Today, I’m doing it again. This time I’ll only go for 12 hours non-stop. Yeah, I know, it’s weak compared to last time, but it’ll be killer. The main reason tomorrow will be so great is because a bunch of our partners have agreed to help out.  Instead of just hearing from me for 12 hours, you’ll hear from small business experts like Perry Marshall and Anita Campbell. Our partners have a wealth of expertise they can share with you.

Oh yeah, the topic is Email Marketing. I’ll be teaching all about Email Marketing 2.0, our partners will be talking about email marketing best practices, and I’ll be taking your email marketing related questions LIVE on the stream.

Don’t miss it — sign up to attend the Smackdown. See you there! It’s a free live video stream starting at 7AM and everyone is invited to discuss the trends and tips in using email marketing.

You might also like these blog entries:

• Email Marketing 2.0 Has Finally Arrived
• Email Marketing 2.0 Explained
• Three Pillars of Email Deliverability, Free Webinar

Anyone who has followed us for long knows that we create a ton of original marketing material.  We have no intentions of plagiarizing anyone, especially Firehost.  We actually have a great relationship with Chris Drake, CEO of Firehost. He’s been to our office multiple times and we value our friendship with him.

When researching designs for our new website, our design team did look at Firehost, as well as dozens of other great designs. After noting cool design elements from many different sites, our designers went to work creating their own website design. They have been literally “heads down” for weeks working on our site design.  Until our Twitter followers pointed it out, we hadn’t realized how similar our site had ended up being to Firehost. We definitely don’t want people to have the impression that we’re plagiarizing — that’s absolutely not what we’re about.

Here are a few recent examples of how our website has evolved just in the past, keeping our branding consistent between them:

Clate and I have already communicated with Chris Drake and apologized.  He was gracious enough to understand (our site is hosted with Firehost – he could have easily taken our site down if he had wanted). We look forward to continuing a great relationship with Firehost.

I bring this up to point out the fact that it’s easy to inadvertently create marketing materials that are similar to what other people have created. It’s important to have the integrity to never copy and to make the necessary changes when things don’t feel right.

Thanks to our followers and friends that pointed out the similarities. We’re focused and dedicated to providing email marketing software to help small business grow.

–Tyler

You might also like these blog entries:

• 17 Tips for Small Business to Improve SEO
• One-Click Upsells Using Infusionsoft
• Run Your Business in Infusionsoft WITHOUT a Website

Email started in 1965 and according to Wikipedia, “an e-mail sent in the early 1970s looked very similar to one sent on the Internet today.” Not much has changed. Soon after, people started to use email for marketing, and ever since, the Internet has provided marketers a dream come true: targeted marketing, detailed tracking, the works. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s there was a flurry of software development to empower email marketers.

Email Marketing 1.0

I’ll even admit to writing a pretty sweet web app in 2001 that probably helped contribute to our current CAN-SPAM laws. (Don’t ask what it did, but it made us a lot of money.)

The truth is, most people have still been using email marketing the same way we did years ago. But, a new evolution has taken place in the email marketing world that entrepreneurs all over the world are using to drastically increase response and sales from their emails.

Before I explain Email Marketing 2.0, let’s chat about the sales process and sales reps. Understanding the difference between a good sales rep and a bad sales rep will help you understand the important differences between email marketing 1.0 and 2.0.

A bad sales rep will typically memorize the spiel and “data dump” on the prospect regardless of what the prospect says, regardless of the person’s body language and regardless of any buying signals. They are robotic and sell much less because of their rigidness and inability to adapt the message for different people.

Want to see what I mean? Visit the mall and use your cell phone, they often are the ones hollering your description to attract you over to their kiosk and then they hard-sell you on feature comparisons before understanding why you love or hate your current phone provider.

Here’s a story to take this a step further to better showcase a bad sales rep. I received a “telemarketing” call a few months ago. The sales rep assured me it was only a survey, not a sales pitch. I’m a nice guy; I let her continue. It was a survey about TV. One of the questions was: Which network do you turn to for news? The multiple choose options were something like: ABC, CNN, NBC, FOX News. I told the lady that I never watch the news on TV. The little news I pay attention to is all on the Web. She didn’t believe me and insisted that I choose one of the options. I said, “None of the above.” She wouldn’t accept that as an answer.  We went back and forth for a couple of minutes and I grew more frustrated with her and insisted that if I chose one of her options it would be a lie and her “survey” data would be skewed. She insisted that she couldn’t continue with the survey unless I chose an option. I ended up hanging up on her because she couldn’t be flexible and adapt.

Joe Manna, a former market research interviewer, adds more depth, “Legitimate tele-surveys almost always yield an option for ‘none’ or ‘not applicable.’ Usually surveys narrow in on a brand or an industry and disqualify those outside certain demographics or quotas. This is probably why the person didn’t honor your ‘none’ response, so they can manipulate and receive credit for it. As you concluded, it’s a sale, even it’s just for public opinion.”

A good sales rep, on the other hand, will listen (a lot) and adapt the message to the prospect’s needs. Good sales reps sell significantly more because they are always able to share something relevant to the prospect. They listen, adapt, and share the right message for every individual prospect every time.

Typical Email Marketing Autoresponder

Now let’s get back to email marketing. Email marketing 1.0 is akin to the bad sales rep. Even most modern-day autoresponders do a poor job. Let’s look at an example:

You sell widgets. Your email marketing is top-notch because you have built a targeted list. Your list is comprised only of people who have expressed interest in your widget AND your free report on “The Top 5 Pitfalls You Must Avoid When Buying Widgets” AND your eBook entitled “What You Don’t Want Your Mom To Know About Your Widget”.   You’re using an autoresponder that educates, provides value, and “drips” on your prospects using 4 emails sent over a period of 21 days.

Sounds great.

What if a prospect is not interested after email number two? A good sales rep would adapt the message and try a different approach or move on to the next prospect — not your autoresponder! Your autoresponder will keep sending email 3, email 4 and try to close the deal in email 5. Have you ever tried to close someone who’s not interested? Its painful for you and for them. In the end, your autoresponder may lose deals because it doesn’t adapt and may tick a few people off for trying to sell them when they’re not ready. Even worse (for you) is if the person expresses interest after email #2. You’re not going to send them an offer for 12 more days. What if by then they’ve turned to a competitor or lost interest when your offer comes around? You lose.

Email Marketing 2.0 Autoresponder

But what if your autoresponder could adapt like a good sales rep? What if your autoresponder had gathered necessary info along the way in the same way that a good sales rep listens and takes notes?  What if you’re autoresponder could automatically stop the current sequence and start a different sequence perfectly tailored to the prospect’s needs?

Email Marketing 1.0 requires that you send the same message to everybody regardless of how they may feel toward your product or message.

Email Marketing 2.0 is different because it listens, takes notes, and acts for you automatically to adapt the message appropriately.

This is only possible when you tie your customer database (dubbed, “CRM”) to your email marketing engine and throw in a healthy dose of automation. That’s the beginning of the email marketing 2.0 framework. Add direct mail, voice & fax broadcasts, other consumer-friendly media, as well as customer purchase data and you get a fully functioning, super efficient sales machine (good sales rep) that never sleeps, never forgets a task, never messes up, never takes coffee breaks and costs a fraction of a real sales rep. Which of your competitors are doing all of that? Now you’ve got an edge.

Let’s go back to our example of selling widgets.

Email Marketing 2.0

Under the email marketing 2.0 model things are entirely different. If someone expresses interest in Widget A after the second email, your email marketing 2.0 engine will stop the autoresponder sequence and send an offer email right away. If a person expresses interest in Widget B after email 3, your email marketing system will stop the autoresponder about Widget A and start a separate autoresponder about Widget B finishing with an offer. Since your prospect and customer data is housed in your email marketing 2.0 system, you can find targeted segments of people and send them very relevant messages that allow you to “harvest” money from you list. You’d do a search for all of your customers that have bought Widget A, given you a testimonial about the widget, and never bought widget B, but clicked on a link for Widget B in the last 3 months. It only takes about 20 seconds. Then you’d send that targeted list of people a special offer for Widget B.

Basically this gives you a few levers and buttons to make money. One day, you feel like making money so you push the green button. Another day, you feel like making some more money, so you pull the yellow lever. Email marketing 2.0 makes it that easy. All along the way, your customers and prospects are in control.

Right now, we’ll help you launch your first email marketing 2.0 campaign for free. Stop marketing like a bad sales rep and get on the path to doubling your sales (or much more). I’ll be writing more about email marketing 2.0, but I’m interested in hearing your thoughts and questions. Let me know in the comments!

You might also like these blog entries:

• Email Marketing 2.0 Smackdown
• Email Marketing 2.0 Has Finally Arrived
• Launching Your First Campaign

If you haven’t been following my surfing series, go read lesson 1 and lesson 2.  Then come back.

There are two lessons to be learned from this analogy of the pocket.

• Don’t get too far in front of the wave.

  • When you’re surfing, its easy to get excited and pump down the line only to realize that you got too far out in front of the wave where there’s less energy.  You lose speed, can’t get back in the pocket, and you lose the wave.  Bummer!
  • In marketing, its also easy to get excited about where you’re going and the endless possibilities. You see huge growth in future markets and you go after them too early. The problem is, the marketing message gets diluted because you’re trying to talk to too many people at the same time. Eventually, the message means nothing to anybody because its trying to say something to everybody. I’ll quote Geoffrey Moore in his book Crossing The Chasm.  He recommends, “focusing an overabundance of support into a confined market niche,” because “the efficiency of the marketing process, at this point, is a function of the ‘boundedness’ of the market segment being addressed.”  Later, he says that “the more tightly bound [the market niche] is, the easier it is to created and introduce messages into it, and the faster these messages travel by word of mouth.”
  • The lesson is, don’t try and go faster than you should.  Stay in the pocket.  Focus on your market niche.  Dominate it before you move on to the next opportunity.

• Don’t fade too far back.

  • In an effort to get “barreled” (be totally covered up by the wave), which is the ultimate experience in surfing, you stall your board to slow down and fade back into where the wave is breaking. The result is the most exhilarating thing in the world — yet is a very fine balance.  Fade too far back and you don’t come out of the barrel — instead you get thumped by thousands of pounds of crushing water. Get too eager and you’ll shoot out of the barrel and lose that opportunity. Getting it just right is all about managing your appetite for risk. Those who are willing to risk getting thumped will get more barrels.  Risk too much and you’ll get thumped every time. Those not willing to risk it will never experience that awesome feeling of a “tube ride.”
  • In your marketing efforts you also need to manage your appetite for risk.  If you’re not ready to risk a little, you’re never going to taste success like you want.  But, be careful not to get too risky.  Getting thumped over and over is not fun and only exposes you to more problems (sharp coral reef, rocks, etc).  You should be willing to be aggressive in your marketing.  Even be a little over-the-top if that’s what you need to do to get the word out.
  • Be edgy and controversial if that fits your style.  But don’t blatantly attack competitors.  Don’t be sour and pessimistic.  Don’t push on your prospects pains so much that your brand gets a dark feel to it.  Find a way to balance your marketing and your appetite for risk in a way that allows you to win most of the time.  That’s what staying in the pocket is all about.

–Tyler

[Photo credit, thelastminute, on Flickr]

You might also like these blog entries:

• Hunting or Harvesting, Part 2.
• Surfing Lesson 2 of 3: Positioning Is Key
• Surfing Lesson 1 of 3: Its All About Timing

This is my second post of my Marketing Surfing Lessons series. If you didn’t catch the first one, you can get it here.

Once again, I’ll relate it to surfing. First let’s get a little background on the topic.  Surfing has become so popular in the last 50 years that its nearly impossible to find good surf without a crowd.  Its not uncommon to travel to some remote island in any of the vast oceans on this planet in search for uncrowded surf, only to pull up to 10 other boats and packed lineup up surfers.  So the modern-day surfer has been forced to learn the art of positioning.

3 Tips To Position Your Business to Catch a Huge Wave:

1. Position yourself in the lineup.
   Once you get out in the water, its important to know where the waves will be breaking.  If you line up too close to the beach you could get hammered by the incoming surf.  If you paddle too far out, you’ll miss everything that comes in.  If you lineup too far to the side of the peak, you’ll miss out.  If you lineup on the inside and try and catch a shoulder, you’ll sit and watch other people surf by you all day.  Click the image to the right to see how the lineup works.  You want to position yourself in exactly the right spot to catch a wave at the peak and ride it all the way into the beach.Positioning your small business works the same way.  The first step is to ignore the competition and figure out where the waves (your target market) is.  Find your target market and figure out how to position your product or service in the best way so that the market responds.
2. Next, you don’t surf (or do business) in a vacuum.
   So, you have to figure out how to position yourself correctly for your target market while also keeping a leg up on your competitors.  In the lineup, its an art to learn where to sit to increase your chances of scoring a wave.  There’s also an art to know when to sit and relax and when to paddle.  The key is to remember what you decided in step 1 and realize that the lineup doesn’t sit still.  Everyone is always moving.  Always jockeying for position.  Keep your position in the pack, but never lose site of where the waves are going to break.So, what does all this mean for you in your business?  Your competitors have their own goals and aspirations.  If they start heading off in an interesting direction don’t follow them unless they’re heading directly at your target market.  Never follow just because they’re a competitor.  Hold your ground and keep jockeying for position.  Knowledge of where the waves break and how they break (market research) is what will allow you to always be in the right place at the right time.  Don’t guess.  Learn what you need to learn to be prime for your market.
3. Play by the rules. In the surfing lineup, there are rules that must be lived by.  You don’t drop in on someone else’s wave.  You don’t ditch your board and risk hurting someone.  Click here check out the rules.  In business, play by the rules. It doesn’t pay to bash your competitors like a slimy politician.  It doesn’t pay to cheat your way to the top. When you play by the rules and you win, you gain respect.  I’ve often sat in the lineup watching in awe of others tearing up the waves even though I was missing out.  I watch and learn.  Then I go attack. (“Attack the game, not the players.”) Play by the rules.  Learn from people that are getting it right.  Then, get out there and drop in.
   

Here are some useful resources to help you position your business in your market:

• Wikipedia Article
• Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind (A great book!)
• Duct Tape Marketing (Another good book on marketing & positioning.)
• The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

Enjoy!

–Tyler

You might also like these blog entries:

• Surfing Lesson 3 of 3: Stay In The Pocket
• Surfing Lesson 1 of 3: Its All About Timing
• Hunting or Harvesting, Part 2.