We sent our September newsletter out today. We've done major work on our content, database, website and lead management system. That effort has delayed the release. But it's interesting to see how all these things are integrated.
In appreciation for the fact that most of us have two different email viewing devices, Blackberry/iPhone and computers, we've adopted a practice of writing our emails for viewing on portable devices. This means NOT sending newsletters directly as an email.
Think about how people consume information on each device. On my Blackberry, it's very transactional. I'm checking, sending quick responses, noting incoming mail to deal with later. I'm literally on the go. My mind is mostly focused on other things. I seldom read an article, blog, newsletter on my Blackberry. And I really don't want people reading my important content, or viewing my multimedia vignettes, in that situation. For that, I want them able to focus, concentrate, listen and reflect.
I have certain times for computer viewing of blogs, articles, downloads, whitepapers, etc. My mind is in learning mode. I am focused on taking on new information. I find I retain it better, and link ideas with other ideas or problems I'm working on.
To deal with this reality, we send a very short email with a link to the newsletter.
With our marketing automation system, this has the additional benefit of telling us who actually looked at the newsletter and for how long. This is not the irrelevant "email open" indicator that comes from many email tracking systems. These often give false positives due to the "preview" window in Outlook.
People who are interested in our newsletter must click to view it. It opens as a separate web page. Those pages link to additional resources. The articles can be read on a portable device. But viewing videos, vignettes, downloads or longer articles is not practical today for most of us on most devices.
Here is our recent newsletter email and link:
Content Rubik's Cube Newsletter -- Your content marketing strategy
“A revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new tools, it happens when society adopts new behaviors” -- Clay Shirky
Lead management, marketing automation, content marketing and a plethora of social media technologies are changing behaviors.
But the content engine to drive these initiatives with quality, consistent content is often lacking.
A content strategy, supported by a well defined and implemented "publishing" process, is the key to unlocking the full potential of lead management and sales enablement initiatives.
The Avitage "Content Rubik's Cube" September newsletter addresses these issues with a rich compendium of insights from customer engagements, videos, whitepapers, articles and links to additional resources.
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