Phil Lauterjung

Archive for February, 2010

Close enough for government work.  Just get it to 95%, that ought to work fine.  You don’t need to have it totally complete, just get most of it done.  Just do it.

We’ve all heard variations on some of these statements, but is less than 100% good enough? Well, maybe for some tasks it might be. But, consider what the ramifications would be if just 99.5% was acceptable.  Read more... (342 words, 2 images, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

Some of you regular readers may have noticed my posts have been a little more erratic lately. There is a very good reason for that.  I have decided to launch my own company.  My emotions have shifted between ‘yikes!’ and ‘hooray!’ depending on which day you might have talked to me over the past couple of months.

Needless to say, I have been very busy with the planning and execution of those plans.  That has resulted in less time to write blog posts.  Now I am just days away from actually announcing this new grand adventure to the rest of the world.  But, I wanted to give you advance notice and a sneak peak at my new web site.  While the new site will have a blog I still plan to continue with this blog as well.  Read more... (352 words, 2 images, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)

Social media continues to receive a lot of press.  Today eMarketer had an article “Why You Need a Strategy for Social Media.” I wonder if someone there had read my last post on this topic?  Probably not, but I can dream can’t I?  Their lead point was that no one is asking if they should have a strategy, but how and where should they participate.

Any one who has followed this blog knows that I don’t have any argument with their premise.  However, as they do with almost everything they post, they had a graph showing the reasons that U.S. marketers use social media.  The graph was from a study done last July by Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law titled: “Social Media: Embracing the Opportunities, Averting the Risks.”  Read more... (428 words, 3 images, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

If you want to grow your business you must to use social media.  It’s as simple as that.

Just in case you need more proof I will share some recent stats from Econsultancy.  This is something they do every six months and it gives a good snapshot of where people are communicating and doing business.  Make no mistake, if you aren’t at least listening in on the conversations you are losing out on very valuable information.  Information regarding your industry, your competitors, and your potential customers is exchanged via social media every minute of every day.  Read more... (397 words, 2 images, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

I have written in the past about marketing automation and how it can help you grow your business.  Yesterday I experienced this from the customer’s perspective.  Of course, the average customer wouldn’t have recognized the use of a marketing automation system; but, it served to remind me of how effective it can be.

It was just another phone call among many others on a typical day.  This one was from a pleasant female voice with Edible Arrangements.  She asked if I remembered buying one of their arrangements last year for Valentine’s Day.  I don’t normally remember everything that I buy for my wife – probably because I buy her so much, hah .  But this time I did remember because I was in Kenya last year for the month of February, and quite far away from my wife.  Read more... (504 words, 2 images, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

One question that frequently comes up when discussing email marketing campaigns is: what are reasonable results to expect? Results can typically vary widely.  Fortunately, Silverpop recently did research on this subject and I know that many of you will be interested.  The results are based on random sample sets of 7,000 email messages delivered to recipients in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany.  The best part of their data is instead of giving the usual average rates they also included the median as well as the top quartile and bottom quartile.  This will allow you to get a better idea where you might place, and where to put you focus to improve your results.  Read more... (486 words, 8 images, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)