In The Principles of Highly Persuasive Messaging it lays out an objective set of criteria for developing marketing messages. As stated by the author, Michael Cannon, “The key is to really understand buyers’ primary buying questions, come up with really good answers to those internally and then validate them in the marketplace.  Sales messaging without validation is really dangerous.” (as an aside my company, C.A. Walker, does copy testing if you need assistance in this area).

1. Focus on one offering. It states, “If you have many products or services that you sell on a stand-alone basis, then you must have sales messaging for each offering.”  My challenge at C.A. Walker is that we fall into that category of many offerings.  I recently created a talking presentation that talks about all our offerings, straddling all industries, but am now developing a message for each industry.

2. Target the Buyer by Audience Type, Buyer Role, and Specific Market Segments (combining 2 and 4 in the article). Before I am able to develop a message for each industry, I have to look at who my audience is.  I have already addressed buyers by type, those who are Researchers and Marketers.  My presentation for Researchers is similar to the talking presentation but the talking one provides more detail about our client experience.  The Marketers presentation addresses the unique difficulties that marketing professionals have, and talks about our offerings with a more top-level approach.

What I am working on currently, also suggested in the article, is looking at my audience by segments and sets of business challenges.  To do this, we are reviewing our previous business for the past several years and logging it by category and challenge solved.  I then am going to look at, what are the typical challenges that companies have in these categories?  How may I develop marketing messages that are relevant to companies in each space?  I can then add to this list challenges that I read about in the media.  I also spend time developing relationships with people who can help me to better understand a particular segment’s issues, so that I can better help them and/or their clients (if you are one of those people, thank you!  If you would like to network with me and discuss the issues you/your clients are facing, please connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter or Email: rpaul(at)cawalker(dot)com).

3. Identify and Persuasively Answer the Audience’s Primary Buying Questions. It says,  “The buying questions for each audience are fundamentally different. For example…Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive alternative?”  I have already addressed this particular question in our presentations.  Our primary reasons are:

• We’ve been in business for over 30 years, with a deep well of experience to draw from.
• Our researchers have 20 years average experience and they implement projects beginning to end.
• Our data processing and programming is done in-house, which is more cost-effective and we have greater quality control.
• We’re a mid-sized firm, which is more cost-efficient for our clients.  We provide the benefits of a much larger firm with efficiencies of a smaller one.
• A broader perspective, due to our client and agency side experience, as well as clients across multiple categories.
• Highly responsive to clients’ changing needs, and extensive experience working within fast-moving industries.
• We provide actionable insights and recommendations that go “beyond the numbers.”

Other buying questions my prospective clients may have are, why should I buy a service like this, what research methodologies may be used to gain certain information, who have you done this for already, and what do the results look like? (If I missed anything, please comment!)

4.  Enable the Technology Adoption Life Cycle (TALC) and Sales Cycle. This cycle portrays markets as Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards.

1. Early Adopters are the most passionate, those who are on lookout for new breakthroughs that offer a competitive advantage.  They can be a good target for testing of new products/services.

2. The Early Majority are those who break out of their comfort zones to find solutions to broken processes.  “The key to success is to provide a complete solution for one segment while identifying closely aligned segments that could benefit from a similar solution.”

3. The Late Majority waits for you “to gain a strong record of accomplishment and enough references from people they trust.”

4. Laggards are those who are “defenders of the status quo and want solutions that have no risk.”

This analysis isn’t as relevant to market research, which has been around for generations.  However, what is applicable is that there are people and businesses who are passionate about gaining a deeper and richer understanding of their target audience.  They understand that you Don’t Confuse Your Personal Experience With Good Strategy.  They know that although there are tools out now for do-it-yourself Internet surveys, obtaining a representative sample audience large enough to do desired analysis is not easy, writing an unbiased and effective questionnaire is no simple matter, and interpreting the statistics is both art and science.  In addition, while online surveys are often a cost-effective methodology, it may not be best suited for your research needs.  A good researcher can analyze a situation and determine that.

Then there are people out there who don’t use market research but are ready to break out of their comfort zone.   They require more of an educational approach.  We need to explain what closely aligned segments have done already so they can get a feel for what is possible for their business.  We recently did a presentation like this for the Southern California chapter of the American Marketing Association.  We are doing a similar presentation, focused on business-to-business research, on September 23rd for the Southern California chapter of the Business Marketing Association (if you are a B2B company, please register for our lunch-and-learn and meet us in our Glendale, California office, space is very limited!)

5.  Make the Right Comparison. It says, “If you can clearly communicate how your product can help prospective customers solve their problems or reach their objectives better than their current solution and/or better than the competition, then you should win the business.”  One of my goals is to know what market research, if any, has been done within my clients’ organization and who they are using, if outsourced, to be able to speak on our differentiators.  My other main goal is to understand what problems people are having, because I’m a problem solver and I use custom research to do it.

6. Use Strong Comparative Language. The article suggests using words like “faster, easier, more, reduce, increase, etc. in messages to create strong differentiators in someone’s mind.  OK.  How about “C.A. Walker is easier to work with as an extension of your marketing department because we provide faster turn-around on projects, we give you more value for your research investment as a mid-sized firm, we reduce your business risk and increase your marketing ROI.” Good?!

7. Communicate Value in the Customer’s Context. The article says “The best way to communicate the value of your capability advantages is to put it in the context of the business problems you can solve better than the current solution or competition (Customer Benefit), and the business value you can deliver, over and above the current solution or competition (Customer Business Value).”  In my situation, the Customer Benefit depends upon what someone is currently doing to fulfill their research needs:

o If they are doing nothing, then the Benefit would be a better understanding of their target audience(s) to more efficiently use their marketing dollars.
o If they are utilizing secondary research, it would be able to address specific questions relevant to their particular business issues.
o If they are using internal resources, the Benefit would be as support for their team for research needs beyond internal capabilities.
o If they are using external resources, the Benefit to outside agencies and marketing consultants is also as support for their needs, or we can provide a competitive bid to allow the client to review our approach and pricing as comparison.

8. Incorporate Lots of Proof Points. We use case studies and briefs of work completed as proof points, as the article suggests, but other options are “customer testimonials, research that supports your conclusions, standards boards, trade associations, demonstration or proof-of-concept implementation, followed by support data such as an ROI summary, charts, graphs, etc.”

9. Employ Multiple Differentiation Themes. It says to use as many of these themes in your messaging as you can: Time, Money, Risk, Strategic (increased productivity, return on invested capital, faster time to market), and Personal.  In our business, we are conscientious of personal reasons involved in the decision to buy research.  It is important that people feel that they made the smartest decision for their organization.

10. Make the Customer the Hero. It says, “Buyers do not care about your company or products, they care about themselves.”  Basically, we need to be able as marketers to put ourselves in our client’s shoes and write from their perspective.  They need to visualize what life will be like with you/your product or service to be the hero in their company.  This is why it’s a really good idea to use custom research to understand your customers’ needs and pain-points. I already knew and used this technique in my Marketers presentation, but I need to do several more addressing different segments.

11. Align with the Psychographic Profile of the Buyer. This is just another way of saying that research is needed so that “sales messaging [is] tuned to the buyer’s values and needs.”  One way to do this is through the use of segmentation research, which is something we offer.  We profile customers and prospective customers around their perspectives, needs, values, habits, activities, etc. and then evaluate how groups are similar and dissimilar.  The results typically are named fun things like “Facebook Fanatics” or “Mobile Moms.”  It’s a really valuable tool in your marketing arsenal.

12. Avoid the Use of “GOBBLEDYGOOK” Adjectives. Let’s avoid the words that everyone uses and no one really believes and pays attention to.  How can all companies be the “leading” organization in their space?

13.  Pass the Substantiation Test. Bottom line, if it’s not true and accurate don’t use it.  One thing I really enjoy about C.A. Walker is that from the top down, we are a highly ethical company.

14. Pass the Sales and Customer Validation Test. As stated in the beginning of this post, it is very important to test your messages.  Get input from your colleagues but most importantly your current customers.  The questions the article suggests asking are:  Do they agree that the key buying question you are answering is the right or most important question to answer? Do they agree with your answer? What do they like? Dislike? Why?

15. Differentiate You in the Market.  It says “If you took your messaging and replaced your company name with one of your competitor’s names, would the messaging still be true? If yes, then your messaging is not going to be very effective.”  In determining what differentiates C.A. Walker it came down to our long history of excellent customer service, our people (honestly, I’ve never worked with a nicer group of folks!), and our mid-size, which I believe we are in the “sweet spot” in this difficult economy.  We don’t have huge overhead and R&D costs that we are passing onto our clients, as I saw was happening in my previous position with another firm, and we’re not so small that we are outsourcing all our critical services.  We also generally care about building real long-term relationships and sharing in our customers’ success.

16. Use Highly Relevant Visuals That Appeal to the Buyer’s Emotions. It says “people buy on emotion and justify rationally.”  People are emotional creatures first and foremost, so it’s great if you can appeal to them through fascination as well as make things clear with pictures, graphs and charts that align with the message.  I really try to do this in my presentations and emails.

17. Summarize in Three Key Points. There is definitely something about the number three that people are drawn to.  Perhaps it’s because we are ourselves a trinity of mind, body and spirit, so it feels right.  Whatever the reason, try to summarize your message in three or no more than five key points.

18. Fit on One Page. People have low tolerance for sales messages, so if you can try to fit it on one page.  What I’ve been doing lately is handing out one-sheets where I use the front for what we do for business-to-consumer companies and the other side for business-to-business companies.  Often companies have research needs in both areas.

I hope you learned something from this approach for your own marketing challenges. I’m working hard on these steps myself right now and would enjoy your thoughts.

Happy ROI hunting!

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I spoke about the importance of creating positive marketing messages in a prior post about engagement marketing but it bears repeating.  At our core we are social creatures and we are attracted to people, events, products, services, and brands that help us to have fun. The reason that social media is such a huge hit is because it helps us to connect with others so we can share fun.  It’s so simple, yet so profound.  This simple truth creates infinite possibilities to increase your marketing ROI.

First of all, what is “fun?”  Fun isn’t just fun, it’s hope.  Fun can be found in magnifying the things you love in what you do everyday.  It can transform the annoyances you face into positive challenges to help others.  It is fun to see the results of your hard work in your personal growth and in your career.  It is fun to use your success to turn around and help someone else get further in their life.  It is fun to work in a team to pull together to see something accomplished.

Think for a minute about the products or services that you or your company are promoting.  Some of us may be lucky enough to work for a company whose mission is to help people have fun, such as film, gaming or social media.  Others of us have to search a bit harder to determine the fun that we provide to other people.  However, if you take the time to do this exercise it can transform the way you market yourself and your company’s products and services.

I offer, as example, my own situation to explain my thinking. What I promote to the business world is custom market research services on behalf of C.A. Walker Research Solutions.  On face value it doesn’t seem like I’m selling anything particularly fun, but to me it is great fun!

First of all, I find it fun to build relationships either online or in-person and to discover people’s current business objectives.  I am a natural problem-solver.  I enjoy delving into different business worlds to understand perspectives and pain points, so I can determine precisely how we may contribute to others’ success by applying custom research, thus creating more fun in their life.  It’s also fun to think through with people if there is anything we can do together to offer markets a service that is stronger than either of us could separately.

I find it fun to analyze potential markets and figure out fresh ways to make relevant the various types of research that we’ve been doing for more than 30 years.  It is fun to then use that information to prepare marketing messages that appeal to people’s sense of fun; at least to be interesting!  It’s fun to post applicable articles to my LinkedIn groups, which I also may use to explain some of what we do, and to meet new people who seek me out because they appreciate what I’ve shared.

On a personal level, it’s fun to me to represent a company that I firmly believe in.  I’ve worked in a variety of companies over the years, but never before have I worked with such a terrific group of people.  It’s a joy to me to get up each day and go to work to spread the tale of C.A. Walker.  We are in a “sweet spot” in this rough economy as far as our size (25 people), the value that we offer, and our consistent focus on client service.  And to add to my point about the importance of having fun, I work with a bunch of comedians.  We’re all the time joking and kidding with one another, while always making sure all is well with our projects.  I love it!

It’s fun to study what marketing ROI means and how businesses are working to apply it.  It’s fun to build my personal brand, Marketing ROI or DIE!  It’s especially fun to read when people respond to my posts that it’s helped them in some way. It’s fun to use Twitter (@MktgROIorDIE) to spread what I’m learning and to make new connections, such as when I attended the Licensing Expo in Vegas recently.  I met some really great people through the use of the #licexpo hash tag who I look forward to working with!

So whatever it is you do, rediscover your sense of fun in it.  Think through how you are helping others have fun in their lives, and utilize that in your marketing to increase your ROI.  Most importantly, laugh daily and find people to laugh with you.  It’s hard to laugh alone!

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The Death Of CPM , The Death Of The Retail Store , The Death of Affiliate Marketing , The Death of the Open Web , The Death of Video Rental Stores , The Death of the Landline , The Death of the Book , The Death of the Desktop , The Death of Newspapers , The Death of the Press Release , The Death of Advertising , The Death of the Pageview

What’s going on here?  More importantly what can we learn from it? After studying these articles I have come to the conclusion that no, business isn’t dying…but it is evolving.  We’re evolving; as consumers and as marketers.

As consumers, we want to be marketed to as the individuals we are. “Technology is fueling the consumer’s desire for personalization.1″  As marketers, we are seeing that treating people as ‘the masses’ is no longer appropriate.  It’s no longer about measuring our audience size but about how relevant we are to our audience1. We must become more sophisticated in our targeting efforts.  One-to-one marketing is the key now, whether we are talking to other businesses or to consumers.

In One-to-One Marketing: The true promise of Dynamic Offer-Content Customization it states: “Customizing offers based on customer segments involves a sequence of steps, beginning with identification of meaningful customer segments. Any method of customer-specific message optimization requires knowing ‘who’ your customers are, beyond just their names and email addresses. You must also have some insight into what they ‘want,’ how they think, the words, terms and images that attract and inspire them (as well as those that repel them), and ‘how’ they think.”

There are two ways I know of to develop customer segments.  One involves analyzing the people who come to your website, or who you want to come to your website, and developing it around their needs.  In Online Customer Segmentation Made Easy it says “the easiest approach is to ask the five basic questions that all news reporters know:  Who, What, Where, Why and How. By taking time to answer these five questions up front, you will be able to make the most effective use of limited resources, as you build a website that meets the needs and wants of all your customers.”  While creating segments based on online behavior may yield actionable insights for your website, it also doesn’t truly represent your customer base if you sell in other ways, such as direct and retail.

In that case, there is another method that involves surveying your customers.  The company I work with, C.A. Walker, does this type of segmentation analysis.  We design a questionnaire that allows us to group customers as similar or dissimilar based on their attitudes, behaviors and demographics, yielding those segments that are most valuable to target.  Segmentations are a valuable look into customer groups’ beliefs,  lifestyles and habits.

Another point I picked up from these articles is to not be afraid to launch evolutionary products and services, even if a larger company could launch a competitive product/service with greater advantages.  Far too often “industry leaders are usually so focused on maintaining existing profit centers and business practices…they ignore the threat.”4

Lastly, measures of marketing ROI are evolving also.  In The Death of the Pageview it makes a great point: “The most important thing is that you are gathering actionable data. By this I mean that you have to be able to use the information you gather to make a decision and take action.  If you’re not going to use it to make a decision, it’s a waste of time to even look at it.” Consolidating what these articles are saying, the important ROI metrics to gather and take action on are:

• Cost Per Customer (CPC)1
• Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)1 (links to my prior post on how to calculate and increase Lifetime Value)
• Value delivered — e.g. customers or inquiries1,  less stress2, saves time2, original products3
• Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)5

In summary, it is my belief that businesses don’t truly die; they simply evolve and may become a stepping stone into something more relevant to people’s lives.  Marketers must become savvier in order to evolve with these trends and must monitor only those marketing metrics that can assist to improve conversion rates and gain a deeper understanding of  customer behavior.

Sources:

1 The Death Of CPM

2 The Death Of The Retail Store

3 The Death of Affiliate Marketing

4 The Death of Video Rental Stores

5 The Death of the Pageview

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Easy Embed of Video in WordPress

I found that managing video in pages and posts a bit of a challenge until I found a plugin called Smart YouTube.  Although it has “YouTube” in the name, it works for all kinds of hosted video.  Download the zip file, extract it into a folder on your hard drive, then upload it into your plug-ins directory (/wp-content/plugins/).  In WordPress, go to Plugins and activate it.

Under Settings in your left column, click on Smart YouTube.  Select “Display videos in posts.”  Make any other adjustments you would like to appearance such as width and height, or leave the defaults, click Save.  All you have to do now is take the link from the YouTube or other hosted video, open the page or post, click on the HTML tab, paste the URL where you want it, then change http:// to httpv:// (notice the ‘v’ character).  That’s it!

Add a Print-Friendly Page Icon

You may want to give people the option to print the screen without sidebars, in which case the WP-Print plugin is for you.  Once again, download, extract, upload and activate the plugin.  Under Settings in your left column, click on Print.  Make any adjustments to the text you want shown, which printer icon you want (they give you two to choose from), click Save.  When you want to add it to a page or post, select the HTML tab and paste [print_link] wherever you want it to show up.  That’s it!

One thing I did see and adjust: when the print page is displayed it has the title, the author, the date, and then some things I didn’t want, like Category.  I opened print-posts.php and on lines 46 and 47 is where it tells what to display.  I removed everything after the author, line 47, so now it looks like this:

<p id=”BlogDate”><?php _e(‘Posted By’, ‘wp-print’); ?> <u><?php the_author(); ?></u>

Add the New Facebook Like Button

I tried a few different Facebook Like button add-ons and felt this one the best.  Once you activate it in the plugins folder, it creates its own drop-down for settings in your left column.  You then adjust whether you want it on pages, posts or both; before or after content, or both, and other settings for appearance you can play with.

Post Simultaneously to Facebook, Myspace and Twitter

Lastly, a really neat plugin called Status Updater allows you to integrate your Facebook profile or business page, Myspace profile, and Twitter profile.  Once activated, under Settings go to Status Updater.

• For Facebook, enter your login credentials,  your Facebook page URL in addition to or instead of your personal profile, and select if you want it to update your Status (at top of your page) and/or provide as a link (with title, summary and picture).
• For Myspace, enter your login credentials and your “mood.”
• For Twitter, you can change how it displays under “Default status template” (e.g. “New blog post: %POST-TITLE% %POST-URL% #marketingroi).   Enter your link shortener credentials if you want to use that also.

Lastly, be sure to enter your email address under “Log email” or you can’t save.  This is to notify you when something goes out.

Related posts:

1. How To Build a Website Using WordPress and Thesis Theme Part 1
2. How To Build a Website Using WordPress and Thesis Theme Part 2

First, you should know that Thesis introduces a new concept called “Hooks,” which really should have been called “Placements” as they tell the site where to “place” changes that you make.  Also you should know you will only edit two documents, which are in your Custom folder (/wp-content/themes/thesis_17/custom/).  Download these files and edit them with a program such as Crimson Editor.

• Functions which is really “custom_functions.php”
• CSS which is really “custom.css”

Functions are code that tell Thesis what you want it to do.  CSS allows you to make style changes to the whole site at one time.  They often work together when making changes.

The good part of this method:  changes you make will not be overwritten when Thesis updates the core system.  The bad part: it’s confusing.  I have picked up a bit of PHP by tinkering with WordPress in the past, but not enough to write my own code.  Mostly I just search online for what I’m trying to do and pick up code that others have written, test it, and see what works.  Even with my method, it is good to still learn some of what you’re doing.

A good place to start in understanding Hooks is with this tutorial.  In essence, Hooks run whatever “functions” you tell them to run, and these are placed in the Functions file.  There are two “actions” you can do to functions: “add” and “remove.”  They look like this:

add_action(‘hook_name’, ‘your_custom_function’);
remove_action(‘hook_name’, ‘your_custom_function’);

To make it even more exciting, Thesis has already added a bunch of default Hooks in order to create the default template.  If you really want to “geek out” you can see the default hooks in Launch.php (wp-content/themes/thesis_17/lib/functions/).

Moving Your Navigation Menu Below the Header Area

Sometimes you need to “remove” something they’ve already done and then “add” what you want it to do.  An example:

By default, your Navigation Menu appears above your Header, containing your site’s Title and Tagline (note the indents below to see what Hooks ‘contain’ other Hooks).   I’m not sure why they did this as I know few websites where you want that to happen…maybe it’s to force you to start learning this stuff?  If you look at this helpful web page, it shows you a diagram of what the Hooks are named and where they are on the Home page.  Here is the same helpful web page with descriptions added to assist you to understand the placements.  You will see what looks like this at the top:

In order to move the Navigation Menu below the Header you want to paste the below in your Functions file:

//move nav menu
remove_action(‘thesis_hook_before_header’, ‘thesis_nav_menu’);
add_action(‘thesis_hook_after_header’, ‘thesis_nav_menu’);

So what does this mean?

• When you put // before a line of code, it says ‘ignore these instructions to self’.
  • Also, it is proper “geek-speak” when there are multiple lines of notes-to-self to write it like this: /* text */
• Remove the default action that places the navigation menu in the Hook (position) ‘thesis_hook_before_header’
• Add an action that places the navigation menu in the Hook (position) ‘thesis_hook_after_header’

Replace Your Title and Tagline with a Clickable Image Header

Now to get rid of the Title and Tagline, and include them instead in an image file that becomes a Click-to-Home Header.  For this, you want to first design the Header…but how wide to make it?  That depends on what column layout you’ve used and how wide you made the columns.  Use this handy chart to decide the width of your Header image.  Then, place the below into your CSS file:

/* This line sets up our clickable background image based on the site title’s link */
.custom #header #logo a { display: block; height: 100px; width: 817px; background: url(‘http://www.yoursite.com/wp-content/themes/thesis_17/custom/images/yourimagefile.jpg’) no-repeat; outline: none; }
/* This line gets rid of the site title & tagline by casting them out to far left field */
.custom #header #logo, .custom #header #tagline { text-indent: -9999px; }
/* This line collapses the vertical space of the tagline so that there isn’t unnecessary white space after the header image */
.custom #header #tagline { height: 0; }
/* This line removes the padding from the header so that the background image sits close to the nav menu, the bottom border of the header, and the sides of the content */
.custom #header { padding: 0; }

So what does this mean?

• Place your image file into the folder /custom/images/ and then adjust the height and width attributes to reflect the actual size of your image.  Then change the URL of your image to reflect the actual file name.
• We don’t want to use the editable Title & Tagline fields, so we’re throwing them off into the left side of the page where no one will see them.
• Since we’re not using the Tagline, we’re collapsing extra white space after the Header image.
• We’re then removing padding from the Header so it fits tight next to the background, content and nav menu.

Replace the Functions and CSS Files on Your Server

Lastly, upload the Functions and CSS files into your Custom folder.  Use an FTP program such as the Filezilla Client.  You can obtain your FTP settings from your hosting provider.  You should see your clickable Header just above the navigation menu.

Related posts:

1. How To Build a Website Using WordPress and Thesis Theme Part 1
2. How To Build a Website Using WordPress and Thesis Theme Part 3

You may be thinking about building a new website and are unsure which way to proceed.  Although WordPress (installed to a domain – not WordPress.com) is a very functional website platform, it is only as good as the theme installed on top of it.   So why did we go with Thesis?

1. We want to allow multiple people to update the site, which WordPress does
2. The Thesis theme came recommended as the one behind ChrisBrogan.com, a very popular marketing website
3. It allows much more customization than other themes I’ve worked with and is only $87

Once you’ve installed WordPress to your domain – most hosting providers including mine, Dreamhost, offer an easy one-click install option -  upload the Thesis Theme using an FTP program such as Filezilla into your /wp-content/themes/ folder and follow the instructions how to activate it.  The next challenge is the uphill climb learning how to use it, so read this goldmine of tips to save some time!

How to Setup New Pages in WordPress

Likely the first thing you will want to do is layout the pages you want in the navigation menu (across the top), so let’s start there.  Although WordPress is a blogging platform, you don’t have to want to use the blog capabilities to create your website.  On the other hand, WordPress only allows you to add new blog posts to one page – the ‘posts page’ – and the default for this is the Home page, although that can change. I haven’t yet  figured out a way to allow posts for more than one page, but will update here if I do.

• Under Pages>Add New create the pages in the nav menu but don’t fill them in yet.
  • You can turn off the default displayed sidebar(s) when creating a page under Attributes>Template>No Sidebars.
  • You can also turn off, on individual pages, Allow Comments under Discussions.
• Under Settings>Reading you can change which page you will post new posts to (i.e. the ‘blog page’).  Here also you can change which page is the Home page.
  • I changed our posts page to be Events because I’m using an Events Calendar plugin that works in conjunction with the posts page (see Plugins below).
• Under Settings>Permalinks you should change the default setting for how your URLs (“slugs”) are displayed.  If this were a blog, I would say use the second option that includes the date, however, as we’re creating a website not a blog, I would use a custom setting: /%postname%/.  Then check that the slugs are as descriptive as possible, as they are important for search engines to know what the content of each page is about.  If they need to be revised go to Pages>Edit, mouse-over the page name, select Quick Edit, and change it there.  Page slugs should have dashes between the words.

There are three main areas you will use when editing in Thesis:  Site Options (renamed in just-released version 1.7 from Thesis Options), Design Options, and a new area added v1.7, Home Page Options.

Tips for Using Thesis Theme – Site Options:

• If you’re making a website, not a blog, you’ll want to turn off all comment ability under Comments>Pages>Disable Comments On All Pages.
• Under Navigation Menu>Pages, check off the pages that you want included in the drop-down navigation menu and drag-and-drop them into order, however, I found out that sometimes plugins can interfere with this capability.  Specifically, a plugin that I’m using to create an Events Calendar had to be disabled for drag-and-drop to work (more on that below).
• Also under Navigation Menu, you can add Categories that you assign to posts into the nav menu and you can turn off having a Home page.   If you don’t want a border around your nav menu, change 1 px to 0 px under >Nav Border Width.

Tips for Using Thesis Theme – Design Options:

• Here you can change your site’s font, background colors, link color, if you want a 1, 2 or 3 column layout (2 is recommended unless you have good reason to use 3).  You can also change how wide you want your content and sidebar columns to be.
  • You may want to use ColorPicker to select the colors you need, or else when you change the background or content colors, a small color chart will appear.
  • Another interesting tool is Color Hunter, where you can upload an image and create a color palette for your site.
• The Multimedia Box in the sidebar is pretty cool.  Here you can upload images to your /custom/rotator/ folder and it will rotate them in the sidebar.  Or, you can embed a video or add custom code.
  • Note: if you change the color of your content area’s background, you’ll want to change the Multimedia Box>Image Box Background Color to match.
• Make sure under Custom Stylesheet you check the box Use Custom Stylesheet.  You’ll need it, but more on that in my next post.

Tips for Using Thesis Theme – Home Page Options:

• Under Home Page Display you can select the number (or ‘all’) of “featured posts,” those that will be ‘normally displayed’ on the posts page in entirety, or where you cut a post with the More tag: .  Remember under Settings>Reading we can change which page they post to, but since the default is Home they called it Home Page Options.

Tips for Filling in Pages:

When editing pages (and posts), the toolbar you have to work with is fairly self-explanatory.  I just want to point out the things that are not so obvious.

• Make sure when you create links to text, using this , that you fill in the Title field and choose Open Link In New Window unless you want visitors to be able to leave your site when following links.

For these, you will switch from the Visual tab into the HTML tab.

• You need to get comfortable working in HTML for certain things. For example, if you want to highlight something on the page, you can create an “alert” which surrounds the text with a yellow box (a Thesis thing, not WordPress).  Put the following around the text:

<p class=”alert”>whatever text you want</p>

• To increase the size of your font, you can change it to a Header under your Format drop-down in the toolbar.  If you don’t see this option, you may need to toggle on your “kitchen sink” button to see more of your toolbar, which looks like this:  However, you may want to edit your HTML instead of making the text a Header, as search engines look for Headers as descriptive of what is on the page.  Font sizes can be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.  Play with it till you get what you want.

<p><font size=”3″whatever text you want</font></p>

• For the site I’m working on, we want a 2 column layout within the content area on some of the pages.  I could not find a simple way to do it within Thesis so I inserted a table.  Here is that code for your use, where 760 was the entire width of my content+sidebar areas (I removed the sidebar when creating these pages) and the line color down the middle is #26ccd1 (replace with yours).

<table border=”0″ cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″ width=”760″>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width=”360″ align=”center” valign=”top”></td>
<td width=”20″></td>
<td width=”2″ bgcolor=”#26ccd1“></td>
<td width=”20″></td>
<td width=”360″ align=”center” valign=”top”></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Free WordPress Plugins

Plugins are widely available to solve nearly every problem you may have in customizing your website.  Once downloaded, you place them into the /wp-content/plugins/ folder, go to Plugins in your admin sidebar, and activate them.

• cforms – create multiple forms including multi-select boxes and insert them into any page using the icon that it adds to your toolbar: .  While not the easiest form maker to use, other plugins I looked at for this only allow the creation of a contact form. The form I need is much more involved so this was the better choice.  The help files are pretty explanatory, but a couple of tips:
  • When I tried to use the pre-defined “regular expressions” (regex for short) for phone and zip code fields that validate that they are real, I kept getting an error message when I submitted a test on the form.  I searched the support forum, googled the error code, and even posted in the support forum for help but didn’t get a response.  When I took them out, replacing them with just Phone and Zip, the form works but now anyone can put any garbage in there and it will ‘pass through.’  Bummer!
  • For multi-select fields you have to enter the following:  YourQuestion#Answer1#Answer2#etc.
  • Under Cforms>Global Settings>Database Input Tracking you can enable the ability to store responses in a database, which you can then access  under Cforms>Tracking.  Here you can view the responses to the forms on-screen or export them as a CSV and open then in Excel.
  • You can also have the system email you (and others) a copy when a form is submitted, under cforms>Form Settings>Admin Email Message Options.  Those who submit will get a confirmation in their email, editable under cforms>Form Settings>Auto Confirmation.
  • You can edit specifics of your form under Cforms>Styling>Basic CSS Editor.
    • Change the page width under .cform { width: 760px;
    • Change the width of text fields under .cform label {width:300px; AND .cform label span {width:300px;
    • Change the height of the multiselect box under .cform select.cfselectmulti    { height:5.5em;
    • Move the “(required)” text all the way to the left under span.emailreqtxt { margin:0px 5px 7px 0px; (change in red)
    • Change the font color by replacing it wherever you see color: #XXXXX or #XXX
• Exclude Pages – a wonderful WordPress plugin I went nuts looking for!  It removes page links in the sidebar, as we didn’t want the menu both across the top and down the side (on those pages that we did choose to have a sidebar).  It adds an Exclude Pages option under Pages>Edit (select Edit not Quick Edit), as a checkbox in the sidebar.
• Events Calendar – As reminder, I found that the Events Calendar interfered with my ability to drag-and-drop nav menu changes, so I simply deactivated and reactivated it.  This plugin puts a calendar in your sidebar, and when you create a new event you have option to publish to your posts page.  Therefore, I made the posts page my Events page for this particular website I’m working on.
  

There’s more to Thesis that I’ll continue in a further post.  At least I can say that the site I’m working on is moving along.    When it’s done I will post a link.

Some Good Resources

• DoubleMule
• Thesis Theme HQ
• Thesis Tutor
• Thesis Hacker
• Thesis 101

Related posts:

1. How To Build a Website Using WordPress and Thesis Theme Part 3
2. How To Build a Website Using WordPress and Thesis Theme Part 2

The first result that came up is Maybelline’s website and is titled Maybelline New York: Products: Age Rewind The Eraser Treatment Makeup.  First of all, the name is just way too long.  I found out that “Age Rewind” is the collection name and “The Eraser” the product name.  Why not just say “The Eraser” and drop “Age Rewind” for simplicity?

The Maybelline website is not optimized for phone viewing, which is important these days especially for a consumer goods company.  Instead, the site comes up as several large buttons:

• Find Your Mascara << I was looking for The Eraser, not a mascara.
• Find Out More About Great Lash BIG! << I have no idea what this is and I don’t care.
• Wallpapers & Ringtone << What, are we in high school?
• Great Lash BIG Takes NYC: Watch The Video << I don’t yet have a phone that supports video, and I still don’t care.
• Sign Up for Text Alerts << There are no compelling reasons to sign up for text alerts.

On my desktop, the website does show information about the product but some of it makes me laugh and some things I would like to see aren’t there.

• They boast a “patented Micro-Corrector Applicator.”  The bottle looks like one of those glue bottles you get from an office supply store, that you squeeze to wet a sponge on top.  You know marketing has gotten a little out of control when a sponge is now a “Micro-Corrector Applicator.”  Just call things what they are and don’t get silly about it, please.  There is some concern about the sponge getting gross, but apparently most reviewers are satisfied by the “antimicrobial fibers” in the sponge.  I still would be concerned.
• On their site, they offer a “MyColorAdvisor.”  I simply click on my skin shade (light) and eye color (hazel), and (gasp!) they suggest my best color tones as all of the light tones.  What amazing powers of insight they have!
• I wanted to know the ingredients of the makeup but this is nowhere on their site.  I went to Target to see the product in person.  Looking at the ingredient list was like reading another language.  The only thing I noticed that is natural is water, and it was the second on the list.  It’s amazing what women will put on their face.
• It’s a “breakthrough formula with active ingredients!”  I looked at what “active ingredients” there are, and found it said 7% Octinoxate, an organic compound found in some sunscreens.
• The site could be more interactive.  Something that makes more sense than MyColorAdvisor?  Please?
• Where can the product be purchased?  I found it at Target, but where else? Why don’t brands tell people where to buy their products?
• At Target this product is $8.99 on sale but $10.99 regular price.  The exact same product in a regular bottle is $6.09 on Amazon and in a pump for $2.49 – $5.98 on Amazon.  Instead of paying such a premium for packaging, I’d rather go buy some good applicator sponges.

The next search result was a review of the product by Elke Von Freudenberg, who says the sponge doesn’t cover well and is too small.  She said the product has an oily feel to it, but after setting it with a powder this goes away.  On the positive side, she likes the coverage and long-lasting results.  A few more results down, another review of the product at Frugirl said she likes the product’s coverage also, and felt it absorbed into her skin rather than sat on top.

I then looked at their Facebook page.  Despite taking time to scroll all the way to the bottom, which wasn’t difficult as it was only a month old, there is nothing said about this product.

In summary, were I in the market for The Eraser, I would have been turned off when I couldn’t access the Maybelline website on my smartphone, by the price when the same product is available for much less in different packaging, by the lack of information on the brand’s Facebook page, and lack of interactivity on their website.  The couple of reviews I did see, however, might have made me reconsider.  It would be in Maybelline’s best interest to address these Fails and send influential bloggers in the beauty space a free sample for review.

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At Digiday Social, a case study was presented by imc2 for Secret deodorant, a brand they have been working with since 2003.  The first type of cause marketing is finding something of marketing interest that resonates with the core values of the brand.  For example, Secret’s core brand value is “empowering women” so imc2 latched on to Lindsey Van’s petition to allow women to participate in ski jumping in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games (visit LetHerJump.com to sign the petition).  The commercial, which can be seen here on YouTube, resonated with the Digiday audience and received a round of applause, to which the speaker was unabashedly flattered.  Although the YouTube video has only received 1,500+ views, the company forwarded the LetHerJump domain to their Facebook page, which was smart.  The Page has nearly 40,000 Facebook Fans, which can be marketed to repeatedly (although this should be done well, which is a whole other challenge).

As a side note, another speaker at DigiDay pointed out how the advent of social sites such as Facebook has created the opportunity to constantly market to an audience, which on the plus side can increase Lifetime Customer Value (discussed in a previous post) but on the down side makes it harder to evaluate the affects of a particular marketing campaign.

In order to effectively implement the brand-alignment kind of cause marketing, several steps need to be achieved through primary research (if you need assistance, the company I work with, C.A. Walker, does this).  First, you must know what values you would like the brand to stand for, then you can use surveying to evaluate your brand’s values currently in the mind of the target markets (if any), and whether the values you would like to have associated with the brand would be acceptable in the mind of the target(s).  You can also ask what nonprofits, if any, they donate their time to so you can determine those you may want to evaluate if their brand values are in-line with yours.  From there, you need to create opportunities to attach the brand value to a particular nonprofit objective and market it.  Lastly, you should then re-test the market post-campaign to see what lift was created in terms of brand value awareness, brand loyalty, likelihood to purchase/switch from a competitor, etc.

In the instance of the Secret campaign, although I was one of the persons clapping for the video’s message at Digiday, if they were to ask me I would tell them it did not move the needle much towards me purchasing their product (this is why it’s always good to test campaigns!).  While it had some positive lift in my understanding and appreciation of the brand’s objectives,  there are other factors at play when it comes to my decision to purchase deodorant that, if I became a Facebook Fan based on this campaign, would still not be communicated.  The campaign needs to be reinforced by standard product feature marketing, including price, whether it goes on clear, effectiveness and possibly also scent.  Ways they could swing my vote are:

1. Allow me to buy a sample size before committment of the next several months of my armpits to their product, or send me a free trial in the mail or via in-store handout.
2. Package trial-sized versions of different scents together, so I could determine which of several options I prefer.

The second type of cause marketing is the more typical “sponsorship,” expected to grow 6% over the next year to $1.61 billion, according to a recent IEG Sponsorship Report.  Much marketing discussion recently has centered on the increase in “microsponsorships,” which is the giving, by a company/brand, of a few hundred or few thousand dollars to consumers to fund pet projects.  There are pluses and minuses to the trend, specifically (numbers correspond to sources at bottom):

Pluses:

• Well-conceived programs can be priceless, both in terms of the value they provide society and the business benefits they bestow on the corporations and brands that undertake them.1
• They can be a truthful, sustaining, committed approach to improving the environment and people’s lives.1
• More marketers are latching on to this, and rightfully so, because there is more transparency in where the money is going.2
• For some marketers, microsponsorships present a much-needed icebreaker in social media.2
• Sponsorships may be more market research than marketing campaign.2
• They build databases of those consumers applying for grants or voting…so marketers can reach out to them in more meaningful ways.2
• 79% of consumers say they would be likely to switch from one brand to another (when price and quality are about equal) if the other brand is associated with a good cause.2

Minuses:

• Too often we see marketers adopt causes just for the sake of having one, which often results in a mismatch between the cause’s purpose and the marketer’s [reason for being].1
• Causes appear to be a convenient charity upon which a brand can piggyback to goose its Facebook friend count or incite some quick blogger hits.1
• Just as consumers quickly saw through the rampant green-washing of the past decade, brand beware: They’ll see through your cause-washing, too.  And even if they don’t, they’ll forget about you and what your brand stands for when you move onto the next shiny marketing idea.1
• Too often companies view cause efforts as a tax they must pay.2
• Even tiny sponsorships have to be closely associated with your brand…whatever you decide to pursue can’t be an isolated campaign.  It has to tie into a bigger program that attracts people with similar values and those have got to be clearly stated.2
• Microsponsorships make it easy to “lose control of the brand,” especially when doling out small sums to far-flung strangers.2
• One downside of these programs is that they are “just pecking away” at big problems.2
• For people to be more engaged is generally a good thing, but what are the tradeoffs if people think, “I’ve voted for this; I’ve spent half an hour online looking at these projects and signing petitions, so I’ve done my civic duty.”2
• Often microsponsorships lack focus, and it’s difficult to determine ROI.  The most successful sponsorships are long-term, sustained sponsorships. Microsponsorships fly in the face of that. It’s the equivalent of unfocused granting. You want to have an impact on a cause and be given credit for that impact.2

One of the largest and well-known microsponsorship campaigns currently is Pepsi Refresh.  In order to address the issue of hard-to-define ROI, “Pepsi is employing a battery of diagnostics, including gauging of brand-equity measures that correlate with volume. The brand has also partnered with Good, Global Giving and Do Something, third parties that are on-board to ensure quality and credibility. As for getting the word out about the brand’s impact, there are plans to profile the grant winners and highlight what they’ve accomplished with the money later this year.”2

An upcoming microsponsorship campaign by Prilosec OTC is one to keep your eyes on also.  Read Prilosec Works to Become ‘Sponsor of Everything’ for more on their efforts.

1 AdAge -  Cause Campaigns Must Benefit Brand and Greater Good

2 AdAge – Cause Effect: Brands Rush to Save World One Deed at a Time

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2. Email Marketing Provides BEST Marketing ROI?

As I don’t yet have one of the newer smartphone models, I wonder how this is catching on amongst those who do?  I’m not sure I would be one to stand around a grocery store for hours snapping labels, but hey, whatever floats your boat.  However, it seems companies are betting big on this becoming a normal part of people’s shopping habits.  Last year, DuPont teamed with Scanbuy to put the new 2-D bar codes on their customers’ packaging “to automatically display a specific mobile website and launch video clips–users can then view and share that information via social networking communities.”   Isn’t DuPont the company that manufacturers nonstick pots and pans?  So I’m going to stand in a store watching videos about say, the origins of my frying pan, and share that with my friends?  Maybe I’m a bit old school, but this whole idea seems a bit like the cue cat.  Motorola recently got in the Scanbuy game, investing an undisclosed sum, and Sprint is now pre-loading it on phones.

I think what concerns me most is in their recent press release it states, “From there, Scanbuy servers query the databases of a number of retail organizations with which it has partnered, including Amazon.com Inc. and Shopping.com, gathering product and price information and returning it to a screen in the app.”  So the results you’re getting aren’t unbiased information.

Taking a look at their website, a marketer can register for a business account and try it free for 30 days.  There is no upfront cost information to share with you.  Please, go do it and report back to me your experience!  Inquiring minds want to know!  I also see that you can get a free ‘personal’ account to create 2-D bar codes for your blog to put on your “business cards, t-shirts, email.”  Great!  I’ll make a t-shirt and you can scan my chest to get to my blog.  Weird or a fashion statement?!

Perhaps one day Scanlife will be ubiquitous and it won’t seem so bizarre.  I’d like to hear from any readers that use it, how it is changing their life?  On that note, I’ll leave you with this explanation video…have a great week!

Scanlife demonstration

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