You all know how much I love fiction books but I’ve been trying to break out into other genres. I wish I could remember how I heard of ‘The Game of Boxes’ by Catherine Barnett but I dont. It was most likely someone Im connected to on GoodReads but I digress.

I have never read a book of poems. Ever. I was tasked with writing poems for English class in high school but never sat through and read a whole book. This was a wonderful experience and I love Catherine’s poems that are contained in this book.

Here is my favorite and you will probably figure out why it’s my favorite as soon as you read it;

The Modern Period

When Gutenberg figured out

how to make letters that could be

rearranged he changed us all.

Once upon a time

I laid my head on books

and was surrounded by books

and bought books and rescued books

reminding me I had only

finite years in the book of my son,

whom I almost left for books,

to whom I leave my books.

‘Limited Time’ Should Mean ‘Limited Time’

The image here in this post is from a recent email but I must’ve received at least 15 of these ‘limited time’ sales emails over the last month. That is nearly every single day I am receiving an email. Guess what is happening? I’m ignoring them because I know the sale is not over forever. The first email I hesitated on hitting the delete key and almost clicked-through to take advantage. But after the 5th email stating that I had just another 24 hours to take advantage, I stopped believing it was true.

I know that there will be more and I don’t need to act now. The entire point of offering a sale for a ‘limited time’ is lost because Overstock.com is not staying true to their word.

Getting It Right

Now there are other brands where I receive emails very sparingly and I know that what they say is actually what is happening. If the free shipping offer is just that day and I dont get to the email until the next day, I’ve missed  the offer and I know another email is not coming on it’s tail. When I see this, I typically act. I mean, I have given permission to thse brands to email me and I am interested in their products so it’s not uncommon that I buy something – especially if it’s a good deal.

Overstock.com needs to take a serious look at the volume of their emails. How many people are receiving 15 emails per month? Of those, how many are unsubscribing? Is anyone even taking advantage of these ‘limited time’ sales?

What do your email communications look like? Are they valuable to your audience or are you just filling up their inbox?

I was attending my company’s annual kick-off and our President quoted from this book during his presentation. The words used struck me and I immediately tagged this book as a must read on my GoodReads account. I was not disappointed.

Gregory Boyle shares stories of his work with gangs in Los Angeles but it’s not just about that. It’s really about the relationships, the cause and effect of our actions and the way we see things and interact with our surroundings. It’s the type of book that makes you appreciate what you have – even if it’s not that much – and to take care of those around you.

Hate is useless and only causes havoc. There is no need for it – ever. How do we see others based on their exterior? Why do we draw conclusions for no reason whatsoever about others and then act on that pre-drawn conclusion?

Compassion isn’t just about love, it’s about respect and connection. Be compassionate and treat each other well. It’s not always easy, and I’ve struggled with it myself, but I love the takeaways from books like this and the way it makes you feel about the world and the people we share it with.

What Comes After B?

You are building a campaign and integrate an A/B testing component. You hit ‘go’, look at the results and pick the frontrunner. Is that what you go with or do you decide to test B against C. Seth’s right – the options for marketers are endless. Yet, we don’t consider it that way. We test one something against another and pick the best option so we can ship it. We dont see an option C since that is not what we are trained to do. It’s A or it’s B.

Set aside the testing piece for a moment and take into context the different ways this may be applied. You could send an email or send direct mail. There’s your A/B. But you could also send InMail or targeted display ads or run a call campaign. Again, it’s A or it’s B. When we go beyond that, it gets complex, the conversation is harder to understand and the strategy is wavy at times.

Embrace the Freedom

I currently employ an 80:20 rule when it comes to budget spend. 80% is spent on tried and true campaigns and 20% is free to be used on whatever we want to test out in that time period. As a marketer, you are never going to be limited by your options, your freedom to think of things differently and go out on a limb. You are going to be limited by the restrictions you place on yourself to stick to A/B methodology. Dare to ask what the impact of C may be or D or E or even Y?

What is Inbound Marketing?

The answer depends on who you ask. Some may claim that inbound marketing has to do with creating content, SEO and social media. May otherwise be referred to as organic or ‘free’ lead generation. Companies seriously think they can build a strategy around these things and nothing else. I know, I know, it’s been proven. Marcus Sheridan has a great case study on this one but I would hesitate to suggest it works for anyone and every company.

If you were to ask me to define inbound marketing, I would answer with something along the lines of this: marketing efforts that result in inbound traffic and leads to your company to reach corporate objectives. Im trying not to sound too gobbledygooky here with that one so let me try and sum it up better. It’s everything you need to do to build your database and expand your reach. This absolutely includes PR, social media, SEO but it also includes paid search, paid media, sponsored webinars and even events.

‘Free’ Marketing is Not a Strategy

If you have no budget and struggle to gain buy-in for paid media, you often resort to the free stuff. I’ve been there and done that and yes, I even got results. But..I got even better results and more volume and more pipeline revenues when I combined those organic inbound leads with paid media. For one thing, a major difference is the quality and the control. With paid media, you can decide what types of audience interact with your brand. You can match your target audience to better align your content and pull in better leads. And that means they score higher and faster and get to your sales team quicker. Sounds good to me.

Let’s not coin the term ‘inbound marketing’ as the free stuff marketers! Let’s decide this is all programs related to inbound activities – paid or not.

What do you think? Am I right or completely off on this one?

I love historical fiction novels. I feel like I get a history lesson at the same time as being swept away by a mythical storyline. This book delivers both. Paula McLain does a wonderful job of capturing just who Hemingway is and was in. While this story centers around his first wife, Hadley aka The Paris Wife, we get a glimpse into what happens even after the last page. Explore how Hemingway got his start by networking with literary greats. His bouts with rejection and ‘day jobs’ and how it all came to fruition just as his marriage to Hadley was crumbling.

I couldn’t put it down and didn’t want it to end.

Have you read this book? If not, I HIGHLY recommend you march to the book store, queue up Amazon.com or download it on your fav e-reader right now.

Engagement as a strategy

Last year I embarked upon a strategy to use Twitter Paid Ads. My goal was the same as with any other channel; conversion and acceleration. Now we all know that you cannot measure conversions with likes. I certainly cannot measure what the impact is of someone retweeting my post in regards to how it moves them further down the pipeline. Which is why I was surprised by Twitter’s mentality that the engagement of my paid tweet was important.

I get that Twitter cannot see what happens after the click. The platform does not know if someone filled out my form or performed the action that I wanted them to. What they can tell me is how many people clicked, how many people replied and how many people retweeted. But does any of that matter?

When looking at the numbers, the paid tweets in which I showed the highest engagement rates were actually the lowest performing when it came to conversions. I immediately stopped looking at this number. Turns out it actually didn’t matter if someone replied.

Conversion as a strategy

Now let’s get back to what’s important; conversion as a strategy. Now I know some of you will bellow and belch that retweets mean something and I don’t disagree. But they don’t mean anything to ME – the demand generation marketer.

When you are spending money on social channels, such as Sponsored Paid Tweets via Twitter, it’s important to track what is important to you and leave the rest ignored. I found the engagement statistics as unreliable in regards to my goals. Once I started ignoring those and paying attention to the intended action (clicks -> form completions), I was able to ‘rinse and repeat’.

Over a period of 9 months, my cost-per-lead was reduced by over $10 and conversion rates increased by double percentage points.

How you tried promoted tweets? How are you tracking success?

Taking a peak at some of the groups I participate with on LinkedIn, the discussions continue to flow in centered around purchasing email lists. Is this the way marketers are thinking about acquiring leads? Purchasing emails with the intent to email messages that will turn unsuspecting prospects into buyers? Why are we not even considering the fact that we should ‘earn’ the right to email these groups in the first place?

Consider the title of this post because it’s true. Getting a re-tweet is easy, but getting permission – real, genuine permission – to email is much harder.

So is there a difference when it comes to the value of something ‘easy’ vs. something ‘hard’? I would say so.

Take me for example. I don’t often re-tweet items that my followers post. I know I should do it more often, but I just don’t do it. Getting me to re-tweet something is not ‘easy’ so imagine how hard it is to get in my inbox? For a brand to be able to gain my permission and trust, the email has to provide value and it starts with the very first thing I ever get from you.

Ever have a cashier at a store ask for your email so you can get coupons and such? How often do you actually give out your email? You may like the store a lot, you are making a purchase of some kind but does that earned them permission to get inside your email box? Consider what it would take for you not to hesitate when they ask next time.

Here are 3 things your brand can do to increase your ability to get permission:

1. Trade

If you provide your email, we will give you 10% of this purchase. Then just unsubscribe if the email does not provide value to you. Or, if you provide your email, we will give you this super awesome whitepaper or ebook. Or, provide your email for a chance to win this wonderful win-ding.

2. Set Expectations

How about providing a preview of the type of communication they can expect to see? Imagine if you put a sign on your counter with a print-out of your last email campaign with coupons and said ‘our email subscribers got this deal last month. Sign up today so you dont miss the next one.’ How many of us dont want to give out our email because we have no idea what someone is going to do with it? Set expectations.

3. Be trusthworthy

Not as cut and dry as the first two but still simple enough. If word on the street is your brand is spammy, you are not going to be trusted. I dont want your emails, I dont want you knowing mine and I certainly am not going to re-tweet anything you say to my followers. Be trustworthy – all your actions have an impact on the actions you intend to take.

How do you get inside the inbox? Everyone may have email but we are more protective of it than ever. You must provide value and a reason to be there. Even if I dont open your email, just reading the from and subject and considering whether I should open it is costing me time. You need to earn it and earn it again.

I read A LOT. If you know me, you know this. I have always loved to read. In fact, I remember when I was little, my mother would catch me in bed with a flashlight under the covers reading when I was supposed to be sleeping. I would much rather curl up with a good book than curl up to watch a good movie – but that’s just me. I used to read 1 leisure book and 1 marketing/business book at the same time but lately I have just focused on one at a time alternating. I will do my best to give you feedback and suggestions every Friday so stay tuned and keep reading to hear about this book (if you haven’t already read it).

This week I read “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” by Jamie Ford. This book came out in 2009 and I remember seeing it quite a few times but just never bought it. Well, last week I finally did and I am very happy I did so.

The story takes place during WWII right after Pearl Harbor. I love these historical fiction novels because you get to see and experience a side of history that is not typically taught in the classroom. As the US prepares to fight in the war, we react by assembling persons of Japanese heritage and placing them in concentration camps.

The author takes us on a journey of a Chinese boy who falls in love with a Japanese girl. I found it very interesting to read how the Chinese reacted to the war and the devotion Americans have to their country regardless of national origin.

I haven’t read a book that made me cry in quite a long time and this one made me cry. I won’t give away the ending but you will be racing to the end like I was to see how the story unfolds.

If you haven’t already read it, please go get yourself a copy. And if you have enjoyed this book, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.

It’s true. And we have all been there.

Perhaps you don’t have the best job in the word or the nicest boss or the cordial co-workers. You take it day in and day out because you say to yourself that you are lucky you have a job.

Why?

Someone shared a story recently with me about her first day in a new job with a new company. She decided to take some clients out to lunch but ran the risk of not making it back to the office in time for a team meeting. As the clock slowly ran out, she couldn’t exactly hurry the client along while out to lunch so she kept pace and ended up getting to the meeting a few minutes late. So what happened?

The head of the division called her out in front of everyone and said ‘I don’t care who the f*ck you are, but you don’t come to my meetings late.’ And you know what she did?

She said, ‘I was taking one of your f*ckin clients out to lunch. Do you have a problem with that?’

You know what happened next?

He respected her.

She stood up to him and on his level to boot.

Not so sure I would take this approach. I’m not even sure I would’ve said anything at all (I might’ve said ‘do you want me to leave?’) and it made me think about all the times we are crushed, that we live with the norm because we don’t see a way out. We are thankful for what we have and too busy doing that than to make time to pursue something better.