “How to Get a Better Job”
  • “How even a Business Idiot like me made a million or two”

The session will be full of examples and anecdotes, as well as plenty of humour.

During his career, Drayton has inspired loads of successful executives:

“Your books are among my most valued possessions, and easily among the greatest ever written on advertising, right up there with those by Caples, Ogilvy, Schwab, Reeves and Hopkins.”
– Gary Bencivenga, widely regarded before retirement as the world’s best direct marketing copywriter

“What a kick that was! I feel like I’ve just spent an hour with the Pope … you triggered so many great ideas and confirmed so many closely held beliefs of mine, well, believe it or not, words fail …”
– Clayton Makepeace, the world’s highest paid copywriter

“Drayton Bird is a wise and wily direct marketer. People all over the world have been lucky enough to learn from him.”
– Sir Martin Sorrell, founder of WPP

“Witty and practical, but never boring. A great book to read and re-read and one that I wish I had read earlier in my career.”
– Joe Sugarman. Copywriter, author, multi-millionaire pioneer of infomercials – at one time America’s largest single seller of electronic products

Curiously, even though I’ve heard more of Drayton’s presentations than anyone else on the planet, I always learn something useful from them. And you will too.

So if you want to meet one of the world’s leading marketing legends, before he retires from international speaking, you’d better book your ticket today.

If you have a young team of digital marketers, they’ll gain enormously from Drayton’s wisdom and so will your bottom line. And there will never be another chance to do so.

If you’re heard Drayton speak before, you’ll know his sessions are always both educational and entertaining. So why not treat yourself and your team to this rare opportunity?

Book your tickets here today:

Sydney Tickets

Melbourne Tickets

I make no apologies for this blatant plug, as I view it as a community service announcement for the Australian marketing industry.

Having attended so many events featuring alleged digital marketing experts, I know the enormous value of Drayton’s experience. And the marketing industry desperately needs to learn from a legitimate practitioner who knows what works, rather than from those who pretend to know, as they try to fake digital marketing authenticity.

Plus it’s a good excuse for a drink with a few colleagues.

See you there…

www.draytonslasthurrah.com

ACT NOW!!!

Marketo demonstrates why marketing automation fails more often than not – twice in one week…

27 Thursday Jul 2017

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

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You have to admire the marketing automation industry. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Twice recently, the good people at Marketo have demonstrated why most marketing automation fails – unless it has one essential element. And that element has no binary code or computer chips.

Can you guess what it is dear reader?

That’s right folks. The most powerful element ensuring the difference between success and failure in marketing automation, is “Homo Sapiens” – not a computer.

If you don’t have humans monitoring your computers, your automation will eventually fail. A layer of human intelligence is essential to monitor, analyse and act on what the computers are doing and revealing. Those microchips cannot do it on their own, despite the marketing automation sales spiel.

Here’s how Marketo demonstrated this recently.

If you’re a Marketo customer you’ll know the problem that occurred this week. In an amazing piece of irony, a Homo Sapiens at Marketo forgot to renew the Marketo domain. So Marketo’s customers couldn’t access the Marketo server to do what they pay Marketo to do – marketing automation.

Of course the industry has had a field day joking about it. Check out #marketofail.

But an even more powerful demonstration of how essential Homo Sapiens are to marketing automation, came with an email sent to me on the 19th July, from Bill Binch, the Managing Director of Marketo. It was a follow-up to an email sent a week earlier promoting a Marketo event.

Here’s the first email I received on the 13th July. I suspect your antenna is rattling too dear reader. When you read something like “STOP MARKETING. START ENGAGING.” you know you’re in for a self-serving sales pitch. After all, we’re in the marketing industry, not the marriage game. Leave that to The Bachelor reality TV series.

Ironically (again) the copy in the invitation says your customers “can smell insincerity kilometres away” and you certainly can with this invitation, it’s pungent.

I didn’t reply to this first invitation. It came from the latest name on the “From Line” – they keep changing. Probably a “customer engagement officer”.

On the 19th July, Bill sends me a personal message, though I do suspect he sent a few thousand of them. Here it is:

I’m not sure why he’s inviting me to the Melbourne event, given I live in Sydney? But I’m very keen to meet Bill. After all he sent me a personal message stating he’d love to meet me and that’s pretty powerful stuff for a business communication. So I replied personally to his email. Here’s my response:

Thanks Bill
I live in Sydney, so Melbourne is a bit difficult for brekkie, but could do the 1st if you’re in Sydney?

The problem of course folks, is that when you use marketing automation to fake sincerity, you can get caught out. The return email address for Bill’s message is not his personal email address.

It is an auto-reponder address: marketing_apac@marketo.com

I suspect there are no Homo Sapiens employed to monitor the auto-responder address, because Bill hasn’t replied to me. And given his enthusiasm for me to attend, I’d have thought this “marketing 101” function would be a sure thing at Marketo.

But then again, they seem to be more interested in getting engaged than marketing fundamentals.

I hope to get a reply, as I’ve decided I’d like to attend. And am keen to meet Bill, as I’m sure he’s a very capable MD. Better still, I’d love to work at Marketo, as I know I have something to offer. Even if it is just monitoring the automated marketing – because it seems that even when Marketo’s domain is working, the marketing automation is failing…

 

automatically connect to me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld/

Would you encourage your children to work in marketing? I doubt it…

20 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by in Advertising, Branding, Digital, Digital marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Media, Social Media, social selling, Telemarketing

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Some of you may have noticed I haven’t blogged for about three months. I decided to take time out to observe the industry through rose coloured glasses and find some positive examples of advertising to share – regardless of channel. I might as well have tried to climb Mt Everest naked. Sorry for that vision folks, but that’s how difficult the task has been.

Because when you stop for a moment and take a gander, the sight is really sad.

I’ve spent most of my life working in marketing in one way or another – as a business owner, running marketing departments, running agencies and educating executives and students. Never in my experience have I known the marketing industry to be so shonky, shoddy, dishonest, artificial, delusional, self-destructive and downright on the nose.

Why would anyone want their children to get a job in marketing? It’s become an embarrassment to say “I work in marketing”. You might as well say “have you met my parole officer?”

The growth in deplorables (to steal a recent popular word) is directly linked to the rise of the digital marketing industry and all the charlatans it has attracted. It seems they’re all drinking the same kool-aid and believing their “owned media” to use a digi-buzzword. Their mantra is one of the oldest on the planet “a sucker is born every minute” and it’s easy to chant when the suckers, sorry marketers, are hooked on FOMO and fashion.

Everywhere you turn there are examples. And it’s been getting worse every year. I produced this parody video in 2011 to promote an event, partly because like many, I couldn’t find any facts to support the outrageous claims about online usage by consumers.

Then this book was a best seller in 2012. I cannot find any similar publications claiming analogue channels to be so dishonest.

The first abuse of a marketing channel was the telephone and this was countered by government and industry with “do not call” registers. The problem with telemarketing was not so much dishonesty, rather it was the frequency of unsolicited calls into people’s homes.

The spiral to dishonesty started with email marketing. The scams, abuse of privacy, illegal use of email addresses, spreading of viruses and frequency of messaging, created so many problems that governments created anti-spam laws as well as data privacy legislation. Email continues to be abused, with most people now having a daily ritual of deleting unsolicited or irrelevant messages.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the marketing industry as we know it today…

The fake internet is growing so fast it will be one of the biggest online industries in less than a decade. Bob Hoffman, another lone but increasingly louder voice in the wilderness, has been very vocal about the fraud in the online advertising industry. In a number of articles, he has revealed that the percentage of clicks on online ads by robots, varies from 30% and up to 90%. Agencies have no way of telling how much “traffic” or “clicks” are by robots, as even the publishers themselves don’t really know. Yet marketers are charged for this fraud.

Then there is the “fake profile” industry. Software can now create social media accounts for anything connected to the internet. So your grandmother’s new fridge, or your sound system running from an app, will be hacked and a profile created using the device’s unique IP address.

The fraudsters then buy fake followers, they cost as little as $2.00 for a thousand, and create a fake following. The “profile” then publishes fake content, either stolen, or created by slaves with no subject expertise, working in Eastern Europe, the subcontinent, or South America. Ad space is then sold on these “fake profile” sites to computerised advertising networks. Marketer’s ads then appear on the sites, with the marketer being none the wiser.

As the system is fully computerised and rarely has a human eye to analyse it, the ability to scam the programmatic ad networks to create fake sites and earn automatic “fake revenue” is huge.

But the digital marketing industry seems uninterested in addressing the issue. One of the drivers behind this lack of interest is that very few marketers care. They never look at their digital analytics. It’s more important to be seen to be “digital” and mediocre, than to be using digital channels profitably. An Australian report suggested more than 60% of senior marketers didn’t bother looking at or using the analytical data their digital marketing generated. So they have no idea what works or what fails.

Media companies have now admitted they have been falsely charging for online advertising and are returning $millions to clients, rather than face messy legal action. Dentsu was the first to raise its guilty hand.

I have one client about to go to court with its global media agency because the agency refuses to use the client’s programmatic advertising account. The reason is simple. The moment the client gets access to the account they will discover how much they have been ripped-off over the terms of the contract to date. It seems the agency is hiding behind a clause in the contract that says bookings must be on its account. The media agency would rather lose the client’s business across the globe than be found guilty of fraud.

Facebook admits it has overstated video viewing by as much as 80%.

Sir Martin Sorrell has called out Google for unwittingly allowing advertisers to subsidise extremist terrorist sites with their advertising.

Proctor & Gamble, the largest media advertiser in the world is threatening to stop advertising online unless the industry starts to act honestly and ditches its self-interest. P&G has already reduced its Facebook spend because it resulted in an appalling loss of revenue and market share.

While French media agency Havas has followed suit and pulled all advertising from Google and the YouTube platform until they “deliver the standards we and our clients expect”.

An active Twitter user is someone who accesses their account once a month – and there are more inactive accounts than active ones. #whybotherwithtwitter

FYI Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn remain the major publishers that continue to refuse independent auditing of their platforms. Whereas all the major analogue publishers have always participated in independent auditing as part of providing a legitimate service to advertisers.

How did it get so bad? I suspect that one reason is the fact so many people claiming to be digital marketers know nothing about marketing and just a little bit about binary coding. They have no respect for marketing, dismissing it as “just part of the process” for anyone who can use a keyboard. Or they’ve read a definitive guide and so have become a definitive expert.

I was in a meeting with a digital marketing manager who stated with authority; “a brand is just the logo taken to the next level“. But he did it with such conviction the juniors in the room took notes – I just shook my head and asked for more coffee, as it was the only drug available.

Creative thinking is not valued. Instead, you just need to Google “world’s best example of…” and then copy the ideas for your client or your brand. The result of following the “God called Google” has been a devaluing of creative talent.

And while BIG DATA is the latest trend, most marketers and their media agencies don’t analyse data. They don’t know what works and what doesn’t. They talk about data and even produce spreadsheets, but they don’t study the data to gain knowledge. Instead, they worship at the social altar of “likes” and “followers” and some nebulous term called “engagement”.

The digital channels allow you to predict the future, so you can make more money, or earn the same amount for a lower spend. They put more knowledge in the palm of marketer’s hands than any other channel. Yet nobody seems to care.

Though here’s what some major advertisers say about social channels after analysing them:

Unilever has said its social media results are about 50% as good as traditional POS advertising and other retail promotions. While Coca Cola ran its usual metrics through its social media and saw no difference in sales as a result of social content. Westfield shopping centres stopped social media advertising, as results and research revealed its customers preferred printed catalogues.

As Bob Hoffman published recently: in a study by the American Marketing Association, Deloitte and Duke University, more than 88% of marketers surveyed said they could find no measurable impact from social media marketing. While Forrester Research reported that only 0.07% of one major brand’s Facebook followers ever engage with one of its posts.

It can probably be best summed up by Coca Cola’s Head of Global Marketing, Marcos de Quinto who said; “Social media is the strategy for those who don’t have a… digital strategy.”

Yet in a recent industry debate with Mark Ritson about social media, Adam Ferrier, one of Australia’s brightest advertising talents, said “…These other two businesses – Uber and Airbnb – would not exist without social media.” I can only assume he said it because he was forced to support his side of the debate, as nothing could be further from the truth.

Uber has mainly used traditional public relations in mainstream media, plus social media to create awareness. Though as revealed here, Uber’s secret new business tool is good old-fashioned print. While Airbnb is a major user of TV advertising, email, network marketing, print and most recently talk-back radio targeting pensioners. The radio ads use pensioners to encourage other pensioners to top up their pensions by becoming an Airbnb host – strangely it says nothing about tax implications? Just as Airbnb pays no tax in our country.

So Uber and Airbnb cannot exist without analogue channels. Social channels are just a sideshow in the scheme of things.

Rumour has it, Unilever is removing the term “digital” from all marketing job titles, as they’ve finally woken up to the fact the job functions are about marketing, not about channels. After all, nobody ever called themselves a “Male Urinal Advertising Manager” just because they placed ads in the specialist channel of troughs in public and commercial toilets used by men. If you’re female and confused, ask a male colleague.

Smart marketers are realising that just sticking solely with digital marketing channels is more often than not, a mistake. For the best results, you need to promote across numerous proven channels, and run tests to determine the best ROI – just as marketers did prior to the internet.

Have to go now and prepare to teach young university marketing students. Might recommend they look for an internship at Long Bay Correctional Centre if they want a successful career…

 

Let’s connect https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld/

More than ever before, customers want to be sold too…

28 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Remarketing, Sales, Social Media, social selling, Thought Leadership

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There is some serious B.S. being peddled claiming human DNA has miraculously changed in the last few years. The peddlers (known as content marketers) claim people don’t want to be sold anything anymore. They claim businesses that try to sell things to their customers and prospects will fail.

I’m not kidding, such absurd claims are being made at marketing seminars – if it wasn’t so sad it would be hilarious.

The claim of course, is complete rubbish and without supporting evidence.

hot_steamin_manure-500x375

content marketers shoveling content

The plain fact is this – people love to be sold to by good salespeople. And when they have a great sales experience they rave about it and call it “excellent customer service”. They tell friends at social functions and on social media. Some marketers even label them advocates.

Great sales technique doesn’t make the customer uncomfortable. It doesn’t sound “salesy” – to use an emerging piece of jargon. A good sales person is highly regarded by customers. And we all have our favourites, whether they be at our local cafe, clothing store, pub, hairdresser, mechanic, IT supplier, butcher, baker or grocer.

But when it comes to lousy salespeople or poor sales messages, people share a universal dislike. Since the beginning of time, people have disliked them – it is not a new sentiment just because of the internet or claims by content marketers.

How many times have you threatened to take your business elsewhere because a salesperson wasn’t available to serve you? We all love salespeople.

So to push a self-interest content marketing barrow and state all a marketer has to do is publish more and more non-sales information and the world will flock to your door, is pure fantasy. The content marketers may be smoking the wacky tobacky, but the punters aren’t having a bar of it.

wacky tobacky

Are content marketers smoking the wacky tobacky?

The common thread among modern consumers is they are time-poor and suffer from severe infobesity – much of this caused by useless content marketing messages that don’t give people a reason to act, or consider a brand. Content for content’s sake. Yet the last thing people want in their busy lives is more content.

Human beings are the laziest species on the planet – we always seek the path of least resistance. One of the key reasons apps are so popular for example, is their ease of use. So marketers have to make it as easy as possible for people to buy – which is why giving punters incentives, offers, propositions and reasons to “buy now” are key to getting sales.

To quote my old boss, David Ogilvy, “you cannot bore people into buying“. Yet content marketers are adamant you can. Waste more of people’s valuable time and you’re guaranteed to sell them more, they preach to the gullible.

Let’s examine some facts shall we:

The single biggest innovation in online shopping was an in-your-face sales tool. It was invented by Amazon – and customers love it! They call it customer service, because that’s what great selling is all about – serving customers and prospects well. The technique is now used on all major transaction websites.

Here’s an example with which you are all familiar – you visit Amazon and click on a book you are considering buying. The site then tells you “customers who bought this item also bought…”

Amazon

Look out, Amazon is daring to “sell things”…

Even “Facebook with a necktie” (known as LinkedIn) uses this technique. When you view a person’s profile, you are prompted with a message “People also viewed” and there is a list of people’s mug shots linking to their profiles. This is a sales technique as old as retail selling – suggesting alternatives to get customers to buy at least one option. It’s a sales tool, not a non-sales tool.

Companies have always published non-sales information, it is not a new invention. And they made the information available at every point possible along the “customer journey”. Sorry, I had to drop the journey buzzword at least once. Some of you ancient marketers will remember such non-sales content as brochures, websites, booklets, newsletters, educational videos, signage, on-pack instructions, seminars, user manuals – the list goes on.

This is all designed to assist customers and prospects to make buying decisions, or as after sales service. Why would the punters want more ‘information’?

Yet the content marketers are claiming the whole world has changed just because people can do some online research before buying. This is stretching credibility beyond truth. Just because a marketer can reach a prospective customer in more places than ever before, does not automatically translate into “don’t sell to consumers, just post information as much as possible“.

used content marketing

wanna read content rather than buy a product?

By all means, help build your brand by publishing relevant content that cost-effectively drives people to a sale, or keeps them coming back after they’ve bought. But make it easy for the punters to buy – they are already inundated with infobesity and can’t be bothered doing all the work themselves.

So please, you self-interested content marketers, stop the lying about content marketing and making fake claims all a brand has to do to succeed, is publish non-sales content. It’s dishonest. Brands have always published non-sales content, as well as sales content – and it’s the sales content that has the biggest impact on the business and always will.

I’m going on a customer journey to get a drink of water from the kitchen. Better check some influencers to see what non-sales content they have, so I can make my buying decision – do I get cold water from the fridge, just run water from the tap, or maybe drink sparkling water from a bottle? After all, I want to ensure my water-drinking customer experience journey is the best it can be…

Youi’s awesomely useless marketing automation continues to damage its brand…

09 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Advertising, BIG DATA, Branding, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Email marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales

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Regular readers may recall my recent customer experience when I tried to engage with Youi, as I went on my smash repair journey. #totallynotawesomeyoui

Wow, three different marketing buzzwords or phrases, plus a hashtag in one sentence:)

Well folks, the totally not awesome marketing automation system at Youi has done it again. It sent me another passionate survey from The Youi Team – almost a month after I picked up my car from the smash repairer.

second awesome survey

It’s the same as the first survey – useless. It doesn’t allow me any room to explain my answer. I only get to click on one word. I was going to reply directly to surveys@youi.com.au but I know from past experience, the passionate team never looks at this email inbox.

I tried the suggestion at the bottom of the survey, as I couldn’t select any of the words shown above: “If you are unable to select any of the words shown above, click here and follow the prompts.”

When I clicked, it just opened another version of the same survey in a browser!

second survey 2

I have now phoned, sent text messages and emailed Youi, as well as posted in social media – yet the passionate Youi team hasn’t responded once. I suggest they fire their digital marketing team, as they obviously aren’t as awesome as they claim.

In the last month, Youi has launched a bunch of new television commercials with their presenter driving around in customer’s cars, while bragging about Youi’s service. The presenter is the smarmy bloke my kids think is a bit creepy or sketchy.

So given their obvious problems, I’d like to help the awesome Youi team. Apart from teaching them to speak English, not Marketing, I’d like to volunteer myself to do a testimonial on one of their TVCs. The sketchy bloke could drive in my car, now it’s been repaired, and I could share my awesome Youi journey with him for all the viewers to hear.

I think dear reader, it would be like, totally awesome, don’t you???

awesome

Content infobesity is clogging digital arteries…

03 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by in BIG DATA, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Social Media

≈ 3 Comments

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Yesterday I received this email at least eleven times, from the American Express Content Hub – branded as American Express Open Forum. You’ll need to click on the image to see the detail.

Amex email

In case you didn’t know “Content Hub” is one of the latest buzzwords you need to use in marketing meetings. For example, “I’m just going to my content hub to download some thought leadership.” It will probably impress others in the room who don’t know what a content hub is, though most likely only for about six months, until they realise you’re talking rubbish. But hey, you’ll be using a new buzzword by then, so they won’t remember.

This inbox-clogging email avalanche, was most likely caused by a marketing automation stuff-up, as they seem to be standard operating procedure these days, so it’s difficult to blame Amex.

True-Story-Sales-Marketing-Failure

But let’s stick with the Content Hub for a minute. I recently conducted a digital marketing training event for Amex in Sydney – focusing on debunking the myths of content marketing, social media and other digital delights.

One of the things we examined briefly was the American Express Open Forum, because it was rated one of the Top 10 Content Hubs in the world. Yes folks, you heard it here first. Does your content hub rank on the global stage?

There are a few problems with the hub:

  • It’s referred to as a Content Hub.
  • It invites you to customise what you see on the hub, by nominating subjects you’re interested in. I did this, but nothing has ever been customised and I see the same screen as people who visit the hub for the first time – this was proven via testing. I believe this is called a UX problem in modern marketing vernacular?
  • The hub is content for content’s sake – much of the content is of dubious value to businesses.
  • To ingratiate itself to its clients, Amex gets them to provide business insights. These “insights” are then published and promoted on the site – again more content for content’s sake.

Here are a couple of examples of amazing insights on the Open Forum:

“It’s not about the dollar amount you put into your marketing effort – it’s about the thoughtfulness and effort.”

“I suggest in-office events for employees to mingle and have fun. Giving a few extra days off around the holidays – or allowing remote work during the holidays – may also be greatly appreciated.”

“Seasoned business owners may also use professionals to help determine the extent of estimated payments needed to avoid penalties. Consider doing whatever it takes to avoid the estimated taxes death spiral.

I suspect, like me dear reader, you are completely underwhelmed by these amazing insights – featured prominently on the home page of the Open Forum. Another example of content for content’s sake.

seo_cartoon_panel-15

When I asked the Aussie Amex digital team what they thought of the Open Forum, they ran for cover saying “it’s an American site, not ours“. They gave the impression they were very embarrassed by it.

But as you savvy readers will know, if it’s online it’s there for all to see, not just for the Yanks. And the punters don’t differentiate – it’s an Amex site, so if you’re an Amex card user, it’s for you.

There are many dictionaries these days, but here’s the definition for “insight” from the Oxford Dictionary – “the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something.” I’ll leave it to you to decide if the insights from the Amex Content Hub qualify.

Head_up_your_ass

Amazing insights from the Content Hub

The content on the Content Hub, seems to typify the infobesity filling our inboxes and clogging the digital arteries of our customers. I have yet to find any customers who awaken daily, wanting more content from a brand, jammed down their throats – even when they are buying. Yet marketers are investing in content for content’s sake because, well just because…

Apparently there’s a growing trend of people creating content about trends in content marketing. I’m off to create a Content Hub that aggregates Content Hubs.

I think I’ll call it…..INCONTINENTO.COM…..