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My granddaughter. How else can I say it? I'm in love. It's a good time to be a photographer...

From Whence Comes the Magic At Apple Retail?

Earlier this year, the WSJ had a good article on "Apple's Retail Secrets." It's pertinent as a "read" since the architect of the Apple retail success, Ron Johnson, has been tapped as the chief executive of J. C. Penny (he moved from Target to Apple in 2000). Unfortunately, unless you're a subscriber to the WSJ (print or on-line), you won't be able to read any more than the tease. However, you can go to Business Insider's Link to the Article On Apple's Retail Success. The fact that I have to send you there for a good article instead of sharing the WSJ version is a nuisance and highlights my fundamental disagreement with WSJ's strategy of making articles difficult to share. But that's another topic for another day.

A number of people with whom I work are involved in retail and Apple presents some interesting ideas about how to control the experience people have in their stores to insure it is a good one. I deal with enough retail stores of all pursuations to know that many really haven't figured out how to maximize each customer's visit the way Apple has.

Beyond Apple's magic formula though is some very basic ideas that we can all take away and use for our very own. First, it's important to insure that customers walk into the store and immediately feel welcomed. Second, and this is where Apple took a different approach than many retailers, it's important to help solve customers' problems, not just to make a sale (obviously that has to come later). This is a key difference from the experience I have walking into a lot of stores. The subtly of this approach is that it forms the relationship with a new customer that will last whether they buy on the first trip or later.

That's one of the major take-away's of the article. We all have to sell to make a living. But it's the relationship we foster with our prospects that makes them customers. And keeps them that way.

Read it? Blow It Away? Making People Want to Read What You Send.

I subscribe to every email newsletter I can find. I'm in the business; I like seeing what other people do.
That's how I learn.

What is the most important thing I've learned about email marketing? At least one of the most important lessons is how  essential it is to make each and every email I send interesting.

Not all my clients agree with me, at least on at the beginning of our relationship. I've had retail clients, for instance, who want to broadcast numbers. “20% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE!”

Interestingly enough, my experience has been that type of approach is attractive to someone who has done a lot of advertising with TV spots and newspaper ads. Show a flashy panel with stars, exclamation marks, bold colors and an excited person jumping in the air to get the message across.

Why does that work? It works on TV or in newspapers because people are watching their favorite program or looking for sports scores, not because they are looking for a your latest ad. They keep skimming over the ads because they are still interested in their favorite show. The ad is not the reason for watching. Rather, it's like a suckerfish clinging to the side of a shark; the ad lives through the advertising cycle until, hopefully, someone is ready to buy.

That's not the case with email advertising. We all start off with what is really a gift to each of us. We start off with people's names and addresses who have done business with us or decided they would like to be aware of what's going on in our business. We want them to read our emails, month after month, year after year, until they are ready to buy. So how do we maintain their interest so they don't opt-out? We do it by making each email interesting without the reader needing to be interested in the deal that month. People will open our emails, scan them, find something of interest, and read it. They open subsequent emails because we have shown them they will find something of interest in each one.

Think about it. If your clients and customers (I need to write an article about the difference between those two people later) are on a long-term buying cycle, they don't want to just see 20% OFF! every month. Say you're a real estate agent. How interesting is it to your past clients to only see advice on how to get a home ready to market, what the latest interest rate is, or which part of the country has the highest housing prices? Month after month after month? They love you and they are immensely appreciative of the way you shepherded them through the purchase of their home (or they would have already opted-out). But how do you keep them reading your emails year after year? Use content that goes beyond just real estate.

Or think about a retail furniture store. If I purchase a new couch at a fantastic price, it gets delivered on time and the delivery guys (without tracking in mud or scraping the wall) are kind enough to put my old couch on the back porch until the Salvation Army can come by to pick it up, I'm really pleased. But if I'm happy with my tables and my recliner, how many months go by where I really, really want to be shown just the latest, greatest deal of the month on tables and recliners? There has to be something else in that email that keeps me coming back.

Are you seeing declining open rates in your own email campaigns? Have you been concerned about the number of people opting out each month? You and I need to discuss how to effectively counteract those issue. Drop me a line. I'll be glad to correspond or call you so we can talk. And I would love to hear about your own ideas.

Merry Christmas!

 

You? Me? It's About Us.

I've been at managing companies, parts of companies and people in companies for lot of years. Early on in my career, management was taught to me as a very autocratic discipline. With the responsibility to make sure things went right it was essential to make sure people did things right. I demanded that people do as I said. It was a rule-based environment with praise for people who followed the rules and special-step guidance procedures for those who did not.

Over time, I learned better. I learned I had to create an atmosphere where people could thrive, not just work. That was harder to do than just make sure people followed the rules. I had to help them understand that there was something in the success of the effort for them, not just for me or someone higher up or the “Company.” And I had to insure that there really was something in the success of the effort for them. How? By being really and truly interested in them as individuals and by my willingness to learn from them about my own effectiveness. I had to do my part to develop a firm, trusting relationship.

Recently I came across an interview ("Defensive? It Leads To Destructive") with Bob Brennan, CEO of Iron Mountain. In it he discusses the importance of setting the tone at a company. He emphasizes the importance of attracting, hiring and keeping the people that make it possible for a company to excel in the competitive environment in which all of us work. He defines “the biggest organizational challenge” for companies as being defensiveness.

“It's a natural, reptilian kind of response. That defensiveness over-amps corporate cultures. So you try to get it out of the system so people focus on achieving, learning and bonding. The point is, can I really take an interest in you, and you in me, because it's meant to drive out the defensiveness...”

The interview did for me what all good business reading should do. First of all, it makes it obvious why Mr. Brennan is where he is. It also made me reflect on my own skills and approaches to helping companies, and the company's people, thrive. And it reminded me how important it is, if a company is going to be successful, for people to get the most from their company as well. Each employee has to be assured that will really happen at the end of the day.

My jobs these days tend to be as a consultant, not as someone who has organizational chart power within a company. It becomes even more important for me to get the buy-in from the company's people. If they don't see me as relevant to their needs in particular and not just the company's needs, I can't do what I'm hired to do. So what I do has to been understood, by everyone, as being done for all of us. And whether I went back to managing a department or a company or a division, my managerial approach would have to be in the same vein.

The Holidays Are Coming! Are You Where You Think You Are?

It's often easy to get rolling with a successful email campaign and not stop down the road to see if the results are still acceptable. The campaign was designed, implemented and continued because it worked. But now, due to changes in your product line, the time of year, a “worn message,” the expectations of your customers, or a range of other possibilities the results are now not what you want. That's the crux of the matter; is what you are doing with your email campaign bringing people, and money, in the door?

A recent article by Tara Natanson* brought up some interesting points to consider as you get your upcoming Holiday messages ready. She presents four recommendations to keep your email subscribers engaged:

Avoid an image-only message: Your campaign should be made up of a combination of text and images, not just one big image. What does this have to do with open rates? Well, campaigns that are a single-image message often have the worst deliverability rates because this is often what spammers do. Not to mention that a user who has images off by default may not choose to download your image if there isn't some text telling them what the message is about.

It's not all selling: Every message to your list should not be a sales pitch. Remember to keep your audience engaged by offering tips, advice, and other content they can use. Get them interacting with you by including a poll question or ask for feedback using an online survey. You want people opening, reading, and clicking on your messages, so give them a reason to do just that.

Use a good subject line: Your “Subject Line” (and "From" address) should be engaging and clear, making it easy for the recipient to identify who you are. For instance, having your business name in the subject line identifies the email as being from you, making it instantly recognizable to recipients. This also makes it easy to search for and find previous issues a subscriber might have saved for later reading. Plus, if customers really want to read your messages, they will set up a filter to ensure they see your latest campaign. An easily identifiable (and consistent) subject line makes setting up that filter easy.

Things to avoid in your subject line: While trying to be engaging with your subject line, it's important not to be misleading in the process. If you put the words "free gift" in your subject line and the deal within is really "free gift with purchase," that is misleading and will lead to complaints. It's a best practice to avoid "free" and "sale" in your subject line along with any other words commonly used by spammers. You want to look like the legitimate marketer that you are, not a spammer.

These are all good points by Natanson. Keeping your subscribers engaged is absolutely essential. However, the really important issue I want to leave with you is this...Review the situation with your email advertising regularly. It always pays to stop periodically, examine what you're doing, and insure you are getting the expected results. Too often the press of day-to-day business means we don't do the thinking, strategizing and implementation necessary to keep the business growing. Want to have some help looking at your email advertising situation? Give me a call...

*Tara Natanson is Manager of ISP Relations at Constant Contact. She focuses on increasing email deliverability and staying current with email best practices. With more than 10 years of email industry experience, she is a member of the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), and collaborates with other email service providers and ISPs to reduce network abuse. Tara works hard to make sure the email industry continues to have a place for small businesses.

 

Burdorf ' s Commercial Design Group - Louisville, KY

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