Recognising Inbox Insanity
I was checking out the free traffic booster and backlink software called Comment Kahuna today and noticed this message on their opt-in page:
Why must you opt-in? We have several free upgrades planned soon. You will be notified about them via email. We respect your privacy and inbox sanity. You will not be hammered with a million emails or promotions. We promise.
If you’re on multiple mailing lists, and don’t manage your inbox — you very well might find yourself suffering from inbox insanity.
I recently heard an internet marketer explain how they use a different email address for EVERY list they’re on (more than 500). Personally, I don’t have the time or inclination to track my incoming traffic that ruthlessly.
Instead, I use Google mail to manage my lists. Google’s labels and filters do a great job of sorting out the mail, and also filters can be setup to ensure messages never make it into the spam box (when some marketers fail to test if the words they use will trigger spam filters).
I leave it up to Google’s experts to identify and track spam.
And I happily accept Google’s offer of more than 7Gb of free space in exchange for some ads down the right hand side (no, I don’t use a Firefox script to hide the ads — as a marketer and copywriter, I enjoy looking at Google ads to see what gets my attention).
I think the “inbox sanity” message will resonate with a lot of people. They feel overwhelmed at times, especially around product launches or event countdowns where several of the people they get mail from are all promoting the same thing.
I don’t condemn frequent emails — actually it frustrates me to see people with very powerful lists under-utilise its potential. For example, I’m on one huge list (worldwide I would guess the numbers are in the hundreds of thousands or millions) — yet I get email from that source only a few times per year.
But back to the example above.
In this case, I think it’s a great example of keeping your antenna tuned in to the ongoing feelings of the marketplace. It’s just like watching the news or reading all of the regular magazines — if you don’t know what’s going on, you won’t know what your market is thinking!
Twitter Tweets On 2008-10-08
- Funny: “I will not attract the kind of trendy clientele I am after if I continue to serve farmyard animals” — http://tinyurl.com/6854124 #
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Creating Curiosity
I noticed a great example today of a story teaser that was deliberately designed to get you to click through and read more.
It was for one of entertainment stories in the Herald Sun, the online version of Melbourne’s largest circulating metropolitan daily newspaper (and claimed to be Australia’s most popular daily paper with more than 1.5 million readers).
Here it is:
As you can see from the last sentence, it’s deliberately incomplete and of course being an unfinished sentence it is designed to pique your curiosity … to get you to click and read the full article to find out what he really does think of his brother.
Having this type of “cliffhanger” is quite popular as a “plot device” in television series … keeping you glued to the screen over ad breaks or making sure you watch the next episode. You want to find out how the situation is resolved!
As creatures of ‘completion’, we want to complete what is incomplete.
Equally, this tactic can work in other mediums — like it has been used here in this example on the Herald Sun home page. For example, you could use it in blog post excerpts, on the outside of a direct mail envelope, within an email message that prompts you to click through to a website … in a printed newsletter so readers will be keen to read the next edition.
Keep the cliffhanger in mind to see if you can incorporate it into your own communication.
Twitter Tweets On 2008-09-30
- Hmmm, 250 points and 5.2% off the Aussie stockmarket value in the first half hour… #
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Local informercial relates better to viewers
Guthy-Renker’s Proactiv solution (the skin care solution for acne treatment) has been running on Australian television networks as an infomercial for several years … and I’d hazard to guess it’s doing very well (given its continuous airing) … even with the whole infomercial basically being an American production.
But tonight I noticed there’s now a new “local” Australian version of the infomercial … all of the testimonials are by Australians … local voices, local addresses … with an Australian television celebrity used predominantly throughout the presentation.
The stories and testimonials, they way they’re told and even the words used, relate exactly to an Australian audience.
And they also use an Australian accented voice over and even mention the product is made in Australia — there’s also wording like “here in Australia” to help ensure it’s obvious the infomercial is Australian.
Even with a few small US sections in the presentation, it’s easy to tell It’s a “fair dinkum” infomercial, still with Proactiv’s professional production values (more about that in a moment).
Whilst I have no evidence or research, my gut feeling says this approach will take sales to another level. Viewers will relate better hearing Australians giving live testimonials — because they’re “local” authentic people, not just one of those “US infomercials” that seem like they’re just lobbed into our market.
To many Australians (or at least the ones I’ve personally polled), the US-produced infomercials can seem overly pushy and scripted/controlled … and there can be a feeling at times that the company who make the product don’t care enough to bother to make a local version of their commercial.
So Proactiv beats this perception.
On the other hand, some of the Australian-produced infomercials simply look amateurish compared to US presentations. While some of the US infomercials look very scripted, and the audience appears overly fake, the Aussie productions look like they were put together on an old PC sitting in someone’s spare bedroom (I won’t name it, but one professional handyman tool comes to mind, as well as a new ad starring the same two blokes).
There’s nothing professional looking about these Australian productions — they’re almost corny … and that’s possibly a strategy (sometimes looking “cheap and cheerful” can be used to promote a “budget” or low cost/high quality value approach — it shows you’re not wasting money on over-the-top marketing). Actually, for the products they promote, I’m sure they work very well. They’re just at a different production level than most US infomercials.
But in Proactiv’s case, the Australian version of their ad is equally well produced as the US one. So that can give the perception that the company cares enough to use local people and still not compromise on the quality of the presentation.
Using testimonials that relate more to your target audience is definitely a proven strategy — for example, if you’re marketing to real estate agents, getting testimonials from other real estate agents is a great way to help persuade your audience.
That’s why I’m sure using Australians in Proactiv’s infomercials will help their sales.