ON ADVERTISING WD On Advertising is published by Wesley Day Advertising
FIVE-STAR THINKING.
Traditional decision making is often profoundly flawed. New products fail. Marketing strategies bomb. Advertising concepts backfire. Despite the best of intentions, faults in decision analysis and poor team dynamics mean that key facts are overlooked. One handy tool for giving decisions the robust scrutiny they need is five-star thinking. To use it, write the decision you want to analyze on a sticky note, draw a star around it, and stick it to the center of the wall. Now label and add five colored sticky notes next to the points of the star. Take turns focusing on each one and analyzing and brainstorming your decision from that perspective. Write your ideas on smaller sticky notes next to each of the five colored perspectives. • White note – Data Analysis Focus on the data available. Analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data. • Yellow note – Intuitive Analysis Focus on gut reactions and emotions. Think how other people who do not fully know your reasoning will react emotionally. • Blue note – Pessimistic Analysis Look at all the bad points of the decision. Try to see why it might not work. • Red note – Optimistic Analysis List all the benefits of the decision and the values in it. • Green note – Creative Analysis Develop creative solutions. Be freewheeling and avoid criticism of ideas.
This technique brings necessary emotion and skepticism into what would otherwise be purely rational decision making. Focus on just one analysis perspective at a time. This forces normally pessimistic people, for example, to think optimistically and creatively. When finished, you will have a much better grasp of the problem and the consequences of your decision. Please contact Wesley Day Advertising to further discuss this technique and other marketing and advertising ideas.
DIRECT MAIL TIPS #3 OF 4:
PEG COPY TO LIFE CYCLE.
More tips for using snail mail to generate qualified business-to-business leads. 1. Peg your copy and offer on the life cycle of your product. If you’re pioneering a new product, service, or process, your efforts will have to do more education to get an appointment. If you’re a new entry in an established category, you must convince prospects why they should even consider a switch. 2. Use testimonials and case histories. In addition to credibility, they provide application and usage guidance. Smaller marketers should use endorsements reflecting on the company’s strength and stability. Include testimonials which underscore how customers were rewarded by finding out more while they were still prospects. Watch for more direct mail tips in upcoming issues. Read previous tips at wesleyday.com.
ENCOURAGE E-MAIL CLICKING.
Is one objective of your e-mails to generate clicks that your Web site can convert? Eye-tracking shows reveal that many clicks are not on areas of the creative that normally would have been clickable, such as underlined text and buttons. Instead of figuring out where the clickable links are, they just bang away, particularly on images, photos of people, and logos.
Make all photos and images clickable. This means you’ll have to figure out where these hotlinks should lead. This creates a dilemma if your designers insist on dressing up e-mails by slinging stock photos on them. (If your branding relies on stock photos, you’re in trouble anyway.) Add more right-side and top-of-e-mail hotlinks. Hotlinks buried within text, especially in the middle of a paragraph, did not work as well. Move those to the right edge of your copy -- and consider making your headline clickable as well as your “read more” link.
BRAINSTORMING 101
HOW TO MANAGE SESSIONS.
Brainstorming is a great way to both generate radical ideas and bring team members together. To run a group brainstorming session effectively: 1. Clearly define the problem. 2. Keep the session focused on the problem. 3. Don’t allow any criticism. 4. Encourage everyone to participate and be enthusiastic. 5. Don’t allow any one train of thought to be pursued for too long. 6. Encourage building on other’s ideas. 7. Appoint one person to record ideas. While individual brainstorming tends to generate many ideas but is less effective at developing them, group brainstorming tends to produce fewer ideas but takes each idea further.
BUILD YOUR ONLINE IDENTITY.
To be successful today, your company must have a clear and compelling online identity. People are googling you and making decisions about you from what Google reveals. Here are some tips to help Google report exactly what you want it to say: 1. Build your networking profile. ZoomInfo, Ziggs, Jigsaw, LinkedIn, and other sites help you build and manage your network visibility.
2. Get published. Publishing articles on the Web about your industry, expertise, and experiences is a great way to establish your thought leadership and visibility. 3. Share your opinion. Post your reviews of books that are relevant to your area of expertise on Amazon and other sites. 4. Participate in communities. Join professionally oriented online forums and information exchanges such as Yahoo Groups or Google Groups. 5. Provide your point of view. Comment on other people’s Blogs that are relevant to your personal brand – or start your own. Technoratie (technorati.com) is one site that can help you find Blogs about your area of expertise. To get the most value from these online image enhancers, remember to always include your company and personal name, and in the same way with every post. For example, we always use Wesley Day Advertising, not Wesley Day Adv., or Wesley Day.
Wesley Day Advertising 1441 29th Street, Suite 111 West Des Moines, Iowa 50266-6500 (515) 224-9330 / Fax: (515) 224-6737 E-mail: info@wda.com Web site: www.wesleyday.com
0408