No free lunch in marketing. Or is there?

I was travelling across London yesterday when I found myself on a hot sweaty, claustrophobic tube train, sitting there wondering why on earth I hadn’t walked when… the emergency stop handle was pulled. The train came to a shuddering halt just before we pulled into our rightful stopping place at the station. Everyone in the carriage looked apprehensively around to see who looked suspect. As it was, when the guard walked through to investigate the cause and identify the culprits it turned out that some tourists in the next carriage, who didn’t read English, had pulled the lever thinking it was a grab handle. Which leads me off track to why on earth aren’t signs in London, a multi-cultural capital city famed for its tourists, printed in more than just English? But I’ll leave that thought for the moment as that’s probably a marketing rant for another time…

In a Goldfish Bowl

Anyway, back in the carriage, before our friendly, but careless tourists were discovered, and after all my new travelling friends and I had decided that we were not in the middle of a terrorist attack, I got back to the business of observing the situation. It felt like being in a goldfish bowl. There we were not knowing why we had stopped, but parked right next to the platform and looking out onto the bright and cool exterior, longing to be the other side of the glass. While outside, a platform full of travellers desperate to get on the train and not being told or understanding why they couldn’t get on, were peering through the windows at these strange, trapped creatures.

What it must have looked like to them I do not know. Slowly but surely the carriage was getting hotter and damper and strangely more claustrophobic – although there was exactly the same number of people and the same amount of space. But movement was becoming a little more frantic as if everyone had developed nervous tics – which come to think of it they probably had. But soon the old British Bulldog Spirit kicked in and seated neighbours started talking to one another and became resolutely stiff upper lipped assuring each other that it would all be over soon. Everyone friendly, joking, laughing and then…. the train started up, lurched forward a good foot or two, came to a more controlled stop and the doors opened – we had finally arrived at our destination.

And then it happened. Selfish Chaos.

People stood up staring straight ahead not talking, grabbing for handles to support themselves as they made their way speedily out of the train. iPod earphones went back in and, lost in the world of music, their owners shuffled out onto the platform. Others reached for bags and quickly rushed for the exits – everyone, it seems, eager to get on with their solitary lives and not giving anything of themselves. In fact a 180 degree turn around from just 30 seconds ago when it seemed that everyone had opened up to become a single unit. The throng of people became faceless passengers once again ignoring each other and giving nothing of themselves to anyone around them.

Help Costs Nothing

There in the midst of this thrusting, rushing, pushing crowd, right next to the door was a slightly worried, not quite yet distraught lady, vainly trying to lift a suitcase from the train onto the platform before the doors closed once more.  And no-one stopped. They didn’t have time. They had to get away. They had places to go. People to see. Things to do. So did I; but I stopped, lifted her case, placed it on the platform, asked her if she was OK and helped her with some directions. A few seconds given freely. In that split second I wanted to turn around and scream at the fast disappearing crowd and ask why they couldn’t give up some of their time. But I didn’t, I just turned and went on my way, because another time, another day, that would have been me, rushing ahead, not noticing what was going on around me.

And that brings me back to the topic of this article (about time you say!). Because of that famous quote ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’. When I helped that lady, she didn’t suspect me of anything. She didn’t think that I would ask her for money. And I wasn’t expecting anything other than thanks. She just knew I was giving my time and assistance freely, to help her. And so in that instance there was a free lunch (okay a free helping hand). And that has been, and always will be my philosophy, help someone out today and you will get your just rewards in the end.

In business and in marketing this is so true.

If you are in need of marketing help and someone gave it to you free of charge, then you might be suspicious. But if it worked for you then you would be grateful and hopefully remember the person that helped you out.

If you are in need of marketing again and the same person gave you FOC help, then you are definitely going to remember them. Then when you are in a position to spend on marketing you will go back to that person as a first port of call. If you never have marketing budget then you will still remember that person fondly.

And that’s what that lady reminded me – give something freely and you will get your just rewards, simple gratitude or the possibility of future business relationships, both are worth having. So, this blog is the first in a series of marketing tips that will save you marketing money and time. And no I’m not mad, if it helps you, then I’m hoping that you will remember where you got this advice and will remember me and should the need arise, come back and employ our agency when the time is right.

So where better to start than #1 – a free web site

OK, there are lots of ‘free’ website options around. But in general, in my experience, the free website options that I have come across just aren’t worth having because they don’t actually give you anything (well not a lot anyway), and/or they are crammed full of advertising, which you can’t control an din a business environment this is suicide as your top prospect views your site to find out that it’s advertising sex toys!. But this latest initiative brings a reputable website package together which includes:

• Design
• Hosting
• Domain registration
• Content Managed website
• Search Engine Promotion
• Business community promotion

And all in one package and all supported and promoted by some very big names: BT, Google, e-skills & Enterprise UK. These folks all got together under the “Get British Business Online” campaign to package all this – for free.

But is it any good?

Well yes actually it is. We tested it ourselves and created our own dummy website in just five minutes – have a look at it here, and it was very easy to get everything setup, and built in literally just a matter of minutes.

Is there a catch?

Well, not really, because it’s good at what it supplies, you can manage it yourself and it gives you a web presence quickly and for nothing. OK, so it does have its limitations, as you’d expect. Like the designs are fixed (there are ways to overcome this but then you’d be a web designer anyway), you can’t create things like online forms to capture visitor details and it’s branded with Google links and Get British Business Online logos – but then if you get something for free shouldn’t you, ethically display these logos as a thank you?

However, if you don’t mind any of that, it’s a great way to get started with a simple, attractive layout.  And by taking this route, I reckon you could have saved yourself around £1,500, when you take into account how much you’d usually pay for hosting, website design & build, SEO tools and all the rest of the things you’d need to get a new website up and running.

So, how do you get this free website?

Just visit the special Get British Business Online website and get started straight away.

So there. As a marketer that has an agency that designs and develops websites, I’ve pointed you in the direction of a solution that earns my agency, Insight Group, no money whatsoever. But, it does help out those people that can’t afford our services – today. And is there is an ulterior motive? Of course, I want you to get online and experience how marketing can help you. I want you to succeed through online marketing. And I want you to say ‘what a swell guy’ he just helped me get my business off the ground; or he helped me investigate a new venture without the cost associated with getting the business online. And then, hopefully, when your business outgrows the basic website functionality and when your business needs you to focus on it and not spend time managing a website, you’ll remember ‘that guy’ and come back to get your web presence to match your business aspirations.

There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Well that’s true, but you can still go out and eat for nothing, and in this case with lots of trimmings, but when you come to order from the main menu, don’t forget me. I’m ‘that guy’ and I run a hell of a good kitchen!

That was #1 – was it useful? Whatever you think leave me a message because I have some more tips in the pipeline and need encouragement!

Branded Email is the new Black

You know how it is, every season designers come out with trends and grey [or pink, or blue, or...] is the new black. That is, it’s THE colour to be seen in. Well in marketing, BRANDED EMAIL is the new black. And I just couldn’t resist mixing the ‘darling’ culture with ‘marketing technology’:

This is the ‘new’ activity to add to your marketing mix – the ability to add marketing messages to your everyday email without your company/client users needing to do anything.  It’s very powerful, centrally controlled, very easy to implement, very flexible, means everyone sending email becomes a marketer and overcomes a lot of the challenges with email marketing today.

I say ‘new’ in quotes, because I came across branded email about 5 years ago. At that time it was called something else, which escapes me, mainly because it hadn’t really arrived and had lots of different names and descriptions depending on who was supplying the technology. At that time, it was very clunky and cumbersome and was nowhere near as transparent to the user as it is today and worse, it only worked with a few email setups and only then if you reconfigured your whole IT infrastructure [OK, I exaggerate - but you get the drift].

But this year, branded email has really come of age and I truly believe it will become the next ‘big thing’ in marketing promotion – especially in the post economic downturn era where sales are king and marketing budgets are tight.

Basically, branded email adds a graphical banner to your emails. Get excited. The banner is added to emails that are sent from ‘the company’. That is all and every email that your company sends so everyone gets to hear about you, your products, your services, your events, your promotions.

• Marketing (or your agency) create the email banners.
• The user creates an email as normal and sends it.
• When it arrives at the recipient inbox they see the email that was created but it also includes a marketing message.
• The message can be anything the company wants, e.g.
• ‘See us at xxx show’,
• ‘Please note we have a new telephone number’,
• ‘XYZ product has just been updated to version 99, click to download’ etc.

I think you probably get the drift. But the most important factors here are that the user does nothing. The company promotes its current brand messages – from every user. The company (marketing, IT, HR, CEO, MD) gets to choose what messages are sent and by whom. When the messages are sent e.g. if you are running an event then you can time banners to start and end displaying at a specific time. You can override banners so that  only specific banners show at specific times. You can exclude senders or indeed receivers. Basically it does what you want how you want it – which is pretty much a first in marketing terms – OK exaggerating again, but you know how many times you have bought ‘that product’ only to find that you have to change the way you work or live to get it working for you. Well this isn’t one of those.

CLICK TO ENLARGE. Create email, banner automatically inserted from library. Job done.

So why is this so important?

Because it’s a way of managing that hidden marketing resource – your customers, your prospects and your suppliers. Everyone but everyone in marketing and sales knows that referral marketing is the most powerful form of promotion and sales. Branded email is referral [and reminder] marketing.

• You send your email to your contacts.
• They open it because they trust you and are doing business with you so want to open and read it.
• They see your email, but they also see your marketing message in the form of a banner.
• They may click through or they may refer it to a colleague or friend or a business contact.When they click you are notified – so even if you don’t want to pounce straight away, you can mention in conversation details of what they clicked on.
• They might see a message you have and do a mental click of the fingers to remind themselves that you provide that service or product.So you don’t lose that additional opportunity.

How many times have you chastised yourself or your sales team when a long term customer buys a product or service from one of your competitors because they ‘didn’t know you supplied it’. Let’s face it we’re all guilty of that – we talk to prospects about our offerings, we mention at the beginning of the relationship our full portfolio, then focus on what we are supplying relying on branding and marketing to remind them of the bigger picture. But in all truth everyone needs direct reminding about what you provide – and this does it without the embarrassment of having to talk to a client who says ‘Thanks but don’t pressurise me…’.

Branded email takes each of your messages and cuts them into bite sized nuggets, and inserts into successive emails. You and your users do nothing. The messages are created and rotated for you. Marketing controls who actually sends messages, when the messages are sent and who should and shouldn’t receive them.

You have got to take a look.

I’m biased, a convert and I love it. I love it because of all the reasons above but I love it the most because one of the biggest challenges our clients always face is databases. Sourcing them, managing them and keeping them up to date.

Your company has a targeted, regularly cleaned, unused database in everybody’s address book. This releases the database and its contacts and puts them to good use. Marketing don’t even have to manage the data because it’s managed by everyone individually in their email address books.

And the most wonderful thing about this?

The contacts in your address book all know they are going to receive messages from you. So your email domain name is accepted by them, white-listed, de-spammed, un-junk-mailed – however you want to reference it – and your message always gets through. So delivery rates are 100%, click thrus are tracked and promotion is up.

So does it work?

A recent survey using this method showed that click-thru rates averaged between 6%-20% compared with email marketing click thru rates of 1%-5%.

Check it out here. I’m a believer and a convert – but you probably got that