DON'T think of a green elephant….

I want you to think of a Blue Daisy but when I say: “don’t think of a green elephant” what are you thinking of?  

I’ve been running my own marketing business for 7 years now, and held senior marketing positions for 8 years before that and I am a subscriber to Socrates’ statement: “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing”. I believe that inspiration and knowledge can come from ANYWHERE. 

A perfect example of this earlier this week during a parenting class I attended.  We were discussing the best ways to communicate effectively with autistic children and one of the key techniques we explored is the use of explicit and positive speech.  

In other words, tell them what TO do, not what NOT to do (and be very clear). So:

• Don’t run. becomes. Walk.
• Don’t shout. becomes. Speak quietly.
• Tidy up your toys. becomes. Put your toys into the toy box.

This isn’t the first time I’ve discovered a “communicate with children” approach that translates perfectly into effective communication with EVERYONE.  

So next time you are penning a letter or asking someone to do something, take a moment to decide what you want the person to do, and ask them (clearly and concisely) to do it!

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EU Cookie Law compliance - 26th May 2012 deadline

I have to say, I am CONFUSED. The original Data Protection directive of 2002, included a cookie clause. Really, it did, you can read it here. It states:

users must give their consent for information to be stored on their terminal equipment, or that access to such information may be obtained. In order to do this, users must receive clear and comprehensive information about the purpose of the storage or access. These provisions protect the private life of users from malicious software, such as viruses or spyware, but also apply to cookies.

So, why is there the need for a Cookie specific directive?

The 2002 directive caused us marketeers a fair amount of headaches, although to be fair, (in the end) our friends in the EU saw some sense. After all, they weren't trying to stop organisations within a B-to-B environment promoting their business to relevant new prospects. For example: it's perfectly reasonable to assume a Finance Director may be interested in your XBRL filing product/service, however, you could not demonstrate an implied interest from said Finance Director in a gas barbecue (poor example but you get the point).

However, technology has moved on a lot since '02, so my guess is that there are some nefarious activities the EU feel need to be stopped - well, stopped as effectively as the '02 directive stopped spam....

The fall out from the 2002 ecommunication directive

The original 2002 ecommunication directive saw organisations spend THOUSANDS attending courses, purchasing software and struggling to cope with the fact they had apparently LOST the ability to keep in contact with their customers and prospects via the very cheap, reactive, measurable and effective email channel.

At one such event I attended, a marketing director had opted out EVERY contact their organisation had as he thought they needed to gain permission to contact them - this organisation had around 20,000 customers! You can imagine how shocked he was to discover that they were in fact allowed to continue emailing these contacts, as long as they hadn't opted out previously. Alas, as the contacts had been unsubscribed, there was no way to seperate out the people who had ACTUALLY unsubscribed from receiving emails from the people the organisation had forced email unsubcription upon... So they had essentially lost the ability to contact their customers by email. That's what happens when you adopt a "knee jerk" approach to your communications strategy.

Where do we stand with this new "Law"?

The ICO is telling us we should technically be seeking consent to store web analytics cookies. However, it’s also saying they don’t consider such cookies (and this includes the NUMBER ONE FREE analytics tool, Google Analytics) to be high risk for users and are therefore not prioritising breaches relating to analytics cookies.

Our advice:

STAY CALM. Don't spend lots of money on expensive consulting advice or software. Don't jump in with both feet and remove your cookies (analytics tools in particular are important sales and marketing tools so lets not throw them away unless we have to!). Do keep an eye on sites like tecmark.

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Posted in: cookies

Triumph with Telemarketing

Increase your conversion ratio of sales lead to closed revenue opportunities with tailored telemarketing campaigns.

When selling products and services which cannot be bought by credit card over the web the traction you gain with your target audience is key in converting them into a revenue opportunity. Hitting them with marketing materials is only part of the lead generation marketing mix; telemarketing can be the key to identifying someone who you would potentially have been missed. Are all the leads generated through regular sales and marketing activities always followed up by your internal teams? If your sales teams are playing telephone tag, or simply do not have time in their diary to spend a day cold calling then outsourcing this to a team of telemarketing experts can free up your Sales Teams and take interest through to qualified revenue opportunities.

To make your campaign a success, download "Marketing in a Minute - Triumph with Telemarketing" from our website. This includes key things to consider when briefing your agency, common mistakes and key things to remember when dealing with a calling company.

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Posted in: generating leads,Telemarketing