Practical Titles Pull

We started writing this blog about a year ago. The two articles that have received the most comments are Direct Mail Hot Spots and Tips to Make Direct Mail Work Smarter. Both of these posts offer practical tips and ideas to make the most out of a great medium, direct mail, for communicating with your target audience.

Was it the titles that generated the traffic or was it the content? We think it has more to do with the titles.

Engagement and Motivation, Illustrated

The Harvard Business Review’s Peter Bregman told a story of cooking with farm fresh produce in a blog post titled, The Farm-to-Table Secret to Motivating People.

He told of how having the experience of a few days at a farm with his family connected him in unexpected ways to food and led to him feeling very inspired to create some complex food with the produce they brought home. The conclusion he reached was that the earlier and sooner people get involved in a process, the more they become connected to it.

You want to try a new sales process? Don’t figure it all out yourself and then tell your sales people about it. Let them figure it out with you.

Want customers to buy your service or product? Involve them in the creation of it. They feel something deeper than the success of a project gone well. They feel pride of ownership. They feel satisfied by the journey that brought them to their success.

Simplify

Because it is still January and many of us are still looking for ways to improve…

Perhaps looking around and asking questions like, “Is this as simple as it can be?” Or even, “Is this necessary at all?” A BNET post titled Do You Make Things Too Complicated? Take the Razor to Them, led us to search for more information about Occam’s Razor. Occam’s writing led to many scientific quotes and thoughts, but our favorite is: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

It’s so easy and so tempting to do too much. You can have a Facebook page, blog, Twitter page, YouTube channel, smartphone app, streaming video content, and cool icons on your Web site. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If you have a solid, well-executed online/media plan and a clear vision of how every element serves your business, go for it. But if you doing a lot of stuff just because others are or because it seems like you should. Is it doing anything for your business? Are you doing more than you need to?

Are your customers responding? What about sending a simple piece of mail to reconnect?

Lessons Learned from The Gap’s Attempted Logo Change

BNET recently discussed The Gap’s logo change and the quick abandonment for something that looks much more like the original.

These ideas could share some new insights about brand management.

  1. Consumers own brands. Your brand does not have any value until it is valued by your customers. You might feel your business needs to be rebranded or relaunched, but your opinions are irrelevant: You work for the company. You’re so “inside” you can’t see outside. Proceed with caution!
  2. Consumers are savvy about design in just the same way as they are about media and advertising. The 21st Century has really stripped the mystery from design and advertising. Most consumers have better software on their laptops today than professional designers had on their desktops 20 years ago.
  3. As a result, consumers expect more from professional design. One of the main problems with the Gap’s new logo is that it used a typeface — Helvetica — which everyone has available on their own computers. Similarly, the graduated blue box is also something that virtually everyone can do after just a few minutes fooling around on the most basic graphic design software. This left Gap open to the legit accusation, “My kid could do that!” Redesigns need to be a lot more subtle and complex — even if the aim is to to be simple and clean — than they used to be.
  4. The move saves Gap some money. Changing back its web site is a lot easier than changing back all its store interiors, point-of-purchase material, catalogs, etc.
  5. The change removes uncertainty from the brand. Gap could probably have gotten away with keeping the new logo. Fashion and product trends drive Gap’s business, not typefaces. Most people didn’t even know the logo had changed. With the blue box back on its throne, the risk goes away.

So perhaps your website is a good place to test new design ideas. Can we help you before you go to press with a new idea?

71 Percent of Tweets are Ignored

Wired.com reported on the findings of an analysis of 1.2 billion messages sent in 2009, seven out of every ten Twitter messages get absolutely no reaction.

We just completed a marketing outlook survey for the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) Council that seemed to leave out many aspects of “traditional” marketing.

So the question is if numbers and results are revealing that email open rates are 22% and click through rates are about 5%, why do these and other marketing methods get so much attention?

Ways to Turn Around a Bad Day

We all have awful days. Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, shared many ways to deal with a terrible day.

  1. Resist the urge to “treat” yourself. Often, the things we choose as “treats” aren’t good for us. The pleasure lasts a minute, but then feelings of guilt and other negative consequences just deepen the lousiness of the day.
  2. Do something nice for someone else. “Do good, feel good” – this really works. Be selfless, if only for selfish reasons.
  3. Distract yourself. You may be much better able to cope with the situation after having had a bit of relief. Watching a funny movie or TV show is a great way to take a break, or re-read beloved classics of children’s literature.
  4. Seek inner peace through outer order. Soothe yourself by tackling a messy closet, an untidy desk, or crowded countertops. The sense of tangible progress, control, and orderliness can be a comfort. This always works for me – and fortunately, my family is messy enough that I always have plenty of therapeutic clutter at hand.
  5. Tell yourself, “Well, at least I…” Get some things accomplished. Yes, you had a horrible day, but at least you went to the gym, or played with your kids, or walked the dog, or read your children a story, or recycled.
  6. Exercise is an extremely effective mood booster – but be careful of exercise that allows you to ruminate. For example, walking can provide uninterrupted time to dwell obsessively on your troubles.
  7. Stay in contact. When you’re having a lousy day, it’s tempting to retreat into isolation. Studies show, though, that contact with other people boosts mood. So try to see or talk to people, especially people you’re close to.
  8. Things really will look brighter in the morning. Go to bed early and start the next day anew. Also, sleep deprivation puts a drag on mood in the best of circumstances, so a little extra sleep will do you good.
  9. Remind yourself of your other identities. If you feel like a loser at work, send out a blast email to engage with college friends. If you think members of the PTA are mad at you, don’t miss the spinning class where everyone knows and likes you.
  10. Keep perspective. Ask yourself: “Will this matter in a month? In a year?”
  11. Write it down. When something horrible is consuming my mind, I find that if I write up a paragraph or two about the situation, I get immense relief.
  12. Be grateful. Remind yourself that a lousy day isn’t a catastrophic day. Be grateful that you’re still on the “lousy” spectrum. Probably, things could be worse.

Digital Information May Prevent Absorption

Technology may make the tiniest windows of time entertaining, and potentially productive. But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas.

The New York Times published an article summarizing the findings from research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. They concluded that when rats have a new experience, like exploring an unfamiliar area, their brains show new patterns of activity. But only when the rats take a break from their exploration do they process those patterns in a way that seems to create a persistent memory of the experience.

The researchers suspect that the findings also apply to how humans learn. “Almost certainly, downtime lets the brain go over experiences it’s had, solidify them and turn them into permanent long-term memories,” said Loren Frank, assistant professor in the department of physiology at the university, where he specializes in learning and memory. He said he believed that when the brain was constantly stimulated, “you prevent this learning process.”

At the University of Michigan, a study found that people learned significantly better after a walk in nature than after a walk in a dense urban environment, suggesting that processing a barrage of information leaves people fatigued. “People think they’re refreshing themselves, but they’re fatiguing themselves,” said Marc Berman, a University of Michigan neuroscientist.

Our conclusion is that this is bad for marketing too. If the only way people encounter your name or branding is digitally, they may not be absorbing the communication. We have shared information about how paper can make better emotional connections, and how touching, feeling and engaging in an activity like doodling can help retain information.

Reasons For Facebook Unfriending

A University of Colorado Denver Business School student revealed the top reasons for Facebook unfriending, who is unfriended and how they react to being unfriended.

After surveying more than 1,500 Facebook users on Twitter, Christopher Sibona, a PhD student in the Computer Science and Information Systems program, found the number-one reason for unfriending is frequent, unimportant posts.

Is this information further confirmation that social media, email messaging and other electronic media are based on a very delicate balance? If you really want to maintain relationships or create meaningful connections why not use more than one medium? There is great power in something physical that can be touched and felt. Direct mail can be touched and felt and it can reach exactly who you want to reach.

Unkown Facts About Advertising

A great blog post from The Ad Contrarian published this list of ten great facts that deserve to keep going.

Top 10 Double-Secret Unknown Facts About Advertising

  1. 99.9% of people who are served an online display ad do not click on it.
  2. TV viewership is now at its highest point ever.
  3. 96% of all retail activity is done in a store. 4% is done on line.
  4. DVR owners watch live TV 95% of the time. 5% of the time they watch recorded material.
  5. 99% percent of all video viewing is done on a television. 1% is done on line.
  6. The difference in purchasing behavior between people who use DVRs to skip ads and those who don’t:  None.
  7. Since the 1990s, click-through rates for banner ads have dropped 97.5%.
  8. Since the introduction of TiVo, real time TV viewing has increased over 20%.
  9. Baby boomers dominate 94% of all consumer packaged goods categories. 5% of advertising is aimed at them.
  10. TV viewers are no more likely to leave the room during a commercial break than they are before or after the break.

The author, Bob Hoffman, CEO of Hoffman/Lewis, listed the following as his sources.

  1. DoubleClick, Benchmark Report, 2009
  2. Nielsen Three Screen Report, Q1 2010
  3. U.S. Department of Commerce, Q2 2010; Nielsen Three Screen Report, Q1 2010
  4. Duke University, Do DVRs Influence Sales?
  5. Nielsen Three Screen Report, Q1 2010
  6. Duke University, Do DVRs Influence Sales?
  7. Li, Hairong; Leckenby, John D. (2004). “Internet Advertising Formats and Effectiveness”. Center for Interactive Advertising. And DoubleClick, Benchmark Report, 2009
  8. NielsenWire, Nov. 10, 2009
  9. Marketing Daily, July 22, 2010
  10. Council for Research Excellence, May 10, 2010

Manage Energy

Allocating energy may be more important and a better way to be more productive than by trying to manage time. The Harvard Business Review’s Management Tip of the Day shared these four tips as ways to replenish your energy, work smarter and prevent burnout:

Take brief but regular breaks. Step away from your desk every 90 to 120 minutes. Take a walk, get a drink, or just stretch your legs.

Say thank you. Being positive boosts your energy level. Regularly express appreciation to others.

Reduce interruptions. Perform tasks that need concentration away from phones and email. Instead, designate specific times in your day to respond to messages.

Do what you love. Understand where your strengths lie and what you enjoy doing. Find ways to do more of those things and less of what tires you out.

Can we help you say thank you to some of your favorite customers? Can we do what we love, helping you with your marketing and mailing, that will allow you to spend more time doing what you love?