For many people, summer reading isn’t an escapist romance or potboiler, but has to do with your business– whatever your passion is. But summer reading is also about taking it easy and unwinding. In that vein, here’s a great summer read for people who want to know more about marketing and advertising:

The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture, by Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant, Knopf Canada, 2009

If you are a regular listener to CBC Radio, chances are you’ve heard of Terry O’Reilly and The Age of Persuasion. It’s an entertaining half hour radio show that talks about various aspects of advertising and marketing, as told by a giant in the Canadian marketing scene. O’Reilly is a radio writer and producer by trade who runs Pirate Toronto. He, with partner Mike Tennant, inform and entertain the listener as they discusses the ins and outs of the industry from an insider’s perspective. (It’s a co-written show, but uses the first person.)

Now O’Reilly and Tennant have published a book of the same name with the same style. It’s entertaining, yet very insightful as it discusses branding, endorsements, new media, demographics and much more from the beginning of advertising to the present.

With a style that has tongue firmly planted in cheek, the authors talk about what they term the unwritten social contract. This is a concept that says consumers tolerate advertising if they see they are getting something in return for their attention; a TV show in return for ad spots, a newspaper in return for ad space, or an ad in any medium if it entertains or adds value in some way.

So get yourself a favourite beverage, pull up a lounge chair, put on your shades and relax with a good book. Enjoy the summer.

Do you have any books to recommend? Join the conversation. Leave a comment.

Any time you send promotional e-mail messages (a.k.a. e-mail marketing) to someone without their permission, you are a spammer. Yes, you!

You join that shady group of people who try to sell us designer rip-offs, cheap pharmaceuticals and sex sites.

Buying lists doesn’t make it better. Nor does using the membership directory of an association you joined, unless members give explicit permission for that to happen when they join. That is not very common. In fact, many associations salt their directory with phony listings just to catch spammers.

But, you say, you still need to have as many eyeballs as possible reading your message. I want to challenge that attitude. Wouldn’t it be better if the people receiving your message are the people who WANT to receive it? Qualified prospects are a lot easier to convert than the random people you reach by adding spam to their inbox. Personally, I have a policy of not doing business with someone who spams me. If those are their tactics to get my business, I question how they would treat as a customer.

The question then becomes, how do you get more qualified people on your e-mailing marketing contact list if you need their permission first?

Ask them. It’s that simple. Here are five strategies for growing your e-mail marketing campaign:

1. Ask at all networking events you attend
   
2. Ask visitors to your web site (give them a simple sign up form)
3. Ask when you make sales calls
   
4. Ask your current subscribers to ask other people for you: make it easy to forward subscription details to people they know
5. Ask in your marketing literature.
   

But remember, you need to give subscribers value in return for them saying yes to letting you into their inbox. It may be information about sales or special offers, updates and success stories or it may be useful tips and tricks (which can also show of your expertise).

In the end, you will find that those people who are on your mailing list are more open to receiving your message and more likely to respond positively. And that’s what e-mail marketing is all about.

What do you think? Join the conversation.

Spam. We all hate it: those e-mails offering ‘authentic’ designer watches or the best prices for pharmaceuticals. There should be a law about that! Well, there isn’t – in Canada, anyways. Some people may be surprised to learn that Canada has no anti-spam legislation. Yet. Last year we had an article about anti-spam legislation. So what happened? Unfortunately it died when Parliament was prorogued.

Enter Bill C-28 the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act. (Pretty snappy title, eh?) If passed, this legislation would finally provide anti-spam legislation to bring us up to speed with other industrialized nations which have had it for years.

When we talk of spam, we think about pharmaceuticals, sex sites and cheap knockoffs. But spam is ANY message sent without prior explicit permission from the recipient. Even if you assume they would like to receive it. Did you buy a list? Doesn’t matter. If you didn’t get each recipient’s permission, it’s still spam.

What does Bill C-28 mean for your business or nonprofit?

There are two major components required for law-abiding e-mail marketing (and it also makes good marketing sense, too)

1. The message itself must:
   • identify the sender
     
   • include contact information for the sender
     
   • have an easy unsubscribe or opt-out option
     
2. The recipient must have consented to receiving your messages or you must have an existing business relationship with the recipient.
   

So, what does ‘an existing business relationship’ mean?

For businesses: You have conducted business within the past two years or they have been in touch with you (e.g. made an inquiry) in the past 6 months.

For nonprofits and charities: You have up to two years after: the last donation, the last time they volunteered or the date of their their membership expiry.

Bottom line: you can no longer send someone a promotional e-mail just because you have their e-mail address. That means no more sending out to the lists you bought, no more broadcast messages to fellow members of your chamber of commerce (unless you consent to receive them when you join) or scooping email addresses from a directory or prospect’s web site.

Be a responsible marketer. If you aren’t already complying with the proposed legislation, start now.

In the future, we'll tak about how you can build your list without resorting to spam tactics.