Eye On eMedia

Speaking at Folio

September 5th, 2008

For anyone going to the 2008 Folio show, I’ll be speaking in the session below:

EDITORIAL TRACK

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 4:45-5:30 p.m.

Boosting Reader Engagement Online

Speakers: Frank Chloupek, Web Development Director, IndustryWeek and Scott Havens, Director, Business Development, Portfolio.com

Technology, combined with readers’ migration online, has opened up entirely new opportunities for editors to create reader engagement and elicit feedback and response to their content. In this session you’ll learn the ins and outs of blogs, RSS, podcasts, wikis, and video, and how and where you can use them to amplify your content and resonate with new audiences. You’ll learn what they are, how to deploy them successfully, and how to measure response.

Now I just have to decide what to say.

Posted in Folio, speaking | No Comments »

E-mail Copy: Short vs. Long — Why Not Both?

August 10th, 2008

A ClickZ article by Karen Gedney — Who Says People Don’t Respond to Long E-mail Copy?– brought up the question that keeps recurring about the “right” length for email copy that seems to continuously come up again and again.

What I don’t understand is why most emails can’t have the best of both worlds by crafting an email that does both. Have an email that contains a quick nut graf with a call to action high in the message, but then also a copy block with a call to action at the foot of the copy.

This way you get both types of of readers — the ones that completely get the message and are ready to take action right from the preview pane and also the ones that need more background. You don’t lose or irritate the people with the long copy because they never get to it, and you place the call to action where and when the reader wants.

One example — though probably not the best — is one of IW’s events mailings for our Excellence in Action plant tour series http://www.industryweek.com/excellenceinaction/080608invite.html , that has calls to action throughout the message. IW’s Webcast mailings are an even better example, with a 1-2 sentence box at the top describing the event to get the quick registration and then several paragraphs of copy below (I don’t have a link to share here, sorry)

This “mixed” message would seem to be exactly how you want to communicate, in a form that satisfies multiple types of readers.

Posted in eMarketing, email | No Comments »

Getting "extra" out of your Web site

June 11th, 2008

One thing I have gotten out of the habit of is trying to post the occasional hint or tip that people haven’t thought of in terms of squeezing extra out of their Web sites.

This article from MarketingSherpa (open until 6/17) brought one more to mind.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30637

(I’m a big fan of their information, as some of you already know)

The point is to look at any emails that your property generates and look for opportunities to use them to promote related products and services.

An example which I’ve put into place on IndustryWeek.com

Web Conferences/transactional emails: Every Web conference generates a ton of email — confirmation messages, reminder messages, post event messages. In these messages you have an audience of people who are interested in attending Webcasts. So we put a footer in each message detailing the Webcasts we have upcoming as well as providing a registration link. This provides us with additional registrants for our upcoming events — not hundred, but it will get us a dozen or two attendees for each event, just in what otherwise would be a missed opportunity.

Confirmation screens are another place that can be used. For example, in a forward this article feature, you have someone who is very engaged in the brand — engaged enough to promote to someone else. Often times a screen comes up saying “Your email has been sent” We’ve added to that confirmation screen a push for IndustryWeek’s enewsletters (all our newsletters are opt-in, so it’s a continual battle to keep circ up)

None of these are whiz-bang changes, but they’re bits of continuous improvement to try to extend that relationship and interaction with your audience.