Marketing
Linked
Resources
Newsletter
- Signature File
- eMail Practice
- eShopping
- Direct Marketing
- Linked Resources
- Buying a Domain
- Interactive DMLR
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- I. Signature file.
During these years I noted down the signature block on emails I did receive from around the world by employees, managers, website owners, editors and many other professionals.
So I would now offer a selection arguing about methods to sign on email messages when your name goes along with a business to promote. They call it the "signature file" as in advance set block of text, slogans, web location, email address, other information, to communicate at the end of each email piece you send.
See a synthetic scheme for signature files to set up at http://www.dmlr.org/come/sign.html.
a) Total rows
It has been written that a signature file has to be 4-5 rows long.
Many business men do not respect this rule at all, because this is a limited space to tell about themself, their own website, their own business. The others do not respect it cuz they don't need nothing else than their name and surname (in Italy). I myself prefer a 5-row signature,
Roberto Dondi - author
Mobile, 338.4128371
Fax, 338.04128371
Mailto:donro@dmlr.org
Web, http://www.dmlr.org
Truth to tell telephone and fax numbers come often together in the same row, so you can save one row or add a phrase, slogan or concept. Obvious?!
Moreover: email address is on the header above; you may compact the file to 3-4 rows, or again put on a second phrase to hit the readers!
b) Contents
Full name, business name, title, phone and/or fax number, web location, personal email at work. These elements respect a common basic information to be answered both online or offline. But on email message is the snail mail address important?
In fact I rarely found the street, the city and zip code at the end of email messages, don't you?
Very different contents reside in the promoting part of the sign-file. This is the reign of the creative copy where the real goal is to condense a concept in not many words and characters.
English helps in doing that because it's a tongue full of 3 to 5-letter words! Not so simple is the job for Italians...
c) Bells and whistles
When creative has got the
power, the sign file goes funny.
The signature block is decorated by gimmick of fancy signs and no-so-meaningful host of types. You have surely stumbled on some fancy strokes as following
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
/ / / ---- / / / ---- / / /
| + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + |
I prefer to outline the sign-block by the simple line ______________________ at the beginning and the end of my file. I copied this simple line of underscores from the editor of eMarketer in 1997 and do not abandon this border to define the signature file area. In any case it's a "De gustibus"!
d) Languages
Maybe your emails do not reach foreign countries and users.
So it's fine to write a text in your own language only. Sometimes the firm or company has yet a multilanguage audience and it's not simple to decline one message into other languages
without losing effectiveness. Then English may be considered as THE international tongue among the business communities.
A final phrase in the sign-file is likely to be international only in some cases. I use this square block when I post as editor of this e-zine:
www.dmlr.org
webmarketing
e-news & zine
"do not forget
dmlr dot org!"
- II. eMail Practice.
I'm a regular -but not heavy- surfer since 1996 and I've a good experience on the e-mailing to and from business managers both of Italy and abroad.
What I guessed by emailing to business men is as follows (shortly):
- eMail is considered in Italy a very young practice, so if you are trying to establish relationship through that probably you are considered far less than a door-to-door salesman;
- the middle management is too busy to email to you unless the email is an ideal medium to overpass that being always busy;
- the top management is usually able to widely use e-mail, and I have got many evidences that the top managers are liking this new communication tool much more than any other;
- if the business belongs to the medium- or small-sized ones there is a very great suspicion before interacting via email: only umpteen telephone calls are the actual asset while dealing with SME!
- I have some experiences in exchanging email messages with American consultants, marketers, gurus and they are very able to keep relationship via e-mail; sure they are in the habit to use and sell too through the electronic mail;
any time you are contacting them, they are always prompt for replying in a few hour's time; and such an overseas comparison is useful to learn how the direct marketing is working online!
Nothing to say the email at work is a first business card you are sending to a buyer, partner or supplier. By choosing to fully sign your email is a little act of courtesy to all them.
I collected the state-of-art for the emailing by business in a first survey as "Real eMail", namely how the Italian firms are identifying their own email address --see results published on
http://www.dmlr.org/dmlropen.html
III. eShopping.
The Internet economy offers unprecedented market opportunities for shopping. These are the e-commerce webistes I have selected. Try 'em!
Case history #1. This was the first experience I passed through in shopping on the famous Amazon.com.
A. Ordering two items takes a 10-minute period or less if you previously selected them in your trolley. I mean during previous visits before buying items finally.
B. The seller confirms the online order in a hurry via email. The shipping cost plus the items price makes the global account.
C. A second email represents your track of order.
D. Items ordered on Aug. 20 were delivered at home on Aug. 30.
E. The carbon box contains the right products, book and cd (*). External label shows the addressee and the detailed descriptions of merchandise. Inside fill air bags protect the goods.
(*) Items were not available on stores in my town neither at any e-shop I enter over the Internet. This is another steady plus for Amazon.
Case history #2. A car assurance company.
This is an example of a business that sells its services without real agencies. You should know what I'm writing of... well it's about Genertel.
A. An estimate is generated by a form I filled out on the website. Ten minutes. If you download it, you may preview offline to know all data required (car, usage, coverage, etc). The beauty of this procedure is that it allows to personalize the rough contract without pressure by local agent.
B. The same day I did receive the estimate confirming the data I did provide before. An email comes to my computer reporting a specific number of estimate in the subject line. It serves for any further communication or request. A single salesman signs the email posted.
C. The order can be confirmed online at your draft contract page or you may continue the deal with the company through email, toll free or fax. I asked for changing conditions three times before confirming the contract.
D. First provided information may be erased and reposted online if one prefers to get a different estimate. Each datum is to be typed again.
E. The contract is ready when I accept the price and the payment method, and send as attachment the copy of the viable car documents. The firm provides the final contract via snail mail in two days. A limit is the fixed sequence of media while proceeding and the lack of updating the draft through the website.
I offer you these tips from my own hands-on experience online. And with buying into the e-commerce as an additional service!
IV. Direct Marketing.
DMLR-Day is the anniversary of the first e-news delivered to a regular subscriber as DMLR*News. It falls on October 30, 1997-2001. I remember this day by partying with books!
For the second year I want to advise you of the book o'the year on direct marketing. What am I writing of? What's the matter?
You may visit on DMLR the preview of the Larry Chase's "Essential Business Tactics for the Net" book as the best choice for the current year among those books offered thru a website directly to all us. In this case I have Larry's permission to let you read a short segment from his book really on my website.
Read the excerpt --I chose the DM Metrics subject from its chapter 8 - Direct Marketing and Sales Support-- at the page http://www.dmlr.org/link/book01.htm.
This is the author final note of greeting: "Hi Roberto, Thanks for the update: it's an honor to be translated into Italian :)! And thank you for "pick-of-the year! (LC)". Directly from Larry Chase!
V. Linked Resources.
TopMarketing is a Turin, Italy-based consortium aimed to develop the eBusiness and the New Economy. President is Luciano Cavagnero
This is an example of banner exchange "au pair" as the result of the DMLR e-direct campaign about the joint exposure program (free): to link YOUR website to www.dmlr.org I have settled down a few simple tips to insert a hypertext link or banner into a HTML page. The banner list is available on http://www.dmlr.org/joint.htm
There are two new ad banners in standard Web sizes:
- as 234x60 pixel size the banner is a reminder to visiting www.dmlr.org;
- as 468x60 pixel size the banner is a response ad for subscribing DMLR*News.
Headline is "Made in Italy", the background is showing a host of ice creams as typical as Italian output.
VI. Buying a Domain.
Taking part in a newsgroup on marketing I wrote such a question:
"I know a company wishing to buy a domain name already used by another firm in Italy. Two are not competitors".
The buyer is an Italian branch of a Germany-based grand trade company that owns not only the www.mybrand.de domain name, but it used to adopt the same web location for any other country where localize the stores
(for example mybrand.hu in Hungary, mybrand.cr in Croatia, mybrand.au in Autriche). They got by everywhere but in Italy where the domain is currently used by a small business named like the other.
Any idea what is the "good price" to offer for buying? Or how to get the domain name by arranging for a deal?".
A.F. read the question and emailed this tip to me:
"try http://www.afternic.com and search out some similar domains to get an idea of price. Who knows, maybe they already want to sell it? Try and also get as much information as you can from
online business resources about the company and their financial/marketing situation to base your judgment".
Hope this tip helps everyone in finding and registering the appropriate domain name at the appropriate price.
VII. Interactive DMLR.
- The DMLR Poll: One Q? For U! How were you informed on www.dmlr.org?
This is the only pay-off due to receive the free e-newsletter. Vote and see up-to-date results in real time! http://www.dmlr.org/come/form.htm.
After two months of getting in your votes say the three ways to access DMLR are
SEARCH ENGINES (83%)
OTHER WEBSITES (11%)
OTHER WEB SURFERS (5%)Please, vote once!
- The DMLR statistics: a glance to the user, reader or simply visitor to www.dmlr.org --a service for e-marketing... New stats are available since early October at http://www.dmlr.org/come/stat.htm.
- DMLR*News has got its Brief edition catalog (the issues you can't read if you don't subscribe) and its new official logo at http://www.dmlr.org/no_logo.htm.
Roberto Dondi - word processing, HTML and the ropes.