Webinar Newsletter

In my last blog post I described how I was planning a multi-channel campaign using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, printed materials, QR codes, a mobile-optimized web site, my e-newsletter and postcards. I am using Google campaign tagging along with short urls to see which channels are the most effective.

To make use of Google Campaign tagging, first create a Google Analytics account for yourself if you don't already have one and put the Google Analytics code on your web pages.  Your webmaster can help you add the Google Analytics code if you need assistance.

Next, add a question mark to the end of any urls you want to track and add tags for "campaign", "medium" and "source" as in this example. There are five available codes but you can do a lot with just these three. (If the question mark does not work, try an & sign instead, that worked for me on one type of url.) The bold part is the campaign code added to the original url.

http://www.example.com/?utm_campaign=spring&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter1

campaign - is what you select as the identifier for the whole campaign. For example for my clearance sale I picked "clearance2013".

source - is where the traffic is coming from.

medium - is what type of media was used, for example two urls could be on the same web site but one is a banner and one is a link so I could use "banner" for one and "link" for the other.

Here are what two of my urls look like that are for the clearance sale campaign, coming from the web site www.sell66stuff.com but one is a banner and one is a link. The bold part is the campaign code added to the original url:

http://carolynsstampstore.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=48&utm_campaign=clearance2013&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=sell66stuff

http://carolynsstampstore.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=48&utm_campaign=clearance2013&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sell66stuff

For more help with Google Custom Campaigns, see the Google documentation.

Long urls such as those are fine for situations where the end user cannot see them, but for a printed advertisement or a social media post that is too long and confusing. You can use a url shortening service, such as the one offered by MobExMe^TM - QR Code Generator and URL Shortener, to generate one of the above urls into something like this: http://mobex.me/clearweb.

Once your campaign is underway, you can check Google Analytics to review and analyze detailed tracking data. Log into Google Analytics then go to "Traffic Sources", "Sources", then "Campaigns". You will see a graph of visits with a list of your campaigns below it. Click on the name of the campagin to see more detailed information. All of the parts of my campaign are not yet built but some parts are working already and have left a record in my stats:

This information will be very valuable to me the next time I plan a multi-channel marketing campaign!

My ecommerce web site, Carolyn's Stamp Store, is a real business but it also functions as a laboratory for testing out techniques and strategies to employ on behalf of our clients. I am currently running a Spring Clearance Sale campaign. I would like to share with you some ideas on how to plan your own multi-channel marketing campaign.

1. The first step in my planning process was to decide what the purpose of the campaign is - in my case, to let people know about my clearance sale and to recruit signups for my free e-newsletter.


2. Next I made a list of all the media, channels and tools that I wanted to utilize in the campaign. My list includes:
   • Carolyn's Stamp Store web site
   • Google Analytics campaign tags
   • Banner ads displayed on other web sites
   • Facebook
   • Twitter
   • Pinterest
   • Packing slips that go in outgoing orders
   • QR codes
   • Mobile optimized web site
   • E-newsletter
   • Postcards


3. As I brainstormed about how I was going to use all the channels and tools and how they would integrate with each other, I made a list of tasks I would need to complete for the campaign. I put the jobs in the order in which they would need to be executed. The list is too long to reproduce in full here, but here are a few examples to get you thinking of your own campaign ideas:
   • Design banner ads for web sites and e-newsletter
   • Create new mobile-optimized web site that includes space for advertising current promotions and e-newsletter signup form
   • Reprogram existing QR code already on printed materials and aim it at new mobile-optimized web site
   • Promote ad and links to clearance section on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
   • Design postcard
   • Prepare mailing list and print mailing labels


4. With the use of a number of media in one project, it's important to get an idea of which strategies brought the best results so that your next campaign can focus on the most effective channels. Before beginning work, my last step in the planning process was to create a series of Google Analytics campaign codes and short urls designed to let me know how my campaign is progressing. In my next article I'll describe the process in detail to give you ideas for how you can use campaign tagging in your multi-channel marketing efforts.

Last week I subscribed to the newsletter of a non-profit organization and was very pleased with the welcome email that arrived in my inbox. I thought it did a good job of addressing concerns that people are likely to have when they provide their email address to someone.

• "Why am I getting this email?" - covered
• "What will I receive?" - covered
• "Will you sell my email address?" - covered
• "Will I be able to unsubscribe if I change my mind?" - covered
• "Who are you and how do I contact you?" - covered

I decided to create a new welcome email for our newsletter subscriber list that addresses those same concerns. Here is a screen shot to show you how it turned out.

In addition to making subscribers feel good about signing up for our newsletter, they will also get a look at what our email header graphic looks like when the act of subscribing is still fresh in their minds - hopefully this will increase open rates for our e-newsletter in the future.

A welcome email is also a good opportunity to deliver a special message or offer to your subscribers to thank them for their interest in what you have to say.

There are many benefits to a good welcome email - we recommend setting up a welcome email for all your subscriber lists.

As the holiday season approaches, more marketers are getting prepared to capture orders through effective customer acquisition processes.   Santa is no exception.

As more savvy business people use multi-channel marketing to communicate their message, more unique ways to touch the customer are generated.  By creating community through subscribers (email), fans (Facebook) and Followers (Twitter), businesses can reach out to prospects they had never thought of and encourage them to interact through a "Call to Action", CTA.   A CTA is an effective lead generation tool.  It may be in the form of a coupon offer, a subscription to a newsletter or a download of a white paper. 

In the webstory of "Santa Claus and the Lost Dog", Santa uses a post card as his CTA.   This is no ordinary post card as it includes a magic ticket with a personalized URL (PURL) and a QR (quick response) code to get immediate action from a child with the help of a grown up that may have a grown up toy like a smartphone equipped with a camera. 

Yes, Santa has gone hi-touch and hi-tech and has joined the social media world.  The days of traditional Santa calls over the phone are going to be replaced by tweets, likes, comments and good little girls and boys will get badges.  Will Santa's updates on FourSquare take the place of NORAD's tracking of jolly old St. Nick on Christmas Eve?

You can visit http://www.mychristmasbook.com to order the webstory book.   It makes a great stocking stuffer and can play on mobile devices on your way to Grandma's house.





 

At Webinar Resources we have been producing short 2-3 minute Brainshark presentations as ticklers or "webinar trailers" to promote our series of Webinar Wednesdays events.   Webinar Trailers are a very effective customer acquisition process for engaging and acquiring registrants as they appeal to more modalities than traditional email invitations.

With Webinar Trailers, we can strengthen our marketing message with an on demand presentation that consists of audio, slides and capture a registration at the moment of the viewing of the presentation.   We also can post Webinar Trailers in many different locations - social network applications, webinar newsletters, landing pages and of course link directly to a personalized email.   Using our proven process of selecting the appropriate multi channel mix, we gain the attention needed to capture registrants for our webinars.  

We are now extending the reach of our multi channel marketing to SMS text messages and mobile video.   Registrants and/or past participants can subscribe to our Webinar Wednesdays SMS reminders and alerts by texting to the word "webinar" to short code 88769.   Once the subscriber is added to our list, we can then reach out to them in their preferred communication method with a text reminder.

Soon we will be delivering mobile content to our Webinar Wednesdays SMS subscribers.  Stay tuned for more information in our blog or text "webinar" to 88769 and join our Webinar Wednesdays subscriber list.

Building customer acquisition is all about extending your reach through an effective multi channel mix using cross media applications to drive attendance and list growth for your events.   We have partnered with Peter Muir, and his Bizucate team to communicate these strategies and enable our participants to learn how to develop a marketing plan to drive effective events.   Join us at our next Webinar Wednesdays event on June 23rd, from 1-2pm CDT.   Listen to our webinar trailer and register at:   http://www.brainshark.com/webinarresources/WebWed.  We hope to see you there.

 

• Make sure you’ve set up a series of informational emails or a website for support staff and presenters. They should know what is expected of them; where to be at what time on the day of event, deadline for submitting, tech requirements for laptops and presentations, etc.
• If it is a large event like a conference, let attendees set their schedules early to establish presentation expectations and to cut down on people asking questions.
• Delegate the compartmentalized or smaller tasks, like catering and registration, to someone with fewer things to worry about on the DOE.
• Delegate the updates of social network applications during the event such as Twitter, blogging and Facebook updates.

• To ensure attendees walk away with the information/material they came looking for.
• Make sure messages, observations and news from the event are captured for post-event newsletter/follow-up or to share with those who could not attend.
• Facilitate smooth running presentations to ensure everyone gets to present and/or learn.
• Help make networking as easy as possible for attendees and vendors alike. Assign a QR code to every attendee so they can simply scan to exchange information. Or, offer team with a local print shop to offer discounts on business cards so they have something exchange.

• Use SMS to send attendees a link to their event schedule on the morning of the event.
• Consider a live webcast or recorded podcast to share the event with those who weren’t able to attend. Webinar replays can be used as a review for those who attended as well as a customer acquisition process in your grand lead generation conference strategy.
• Place QR codes or Microsoft tags on presentations, collateral or exhibition displays to enhance attendee’s interaction with content.

Webinar Resources just distributed the latest newsletter and it contains some exciting announcements, enhancements and tools to keep you in touch with industry news and trends as they relate to event management and customer acquisition.

You still might have time to order your Sweetheart a personalized eCard along with their favorite audio clips from iTunes.   This Valentine's Day, we are adding music to the mix and further personalizing the experience of the recipient. Provide us the name, email address, a special message and the name of your Valentine's favorite musical artist and we will deliver a personalized eCard and iTunes Preview landing page with album selections that your special Valentine can listen to. Webinar Resources will be posting an iTunes redemption code ($15 value) in ten of the lucky Valentines' personalized landing pages on February 14th.

Order now at this link.

The elves at Webinar Resources are busting their buttons as the MyChristmasBook Trailer on MyBrainshark is now the most viewed and most popular Brainshark presentation.  Says Santa, who just read this latest update in the Webinar Newsletter from Webinar Resources, "We are very proud that this on demand presentation has received such wide appeal.   Rudolph told me that "rich media" was the way to reach the masses so I thought I would give it a try."


The MyChristmasBook Trailer has been viewed across the country and across the world.  Webinar Resources launched this campaign to drive lead generation for North Pole IndustryCo.   Every MyChristmasBook online Christmas Photo Story Book contains personalized text, images and audio using a good little boy or girl's name and is delivered on a unique personalized North Pole web page.   Says Jack Frost, CMO in charge of North Pole's lead generation and personalized marketing campaigns, "We hired Webinar Resources to produce the story of Santa Claus and the Lost Dog as they are the experts in demand generation marketing and the theme song has the reindeer tapping their hoofs."

The success of the campaign can be summed up by Mrs. Claus, "Things have gotten a lot more jolly around here now that the old man is coming home from the shop at a decent hour. Thanks to Webinar Resources launching MyChristmasBook.com with their partners ExactTarget, Brainshark, Vontoo and Compendium, Santa is much more productive and best of all, there are no more cold calls which is important in the frozen North.

1. If you use forms on your web site, test them using multiple email addresses from different domains. You might find that your forms will accept emails from some domains and not others. If that happens, contact your site's host for help.


2. On the success pages and acknowledgement messages from your forms, suggest that users add your email address or addresses to their approved senders lists (whitelists).


3. Check all the email links on your web site periodically to make sure you actually get the emails. In addition, make a list of all the email accounts you have, with login information, and keep the list in a safe place. Check the spam folders on all of them on a regular basis. Many email accounts will stop working when the spam folder or the trash folder gets full. Also some legitimate emails might be caught by your spam filter, so you'll want to add those email addresses to your lists of approved senders. Some customers will try another way to contact you if they don't get an answer from your email, but most will just give up.


4. Have your web developer program an appropriate subject line in capital letters into all the email links on your site. Although use of all caps is something I normally stay away from, in this case I do use them because it makes the emails sent from my web site much easier to distinguish from all the spam.

Consider not having your email forwarded from one account to another, but getting all of it right from the source. The article Tips to avoid getting your server blocked by Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail explains why.


5. Examine your email sendings, including acknowledgement messages from forms, for characteristics that might cause them to be mistakenly flagged as spam. The following resources provide helpful guidelines:
   • Gmail Bulk Senders Guidelines
   • AOL Sender Best Practices
   • Hotmail Guidelines
   • Yahoo! Mail Best Practices
   • Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group Sender Best Communications Practices
   • Why My Emails Get Blocked or Filtered: Causes and Solutions Inside 
   
   Some email sending software, such as ExactTarget, has a built-in content checker that will alert you to possible problems in the text of your email, such as "Click here" or "Free".


6. Only send to engaged recipients. Believe it or not, some major ISPs are starting to flag messages as spam just because the end user doesn't open them. Consider sending periodic updates to subscribers to verify if they still want to be on your subscriber list.


7. Open up other channels to help compensate for the people you're not reaching by email, such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, a Webinar for One Brainshark presentation, text messaging, and voice messaging. At Webinar Resources we use ExactTarget's social forward feature to add social media links to our customers' emails to drive customer acquisition.

• Will I give or sell their email address to someone else?
• Will the newsletter be interesting or valuable to them?
• Will they be able to unsubscribe if they decide they no longer want it?
• Will they be bombarded with a lot of email?

• They fear that you will give or sell their email address to someone else
• They don't know what benefit they will get from your newsletter. Do they get something free for signing up? Is the content valuable?
• They worry that that they won't be able to unsubscribe if they decide they no longer want it.

The Carolyn Hasenfratz Design and Carolyn's Stamp Store E-Newsletter is sent to your inbox around 6-8 times a year and features articles by Carolyn about rubber stamping techniques and projects, as well as online marketing and other business tips. You will also be updated on my sales and specials, free template downloads, new products, and show appearances. Click here to view my privacy policy.

It's hard to believe that webinars and internet marketing tools are still relatively new concepts in some companies.  Just before my 7-year maternity leave back in 2000, I was helping my sales team at MCI Conferencing introduce the concept of "web-based data conferencing" to our customers which included Xerox.  Ironically, though we never met, within a few months of my leave, my boss, Mark, was working at Xerox on the team that was developing the Xerox Webinar program.

It's 8 years later, and we have been working together for almost a year in a much different technology and a much different world than we had in 2000 and early 2001.

What better time than now are we all positioned to make the most of this technology!  Want to really partner with your customers?  Let them know that their success is important to you!

In your customer acquisition, build a reliable and approved list of customers, and give them information, presentations, and tools to help them grow their own business while you grow yours.

Look for synergies between your customer's industry and your own, and build a presentation series around it.   Back in 2000, my VP of sales partnered with one of my customer's VP of Sales to conduct a short webinar series at both companies.

Today, we have customers who do the same, and then also bring in industry experts to a "round table."  The presentation is then broadcast on a webinar, and provide the Brainshark replay later as an on-demand "webinar for one" for those who missed the live version.

Every company should have a regularly scheduled presentation series designed to help their customers grow their own base. Your monthly or quarterly newsletter should have a dedicated space for your webinar news. 

Our customers always provide live links to register for upcoming webinars, and to go directly to the Brainshark replays of webinars that have passed.  We are also developing personalized landing pages for key customer contacts. These are like a little mini-reference books compressed down to a singular web page that provides the customer with all the tools and reference points he needs for past, current and upcoming web events.

Mark and I marvel at how closely we missed each other back in 2000, when our entire business was a budding technology.  With the tools of today, we'd be much less likely to miss each other, now.

It is amazing to witness how quickly blogging can drive activity.   One of my team recently blogged about the Discovery Light project that we supported at a recent trade show.   Using our webinar service, we posted a Brainshark presentation about how we marketed the show and our lead generation conference exhibit.

As we were using a combination of email and personalized landing pages to drive customer acquisition, our reference to the words "landing page" triggered a Google Alert for another company, ExactTarget.   Within one week of posting our blog, ExactTarget contacted us after visiting our post.   They had set up a Google alert for the words "landing page".   ExactTarget recently released their Landing Page feature and we have been putting it to good use for our demand generation marketing programs.   Make sure you opt-in to receive our next newsletter to see a great example of a personalized image marketing campaign.

Quite often we receive a Google alert after posting a blog as we also monitor keywords.    We have heard Chris Baggott, of Compendium Blogware, a number of times comment on how Google likes old content, recent content and frequent content.   We produce Webinar for ONE replays of their webinars and we hear these words in every presentaiton.  

Chris is right on target.   You can drive effective lead generation through frequent and relevant blogging.    We are witnesses to the process and we are becoming evangelists for compended blogging.    The combination of blogging and Google Alerts is another step to helping you achieve that "virtual knock" on the door and another step away from no more cold calls. 

Other people are watching and waiting for their Google Alerts to trigger a message about keywords they monitor.   The more you blog about a particular subject, the more chances you have of driving effective lead generation.

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

After reading the whitepaper published by ExactTarget, Email Marketing Design & Rendering: The New Essentials, I decided it was time for a makeover of the Webinar Resources Newsletter template. We are already using a lot of the best practices described by ExactTarget, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Here is what our current newsletter looks like - Webinar Resources InTouch, Volume 1 Number 3. The following are things we are currently doing right:

The maximum recommended width for an email is 600 pixels. Ours is now 580 pixels wide.

ExactTarget recommends putting your brand and a call to action into a 4-5 inch square (between 288 and 360 pixels) at the upper left corner of the email. This is the most viewed part of the message. Our logo, company name and color scheme are comfortably in the critical area, so I would say our brand is where it is supposed to be.

In order to get viewers to look at the content "below the fold", it helps to include "above the fold" links to the content below, a table of contents, or some other kind of hint of what the newsletter contains so that the recipients will want to scroll down. Our introductory paragraph describing the contents in this newsletter issue fulfills that requirement.

We have kept our branding consistent on the landing pages that viewers will reach if they click on any of the links to our web site.

It hurt to do it, but we removed CSS styles and HTML background images some time ago because many email clients do not support them.

We do not embed rich media right into the email message, rather we provide an image which links to the rich media content. In the example pictured, the featured content is a Webinar for One^SM Brainshark presentation. This is the best way to email a flash movie or a movie clip.

In my HTML coding, I have had the following habits for a long time, for other reasons:

• Providing width and height attributes for all images
• Giving alt and title tags to all images
• Specifying width and height for tables and table cells, unless there is a reason not to

It sounds like we have all the bases covered doesn't it? In my next post we'll find out when I take a look at all the improvements we can make in our email newsletter template.