| Make your newsletters
work
Many businesses publish newsletters (print or email) to keep in
touch with customers. Many rely on general interest stories that
don't leverage the power of the medium. Try this instead:
• Write for readers who are familiar with your brand.
If they open your communications, they already care. Respect their
trust in you.
• Validate that your brand was the right choice.
Why do people sign up for newsletters if they already purchased
your product? They want to validate that purchase. Present deep
evidence that validates their choice of selecting you. People love
to be right! Advance their understanding of why your brand is the
right choice.
• Dish the dirt. Tell interesting stories
about your process or key people who bring the brand to market.
It creates an emotional connection that helps build brand loyalty.
• Inspire! Be positive in your communications
so that people look forward to hearing from you.
Of course, all communications should maintain your brand tone. The
4 elements above reinforce your brand and lead to more committed customers!
5 new musts of email marketing
Right Now Technologies, a customer relations management firm, has
published a free whitepaper: Busting Out of the Inbox: Five
New Rules of 1to1® Email Marketing. It details strategies
for getting your emails delivered, opened, and acted upon.
The paper tells the story of how The Right Start, the largest national
specialty retailer of juvenile products for infants and young children,
uses targeted email campaigns to reach untapped prospects, fortify
its brand, and get results, including a 20% lift in in-store promotions.
Download
Busting Out of the Inbox
Avant-nerds going mainstream
According to The Zandl
Group, a trendspotting firm, "avant-nerdism" will
hit the mainstream in 2009.
An avant-nerd is a cool/social person who appropriates nerd culture
and makes it into a retro style with European sensibilities.
Avant-nerds are "the new creative class" according to
principal Irma Zandl, and possess a "compact, eco-friendly,
quirky, and smart" aesthetic. They embrace the weird and turn
it into fun. Some examples include pitched lightsaber battles or
taking over Staten Island dressed as pirates!
The trend is already affecting fashion, industrial design, and
interior design. Bloomington certainly has a healthy population
of avant-nerds. Loosen up and embrace
it with your marketing materials if you want to reach this sector!
Learn
more about avant-nerds
|
