Stating the Obvious

John Hall's new book, Top of Mind: Use Content to Unleash Your Influence and Engage Those Who Matter To You, is getting rave notices.
There's a reason.

The author, CEO of a PR firm, has caught the wave we call influencer marketing, which he describes as a "content utopia" where your marketing messages are published and shared routinely by industry leaders.

This "top-of-mind strategy" can leapfrog your organization "from no online presence to industry domination," Hall claims.

And I'm sure the claim is true. But, for my money, Hall's book is a bust.

He spends most of the 180 pages of Top of Mind stating the obvious. Crack open the book and you'll find a lifetime supply of kindergarten lessons like these:

• "Listen to your target audience; engage and communicate with them in ways they find helpful and meaningful; and repeat."

• "Storytelling and sharing knowledge is a big part of our humanity, and we wouldn't be where we are today without it."

• "Giving someone a gift is a nice way to establish a personal connection."
  

• "The more personalized you can make your audience's experience, the more special and valued you will help them feel."
  

• "To generate trust, you need to create a relationship; for that to happen, you need to open up lines of communication that are honest, meaningful, and authentic."

The greater source of disappointment stems from Hall's goal: it isn't to show you how to leverage industry influencers, but to become one yourself.

That's simply not something most marketers need, want, or are able to do.

Most, I think, are wondering: How can I use influencer marketing to sell more flow sensors, flood insurance, or file-sharing packages?

Hall doesn't offer much specific or practical help here, though he would.

He does sandwich halfway through Top of Mind four "best practices" for executing a "top-of-mind strategy;" but they're pedestrian as can be (set goals, find content, commit to a process, publish and repurpose). And he devotes his last two chapters to "turning your team into an army of thought leaders;" but good luck with that.

Besides, how many more GaryVees does the world really need?

Save your $26.

Can You Ever Send Too Much Email?

Does a rise in unsubscribes mean you should cut email frequency? Does a decline in opens and clicks?

Maybe not, says IBM.

Standard email metrics can deceive, unless you allow for the "frequency math effect," according to the company.

To understand the frequency math effect, you must assess unsubscribes, opens and clicks both per message and cumulatively over a sending period.

Looking at only the per-message metrics can mislead you to think you're sending too much email. Only by knowing both your per-message and cumulative metrics can you know whether frequency has an overall net-positive or net-negative effect.

For example, suppose you double frequency to four from two times a week. You might see unsubscribes rise, and opens and clicks decline from one message to the next.

But should you panic?

No. When you send email frequently, you should expect more unsubscribes—but, in the long run, more opens and clicks, as well.

Why Art Directors Should Never Overrule Copywriters

Adman Bill Bernbach is credited with first teaming art directors and copywriters. The idea spread rapidly across ad agencies everywhere, because it inspired terrific work.

Art director/copywriter teams produce solid work when the members are coequals. 

But when one or the other dominates, the work often fails.

I'll give you an example.

I recently submitted a direct mail package to an agency. The package is meant to convert military officers into association members.

With the account team's initial okay, I took the classic direct-mail marketer's approach: sell a bundle of tangible benefits that the research shows are the benefits most valued by the target audience.

In this case, the bundle included such benefits as free career consulting, free resume-writing, free financial planning, interest-free loans, and a monthly magazine full of expert advice about retirement planning, child-rearing, healthy living, vacation planning, and similar "lifestyle" topics. 

I wrote a four-page letter building up those benefits and "asking for the order."

After two drafts, the art director insisted we scrap the package and begin again.

His view was:

• You shouldn't tell stories. You should write short and just list every benefit the association offers in two pages. "Military officers are trained to take orders. Just order them to join the association," he said.
  
  
• You should sell lobbying. The whole reason to pay dues is to underwrite lobbying by the association, he said. "Military officers know more about lobbying than the people on Capitol Hill."
  
  
• You should downplay the magazine. "Nobody reads the magazine."

The new direct mail package he ordered up, I predict, will bomb. 

Big time.

The art director's copy direction discounts nearly everything I know about association marketing, association membership, direct marketing, direct-mail copywriting, marketing research, military officers, and human nature. 

It also suggests he doesn't read, he has never joined an association, and he doesn't know much about military officers―or sales, influence, or human nature.

That's not teamwork. 

When the art director wins, the copywriter loses.

So does the client.

(The same goes the other way round.)

So how do you sell association memberships? It's not by selling lobbying. That's "Inside the Beltway" stuff. Instead:

You offer prospects help. People need help. They need help finding jobs, meeting employers, managing expenses, handling problems, staying up-to-date. Sell they ways you can help, and you'll attract new members.

You offer prospects savings. Life is expensive. People want to save time and money, avoid risk, and keep hassles to a minimum. Sell the ways you can save them time and money, and spare them risk and hassles, and you'll convert them.

You offer prospects community. Life can be lonely. People crave connections (it's why they join clubs and churches). Sell ways you can connect them―meetings, trade shows, online groups, webinars, magazines, newsletters, podcasts, videos and directories―and you'll win them over.

All the Way

The standard B2B marketing tactics are obsolete, says Evy Wilkins, VP of Account Based Marketing at Traackr.

Disruptors like ad blockers and email filters have outmoded them.

Thank goodness there's influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing works, Wilkins says, because most customers rely on expert opinions  to make buying decisions. 

They find the opinions on social media. 

When you win the love of opinion leaders (who'll parrot your sales-talk on social media), you can again begin to romance customers.

But it takes a change of heart.

"For decades, marketers have been in a rhythm of campaign-based activities," Wilkins says; but "influencer marketing is about long-term relationships that don’t go up and down with budget levels."

Influencer marketing, Wilkins says, is "always on."

You can't woo an influencer, for example, to love your brand for eight weeks, targeting only 30-year-old English-speaking males who work in greater San Francisco.

It doesn't work that way—even when you pay the influencer.

Insider Trading

Don't get too excited about the "virability" of Twitter, if you hope to change minds.

Although six in 10 users get their news from Twitter, a new study shows retweeting is insular.

A group of psychologists at NYU analyzed 560 thousand tweets about three polarizing topics: gun control, same-sex marriage, and climate change.

They found that, while tweets which include fiery "moral and emotional language" go viral, they're rarely traded outside users' in-groups. Sharing occurs almost exclusively among users in the same ideological camps.

"The expression of emotion is key for the spread of moral and political ideas in online social networks," the study's authors say.

But emotion doesn't make an idea worth spreading.

"While using this type of language may help content proliferate within your own social or ideological group, it may find little currency among those who have a different world view,” lead researcher William Brady says.