Jelle Quirynen, insights on the Relationship Marketing Congress in Belgium.

Last week EmailGarage was present at the Relationship Marketing Congress organised by Stichting Marketing.
It was a very busy day, presenting two EmailGarage sessions, participating in the Marketing Café, and visiting other speakers and discussions.

We presented our MarketingSherpa Email Summit ‘08 Revisited for the second time in Belgium at the beginning of the day.
In the afternoon we offered the attendees a temporary overview of our Email marketing Survey 2008, in combination with a general email marketing suvey conducted by iVOX. As a visitor of this presentation I could clearly discover enthousiasm and positive noise on the results in the audience. Email remains a hot item in future interactive marketing!

Later on this month we will provide you with the final results of our survey.

Stichting Marketing also organised a Marketing Café on online media and new trends that could be visited by the congress’ participants during the day. The concept was based on an informal discussion session in a bar (including a fresh beer or soda, to inspire people’s minds:-)) with intensive interaction managed by different online media experts who answered all questions and gave as much advice as possible. Topics were social networks, blogging, search marketing, personal reputation management, etc. I really liked this way of communicating with the audience! A small group of interactors created a very active discussion with a cross-fire of questions, based on visitors specific branches, interests and target groups.

Next to all this I also visited some other presentations at the congress.
De Post, the Belgian post mail handler offered the results of research work on the complementarity of direct mail and email. I will write another blogpost about the evolution of email and print later this week. Definitely useful feedback and a confirmation that email is following the right road!

Other presenters talked about biotic customer relationship management, customer driven strategies, optimising customer experience, and a lot more. Interesting insights, I am curious about the evolutions on these topics!

The Relationship Marketing Congress finished of with ‘lessons in love’. A presentation from Frans Reichardt, director Holy Cow! Direct Communications.
A great presention, brought with charisma and passion, containing one specific message: always be ready for your customer. Know what they want, and be there whenever they need you!

Jelle Quirynen

Landing page optimization can have a tremendous impact on your success rate. But it takes attention to detail and commitment. The time and effort taken to optimize landing pages will be returned many times in customer loyalty, improved conversion rates and higher return-on-investment. By developing the right look and feel of your landing pages, you can dramatically impact conversion results. Begin by looking at landing pages from your recipients’ perspectives.

These are 9 tips to help you building the perfect LP

1. Use readable URLs
A readable URL reinforces branding. The absence of dashes, slashes and numbers when possible can help improve visitors’ recognition that the landing page is related to the product or company it represents, adding to the trustworthiness of the content it contains.

2. Repete your email promotional copy
Reinforce the call-to-action that generated the email recipient to click a link in the first place, best practice is to repeat the offer on the landing page.

3. Define your primary conversion goal
Landing pages and the email campaigns that lead to them are best when crafted with the end in mind. There are a number of ways to measure success:
- Sales
- Leads
- Brand value

4. Do not design your homepage as a landingpage
No matter what the ultimate goal of an email program might be, it’s generally considered best practice to avoid dumping clickers at the home page of a Web site. You should create a special landing page according your offer.

5. Use a consistant look-and-feel
Landing pages are an important branding opportunity. Not only should you repeat the main call-to-action or promotional headline from the email that generated the click, the overall look should also match the email.

6. Focus on your primary call-to-action
Landing pages must grab attention quickly and keep it focused. The first impression a visitor must receive is a promise that his or her time won’t be wasted by reviewing what you have to offer. To achieve that goal, short and punchy copy that is easy to read and immediately relevant to the original call-to-action is critical.

7. Set expectations right
Don’t ask for customer data unless you must have it in order to fulfill an order or provide highly relevant information and follow-up. Each answer a respondent must make gives them an option to desert the process. Assure respondents that the information they provide will be respected and protected by including a link to your privacy and anti-spam policies.

8.Use short copy and no scrolling
When thinking about writing copy for a landing page, think about what you can read in just eight seconds. What prospects and customers see at the top of the screen should clearly communicate your strong-est reason for conversion. Use a list of bulleted items or key product attributes that you want to draw attention to in the midst of a copy block, you can offset it with a colored background. Also design your LP so that people do not have to scroll.

9 Make your copy scannable
As with other forms of written communications, concise and easy-to-understand
text includes bullet points, highlighted copy, call-outs and more. It’s not only what you say but how you say it that can lead to a sale.

Luc Robijns, live from the IDMF - InternetWorld event in London

Yesterday we heard that next year IDMF and InternetWorld were going to take place in two different locations. Probably on the same days somewhere in April 2009. A Brand Republic journalist asked me for my opinion on this and I commented that splitting up these events was not exactly in line with what was happening in “the real world”. Integrated marketing is there to stay.

We see customers moving towards multi-channel campaigns integrating DM, email marketing, SMS and other channels in order to build dialogues with customers depending on their preferences. By doing so companies want to optimize the communication process over a longer period of time and eventually boost results.
This is also what I read in an article from Jennifer Kirkby from Mycustomer.com. She states that somewhere in the 1990s we lost the knowledge of how the media multiplier works in reinforcing customer communications to build rapport and engagement.
This is confirmed by a recent Forrester report. They found that only 15% of large companies claim to mostly integrate their interactions, whilst just under half do no integration at all.

Jennifer ended her article with: “We must all recognise the way the wind is blowing and shift the blinkers to innovative, integrated interactions - with the internet centre stage to provide the listening service.”

So what are we waiting for?

During recent years, EmailGarage has been continuously analysing the evolution and trends in email marketing.

Today we are running our 4th Belgian email marketing survey. In this edition we aim to define the current status of email marketing as a medium. It will help us get a detailed insight into its role within the marketing mix of Belgian companies.

Are you a sales/marketing professional with a taste for email marketing?
If you are, you can make a valuable contribution to this research. Completing the survey will take no more than 10 minutes. But what’s even better: after we’ve analysed the results, we will send you a free copy of the complete report with all the latest trends and evolutions. This valuable whitepaper will provide you with useful information for your company or organisation, so don’t miss it.

> Complete the survey today and receive a FREE copy of the full report.

Since a couple of months now we are travelling the world in search off the online trends of today. I wanted to share my thoughts with you on how I see evolve direct marketing all over the world. We’ve been to Miami, Hannover, Birmingham, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Utrecht. Different places and different trends.

As president of the Belgian email marketing taskforce it is a true mission to me to figure out what online communication is all about and to spot new opportunities. I often ask myself the question. Do the advertisers have a clear view of this online world? Or are they still stuck in the standard mono-media communication of 20 years ago? We should all understand that the internet is omnipresent, and that a balanced media mix is essential to create real added value.

Web 2.0 vs traditional media.

Television and radio … sure, but what with 2.0? Are brands armed to the REAL opinion of the consumer? Are they able to anticipate them and turn them into creative enriching concepts? What with the customer lifecycle? Relevance is king and interactivity and anticipation are crucial. Sometimes I wonder if traditional media are up to the task.

The perception on this subject is very important I think. When I open my mail I notice that I’m getting tons of spam, but nobody cares. We just put it with the old paper collect. It’s obvious that again it is the same thing. Relevance and respect for the customer.

Traditional and new media go hand in hand, certainly when well used. Understanding the needs of the consumer, analysing them and answering to it is more and more a necessity. So use interactive communication to trace interest (measurements are more accurate and easy to implement in online media) and use these knowledge to create the perfect online/offline mix. Your client will thank you for it!

Combine offline and online

Since a couple of months now we are testing such combined online-offline campaigns with Becel (a Unilever brand)… and with success. Even a common good like margarine is able to live its life on the internet. With an open communication to the end-user. His opinion counts and motivates others to express there own. The brand is central and alive.

Should this be possible via radio or TV alone? Or is the internet the magical highway to a dialogue?

My message is clear, open the dialogue and stop shouting how good you are. The formula is simple, make it possible to share knowledge across online and offline platforms. Use those CRM data, monitor the quality of your databases and the impact of your campaigns. Metrics are not alone nice graphics, you should also use it.

Are we all ready for it?

Is technology ready for it? Are we able to do what we preach?
Personally I think it’s possible. Web-to-print, email, CRM, online surveys, mobile, streaming, … everything has the same principles.
Communicate, learn, anticipate and bring the right message through the right channel on the right moment.

Difficult you say? Sure, but not with the proper tools. Normaly all this info is saved in databases and interaction is therefore perfectly possible.
Webservices are there for a while now and they can combine al this information.

In short, the US works on personalisation, Germany on relevance, the UK is database driven, France is doing mass marketing and Belgium is trying to solve diversity and the Netherlands are concerned about metrics. What is your next step and are we ready to integrate all those elements? Please enter the dialogue.

Kenny Van Beeck

Live reporting from TCD 2008 - Direct Marketing Vakbeurs
by Luc Robijns

De resultaten van de DM Media Enquete 2008 zijn gepubliceerd. Het IDMK, E-Profile Marketing en Twinkle voeren elk jaar dit onderzoek uit in Nederland. De uitslagen over de ontwikkelingen in Direct Marketing zijn dit jaar verrassend.

De direct marketeer gaat in 2008 zijn uitgaven voor websites (+35%), e-mail marketing (+44%) en webvertising (+28%) flink verhogen. 66% van de nederlandse marketeers onderschrijft de stelling “Online marketing is DM”. E-marketing heeft daarmee zijn plaats in de media mix gekregen.

De opt-in policy is bij ruil 2 derde van de bedrijven gemeen goed geworden. In 2007 lag dit percentage nog onder de 50%.

De volledige resultaten van dit onderzoek (met o.a. een overzicht over de evolutie van de mediamix) vindt u in de nieuwsrubriek van E-Profile Marketing.

Live reporting from TCD 2008 - Direct Marketing Vakbeurs
by Luc Robijns

EmailGarage is present at the TCD - Direct Marketing Vakbeurs in Utrecht (as you probably know by now).

On the second day of this event I met with this most interesting visitor who asked me whether our EmailGarage campaign manager was a tool for the communications or for the marketing department. It took some time to understand the deeper meaning of his request.

Why did he categorize email campaign managers into tools for communication OR for marketing? A short discussion clarified a lot.

Actually our visitor was not looking for a tool that was just handling the lists and messages. Just broadcasting was not enough. Simple send/delivered/opened/click-reporting was a prerequisite. A good start, he said.

Our guest was not only looking for a platform that was managing the email campaigns and email channel in a professional way. He wanted to understand whether profile management gave him an edge in leveraging his CRM strategy by providing him deeply enriched data (storing transactional information and capturing preferences and behaviour of readers).
And he wanted campaign reports that would help him understand quickly if his campaigns were influencing the company’s ROI.

Needless to say we felt a match .
But what interests me right now is your opinion on this subject: Is an email campaign manager a tool for the communications or for the marketing department?

Let me know.
And as they say over here … doei!

Luc Robijns

The IAB has released the “User-Generated Content and Social Media Advertising Overview”
Its purpose is to outline how UGC and social media have changed the digital consumer and advertiser experience.

User Generated Content (UGC) and Social Networks are transforming the media ecosystem. Gone are the days when marketers controlled the communication and path between advertisement and consumer. Today’s model is collaborative, collective, customized and shared. It’s a world in which the consumer is the creator, consumer and distributor of content.

The promise of UGC is now being hyper-realized with social media. Sites like MySpace, Facebook, and You-Tube represent the convergence of user commentary with video, photos, and music sharing, all presented in a simple, user-friendly format, allowing participation on a mass scale.

“User-Generated Content and Social Media Advertising Overview,” is a milestone document that helps you better understand how these platforms have fundamentally altered the digital experience for consumers and advertisers. The report defines UGC and social media, provides a detailed overview of the latest advertising opportunities, and details case studies of campaigns that have successfully utilized UGC and social media.

Download User-Generated Content and Social Media Advertising Overview.

Enjoy!

Luc

Iab Belgium is organizing some ateliers about email marketing. An entire day devoted to the art of email marketing. The course has been prepared and will be giving by the members of the Iab email marketing taskforce. All very good Belgian email marketers. As president of this taskforce I’m very proud of the initiative.

Benoit Carlier of EmailGarage will be present too and will take care of half a day on April 23.

You can register for the dutch day on April 24 or for the french day on April 23

Hope to see you there,

Kenny Van Beeck

At an IAB meeting yesterday evening I met with Gilles Bindels. He announced the launch of his newest project: Radionomy.
On the Radionomy site, everyone is able to create its own internet radio station. To do this, you can tap into the contents of the vast music libraries available. You can add your own musical creations, audio content, sequences, reports and podcasts too.
Radionomy will broadcast these radio stations around the world and take care of all costs, including royalties. Radionomy even shares its revenue with radio station creators, based on the size of their audience.

By the way, it’s free.

EmailGarage wishes you tons of success, Gilles.

Luc Robijns

www.radionomy.com