Seven Tips and the Sessions to Cover Them
Here are some excellent tips to keep in mind for your business—and the upcoming sessions at SIPA’s 28th Annual Marketing Conference in Miami, Dec. 7-9 that will cover those topics.
1. Find an underserved group or a lonely and under-appreciated group within the organization. If there is a highly regulated area—such as financial, health care or transportation—there is potential for a big audience. There are always new regulations to learn. (”Social Media – Building and Leveraging Loyal Communities, Thursday, Dec. 8, 10:55 a.m.)
2. A potent but underused tool in a renewal strategy is … humor! Renewals may be the only place in direct mail where you can apply humor. Used carefully, humor can disarm the subscriber and turn a tough sell into something appealing. For an advance renewal, copywriter Robert Lerose used the headline “LAST CHANCE!” and the first line said: “Renew in advance?! Are you crazy?!” The opening continued in a self-effacing tone and beat the old control 2-to-1. One caveat: If you take the “humor” route, run it by a couple people first. It’s so easy to offend these days. Notice that he used a self-effacing approach—a very smart strategy. (Renewals and Retention: Making the Most From What You’ve Got, Thursday, Dec. 8, 10:55 a.m. led by Lerose himself)
3. Leverage your relationships. Get your information on other people’s sites. I spoke with a social group entrepreneur who said that putting his service on discount places like Goldstar and Groupon pays off in the new people he attracts into his community. “I have 200,000 names [from 12 years in business],” he said. “But it’s the new people who bring a lot of the business in now.” (How Do You Get People to Your Site, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2:45 p.m.)
4. On Kiplinger’s home page, you have a choice of watching their daily video—today it’s on “Great Cars for Boomers”—reading one of five big stories, checking stock prices, reading eight columns including one by Knight Kiplinger himself, and taking part in a poll, among other things. That’s pretty good engagement. (How to Engage Customers Once They’re on Your Site, Friday, Dec. 9, 8:45 a.m.)
5. “Think of your online effort as a new product, not as an enhanced version of your print product,” said Rob Ransom, CEO of Bongarde. “And be aggressive about taking advantage of the capabilities of being online–use video, be interactive, whatever you can’t do in print.” He said that old dogs can learn new tricks, but make sure there is a new dog in the mix, who is familiar with the technology. (Case Studies, What’s Working, Friday, Dec. 9, 8:45 a.m. with Ransom and Kerry Smith of Red 7 Media)
6. Earlier this year, The New York Times was offering full digital access for $455 a year and full digital access plus the printed Sunday paper for $390 a year. Any idea which plan they wanted you to take? Wrote Joshua Benton on the Nieman Journalism Lab site earlier this year: “Who would have thought the Sunday New York Times—the inarguable jewel of American newspapering, the single most expensive and single most prestigious artifact of a centuries-old industry—would be turned into a loss leader, the equivalent of the Safeway pricing milk and sugar cheap so you’ll come in and pay the big bucks on frozen dinners? (Multi-Platform Pricing Strategy, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2:45 p.m.)
7. Mark Phibbs, senior director of APAC (Asia-Pacific) marketing, and global channel marketing at Adobe Systems, has a strategy for trial-offer customers: “Every time someone takes a trial, we send an email asking them about it, contrasted with earlier products they have used, etc. This has helped us build closer relationships, and conversions have increased by 10 percent in the early phase.” (Email Marketing, Thursday, Dec. 7, 9:25 p.m.)
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SIPA’s 28th Annual Marketing Conference
“Sell. More. Stuff.”
Dec. 7-9 at the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami
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Early Bird Savings are now available
for just another couple weeks!
And an unbelievable SIPA room price of $199
(half off of regular room rate!)
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