Not-So-Great Ideas Lead to Some Pretty Great Solutions
Setting up too many promo codes, over-complicating audio conferences and still printing things you shouldn’t. 50 Dumb Things Publishers Stopped Doing and So Should You proved to be one of SIPA 2010’s most popular sessions. We don’t want to give away everything in this space—and we have our own catchy title to adhere to—so let’s shoot for 10.
Denise Elliott and Greg Krehbiel, both from The Kiplinger Washington Editors, led this session and will also be speaking at the Marketing Conference in Miami, Nov. 10-12—Elliott leading the Marketing Directors Roundtable on the first afternoon and Krehbiel leading a session called Top 10 Things Marketers Need to Know About IT. (That’s pronounced “Eye” “Tee”—though “it” in all caps works as well to build excitement.)
1. Dumb habit – At the end of each year we were sending all subscribers a “love offering” that was the same as the premium each new subscriber received with their order. It cost about $100,000 in printing and mailing every year.
What we did – Instead of sending it, we asked the subscribers how many of them wanted it, either as a download or in print. Only 7% wanted it in any format.
Result – We quit sending it and there has been no effect on renewals.
(Denise Elliott)
2. Dumb habit – Our marketing coordinator was folding, inserting and mailing our renewal notices internally from our office each week.
What we did – We found a local mail house that could process them quickly every week so we could stop doing them ourselves.
Result – Our marketing coordinator can now send additional marketing campaigns each week—instead of doing clerical work—and each campaign generates thousands in revenue.
(Liz Alvarez, EB Medicine)
3. Dumb idea – Created a membership portal for accountants with three access levels: free, registered and premium, based on 3-, 6- and 12-month subscriptions. Tried to put everything inside, connected: articles, legislation, cases studies, examples to create a perfect tool. It confused everybody and we had no profit for two years.
What we did – We changed the focus of the portal and started to collect emails and promote our products and services.
Results – The traffic increased dramatically, and the project works very well. We’ve duplicated the success elsewhere, having another 10 free portals on various topics: labor law, business ideas, juridical, management, etc. Additionally, we recycled the premium content from the former membership portal, added new content and made everything very, very simple: Question & Answers for accountants. Break even in four months!
(Florin Campeanu, Rentrop & Straton)
4. Dumb idea – Made audio conferences and webinars complicated with several speakers and lots of handouts.
Solution – One well-trained, experienced speaker with a decent set of slides works best.
5. Dumb habit – Set up a promo code for every single little thing.
What we did – Set up a reporting system that can identify results by list and source within one code.
Outcome – Saved lots of time and churn.
(Phil Ash, National Institute of Business Management)
6. Dumb habit – Printing the price on your ancillary products.
Reason – You can’t raise the price until you sell all of your stock.
(Deirdre Hackett, Kiplinger)
7. Dumb habit – Being scared of a 100% money-back guarantee. (Is your product that bad?)
Result – It helps tremendously with the offer, and very few people take advantage of it.
(Christopher Moffa, Kiplinger)
8. Dumb habit – We were printing a one-page “key points summary” with each of our monthly articles. It cost us thousands of dollars per year.
What we did – In January 2010 we stopped printing the summary and made it available online.
Result – There have been no complaints from subscribers and significant savings.
(Jennifer Pai, EB Medicine)
9. Dumb habit – Worrying about Can-Spam requirements when you don’t have to—like in a transactional email.
(Greg Krehbiel)
10. Worst practice – Treating social media as a broadcast mechanism rather than a conversation.
(Louise White, Incisive Media)
The entire list of 50 is in the member section of the SIPA Website under Handouts.
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SIPA’s 27th Annual Marketing Conference
Wednesday – Friday, November 10-12, 2010
The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach, Miami
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