Leadership Institute Training

Some days ago, I had the opportunity to give a session on Internet and Email marketing to a group of students at the Leadership Institute. I had a picture taken (so I could show off) and I finally got around to put it up. According to the session feedback forms I got back, I didn’t do that well at keeping people’s attention. If you are a public speaker or trainer, what do you do to keep your audience’s attention? I would welcome ideas, tips and suggestions.

I’ll be doing another session when they kick-off their new Internet training program later this summer, so I want to be better prepared for it.

Keys to Victory: Internet & Email

Here is the powerpoint presentation I used for the workshop I gave last week to a group of Leadership Institute students. I had the honor of having a candidate for Congress from a district in Texas. I’m looking forward to working with LI as much as possible in the future.

As you can tell, I am a little behind, as I just discovered SlideShare. There are a lot of great resources there I hope to look at in the near future. Check it out.

Keys to Victory: Internet & Email

You can download my power point presentation for tonight’s Leadership Institute training. Comments and questions are welcome.

Larry Chase's 9 Best Practices for Publishing an Email Newsletter

I found this while doing research for tonight’s LI presentation. I took out two of them that I didn’t think where relevant to non-profits or political organizations, but Chase’s summary really does give an overview of things to watch for when developing your email publishing.

Here is the inside track on what to pay attention to when publishing your email newsletter, and what to stay away from.

#1: What’s Your Agenda? Before your content, before your subscriber acquisition strategy, you must think long and hard about who your target audience is and what your agenda is with them. Is this a customer retention strategy for your existing clients? Is it a thought leadership gambit? Or is your newsletter designed to generate sales?

#2. What can you give them that they don’t already have? The trouble with most email newsletters nowadays is they blur together. Very few distinguish themselves. Look at what’s already out there and resolve not to reinvent the wheel. Do something fresh. If your core business isn’t publishing, you would do well to hire an outsider to help you ascertain what information you have that the rest of the world wants to know about.

You may be best served by acquiring content from outside sources. If so, make sure it isn’t the “same old, same old” content that your target audience already sees somewhere else.

#3. Shop Around for an Email Service Bureau: Make sure they are solvent. Price is not the determining factor here. Yes, I know everyone thinks this is a commoditized service, but I don’t care. What good is it if you get the best price and the bureau goes out of business or lays off much or all of its tech support staff? Which brings me to another point.

Before signing on with an email service provider, get at least three recommendations from that bureau. Remember, they’re going to give you referrals that give glowing reports. So do try to locate some users or former users who will give it to you straight. Also keep in mind the email service bureau business is fraught with complexity, with more being added all the time due to authentication systems coming online. The point is, be tough-minded, but be reasonable. Put calls into their tech support lines to see how responsive they are. If you’re paying $9.95 a month to send one million emails out, don’t be shocked if there’s no tech support on Sunday evening.

#4. Pay Attention to Reputation: It’s imperative you protect your domain name reputation. Publish your SPF records and look into a reputation service like Habeas. Such a service is quite likely to increase your email deliverability, open rates, clickthrough rates and so on.

Click here to subscribe free to Larry Chase’s Web Digest for Marketers Email Newsletter

#5. Develop a Subscriber Acquisition Strategy: You need one. Why? Because people unsubscribe from email newsletters at the drop of a hat. People leave their jobs and change their email addresses, too. So unless you have a plan for getting new subscribers, you’ll find the size of your list shrinking before too long. The average churn rate nowadays can easily be higher than 30%. Hereunder are a few sub-tips for boosting your subscriber registration numbers.

1. Put your subscription box near the top of your home page. Seems obvious, right? But then why do so many miss this one?
2. Offer a juicy incentive. Over 20,000 people have downloaded my “Essential Search Engine Resource Guide.” This guide also gets passed along and serves as my emissary, which causes more people to subscribe.
3. Only ask for the email address at first. If you want more information about your subscribers, offer additional incentives within the newsletter down the road. Remember, each additional piece of information you ask for up front severely cuts down on your acquisition rate. On the other hand, some newsletter publishers will ignore this sub-tip, since more information makes for a more qualified list.
4. Display your privacy policy clearly and prominently. This is one of the most popular links on my site, along with the next one…
5. Display a sample issue. People like to see what they’re signing up for before they hand over their email address. I do. Don’t you?

#6. Subject Lines Are Critical: Everyone is trying to get their inboxes down to whatever magic number makes them comfortable. Your subject line needs to stop the reader from the repetitive motion of hitting that delete key that gets them to that very short-term goal. Keep you subject lines short.

Many people (specifically in B2B) are using the Internet to find something out or learn how to do something. No wonder I see “How to” subject headers blow the doors off response rates. Real news works, too. The more specific, the better. In short, tell me something I don’t already know. Don’t try to fill me up with a bunch of self-serving corporate pap.

#7. Look & Feel: Make it easy for the reader to skim your newsletter. Let’s face it, most people skim email. If they really do slow down and read your newsletter, good for you. But assume your readers are pressed for time every bit as much as you are. The more control you give them, the more they’ll appreciate it, whether consciously or unconsciously. My Web Digest For Marketers is designed in short info chunks. You can helicopter around to your heart’s content without losing continuity. People love that control. If you force the reader into clicking too many times or filling out too many forms to get at what he or she wants, you will be dropped like a hot potato. It’s similar to being routed around and around on one of those annoying phone systems.

#8. Read Your Newsletter Out Loud: Sounds silly, right? But unless you’re comfortable actually speaking the words you write, your newsletter “voice” will come across as phony. In fact, try to have your newsletter come from somebody in your organization, instead of just your company name. Look, the Internet is a pretty impersonal place. One good way to get above this intense clutter is to be human, and to talk like one.

#9. Keep It Fresh: Each year, I usually introduce something new. Here’s an example. Time was when an issue of Web Digest contained the latest and greatest marketing websites that we found for you that week. In house, we called those issues, “Surf ‘n’ Turf.” But now each issue is focused on one thing and one thing only. It may be PPC, or Email Deliverability, or SEO, or Increasing Response Rates, et al. Both advertisers and readers alike love this editorial approach.

Summation: The Internet is not one medium. It’s a bundle of media. Email newsletters are one strand in that bundle. They’re an extraordinarily cost-effective way of decimating information because just about anybody you want to reach now has an email inbox.

When done right, publishing an email newsletter is absolutely one of the most efficient allocations of your online media budget. The trick is to do it right. If you need help doing it right, get in touch with me and I’ll work with you on a consulting basis to get your newsletter launched on a solid and profitable trajectory.

Keys to Victory: Internet & Email

I’ve been asked to talk to students at the Leadership Institute on a workshop titled “Keys to Victory: Internet & Email.” I’m looking forward to giving the LI students practical tips on how to use the internet and email to achieve advocacy success.

Some of the areas I’m going to be covering include:

- Email list, email relationship building, and email permission marketing.
- Blogging, RSS feeds, and buzz building.
- Facebook, social networks, and online community building.
- Flickr, and viral photo advocacy.
- Video, YouTube and other video distribution sites.

My goal is to provide tips on how to use the Internet, and its related tools, to appeal to outside constituents and stakeholders, how to effectively call to them action, and successfully advocate for your cause or issue. Feel free to share thoughts, ideas, or tips. In the meantime, you can get some bonus reading from Matt Lewis that provides basic strategic-level thinking on the user of internet and email in political activism.

Here is a paragraph in Matt’s article that caught my attention:

Every effective tactic employed by political campaigns is, by nature, intrusive — and annoying. Nobody likes being called on the phone, getting junk mail, or having unannounced strangers knock on their doors during dinner. We don’t like political TV ads either, so we turn the channel (when we can). Yet, the pesky, pushy campaigns that most aggressively employ these time-tested tormenting tactics are victorious on Election Day. As conservative icon and president of conservative training organization The Leadership Institute, Morton Blackwell, says, Nothing moves in politics unless its pushed.

I understand Matt’s point, and at its basic premise, I agree. In advocacy, you have to “move-to-action” which by nature is somewhat intrusive. But, what if you can get permission? Or, what if you can recruit an “Army of Davids” to advocate for you, and to do what would otherwise be intrusive pushing within their circles of trust?

Let me see if I can paint you a picture. A stranger that keeps barging into your home un-invited is intrusive, but a trusted friend that has an open invitation to come by any time is welcome. The relationship — the permission — makes all the difference. You might not always be able to effectively secure “permission” but by using social networking tools, you can recruit other’s to “push” for you.

Matt links to these other related web pages that I’m going to be reviewing as I prepare for my presentation.

- Study Finds Door-to-Door Campaigning Increases Latino Voter Turnout
- Dean’s Internet Revolution

A final thought for this post:

In legislative or advocacy project management, the job is to pick up this new tool and use it to connect, engage and move your constituents to action. Just because you are picking up a new tool, does not mean you forget, or leave out, all the political or advocacy strategic thinking you have been trained to use.

The key is integrated strategic thinking AND execution.

More Tips for Winning in a Web World

These tips and ideas came from the AdFero Viral marketing workshop I attended in January. I thought it would be worth re-posting.

• A messaging tools must NOT turn into a spamming tool. Any messaging system has to be careful about not being to aggressive.The key is to find people of like-mind, and work to form them into a group.
• Take pictures and videos of your offline events (videos: fun and edgy), and upload it to a MySpace profile, Facebook, or Flickr.
• Manage the campaign. You have to keep going back to the people that came by your social network page, visit their profiles and their pages, and leave comments on their pages. This brings in their friends, and is a sort of “link farming” to increase awareness and visibility of your campaign.
  
  
• Following up with people is one of the weaknesses of many non-profits. You have to cultivate the relationship, and work at it each level of the relationship. It takes work.
• How much time or money do I need to invest? Its fairly easy to re-purpose content. If you already have a blog, you can include it in your Facebook profile using RSS. Facebook will push this content out to your friends network. There are easy ways to get out re-purposed content.
• Leverage your assets, your networks of friends you have recruited, to get your message out.
• Use interns. They are usually more tech savvy, and its a great way for them to learn, while providing low-cost help to a non-profit.
• Start a blog! Blogs form a network online, and are essential to spreading a message.
• Reaching out to blogs: Find blogs that will be supportive of your cause. Don’t just send press releases, but instead cultivate relationships.
  
• You have to be prepared to lose control when it comes to user generated content, and online advocacy.
• The risk or challenge is in the accountability that results from having everything in your past recorded, and can and probably will be brought up. An example that keeps getting mentioned is Allan’s “Makaka” incident.

technorati tags:Web, social, networking, blogging, viral, marketing, NSHMBA

NSHMBA Board Leadership Training: How to do viral Internet marketing

This coming weekend, I will be presenting before the chapter board leadership of the National Society of Hispanic MBAs. As part of that presentation, I wanted to bring the discussion and Q&A session online, and continue the conversation here.

If you attended, and had a question I did not get to, please leave your question in the comments below. If you did not attend, but find the conversation interesting, please feel free to join in.

Live Blogging: Online Strategies for Grassroots Advocacy

Updates below as the morning goes along. ***

I’m spending the morning today at the US Chambe of Commerce at the “Online Strategies for Grassroots Advocacy” workshop being put up by our friends at Adfero Group. (http://www.adferogroup.com/)

I’ll be live blogging my own notes as each speaker shares their strategies, tips, and techniques for using social networking, and viral marketing for grassroots advocacy.

Right now, Chris Kelly, Vice President of Corp. Development at Facebook.com is speaking about how Facebook has been a tool for political or advocacy campaigns.

Whats important:

1. User Control
2. Authenticity: Ability to interact with others as themselves
3. Accesability: Facebook is becoming part of people’s daily life.

Their users are encouraged to connect with a group.

9:25AM: The next speaker is Tim Fullerton from Oxfam America, and International relief organization.

He answers the qestion, “Why use social networks?”

1. Inexpensive way to reach and engage a broader audience (low cost)
2. People like to feel they are part of a community
3. your supporters are using it, and so are their friends.
4. …I didn’t catch the last one.

He is showcasing the Oxfam MySpace page. They are embeding videos, and they have had more than 1000 people sign up for emails from their sign up box in MySpace!! Wow.

From experience, Tim says MySpace doesn’t seem to be effective for fund-raising. The other panelists seem to agree.

They are using Flickr.com to post pictures that link back to their main website. This is specially effective when you have pictures of a celebrity, since it will be higher on the search frequency. An interesting and valuable tip.

Tim gives some tips on where to begin:

1. Pick one social network site that works best for your work
2. Promote to your supporters
3. Update, update, update (at least once a week, if not more!)
4. Be patient.

9:34AM: Jamie Riehle, from Lycos.com is next on the panel.

He’s going to talk some about web 2.0, about what lycos is doing, and provide 5 tips for your organization to best use the web to support your message.

In case you have been wondering what Web 2.0 is, its basicly a web site that grows and improves as a direct result of user’s contributions and participation. Usually, it entails the use of technologies like Ajax, RSS, and video embeding. But, the key factor is the user interaction and involvement in the key features of a website.

9:44AM: He’s showing a video from “CitySessions” to demonstrate Lycos Cinema. Lycos can host your organization’s PSA or other video, and it could be a good way to drive traffic back to your website at no cost.

Five Tips for Winning in a Web World:

1. Identify your audience. Who are you trying to reach and what do you want them to do?
2. Use viral friendly content. Photos, wallpaper, SHORT videos, songs, or audio, quizzes, anything that makes it easy to share your message.
3. Keep it fresh. Update. Staleness will kill your social networking program or campaign.
4. Re-circulate your own traffic, and utilize a number of different sites. Link, link link…send people around your whole netowkr.
5. Easy of use, high level of ineractivity, build your site to be easy to navigate and get around. Usability.

He’s done…now the panel is going to answer questions from the moderator. (I won’t write the names, just share the tips and ideas that come out…)

A messaging tools must NOT turn into a spamming tool. Any messaging system has to be carefull about not being to aggresive.The key is to find people of like-mind, and work to form them into a group.

Take pictures and videos of your offline events (videos: fun and edgy), and upload it to a MySpace profile, Facebook, or Flickr.

Manage the campaign. You have to keep going back to the people that came by your social network page, visit their profiles and their pages, and leave comments on their pages. This brings in their friends, and is a sort of “link farming” to increase awareness and visibility of your campaign.

Following up with people is one of the weaknesses of many non-profits. You have to cultivate the relationship, and work at it each level of the relationship. It takes work.

How much time or money do I need to invest? Its fairly easy to re-purpose content. If you already have a blog, you can include it in your Facebook profile using RSS. Facebook will push this content out to your friends network. There are easy ways to get out re-purposed content.

Levaraging your assets, your networks of friends you have recruited, to get your message out.

Use interns. They are usually more tech savy, and its a great way for them to learn, while providing low-cost help to a non-profit.

Blogs form a network online, and are essential to spreading a message.

Reaching out to blogs: Find blogs that will be supportive of your cause. Don’t just send press releases, but instead cultivate relationships.

You have to be prepared to lose control when it comes to user generated content, and online advocacy.

The risk or challenge is in the accountability that results from having everything in your past recorded, and can and probably will be brought up. An example that keeps getting mentioned is Allan’s “Makaka” incident.

10:00AM: Ok. Most of the answers seem to be re-hashs of what has been said…. I’ll ad more notes as I hear noteworthy stuff.

I’m running out of baterries, so I’ll try to keep good notes and blog more about it later.

Internet Marketing at Pizza Hut Headquarters

I’ve been invited to give a workshop or training session on Internet marketing to the state chapter leadership of a national MBA association, NSHMBA.

The event is being held at the Pizza Hut headquarters in Dallas, which should be interestnig. I’m looking forward to doing some networking there. I will be participating in some training myself, as I am also part of NSHMBA and on the board of the Denver chapter.

I keep a Business blog for them, focused on the MBA academic community and the business community in the greater Denver metro area. You can read more of that here.

Communication Consulting in Miami, FL

I just confirmed a training session in Miami, FL where I will be working with the staff at Great Commission Latin America in improving their internal and external communications processes.

Since it is the middle of the winter, I’ve decided to bring my lovely bride along, and spend the weekend warming up my bones.

They have requested some help in setting up some tools that will help them stay accountable to internal and external stakeholders, such as ministry partners, donors, staff, and volunteers. I’m thinking that besides the email system I am installing, I’m thinking a blog in English for external stakeholders, with an image gallery and a calendar, and then a Spanish language blog for internal stakeholders and on-the-field volunteers (in Latin America) would be valuable tools. Still evaluating their needs, so I’ll have to fine tune my suggestions accordingly.