As you read in Mark's recent blog post, Discovering the Discovery Light at Graph Expo, we attended Graph Expo in Chicago in October to promote Discovery Light^TM, an interactive system for helping young children learn to read by using a special light that creates discovery through hidden messages.

Some of the hidden messages are revealed through a font that produces tiny printed text that can only be viewed with a magnifier.

Other hidden messages are revealed by shining a UV light source, the Discovery Light^TM, on certain areas of the book. Below is a demonstration of the flourescent text in action.

We also put variable data into the books we were displaying at the show. To demonstrate that the books can be personalized for the child that will receive them, we put an assortment of different sample names in the giveaway copies of the book.

Kids aren't the only ones who like personalization - adults take notice of it too. To emphasize the personalization theme, we personalized the emails that we sent out to invite customers to our booth at the show also.

Mark has written about embedding personalized images into the body of an email before in his blog post How to Acquire Customers and Influence People with Personalization. For the Discovery Light^TM, we decided to go a step further and create personalized landing pages for each recipient, a feature available in the ExactTarget email software that we use, that the customers would reach if they clicked on a link in the email. The behavior of the individual customers who clicked on the link is trackable through the landing page.

With these powerful tools we were able to generate interest in our exhibit at the show, the brand new Discovery Light^TM web site, and the value of personalization all at the same time.

If you would like to see my photos from my short but interesting trip to the show, please click here - Graph Expo '08.

In my last post I talked about how social media gives your audience more ways to receive your content. They can choose many different ways to send you information as well. In addition to calling you or filling out a form on your web site, depending on what services you make available to them, they can for example leave a comment on your blog, or write on your wall in Facebook. Effective lead generation includes giving more choices to your audience so that they can have the kind of relationship with you that suits them.

Other than the natural instinct to make it as easy to contact you as possible, what other reasons might there be for making the effort to branch out into social media? At the Connections '08 conference, I took lots of notes. Here are some excerpts from those notes:

• "Relationships with customers are one thing that competitors can't copy."
• "79% of customers buy from companies that they are in a relationship with, rather than just on price."
• "About 30% of email addresses go bad every year."
• "22% of Internet users are using social media instead of email."
• "Facebook - must be on it to understand what is going on."

Those random notations lead me to some ideas about why businesses might want to have a social media presence to help with customer acquisition. If about 30% of email addresses go bad every year, then you can't count on email alone to keep in touch with your customers. It makes sense to have other channels available.

Relationships with customers and personalized marketing campaigns are clearly important - how can social media help to build those relationships? Blogs can help a great deal by humanizing your company through informal communication that allows transparent feedback. Blogs are also a great way to possibly get on social networking and bookmarking sites without you having to do anything - for example on our Webinar Resources Blog, at the bottom of each post is a Share This chicklet. If you click it, you will see dozens of chicklets that a visitor to this blog can use to share our posts using the service of their choice. This is just one of many ways that the people who really like what you're producing can do some of your marketing for you by their own free will.

If 22% of Internet users are using social media instead of email, as effective as email is, it's clear you are going to have to reach those particular customers some other way. If your customers are looking for you, it's important to be where they are. If you are using a social networking service, are fellow users on that service manifesting their relationships with different causes, organizations, brand names or products? Can you get any ideas from how they are doing it?

Believe it or not, there ARE still some business today that don't have a web site or email yet, but these days there are even more communication choices. When doing a web marketing proposal now I would ask clients if they want, in addition to a web site, email marketing, possibly with personalized images or landing pages, a blog, interactive Brainshark presentations, and Vontoo voice messaging. I would ask them if they participate in services such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, or photo sharing sites and if so are they interested in those services playing a role in their overall customer acquisition strategy.
 

So now we have many more ways for people to contact each other, and yes it can be confusing. I'm still trying to sort out what all those little "chicklets" (a slang term for a button that users click on to save, catalog, and share information or to download something) you see all over the web mean. One thing I know they do mean is extra control for the consumer of your content. For example, on this Webinar Resources Blog, readers can come to this web page to read the content. Or, they can click the orange "chicklet" in the right-hand column to get the feed link to this blog, and paste that into the feed aggregator of their choice. I'm just beginning to learn myself all the things that can be done with feeds and it's entirely possible people might be reading this blog post in ways I haven't even heard of yet.

Why would a business want to get involved in social media? By nature, it is unpredictable as we human beings naturally are, and that can be scary.

At the Connections '08 conference for users and agencies that I attended in September, ExactTarget selected "Subscribers Rule!" as the theme. What does that mean? You can read Exact Target's exact definition here. ExactTarget is in the business of email marketing, so they want us to think about the needs of our email subscribers and how to keep them happy. You want to give them control, to let them "Rule" over how you communicate with them. For example, you allow subscribers to choose to get your emails instead of sending them unsolicited spam, and make sure to send them content that fits their interests.

In the early days of my web design and development career, which started 11 years ago, I encouraged clients to make it as easy as possible for customers to contact them by providing information about multiple means of doing so, such as telephone, fax, mailing address, and email. Different people have preferences for how they like to communicate. I for example, am very comfortable sending email but don't enjoy talking on the phone. A company that provides an email contact is much more likely to get my business than one providing only a phone number.

According to the ExactTarget 2008 Channel Preference Survey, the trend is for younger consumers to place less importance on email as a communication channel than older consumers. This does not mean that email is going to go away any time soon however. Among the youngest age group in the survey, 15-17 year olds, email is still the second most favored channel. All of the other groups surveyed showed email either tied for first place or in first place. And since you need an email address to register for many services, people will still need to have an email address even if it isn't used as the main form of written communication.

We have launched personalized marketing campaigns before but last week we had the opportunity to announce an event and related website using personalized landing pages. Using ExactTarget and their new landing page feature, we were able to create a customized landing page for each of our customers attending this week's Graph Expo Printing show in Chicago.  

The invitation was used to increase customer acquisition for attendance at the booth where we are showcasing a book and invention  - the Discovery Light and Discovery Light educational materials 

The author/inventor, Louis Donovan, is here with us in Chicago and is talking to customers about the product.   We are getting rave reviews on the book and the concept.

The Discovery Gang book contains hidden text that can only be revealed with the Discovery Light.   The book combined with the Discovery Light add a new dimension to learning to read while making reading fun.

We also are launching http://www.discoverylight.com which contains more information about the Discovery Light.   One of the pages of the site contains an embedded Brainshark presentation that includes a YouTube video that Louise produced.

Stay tuned for more information on this exciting product.

Dale Carnegie's famous quote "Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language" is still a valid lesson when approaching people.   Everyone likes to be called by their name and have their name remembered.

Mr. Carnegie didn't realize the impact that today's technology could have in influencing people to take an action, especially when personalization is involved. 
We have all seen the personalized approach marketing campaigns have taken in addressing the recipient by their first name and including variable data in the communication that is related to the recipient.  Personalized communications are an open door to a conversation with a prospect, a partner or an existing customer.
The latest breakthrough technology for personalization is the ability to convert text into personalized images.  A recipient's name can now be an image emblazoned across a label on a wine bottle or carved into a piece of fine wood.   This approach takes personalization to a new level.

Imagine seeing your name embossed on a director's chair?   Would you be more likely to learn more about the message behind the link or in this case, your personal name on an image?

We recently modified a webinar replay follow up email and inserted a personalized director's chair in the body of the email.  We predicted that the personalized image would increase click-throughs to the Brainshark presentation (webinar replay) that was linked to the recipient's personalized chair.  The results of the campaign were significant with dramatic increases in:

• click-throughs - 50% increase
• number of views - 50% increase
• total replay viewing time - 25 hrs - 3X increase

When the targeted recipient selected their personalized,director's chair, the personalization experience continued as the recipient's profile information was automatically transferred to the guest book in the webinar replay.

Through the use of variable data and XMPie's uDirect Studio, we were able to create and personalize a chair for each recipient.  Using attributes in our personalized marketing campaign, we posted each recipient's chair into the email.

Dale Carnegie was right - people love to hear their name.   They are also more likely to respond to a personalized image of their name as a call to action to in a relevant and targeted email.   We see some great opportunities and applications where image personalization can give your emails that extra edge that will increase open rates and effective lead generation.  

Our customer acquisition team landed in Indianpolis for the Exact Target Connections 08 Agency and User conference.  Our management attended last year's event and found the sessions so valuable that additional investment was made to send three of us to the conference this year.

Little did we know what we were in for.  I have to say we were all a bit weary and war-torn getting there, as the end of 3rd Quarter has resulted in quite the rush to crank out events for 4th quarter.

What a shot in the arm we received from this conference! They got it right on so many levels.

Exact Target used their own technology for effective lead generation for months prior to the event.  They launced their own personalized marketing campaign to first get us there, and then, once registered, to get us to the break-out sessions they had carefully planned.

And it didn't stop there.  Once we were there, we continued to get cues from all angles as to what not to miss and how we would be "rewarded" by making it to certain meetings. (Amazing what grown adults will do for a free beach towel or oversized foam finger).

Yes, we went to the conference tired, and weary.  However, we left energized and ready to take on not just the day's challenges, but new horizons, as well.

Good job Exact Target!  

Any suggestions?  Yes!

I think ALL event/conference organizers could use some Vontoo in their back pocket.  While everyone is rushing around with their cell phones in their pockets--send them a voice reminder that "The keynote speaker will begin in 10 minutes."  

AND---Include in your follow-up an email-embedded brainshark presentation or email flash movie to remind your folks of the best points in that keynote, or the funniest jokes at the last-night-reward dinner.

Mark, JoAnna and I just got back from the ExactTarget users conference, Connections '08, which was held in Indianapolis earlier this week. We brought back a lot of new information and inspiration about email marketing, lead generation, social media, customer acquisition, and more. I'll be blogging about some of the topics that inspired me soon. In the meantime, here is a link to some photos of the conference. Enjoy!

Have you ever hosted an event and during your last hours prior, spent hours on the phone and email clarifying the details for the participants, when what you really need to be doing was preparing for the event, itself?

You drive customer acquisition through events, but the marketing tools you use to get them to your event or location can dramatically improve attendance and lead generation.

When you put time into a beautiful html invitation, include links that will provide an on demand presentation that explains how register, how to get there, and what's expected of them once they are there.

Don't assume that what you think is obvious will be obvious to everyone.  Of course it's obvious to you--it's your event!

An email-embedded movie or short brainshark presentation can provide the "over your shoulder" instructions that can make all the difference between clarity and confusion for your customers.

Here is how I determine if my instructions have been clear:  I imagine my 86-year-old grandmother reading them.  If she could rsvp and/or register per my instructions, then I know it's good. Don't assume your typically technically-minded audience will make the same assumptions you do.

Another tip for getting your customers there--provide an incentive.  Offer a clue word or key in the registration acknowledgement, and for all who present that clue or key at your event--reward them with something meaningful to them--a coupon to apply towards your services or products, or a handy item that complements either your services, product, or event at hand.

Our customers who have the most success in the customer acquisition process typically are more savvy with the both the information they provide to their prospects, and they way that they provide it.

For more information on how you can implement an effective lead generation process, produce a personalized marketing campaign, or turn around a beautifully executed interactive web presentation, check out http://www.webinarresources.com, or contact me directly at joanna@webinarresources.com.

Would you open email that appealed to your olfactory senses?   What if email smelled like barbecue?   I would certainly open it.

This experience recently happened to me.   I was searching for a place to eat along Irondeqouit Bay in Webster, NY, when the aroma of barbecue filled my senses.   Share my experience at the link below.
http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=nbsvWJHcF7mn

Enjoy!

Everybody is talking about Social Media. Sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, WordPress and Flickr are becoming household names. I've been curious about what is going on out there for a long time but it took me awhile to put my toe in the water of the Social Media pool. Why? I had several of my own "traditional" web sites and I didn't see the need for it at first. I added links on my sites to the blogs, MySpace pages and photo sharing sites of several friends, without feeling compelled to immediately get one of my own.

Then we started our business blog here at Webinar Resources. Blogging had become part of my job description, but it quickly became much more than that to me. Web sites are not only part of what I do for a living, they are a personal passion, and I never get tired of finding new ways to get people to come to them. With all the millions of sites out there screaming for attention, why not use whatever advantages you can find? One of the first things I did after my first blog post was to figure out how to syndicate my posts to several of my own web sites. Content is what draws visitors, and it takes valuable time to create good content, so any way to leverage what you've created is a bonus.

My next move was to respond to an invitation from a friend to get a Facebook account and join her friends list. Like many other similar services, Facebook offers the ability to create online photo albums. That's an obvious incentive for potential users of this service, as so many of us now have digital cameras or cell phones that can take pictures. Photography is one my hobbies, so with lots of content to choose from, I immediately started to upload photos, and to link to the resulting collections from one of my other web sites that already contained photo pages. And to leverage the content even more, I put a Facebook badge on some of my other web sites that contains browseable thumbnail images of photos I've recently added.

It's easy to see how such tools could enhance your social connections. But what about business? Can Social Media help businesses with lead generation and the customer acquisition process? I'll explore that question in a future blog post.

 

We recently assisted a customer with a webinar that focused on reducing the total cost of support while improving the total customer experience.

 

Our customer had some great graphics and statistics on how customer service affects customer retention, and how companies can serve their customers profitably as we are now mid-way through 2008.  Back in the day, my grandparents knew of only 2 ways to approach customer service:  1:--Go to the store or place of purchase,  2:  Call the company.

Now, there are more options for assistance round the clock:   1-on-line self-help, 2-email Support, 3-Voice support, 4-fee based support, 5-on-site support, and more.

 

Ironically, I was loading his presentation into Brainshark for replay, and while I was timing the slide animations to synch with the audio, it hit me how powerful a Brainshark replay could be in customer service.

 

Searching through a company's online self-help manual can be a daunting task.  It's usually only a couple steps better than  the electronic version of the product manual that comes in the box (or in the contract), anyway.

 

How much better to have access to a presentation--complete with audio and great graphics to illustrate the points.  Because you can pick and choose which slides to view--or watch them all in succession, if you want, you now have a multi-media solution with a human voice attached to help you determine the root of your dilemma.

 

Every company already has the data---all it takes is a one-time presentation with a speaker, and you now have the tools to reach every customer with web access.

You can view sample Webinar for ONE presentations at:  http://www.riceresources.com/webinars/webinarforone_landing.html

 

 

 

It is almost 4:00 am and I have realized that I have not posted a blog lately.   The wonderful thing about blogging is that you can do it at anytime of the day.   It is best to blog when it quiet.

Now that I can get my thoughts together, I can start thnking about how I am going to put the presentation together on customer acquisition for my customer this week.   We just created a great HTML email with an embedded Brainshark presentation that was recorded by a guest speaker for our customer's event.   With this interactive web presentation we can quickly gain viewer's interest and launch a call to action for the viewer to register.   We have many types of examples we have created for the customer to create effective lead generation.   As I think more about it, the applications we have created are my presentation.

I will blog more as I travel this week and will be posting some interesting new technology that you might want to see and hear as you develop your marketing campaigns.   Is the pen mighter than the keyboard for blogging?  Stay tuned for the answer.

In "It's Time for a E-Newsletter Makeover - Part I", looked at what we were doing right with our newsletter design, using the whitepaper published by ExactTarget, Email Marketing Design & Rendering: The New Essentials as a guide.

Now I'll list the improvements I saw fit to make to our email newsletter template.

The main call to action was not formerly visible in the upper left 4-5 inch square of the email, so to fix that I modified the header to include a customizable button that will link to whatever the current call to action is.

Some email clients will not display underlined links automatically, so for maximum consistency in appearance, I set the "text-decoration" property to underline with an inline CSS style in the anchor tag of each link.

According to the Exact-Target's whitepaper, Hotmail will render all text as dark gray unless you set a specific color, so I specified what I preferred, in this case black.

Despite everything we've done to make sure our newsletter displays properly with as many email clients as possible, just in case someone might still have trouble viewing it, I added "Click here to view this email as a webpage" in small text at the top with a link to our online archive.

For comparison, here is a link to the newsletter before the makeover:
Webinar Resources Newsletter Vol 1 No 3

And now here is a link to the newsletter after the makeover:
Webinar Resources Newsletter Vol 1 No 4

When you use the "Embed" command to place a Brainshark interactive web  presentation on your web site, the default background color for the introductory animation is blue, and the default background color for the slide portion of your presentation is gray. These are nice colors, but you might prefer using the background color of your web site instead.

I have made a sample page of a Brainshark presentation with the default colors on a web page with a lime green background. It takes a brave person to use lime green as a background color, but it's definitely good for demonstration purposes!

Here is a second page showing the blue and gray background colors in the presentation replaced by the lime green background color on the web page.

How is this done? First, find out the hexidecimal code for the background color on your web site. If you're not sure, see my article What the Hex?! How to Match Documents to the Colors of Your Company's Web Site for help.

Next, open the html page that contains the embedded Brainshark presentation in a plain text editor. Look for the following code snippets, and replace the highlighted six-number sequences with your chosen hexidecimal color code:
    
    

To see other modifications you can make to the code, click the link "Additional URL Parameters" when the Embed dialog box is open in Brainshark.

Two decades ago we used to let our fingers do the walking to find people, fast.  Now the power of the web offers many effective processes for lead generation and the telephone still plays a major role in customer acquisition.

We have customers who run a series of live training events.  The classes fill up fast, and always have a wait list, so every "no show" represents multiple lost opportunities.  In addition to the standard email reminders, we began sending Vontoo reminder calls to all class registrants the day before the training, and the customers love it.

The participants in the classes provide a preferred phone number for the reminder when they register for the class.  The director of the training series records her reminder, and through the beauty of Vontoo, we send her reminder to those specified numbers.  These calls provide another layer to your personalized marketing campaign.

So, while yes, the days of the 4-inch thick "yellow pages" are quietly slipping by, you can still ensure none of your participants have a chance to forget to attend your carefully planned event or even a web presentation by putting a ring in that ping using a Vontoo reminder call.

If your company participates in email marketing, you will be interested in knowing that some new provisions taking effect on July 7, 2008 have been added to the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. Email marketing provider Exact Target has put together an overview of the new rule provisions: Important CAN-SPAM Update: The FTC Approves New Rule Provisions Under The CAN-SPAM Act

Further information can be found at the Federal Trade Commission web site: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/05/canspam.shtm

One of the reasons that businesses take part in blogging is to humanize their companies by creating a personal connection with their customers. Blogging is an informal mode of communication that can help convey the personality of a company and it's employees. A blog that I think does a good job with the personal touch is that of a supplier of items for one of my hobbies, making soap and personal care products, Wholesale Supplies Plus.

The Wholesale Supplies Plus Blog contains information related to their business, and occasionally posts about what is going on in the lives of the people who make up that company. A cute touch that I like is at the upper right, a virtual company fish tank, a web gadget that mimics the natural behavior of fish as they look for food handouts from anyone who comes by.

Some offices, mine for example, contain a real fish tank. I decided to use mine as a subject to learn how to set up a live webcam stream and embed it on a web page. No doubt my fish would like to be more like the virtual fish and get fed by every visitor to this blog!

Having just recently re-entered the job market at Webinar Resources after a 7-year maternity leave, I have been entertained by many advances in the world of telecommunications and conferencing.  Nothing has amazed me more than the advancement of video technology.  I remember PictureTel pioneer and President, Norman Gaut, telling us that video would become synonymous with the telephone call, and that the day would arrive in which the technology would resemble a tv broadcast.

Well, he was correct on one front.  The technology is astounding.  We use interactive web conferencing on our team all the time, and it does look just like a TV broadcast.  It's a simple click of the mouse, and there's Mark and Carolyn in St. Louis, while I sip my coffee in Simsbury, CT.  Our team meeting is underway, and though I've never met them, I'm part of the team.

Years ago, I always loved the "sell" for videoconferencing, because the technology was so much fun, and it truly helped the customer conduct business.  Now, the technology of video is just a given, and the aid to business is the way that Webinar Resources is able to drive customer acquisition by getting hundreds to attend a seminar that is webcast right to their laptop.  Technology aside, the sheer logistics of assembling a crowd that large, virtual or not, is amazing, but we do it all the time.

Also amazing is how that web conference crowd is a bit fluent through time.  Those who can't attend, live, at the scheduled time, are invited to attend the "webinar for one"--in which they view a video replay from their laptop, at their leisure.

We've come a long way, and who knows, in another 7 years, video may be synonymous with the phone call, but for now, I'm really stoked by the volume of people we can touch with a web presentation because of the effective lead generation we perform weeks before the event.  Seven years ago I thought it was a great time to be working with the technology.  Now, the technology is proven, and it's a great time to share it so easily with so many.

 

In the latest release of Brainshark v.16.2, Brainshark has added the ability to embed your Brainshark presentation in a web page or blog.   This is a capability that we refined while working with a joint Brainshark and Webinar Resources' customer.   Our goal was to embed a Brainshark presentation into a registration page to reduce the use of real estate on a landing page and at the same time add an engaging, interactive web presentation to create lead generation.

The early prototypes were designed to embed Brainshark presentations in different langages to support an International set of events for our customer.  Customer acquisition increased significantly as the registrant could hear and view the online event communication in their own native language.

Through the use of some HTML and Javascripting, we were able to run Brainshark presentations as soon as the landing page was opened.   The ability to appeal to more than one modality at a time (hearing, seeing), gave the landing page a greater impact and increased registration.

Now Brainshark customers can embed their own presentations using an embed command that appears in the Edit Properties window.   By using the iframe code, you can easliy embed a Brainshark presentation into a web page.   We expect to see many more creative uses of Brainshark presentations using this feature.  

You can see how we embed Brainshark presentations in our site by visting our website and selecting the Webinar for ONE tab.

We will have an upcoming blog that will describe how you can hide the borders of your Brainshark presentation so that it will blend in with your website.  For now, try the embed link in your Brainshark sharkive or contact Webinar Resources if you are not a Brainshark customer and wish to test out this feature.