Use Web marketing to boost sales

News & Observer

Published Sun, Dec 27, 2009 02:00 AM
Modified Thu, Dec 24, 2009 03:18 PM

Grace W. Ueng is CEO of Savvy Marketing Group inCary, which works with local companies. A consultant, speaker and writer, Ueng has served on the adjunct faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School and in the international MBA program at Fudan in Shanghai, a joint venture with MIT Sloan School, teaching "Entrepreneurial Marketing and Innovation." For several weeks in Work & Money, Ueng is offering her 12-step guide to marketing new and existing businesses. Last week, she discussed how to generate sales leads. Today, she continues the discussion with the second part of Step 10. (To catch up, go to www.newsobserver.com/business).

Step 10: Get leads that generate sales via Web marketing

Because the majority of Web site traffic comes from search engines, many companies want to focus on better positioning. First, you need to determine whether your target audience will search online to find you. If so, invest energy in search engine optimization. This means ensuring that your Web pages are accessible to search engines and structured in ways that improve the chances they will be found and listed as far to the top of the list as possible.

Companies can also take advantage of many paid search vehicles which are usually measured by "pay per click."

E-mail marketing firms have found their business to thrive in the down economy, perhaps because this form of marketing is cost effective and when well-executed, can bear fruit. Winston Bowden, vice president of sales and marketing for Durham-based Contactology, offered this advice:

• Segmentation: Segmentation means sending multiple versions of your message with the needs of different groups in mind. Sending relevant communication through segmentation is a sure-fire way to increase response rates. Our customers segment based on a variety of data points: who has opened an e-mail, who has clicked, who hasn't responded, etc. For example, a marketer might send a follow-up campaign to all the recipients who clicked on a link in an e-mail. Segmenting by demographic data is also critical, especially for retailers. It's likely that your male customers have different needs than your female customers. An 18-year-old customer has different needs than a 50-year-old customer.

• Testing: Testing your campaigns is a great way to ensure response rates. Many e-mail marketing products offer testing, allowing marketers to send several different versions of an e-mail campaign to a small portion of their list. For example, you could send three different campaigns and try three different subject lines. You would then send the campaign with the highest open rate to the remainder of the list. You can test any portion of an e-mail campaign: subject line, imagery, copy variations and design elements.

• Deliverability: Regardless of your industry and what goals you associate with your e-mail marketing campaign, Bowden said there are some core "must dos." Deliverability should be the No.1 concern ofevery e-mail marketer. If your message doesn't make it to the inbox, your campaign has zero chance of success. Work with an e-mail marketing provider that maintains strong relationships with the Internet service providers.

• List quality: Just as important is for the sender to obtain permission before sending to an e-mail address. Individuals on the list should have asked to receive it. E-mailing to a purchased or rented list is not an acceptable practice in thee-mail marketing industry. Most reputable providers won't work with any list that isn't 100 percent opt-in.

What this means for the marketer is a robust marketing plan to get opt-in subscribers. Place a sign-up button on your Web site. You can also run paid search campaigns that direct Web traffic to your opt-in form. If you're a business with a physical presence, include a sign-up form at your front desk.

How often you contact your target customers depends on the expectations the marketer has established with its recipients. A news organization might send an e-mail every day. A retailer, however, may send only a few e-mails a month.

The key is sending valuable content. Don't waste your recipients' time. If you send too frequently, you risk alienating your list. That means fewer individuals will open and click on your messages. Even worse, it's likely many of your subscribers will request to be removed from your e-mail offers.

Email marketing is "the ketchup on the burger" for companies and organizations using the Web to drive sales.
Place links on your Web site so visitors can easily opt-in to your communications. Without e-mail marketing, a visitor to your Web site could browse and leave. No sale.With e-mail marketing, a visitor to your site can choose to opt-in to your e-mail content. You've taken what could have been a lost prospect and turned them into an e-mail subscriber.

• Responsiveness: Once you have signed up subscribers, reward them with coupons and special offers. An opt-in is a clear sign of interest. Send them e-mail immediately and include lots of links back to your site.

Highlight any special sales, new products or industry news that they might find interesting.

Most importantly, segment your e-mail marketing based on whatever data you've collected about the subscriber: location, age, gender, etc.

Judge upholds surveys for species before logging

Coming to a forest near you?

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_14028331?nclick_check=1
 

Be sure participating in a trade show will pay

News and Observer

Published Sun, Dec 20, 2009 02:00 AM
Modified Fri, Dec 18, 2009 06:46 PM

Grace W. Ueng is CEO of Savvy Marketing Group in Cary, which works with various local companies. A consultant, speaker and writer, Ueng has served on the adjunct faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School and in the international MBA program at Fudan in Shanghai, a joint venture with MIT Sloan School, teaching "Entrepreneurial Marketing and Innovation." For several weeks in Work & Money, Ueng is offering her 12-step guide to marketing new and existing businesses. Last week, she discussed how to promote products (to catch up, go to www.newsobserver.com/business).

Step 10: Get leads that generate sales

Continually test appropriate lead generation vehicles that make sense for your category such as e-mail marketing, search engine optimization, paid search, direct mail, targeted trade shows and conferences, or a motivating referral program. Track the return on investment of each marketing program to know what to refine, continue or drop.

Sales teams will always desire high quality leads. They don't want to be calling into unqualified opportunities. Clay Ritchey, vice president of marketing and strategy for Hill-Rom IT Solutions, made the promise to his sales organization that marketing would not hand over leads unless they met certain criteria.

Ritchey explained that leads handed over to sales must have a budget and accountable decision maker, a demonstrated need that Hill-Rom can fulfill and a timeline to purchase within 12-18 months. The sales team then agrees to make contact within a week.

Dan Clem, director of marketing at AlertNow, said that large events have proved the most effective in reaching his company's target audience, K-12 educators.

Events require great attention to detail before, during and after the show. Companies should step back and think through the goals and corresponding key components to their trade show and conference sponsorship strategy to warrant the investment required. Goals could include: driving awareness with media and analysts who can influence the market, generating prospects for sales, and connecting with potential partners.

Often the leads generated from trade shows are not as targeted as with other marketing programs.

How to evaluate

Before signing on for a trade show, evaluate:

• Is this a must-attend show (especially, to continue to be on good terms with a key partner)?
• Will there be opportunities to speak that can contribute to your company's stature as a "thought leader"? You may need to plan months in advance of the show to make their deadlines. Develop a couple of topics.
• Is the timing appropriate to launch a new product? If so, be sure the product is ready by show time.
• How many attendees does the show organizer expect, and what titles and companies will be present? How closely does this fit with your target audience?
• What is the total cost of the show,, and what is predicted average cost per lead?
• How many people will it take to staff, and can you afford to take sales reps out of the field - is this the best use of time? If not, do you have non-sales staff available? Or a hybrid approach?
• What press will be attending? Can you get the media list and make appointments ahead of time?
• Can you obtain an attendee list to market directly to each before and after the event?
• What are booth size choices, and what will be your messaging, promotional idea, and signage/communications? How will you stand out?
• Can you get prime positioning by registering earlier? What size booth are your competitors taking?

Before an event, train the staff with key messages and answers to frequently asked questions so that everyone will be singing off the same song sheet. After the show, see whether it makes sense to provide an immediate follow-up e-mail to all those who attended. Social media such as blogging and micro-blogging should be used throughout the event. Follow-up is best within hours of a show while attendees are still excited about what they saw. If an event yields a large volume of leads, an e-mail marketing campaign is a good way to help get to them.

Analyze the return on investment of the past year's shows - what the total costs were, how many leads were generated and what business (deals, public relations, partnerships) yielded as a result.

Immediately upon accepting the worldwide marketing leadership role for TogetherSoft in Raleigh, I inherited the responsibility for launching a new product at the largest trade show in the category we competed.

I thought about how we could let our broader target market that would all be in attendance (many of which used our competition) learn about the key attributes that our smaller, but loyal users had come to rely on. We came up with "The TogetherSoft Challenge" a la the Pepsi Challenge.

From my research, we knew where we excelled, and we crafted a simple survey for software developers (our target audience) to rate us against our competition after viewing the latest version of our software tool. Those that viewed the demo and then took the survey were entered into a drawing for a BMW StreetCarver skateboard.

We had hundreds participate after viewing our demo and more than 90 percent thought TogetherSoft performed better and was the preferred product.

We sent the survey results to trade publications and industry analysts resulting in extensive coverage. Several months later, one of the two competitors of TogetherSoft purchased the venture-backed company.

Let client guide promotion

News and Observer

Published Tue, Dec 15, 2009 11:24 AM
Modified Tue, Dec 15, 2009 11:24 AM

Grace W. Ueng is CEO of Savvy Marketing Group in Cary, which works with various local companies. A consultant, speaker and writer, Ueng has served on the adjunct faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School and in the international MBA program at Fudan in Shanghai, a joint venture with MIT Sloan School, teaching "Entrepreneurial Marketing and Innovation." For several weeks in Work&Money, Ueng is offering her 12-step guide to marketing new and existing businesses. Last week, she discussed how to generate awareness (to catch up, go to www.newsobserver.com/business ).

Step 9: Promote yourself.

If your product is sold via channels, think through ways to promote to a corporate buyer as well as retail customers. For some businesses, the majority of revenue occurs in key seasons such as the holidays or summer vacations. Promoting valuable offers, unique products or gift packs to induce trial of incremental offerings could create the key difference in reaching revenue goals.

Lulu.com, headquartered in Raleigh, is a digital marketplace that serves both authors and readers. The company needs more authors to attract more readers and more readers to attract more authors. The marketing staff thinks about both groups in approaching promotions.

"For authors, one of the most compelling aspects of Lulu is that it's free to publish. We charge no upfront fees," explained Rob Croft, director of marketing at Lulu. This year, Lulu built a campaign around that fact. It promoted its free platform and the availability of free ISBNs. And the company threw in a free book so authors could experience the satisfaction of seeing their works in print. Lulu relied heavily on search engine marketing, which gave the highest return on investment for acquiring new customers.

As it turns out, authors also are instrumental in book sales at Lulu. They all have a base of readers and are always eager to encourage them to buy. This year, Lulu started monthly sales contests for its authors. The company gave participants coupons to promote their books and offered tips on increasing sales. It awarded cash prizes to winners. This program created both community and action.

"We planned a number of 'doorbuster' deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday to drive sales," Croft said.

"Every day in December, we'll have a different promotion to help our customers find and create memorable and meaningful gifts at the best prices. We'll also have a gift ideas page with our holiday pricing."
All of the promotions Lulu is running this holiday season have been informed by experiences from the year. The company has spent much of 2009 looking at ways to drive more transactions during off-peak periods.

Not everything Lulu has done has worked, such as promoting hardcover books, Croft said. Hardcovers fall into the luxury category, making it harder to drive sales even with promotions, Croft said. Know your audience well and assemble your promotions accordingly to be most appealing.

Promotions can be used to launch new companies and their products as well as mature companies - with the latter being often more challenging to make compelling. While the brand's heritage may be more established, it is more difficult to come up with a promotion that seems new to the target market. Years ago, when I was responsible for consumer product line management for a publicly traded educational software company, I was responsible for a mature software title that you may remember playing in school called "Oregon Trail." As I was brainstorming the possibilities one day, I remembered that the 25th anniversary of "Oregon Trail"'s first version on the teletype computer was on the horizon.

I worked with our team on a 25th anniversary edition of "Oregon Trail" complete with serialized limited edition authentication certificates, classic versions along with the latest on one disk, all captured in a wooden keepsake box with western wagons burnished along the sides. The title quickly rose to the top 10 of the educational software rankings.

No matter what product or service you offer, take the time to step back and brainstorm compelling promotions, keeping your revenue goals, product attributes, its newness (brand new or mature?), target audience and ties to a season in mind.

To be noticed, sponsor events

News and Observer
Published Sun, Dec 06, 2009 05:05 AM
Modified Fri, Dec 11, 2009 07:06 PM

Grace W. Ueng is CEO of Savvy Marketing Group in Cary, which works with various local companies. A consultant, speaker and writer, Ueng has served on the adjunct faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School and in the international MBA program at Fudan in Shanghai, a joint venture with MIT Sloan School, teaching "Entrepreneurial Marketing and Innovation." For several weeks in Work&Money, Ueng is offering her 12-step guide to marketing new and existing businesses. Last week, she discussed how to price new products (to catch up, go to www.newsobserver.com/business).

Step 8. Generate awareness

Sean Murphy said that online seminars have been effective at NeoNova, where he is vice president of sales, marketing and business development.

"Earlier this year, we were the first to market with timely content and commentary around the broadband stimulus program aimed directly at our customer-base," he said. "We pulled together our webinar on a sprint speed schedule before others were able to and captured the lion's share of prospects interested in this topic. The feedback was very positive."

Dan Clem, director of marketing at AlertNow, said that sponsoring an event such as a breakfast at a state school board event gives him 10 minutes to speak in front of a captive target market. Rather than using that time to have an employee speak, Dan prefers to be introduced by a happy customer who tells the AlertNow story.

Lee Prevost, president of SchoolDude.com, said that his company has used trade shows and associations, as well as newsletters. Going forward, it will use professional online networks.
Hosted Solutions has sponsored events to establish brand awareness.

In the competitive markets such as Boston in which they compete, choosing to sponsor events that position them to look bigger than they are is key to winning business when competing against giants.

But Noreen Allen, vice president of marketing for Hosted Solutions, warned to be careful with sponsorships: "Do things that are more memorable. Constantly evaluate what is working and not working. Try new things - we took customers whitewater rafting - it was a new thing, as football and hockey can get old."

Hosted Solutions has also used social media successfully to create awareness of their events. Allen said that LinkedIn was useful for promoting an event this past summer that attracted a large crowd. She is a big fan of influencer marketing and plans to do more with the company's blog and Twitter by commenting on hot topics in coming months.

Open Letter to UN Secretary-General

His Excellency Ban Ki Moon

Secretary-General, United Nations

New York, NY

United States of America

December 8, 2009

Dear Secretary-General,

Climate change science is in a period of ‘negative discovery’ - the more we learn about this exceptionally complex and rapidly evolving field the more we realize how little we know. Truly, the science is NOT settled.

Therefore, there is no sound reason to impose expensive and restrictive public policy decisions on the peoples of the Earth without first providing convincing evidence that human activities are causing dangerous climate change beyond that resulting from natural causes. Before any precipitate action is taken, we must have solid observational data demonstrating that recent changes in climate differ substantially from changes observed in the past and are well in excess of normal variations caused by solar cycles, ocean currents, changes in the Earth's orbital parameters and other natural phenomena.

We the undersigned, being qualified in climate-related scientific disciplines, challenge the UNFCCC and supporters of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to produce convincing OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE for their claims of dangerous human-caused global warming and other changes in climate. Projections of possible future scenarios from unproven computer models of climate are not acceptable substitutes for real world data obtained through unbiased and rigorous scientific investigation.

Specifically, we challenge supporters of the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused climate change to demonstrate that:

1. Variations in global climate in the last hundred years are significantly outside the natural range experienced in previous centuries;
   
2. Humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse gases’ (GHG) are having a dangerous impact on global climate;
3. Computer-based models can meaningfully replicate the impact of all of the natural factors that may significantly influence climate;
4. Sea levels are rising dangerously at a rate that has accelerated with increasing human GHG emissions, thereby threatening small islands and coastal communities;
5. The incidence of malaria is increasing due to recent climate changes;
6. Human society and natural ecosystems cannot adapt to foreseeable climate change as they have done in the past;
7. Worldwide glacier retreat, and sea ice melting in Polar Regions , is unusual and related to increases in human GHG emissions;
8. Polar bears and other Arctic and Antarctic wildlife are unable to adapt to anticipated local climate change effects, independent of the causes of those changes;
9. Hurricanes, other tropical cyclones and associated extreme weather events are increasing in severity and frequency;
10. Data recorded by ground-based stations are a reliable indicator of surface temperature trends.

It is not the responsibility of ‘climate realist’ scientists to prove that dangerous human-caused climate change is not happening. Rather, it is those who propose that it is, and promote the allocation of massive investments to solve the supposed ‘problem’, who have the obligation to convincingly demonstrate that recent climate change is not of mostly natural origin and, if we do nothing, catastrophic change will ensue. To date, this they have utterly failed to do.

Signed by:

Science and Technology Experts Well Qualified in Climate Science

Ecologist criticizes 'herd mentality' on climate

He is one of 141 scientists who have written a letter to the U.N. secretary-general saying there's no proof of human-caused global warming

By Paul Fattig
Mail Tribune
December 16, 2009 5:00 AM

If you ask Bob Zybach, he will tell you there is a global warming problem.

But the forest ecologist figures it is nothing more than hot air from scientists and politicians gathered in Copenhagen at the United Nations' global warming conference.

"The bottom line is that the science on global warming is unsettled — there is no consensus on the science," he said. "There is simply a hypothesis at this point. How about some proof?"

He took issue with a Dec. 3 article in the Mail Tribune which reported that the Society of Conservation Biology sent a letter to the prime minister of Denmark recommending 11 climate change policy principles be adopted at the conference.

Forest ecologist Dominick DellaSala of Ashland wrote two of those principles for the society comprised of more than 10,000 conservation scientists from 140 countries.

DellaSala, president and chief scientist of the National Center for Conservation Science & Policy in Ashland, recommended that policies be adopted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to those approaching historic levels and protect the world's primary and older forests for their ability to capture and store large quantities of carbon for centuries.

The society believes there is ample proof of human-caused climate change, from the growing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to rising temperatures worldwide.

Zybach disagrees. He was among 141 scientists from around the world, including former Oregon state climatologist George Taylor, who fired off a letter on Dec. 9 to Ban Ki Moon, secretary-general of United Nations, stressing they believe there are more questions than answers about global warming.

" ... there is no sound reason to impose expensive and restrictive public policy decisions on the peoples of the Earth without first providing convincing evidence that human activities are causing dangerous climate change beyond that resulting from natural causes," the letter stated.

"Before any precipitate action is taken, we must have solid observational data demonstrating that recent changes in climate differ substantially from changes observed in the past and are well in excess of normal variations caused by solar cycles, ocean currents, changes in the Earth's orbital parameters and other natural phenomena," it added.

It called for supporters of the U.N.'s Climate Change Conference to produce "convincing observational evidence" supporting their claims of dangerous human-caused global warming and other changes in climate.

Zybach, 61, who is based in Cottage Grove but began studying forests in Jackson and Josephine counties in the late 1980s, acknowledged that many scientists would concur with the society's and DellaSala's conclusion.

Zybach said he believes that's the product of a "herd" mentality fueled by politics, which results in anyone questioning their views being vilified by the majority.

"Skeptics are supposed to be at the core of science, not on the fringe," said Zybach who focused on the study of historical ecology while earning his doctorate's degree at Oregon State University. His research was on the practice of woodland burning by American Indians and catastrophic wildfire patterns of Western Oregon. He is the program manager of the nonprofit Oregon Websites and Watersheds Project, Inc. which can be found at www.orww.org.

In particular, Zybach questioned the reliability of computer models to predict global warming.

"Nobody knows what the weather is going to be in five minutes," he said. "So how can they accurately predict what it is going to be like in 50 or 100 years?"

His research also rejects claims that global temperatures in the past century are exceptions to the norm. It was much warmer 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, he said.

"We also know the 1930s was warmer and drier than the past 100 years," he said. "Yet there was a lot less carbon dioxide in the air in the 1930s."

In turn, it was cooler from the 1940s into the 1980s, he said.

"The data just doesn't support their assumption," he continued. " ... We need to get away from science as politics or science as religion. We need to get back to scientific methodology."

Zybach insisted he has no political ax to grind.

"I'm apolitical, staunchly so," he said.

"We do have some real problems on this planet — infant mortality, overpopulation, wars," he added. "We need to direct our resources at human misery, not at problems that don't exist."

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com.

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091216/NEWS/912160319