Trade Show Follow-Up: Use booth photo

After a trade show, I usually get a flurry of emails from exhibitors. In many cases, I don't remember the name of the company or what triggered my interest.

David Condello, Commercial Accounts Representative, Ceilume Ceiling Tiles has a technique to trigger the memory of visitors to his booth; he puts a photo of the booth at the top of his email. For visual thinkers, like many designers and builders, this communicates more than the proverbial thousand words.

He also writes a great letter and sprinkles it with other photos. And most amazingly, he sends the emails just two days after the show.

Have I seen your email?

A while back, Aaron posted this article about the wrong way to do graphics via email. I was reminded of it on a recent morning, when a retailer sent me a graphics-heavy email.


Now, just as Aaron does, I also have my Outlook set to only download pictures from certain senders. So the email was pretty much blank when I first saw it. But "underneath" the biggest graphic, as alternate text, was a polite little letter, thanking me for joining the retailer's club and welcoming me. It was complete with a "Warm Regards" and the name and title of the president of the company. As it happens, that was the text on the image, too.

Clearly, this company was aware that my first impression of their email might not, in fact, be the smiling model in the picture. They found a low-bandwidth way to greet me and get my attention. And yes, I let Outlook load their graphics. I think the nice note had something to do with that.

Update: I was curious how the alternate text was handled, since I have not seen other vendors break the text into multiple lines. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my hands on that nice introductory email. However, the same vendor sent a nice example this morning, so I was able to view the source code and see how it's done.

Here's what I saw before I downloaded the pictures:

And here's the dead-simple source code for the alt text:

alt=
"Colorful CARGO Combos

Our best-selling Cool Cotton Utility Pant
meets its match with lightweight new tops.

SHOP THE COLLECTION"

Yes, it's that simple: They made their text stand out on the empty page by adding returns to the alternate text.  It's surprising how little effort is involved, and even more surprising how seldom it's done. Building product manufacturers really need to steal this easy trick!

And here's what I see when I let the pictures download: Virtually the same text, but with all the images, each backed up with web links, just waiting to take me shopping.

First, Get Noticed

"Made You Look" isn't just a schoolyard game anymore, it's become a business survival tactic.  The above image, for example, has nothing to do with building products, but a great deal to do with the concept of getting someone's attention.

Publicity is the business of getting attention via existing channels of "news" communication.

Each year as World of Concrete approaches, editors get deluged with emails from exhibitors who are holding press conferences.  The goal of these press conferences is to get editorial coverage (magazine, web, Better Homes & Gardens network, etc.) of your product, so you can get some public or trade attention to it.  But first, you have to get the editor's attention, and get him or her to the press conference.

We have a client holding a press conference at WOC, and wanted to invite editors.  The question was, how to make it stand out from all the other emails inviting editors to press conferences.

We decided a) to be different.  All the others seemed emphasize the company's name and reputation, but give very little info, in fairly small type, about what would be discussed at the press conference.  By contrast, we decided to talk to editors about what they care about: the story.  To an editor, the gift they seek is not the Company, it's the news.  Our invitation screamed that there was news, from the subject line on downwards.  It didn't tell all the news, but it told enough that an editor could be sure there was a solid story to come and collect.  It also mentioned the company bringing this news, the giver of the gift.

We decided b) to be colorful.  In most of the other emails, the only color was the company's logo.  That may be a big ego boost for the company, but it left the rest of the email, including the "news," looking kind of drab.  We stuck in honkin' bright pictures of products and results, not a lot of them, but a selection that was standing-up-and-cheering with color.  Colorful pictures get anyone's attention, but especially an editor who needs colorful pictures to put in the magazine.

Two hours and four minutes after the email went out, we received a response, apologizing for having to miss the press conference, but asking to set up an interview instead.  Ahhhhhhhh!

Today's communication environment is extraordinarily competitive.  It's an invitation to be creative.  Of course, you shouldn't do irrelevant stuff - such as the above image - when you could just as well offer up your real story in a creative way that gets attention, and proves that your story is attention-worthy.  And it's fun to play Made You Look.

The "Other" Inbox

Like AOL before it, Facebook has outgrown its walled garden. Last year they started previewing "@Facebook.com". Their blog is careful to point out this is not e-mail; rather, it is a way to communicate with all your friends, wherever they may be, on their preferred messaging system.

One of the new features introduced in the "Messages" program that's currently getting a lot of attention in digital marketing circles is the Social Inbox. From the blog:

It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement. It's not that those other messages aren't important, but one of them is more meaningful. With new Messages, your Inbox will only contain messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an Other folder where you can look at them separately.

If someone you know isn't on Facebook, that person's email will initially go into the Other folder. You can easily move that conversation into the Inbox, and all the future conversations with that friend will show up there.

The basic idea is very cool: separate out the "important" messages so you see them sooner. It's the second paragraph that has marketers worried.

Assume that Messages will be successful; given the number of Facebook users, if only 1% use Messages it will have a huge user base. The way Facebook sees it, the "@Facebook.com" address will stay with you for life. Soon you will have people at trade shows give you Facebook email addresses for your mailing list. Because they opted-in, your newsletter will get past their Spam filter...

...and get stuck in the Other inbox. Which they will check less often, if at all.

Other services have introduced similar plans, such as Google's "Priority Inbox", leading to what some are starting to call a "Double Opt-In" obstacle: someone that wants your newsletter must voluntarily sign up AND move you to their "Friend" list. Many people will not do this, or will not know how, meaning that even prospects interested in hearing what you have to say might not see your emails.

So how do we adapt to this? Sadly, it is too soon to say for sure. We have not had time to develop best practices, other than remind subscribers to add you to the Social Inbox. For many companies this will be an added incentive to use Facebook for business, so their prospects and clients can also be their Friends.

For now, be aware this is a coming issue. Keep doing Spam-free email, and try to diversify your media channels so that Facebook users that miss your email can still find you on YouTube or Twitter.

Time to update your passwords!

Yesterday a major data breech was announced by third-party marketer Epsilon. They claim the information stolen "only" included the names and emails of people that have done business with over 50 very large companies.  Hopefully most people will not have any problem worse than temporary increases in spam, but PC Magazine has a helpful article about ways to protect yourself (and your company!). Their most important advice is:

Main rule of thumb - don't provide any personal information. Best Buy is not going to ask you to click on a link and enter your credit-card information. Citi will not ask you to confirm your Social Security number via email. When in doubt, don't. Call the company to double check, and forward the email to spam@uce.gov.

This is also a good opportunity to change your key passwords, if you have not done so recently. Create strong new passwords, and be sure each site has a unique password to limit damage in case one does get hacked. Lifehacker has several useful articles on creating - and remembering - strong passwords.

App usage overtakes web & voice on smartphones

According to a report released last week by Zokem and GSMA, app usage is the second most common smartphone activity, trailing only messaging.

I have a few issues with these findings, but it still contains a useful message.

I take issue with two points of this report. First, they report usage in terms of "minutes", not "data transfered", "number of uses", or any measure of the utility of the medium. Considering how slowly most people type on smartphones, saying that I spend 30% more time on email than voice calls is not very meaningful.

Also, the dividing lines between these categories are very fuzzy. Many of the apps I use are essentially single-purpose web browsers, and many apps replace functionality I would normally get from a browser as well. So if I can check email using the iPhone's native capabilities (categorized as "Messaging"), from a dedicated app, or via my web browser, how does my time get labeled? What if I make a phone call using an app, such as Skype?

Despite these concerns, there is still an important message. When there are multiple tools available to accomplish a given task, people prefer to use a dedicated app -- especially for tasks they perform on a regular basis.

In other words, if I am looking for information on a company's product, and it is a one time only purchase, I will use my web browser. If I use that company's products regularly, I will use their app.

For marketers, this means there are two situations where you should look at developing an app:

1. There is a specific task related to your product for which you can create a tool (ie, a brick cost estimator app), or

2. You anticipate customers frequently accessing your catalog, guide specs, etc.

If either of those fit your needs, consider creating an app. If not, your app will probably be perceived more as a vanity/marketing project and is less likely to be downloaded or used.