Why we need a new definition of conversion

Those of you who work in a Marketing capacity already know what a conversion is. For the others, a conversion is the process by which a marketer manages to get a prospect to perform a desired action. For instance filling up a form to obtain a whitepaper or purchasing a good after receiving a promotional e-mail.

Conversion has traditionally been the objective of every marketer. If scoped and executed well, the conversion process gets him closer to his ultimate goal: nurturing a contact into a lead and passing it on to sales. A lot of things are measured against it. Most ROI calculations for a given marketing activity involve the conversion rate (the percentage of contacts who ultimately performed the conversion action out of the total initial base). To say it’s at the heart of every marketer’s life is an understatement.

Enter Social Media.

If there’s one thing that Social Media is changing forever, it’s the very act of “converting”. How do you measure conversion in social media ? What is a conversion in this new reality ?

Certainly not the fact of filling up a form and register. After all, the individual and his/her identity (you and your audience) is at the very heart of the social media activity, so there’s no need to play hide and seek anymore. Does this new conversion consists in getting someone to attend an event, download a piece of content or click the purchase now button? That’s certainly part of it, but if it’s your only way of measuring conversion, you’re missing the entire point of social media.

Conversions have become conversations.

That, in my opinion, is the key to social media marketing. It’s not about blindly pushing content or offers in the arms of your audience praying for some of it to stick. It’s about triggering (sometimes), provoking (often) and participating in these conversations. You can’t ‘convert’ contact anymore these days (or let’s agree less and less), but you can certainly ‘converse’ with them, and that is a lot more powerful than any other devious marketing scheme you could come up with.

What do you think ? Are conversations the new conversion ?

Why marketing managers should practice their kung-fu

When one thinks about the duties of a marketing manager, a number of pictures come to mind: team meetings, tight budgets, creative sessions, ... This is all true of course, but there’s a large part of being a marketing manager that’s often overlooked, even by practitioners of the art, and that’s the part where you actually do something.

Being in that position myself, I’ve had the privilege to observe many of my peers exclusively focus on part 1 of the job, the management part. Not to take anything away from them, they’re not too bad at it more often than not. At least they try to be as good and effective as possible in managing. However the time they spent managing seemed to be inversely proportional to the time they spent doing.

Let’s face: it too many “marketing managers” fall short when it comes to the do part, and most of the times this part translates in get it done (by someone else).

I honestly don’t think you can be good at managing something unless you’ve experienced it firsthand before. It’s true for every job you can think about. Who’s going to be the most qualified to run the medical team of a hospital ? A doctor or someone who’s only knowledge of medicine is theoretical ? Who’s the best foreman ? The son’s boss or the guy with 10 years experience on the construction site ?

Same goes for Marketing. In this age where online and social marketing are a prevalent and disruptive force on the marketing job market, you can’t pretend you know anything about these things unless you’ve experienced it firsthand.

And by firsthand I mean real firsthand. Below are examples of some of the things I believe marketing managers should have a hands-on knowledge of:

• Know your web site: don’t need to be a web developer, but you need to understand that everything that goes there is your window to the world. Corporate web sites are the #2 source of information for buyers after search engine. You should be familiar with your information architecture and know your analytics by heart. You should have established clear metrics and conversion goals for the things that are going to matter to your funnel.
• Know your search engine: understand the impact of your web site on your ranking, have some basic SEO notions and get the help of the pros when you really want to make a difference. Understand your web advertising process and know how you can save money or increase your conversions
• Know your e-mail marketing: e-mails are cheap and a great way to talk to your base. Understand how it works, see how you can leverage it best and be able to fine tune your e-mail efforts. The technology is here and it’s not hard to use, you just need to focus a bit and practice.
• Know your social media: practice, participate, enjoy, link with people, exchange ideas, engage. Understand that social media are not a fad. They’re here to stay and even if your current base does not use it ... well ... no one has survived long by only talking to their current base right ? At some point you’ll need to engage new customers. Guess where you’ll find them?
• Write: don’t always use copy writer. If you can’t talk about your market, your product or your message, then you’re useless.
• Talk: practice presentations, volunteer, research new styles and designs. The more you’ll do that, the smoother your message will be and the more relaxed you’ll feel.

What other things would you recommend marketing managers have a hands-on experience?

8 tips for crafting e-mail subject lines that guarantee a one-way trip to the trash can

More than the number of spam e-mails I receive every day, I’m amazed at the number of badly worded subject lines in those e-mails.

I’m not talking personal e-mail here. We have all received several of these spam promising to help you achieve intimate performances that only adult film actors dream of. Surprisingly, these e-mails and their subject lines are quite good. Self-explanatory, eye-catching, clearly highlighted benefits. Unfortunately that’s not the case of what I call “professional spam”, the kind of spam that arrives in your professional e-mail inbox and that is borderline between could-be-useful and not relevant.

Funnily enough, for the past 5 minutes I’ve been writing this note, 2 of those have arrived. The first one says: “WCY - Executive Opinion Survey 2010 for Canada”. First of all, I have no idea what WCY is, second I don’t care about opinion survey, third, I’m not even in the “Executive” category (from a professional standpoint). The second one is “New educational webcast: Moments of Truth”. Seriously ? Does anyone still think that making big stylish effect like “Moment of truth” is going to incite me to read the entire mail ? I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about here, and I can’t see a reason why I would be interested.

So if you’re interested in the art of botching e-mail subjects, here are 8 quick advice for you:

1. Write long subject lines: outlook e-mail subject line real-estate is getting smaller with every version. If you have the preview pane and the to-do bar enabled, chances are you can’t see more than 50 characters or so of the subject line. If you get your e-mails on a smartphone such as a BlackBerry or an iPhone, you might see even less depending on your settings. So if you want to make sure your e-mail go right into the trash, write long subject lines.
2. Put your yet-unknown brand prominently in the subject line: let’s face it, most companies send e-mails to communicate about their services and products and try to sell them to new customers. Which means that these customers probably don’t know much about them, or at least not enough. Which means that if you put your brand (product or company) in the subject, there’s a good chance the reader has no idea what your product/service is about. Which means that unless you’re an established brand or you have a highly descriptive product name, putting some obscure seemingly cool brand name in your e-mail will only guarantee the reader will think: “I don’t know them, they’re not important”. You can always use the Sender Name if you want to showcase your brand but again, be careful with the potential backlash
3. Use big stylistic effects: Come on ! How many e-mails have subject lines which are completely gratuitous, self-centred, narcissistic, boastful and egotistic? The “Moment of truth” one that I just received falls exactly in that category. No substance whatsoever. Why should I, the reader, bother with something that looks like an over-bloated ramble on some “moment of truth”?
4. Cultivate confusion: after all, it is so much more exciting to have the reader wonder what you want from him then explain it. Why give a straightforward, easy to understand statement, when you can sound mysterious and cryptic and force people to puzzle their way around your message by reading the entire e-mail.
5. Never state any benefit: this one’s big. If you want to guarantee your e-mail won’t be read never state any benefit in the subject line. Craft your lines in such a way that if the reader ever wonder “what’s in it for me” he will never find the answer. If the content of your mail is valuable, do not state the value in the subject line. If you have an incentive for the reader to do something, don’t mention it. In short, do everything you can to make this as unappealing as possible. Trust me, it works.
6. Don’t personalize: there’s nothing attractive about receiving a message with a subject line that seems to be unique and to have been written just for the reader. It’s a known fact. People like to be undistinguishable from the others. They hate uniqueness. So do us all a favour and don’t use anything like text replacers to insert your contact name or his company name in your subject line. Besides, it’s risky if your database has holes in it.
7. Spread some negativity: people are too happy these days. Nothing better than a subject line with some negative connotation. Better yet, use the subject line to spread FUD and get your reader scared. That should get him interested in what you had to say. After all, why expose the solution right away when you can scare him to death with problems that everyone else is talking about. Good way to ensure he understands you know all about those problems.
8. Don’t test: if you’re an e-mail marketer you’ve probably heard about this little thing called testing. Waste of time, especially with subject lines. Why should you waste some precious minutes (not kidding, it can take minutes !) to try out 3 or 4 variations of your subject line on a sample of your target. You know what’s good for them, go for it.

And you, what would you do to create the least effective e-mail subject line ever?

Letting go

It’s been a while since I’ve fed this place however unlike countless others before me, I’m not going to make any promise on future notes. That said, I’m embarking on a interesting journey and I decided to use this place to talk about it from time to time. I want to give it some sort of public scrutiny and officialization at the same time, probably because I’m halfway between masochistic and egotistic. Here’s the big news: I’ve decided to let go of anything that has to do with my health.

OK, before anyone gets the Moralizator™ going, let me rephrase. I’ve decided to let go of anything that has to do with my health and let my better half be in control. Yup ! She’s going to be in charge of my diet, medical exams and exercise program from now on. I’m fully and wholeheartedly putting my health into her hands. And she’d better succeed, let me tell you !

Those who know me a bit will tell you two things. I’m seriously overweight and I like to be in control. The one thing I’ve come to realize is that unless many other things in my life, I’ve can’t solve #1 by making use of #2. I’ve tried. It does not work. At least not for me. So I have no choice: since being in control is the only thing of the 2 that I still control, what I need to do at this point is ... relinquish the control. Get my point?

I don’t really want to think about what’s it’s going to be like. I’m sure some of it will be uplifting, some of it depressing, some easy, some tough. Nothing really different than anything else in life. One thing I know for sure though, is that it’s going to be different from anything I’ve done before. So as I’m going to learn to let go and trust a good chunk of my life in her hands, if you happen to know her, wish her luck !