Effective Marketing Email From AwayFind

by Scott Harris on July 19, 2011

Stop Checking Email with AwayFind.com

Image by Frank Gruber via Flickr

From time to time there are interesting marketing pieces that I come across. One such example comes your way from AwayFind.

In case you haven’t used it yet, AwayFind is a very useful service that alerts you via SMS/voice when emails deemed important by your own criteria hit your inbox. The service delivers the benefit of affording you uninterrupted time to focus without the distraction of having to constantly check your inbox. I love efficiency applications and I’ve found AwayFind to be a very useful tool for me.

Recently, I received an email message from AwayFind that caught my attention.  From the short personal and informal subject line to the unexpected content, it incited a reaction from me.   Read the copy of the email and see why I think this email was so effective below.

From: Jared Goralnick (AwayFind)
Date: Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 1:15 PM
Subject: You and me…
To: The Marketing Tactician

Hi Scott,

I may not know you personally.

You don’t know me from any other tech geek with a web service or techie startup.

And we’ll probably never get the chance to meet.

But let me tell you a quick story, and ask you a quick favor…

I’m not just someone at a tech company.  My name is Jared.  I have several passions in life including swing dance and photography.

But my real passion, and what I’ve devoted my entire career to, is helping people to use technology as a vehicle rather than an obstacle to getting stuff done.  For the past 3 years, I’ve been consumed by AwayFind and helping people to escape their inbox— not just to help them become more efficient at their jobs or run their business better, but to allow them to spend more time with their family or whatever it is that makes their lives more whole.

So that’s my passion and the reason I created AwayFind.  I think that we offer a pretty good service.  But I know that it can be better.

And I know you can help me figure out how.  If you could spend two minutes and fill out a quick survey as a favor to me, it’d really help me to understand how we can do a better job…for you.

<<Thanks in advance for taking our 2 minute survey.>>

Here’s to time well spent,

Jared

AwayFind.com

Things I really like about this marketing effort are:

  • The From: line includes a person’s name and their company so it’s easily identifiable
  • The subject line is short (only 13 characters!) and seems directed to me… I’m the “me” in the “You and me…”
  • The body copy is easily scanned and the bold text tells me what the message is about
  • Jared tells an authentic story that helps me understand why Jared needs my help
  • The content is unexpected. Most emails won’t walk me through my internal dialogue like this email has done. And it doesn’t come across as a marketing email to me. Jared is just asking for my opinion like a friend would ask me.
  • The email has one call to action… Fill out a quick survey.
  • Its marketing message is on point. AwayFind is all about saving time and the closing really hits the mark by tying in the survey with “time well spent“

Kudos to Jared and the AwayFind team for a great product and a fantastic example of email marketing!

What do you think about this email from AwayFind?

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SMART Metrics

by Scott Harris on May 11, 2011

Dashboad

Image via Wikipedia

When dealing with data, be smart. Apply a SMART dashboard to your metrics and data analysis efforts.

Much like SMART goals, SMART metrics ensure you measure the right data and that it is actionable.

When looking at web analytics and marketing campaigns I define my SMART metrics as:

Specific – To be useful, data needs to communicate something meaningful. Data that is not specific enough might as well be inaccurate. Decisions based on inaccurate or non-specific or overly broad data can lead to bad decisions. Be specific with the data you need and test your data collection’s quality.

Manageable – Metrics by their very nature are measurable so with SMART metrics, I aim to collect manageable metrics and digest them in a dashboard format. The curse of knowledge plays a role here. By reporting too many measurements your decision-making can get cloudy, distracting you from acting on the most important metrics. Keep your metric dashboard manageable by limiting it to the most important metrics. You can always use separate more detailed reports for deeper dive analysis.

Actionable – Data are most powerful when they are actionable.  If you can’t act on a metric, don’t waste time collecting, analyzing, and reporting it.  Ideally, your metrics will trigger an immediate action that will improve your bottom line. For example, you can test the subject lines of the emails you send.  Measure the open rates for a group of your emails with different subject lines.  Once you find which version has the best open rate, use this subject line for the rest of your emails to your email list.

Replicable – When starting out, you need to check your data for accuracy. Test data quality by seeing if its measurement is replicable.  For example, if you have traffic monitoring software you like, take another monitoring tool for a test drive and compare the two. Do your numbers match up? If not, find out why and make sure you are collecting accurate data.

Trending - Identify significant movements in specific metrics and determine the cause. Take the appropriate action. If you find that a program or campaign is doing particularly well driving a metric, see where else you can employ that tactic in other programs.

SMART metrics can improve your company’s bottom line.  Use them, see which work best, and monitor them in a digestible format. Your turn, what criteria do you use for your metrics dashboard?

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Emotional Marketing

by Scott Harris on March 31, 2011

As more companies go down the road of emphasizing the bottom line, emotional marketing is often discounted as a viable strategy for marketing spend.

However, for those interested in capturing higher margins for their company’s services, emotional marketing can be a sure fire way drive up value.  The beauty of emotional marketing is that it works on so many levels.  Emotional marketing increases the value of your service by positioning it in a way that lets your target customer experience a bevy of emotions.

B2B companies often ignore this type of tactic, but it can be very effective.  For example, many business services or products aim to save time for their customers. Capture that time savings and show how it can lead to spending more time with family or a hobby they love. Doing this can induce an emotional response that increases the value of your solution.

Experiencing the joy and anticipation of more time to do what you love is a winning proposition in an any environment. Inject some emotion into your marketing and drive up the value of your business.

How have you used emotional marketing in your marketing efforts?

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Marketing With Awards

by seharris on February 28, 2011

With the Academy Awards last night, I’m reminded of how persuasive awards can be to prospective clients. Winners on Oscar night will forever be referred to as an “Academy award-winning” actor and companies can also capitalize on noteworthy awards.

From a marketing perspective, awards can be very powerful statements of strength. Awards serve as strong measures of validation for your company and its services. An award is a signal to prospects that what you are selling is deemed as best in its class.

So how do you get an “award-winning” product? It’s often easier than you might first expect. There are many organizations and events that give out awards. Much like the actor and movie guilds offer many opportunities to win awards in showbiz, most industries have multiple forums or channels that give out industry specific awards.

To get started, first you’ll want to research industry associations, magazines, websites, and tradeshows to see what awards exist. Then identify award categories that your customers and prospects will respect and focus on winning those. Apply to all the awards you think can help your company or service gain respect. For newer products, there are often newcomer awards that can give you a higher likelihood of winning, but still carry a lot of weight. The best part is that you only need to win one award to have an “award-winning” company or product.

Once you win an award, spread the word!

An award offers you the opportunity to share your success through multiple platforms and formats. Pepper the award into your marketing collateral and all your marketing channels. Share your press release with influential blogs, local business chronicles, and news outlets. Put your achievement on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and in your newsletter. Interview company executives about the award and create a podcast and or video to share internally and externally.  An award is noteworthy and should be shared to your heart’s content.  Be creative and spread the word!

How have you used awards in your marketing efforts?

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