The concept that these phrases encapsulate can seem rather like geese and golden eggs - the route to free marketing. But equally they are rather vague.

Unfortunately neither “viral marketing” nor “word of mouth” are ways of advertising for free, but they can be a very powerful approach to marketing which can be very cost effective. Below is a brief outline of the how these approaches can work. As always if you would like to know more, please do get in touch.

These approaches basically relate to having a promotion which customers and potential customers pass on to each other. At its simplest you send out an email, and the person to whom you send it is so impressed that he or she sends it on to others, who send it on to others who….

The variation used by many firms is to put an advert on the internet, and people then tell each other about the site, and so go and look.

Obviously the key here is to have something that people want to look at or see. A very funny You Tube piece can draw in a lot of viewers, not just because they have been told about it by friends or colleagues, but also because others find it through searching for key words on Google.

But most of us don’t have the ability or finance to make a You Tube movie, so we come back to text - and here again it is possible to write pieces that others will refer on. But you do have to get the text right.

Here’s one example. We send out an advert for the Royal Academy to 2068 people, and 422 clicked on the link we gave, which went to their web site.

Now a 20% click through rate is incredibly high - (the average for the sort of list that we were using is about 6.5%) and when we checked what had happed it was clear that many of those clicking through were not the people we had mailed. They had in fact sent the advert on to colleagues.

Articles that appear on blogs and web sites can be forwarded too. The experimental blog set up by Hamilton House two years ago now regularly has its articles cited by other blogs - sometimes with phraseology such as “there’s an excellent piece on this at….” sometimes with phrases such as “this guy might be a bit of a pain when he bangs on and on about finance in football, but he really does know his onions….” Either way the article gets read, and the word gets out. Through our tracking program we pick up about three or four such referrals which give the full web address of the original article, each day.

Another approach is to use other people’s blogs and news services. Here one reads what others are saying (for example where they are discussing a subject close to your product or service) and then one jumps in with one’s own comment, which relates back to your product. Obviously you need to be sophisticated in the way you do this, but as a method of advertising it is ten times more cost effective than Google Ads.

As I mentioned, I am happy to talk about this further - but if you would like to read a bit more background on this final point, there’s an article on http://www.mailing.org.uk/Adwords.html

If you would like to read a sample blog which is not at all about direct marketing or other subjects Hamilton House is associated with, try www.blog.emiratesstadium.info. It is about football, but don’t be put off even if you are not interested in football. Just flip through some of the articles, and note that this gets approaching 200,000 individual readers a month (a figure achieved with an advertising budget of £200). Such success can be found with all sorts of topics.

If you would like to know more please call me on 01536 399 013

Tony Attwood

a) Text
b) Pictures
c) Content

Indeed it all looks so simple put like that, but in fact these simple facts can and do trip people up very regularly.

Text represents not only the flow of the text, plus the exciting and stimulating use of the language, but also the avoidance of words and phrases that will send the email into filter systems or worse, reduce the chance of your next round of emails actually arriving.

Clearly the words that can’t be used vary from context to context. In its simplest form the word “Free” can cause difficulties, so can mentioning the name of the Schools Secretary (Ed Balls). Discussions on the anniversary of the abolition of slavery often came unstuck with any reference to selling children into “slavery and bondage”.

Moving into other areas we have the case of the dance club that changed its name from Ceroc Central to Ceroc Passion (they speak of themselves as being passionate about dance, just as Odeon cinemas are passionate about film) – which has led to a number of club members not receiving emails announcing dances and venue changes.

Curiously the word “sex” doesn’t seem to set off too many alarms – even in schools – but a lot a pharmaceuticals (and even the word “pharmaceutical” itself) can cause problems. I have no idea if anyone does sell Viagra legitimately on the internet, but if they do, I can’t think how they get the advertising through.

Moving on, pictures are also a real problem. People stopped putting pictures into emails (known generally as embedding) when it became clear that interception software was stopping a lot of emails with pictures being delivered. There is also the problem of speed of transmission - a small picture (such as a logo) might increase the size of an email from 50kb to 1500kb - nothing to notice.

But that does mean you are using up 50 times the amount of space in sending the emails - and if you are sending out a lot that can well mean you will be running a lot more slowly - and will get a lot more rejections.

The alternative approach to pictures embedded in text is the approach which has the picture resident on a hard drive. The client needs to click on a bar to activate the picture.

The problem here is that (depending on the setting of the software) all the reader will see is a blank screen (possibly with a little red x in one corner). Not a very good way to start the advert, when the customer typically will only give on one second before deleting.

The simple answer is to avoid pictures, and instead put all your effort into writing brilliant text, which forces the reader to click on the link to the web page.

And that fact tells you why most firms go for pictures - they don’t have the skill to write exciting text.

Which brings me on to content.

How you write an email is as important as how you write direct mail. Sadly, many firms just sit down and write a sales piece without any proper thought. And so they get poor results.

Just read the first three lines of any email advert that arrives in your in box, and I suspect you will see exactly what I mean.

Some firms specialise in getting emails out to the recipient - and of course that is important. But it is equally important to ensure that the email is received, and read.

If you would like to talk more about sending out emails and getting sales from them, give me a call on 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

On the one had there is the exciting creative stuff (the clever turn of phrase, the twist that takes the reader to one place when he/she thought you were going somewhere else, and so on…)

On the other hand there is the technical stuff that relates to the way the system works and the way the psychology of perception means that our brains process the piece.

Let me take just one example of this latter point

When I write a sales letter I occasionally use bold to highlight the first few words of a paragraph - but I never use bold for individual words or phrases within a paragraph.

The reason why the bold words and phrases within a letter or email don’t work - and in fact are counter productive is complex but has to do with the way the brain skims through text looking from the left while subliminally taking in what is on the right. Putting bold in the middle of the text ruins this flow, and reduces readership.

These technical bits of information are boring and dull, but they make a huge difference, and I have found over the years that time and again really exciting sales pieces have been destroyed in this way.

Why the positioning of bold is so important is not intuitive - which is why so many people do get it wrong. Indeed I have some clients who take my copy and change it to incorporate bold within the text, even though I plead with them not to, on the basis that they have seen other firms do it so it must be right.

So, my gentle word of warning is:

a) If you want to make a sale you have to write stunning, exciting and exhilarating copy, which grabs the reader by the throat, and

b) You have to abide by the findings of studies in the psychology of perception.

If you would like me to look at any email or direct mail that you have sent out or are thinking of sending out, please do send it through to Tony@hamilton-house.com and I’ll give you a call back to tell you what I think. No obligation, no charge.

Tony Attwood
01536 399 000

According to reports “The recommendations, if accepted, will bring companies’ marketing communications on their own websites, and other non-paid for space online, such as brand activity on social networking sites, within scope of the CAP Code.”

All other marketing communications activity in paid-for space online, such as search marketing and display advertising, is already within the ASA’s remit and subject to the CAP Code.

The idea is to bring this into play before the end of the year, and then effectively stop government control of advertising to children by claiming it is all “self-regulated”.
Rae Burdon, chief operating officer at the AA, says: “Contrary to general understanding, much advertising online is already in remit and there’s a very high level of compliance with the existing rules. There are some complex issues in the remaining space which require careful analysis.”

“The industry has delivered to CAP a clear mandate that first and foremost will protect consumers and children, that will also – crucially – protect editorial content, and that will, if accepted, maintain CAP/ASA’s reputation as a world-class operation. The whole industry has pulled together to make this happen. What’s important now is effective implementation and raising consumer and stakeholder awareness.”

Tony Attwood
01536 399 000
Sales@hamilton-house.com

This happens in two ways - which are themselves complex - which I suppose is one reason why the use of pictures in emails continues. Intuitively it seems a good idea, and the reasons why it is not are complicated.

We work on hundreds of email campaigns a month and I can say definitively that the response rate of each has nothing to do with the pictures or lack of them - except that as a generality emails with pictures tend to do worse.

Indeed pictures can in fact harm your response rates - for two reasons.

First, the way pictures are presented in emails causes problems. If you want a picture in an email you have two ways of putting it in. Either you can embed the picture or you can web link the picture.

Embedding the picture means you drop the image into the email, so it is permanently there. The problem with this is it will slow down the loading of the email, and some email systems will be set up to reject emails of above a certain size.

Web link pictures are not in the email at all - but are on a web site. The reader normally can’t see the pictures until he/she clicks on a button at the top of the email to reveal them. This also allows the sender to track an open rate.

The problem is that when the recipient first sees the email it can look blank - because the pics can’t be seen (apart sometimes from a little red x at the top of the box). This hardly encourages people to read on - given that they only look at each email for one second before deleting.

The second reason that pictures cause problems in emails is that pictures are “read” by the right hemisphere of the brain. Text is read by the left hemisphere. Although the brain is a fairly nifty bit of kit, the one thing it doesn’t like doing is switching from left to right hemispheres - this requires a lot of extra brain power being used. And the one thing people don’t hand out willingly is the use of their brain when they are trying to get rid of their emails at high speed.

If you buy a magazine that you are committed to reading you will of course put a lot of brain power into reading the magazine - and the pictures will enliven the text. But this is not the case with an email you send out.

So that’s the problem: people don’t “read” emails in a way that makes pictures plus text work readily together, and when you do put pictures into emails they can cause problems themselves - either by being rejected straight off or because they give white space until the reader clicks.

Why then do people really continue to use pictures?

There is a belief that pictures work, just because people believe pictures work. But also, the fact is pictures are an easy way out - because it is easier to plonk in a picture rather than find a good piece of text which excites the reader.

Pictures can be of use, of course, but they should be put on the landing page of the web site. This overcomes all the problems - a person who clicks through is by then willing to give more brain power to the issue (they have CHOSEN to look at the web site) and there should be no loading problems - no blank areas etc.

If you would like to talk about this, please do give me a call on 01536 399 013, or email me at Tony@hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood

Well I suppose some do - but when they do, they don’t make much of a fist of it, because it is also vital to know about the psychology of perception - at least when sending out emails and direct mail.

People do not read messages as we expect them to - and unless one has mastered the psychology of perception then one can’t expect to get the maximum out of a message. If you don’t know how colour affects the way people see a message then you could be using completely the wrong colours.

The whole theory of the psychology of perception is on www.theory.bz - but there is also a complete index to the leading articles on http://www.theory.bz/factors.html

If there is any issue you would like to talk about from that site, do give me a call
Tony
01536 399 013
Tony@hamilton-house.com

This was shown in a Southwest Airlines case when a celeb was asked to leave a flight because of his size. Each side told their tale on Twitter.

But then they moved on to blogs, where much more of the story could be told.

Yet despite the obvious advantage of unlimited space that blogs give, most commentators agree that blogs are underused, or wrongly used.

Blogging about your products and services is one of the most powerful marketing tools that is utterly under your control, and which can reach a huge audience. (As you may have heard me tell before, the blog I set up 2 years ago to find out how to do it, now has an audience of 170,000 readers a month.)

What’s more if you build the blog around targeted keyword phrases, that page becomes an authoritative page in Google that can very easily be found in the top search results by those searching.

Of course not just any content will do. Something quirky and slightly amusing, and above all interesting and easy to read works best.

If you would like to see some samples, drop me a line or give me a call

Tony Attwood, 01536 399 013

There is the ability to a £500,000 fine (from April 6), and the new guidelines of March 2008 new guidelines on data breach handling and disclosure are now in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act.

If you suffer a security breach in your organisation and you are fined anything up to £500,000 you will also get the stigma of failing, which will hardly be good for your business.

If there is any evidence that there were continuing reports of data breaches or failures, and action was not taken then you could be in real trouble.

Call me on 01536 399 000 if you want more information on this, or any aspect of selling via direct mail, email or the internet.

There’s more about Hamilton House on www.hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood

That is stage one - and is highlighted by the fact that blogs that are content rich get readers, not only for today’s blog, but for all the past ones you have written. A person does a google search for a phrase that turned up in your blog three months ago, and they find you - and there is a chance they will read more, and go onto your main web site.

Stage two involves placing a few advertisements on your blog. In the early days these don’t generate that much money but as the readership builds so can the response rates to the adverts build. Obviously you don’t take on anything that is competitive but you can still make something extra.

Stage three then involves exchanging links with people - getting them to mention you, and you to mention them. Not just the “blogroll” links (a list of links down the side of the blog) but actually in the article. As in “I was reading an interesting piece on…”. This doesn’t generate income but it helps take you up the rankings and gets your more readers.

Now suddenly your blog starts to become valuable in itself, not just because it sells product and keeps people in touch with you, but also because as you grow, other bloggers with non-competitive products, want to know you.

The first blog I set up, as an experiment to see how the whole blog thing works, now gets 170,000 individual readers a month. And this has led to interesting developments.

Each week now I get people writing to me asking me to link with them, or to mention them on my blog. When this started I was being offered sums so small that I took no notice - $20 a link was common. But as the reputation of my site has grown, so the amounts have grown. There are even companies out there who do nothing but organise links for clients - and the money comes in each month.

This is all because links have a double value - they can get people to go onto the other firm’s web site, and they can help take a web site up the rankings, if it is being linked to by a site that is already higher up the rankings.

So that’s stage four - and to summarise:

1. You promote your own products
2. You get a modest sum from adverts for non-comeptive products
3. You start getting links which helps the site develop and go up the rankings
4. You get paid for links.

It’s a strange world - but it can have a huge effect on your business - and those firms that are not part of it, will, I feel, find themselves marginalised over time. At the moment business blogs that work are not that common - but they are growing in number by the day.

Tony Attwood
www.hamilton-house.com
01536 399 000

Even if your email gets through to you and is not blocked by filters and the like, “e-mail fatigue” then clicks in. The fact that you get 128 billion emails a minute means that you have had enough.

They have it worse in the US where only 10% of emails get looked at, while in Europe it is 13%.

The point is that once you are reading a message, there is a chance that you will click on a link. Getting clicks is not the issue, getting people to read the email in the first place is the big problem.

So what to do?

Firstly, stop sending emails to people who really don’t want to know. If you have 5000 emails going out but only half a dozen people opening and clicking through, then the service providers (who have systems that do this sort of thing automatically) will start treating your transmissions as spam, and either send them straight to spam boxes, or refuse to deliver them altogether.

Second, use stunningly brilliant headlines. Headlines that are so amazingly exciting and engaging that you force people to look, even if they are utterly disengaged. “You are probably not reading this” is not the greatest headline in the world - but it is a damn site better than most that hit my in box each day.

(It is certainly better than “Transfer of funding responsibilities is fast approaching!” which just landed in my in box. Anything with an ! in the headline usually counts as rubbish with me).

Third, stop writing in “email speak”. Use a natural conversational voice. With an interesting personal accent. And just one little moment that no one else could ever write.

Fourth, replicate the emails on a blog, so they stay in a permanent record. This makes them public, and other people will find them and then be interested and join in. This item started out as an email to a news group - and now is here.

We get about 4,000 individual readers a month for this blog - not nearly as many as the 170,000 a month we get on another blog, but 4,000 is 4,000 and some of them then become customers. Maybe it’s you.

If you want to talk about writing blogs and emails, or sending them out, or anything else come to that, call me on 01536 399 013 or email Tony@hamillton-house.com

Tony Attwood