How to avoid the "e-blast" syndrome

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, January 30, 2012

We've all seen it before. We're sitting around a board meeting, marketing meeting, or committee meeting and everyone is brainstorming ways to promote the next product, upcoming event, or shiny new thing. Ideas are flowing and then inevitably someone says "we need to do an e-blast." Everyone nods their heads in agreement. Of course we'll do an e-blast. Duh!

Or maybe the boss suddenly wants to "get this announcement out" by tomorrow to promote the upcoming open house. All of a sudden, it's time to send out an e-blast! After all, it's quick, cheap, and easy, right?

Next, some poor, overworked volunteer or employee is assigned the task of getting the email out and it usually consists of:

• Badgering people for information
• Getting a bunch of piecemeal, hastily-written, unpolished content
• Adding a bunch of unnecessary fonts and images to the email because the board, committee, or boss wants it to "pop" (this is sometimes where Comic Sans rears its ugly head)
• Cramming as much stuff in the email as possible because everyone else wants to "get their stuff in"
• Sending it out with no specific schedule or editorial calendar
• Rinse and repeat willy-nilly at the whim of the board, committee, or boss whenever something new needs to get sent out

Wait! Please, wait!

So many organizations fall into this trap. Often times we see mass email as this magical, low-cost conduit that we can use to easily shove as much information at our constituents as possible. After all, the more we shout at them, the more they'll listen, right?

Think about how many emails you get every day. How much of it is spam, newsletters, special offers, and "announcements" that you may or may not care about? Now think about what you're competing with when you send out a mass email.

The more haphazard, busy, and chaotic your email communications are, the higher the likelihood is that your message will end up ignored along with all the other emails that do the same thing.

So how do you break through the noise?

While the "e-blast" syndrome is easy to fall into, there are some things you can do to fight it. Here are some ways to move from e-blasting to true email marketing.

Set a schedule

This is tough. It's not easy to decide that you're going to send a consistent communication at the same time every week (or whatever your schedule is). However, consistency helps your constituents develop a sense of routine with your messages. If they know that your message comes out every Wednesday morning at 9am, they will learn to expect it and may start to mentally "allow" it into their routines. Yes, this does involve planning ahead.

Keep content short and focused

Most of the "e-blasts" that I see are so filled with stuff that it's overwhelming to even look at, much less read. Long emails full of lots of competing calls to action are great ways to encourage your constituents to glaze over and reach for the delete key. Try keeping each message down to one key topic to improve reading comprehension.

Link to your website for more information

Instead of cramming every bit of content possible into one email, give your readers a short blurb and then link them to your website for the full article. This not only improves reading comprehension, but makes your content easier to share via social media channels - which we would like to see, right? Hint: ditch the "newsletter" idea and publish a really great blog. This then becomes your newsletter.

Keep design simple

Many people think that the only way to get someone's attention in an email is to fill it with images, crazy fonts, and lots of colors. This ends up making your emails look ugly and spammy and can also affect deliverability. Keep it polished and simple. Less is more. We're all tired of the shouting.

Place calls to action in prominent but tasteful places

If you're trying to get people to sign up for your next event or take some other type of action, try placing the call to action in the sidebar of the email or in the sidebar of the blog (or both). Make it a simple, well-designed, tasteful graphic that you can show consistently with each communication. This helps reinforce the call to action without all the shouting.

Bonus: make the content useful

Instead of just announcing things and spewing marketing at people, try crafting educational articles that people will find interesting and relevant. This is a good component of content marketing.

While it's not easy to stick to a disciplined, well-executed, polished email communication plan, it will reward your organization with better results. If you can get your team to avoid the "e-blast" syndrome and use email more strategically, you will start to enjoy less chaos and stress and more engagement and results.

If you need some more pointers on getting this started, we're always here to help.

It’s not just about SEO anymore

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, January 23, 2012

I cannot count the number of times an organization has come to us looking for us to "do SEO" for their website. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has been a hot topic for a while and seems to be in no danger of losing steam.

SEO is powerful, practical, and effective. When executed well, it can bring high-quality traffic to your website and can lead to qualified prospects and customers.

However, when people think of SEO, a lot of times they seem to have the impression that it's a switch that can be "turned on" for a website, or that it involves sprinkling the right keywords all over certain pages.

There are some misconceptions about SEO and especially about how it functions today that I would like to address.

The Google factor

Google (and other search engines, but who uses other search engines?) changes its algorithm just about every day, as explained in this video from Matt Cutts (head of the webspam team at Google). This may seem like a lot, but often these changes are minor so don't fret.

However, sometimes Google makes significant changes. You may have heard of the recent "Panda" update released on February of 2011 which aimed to increase the quality of search results by putting more weight on quality content over link-building techniques. Then, at the end of 2011, Google released its "freshness" update (described in this article from Entrepreneur Magazine) which placed more weight on fresh content.

Then, as if that weren't enough, Google made another significant change in early 2012 called "Search Plus Your World" which more heavily integrates signals from social media into search results, most notably focusing on Google+ as explained in this video from SEOmoz.

Is your head spinning yet? So what does all this mean to you as a business owner, marketing director, or communications manager?

Greater focus on content

It means that the game has changed. Many of the old techniques and practices use to boost search rankings are no longer as relevant. So what do we need to focus on to get noticed? Content. High quality, socially-distributed, frequently updated content.

Google is paying close attention to content and, while it's always been important, is now even more significant to your promotional efforts. Bloggers, content creators, and copywriters rejoice! It also means that SEO has more closely converged with content marketing - in a big way. For a primer on content marketing, check out this video: Strategic Content Marketing, in our Learning Center.

Bottom line: SEO is not just about building a well-structured website and getting lots of inbound links. Google has clearly warned us that well-optimized websites will contain lots of great relevant content that is fresh and frequently updated, and will also have a social media presence with a heavy emphasis on Google properties like Google+ and YouTube.

Social signals play a big part

Other social properties are also important since SEO is not the entire package. Content marketing tells us that multiple channels of content are important when creating a system for lead generation. Some prospects may find your organization through Google, but others may connect with you through other channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. And how does your message get shared and seen by more people? By being interesting, useful, or relevant enough to get shared.

As you can see, the game has dramatically changed even in the last year. SEO, while once thought of as "king" by many, is still significant but looks different than it used to. It's not just about the old methods of link-building and structure. It's a more interconnected world of social networks, content, and behavioral signals from the people who use these networks.

It also means stepping out from behind your brand and showing your face (and the face of your CEO, your customer service people, your sales team, etc.) online. More weight is being placed on personal social profiles and it's easier to get engagement from your prospects as a person as opposed to a brand. Brand properties are important and are a great way to plant seed of information and content. However, CEOs and marketing people that hide behind logos and brand pages will have a harder time achieving their goals than those who engage as people.

How to market in the new digital world

So what can you do to ensure a prominent place in this new game? One of the best ways to stay ahead is to create and execute a content marketing plan (also known as a digital marketing plan at SpinWeb). This plan will likely include tactics such as blogging, ongoing videos, press releases, active social media engagement, and relevant onsite content (case studies, knowledge bases, etc.) And as you can see, it's time to stop ignoring Google+. Not sure where to get started? Sign up, circle me, and I'll help you out.

Business and non-profits alike will benefit from a strong content marketing plan that includes multiple channels and a relevant story. It's not just about "sprinkling some SEO" on your site. It's about creating and connecting. Organizations that embrace this mindset will be very successful at marketing their organizations.

How about you? Are you ready?

Add new life to your annual report with video

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, January 16, 2012

At SpinWeb, we work with a number of foundations and non-profit organizations. We love working with non-profits and helping them tell their stories.

Our non-profit clients typically need to produce an annual report. This annual report is designed to communicate to stakeholders and present the organization's activities and operations over the previous year.

An annual report is usually published as a document. It sometimes has photos and images, perhaps even graphs. However, it's still a document full of facts and figures and therefore not always the most exciting thing to read, despite the important information it contains.

I recently saw something that I think is a game-changer for the old-fashioned annual report. Check out this video annual report from Seattle Goodwill.

Wow!

What a creative twist on the traditional annual report. This video report tells a story with real people and an engaging presentation. Is it different? Yes. Does it feel a little edgy? Probably. Would you feel a little uncomfortable presenting this to your board of directors instead of a document? Maybe. But I think it's the right way to go.

So many non-profits are struggling to fight for relevance and attention for their causes and this is a great way to bring new life to an otherwise dry publication. I can't think of too many people who get excited by the announcement of an annual report but an engaging video story is likely to get much more attention.

Why does it work? It appeals to today's busy constituents on the following levels:

• It helps them connect to real people and humanizes the numbers and stories
• It appeals to ever-decreasing attention spans and presents the information in an easily-digestable format
• It reaches a broader audience, including those with difficulty reading or visual impairments, or even those who just don't like to read

I think we can all agree that most people are getting overwhelmed by an ever-increasing onslaught of media, communication, and demands. By producing your annual report as a video, your non-profit has a better chance of standing out and telling a story. Non-profits need to market themselves, just like businesses do.

Well done, Seattle Goodwill! I hope to see more of this from other non-profits.

Who should control my domain name registration?

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, January 9, 2012

Your domain name is one of the most important parts of your online presence. It is your "address" on the Internet, and points to your digital home base: your company website.

The domain name system is not terribly complex, but it's just complex enough that not everyone understands how it all works. For this reason, many organizations turn over all control of their domain name to an agency or web firm to manage. This has some pros and cons and I'd like to offer a brief overview of how domain names work and then offer some perspective on who should control your domain.

A domain name (like "spinweb.net") is an address that defines a "realm of authority" on the Internet. It can be thought of like a physical address for your office. Your address is where mail is sent and where people drive if they want to visit your office. A domain is similar. If someone wants to visit your website, that person will use your domain name to access it. Your domain name "points" to your website just as your physical address "points" to your office.

Yes, very basic stuff. Just setting the stage.

DNS basics

So how do domain names work? Well, a domain must be registered with an entity called a "registrar". A registrar is a company that issues and manages domain names. Examples include Network Solutions, GoDaddy, and Register.com.

Now, your website lives on a web server and has a specific address assigned to it, called an "IP address", which stands for "Internet protocol address" and is made up of four segments separated by a period, like 123.456.789.123. This IP address points to your website.

Now, the final step is to get your domain to point to this IP address, which in turn points to your website. This is done by delegating your domain name to a set of name servers.

Name servers are machines that are set up specifically for the purpose of routing domain names to the proper IP address. When a domain name is delegated to a set of name servers, that gives authority to those name servers to point the domain name anywhere. So the whole sequence of events looks like this: registrar points the domain name to name servers, name servers point the domain name to an IP address, and IP address points the domain name to a website.

Name servers are usually set up by the company that hosts your website. For example, SpinWeb's name servers are identified with the names "ns1.spinweb.net" and ns2.spinweb.net". This means that if a domain name is delegated to our name servers, we can point the domain anywhere we need to. So who should control your domain name registration?

Domain control

Many organizations turn over control of their domain names over an agency simply because they don't understand how it all works. Or if they need a new domain registered, they will ask an agency to do it for them. In most cases, I am heavily in favor of outsourcing many things to a digital agency. However, when it comes to domain names, my preference is always for our clients to retain control over their own domains.

Why? Your domain is the most critical component of your online presence. It controls who can get to your website, your email, your blog, and any other online properties that you own. Aside from that, it's not difficult to control. Most registrars have a pretty easy-to-use control panel that will allow you to make updates to your domain name, specify who in your company is in control of it, and what name servers it points to.

Once it is pointed to the right name servers, your agency can do everything it needs to handle your account. However, something as sensitive and significant as your domain should be under your control - not an agency's.

I would encourage you to become familiar with registering and managing domain names so that you are comfortable retaining control. If you have questions about this, please feel free to comment below or consider asking questions in our Learning Center.

So what do you think... should you retain control of your domain name or should it be controlled by an agency?

What "Two Men and a Truck" taught me about marketing

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, January 2, 2012

We recently moved into a shiny new office at Keystone at the Crossing and we are thrilled with our new location. It's a great building located in the heart of the North side business and shopping district and is very accessible from pretty much anywhere.

We decided to use movers to help us get everything moved over since we have some pretty heavy desks and conference tables. When I decided to choose a moving company, "Two Men and a Truck" immediately popped into my head and this is who we ended up hiring. Aside from a little bit of barely noticable damage to one of our desks, they did a good job and got us moved in pretty quickly.

During the process of hiring them, I found it interesting how good Two Men and a Truck is at marketing. You're probably saying "huh?" right about now. It's true... I wouldn't normally use a moving company like this one as a typical example of good marketing but I was actually pretty impressed as I thought about it a little more.

So how is Two Men and a Truck good at marketing and what we can, as a digital agency, learn from it? Here is what I learned.

1. Brand awareness actually works.

I occasionally hear controversy around the concept of "brand awareness". It seems like some marketers scoff at this concept and rally around the battle cry of "metrics, metrics, and more metrics!" and dismiss tactics that rely on good old fashioned visibility. Metrics are great, but sometimes doing something as simple as slapping your name and logo on every truck you own gets the message out in a huge, hard-to-measure, but super-effective way.

How can you apply brand awareness to your marketing? I don't remember seeing any other moving trucks in my head but I remember the ones from Two Men and a Truck. Which leads me to my next point...

2. Embrace simplicity.

Does Two Men and a Truck have a great logo and really flashy graphics? Nope. The company's logo is this ugly, amatuerish hand-sketched picture of a truck with two guys in it. It's sketched in black and applied to solid white trucks. The typeface is almost comical and silly. The result is this big, ugly, black and white sign that you can't possibly miss when passing one of the trucks.

But guess what? It cuts right through to the heart of the message. When you need stuff moved from one place to another, you want two men and a truck. Nothing else is really all that important so why complicate it? Are there ways you can simplify your message down the heart of the solution?

3. Follow up on web inquiries quickly.

When I started looking for movers, I went to Two Men and a Truck's website and filled out the quote request form. I fully intended to check out a couple of other movers, but within 20 minutes I had received a voicemail from a Two Men and a Truck rep with a clear, detailed, friendly message confirming my interest and asking for a call back to finalize some information.

I called back, confirmed a few details, and before I knew it, I was set. I didn't even get a chance to contact other movers. Had they waited hours or even a day to get back to me, I may have already gotten other quotes a maybe even a lower price but since they followed up promptly and professionally, it became unimportant to look for anyone else. After all, I was busy and just wanted a good moving company.

I take pride in the fact that Adam Weber, our Director of Business Development, takes the same approach to following up on leads. If at all possible, he makes every effort to call web leads within minutes after they are submitted. This has impressed more than one prospect and led to many successful sales.

Obervations

In general, Two Men and a Truck has an ugly brand, mediocre website, and anemic social media presence (the company's corporate blog is hosted on Blogspot for crying our loud!). However, they have focused on a few core elements that are very effective: brand awareness, simple messaging, and rapid followup.

Could they do more using digital tools? Sure... I would like to see them create a program that makes it easier for their customers to refer them and share success stories using social media and video. I would also love to see them set up a proper blog that is used more effectively. But overall, I think a lot can be learned from this "simple" moving company and if anyone asked for my recommendation on movers, my first suggestion will be "Google Two Men and a Truck."