Tag Archives: marketing

Company News, Email Marketing

Gearing Up For The Release of Elite Email Phoenix

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Over the past several years we have been working on a brand new version of Elite Email that is scheduled to start rolling out to our customers tonight.

In my opinion, this new version was truly built by our customers. Over the years we have spent hours upon hours talking to thousands and thousands of customers. We have worked hard to learn their business and to understand how Elite Email fits into their marketing mix. We have listened closely to what they liked, what they didn’t like, and what they felt could help them take their email marketing to the next level.

We compiled all of this feedback and our development team worked tirelessly to build it all into our new state-of-the-art system. I honestly cannot express to you just how grateful I am to all the customers that shared their precious time with us to help build, guide and craft this latest version of Elite Email.

This new version of Elite Email, code named “Phoenix”, contains hundreds of new features, a sleek new interface, faster performance, and a few other surprises that I think our customers will really enjoy. The list of new additions and enhancements is so long that I couldn’t even include it here because then this post will scroll forever. But, I am confident that as our customers explore the new version of Elite Email they will stumble upon all the great new things we have worked hard to bring them in an effort to make Elite Email the best email marketing service provider.

Admittedly, Elite Email Phoenix has taken longer to release than we originally planned. I know many people have been looking forward to it for a long time, and I do apologize for the delay. While I don’t want to make excuses, I can tell you that although we probably could have released it months ago, but we instead chose to keep it in “beta” just a little bit longer so that when we did release it, we could feel confident that it was perfect. Our QA Team and beta testers poked and prodded every nook & cranny of the program to find every bug, kink, and loose end. We know how critical your email marketing is, and internally we set the bar for any of our programs at complete perfection.

While I am personally so incredibly excited to be launching Elite Email Phoenix, I am equally (if not more!) excited to hear the feedback from all of our customers.

Best of all, we have two more big upgrades following just behind, so stay tuned for even more exciting enhancements!

Offline Marketing, Online Marketing, Random Thoughts

The Effectiveness of Shock Value

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I just got back from seeing Brüno with some friends and while I’m definitely not writing a movie review (…although I thought it was very funny…), what really struck me was how much the audience really loved the ‘shock value’ of what they were seeing. It was a movie that totally pushed the envelope and challenged the limits of what could be said or done.

While I’m sure many people will object and protest to the content of the movie (Note: It’s already banned in Ukraine), I think there is definitely merit in seeing how a little shock can go a long way towards capturing people’s attention.

It really has to make you wonder if we live in a day and age where we are so saturated with media messages that in order to stand out from the crowd your message must be so out-of-the-ordinary that it shocks the audience.

With countless videos available on YouTube, it has to make you wonder how some videos get millions of views and become part of current pop culture overnight. From my experiences, it’s the videos that really shock you, the ones that have you stunned, the ones that you know are going to go insanely viral because it is just has that ‘Wow’ factor.

But, how do you get that ‘Wow’ factor? What is the formula? And, how risky is it to go after because an attempt for ‘Wow’ can become a disaster in a moment?

As someone who speaks to marketers and business owners all the time, I’m always encouraging them to think about the ‘Wow’ factor and how to make it work for them.

I don’t think there is a specific formula. I just think it’s something that requires a little outside-the-box thinking… a little brainstorming…and a little creativity.

Offline Marketing, Online Marketing

Making The Same Service Different > Las Vegas Poker Rooms

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It’s been a few days since I’ve been back from Vegas and each time I talk to one of my friends who was there with me (many of whom are degenerate gamblers!) they are talking about their favourite poker rooms.

This is very interesting to me because one of the things that I always preach to customers is that they have to distinguish themselves from the competition. It’s so important that you can answer the question “what makes us better”.

The poker room conversation with my friends strikes at the heart of this because poker is the same game no matter where you play it. You’ve got chips, cards, a dealer, some chairs and you’re set. Yet, some of my friends loved certain poker rooms and hated others, even when the game is the exact same.

The specific reasons vary from person to person and place to place that they were commenting on. Some of the poker rooms had nice flat screen TVs, more tables, friendlier dealers, special bad beat or “high hand” bonuses, larger variety of games, better decor, more comfortable chairs, and the list goes on.

So, even though it’s the same game being played in every spot, there is a long list of factors that separate one from the other. Each of the poker rooms knows that these factors make a difference and they work hard to make sure their patrons see the differentiating factors of their offering. And, based on how busy some poker rooms are versus others that are dead quite, it is clear that this makes a difference.

While you may not be operating a Las Vegas poker room, the lesson remains that finding out what makes you different and making that apparent to your customers, can go a long way towards separating you from the rest of the pack.

Email Marketing, Online Marketing

Las Vegas Marketers Love Email

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At the moment, I am on a plane heading back from a week long excursion to Las Vegas.

My entire body hurts, my liver may never forgive me, and many of the moments of the past week are very hazy. But, one thing I did take note of and somehow manage to remember, is that every place I went to in Sin City asked for my email address.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that has been to Vegas that in addition to being a gambling Mecca, it is also a marketing machine. Amongst all the lights, glitz and glamour, every patron to my favourite city on earth is exposed to more marketing impressions than you could ever imagine. Every square inch of the city that can be advertising something, is advertising something!

So, it’s no wonder that the town seems to have jumped at the opportunity to aggressively use email marketing.

When signing up for my players card at the various hotels (YAY, getting comp’ed!), I assured myself of getting weekly emails inviting me back to their properties with various incentives.

Whenever my wife or I made a purchase at a store, we assured ourselves of getting email catalogues right to our inbox.

With the economy the way it is, and Vegas really getting hit hard (although I did many plenty of donations to their economy!) email marketing is a great way for all these businesses to market effectively and affordably.

After all, it may not be financially feasible for every one of these stores to spend tons of money printing catalogues, flyers and other promotional material to mail it out to everyone that has ever shopped at their store. But, with email messages costing a fraction of a penny, the sky is the limit, which is a marketers dream.

I should note that not everyone has adopted email marketing. I did head to a strip club with some buddies and not one stripper asked for my email address…maybe they’ll get on the bandwagon soon! =)

Offline Marketing, Online Marketing, Random Thoughts

Give Thanks… For Your Customer’s “Attention”

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Seth Godin wrote an interesting Thanksgiving post where he thanked his readers for giving them a wonderful gift, their “attention”.

This is a very important concept that many business owners I talk to seemingly overlook. In today’s world there are a million distractions. Between TV, radio, books, billboards, iPods, bus advertisements, web sites, email ads, text messages, cell phones, Blackberry’s…well, the list goes on and on. The point is, there is always something vying for your attention. With only 24 hours in the day, that makes someone’s attention a highly sought after commodity.

Often times I hear business owners say something to the effect of “I don’t understand why my customers didn’t read all the way to the bottom of my email advertising campaign”. Then, I’ll take a look at their email and it appears to contain half the text from the Encyclopedia Britannica! I then ask the business owner if they would have time to read the whole thing, to which the reply is often a hesitant delay (realizing their blunder!) and then the statement “maybe not”. Well, if you won’t give you own content enough attention to get all the way to the bottom, you better believe that your customers are willing to invest a whole lot less than you are!

This is why it’s vital to put the most important pieces of information at the very top of your web page, your email, your hand-written memos, etc. If you assume that people are only willing to give you 15 seconds of their time, then you can strategically approach the way you present your content.

So, this Thanksgiving, while you’re giving thanks, don’t let “attention” slip your mind because if you don’t appreciate your customer’s attention, then it may not be long before you lose it.

I thank you all for reading this =)  […I guess it’d be hypocritical to not say that!]

I’ll close with this quote:
“On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment – halftime.”
— Unknown

Have a great Thanksgiving!