Gmail has a feature called Priority Inbox, which automatically sorts your “important” emails to the top. The basic idea is that Gmail will prioritize email from senders that you interact with the most.

In order to predict which messages are important to you, Gmail uses some of the same technology that it uses to weed spam out of your Inbox. To predict which of your incoming messages are important, Gmail automatically takes into account a number of signals, including:

* Who sent the email (For example, if you email Bob a lot, it’s likely that messages from Bob are important.)
* What terms it includes (If you always read messages about soccer, a new message that contains those same soccer words is more likely to be important.)
* The actions that help us determine which people/terms are important to you include: replying, using stars, archiving, deleting (Messages you star are probably more important than messages you archive without opening.)

This is all done automatically, and no humans ever read your mail.

The takeaway for email marketers? Well, it’s kind of the same old story. Send awesome emails. If your recipients are more engaged and interact with your emails more often, you get priority. Here are some tips for sending more engaging emails…

• Get to know your engaged subscribers – segment, segment, segment
• Be more human, get more replies – be personal, not to “corporate”
• Write effective subjects lines – They won’t engage, if they don’t open it
• Test, test, test – if you email isn’t tested against the SPAM filters, it may not even get delivered

Maybe I just pay attention to marketing more than the average person, but I am continually surprised by the amount of wasted effort and money people spend on marketing. So much so, I thought maybe I would just simplify the process for companies and easily define for them 5 ways to waste their marketing dollars

Wasteful idea #1: Don’t collect email addresses.

One of the most cost effective ways to communicate with clients and prospects is through email. When you don’t spend the effort to ask permission to add your contacts to your email distribution list, you are not utilizing one of the most cost-effective ways to stay in front of them.

Wasteful idea #2: Get big Yellow Page Ads

I am constantly surprised by the amount of money still spent in this area. Do people still think Yellow Pages is worth the money? Come on! I have talked with companies who spend $1,000, $2,000, even $5,000 per month on ads.

Wasteful idea #3: Don’t put effort into your website

Your website is a view into your company 24×7. It speaks for you when you are not there to speak for your company. Many times, it is the first impression a prospect or “influencer” may have for your company. For many of our service clients, one or two new sales in a year as a result of website improvements can more than pay for the effort.

Wasteful idea #4: Sponsor events without purpose

It’s amazing how many opportunities small businesses have to sposor something. A table at a networking event here, or a sponsor at a community event there, or for $$ we will put your logo on this here. Unless you see it worth doing as “good-will” such as an opportunity to give back to your community (which is not marketing any more by the way), you must adhere to a couple of principles: first ask what you should expect as a return on your investment, and secondly ask to speak to someone who has done it before you to make sure they feel it was a good investment for them. Not always does that mean it will be for you, but you can learn an awful lot that way.

Wasteful idea #5: Buy print ads

You want to blow through a marketing budget quickly, buy print ads. They are as expensive as they ever have been, but now there are much more cost effective ways to advertise including Google ads, even Facebook ads if your target audience is found there. Be creative when trying to reach your audience. We have two clients that actually traded ad space. One placed the other’s ad on their website, and the other printed flyers and taped them to their take-out boxes. Little to no cost for each!

These points seem pretty simple when you step back and think about it. Be honest with yourself if you are spending money in the above ways. Are you just doing so because you want to do “something”? Is there a better way to spend your marketing dollars? If you want some help doing it better, give us a call.

Well, I have news for him and anyone else who thinks this way. You will be quite surprised how far you and your business will be behind when you pull your head out of the sand. Here are some things I hope you can understand and consider about today’s small and medium-sized business landscape.

Your business will never be the same as it was before the economic downturn – period.

Those who think that, once this economic crunch is over, they will go straight back to offering the same business model as before our financial crisis will have a huge wake up call coming. The businesses that are working to reinvent themselves are already leaps and bounds ahead of you. Why is this important? See the next point…

Your customer’s needs (and maybe wants) are different now.

With money being tight for everyone, your product or service is more scrutinized than ever before. Therefore, the value you bring your customer must be like never before. It’s a buyer’s market in most industries, so your product or service must stand out above the rest and solve an important need of your target audience.

There are many things I have noticed businesses doing to make forward strides in spite of the dip in the economy. Here are some of the trends I see that you can implement:

Allow employees to telecommute

Save cost for the employee and the business by allowing employees to work from home several days a week. This can cut down on office costs and offers employees flexibilities in trade for other “perks” you may not be able to afford in today’s market. Work is still getting done but for less cost.

Reduce print marketing / increase internet marketing

Print marketing can be an effective means to communicate to your clients and prospects, but it is also one of the most expensive means to do so. Cut marketing costs by going electronic. Email marketing, website improvements, and social media efforts are typically dollar for dollar better spent money than print anyways.

Hire virtual employees

Companies are starting to recognize that they do not have to invest in employees the same way they used to. The objective is to get the job done right – most efficiently and effectively – as a result businesses are turning to virtual employees. Websites like elance.com and Odesk.com make finding these resources much easier. If you have needs that are consistent and easily replicated you might consider even an international virtual employee through sites like virtualemployee.com and remoteworkmate.com. These sites can help you find cost-effective resources to help through the peaks and keep you from having to hire in-house employees to get the work done.

One of the service offerings we have at Three Hats Marketing is virtual marketing employees. If you have recently downsized your marketing staff or are considering hiring to meet current needs – give us a call. Our approach will definitely save you money and offer you better results.

I think of myself as pretty “handy”. I enjoy doing small projects around the house but certainly know I have limitations when it comes to building things (especially when electricity is involved!) I’m lucky to have most the tools and actually know how to use the majority of them. I have multiple hammers and have driven a few nails over my 32 years.

Most of us have at least some building tools – like a hammer, and even though most would say they can use a hammer to hang a picture, or build a flower box, few would say they could use it to build something significant like a home. That requires a set of skills and experience many of us don’t have. I learned the lesson early in life when I misused a hammer and almost knocked myself unconscious… and I still have the scar to prove it!

Email Marketing is no different – maybe no physical scaring, but if you try to do it yourself you could be putting your business in harm’s way. Email marketing uses a tool, email – which is probably even more prevalent than a hammer these days. To do email marketing right, it requires a set of skills and experience many business owners don’t have – much like building a home. Just because I know how to use a hammer, I certainly wouldn’t try to use one to build my own home. In the nearly 10 years that I’ve been a marketer, I’ve found that Email Marketing is one of the most difficult aspects of marketing. It is extremely challenging – even for professionals that do it on a regular basis.

So why do so many people believe they can do email marketing without the necessary skills and experience? Based on the numerous conversations with clients that have tried it themselves, we believe it is due to a lack of understanding. There are simply hundreds of potential points of failure with email marketing. To be blunt, even though you know how to use email, or even one of the many “self service” systems available now for email marketing, you should not do your own Email Marketing unless you are an experienced professional. Your business may not be able to recover from the proverbial scar that could be made if you make even one mistake.

If not done properly, one simple email could cost you thousands of dollars in fines, damage your brand, harm your client relations or even lose customers.

Below are just a few of the finer details that many are not aware of with Email Marketing:

Email Permission:
Did you realize that if you send a mass email to someone without their permission, you are actually breaking the law? By far the most important aspect of email marketing is the concept of permission. Businesses sending emails without the recipients “permission” is SPAM and could be in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act, which means the sender could be subject to penalties of up to $16,000 for each separate incident. Just because you’ve exchanged business cards at a networking event, doesn’t give you the legal permission you need to add that person to your email list.

And even if you have a legitimate email list, there are a number of technical qualifications you must adhere to – like including your snail mail address in the email.

Email Design:
The design of your email plays a huge role if your email is received, opened and read. Did you know that there are over 18 mainstream email systems used and that the emails you send look differently in each of these various programs? Have you ever seen your email marketing in AOL? Yahoo? Gmail? Outlook 2003? Outlook 2007? Mozilla? If I am speaking a foreign language to you right now, then you may be sending poor-looking emails to your clients and prospects without knowing it – even if you are using a reputable “self-service” system.

Email Spam filters:
Are you aware that there are 11 mainstream Spam filters and that each have different definitions as to what looks like Spam? Do you know that the wrong characters and words in your email can affect whether your recipients even receive your email? If not, you are probably wasting money on emails that aren’t even being delivered to your recipient’s inbox – let alone being read. These are things that “self-service” systems typically don’t help with either.

Email Content
Once the email is delivered in the recipient’s inbox, the next most important piece is the subject line. Do you know what makes compelling subject lines – causing people to want to open and read your email? Are you aware that if your subject line is too short or too long, fewer people will open the email? Do you understand how images work in emails between email programs? Do you know when to use images and when not to use them? Were you aware that approx 30% of email recipients don’t even know that images are disabled in their email system – meaning they are not seeing your images?

Email Measurement
Do you understand keywords, hyperlinks, landing pages and other aspects in your content that make email marketing effective and measureable? Do you know the best days and times to send your emails to your target audience to assure the greatest open rate? Do you know what audience segmentation is and how it can add to your email effectiveness?

Much like building a home, email marketing requires the necessary skills and experience. If you think email marketing can be and effective marketing tool for your business, you need to leverage a professional who has spent the time learning the “ins and outs” of this marketing tactic.

Three Hats Marketing has helped many businesses effectively use email marketing – and we can help yours as well.

We’ve got the scars to prove it!

Many businesses combine the function of Marketing & Sales. In some cases one team facilitates both needs and in other cases one person oversees both functions. In any case, it usually doesn’t work! Sales and marketing are two completely different business functions – admittedly there should be a close collaboration between the two, but still separate. If you are looking for a short definition, marketing activities feed sales efforts and support the long term vision of the company.

• Marketing is the understanding of how your service/product is unique – who the buying audience is that needs your service/product and how that target audience prefers be to be communicated to.
• Sales is understanding the potential client’s true needs, specific points of pain and how to remove any hurdles that may prevent them from buying your service/product.

To be truly effective, you must assemble your team with the right people & process in each of these business functions. Both groups need to consist of people that understand the value of what your company sells, how that value impacts the consumers you are selling it to, and how the competition stands up to your service/product.

Your marketing team needs to understand how to best communicate your Unique Selling Proposition to the target audience. This may at times require using multiple channels to communicate to multiple audience segments. The people in your marketing department need to understand the effectiveness of each communication tactic and what the expected Return On Investment is. This team needs to be able to create the communication tools which may require copy writing, graphic design, email marketing, direct mail, website development, Internet marketing, search engine optimization, pay per click, video production and much more. Your marketing team needs to know how to measure the effectiveness of implemented tactics and communicate this information to the decision makers.

An effective marketing department requires much more than just creating pretty pictures! We commonly dissect the functions of a marketing department into three categories: strategy, management & execution. Every marketing activity, not matter how big or small needs to these three elements to be effective. To do so requires a lot of experience, resources and knowledge. If you can’t afford to have all these resources, perhaps you should consider an Outsourced Marketing Department – provides all the resources, experience and skill set of an entire Marketing Department, for less than the cost of one marketing employee.

Sales – we’ll, sales sells! Sales removes obstacles and provides trust. Short and simple – I am a marketing guy after all!

You can’t afford to ignore the needs of needs marketing or sales. You can’t afford to have one resource serving both functions. Sales and marketing. Marketing and sales. Each needs the other. Each must reinforce the other.

If you think you can’t afford all the needed resources of a marketing department – use an Outsourced Marketing Department.