Jeff Chausse, a former colleague of mine, has an interesting post on his blog about the 0-1-N fallacy and how the wants of an engineer may not apply to the wants of the user interface designer.

It may seem heresy to most engineers to claim that anything less than infinite scalability is good enough, but in UI design that is definitely the case. The iPhone, for example can only have 9 web pages open at once. It probably has the memory to hold dozens more, but if it held dozens, it would have to abandon the extremely elegant UI of “flicking” thumbnails to move between pages, and use a clunky list instead.

This “fallacy” applies to marketing as it pertains to call to action messaging. Typically within an organization, the product groups and the marketing groups do not agree. Product groups want to promote, advertise, and inevitably sell product. That alone, is not the problem. The problem lies in the fact where the marketing group has to accommodate the needs of all the product groups on one single budget. And depending on what the acceptable contact frequency is for the target audience, this can create a logjam of competing messages. Read more…

This morning I was greeted with an unexpected marketing message. As I waited for my train into work early this morning, I was greeted by a woman with a warm, friendly smile holding a basket of samples. She had made it around the room of tired, early-riser commuters handing out samples of something to the 6:00 AM crowd.

I thought to myself, “Great idea. Must be a local bakery passing out cookies to sample.” I was only partially correct. Because, although it was a cookie that was passed out, the company was much more appetizing for the commuter crowd.

It was a cookie with a wrapper advertising a company called Dinner Trends: Meals Designed for Busy Lives. This company allows you to prepare gourmet meals from a selection of fresh, gourmet ingredients in their kitchen and then cook them in yours. Read more…

So you have decided to drive people online to respond to your offer. Great. As I discussed previously, an online destination can provide you valuable information about your prospects and customers not to mention key indicators to the success of your program.

But all of that means nothing if you can’t accomplish two things: differentiate traffic by lots and get them there in the first place. That’s where vanity URLs come into play. Vanity URLs are memorable URLs that customers key in to respond to their offer. It could be a splash page off of your main corporate site, off of a programatic microsite, it’s own unique site, or a personalized URL (PURL). All executions can bring great response and eliminate unneeded barriers to success. Read more…

Giving customers ways to respond to marketing communications has never been easier. WIth new technology and an evolution in communication methods, marketers now have options for response vehicles such as: telephone, business reply cards, and websites. But which one is right for your marketing efforts?

The short answer is “all of them”. The long answer is, “Ideally, all of them in many different configurations but where budget and logistics limit your options: it depends on what you are trying to achieve. Read more…

Have a product that you are sure people will love once they try it? Why don’t you give them a taste? Providing free samples breaks down a major barrier to trial and gets your product top of mind.

According to a recent survey in Stagnito’s New Product Magazine, “96 percent of respondents indicated they are “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to buy new products they have tried through free sampling. More than half say they often recommend products to family and friends, and nearly as many said they usually try a product recommended by a friend or family member.”

That number is staggering. And for good reason. Conventional wisdom would tell you that hardly anyone will pass up something for free, regardless of whether it is something they would even use in the first place. We also tend to think that favorable numbers may get artificially boosted from the simple fact that they got something for free. Read more…