Synchronicity Marketing

Bright Idea

"Email Marketing -- Don't Try To Webinar Without It."

by John Lawlor - mailto:john@johnlawlor.com

Nothing warms the heart of a marketing or sales person than being able to gather a group of targeted prospects together for a presentation. The Internet has enabled every business to "speak" to their prospects easily and cost-effectively around the globe with web sites and one-to-one email and most recently webinars.

As recently as 2005 it was very expensive to gather hundreds of people on a webinar event, but over the past two years the technology costs have dropped dramatically and webinars are springing up everywhere. Unfortunately most webinars are poorly attended because they are poorly promoted.

Here is a webinar link about that details how ITSM Academy successfully jumped onto the webinar bandwagon and is using email very successfully - before and after the event.

"A Webinar Marketing Success Story" Learn first-hand how ITSM Academy in Ft. Lauderdale recently launched a highly successful webinar series. http://snipurl.com/1pq7h

Ask The Expert

Q: How do I build and manage a marketing contact preference center if I haven't had one before?

A: As businesses both grow and diversify their marketing communications avenues and new marketing channels emerge, many organizations find themselves facing this question.

Some companies arrive at this juncture after having created an email program with a single point of opt-in which later becomes further segmented and varied. Other organizations strive to meet customer demand for different communications preferences, or desire cost savings and greater efficiencies by migrating customers from one communications channel to another. In either case, they have begun with simple or universal assumptions and evolved to more complex choices.

In the case of an email program that may have begun with a general join invitation and over time expanded into an e-newsletter, alerts/reminders, new product announcements, and sales offers for example, existing subscribers should be invited to complete a preferences page on your Web site which further refines their choices. Even members opting out of an email program can be presented discrete unsubscribe options so they exit only those communications they no longer wish to receive. They might also be offered a global unsubscribe to all then-available email message types. At a minimum, however, email unsubscribe options should always match join options, item by item, at any particular point in time.

In the case of a multi-channel communications preference center, it's important to clearly indicate both content and format choices and to disclose the data required to accommodate certain channel preferences. Some types of content (for example, product warranty information) may only be delivered by traditional postal mail in order to successfully and legally reach all audience members. Other communications will by their digital nature require an online account be created, or an email address be provided. Still others may require collection of a phone number.

By creating a marketing contact preference center which clearly discloses not only all types of messaging but also the available channels for each, you ensure your customers receive just what they want in the format they choose. Your preference center and list member preferences can be communicated and collected either through offline marketing (BRCs, reply mail, call centers), online via your Web site, or both as long as you can track the most recent date of preference information collected so as to keep your database current.

Most important, revisit your preference center frequently to ensure choices change with the times and your evolving company or marketing programs, and update them accordingly.

Have a nagging question? Stumped on a problem? Ask The Expert.

Email your question to info@synchronicitymarketing.com and it may be answered in a future issue.