Ad Sales Blog

Why we can't e-mail Amsterdam

  It was a happy coincidence that should have advanced a budding new client relationship. My client had just shared the personal information that his wife was from Amsterdam. Also, I was about to take a business trip to Amsterdam, and, according to my history buff client, I lived in the City of New Amsterdam--sort of..after 1674 it was renamed "New York City" after the Brits kicked out the Dutch.

To build on this moment I sent my client an e-mail reviewing our Amsterdam coincidences with a link to a stunning historical map of old New Amsterdam. My clever subject line mentioned the Amsterdam references and offered the map.

I called in a few days expecting kudos for my thoughtfulness and cleverness.

Perhaps too clever. My email never arrived because of another coincidence, Amsterdam is the pornography capitol of Europe and my e-mail was hunted down and murdered by a porno killing spam filter. What would Peter Stuyvesant, say?   

What you put in your e-mail, and especially your subject line, will be scrutinized by spam filters. You need to be careful and maybe not so clever. The subject lines least effected by spam filters are very straightforward. 

If you want to know how a spam filter might view your e-mail have have a "content checker " review it. It's a simple free device to use. Just paste in your subject line and body copy into the web tool and press a button. Lyris provides a free content checker at this link: 

Lyris content checker for spam

Non-pushy wording can be more motivational

In a recent test on its own newsletters, MarketingSherpa wanted to know which two- or three-word phrase could get subscribers to click through  to another article. Here's what  they measured:

• "Click to continue": 8.53% clicking through
• "Continue to article": 3.3% clicking through
• "Read more": (-)1.8% clicking through

MarketingSherpa shared, "With these results, we had a strong feeling that the front-runner, "Click to continue," would win in the A/B test, and it did -- producing 3.5% more clicks than "Continue to article." Needless to say, we immediately switched the words in our link in all of our newsletters."

The next time you send out an e-mail consider how important a few words in the title can make! Also consider that the least pushy wording got the most click throughs.

Visit MarketingSherpa's site

Alexa, the great attention getter!

Amazon.com owned Alexa, who claims to have had over 10 million downloads of its search tool bar since 1997, is here to help you get the attention of your client who is ignoring you. To do this you will use their site in a way it was not originally intended.

Alexa provides a nifty chart making interface that allows you to type in the names of up to five web sites, hit the "compare sites" button and zingo! a comparative web traffic chart appears. Cool!

Alexa's traffic rankings are not based on actual site usage reports but on the usage patterns of Alexa Tool bar users over a rolling 3 month period. A site's ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and page views. As with any system like this the larger the traffic on the sites you are tracking, the more accurate. For small sites with light traffic accuracy can be questionable. 

On a call:

This traffic measurement tool is a good way to compare your sites traffic with competitive sites. But there is a better way to use it.

Many of your clients care more about their competition than their customers, and all of your clients want to hear more about their competition than what you are trying to sell them. So use Alexa to compare your customers site traffic to those of it's competitors.

The chart above, compares site traffic of Best Buy, Circuit City, and Shoplocal. Don't ya think the media the buyer at Circuit City would find this interesting? Hey look at that big post Thanksgiving traffic spike. How come the Thanksgiving spike did not carry Shoplocal.com as far? This will be a great conversation starter. Then comes the logical question to ask the Circuit City media buyer..."Do need more expose through your offerings to compete with Best Buy?"

Go to Alexa.com and type in the name of the client you want to call on and their competitors. Now you can start a dialog with some information they will want to see!

go to the Alexa website

Google revenue to pass the nation's main commercial TV Channels...in the UK

Will the Google's revenues pass those of the main commercial networks in the US? Plausible or not this news clip broadcast on the BBC late last year gives us all a lot to think about.

From the BBC:

"Google is about to overtake the UK's main commercial TV channels in terms of advertising revenue, a study says. The internet search giant's 2006 UK revenues are expected to surpass Channel Four's predicted ? 800m. Hugh Pym reports."

Click to go to the BBC website and view the clip

Try this URL if the link does not work:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6110000/newsid_6111500/6111524.stm?bw=nb&mp=rm&nol_storyid=6111524&news=1

Is selling new media a diffferent skill set?

"Rachel, I want to switch to new media"

On today's Media Life website, Rachel, the chatty career advice columnist, gives her best advice for migrating to new media to, "Stuck in Traditional Media."

It seems that for those on the selling side, migrating to new media is less stressful. No need to change jobs as for we sellers the media comes to us! Most often it is just handed to us to be integrated into our product mix.

But when you read Rachel's column it is clear that some view interactive media buying as a fundamentally different skill set from buying traditional media;   

" 'Some interactive agencies will value your 10 years of (traditional) media experience and will consider you for an online media supervisor position,' says Marlene Kruelle, associate online media planner for Atlanta’s Definition 6.

But then again, maybe not.

'Other interactive agencies will see that you have no online media experience and will tell you to look for an online media planner position,' says Kruelle."

If many view interactive media buying as a fundamentally different skill set, should we sellers view the sales side the same?

Read Rachel's column on Media Life

The power of blogs is in...journalists?

Selling sponsored Blogs can be though. Many are sold on the blogger's reputation when traffic is not high enough for a "by the numbers" buy.

But the power of blogs is often not about big numbers, rather in their ability to influence the the influencers.

The Arketi Group, an integrated marketing and public relations consultancy, released a study of journalists last  month that can help you make this point stick.

On a call:

Share this point: Journalists are clearly influencer's in what ever field they are in. They help shape opinion and attitudes within an industry or category.

Now share content from the study:

According to the study, blogs are now a big influence on journalists. The "2007 Arketi Web Watch Survey: Inside B-to-B Media Usage of Web 2.0" revealed that when it comes to using blogs as primary or secondary sources for articles, 84 percent of journalists say they would or already have.

Sixty percent of journalists say they spend more than 20 hours a week on the Internet. When asked how journalists use the Internet:

• 98 percent say reading news
• 97 percent say emailing
• 93 percent say finding news sources
• 89 percent say finding story ideas
• 72 percent say reading blogs
• 67 percent say watching webinars or webcasts

Share this information with your client. Then share that the same kind of information that journalists find so useful is also the content that industry leaders also find useful. Blogs influence the influencers. How about a sponsorship? 

Read the release on the Arketi web site

Download a report of the findings

Start your next presentation with a story, not a joke

  Josh Gordon, author, of the book "Presentations That Change Minds" explains why you should start your next presentation with a story, not a joke, and why persuasive presentations are different that other presentations.

Magazines drive buying intent...more than TV!

The Periodical Publishers Association (PPA), just released a UK based study that tests advertising on different media for their ability to drive traffic to search engines. Of the all the media tested, TV was the top driver beating out magazines by a nose.

 

But in the second part of the study magazines pulled off an upset. Of the people who were both driven to search AND made a purchase, magazines beat TV. While magazines may not generate the big bang that television does, it has greater influence for people driven to search who are purchase oriented.

Use it on a call.

This study sets up a great story:

Magazines may be second to television in driving traffic to search, but the nature of the audience magazines drive is different. Since a magazine ad can be revisited, marked up, and torn out and carried to a store it is a superior ad medium for driving search traffic that results in a sale.

Download the PowerPoint

Visit the PPA homepage

Is magazine myopia going local?

In the late 80s while managing the sales and marketing of CableVision magazine I saw magazine myopia at its worst. As I watched, first hand, the rapid growth of many new cable networks I wondered how the opportunities they represented had slipped by my publishing peers: 

• Why didn't someone at Sports Illustrated start ESPN?
• Why didn't someone at Time or Newsweek start CNN?
• Why didn't someone at Rolling Stone start MTV?
• Whey didn't someone at National Geographic start the Discovery Channel?

The list could go on...but I fear history could be repeating itself, this time with regional magazines.

  eMarketer's August released report, "Local Online Advertising, Measuring the Market" should be a shrill alarm to local publishers that the opportunity for online product development is slipping to others. Even with established local brands they are loosing to regional "pure play" media competitors. Three charts from the eMarketer study tell the scary tale:

First, chart one, local media is growing. Good news.

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Second, national media is growing faster than local and will take market share away. Not such good news.

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Third, the scary news in growth of sales: while local publishers had flat online market share against year prior, with newspapers actually slipping, local pure play media organizations are galloping away with the prize.

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Someday, a Baltimore resident might look back and ask,

• "Why didn't someone at Baltimore magazine start BaltimoreOnlineAdventures.com?"

Read a review of the study on the IAB website

Sympatico review

Buy the entire survey at the eMarketer Website

"Rounding Up the Online Laggards"

Link to my November column for my best advice on

"Rounding Up the Online Laggards" on the Folio webiste.