From 2008 sometime…….

The other day I got an email in my inbox. It said in part….

Dear Lynda Partner,

Hi, this is Nick Longo the CEO of CoffeeCup Software, you have been selected
as one of the few that I would like to personally invite to become a CoffeeCup Ambassador. This is an exclusive club of our biggest fans, best users, and closest friends.

If you would like to become an Ambassador please Click Here:

……..

Please join us today. We need you as a Fan and Evangelist to spread the word
about CoffeeCup Software.Thank you so much for participating. I am honored to invite you.

Nick Longo
———–
CEO | Founder
CoffeeCup Software

My first thought was “I don’t know any Nick Longo”. My second thought was “How did this person get my email address?”

Sound familiar?

It took me awhile but it turns out that when I opened a web hosting account recently, the hosting provider offered a free download of Nick’s software. I  did not download it.

So how did they get my email address and why were they sending me emails I didn’t want that did not even have an opt-out link.

Fearful that my brand new, shiny clean email address was out in the big bad world of impolite marketers, I wrote back an equally personal email to my new friend Nick.

Dear Nick
I did not opt-in to receive email from you. Please remove me from your list immediately and confirm that I have been removed.
Thank you
Lynda Partner

OK, so maybe I wasn’t as flowery was he was in his email, but why waste his time with marketing speak? At least I was clear, and, giving him the benefit of the doubt, didn’t come right out and call him a spammer.

The answer came two hours later

Lynda
When you selected to download the software from CoffeeCup you became a user of our software. You can unsubscribe from our e-mail news letters at www.coffeecup.com/email
Scott

Hmmmm, looks like I’ve been bumped off the special CEO list. Nick has passed the baton to Scott. Now if you read the beginning of this article, you know I did not download any software. Even if I did, downloading software is not opting in to get email. I am now a bit peeved – when someone writes to you telling you they didn’t opt-in and requesting that they be removed from your list would you not remove them and send a nicely worded email apologizing?

I decide to pull out my credentials to see if that makes any difference. As my husband says “My, what big credentials you have dear.”

Scott

1) I did not download your software
2) Sending me emails that I did not request is called spam
3) Your unsubscribe link does not work

Why won’t you just take me off your list and confirm back to me?

Lynda Partner
- Founder and former CEO of GotCorp – permission-based email marketing software
- Past Board member of CAUCE Canada (Coalition against Unsolicited Commercial Email)
- Member of the Anti-Spam Task Force for the Canadian Federal Government
- CoFounder of the Email Service Provider’s Coalition

So now Scott has an unhappy well-informed person emailing him 1) that his unsubscribe method is flawed or at the very least unclear to the person using it, and 2) that for the 3rd time they’d like his company to remove a name from their list

What does Scott do next? I know you are waiting with bated breath…

Hi

As I said you did download the software. The IP address information all
matches up. I would agree that many you did not know what you were
downloading, but never the less the download occurred and this is how you because a CoffeeCup member.

You can also unsubscribe at any time through http://www.coffeecup.com/email
Scott

What would possess him to use  “As I said..” in a customer service email. Is this guy well? How many times would one of your prospects have to ask to be removed from a list before you’d do it for them? And signing someone up as a member does not give you permission to send them emails.

I confess at this point, I am no longer hoping he’ll do the right thing and restore my faith in him. I may have been a bit terse in my next email to him.

Did you even read my email?

I clicked your unsubscribe button. I want you to confirm
that  (email address spelled out) is not in your database any
longer – Today please or I will be obliged to report your company to
the many black list spam sites in my database

Lynda

At this point he does write back confirming I have been removed from his list and because my mother raised me to be polite and I am a little ashamed of my last outburst, I send the following

Thank you – after 5 requests we are finally where I wanted to be before I ever heard of your company.

I strongly suggest you change your practices – they are going to come back to bite you, especially if I ever get another unwanted email from you.

I figured we were done right? He finally did the right thing and removed me from his list. But no, a few minutes later I get the coup de grace.

I would also suggest you contact LP (the hosting company they are partnered with) because we show clearly that your account accessed and downloaded our software. You should have them cancel your account or you will still receive e-mail from us.

Scott

So I need to cancel my hosting account to avoid being spammed by a third party software vendor?  What can I possibly say at this point, except dear readers, the importance of following best practices (or even common sense) when sending emails to your prospects and customers. If not, it could be your company in a blog posting.

Such a little thing, such a big negative impact.

The survey is done, and I find myself unable to push the GO button because I am afraid.  There, I said it.  I AM AFRAID.

I am afraid that nobody will complete the survey
I am afraid that nobody will retweet my posts
I am afraid that I’ll annoy my followers if I talk about it
I am afraid that my voice is so very tiny that nobody will even hear it, and that will hurt

Where did this fear come from?  Since when did I become too polite and too timid to “Just Do It”.  I think it must have something to do with using a personal brand instead of a corporate brand. It’s MY NAME on this project.  If it fails, it’s all on me.  It’s like that feeling when you throw a party and for 30 minutes before people show up you are convinced nobody will.

Or is this a Canadian thing?  Too polite and too timid to “Just Do It”?  Is that why Nike is not a Canadian company? But I digress.

Now don’t get me wrong, I also truly believe that far too many people (especially marketers) jump into things prematurely – throwing up a website without thinking through who the target audience is and what they want to do on it, opening a twitter account and only tweeting about themselves, writing press releases in 20 minutes that are so full of Blah, Blah Blah text that you couldn’t pay a reader to understand what they’re saying.  The real challenge is finding that perfect balance of Preparation and Planning vs Doing It without thinking.

I know I am too far on one side of that continuum.  I have been sitting on this project, coming up with reasons why I should delay – It’s the 4th of July, Summer is a slow time, It’s raining, I have a headache – you get the idea.  Then I watched Danny Brown run a live 24 hour Tweetathon to raise money for charity. Now that took guts. He had no idea if anyone would show up and 24 hours is a lot of dead air to fill if they didn’t.  But he did it, he pushed the GO button. I actually have no idea how successful he was but I think that’s my entire point.  I have no idea how successful his event was but I am left admiring him for not being afraid, for believing in what he does, for going out and asking people to participate, for Just Doing It.

I  have never met Danny except on Twitter,  but he was my inspiration, the one thing that got me over my fear of failing, the person who virtually put his hand over mind and helped me push that Go button.

There – I’ve done it.

Now we’ll see what happens but for better or for worse, I am no longer afraid.

I hope you’ll join in and take the survey.   This survey is for us, the curious people who use social media.  It will tell us more about us, who are we, what we have in common.  It’s a not-for-profit project, all the results will be shared with anyone who asks and all the questions were contributed by folks like you and me.  Instead of a prize, I have also decided to donate $1 for every completed survey to Danny Brown’s 12for12K charity of the month, so why not do some good – for you and for others.

1. CRM - contact and lead tracking, sales and contact management, sales pipeline management and forecasting, customer service and business management. Keep yourself organized! Free version available from www.freecrm.com, from $7/mo at www.sugarcrm.com
2. Market Research – Google Alerts is a “must-have” clipping service. Set up your favorite key words and www.google.com/alerts finds and delivers articles about any subject of your choosing to your inbox every day. Watch for news and mentions of your own company, your customers and your competitors. Free
3. Creative Design – Want a design for a new logo, brochure, website or business card? Go to either www.crowdspring.com, or www.99designs.com, upload your requirements, run a contest and pick your favourite. You pick the purse size, I’ve seen contests get dozens of great results for only a few hundred dollars.
4. Marketing Collateral – Want fast eay printing?  Upload files for brochures, business cards and stationary. These companies, www.overnightprints.com and  www.vistaprint.com, will  print and ship – too easy.  vistaprint.com is also available in Canada at www.vistaprint.ca
5. Permission-based Marketing – create and send opt-in newsletters, deliver and track blog posts and updates to customers, prospects and colleagues. www.campaigner.com starts at $10/mo, www.constantcontact.com starts at $15/mo
6. Accounting – track your time and expenses, manage contractors, send and manage your invoices, totally on-line, getting rave reviews. Join the wave at www.freshbooks.com, pricing starts at $15/mo
7. Conference Calling – when you need to convene a meeting (and look professional doing it), you can get free reservationless conference calling at www.freeconference.com
8. Remote PC Access – for those times when you need to get to a file on your computer but your computer is in your office and you’re not. www.gotomypc.com starts at $20/mo
9. Long Distance Calling – www.skype.com offers free or very low cost long distance calling (works best with headphones), and it can also do conference calls
10. Project Management – web-based project management software that marries time tracking and task management in a collaborative online space with powerful reporting.  www.myintervals.com is $20 for up to 15 projects
11. Taking orders/selling stuff – the dead easy way to accept credit cards on your website, www.paypal.com only charges you when you sell, a transaction fee up to 3% of sale value
12. Keeping track of it all – make notes on anything on the web or on your computer using www.evernote.com and have these memory joggers available (and searchable) at any time – free
13. Sending really big files – www.yousendit.com – for when you need to send a really big file that your customer may not be able to receive otherwise, or when you absolutely need to know a file reached it’s intended recipient – yousendit has a pay as you go option or plans from $10/mo
14. Virtual Fax – if you deal with Fortune 1000 companies you know how they love their faxes. www.efax.com lets you receive faxes in your email account instead of on a fax machine – way more convenient. You can also send scanned docs as faxes using the same service. Starts at $17/mo
15. On-line Meetings – www.dimdim.com makes your meeting almost as good as in-person and much less expensive than airfare. Use it to deliver synchronized live presentations, whiteboards and web pages and share their voice and video over the Internet. Free and $20/mo options
16. Virtual Receptionist – an Internet voicemail system accessible by phone, email, or the web. an auto-attendant that acts as your virtual receptionist. You can create virtual mailboxes for your employees and enjoy voicemail call forwarding, call transfers, call routing, voicemail notifications, and much more…. www.my1voice.com from $10/mo
17. Transcription – For those people who just hate to type but love to talk, you can record your messaging, upload it to www.speakwrite.com and receive a typed doc back via email in about 3 hours.
18. Sharing your thoughts – absolutely the best way to publish your powerpoint presentations on the web and share them with others – www.slideshare.com is free
19. Document sharing and collaboration – my personal favorite, docs.google.com allows you to upload word or excel files and work on them collaboratively with selected people. Takes all the hassle out of emailing docs around for comments. – free
20. Running an event? Use www.eventbrite.com to create a webpage for your event, accept and manage registrations and even publish who has RSVP’d. Free if your event is free, 2.5% of ticket price for paid events.

Over 60 people from the Marketing Executives Networking Group MENG and my great group of Twitter friends contributed to this list and once we were done there were at least 2 services I hadn’t heard of (but have since tried and enjoyed). How about you? Which ones are new to you? Which ones do you love? Which ones are we missing? If I get enough comments, I’ll do a Part II.

I like examples, especially simple ones that you get right away. My simple mind perhaps? Whatever the reason, because I have been researching successful B2B uses of Twitter lately I thought I would share this example of how Twitter helped at least one company make a sale.

It all started with a tweet (once upon a tweet?) from someone I follow.

I hadn’t heard of crowdSPRING so I checked them out. Now it turns out that I was a few days away from using their competitor 99Designs (who by the way I had used before with great results), but hey, if my colleague who I respect was using Crowdspring, perhaps they were better yet?

So I replied to him

And here is where it gets interesting. I did not hear back from him but within 5 minutes I got tweets from both 99designs and crowdSPRING, literally seconds apart.

Clearly they had staff running an ongoing search for any mention of their company, and both took the opportunity to try to influence my buying decision – good on them!

Takeaway #1 – every company should be using Twitter to search for opportunities to react to people who are shouting out that they are interested in their products.

It’s also interesting that while my tweet clearly referenced 99designs, I shortened crowdSPRING to cspring, which means they were searching, not just for their company name but for at least one variation of it – really smart.

Takeaway #2 – search not just for your exact company name but for variations on it, especially abbreviations.

Lastly, as I read their tweets it also occurred to me that a new skill is required from salespeople – pitch your product in no more than 140 characters, but more on that in a future post.

Both companies reacted quickly and well and I did end up buying a service from one of them, you gotta believe the ROI on that tweet was huge! You don’t need many people like me to justify using Twitter, at least for this purpose. By the way, I am curious – which one would you have picked based on the tweets from the companies?

The Aggregator – They scan, skim and read more quickly than most human beings. Passionate about their particular interest area, they want others to share their interest and happily tweet links to interesting articles. Strangely they don’t retweet as much as you’d think, perhaps because they feel their value comes from the effort they put in to find the articles in the first place – I bet they can all tell you how many tweets they’ve made in the past week.

What’s great about them?  They can be like your own personal clipping service, reading through the dross and finding the juicy interesting articles for you.  A good one is invaluable.

When Aggregators go bad… they figure out how to use the “tweet this” button on bogs and news sites and suddenly the frequency of their tweets increases to a feverish pitch.  They begin to think they can only win if they tweet more than anyone else and they start tweeting more and more obscure articles.

The Life Detailer – You know them instantly when you get to their twitter page, not a single link to be found among the vast numbers of tweets that chronicle their life in minute detail.  The entire twitterverse knows what sports team they follow (not the San Jose Sharks anymore – hah!), what they had for breakfast (nothing as they were too hung over) and what they think of their mother-in-law (not much and someone should tell them tweets never die!)

What’s great about them?  Any time you think your life is really boring, you can reassure yourself knowing there are more people out there with even more boring lives.

When Detailers go bad – They become obsessed with adding more and more detail for public consumption. They are exhibitionists with a keyboard and we just know that they have tweeted while doing their business in that room where computers simply don’t belong.

The Promoter – every tweet is about their business, every tweet.  Did I mention it was every tweet?  Subtlety is not their strong suit.  Rarely are they subtle but they are almost always incredibly persistent. You know them, they are the same ones who email you a press release every 2 weeks and who don’t include an opt-out.

What’s great about them? – You gotta admire their persistence.

When Promoters go bad – they start bad, don’t they?

The Commentator – they tweet their opinions, they tweet other people’s opinions, they tweet what they see happening around them.   They are like bloggers with an attention deficit, not quite ready to invest the time required to write an entire article or post with a beginning, a middle and an ending.

What’s great about them?  Finally some original content on twitter – often funny and sometimes insightful, if you can find and follow a good one, you’ll be well rewarded.

When Commentators go bad – they start to turn into Detailers, it’s a fine line folks, walk it carefully.

The Socialite – you know them by their ratio of @ in their tweets.  A ratio of more than 1 @ per 100 characters is a dead giveway.  They are the folks who love CC: on email, the more people who hear them the better. They tend to be the group leaders and organizers and twitter is just another tool to help them communicate.

What’s great about them?  If you find a socialite you respect and admire, you may also enjoy their friends and want to follow them too. Click through to their @names and see who is out there, I’ve added many people to my follow list using indirect referrals from Socialites.

When Socialites go bad – They start tweeting famous people, suggesting that they actually have a relationship with these famous people, thereby increasing their Twitter status (would that be a twatus?)  At some point you gotta wonder why anyone wants to follow one side of a bunch of conversations even if it’s with a celebrity – it smacks of teenage girl talk. (Note added May 5th, my friend Gillian Brouse (@gilliebee) pointed out that every twitter account owner can choose not to see all these replies with only a few simple key strokes – RTFM Lynda!)

The Lurker – representing the majority of twitter users, the lurker follows many people (a friend told me yesterday he follows over 1000 in each of two accounts) but doesn’t tweet himself.  Lurkers are sponges, soaking up knowledge, gossip, news and creating impressions of people and products without feeling any need to contribute to the noise.

What’s great about them?  I believe they are the reason Twitter will survive long term. They are the ones who actually absorb what’s going on. They will eventually become your customers, your champions, your supporters and even your friends.  Let them lurk, and if they ever tweet you, be 100% sure to tweet them back.

When Lurkers go bad – they start to think they know you from reading your tweets. Recently I was being twitter-stalked (OK, I made that term up).  A lurker came out of the closet at a business event I was at and felt that his understanding of my tweets afforded him some special privileges.  It was a bit weird talking to someone I had never met who felt he knew me well.

So what’s the best Twitter type?  It really depends on why you use twitter.  I started out using twitter to learn from others who shared my business interests so I tend to follow Aggregators and Commentators, especially Commentators who have figured out how to add value in their tweets. I also learned that Aggregators and Commentators who don’t add any personal life tidbits quickly become boring, so a touch of Life Detailer is really important to me too.  I really don’t enjoy Socialites but I can see how others would.  The good news is that there are so many people out there that matching followers to your most comfortable twitter style is just a question of patience and persistence.

Why not follow me at www.twitter.com/lpartner and you can tell me what type I am and whether it works for you.

Technorati Profile

The perfect event marketing ROI presentation shows how profits realized from product or service sales as a direct result of an event-based marketing program exceed the cost of the program. It’s actually a simple formula, but there are some challenges. To explain, here’s a story to show why calculating event ROI is more like dating than hooking up and its all about getting more than one touch to be successful.

In a perfect event marketing world, a consumer attends an event where he or she learns for the first time about a product or service and makes a purchase right on the spot. The profits realized from sales exceed the cost of the event by a comfortable margin and it is clear to you the event was key to making the sale.

If you are thinking, “As if,” well, you’re not alone.

Part 1: Joe works the crowd

Think of your brand as a potential mate. Let’s call him Joe. Now imagine someone walks into a party, meets Joe for the first time, finds him really attractive, chats for a couple of minutes, and then when Joe asks her out, he gets a resounding and immediate, “Yes!” Sure, there may be some people, just as there are some brands, who enjoy this kind of success. But most do not.

Most purchase decisions, like relationships between people, are complex and require time and nurturing. The journey from awareness to purchase is often on a long and winding road.

A more realistic scenario at our party unfolds like this: Joe is a nice guy with lots to offer. He hasn’t had a serious relationship for awhile and is determined to meet someone. He goes to a party with the intention of finding as many interesting women as possible. He moves around the room, striking up conversations with several women. He takes the time to ask each a few questions to determine their likes (demographics), their interests (is she a qualified buyer?), why they’ve never met before (is she aware of your product?), who they know in common (what other complimentary products does she buy?), and who she has dated recently (what’s the competition?)

Joe discovers quickly that most of the women at the party have never heard of him and while most are interested in the same things that he is, they don’t like his jokes.

CONSUMER KNOWLEDGE IS A CRITICAL INGREDIENT FOR ROI. Once Joe connects with the fact that the women don’t like his jokes, he fine-tunes his conversation and behaviour and notices that the remaining women he converses with are more interested in him.
You will never reach the “buy” stage if you don’t interest people at the “hi” stage. The sooner you receive feedback on your approach, the faster you can work on securing the next relationship or re-establishing connections with others.

Part 2: Joe gets the girl’s phone number

PERMISSION IS CRITICAL TO AN ONGOING RELATIONSHIP. Joe is aware he doesn’t have a lot of time to get to know the women in the room. He works hard to interest as many women as possible with his story telling. Then he politely asks if they’d like to hear how the story ends. Most are interested and give him their phone number or e-mail address.

Joe knows that finding his soul mate is not going to happen instantaneously, so he wisely tells each woman at the party only part of his story (a bit of value) and then offers to end the tale at a later date (follow up with more value). He measures his success that night by how many women were interested enough to want to meet him again and to continue the conversation. The measure of his success at the party is based on the number of phone numbers and e-mail addresses he collects. He knows if he calls them all, at least some of them will want to see him again.

How does this translate in the real world? Always include an opt-in option for participants who want to continue the consumer relationship. Count these opt-ins as part of your ROI calculation.

Part 3: Joe gets the girls

DON’T DROP THE BALL ONCE YOU’VE BEEN INVITED TO PLAY. Joe doesn’t rest on his laurels after the party. He knows his chances of success are greater if he acts quickly to follow up. The very next day, he contacts all the women who expressed an interest in hearing from him. He carefully tailors his message to the level of interest of each woman: a softer message for those who were not ready to jump back into dating, a stronger offer for those who were clearly ready for something new. Luckily for Joe, he has an incredible memory. Each message referenced something he had learned about each of the women and included an offer geared to their interests and timing preferences. Joe invited those who were the most interested to dinner.

How does this translate in the real world? Continue the relationship beyond your event. Send an e-mail or text message to thank participants for coming. Customize the message according to what they’ve told you in the survey. Offer the most qualified a special incentive. Measure how many of them stay connected to you – another part of an ROI calculation.

CROSS THE FINISH LINE. Joe is thick in the middle of the dating scene now. His relationships with the many women in his life are at various stages of seriousness. He still hasn’t “sold” anything. For Joe, that will happen when he finds his soul mate.

This is where our ROI analogy starts to fall apart, as polygamy is frowned upon!
How does this translate in the real world? In the case of event marketing, your final ROI comes when you can track people from the time they attend your event to the time of purchase and, even better, when they repeat purchase. Your ROI is then:
“The total profit associated with the products purchased by the attendees of your event minus the cost of the event, divided by the profit.”

The bottom line is to imagine yourself as a “Joe,” to connect with as many people as possible, and to ask them permission to continue a relationship. Carefully nurture that relationship, by offering meaningful, timely followup communications, and follow through to sales numbers for each of the visitors at the event.

The real question is “Should we switch or is this case a case of fixing what ain’t broken?”

I believe there are (at least) seven good reasons for using electronic data capture instead of paper. Some are more important than others, depending on the type of event, the audience and the type of data you are collecting.

1) Better Security
This is important! Data captured at events can include names, addresses, e-mails, bank account information and social security numbers. Consider the legal and public relations risks of misplacing or losing this information as the paper containing the data follows its processing route. Read my blog on this subject. A trustworthy partner can provide this service for you, storing the encrypted information on a locked down data capture device. This means that even if someone could access the data, it would not be decipherable. The data remains secure while it wings its way over a wireless network and to your end client’s customer relationship management (CRM) system.

2) Improved Accuracy
The accuracy of what information on paper depends on two things: the willingness of a consumer to provide the correct data, and the ability of the data entry person to read and understand answers provided. Electronic data capture uses software intelligence to improve accuracy by auto-populating city, state and country based on zip or postal code to prevent entering information that conflicts with answers to a previous question, and so on. Features such as spellchecking ensure open answers make sense, and that only one response is selected if that is what is desired. Software can also apply logic to ensure answers conform to a format that improves accuracy, for example, e-mail address format, date and age (where a minimum age is required).

3) More Complete
Some forms are confusing to consumers and, consequently, are abandoned.  An incomplete survey is often as useless as no survey. Intelligent electronic surveys can show the user only the questions that make sense and can insist on complete answers to some or all questions before allowing the user to continue.

4) Fewer Risks
Paper surveys are mobile by nature. They travel from the hands of those completing them, to event staff who collect and store them, put them in envelopes and ship them out. Sometimes they go home with the event staff at night. This kind of data collection is a challenge to track and enumerate. Missing surveys might represent a security breach if they contain personally identifiable information. You may have promised security in exchange for information. If a survey is not completely legible, you may not be able to uphold this kind of a promise. At the very best, this damages your brand. In the event of a contest or sweepstake, it may even result in a legal liability.  Properly completed electronic surveys ensure every record is captured on a secure device, tagged and delivered to a database with a full audit trail throughout.

5) Fast Processing
Before you can act on survey data, you must be able to access it. This usually means keying in or scanning a paper form. It can take weeks to deliver paper forms to a processing centre and enter information into a database. In contrast, an electronic system makes every survey record available to you within seconds of information being entered on a device. You can follow up with the survey taker before they have even left your display. Acting quickly improves your chance of success.

6) Editing Capability
It is almost inevitable that after you have designed a survey, printed it and shipped it, that “somebody” decides a last-minute change is essential. This not only takes time, but costs money – rush fees, for example. Worse, sometimes it becomes apparent only when people start using the form that some of the questions are unclear or confusing. Making changes at this point might be impossible. With the right electronic survey partner, changes to surveys are expected and welcomed. People rarely react exactly as we expect. Making changes to an electronic survey on location is often as easy as a few key strokes.

7) Storage Capacity
One of the worst possible scenarios for an event marketer is running out of paper forms and losing potential leads. It can be trying to spend time running from location to location ensuring there are enough paper form supplies. Electronic data capture maintains an almost infinite “paper” supply. Each device can store thousands of surveys securely and then co-ordinate their delivery to a data entry facility. With the right partner, your electronic surveys are seamlessly delivered to your client or to your servers using wireless networks and freeing up your event staff.

When all is said and done, except in a very few cases, I truly believe electronic data capture is the way to go but I also acknowledge it has its downsides. I’ll blog about those shortly.