The traditional challenges of the direct mail marketer are:

• To not be automatically classified as junk mail and be thrown in the garbage without so much as a glance.
• To not be reported for sending mail to people without their consent.
• To make people care about and take action because of the message.

Email marketing enjoys some distinct advantages to direct mailing, which are:

• It is much cheaper. A digital message has virtually no costs after it is produced and it can be easily re-purposed.
• Results and feedback, such as A/B testing and tracking are (almost) immediate.
• There is less of a barrier for your message to make it to the eye of the recipient.

Email marketing faces the same challenges as direct mailing, and it needs to beat them in under 5 seconds:

• Being classified as junk mail (spam)
• It takes much less effort for the recipient to make a complaint about unwanted messages, it is as easy as pushing a button.
• It seems to be even harder to stand out from the onslaught of messages that hit the average person’s inbox.

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I have created so many html email marketing campaigns, I know what works, what does not, and what will get you in trouble. Here are some tips to help you navigate the ultra-competitive convergence of direct mail with the email age:

Do:

• Provide serious value: I always look forward to my Petco email messages because I spend so much on my pets, and I know they help me find great deals. Your “serious value” does not need to be a shopping deal. Another popular source of real value is useful information.
• Include a call to action: Why did you send this email? There should probably be a reason. Maybe you want to drive traffic to a landing page? Make sure you ask people to check it out!
• Make sure your call to action is “above the fold”: Lots of people only read their e-mail in the preview pane. This means they won’t double-click on the e-mail in the inbox list to maximize it. If your message is cut off, then it does not exist.
• Your message should be primarily text-based: Make sure that readers can view the important aspects of your email message without enabling images. Lots of people won’t turn on images or will block images altogether.
• Make your purpose evident fast: Make sure you tell people exactly what you want them to know quickly. Most people don’t like to read. If they have to read to find out the purpose of your marketing message, your message is lost.
• Test: Let your list tell you what it wants and your success will grow.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe: If you don’t make it easy to unsubscribe, you are making it easy to be classified as spam.
• Allow your recipients to see an alternative page: You should provide a link to a web-based page with your message on it. You then have a venue that is much less restricted.

Do Not:

• Send messages without purpose: You will have become a spammer and your list will diminish.
• Create emails that are completely image based: If images are not enabled by the recipient, you have no message. Image-heavy email also sets off spam filters.
• Use too much bolding and other text formatting: Over-bolding, colors all over the place (especially red), excessive capitalizing, exclamation points will set off automated spam filters, as well as your recipients innate spam filter.
• Try to put video or flash in your e-mail:It won’t work. Video and flash in desktop email has been disabled since about 2001. Gmail is now re-introducing video into its email but that is possible because it is a browser-based service. You know how frustrated you get when someone sends you a huge attahcment? Multiply that by 50 for a video email!
• Forget to put your address, phone number and unsubscribe link in your message: It’s the law, especially in the United states. If you forget to include an unsubscribe link, your contact information, or put false information in, you face major fines and possible criminal charges.

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There are a lot more guidelines and nuance to a successful email campaign. Once you get past all the technical stuff it all comes down to old fashioned marketing acumen!

if you would like more information or a consultation on how to use convergence marketing method such as HTML email, please feel free to contact me!

Kenneth Fisher

How many times have you received text from a client that needs to be transferred to another format, like flash or HTML Email, but it is in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, or it comes from some other source that is filled with all kinds of weird formatting and markup?

It happens to me on every job, no matter how I request the copy be formatted or how files should be named. Well, I have found some killer resources to deal with these everyday problems in the life of digital marketing professionals. And best of all, they are free! You can download or access them right now, free of charge!

Without further ado…

4 indispensable text tools for convergent marketing

1) Plain text application, on Windows Notepad or on the Macintosh Simpletext:

I work mostly on my PC (That’s right, I prefer the PC! :-)) but I get source copy in every conceivable format. I ALWAYS have a notepad window open for stripping out formatting. All you have to do is copy the source text and paste it into notepad and all formatting is gone. Then you can cut or copy the text out of notepad and use it for whatever you need to without worring about left over formatting.

For example, I grab text from Microsoft Word, paste it into notepad as described above, recopy it and paste it into Wordpress without worry of stray or nutty characters or left-over formatting that will haunt me later.

Here is an exercise for you: Try copy formatted text from a Microsoft Word document and pasting it into a Wordpress text editor in viual view, and then try it with notepad text. Observe the difference!

How do you find Notepad? On Windows XP, go to your start button –> Programs –> Accessories –> Notepad. Do yourself a favor and create a shortcut to it someplace you can access in one click so you can access it 200 times a day like I do!

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2) File Renaming: 1-4a rename, the best damn file renamer ever, and it is free!

First let me give you the link: http://www.1-4a.com/rename/

Have you ever gotten a bunch of files, let’s say a set of images from your client, only to find that there is no naming convention? There are spaces in the name (NOOOO!) inconsistent capitalization, unrecommended characters ^* etc.?

It doesn’t matter if you advise them on how to name their files until you are blue in the face. You will get messed up file names!

1-4a rename to the rescue of convergent marketers everywhere! I have used a ton of file renamers, and they are all difficult to use, and the user interfaces suck! Except for 1-4a rename. It is so easy. And if you need super-powerful renaming capabilities, it has an expert mode you can toggle on and off. It is the bomb! It saves my ass twice a month.

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3) Character manipulation: http://textop.us/

Again, you can advise your clients until you have laryngitis, they will always suppkly you with your copy wrong. You need lower case? You get uppercase. You need title case? You get nothing that resembles title case.

Text Opus to the rescue of the field of convergent marketing! This site is filled with text manipulation tools. It will capitalize, de-capitalize, randomize, just about every type of -ize you may need. Just go check it out…

This site was created by programmer Tomasz Klekot, and he saves my bacon at least once a week. Thanks Tomasz!

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4)Find characters that are not evident on your keyboard: Windows Character Map!

Never again hunt for the way to copy or create a copyright, registered, to trademark symbol! With the windows character map, every character available for a given font is easily accessible, copyable and transferable to your destination!

Simply launch the character map application, choose your font of choice, and scroll through the available characters. Once you find your desired character, select it, copy it, and use it my fellow digital marketing pro!

How do you find Windows Character Map? On Windows XP, go to your start button –> Programs –> Accessories –> system tools –> Character Map. Once you find it, do yuorself a favor and create a easy-access shortcut to the character map.

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I hope these resources have made your life easier!

Kenneth Fisher

I am not saying that it isn’t important to know about the swine flu outbreak, or that it should not be talked about, but when it comes to something like alarming people about infective diseases, why can’t we just have the facts and leave out the hype?

However, as a marketer, swine flu gets it: With a good marketing plan, even something small can get big recognition.  Start big: New York, the media capital of America is a good place to break a story.

This phenomenon also exposes the dark side of all marketing methods, that when a story gains momentum, it can lose control and become a runaway train. The message loses perspective.

It should be: “Be concerned about swine flu, stay alert.”.

Instead it has become: “THE (possible) SWINE FLU PANDEMIC!!!!”

What lesson can we learn from the swine flu media blitz?

Lesson 1: From a marketing standpoint, viral marketing is incredibly powerful and if you want the world to take notice of your message. Going viral is inextricably tied into Convergence Marketing.

Lesson 2: Settle down and filter the messages coming in. Don’t allow the media to whip you into a frenzy. Decide for yourself how urgent and important a message is!

Kenneth Fisher

At his or her heart, a professional who is suited to be a Convergent Marketer, is a person who needs to know. A lot of Convergent Marketing pros started out as one man bands – the “I can do that!” girl or guy.

A typical career arc of the Convergent Marketing Professional is as follows: A print designer who is proficient in desktop publishing has the opportunity to design websites, she or he jumps on it and learns something about HTML code. But you can’t design for the web the same way you designed for print, so  you take a crash course in web graphics! Then CSS comes along and you get your hands dirty with that, etc…

A convergent marketer hates to fail so with each project they learn another skill. Every new client and project has different needs and objectives. In this way a convergent marketer builds up a valuable skill set that spans across a variety of disciplines.

Okay, I get the knowledge part, now how about the wealth?

Understanding the the inner workings, the capabilities and limitations, and the proper implementation of digital convergence marketing technologies is quite valuable, and in fact quite rare. Those who do understand can be paid quite well.

Due to my own trials as a digital marketing producer, I am crying out for more people to make the jump from convergent producers to convergent project managers. If we have more people who understand the medium actually managing convergence marketing projects, the industry will benefit immeasurably. As it stands now, most of the people who manage digital marketing projects are unable to articulate what they want, let alone guide the process properly.

I’d like to take this opportunity to differentiate between the “Convergent Marketer”, and the “Convergent Producer”. Marketing is not really the ability to learn new things rapidly and effectively, though it really helps in the age of convergence. Additionally, the marketer is not necessarily the person who actually produces the marketing materials. A convergent marketing producer is the person who is at the end of the production chain, the person whose hands actually creates the marketing product.

A successful marketing professional, convergent or otherwise, has the ability to recognize trends and opportunities, and is in touch with what people want. Just as important, they must act on them - striking while the iron is hot! However, Convergence Marketing favors the individual who understands the medium from the inside angle, and while this is true of traditional marketing forms, it is even more pronounced in the convergence field where lack of understanding is rampant and  often renders a digital marketing product ineffective.

Avoiding the knowledge trap: I am as guilty of this fault as any other Convergence Marketing professional who began in the production area. I have this innate need to know more about the technology, what the capabilities are, the limitations, and especially the advantages.

It is too easy to get bogged down learning the minutiae of each new technology or discipline. In order to monetize your knowledge, you have to know enough about a particular medium, but not get caught up so much that you forget about targeting the message to your audience, or designing and acting upon a plan to reach them.

Making the transition from Convergent Producer to Convergent Marketer: In my case the transition happened gradually. I did not realize I was a marketer until I started noticing that I was guiding the people who hired me at every turn, including how to tailor their message effectively for the digital medium.

I don’t consider myself as having made the change from producer to marketer until the day I realized I had to concentrate on the message side more than the nut and bolts. On that day I started hiring specialists. But I still have that wealth of knowledge I built up, and the desire to understand the newest communication technologies. On any given day I might roll up my sleeves and dive into a project, but I will generally wait until the polishing stage.

In conclusion: A convergent marketer is a person who has leveraged their love of learning into the action side of this digital age.

Kenneth Fisher

Convergent Marketing is all around you. It’s in every commercial website, it’s on your mobile phone, it is also in your inbox. Pretty much every place there is a screen is an opportunity to interact with potential customers.

One of the interesting aspects of successful Convergent Marketing campaigns is that they can engage and interact with the customer while making a sale.

A great example is the phenomenon of “viral marketing“.

Youtube is probably the prime example of Convergent Viral Marketing. Recently Britain’s Got Talent put a clip of Susan Boyle, a Scottish amateur singer who came out of nowhere to knock the socks off of the world. Her audition on Britain’s Got Talent is quickly becoming the most popular clip ever on Youtube with 39,863,850 views in just a couple of weeks.

Let’s bring this into the context of Convergent Marketing: If you are American, you probably did not give a damn about Britain’s Got Talent if you even knew it existed, and you did not realize that Simon Cowell and that Piers Morgan guy from America’s got Talent were judges either.

Now, I betcha, that Britain’s Got Talent is going to make its way over to America’s shores, the TV-waching-est place in the whole wide world! And we are all primed up for the impending season of America’s Got Talent waiting for our own Susan Boyle.

All on the back of Convergent Marketing.

So if you don’t believe in Convergent Marketing, I have a message for you: start believing in it and start using it!

Ladies and Gentlemen, for your enjoyment: Susan Boyle!

Click here to view the embedded video.


Kenneth Fisher

Yesterday it just went out on me. As I typed the drop-down menu with the search suggestions would not show up. Here is how I figured out how to fix it…

I did some Google-ing (Which was harder without the auto-suggest!) and I came across the suggestion to clear my cookies. So I did and the auto-complete function came right back!
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Assuming you are using Firefox as your main browser as any Convergent Marketing professional should, here is how to clear your cookies:

1. Click on the “tools” menu item at the top of your browser.
2. Select “options” from the menu that drops down. The options box should appear.
3. Select “privacy” at the top of the options box.
4. Click on the “Show Cookies” button, which is about halfway down the box. The cookies box should appear.
5. At the bottom of the cookies box you can remove selected cookies by clicking the “Remove Cookies” button, or you can click on “remove all cookies”, like I did.

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It should probably work!

Kenneth Fisher

Why do people hire designers when they have no clue about what they want, then become upset with the result?

There is a true need in the industry of Convergent Marketing for Project Managers who have actually done the type of work and truly understand what they are asking to be done.

I call upon all you developers, producers, and designers to think about moving up from the production end of the chain, for the good of the industry.

Why? Because all too often, the people who are “in charge” don’t know, they won’t listen, and they have already made promises they should not have made, which they expect you to make good on.

Here are a few examples of what are we trying to fix:

Technical:

1. The client wants television-size video to download instantly, and run smoothly on computers dating back to 1995.
2. The client wants to deliver HTML e-mail that is all caps and bold with the phrase CLICK HERE! in red after every paragraph. The e-mail must make it to every inbox  without being flagged for spam or there will be hell to pay.
3. The client wants a web banner with 14 lines of text animated on 10 screens with a photographic image on each + a video — and it must be under 40kb.

Design:

1. The client asks you for a design but they have no idea what they want, so they use terms like “artsy” or “hip” - a recipe for disaster. Also beware of the term: “pop”.
2. The client says “I want the finished product to look just like (somebody else’s design)”! You warn them that this is not the proper tone, a greeting card website should not look like a motorcycle companies’ website. The client ignores your advice and when he finally shows it to his boss, it’s your fault.

Cluelessness + a Total Disregard for Reality:

1. I want you to do (difficult task), it’s really easy!
2. I need this by (impossible deadline)!
3. Why can’t you do (Impossible task that does not exist), I’ve seen it before?!

This list is by no means exhaustive. Feel free to add to it!

Kenneth Fisher

I think they are a hell of an invention even if they are annoying. “CAPTCHA” stands for: “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.”. A “Turing Test” is simply a test to determine man from machine.
Here is the problem I have with captchas: They are getting to be too damn hard! I believe I am of at least average intelligence, and I am fairly certain that I am a human. Yet, several times a week I find myself beaten by the captcha!

Google has especially tough captchas. If you have to do a Google captcha on a regular basis you have probably felt my pain. Another drawback to character-based captchas is that if the image deosn’t load properly you are screwed. I once had a piece of software that was not loading the captcha image properly. I turned to the audio option included with most captchas. The computer-generated voice was among the most annoying things I have ever heard. On top of that I could not make out the letters 4 out of 5 times, again leading me to question my humanity.

The reason captchas are so tough to recognize is that now OCR (Optical Character Recognition) has advanced to the point that normal level captchas can be beaten pretty easily by determined spammer-programmers. Even difficult captchas are being beaten by humans who are being bribed with free porno according to Software Blogger Mr. Reid of  Strictly Software.

Conclusion: The image and text-based captcha has run its course! I have come across logic-based captchas that are much more pleasurable to use. They ask you a simple arithmetic question, or even a user-defined question that might even be funny!

The mathematical questions like 2+10=? will be beaten by determined spam programmers if they have not already, but I think a word problem like: two plus ten equals ? will probably not be easy to beat. Or simple questions like: “Name a continent:” will surely be difficult to be beat by programming.

Of course a human bribed by porno will still be able to beat a logic-based captcha, but nobody has come up with a way to stop a porn-driven boy, and I state here that nobody ever will!

Please, lets start getting away from those damn image captchas! I suggest that if you feel you need a captcha, Google up the phrase “captcha alternative”, or “question captcha”.

Whew, I’m glad I got that off of my chest!

Kenneth Fisher