Do you sign up for stuff online?
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
The online world gives you an amazing opportunity to learn, and even more opportunity to get bombarded with all kinds if rubbish.
Giving out your email address whether for actually buying something, or signing up for a newsletter or mini-course is something that requires some thought. Many people are using different email addresses for different online functions. One for shopping, one for general sign ups and one as a throwaway address for getting one time access for something.
I have 2 questions for you.
Firstly, what do you sign up for online (and why??). The golden rule is that if you give someone your email address (this is usually what is given when you sign up for a newsletter / course / access to a white paper), you expect value / information / benefit in return. You also expect respect. You don’t want to be bombarded with rubbish, and there is that mutual understanding that if you do start getting irrelevant, uninteresting and useless communication, you are one click away from saying, goodbye and unsubscribing, or even worse, clicking that spam button.
Personally, I sign up for content that is going to increase my online marketing knowledge or provide me with access to something I am interested in. So, what about you?? What do you do?
The second question is around the sign up mechanism. This is something that has recently cropped up with client, and also got me thinking with this site here >> please have a look. I really like the way he has done this (you won’t know what I’m talking about unless you have a look!). It’s different, captures your attention and engages. I’ve tried to do this here on one of my sites, and used something called a hover box. This can be very irritating to some people but has been shown to give some excellent increases in sign up rates.
I’m interested to know whether innovative sign up mechanisms work for you or you prefer something fairly simple and not too pushy? I would be very grateful for some feedback here as I will be be able to use it in the near future. So, if you are reading this post, reading this blog, and usually don’t comment. STOP. Please take a couple of minutes and make your first comment now! Thanks! 
Is Your Agency Ready for Now and Next Year?
One of the things that theappleofmyi prides it self on is understanding online marketing. Without wishing to be full of it, this is what we love, what we read about and do every day.
The online markerting space is developing at a rapid pace and there are many traditional agencies who, frankly do not have a clue. A good example of this was when I was working in the corprate space and an agency came to see me to pitch their services. A couple of quick questions involving feeds, twitter and blogging soon established them to be pretenders. The final straw came when I pointed out their news section on their homepage featured one item from 2005 (it was 2007 at the time).
Now I am not writing this to be arrogant or clever. It is to make a simple point. If you are using an agency or marketing consultant, they MUST understand the digital space.
This leads me nicely onto a very interesting report from one of my favourite companies, Sapient. If you have a few £100,000 for an online campaign, then these guys would be good to talk to 
They have recently published a survey -
national online digital marketing survey of more than 200 chief marketing officers (CMOs) and senior marketers responsible for managing digital budgets (among other things).
Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future
1. Greater knowledge of the digital space. With more than a third of marketers surveyed revealing that they are not confident that their current agency is well-positioned to take their brand through the unchartered waters of online digital marketing and interactive advertising, it’s clear that agencies need to have a greater knowledge of the digital space in order to thrive. In fact, nearly half (45 percent) of the respondents have switched agencies (or plan to switch in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge or have hired an additional digital specialist to handle their interactive campaigns. Further, when it comes to an agency’s area of expertise, 79% of respondents rated “interactive/digital” functions as ‘important/very important.’
2. More use of “pull interactions.” When trying to engage consumers with their brand, 90 percent of respondents agree that it is becoming increasingly important that their agency uses ‘pull interactions’ such as social media and online communities rather than traditional ‘push’ campaigns.
3. Leverage virtual communities. An overwhelming 94 percent of respondents expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities (public and private) to understand more about their target audience.
4. Agency executives using the technology they are recommending. Ninety-two percent of respondents said it was ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ important that agency employees use the technologies that they are recommending. For example, it is important that agency executives regularly use Facebook, Flickr, wikis, blogs, etc. in their personal social media mix.
5. Chief Digital Officers make agencies more appealing. Forty-three percent of marketers surveyed said that agencies with chief digital officers are more appealing than those without.
6. Web 2.0 and social media savvy. Sixty three percent of marketers surveyed said that an agency’s Web 2.0 and social media capabilities are ‘important/very important’ when it comes to agency selection.
7. Agencies that understand consumer behavior. Seventy-six percent of respondents deemed this as an ‘important/very important’ aspect of their agency’s online digital marketing and interactive advertising area of expertise.
8. Demonstrate strategic thinking. Seventy-seven percent of marketers surveyed ranked strategy/brain trust capabilities at the top of their agency wish list.
9. Branding and creative capabilities. Sixty-seven percent of respondents ranked branding at the top of their agency wish list while seventy-six percent ranked creative capabilities as ‘important/very important.’
10. Ability to measure success. It’s no surprise that marketers want an agency that can report on where campaigns succeeded, fell short and where they should be fine-tuned. Sixty-five percent ranked analytics at the top of their agency wish list.
Jon’s Thoughts
These results do not surprise me in the least. The online or digital channel is becoming more and more important. The clients that I am working with are starting to realise this and we have been having some real successes, for example:
A YouTube channel which has attracted 25,000 + views
An email campaign with consistent 40%+ open rates on a list of around 1000
A mini 10 day course, all online, which is getting superb sign ups and amazing feedback
These are just small examples of what can be done. Your imagination is the only thing holding you back! Companies do however, need to get the simple stuff right first, and then start doing bigger projects. Unfortnately, most companies have still got those simple things to do. Just do them quickly.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
Learn About Coffee
Coffee is one of my favourite things in the whole world….
The smell, the whole process of grinding the fresh beans, the taste and the social nature of it. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and apart from gadgets / Apple gear / nicely designed things, it is my only vice
There is so much to learn about coffee - the history, where it came from, the different beans, how to make a proper cup of coffee, roasting, the list goes on. There are a few good resources online, but how about having a lesson on coffee delivered every day to your inbox? For free!?
All you need to do is have a look at coffee101.co.uk
This has been set up by my good friend and client Steve, from Hasbean. He is one of the leading coffee experts in the UK, and travels around the world looking for the best coffee. The good bit is that he pays way above market price for the coffee, direct to the farmers, so he plays an important part in supporting local communities in South America and Africa.
coffee101 comprises of 10 lessons giving a HUGE amount of information about the subject of coffee. I would not tell you about it unless I thought it was good, and it is. Steve has spent a lot of time writing all about coffee, and he has even put in a few special little bonuses.
So, click on over to coffee101 and sign up for the free course!
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
Top, top email tip
SEO Moz has a great blog about all things SEO (which you can find here and is well worth a subscribe). I’ve just been catching up on a few of their posts and this one in particular made very good reading.
If you have a business where you are sending out confirmation emails to customers, or in fact, any sort of email really, there is something easy you can do.
Ask those people to link to you. Ask them to blog about you.
It’s simple really. If someone already knows you, likes you and trusts you enough to buy from you or sign up for a newsletter from you, you already have a good connection with them. Therefore they are likely to be positive towards you and postive towards a link request. And we all know who likes links don’t we?!
So, the moral of this is, do not be shy, ask your customers to talk about / link to you. Referral and word of mouth are the best forms of marketing you can do.
Good email from Malmaison
Malmaison is a superb chain of hotels in the UK. Basing their brand promise on style, affordable luxury and great food, I have stayed at a good many of them and are always my first choice if looking for something cool, but not TOO pricey!
This is their latest email which just arrived in my inbox:
I really like the fact it is relevant and executed well. We all know just how tough things are at the moment in terms of rising prices for everything - electricity, petrol / diesel, food…….. the list goes on. So, good work from the Mal marketing team for getting a good message across. (Extra bonus - their website also reflects the message!).
Technorati Tags: mal, malmaison, email
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
BBC News- You may like to read this...
-
Warning: Attempt to assign property of non-object in /var/www/vhosts/theappleofmyi.com/httpdocs/blog/wp-includes/rss.php on line 440