Caro Consulting

Generating Quality Leads

In my Big Canoe search result post, I was very excited because our listing was at the top of the list and the inquiries were flowing in. Now, I had a new problem - a lot of inquiries with the same questions and no follow through.

Renting homes is considered business-to-consumer (BtoC), correct? Well, I was experiencing a fundamental business-to-business (BtoB) problem - I was generating poor quality sales leads and I was spending my time responding to those leads and not generating any sales. I needed to do two things: 1. Make my copy more attractive - really sell the experience. 2. In the process of selling the experience, answer all the commonly asked questions.

What happened? The inquiries dried up and I panicked. Yet, instead of throwing out the copy, I tested something else - the price. I created a "Value Guaranteed" offer - find a comparable house for a better price and we will match it + 5%.

Are the inquiries flowing in again? No, now it is more of a trickle. But, the ones that do come in close. September is practically booked and we're now working on October and November. Have we had to use the "Value Guaranteed" yet? No. It is creating the perception that this is the best deal going. Short of Clark Howard, no one will take the time to find something else... Or at least that's the hope.

What else is going on? A survey was sent out to those who decided not to rent. We offered a $5 Amazon gift certificate and no one has answered. Amazing! We've also had professional photographs taken of the house and the rooms - next step flyers.

Blogs - Fad or Fundamental?

It was a friend filled weekend. First it was dinner with our friends Steve and Beth and their adorable son Grant, who will not stop growing up!  Saturday night was with the "Fabulous Four" - a name created after one too many of Rob's margaritas.

Both nights my new favorite topic came up - blogs. It was interesting to hear the different perspectives on blogs - is it a fad or should this tactic now be considered a fundamental in every company's marketing plan?

Three years ago, my friend Meredith and I cried fad - just a bunch of renegades rambling on and on about one topic or another. It is ironic that today the two "brilliant" marketers calling blogging a fad now use it in their marketing efforts. Even more ironic is Meredith's effort to ensure our children are healthy and encourage women to have pride in their bodies was met by bitter comments by those rambling renegades.

Okay, so what's my point? Ezra Palmer's How Blogs Pertain to You sums it up nicely,

"Many businesses and publishers are still trying to figure out "blogs," wondering if they should have a blog and what they should blog about. That's probably a mistake. What they ought to be trying to understand is bloggers and blog readers... The Blogosphere is a place for people who want a more personal relationship with various entities they deal with on a regular basis - corporate, government, media, you name it. They want to have a sense of a person behind or within the enterprise. They are looking for something or somebody real."

Three years later, I believe blogs are here to stay and for some companies they should be a fundamental in their marketing plans. I always say people do business with people they know and like - sometimes regardless if it is a fit or not. Why not take advantage of this fact? Use blogs as a window into the soul of your company.

...It doesn't hurt your search marketing efforts either.

Norcross Business Association - Small Business Marketing Strategy

This week I had the pleasure of meeting with the Norcross Business Association. They asked me to speak for about an hour about Internet Marketing Strategy from a small business perspective. An hour? Where do I start?

I decided to stick to the basics:

• Create a marketing plan - never start any project without a strong foundation.
• Make sure your website works - you can spend all the money in the world on marketing, if your website does not convert the traffic into sales, you might as well throw the money in the trash.
• Start with demand driven advertising - there are lots of ways to drive traffic to your website. Many of which I like to refer to as "spray and pray" advertising. For this meeting, I decided to stick to a more demand driven approach, search engine optimization - which also gave me an excuse to mention next week's AiMA Search Marketing event.
• Capture the visitors - industry standard statistics say a good site converts 2-4% into sales. This means 96-98% of your visitors are leaving the website without identifying themselves. If they are not ready to buy, give them a reason to leave their information - offer a newsletter sign up.

Oh, and did I mention the fabulous location for this event? Blue Moon Cycle. The motorcycle aficionados are probably green with envy right now. For the rest of you, it's definitely worth a visit.

Welcome Fabric.com to the Blogosphere

Sometimes you just need to get out there and try something new.

In 1999, Fabric.com (Phoenix Textiles at that time) was one of the first companies to go online to sell fabric. Stephen Friedman was in the fabric wholesale business and needed to get rid of some inventory. He created a Yahoo! Store, posted fabric online for $1 a yard, and sold out in a week – he was hooked.

Today, Fabric.com has thousands of fabric SKUs for apparel, quilting, and home decorating. Admittedly, selling fabric online (something people typically like to see and touch) is a challenge. Yet, hundreds of orders come in each day. And, they are not alone. The big fabric retailers are now online, along with regional brick and mortar stores, and small boutique firms trying to expand their reach.

In June, Fabric.com graduated from the Yahoo Store, launched a new site, and hired an internal resource to optimize their PPC efforts and the site. Optimizing for fabric is no easy feat with hundreds of different fabrics online changing each week – and 10 different ways to identify the same fabric. As I mentioned, competition is fierce too. Everyday Mike Bradbury optimizes pages one at a time, adding more content. He works on getting the word out about Fabric.com, so he can generate high quality links back to certain pages. He reviews the rankings and like many of us, curses Google and its inconsistency.

The culture of just getting out there and trying something new, started by Stephen in 1999, has continued through the years. As a new employee Mike has caught on to this philosophy and tried something new himself - a quilting blog. The beauty of blogging is you don’t have to create a requirements document, site plan, and implementation schedule. You can just get out there. Yes, yes, we all know he will need to eventually go back and put a strategy in place and determine how it will reinforce the Fabric.com brand, etc. But, for now, I applaud his effort.

One Size Doesn't Fit the Multichannel Consumer

Two weeks ago Scott Silverman from Shop.org, Kathleen Stockham from Best Buy, and Kathy Daly-Jennings from Home Depot presented their views on effective multichannel marketing at an Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association event.

Yes, I'm a bit delayed on this post, but I wanted to wait until Scott's fabulous Shop.org State of Multichannel Retailing study was archived on the AiMA site. It contains some interesting statistics, so please check it out.

As you can tell from previous posts, I am a huge fan of lists. So, I could not resist capturing Kathy Daly-Jennings' "10 Keys to Multichannel Success."

1. Understand what customers want.
2. Find new ways to serve your customers.
3. Surround your customers with 360 degree marketing.
4. Provide customers with unexpected delights. (believe it or not a Home Depot Valentine's Day promotion was a huge success)
5. Leverage technology to enhance the customer experience.
6. Engage in learning relationships.
7. Reward and incentivise your best customers.
8. Understand your reasons for success.
9. Slaughter your sacred cows .
10. Never rest on your laurels.

A good list we should all follow. I look forward to your additions...

The Spam Battle Continues

After a year of relative silence, the fight against SPAM has started to ramp up again. In honor of the renewed buzz, I thought a quick review was in order.

ADV is out.
The FTC said it doubted requiring subject-line labels such as "ADV" would help block Spam. Surprise, surprise.

Sender ID is in.
Microsoft has stopped talking and started acting. If companies have not published their Sender Policy Framework (SPF) a "Sender Unknown" question mark symbol and a message, "The sender of this message could not be verified by Sender ID," appear on the respective email in the recipient's inbox.

Unfortunately, without a standard email authentication system, it's going to be a challenge to remain compliant and keep our costs down while we try. Read more about how the FTC is working with other companies to evaluate each program.

Spamming is out.
Scott Richter (a past guest of AiMA's email marketing event) settled with Microsoft for $7 million. Microsoft heralded the deal as a coup in the ongoing fight against unsolicited commercial e-mails - Spam.

PR Spin is still in.
OptInRealBig.com, beaten down by Microsoft, is on its way to recovery and success. Or so they say - see this affiliate marketing program post.

State laws are also still in.
If keeping compliant on a national level wasn't enough, try following the numerous state laws. Such as those laws in Utah and Michigan to protect minors. [Follow up post - Michigan Postpones Children's Email Registry]

So much is going on and it's hard to keep up. Yet, to avoid being caught in the crossfire, it's critical to know how these new advancements affect your email marketing efforts. Ignorance is not a valid defense.

More to come... Make sure to add your own comments and suggestions as well.

AOL Report Spam Button Strikes Again

Just read in a post from Bill Nussey that AOL is running another promotion focused on working with their members to conquer Spam - contest ends August 19, 2005. It's called the AOL Spammers Gold Sweepstakes.

If you remember the last time AOL had this contest, there was some concern that legitimate emails would be marked as Spam in order to enter. This is not the case. Yet, as Bill recommends in his post, it would be a good idea to watch your AOL complaint volume.

Using Email to Market Renewable Energy

Over 85 people dialed into this month's Marketers' Marketers Group (MMG) conference call to learn more about how to use email to market renewable energy. Yours truly kicked off the call with information on where email is today, how to execute an effective campaign, and future trends. Andrew Heath & Barry Friedman from E Source seconded this information, presented several case studies, and discussed how to apply all this information to the renewable energy market.

Here are some key points from both our presentations that all email marketers can use...

• Find the right email marketing solution - consider your goals, list size, tracking needs, services, and budget.
• Build your list - get permission first. Without permission, you look like a spammer which can negatively affect your brand.
• Keep your list clean - dirty lists waste money and flag you as a spammer.
• Use email marketing effectively - as a direct response tool, email is ineffective [several of the conference participants reinforced this through their own poor experiences]. Use email instead to nurture prospects and retain your customers.
• Share the love - viral marketing works if customers have an incentive to let others know about your service or product.
• Segment your audience - nothing complicated. As an example, E Source discussed Gymboree's use of the child's gender and age to target its audience, increasing its order size by 36%.

And, the most important piece of advice you can take away from all of this - ensure your emails are relevant, personalized, and timely.

Nigerian Scam - 419 Fraud

Have you heard about the Nigerian Scam? Also known as the 419 Fraud or Advance Fee Fraud? I have because I experienced it first hand.

The email arrived innocently enough. The address seemed like something legitimate from Yahoo. It was a typical availability/cost to rent type email. Call me cold hearted, but the reason she was renting the house  set off a red flag. She explained her grandmother has cancer and the doctors in Nigeria recommended she come to the U.S. for treatment.

For my readers who do not live in Atlanta, Big Canoe is not exactly close to a hospital. For those of you who are not familiar with chemotherapy, the last thing you want to be is in a car for longer than 15 minutes...let alone an hour and 15 minutes. But, when I asked her what hospital (by email), she said Gwinnett (an actual hospital in north Georgia) and she was not concerned with the distance.

As we emailed back and forth, her English became more broken and her financial arrangement was not clear. When pressed, this is the explanation I received, "What i mean is that we are not currently on any cash at all to get ourselves a ticket thats why we insist on using the cheque so that after you take your rent and other charges from it ,you will send doen the balance for us to process a ticket for two. thats simply what i mean. I hope you understand now, please reply."

Seems simple enough. She does not get paid until the check clears and I get paid, right? Wrong. Others who fell for this scam are finding out that the check was forged and now they are responsible for the money.

What to do? Do not share personal information. Use a PO Box. Make sure the "From" name in your emails for the general public is something generic like "Big Canoe" or "Caro Consulting" - don't use your last name. As soon as you know it is a scam, report it to the appropriate company. In this case, I sent the entire string to abuse@yahoo.com and they took care of their email account. Unfortunately, there is no way to track down the person and prosecute them.

Here is some more information about counterfeit & phony payments on ClarkHoward.com.

Big Canoe Search Results and Surveys

I'm excited to see my search marketing efforts have paid off.  As of the time of this posting

• Big Canoe Rental is #2 on Google and #1 on MSN
• Big Canoe Vacation rental is #3 on Google and #1 on MSN

This must have happened at the end of last week, because inquiries instead of coming in weekly are now practically daily. Of course, fall leaf peeping season is upon us, which doesn't hurt.

Getting them to reserve our vacation rental is another challenge. So, as they say in Big Canoe, we're either fishing in the wrong pond or the bait is not attractive. In other words, the online target market may be inappropriate for our house or we are not offering what the target market wants.

What does that mean for us? Time to test different forms of advertising. Update the messaging on our site. And, most importantly, survey our prospects. The new copy should go up on the site by tomorrow and the survey by the end of the week. For advertising, we are going to try a traditional magazine ad targeting the Atlanta market.

Thanks for all your thoughts and suggestions. Keep them coming!