I work in children’s mental health.  Every day, our company sets out to serve children who are facing challenges that would make a Hallmark Movie Channel moment look like  dinner at grandma’s.  Barring a full rundown of our entire corporate belief structure, I’m going to share a mantra our entire team subscribes to - Needs Aren’t Services.

In our world, Needs Aren’t Services is about the families we serve.  As service providers, it is very easy to get into the rut of telling a family what THEY need.  “Your child needs therapy.” “Your child needs a mentor.” “Your child needs to be on anti-depressants.” After all, we’re the experts, right?  We’ve been trained to figure out what people need and how to give it to them. Surely, we know best.

Or not. It all begins with listening.  This is a mind-blowing concept for some: If you listen to someone, they actually tell you what they need.  A child doesn’t need therapy; they need an outlet to get their story out. A family doesn’t need a social worker to stay at their home with them; they need help.  At the end of the day, we’re here to listen to the family, hear what they need, and then figure out what tools are at our disposal to help meet that need.

This concept doesn’t need to be exclusive to our field though.  As a strategic communicator, how many times have you been told by department heads in your company, clients or business partners “We need this on our website.” “We need you to start a (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube) site right now.” “We need a corporate e-newsletter.” Maybe it’s even you saying it.  After all, you’re the expert, right?  You’ve been trained to figure out what people need and how to give it to them.  Surely, you know best.

Or not.  Here’s the kicker: You don’t need a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube.  You don’t need a corporate e-newsletter.  You don’t need a website! For just a moment, throw away your knowledge of all the wonderful social media tools at your disposal, and just listen.  Ask why this is needed.  Ask who this serves.  Ask what value this holds.

You’re going to get answers you know in your heart, but filtered out while thinking about your social media toolbox.  Answers like “We need to tell our story.” “We need to make a conversation happen.” “We need to connect.”

It all begins with listening.

Guest Blogger | Adam Lowe

Adam Lowe is the Branding Manager for Choices, Inc., a nationally recognized, Indianapolis-based nonprofit serving youth experiencing mental, emotional and behavioral challenges.  A graduate of the University of Indianapolis, Adam holds degrees in marketing and information systems and is a self-trained graphic designer.  He has worked with Choices, Inc. for the past six years and has previously worked with Indianapolis’ own Survivor All-Star Rupert Boneham and his Rupert’s Kids program.  Adam has been recognized for his marketing, branding and design work by the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals and the Hoosier chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

Twitter: @dudeimbibes | Facebook: www.facebook.com/dudeimbibes

Humor in blogging is tricky.  There is the possibility of offending a client or their followers.  Or using humor that is not understood by the reader.  Many people will avoid humor at all costs to avoid any negative reaction to the company. Unfortunately, most people will not remember information that is too dry.  Think of an insurance seminar.  It is not because the information is not relevant or important; it’s just that there is no hook to help the reader remember your message.

Using too much humor leads to your audience not remembering the name of the product.  However, they will remember the commercial and how the product was used.  I can think of numerous times that I remember the commercial and not the name of the product.  The ad gets drilled into my head because I laughed at some feature in the video.  Since it is so over-the-top, I forget the vendor name.

Using humor is a delicate mix. Visual humor is more effective because the reader is able to see the entire event.  When working humor into a written piece, you have to hope the reader reads the entire section to understand what you are trying to say.  You also have to hope that the humorous event you are trying to reference is relevant to the reader and your product.

Early on in my career, I was asked to do a promotional video.  We planned the shoot and recorded it.  During a post-production break, I decided to check out some of the other videos that were posted on their site.  I immediately saw that what we were doing and what they had done – were in two completely different types of humor.  Their material was very subtle and ours was over-the-top edgy.  We took a chance and submitted it to them for review.  We were surprised to learn that they liked it.  We we received the YouTube link, we were even more surprised to learn they aired it and kept it on their site.  After that event, I always search their site before production to see the style of the company.

Sometimes, it’s okay to try edgy.  You may be surprised with the end product you receive.  One of my clients tells me to do whatever I want.  We have an established relationship. By using my service, they know they are going to get an edgy, over-the-top promotional piece.  They also realize that they will not get the way over-the-top material that I do in my online YouTube channel that I am known for.

When planning to incorporate humor into your blogging or social media strategy:

1. Make sure it matches your blogging style.
2. Avoid political and religious humor – you will definitely offend someone going this route.
3. When using outside (non-company) people, discuss what you are trying to achieve.
4. Discuss the Do’s and Don’ts to make sure everyone is on the same page.
5. Consider using a professional humorist to provide content for your production piece.  This can be a ghost-writer that will help add some ‘funny’ to the work.
6. If you are looking for a new audience, try edgy.  It may be more effective than you think.

Many of these tips can be used when deciding if it is appropriate to use humor in other ways too, such as sending email to clients or, like the example above, putting together a promotional video.  For some, it may be relevant to be edgy and try new things, but with some audiences, it may be better to leave it out or only include certain humor.  Either way, you want to make sure people are remembering your message and not forgetting your product.

Guest Blogger | Bg Kahuna

Bg Kahuna runs BgKahuna.com on the interweb. He is the host of “Kahuna On The Loose”, an internet show that talks to people doing what they do and interviewing them while they do it.  He creates and provides humorous content for blog posts and video productions.

Email – me@bgkahuna.com | The Blog – www.bgkahuna.com | The Twitter – www.twitter.com/BgKahuna

The You Tube – www.YouTube.com/BgKahuna1 | The Facebook – www.Facebook.com/BgKahuna

At Delivra, part of our account management process includes a quarterly review where we provide a report card summary of the clients e-mail marketing efforts over the last 90 days.  This report card covers topics such as sending volume, membership trends/health, complaint rates, mailings listed by engagement score, etc.  It gives us a great opportunity to talk about what is working, what is not, and discuss recommended changes or improvements to implement over the next 90 days.

I wanted to share a few of the topics and suggestions that have come up recently in my quarterly reviews with clients.

• Take advantage of your ability to track click-throughs.  If you don’t give recipients anything to click on, it is impossible to see where their eyes are going.  Give them the teaser to the topic then offer up a “click here to read the full story”.
• Make sure you are fully authenticated to maximize inbox deliverability.  We can help guide you through the SPF, DKIM and Domain Key setup, but we can’t do it for you.  It is a simple process that can be completed in no-time flat.
• Make your social share feature stand out.  Put it towards the top of the e-mail. At a minimum make sure it is above the fold.  Draw attention to it, give them a reason to share it out to their social network.
• Want click-throughs to increase…use links to video.  Want your video link click-throughs to increase…then use a still image from your video with a “play” button on it.
• Test, Test and Test some more.  Our A/B testing wizard is not limited to any single test.  You can have two totally different looking pieces of content and test them against each other.

We are here to help…take advantage of these suggestions and I think you will be pleased with your next quarterly report card.

Scott Cramer | Director of Sales

An accomplished businesswoman and acquaintance of mine commented recently about how her husband relished in her success.  As many people would describe success as the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like; I asked how she defined success. Her answer surprised me.

Without hesitation my friend replied that the success quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson was her mantra.  Emerson’s quote is reproduced below.

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded.

I have a new found respect for my friend.  Could career success be a byproduct of ascribing to Emerson’s wise advice?

Neil Berman | President & CEO

Few things amaze me more than my wife’s ability to find a good bargain.  In fact, she doesn’t just excel at finding deals.  Sometimes she creates a deal where none previously existed.

In American society, negotiation of prices is expected in certain settings only.   For example, we understand that when buying a car, the “manufacturer’s suggested retail price” is truly only a suggestion.  So we show up at the dealership ready to haggle, and the dealer expects this.   It’s considered normal.

Or, when buying or selling a house, your realtor will tell you to expect there to be offers and counteroffers.  It’s just how it’s done.

But people are shocked when I tell them how my wife has saved our family hundreds of dollars at a time by negotiating at retail stores, big-box national chains with names that you would recognize.   She gets discounts by, well, asking for them.   For example, we recently purchased a new TV.  The same model we bought showed up in the store’s national ad just a few weeks later.  The advertised sale price was less than my wife paid!

How does she pull it off?  It takes a combination of timing, chutzpah, killer instinct, and charm that most people lack.  But a better question is, why is it so surprising?  It seems almost scandalous.  In fact, while it’s going on, I usually find it embarrassing that she’s asking for special treatment.  She’ll get no complaints from me about the cash we save, but in the moment it seems so…nervy.

However, being a consumer hasn’t always been like that, as Time Magazine pointed out, in it’s 1999 Person of the Year tribute to Internet retailer Jeff Bezos:

The idea of fixed prices is only about 100 years old. Before then nearly everything was negotiable. The last great retail revolution was mail order, led by Sears, Roebuck in the 1890s, and it solidified the idea of fixed prices, since buyer and seller were often separated by hundreds of miles of rail track.

Over time, customers preferred the fixed price model.  Sears prospered, and other retailers followed suit, to the extent that American society  has come to accept–even expect–the idea that prices are fixed.  It’s not a mandate of law, it’s just become “the way things are.”  This is why my wife’s example is so startling, because she defies the norm.

That revolution took a century, but in the Internet age, norms change much faster.   One revolutionary idea playing out before our eyes is an expectation that individuals–and not some distant publisher or broadcaster–can determine what messages and media they want, and when they want them.

For example, I can remember when late-night viewing choices consisted of Johnny Carson, reruns on one of the other two (!) networks, or a test pattern.  Now, the options are too many to list–hundreds of cable channels, podcasts, DVR recordings, Hulu, YouTube, Netflix streaming, etc.  And those are just the video options, to say nothing of websites, blogs, social networks, satellite radio…but you get the point.

For a marketer, what are the implications of a society where people expect to view only what they want, and nothing they don’t want?  For one, it simply doesn’t make sense to send a generic, one-size-fits-all email “blast.”  Your recipients have segmented their media consumption to include only what suits them personally.  If you’re not tuning your communications to suit their needs, you risk losing their attention and becoming unwelcome in their inboxes.

This is the main reason we talk so much about segmentation (dividing your list into subgroups for targeting), dynamic content (creating different version of email for different subscribers), and collecting profile information.   It’s because recipients now expect you to interest them, personally.  But don’t look for them to tell you so.  It is–particularly for the younger generation–simply “the way things are.”

Fail to target subscribers with relevant and dynamic content, and you’ll appear out of line with the norm, just like my wife.  But unlike her, you won’t save money, and you could lose some by alienating your subscribers.

Chris Broshears | Product Development

The dog days of summer usually signify really hot, lazy days where little progress is made.

Are you in the dog days of summer right now?

Feeling unmotivated and unmoved by anything?

Shake it off, get moving and give your email marketing plan a kick in the rear! Here are 5 things you can do with your email marketing efforts to beat the dog days of summer:

1. Welcome new subscribers- Set up a warm welcome message for new subscribers. Include what your emails are all about, allow them to select their preference of interest and frequency and maybe include a nice coupon code for them to use.

2. A/B split testing- Are you getting the open rates you want? How effective is that subject line you’ve been using for your newsletter? If things are slow right now and you have some extra time, pay a little extra attention to your analytics and test your content.

3. Segment- Think about your recipients. What are they really interested in? Don’t know? Do a survey and offer an incentive for filling it out. Find out frequency or interest or both. Then respect those preferences and plan your emails around what your recipients want. Watch your engagement soar.

4. Clean Up- Use the engagement segment to find out who is not doing anything with your emails.  Come up with a plan to either reach these people in a different way or remove them. Why send email to people who don’t read it anyway?

5. Start thinking about the holidays- This may be the last thing on your mind now…but if you sell or promote anything during the months of October-December and don’t have a plan yet…get one soon! Plan ahead and your life will be so much easier during the hustle and bustle of the holidays.  The plan can be simple: Define your goals. How many emails are you going to send? When are you going to send them? What are you promoting? Create the content and schedule the emails so you can breeze through the holidays.

That’s it folks, just a few ideas to spice up your email marketing this summer. Do something different today! Need more ideas? Give us a call at 317-915-9400. That’s what we’re here for.

Rachel Rewerts | Account Management

Yesterday, we released our Semi Annual Update.  We’d like to take this blog post and outline it for our blog readers and those that may have missed the press release.

Delivra reports continued growth through new and existing business along with an award highlighting that growth and innovation even further for 2010.

“Each year, we like to reflect back on the first half of the year to keep our customers, partners, and other interested parties apprised of our progress,” said Neil Berman, President & CEO.

Highlights for the first half of 2010 include:

• 20% increase in revenue for core hosting business
• Signed 112 new clients & grew existing accounts to higher sending volume
• Partners with Flimp for Email Marketing with Trackable Video
• Integrates Email Marketing with Cantaloupe’s VideoHere Online Video Management System
• Delivra Named as One of the 2010 Indiana Companies to Watch

“In the first half of this year, we have already surpassed our historical growth pattern,” said Berman.  “In addition to that growth, 2010 has marked a year in which we have seen marketers evolve in the ways they are utilizing the power of email marketing.  That power is also being harnessed through various partner integrations along with expansion in the volume and types of email marketers are sending today.”

As we move on to complete 2010, we reflect on a portion of the year where growth and innovation were accomplished, and yet there is still much to do to ensure we are that resource to each and every email we work with everyday.  For example, Delivra has focused on providing email marketing education both in webinar, blog, and best practice expertise yet as resources are developed we find the need for even more content to address the flood of possibilities.

“I believe that if our customers are not successful marketers, then we are not doing our job efficiently.  Everyday Delivra helps our customers focus on their business, while we provide the engine to send, the software to create, or the analytics to track each campaign.  We look forward to serving your email marketing needs for many years to come,” said Berman.

I, along with the Delivra Director of Marketing, Carissa Newton, attended the Blog Indiana 2010 Conference held at the Informatics and Communications Technology Complex this past weekend.  It was a great event where several speakers offered their expertise about the world of blogging, social media, and related topics.

Carissa was one of the presenters during the 2-day event and spoke about blogging and how it was relatable to a marriage (an interesting combination!) in No Road is Long With Good Company.  For those of you that couldn’t make it to the event, we will be posting video as soon as it is made available.

During the presentation and throughout the conference, Carissa was able to encourage (with Starbucks and iTunes giftcards) others to be guest bloggers on the Delivra blog.  So, avid readers of eMailchatr: make sure you are staying tuned in for the next couple of weeks as we start to post some of these blogs written by experts in their given fields.

Furthermore, one of the conference attendees, John Uhri or @yOmbo (if you prefer), offered his “sketchnote” abilities and took notes from the several presentations he attended, Carissa’s being one of them.

For a look at the rest of his “sketchnotes”, please visit his blog!  They are a creative, unique resource to see what some of the presenters from the Blog Indiana conference discussed.

Lavon Temple | Marketing

We’re all used to the usual blogs of how to do this and how to do that, what not to do and when not to do it.  I thought it time to post a blog entry that was not about work.  Rather one about breaking out of the daily routine to experience opinion that is fresh and thought provoking.

There is a web site that aggregates content with this kind of inspiration.  It is http://bigthink.com/.

Recent articles include:

Making Marriage Work by Forgetting Love and Sex. The key to a lasting relationship, says author Gay Telese, is looking past the ‘mating game’s’ wonted rituals and flowery ambiguities and learning to emphasize mutual freedom and respect.

New Studies: Music Makes People Nicer. Birds do it.  Bees do it.  But primate species don’t sing and dance, except for Homo sapiens.  Why is music-making part of human nature, then?  Why do we enjoy singing in three-part harmony or clapping together in church, which wouldn’t appeal for a single second to our chimp or orangutan cousins?

Vietnam Cum Afghanistan. American support of President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan mirrors its ill-advised support of Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam.  A shortsighted and simplistic foreign policy is to blame.

And if you MUST focus on work there are a few work-related themes.

Why You Can’t Work at Work. Jason Fried: “Yeah, my feeling is that the modern workplace is structured completely wrong.  It’s really optimized for interruptions.  And interruptions are the enemy of work.  They are the enemy of productivity, they are the enemy of creativity, they are the enemy of everything.  But that’s what the modern workplace is all about, it’s interruptions.”

I composed this post on my lunch hour.  Am I working?  Or not working?

Neil Berman | President & CEO

Neil Berman recently used the analogy of a wedding to explain the importance of planning your marketing efforts, but it got me thinking how much email marketing is like a relationship.

Imagine your prospective recipient’s first visit to your site as the first date.  Perhaps a friend set her up (through a personal recommendation or link from a trusted site), or she used a dating service (you showed up in a Google search).

You begin spending time together, getting to know one another (through browsing and analytics). One click leads to another, and before you know it, you’re popping the question (“Would you do me the honor of becoming my subscriber?”)

She says yes. The wedding is set and when the Priest/Rabbi/Judge asks “Do you..?” (in the form of a confirmation email), she says “I do!” (by clicking the link.)

You embark on your honeymoon (in the form of a Welcome message). You’re staring into each others eyes and laying out the future (setting expectations, collecting more info, adjusting preferences).

What follows is the marriage.  Everything has built to this point, and it is important that both parties are active and engaged and honest.  For example, if one of you has stopped communicating, that’s not good, and could likely lead to the eventual breakdown of the relationship.

From the sender’s perspective, a silent recipient (no longer opening, clicking, buying…) could be due to a number of reasons:
“I need a break” – are you sending too often?
“I’m just not that into you anymore” – content not relevant?
“We never talk” – is your email getting blocked?
“There’s someone else” – in a crowded inbox, someone else is more relevant?
“You never listen” – not honoring recipient’s preferences?
“I didn’t know what I was getting into” – signup form unclear/misleading?
“I’ve changed, you haven’t” – Is your information timely and up-to-date?

While I don’t want to trivialize the complexity of human relationships, I do want to emphasize the importance of planning your email marketing efforts beyond just getting people to sign up.  You want a relationship that is going to last.  Make sure you’re paying attention to the signals and responding to them.  Try something different.  Make your subscribers feel special. If you have a group that’s gone quiet on you and you are looking to re-connect, let us know.  We can help identify where to focus and provide some tips for campaigns to revive the relationship.

Oh, and I can’t leave this whole analogy without going through the signs that it is indeed over:
A hard bounce is coming home and finding her closet empty.
An unsubscribe request is a “Dear John” letter.
An abuse complaint is a restraining order.

Kris Dougherty | Operations