John Boudreau's Blog

If you’re looking to find out what typical open rates are for various B-C or B-B email marketing, you should pick up the 2009 Email Marketing benchmark guide. It’s full of interesting information regarding email marketing trends. Since Astonish Results does a fair amount of B-C email marketing in the insurance vertical, it’s a great resource to see how well we’re doing. In many cases we’re above the averages.

That brings me to my next point. Not ALL email messages are created equal. There’s a great rule you can apply to email marketing (and all marketing for that matter) called the 40/40/20 rule. The rule states that the bulk of response opportunity in any marketing campaign comes from:

(a)    The List (40%)

(b)   The Offer (40%)

(c)    The Creative (20%)

That means if you get a and b right, you’re going to have a successful email marketing campaign. Where people go wrong is by blasting out email (the offer) to people (the list) that really have no interest in their product or services. These campaigns typically have a low open rate (< 1%) and even lower click through rate.

You’re much better off focusing on building a targeted email list. The more targeted you can be (i.e. the more you know your audience) the better you’ll be as hitting your target audiences’ hot button points.

Check out this great blog post and video from www.seomoz.com on link building. This confirms what I’ve always know; there is NO EASY way to build search rank. It takes time and focus. Link building is especially difficult and must be done carefully. You should focus on your business partners as those who should link to you. Just give them a reason WHY.

I also ran across this great interview with Matt Cutts who heads up the Webspam initiative at Google. Seems like something you’d want to pay attention to in regards to link building. Check out the interview here http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-061608.shtml.

A Google Alert is a great service Google provides which can keep you informed about any topic you choose. I have my name and “Astonish Results” as keywords. Any time these keywords exist on a website, in the news or in a blog, Google sends me an “alert” in the form of an email.

To get started go to http://www.google.com/alerts and enter your search term (keyword) and your email. Google will begin delivering these alerts the next day.

This a great tool for SEO to see if your site is getting indexed for certain keyword terms or for reputation management (see what others are saying about you).

Every once in a while I pick up a book that really resonates with me. The author brings out an idea that confirms what I’ve been thinking and gives me further clarification on those thoughts.

“Mastering the Rockefeller Habits” by Verne Harish is one such book. Harish describes three habits which Rockefeller applied to help Standard Oil grow.

There are so many truths in the book to choose from, so I’ll just pick a few that really spoke to me.

Habit #1 – Priorities

As a company grows, the owners must work harder and harder to communicate the major priorities to its staff. Harish provides some great tools to aid in the communication process. He boils business down into six major areas to focus on. Harish calls this his, “Right Things Model”. 

• ·         Customers
• ·         Employees
• ·         Stakeholders

Get, Keep and Grow (i.e. get customers, keep customers, grow employees or any other combination)

• ·         Selling
• ·         Producing
• ·         Record Keeping (accounting)

Better, Faster and Cheaper (sell better, sell faster, produce cheaper etc.)

Habit #2 – Data

This is something I’m especially passionate about. As your company grows, it is impossible to speak to every employee each day or even each week. Metrics become the primary way to monitor and predict what’s going to happen. At Astonish Results, we’re continuing to flesh out metrics for each department. Metrics allow you to make the necessary adjustments. Each of the six major areas of your business should have their associated metrics.

Habit #3 – Rhythm

This habit speaks to making sure all major areas of business are meeting regularly to review the metrics and make sure they are in alignment with the priorities outlined by the owners. Harish says this keeps everyone, “informed, aligned and accountable”.

It’s Christmas Eve.

I’m taking this time to reflect on the events of the year.

I’m extremely grateful for the people in my life and the opportunities I’ve been blessed with. My involvement in Astonish allows me to interact with some incredible people (both employees and customers). Their positive attitudes and desire to grow motivate me to continue to give 100%.

I’m looking forward to an incredible 2010, filled with more growth, challenges and excitement.