Rethinking the Concept of E-mail Marketing...

This might be the time for nonprofits and for-profits to completely rethink the concept of e-mail marketing?

Think about email as a marketing medium for a moment. On average an e-mail program inspires one out of every seven hundred recipients to make a donation or purchase something.

That’s right, the average email marketing letter achieves a 0.15% “purchase” response. In fact, only one in five individuals bother to even open an email pitch.

Maybe we should start redefining a successful e-mail marketing program on its ability to get a supporter or customer to visit a website, to "engage". Maybe the goal of e-mail marketing should be to train customers to regularly visit our website.

If the purpose of e-mail marketing is to train a supporter to interact with us, we would create different e-mails, wouldn't we?

E-mail marketers might market the organization Blog, encouraging the loyal supporters to interact with the organization by sharing a story or photos, taking a poll or posting a video .

E-mail marketers might educate a supporter or customer about how to use the products and services the organization offers. Offering cooking tips for the olive oil marketer as an example. The goal isn't to sell olive oil ... the goal is to tell somebody how to be creative with the olive oil they purchase.

E-mail marketers might share stories and photos about the loyal employees who serve loyal customers and donors.

E-mail marketers might share stories about loyal supporters and customers, helping loyal supporters feel special.

The goal of e-mail marketing could be about making people feel special. This could generate word of mouth, generating donations or sales with minimal incremental cost. This could also generate reasons for supporters and customers to visit your website.

Since only one in seven hundred customers are buying what we have to sell today. What do we have to lose?

More on this later.
Cheers!
Dave

Text Message Marketing is Hot

President-Elect Obama's "Vice President Pick" text message remains the most notable example of effective text message marketing in the U.S. to date.

According to a new report released by Nielsen Mobile, Americans should expect to see more text-message (short-code) marketing in the future. Given the immense popularity of texting, it's not surprising that organizations have started to ramp up their use of the medium to reach/ engage their customers and prospects.

The Nielsen study reports, marketers are using short-code marketing in a variety of creative ways: from simple information messaging, to polls, to rewards programming, to promotional couponing, and even direct purchasing.

Macy’s, Coke, Subway, McDonald’s, Jiffy Lube, Best Buy, Papa John's, Village Inn and many other major brands have also special offers through text and multimedia messaging. Some nonprofits and government agencies are also beginning to use Text Messaging, a great example is SexInfoSF and their STTD/Pregnancy prevention program.

Texting is also changing the way Americans engage with traditional media. American Idol is the most prominent example of viewers engaging with a TV program over text messaging. Radio listeners are also increasingly being called to action via text message. Companies such as HipCricket (Seattle) are leading the way using short-codes which allow radio listeners to send text messages directly to the stations to make requests, win prizes, download music and enter polls.

Share your thoughts.
Cheers!
Dave
Sharp Consulting Group, LLC

Why you need a Blog....

Your organization needs a blog. What I really mean is, your raving fan stakeholders need you to have a blog. Recognize from the start that not everybody reads it, just those nutty people who love what you and your organization does. Your blog keeps them informed and lets them interact (amplify, disagree, share, comment) with you.

Blogs are free, but they do require time and commitment. So before you start, you should sit down and outline an editorial schedule and commit to posting on a regular basis.

Make your blogs more interesting by adding photos and videos of events and members. Sign up for a photo/ video sharing site like flickr or youtube. And Make sure to add sharing functionality to your blog so that readers can email their family and friends as well as bookmark your blog to the major sharing sites (digg, stumble,technorati, etc. Go to sharethis.com and register your blog and get a "Share This" button.

Once you start blogging you will see that people will find your website easier (make sure to link your blog to your website and site to your blog). Additionally you will also find that your organization will move up in search engine ranks.

Share your thoughts.

Cheers!
Dave