Marketing: 09/01/2005

Strategic Name Development Product Naming Blog: " Brand Naming | Branding | Marketing | Naming | Product Naming "

What does that say about the www.namedevelopment.com brand?

How to write email subject lines Search Marketing Newsletter Archives - High RankingsAdvisor Issue No. 149 2005

Top copywriter Karon Thackston's advise on writing email subject lines to grab the readers attention and avoid the delte button...

How To Write Persuasive Subject Lines By Karon Thackston starts from the findings that " The second-biggest motivator in opening email is the subject line. (The first is the "from" line.) and covers what to do with the 3 seconds and approximately six words you have to make an impression. Her top 3 email subject line tips that work successfully are:

1. Make An Offer

2. State a Benefit

3. Evoke Curiosity

She concludes with examples of winning subject lines: "Some of the best subject lines hook readers by piquing their curiosity, and then reel them in to read the entire message.

"Are You Still Wearing These Fashion "Don'ts"?"

"The Secrets to [Whatever] Never Before Revealed"

"Link-popularity Scams You Should Avoid"

Of course, the key to writing the best subject lines is knowing your target customers, making the topic relevant, and testing, testing, testing."

From research into email open rates she highlights "the other interesting fact from the DoubleClick email survey is that relevancy is a major player. Over 55% of respondents said they deleted email that wasn't relevant because they considered it spam. DoubleClick also reported that the average open rate was 27.5% (for text or HTML messages). That gives you a baseline to gauge your success."

How To Increase Your Sales & Your Search Engine Positioning Karon Thackston's Step-By-Step Copywriting Course

Avoid costly court cases DMNews.com |Marketing Legal News: Avoid costly court cases, identify and avoid risks and liabilities in online marketing and ensure corporate compliance:

"Marketing and Compliance: What Every Marketer Must Know About Risk and Liability Compliance, corporate governance and recent legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley are nothing new to corporate executives, who run the risk of exorbitant fines and jail time for failing to conform to recent mandates, writes Marketing Operations Management's Chetan Saiya. Accountability for corporate compliance and risk -- areas that once were reserved for the upper echelons of an organization -- are making its way to the marketing department largely because of their sizeable budgets and the enormous effect their actions have on both customers and shareholders alike...

Areas of Compliance Problems

* Racial bias - companies are forced to look seriously at marketing process re-engineering to protect their organization’s reputation and to avoid the financial risk associated with racial biases

* Erroneous representation - use next generation marketing solutions, marketers can eliminate misrepresentation errors as these technologies automatically account for the planning, reviewing and tracking of marketing campaigns. Further, because these solutions support automatic data gathering, the marketing department can now generate status reports and track efficiencies to avoid erroneous representations.

Marketing Expense Tracking and SOX - The recently enacted Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires that a company report on the effectiveness of their internal controls as it relates to their financial reporting. Crucial to effective internal controls is ensuring that computing systems protect the integrity of corporate, financial and customer data.

Like it or not, marketers will forever play an instrumental role in an organization’s ability to remain in corporate compliance. Granted, most marketers will argue that they are unfit to take on the job of corporate auditor. However, by understanding where the risk lies and by leveraging technology to institute checks and balances that monitor spend, while promoting a corporate-wide communications culture, they may find that that the road to compliance is much easier than once thought."

Search Engine Blogs by Loren Baker searchenginejournal.com: "Over the past year Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves; the un-argued big four in search, have launched their own blogs.

What started as a a way to say hello to their users has now transformed into a cult of transparency and communications. Along with a dash of geek-speak, crisis management and pro-active posting, these blogs have also begun to outshine the traditional forms of press and public relations, as the press and public has become as non-traditional and non-linear as the blogosphere itself.

The new public relations model of the search blog brings with it a change in attitude and information. No longer are journalists and bloggers pitched as often by Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN by the boilerplate press release, which is usually as damn interesting as reading mattress tags.

Instead, the new form of communication is an oxymoron; mass intimacy. Instead of one of our favorite PR reps contacting us with those old releases, we’re now contacted via email or IM with a link to the newest blog post....

Google Blog lately with the latest taking the unorthodox approach of crisis management in responding to a lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild against Google Print. Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management at Google acknowledged the lawsuit by the well respected Guild and basically laid down Google’s line of defense to the suit by listing four different case law rulings Google claims supports its Google Print actions. In a case which could get as dirty as a Maryland Gubernatorial Campaign, Google has quickly stated its case to the public and to the Authors Guild in a passive-aggressive manner, via the Google Blog....

To back up the importance of the Yahoo Search Blog to Yahoo’s press relations, the ‘former’ (?) head Yahoo Search relations person at Fleishman is now at Yahoo calling the shots for the Yahoo Search Blog. That’s a quite impressive statement for their future blog and PR plans..."

Perfect example email: "Back to PR. I received an email the other day from Darcy Cobb of Dotted Line Communications, who represents Ask Jeeves. Darcy’s email, unlike her others, had a short summary of the integration of IAC’s Gift.com into Ask’s Smart Answers units and then a link to the blog. No fluff, no press release, no quote to cut and paste, just a link to the Ask Jeeves Blog. This, Darcy, was a perfect email.

I’m not a Public Relations specialist but I do pay attention to the PR industry (via Peter Shankman’s YoungPRPros) and its trends and do truly feel that the Search Blogs used by the big four search engines are a successful model for some companies, especially tech friendly ones to follow. One of the greatest aspects of reading these entries, along with the non-official search blogs of Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo and Google’s Matt Cutts, is that I already feel like I sort of know these people before having the chance run in with them at the bar at a search conference or wherever. Such a feeling of company to journalist relations is quite priceless. Like I said, Mass Intimacy."

Information Mapping About Us News & Events Press Releases Press Release: "Email Writing Skills Vital to Job Effectiveness...Results also cite undue time spent on reading and writing emails as major challenge

A recent survey by Information Mapping, Inc. revealed that 80% of those surveyed deem email writing skills are 'extremely' or 'very' important to the effectiveness of doing their jobs. The results also showed that approximately 65% of the respondents spend from 1 to 3 hours per day reading and writing emails, with 40% "wasting" thirty minutes to three hours reading "ineffectively" written emails.

Of the participating companies, nearly 50% had 5,000 employees or more, and more than 80% of those surveyed were of professional and managerial levels and above. Key areas within their job functions include training, documentation, information technology, human resources, general management and operations.

Among the primary challenges and issues concerning emails that the survey exposed were:

Recipient is not clear as to what should be done or how to act on the information
Content is disorganized
Critical information is missing or hard to find
Content is too long, wordy and difficult to read
Deborah Kenny, IMI's Vice President and General Manager of Learning Solutions, says "It is evident that organizations can greatly improve productivity and performance by helping employees write more effective email communications." "

Successful PR strategies for tourism companies and organisations travmedia.com: "The Tourism Society has announced it is to hold a high-profile media masterclass event, bringing together a panel of leading travel journalists to debate how tourism companies and organisations can develop successful PR strategies.

The event, to be held at the Bonnington Hotel in Bloomsbury, London (27 September 2005, 6.30-9.30pm), will focus on the precise ways that tourism PRs should best work with journalists from different media sectors, including broadcast media, print media and magazines.

On the panel will be Ed Grenby, editor of Sunday Times Travel Magazine; Jeannette Hyde, acting deputy travel editor of The Times (from 3 October); Alison Rice, broadcaster and travel journalist, and John Bell, broadcaster and travel journalist.

The events moderator will be Henry Hemming, managing director in the UK of TravMedia, the leading online travel news service for the media, himself a former freelance travel writer.

Successful media relations strategies are now at the forefront of many organisations marketing strategies, and developing the right message at the right moment, and delivering it in the right way, has become crucial.

Said the Tourism Society chief executive Sue Finch: “This is the second time the Tourism Society has held an evening dedicated to PR strategies, because of intense demand from our members across the industry for insights and information on how to maximise the effectiveness of their campaigns.

“The event will cover everything from the golden rules on how to increase your results from specific media channels through to how to pitch ideas to journalists."

Advertising: How to Create Award Winning Ads (Yes, Even on a Budget) / Brenda Fields / September 2005: "The role of advertising in independent hotels can be full of conflict. In the right circumstances, it can be effective and drive business to the property and it can create awareness in the marketplace creating future demand. If not effective, then a lot of money was just pored down the drain!

We know the challenge for independent hotels is to evaluate the best use of its marketing budget, ensuring the greatest return on the investment. Therefore, for owners and operators to ensure that money is spent wisely and that any advertising ensures the greatest ROI, a few basic pointers are in order...

Define your position in the marketplace
Establish your target market(s)
Commit to “Image Integrity”
Hire an Advertising Agency?
Think about Barter"

Bang For Your Marketing Buck - Forbes.com: "When it comes to marketing (and just about anything else), small businesses have to do more with less.

Take It To The Streets
Incite A Call To Action
Offer Tchotchkes That Linger
Team Up
Lean On Local Resources

The Power of Multimodal Marketing - Internet Travel News: "The travel industry has long realised the benefits of multiple sales channels, so why arent more people using multiple marketing channels, asks Steve King, Pre-Sales Manager for Premiere Global Services"

A Few Questions with iKarma CEO Paul Williams: "As a follow-up to an article that I wrote earlier this week about online reputation management, I decided to sit down with Outlook and have a conversation with Paul Williams, the CEO of a new reputation management community known as iKarma."

Testimonials - Friend or Foe?: "There are few marketing tools more powerful than word of mouth, but you can't fake it. Generic, questionable or obviously phony testimonials will do you no good, and may actually harm your reputation. On the other hand, succinct, believable, benefit-specific testimonials from real people, properly placed on your web pages, can enhance your website's credibility and boost your conversion rate."