It’s good to know human beings are nowhere near as predictable as marketers like to think we are. 

Despite the vast amount of data sites like Facebook hold about members, the social network’s data-driven adverts are still way off target.

OK, I may be in my forties and engaged to be married. But that doesn’t mean I’m into anti-ageing products. I don’t want a massive great meringue of a wedding dress either. Nor am I interested in celebrities or concerned about my weight: I couldn’t give a stuff how much blubber Cheryl Cole has lost!

These days marketers have access to ‘big data’, which by rights should make targeting offers tightly to people’s needs, preferences and lifestyles much easier. But in real life, it doesn’t. The conclusions they come to are still far too simplistic.

In reality Facebook’s efforts are no better than thirty years ago, when data driven targeting was the direct marketer’s holy grail and we only had postcode, sex and buying history to play with.

If Facebook filled my account with adverts for stuff  I’m really interested in, things like 1950s German art pottery, ’60s and ’70s oil paintings, antique rugs, craft materials, tickets for Radio 4 comedies, garden stuff, wood carving gear and good books, I’d be a happy bunny and would probably click through. That’s what I’d call targeting!

I was chatting with someone about insurance direct marketing the other day, lamenting the fact that most insurance offers are hideous exercises in jargon and corporate speak.   

The person I was talking to wondered whether it was OK to use corporate-style language when marketing business-to-business, as opposed to business-to-consumer. I said no.

How come? Because people are human beings, even when they have their work heads on.

Whether we run multinational companies or spend our days reading ‘OK’ magazine and drowning in daytime telly, we invariably prefer clear, simple marketing communications that get the point across quickly and creatively without making  a meal of it. With no jargon and no convoluted corporate speak.

It doesn’t matter who you’re talking to. Good communication is about clarity, simplicity and brevity… every time.

(Thanks to http://www.sxc.hu/profile/barunpatro for the royalty-free, fee-free image)

If punctuation was the province of a load of fuddy duddies who insisted on following a bunch of boring old rules just for the sake of it, I might say yes. But without punctuation, the world suddenly makes much less sense.

In some cases leaving out punctuation, or getting it wrong, is downright dangerous. Far from being obsolete, it’s vital for clear, effective written communications.

This week’s New Scientist magazine pokes fun at a sign near London Bridge station that says, Narrow lanes do not overtake cyclists. Which is nonsense. But add a colon or hyphen and it’s suddenly a crystal clear instruction with road safety in mind: Narrow lanes –  Do not overtake cyclists. Or Narrow lanes: do not overtake cyclists.

Lynne Truss’s excellent book about punctuation, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, is another case in point. There’s a world of difference between the meaning of the phrase “Eats, shoots and leaves” and “Eats shoots and leaves”.

Here’s an example from her book, showing how different ways of punctuating the same statement turn its meaning upside down.

• A woman, without her man, is nothing
• A woman: without her, man is nothing

Punctuation isn’t difficult to learn. It’s mostly common sense and tends to mirror the way we speak. Not using it is just lazy.

If you’re in business and you’re foxed by punctuation, get a freelance copywriter on  the case and make sure your communications make sense. Or buy Lynne Truss’s book and get to grips with punctuating properly.

What is a strapline?

It’s a short statement that clarifies exactly what your business does, so people get the picture ‘at a glance’.

Where does a strapline go?

A strapline usually sits directly below a logo or company name.

Do I need a strapline?

It depends. If your business name / url already makes it crystal clear what you do, there’s no need. If it isn’t immediately clear, a strapline might be a good idea.

What should my strapline say?

Your strapline should make it obvious what your business does in as few words as possible, as engagingly as possible.

Examples of bad straplines? 

There’s no point creating something pretentious, airy fairy or overly ‘clever’. This is no time for bullshit. Believe in Better from Sky, For the Journey from Lloyds TSB and Today, Tomorrow, Toyota are embarrassingly fatuous displays of corporate nonsense.

My favourite strapline is a mini-masterpiece created by fellow  freelance copywriter Alastair Allday for skint.com: You’re broke. We’ll fix it. Which does exactly what it says on the tin as well as being witty, straightforward and as clear as a bell. Lovely.

Because this blog is home to more than 400 posts, it’s high time I went back to basics and re-covered all the good stuff I haven’t mentioned for ages.

Here’s a list of the subjects I’ll be resurrecting over the next few weeks, interspersed with the latest on-site SEO, SEM, SMM, direct marketing and communications news and views:

• integrated marketing
• direct marketing
• segmenting and targeting data
• creative targeting
• DIY marketing and SEO
• SEO basics
• B2B versus B2C marketing
• creating winning press releases
• writing with search engines in mind
• making the most of testimonials and case studies
• blogging to win more followers and please search engines
• copywriting and marketing ‘how to’ guides
• making a success of email marketing
• creating hard working autoresponder messages
• keeping your website fresh
• content quality control
• testing
• ebooks
• all about editing
• brand stuff
• media stuff
• the legal bit – marketing and distance selling rules, regulations and compliance
• formatting website content
• creating effective direct response adverts
• calls to action
• marketing and copywriting checklists
• getting your  meta data right – the code bit
• how to maximise sales conversion
• writing to a common denominator
• the ins and outs of key words / phrases
• insights into search engine algorithms
• the basics of link building
• long and short copy
• putting users first
• common sense data analysis
• link bait
• good, old fashioned print!
• direct mail
• direct response
• cross selling and up selling
• creating a winning newsletter
• reacting to trends
• mobile web
• plain English
• customer communications
• database marketing
• site updates
• marketing planning, tactics and strategies

(Thanks to http://www.sxc.hu/profile/onetwo for the excellent free image)

It worked, and these days I tweet regularly to generate new freelance copywriting business. It’s very lucrative.

But time and distance are wonderful things.

Having read through last year’s posts about making Twitter pay, I’ve finally realised I haven’t actually been marketing via Twitter. I have simply been networking. Duh!

So, I’ve come a full circle. Revisiting what I did last year, I don’t think you can make a success of marketing on Twitter. Marketing just isn’t intimate enough, you can’t automate intimacy and blatting out a load of hash tag-filled, sales led, link stuffed Tweets doesn’t cut the mustard.

In my experience, taking a bird’s eye view of last year’s testing, it’s one-on-one interaction that attracts new business via Twitter. Stuff like favouriting, re-Tweeting and replying, giving support, asking and answering questions and so on. In other words, classic networking activity.

In conclusion, networking on Twitter can generate a healthy ROI. It shouldn’t be a surprise when you think about it. Twitter is, after all, a network.

All of which proves that taking a regular, dispassionate look at your marketing efforts generates extremely useful insights!

(Thanks to http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Cieleke for the royalty-free image)

“Success requires people who are human beings first and marketers second to do marketing for people who are human beings first and foremost, not just consumers”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Happy New Year!

It’s been a whirlwind year full of marketing dramas and crises, excitement, gloom and doom. Here’s the top 5 marketing lessons to learn from 2011, possibly the most exciting twelve months marketers have enjoyed for decades.  

1. Google algorithm updates wreaked havoc with search positions and as a result fresh, good quality on-site content became more important than ever. What to do in 2012? Keep your site fresh and pack it with interesting, relevant, useful information
2. Social Media Marketing grew to epic proportionswith Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn leading the pack. Is Google Plus a social network too many? Only time will tell. The only certainty is things will continue to change… fast! So stay alert. 
3. conversion analysis came into its own, with more online businesses using their web stats to determine how to turn more visitors into buying customers. Remember that knowledge is power and keep a close eye on your stats for 2012
4. keyword stuffing finally died a nasty but well-deserved death. Once much more clunky, today’s search engine algorithms are sensitive enough to ‘see’ what a web page is about without site owners having to resort to gobbledegook. So you’re free to write well! 
5. mobile web took off like a rocket. Owners of complicated, fiddly, fancy websites found they didn’t display correctly on a small screen. But sites with flat, simple structures and clean code performed perfectly well on mobiles, smartphones and tablets. Good news when search engines and most humans prefer simplicity and clarity too

On a personal level this year, my sixth as a freelance writer, has been a gem. Thank you so much to my lovely clients, who have trusted me to make their businesses work better using the power of the written word. It’s been great. Here’s to 2012!

Perversely, I enjoy getting spam. It’s a valuable exercise in how not to do email marketing!   

The subject line of one of today’s spam messages asks if I have “Enough passion for these hotter nights?”  It’s snowing in Woodingdean right now and hotter nights are a distant dream. Wrong hemisphere, chaps.

In the context of spam it doesn’t matter much. The whole campaign is crap anyway, coming from the ‘if you throw enough poo at the wall some of it will stick’ school of marketing. But it would harm your business’s reputation if you sent a summer-led offer to hot prospects in the southern hemisphere in the middle of their winter. And your campaign would probably flop.

If you’re planning an international email marketing campaign, examine your offer and the way it’s presented logically before pressing the button. Think about things like:

• the seasons – If you’re basing your offer or creative treatment on how hot or cold it is, make sure you get your hemispheres right!
• messaging – Something that’s fine in the UK might offend people in other countries
• colloquialisms – We’re a nation of punners. But puns, wryness, colloquialisms and irony don’t translate well
• culture – Here’s an example. North Americans praise each other all the time, whereas we’re more circumspect. They blow their own trumpets louder than we do, too. Just look at a few US B2B websites and you’ll see what I mean. We speak the same language… but we’re very different people
• imagery –  make sure your imagery doesn’t alienate, but resonates with people in your target countries
• Zeitgeist – What’s affecting consumers and businesses in your target countries right now? Does your marketing message address, reflect or tap into the population’s concerns and enthusiasms?

My top seven international email marketing tips

1. segment your data by country
2. research each country’s market thoroughly
3. alter your creative treatment for each country, informed by your research
4. act on empirical response and conversion information…
5. … but remember the fewer people you email, the less reliable your statistics
6. always test new creative treatments and offers against a control segment to gauge relative performance accurately
7. be aware of confirmation bias, where we ignore evidence that doesn’t match our opinions and convictions. We kid ourselves with ease. But the numbers never lie

(Thanks to http://www.sxc.hu/profile/silviadg for the gorgeous royalty-free image)

What’s the most important on-site SEO idea to take on board from 2011?  

It’s ‘putting the visitor first’.

Search engines have released thousands of algorithm updates over the past year. Google’s infamous Panda and Caffeine updates, the big boys, are still rolling across t’internet like huge binary tsunami. Both appear to encourage good quality, customer-led content and promote ‘freshness’ while discouraging duplicated and poor quality stuff.

What does it mean for ecommerce?

The devil is in the detail. But the big picture is simple: make sure everything you do to your site is the best it can be from a visitor’s perspective.

What do most of us like about a website?

We tend to enjoy sites that:

• look good, which in a marketing context mostly means clear and simple
• load fast, so we’re not left hanging
• make it easy to find the stuff we need via as few clicks as possible
• are full of useful, relevant, interesting, well written information
• are updated regularly so everything is fresh and current
• are trustworthy, which is a marketing context means things like full contact details, VAT registration number, limited company details, returns policy, guarantees and so on
• entertain us
• do exactly what they say on the tin
• change often enough so we enjoy coming back to see what’s new

How do you tell if you’re doing the right thing?

Park your business head for a moment and look at your site dispassionately. Crowd source honest opinions from colleagues, Twitter friends and real life business networks to see if / how your site can be improved. Or get someone savvy to carry out a regular user-focused site audit for you.

Happy visitors = happy search engines

When people like a site, they stick around longer and more of them buy. When you please people you also make search engine bots and spiders happy. When search engines like what you’re doing, they push your site higher up the rankings so you enjoy better visibility. Win, win, win. Job done.

(Thanks to http://www.sxc.hu/profile/socyo for the lovely royalty-free ‘happy dog’ image!)