Copyright © 2006 Quest Software

Best Practices for E-Cards and Landing Pages

Andrew Kordek, Direct Marketing ManagerEd Mauss, Marketing Communications Manager

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Challenge: Making It Stick

• For Your Proposition to Stick, It Must Make the Audience:

– Pay Attention >> Is it relevant and compelling?– Understand and Remember >> Is it concrete?– Agree/Believe >> Is it credible?– Care >> Is it beneficial to them personally?– Be Able to Act Upon It >> Is there immediate satisfaction?

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Relevancy Exercise

• Details for Story That Will Appear in a High School Newspaper: – Next Thursday, all teachers will attend a day-long

conference on best practices in education– Renowned scholars will conduct workshops– Teachers will learn the latest research on knowledge

retention and maintaining positive classroom behavior– Keynote speaker is the mayor

• What’s the Best Headline?

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There Will Be No School on Thursday

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Making It Stick

• Audience Is More Likely to:

– Pay attention, if you highlight a knowledge gap or a challenge they likely face

– Understand and remember, if the benefit is clear (not “maximize productivity” but “save hours each day”)

– Agree or believe, if you highlight a viable, useful solution– Care, if you focus on their self-interest (WIIFM) – Act, if you provide clear, quick way to learn more and

present options

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Best Practices: Format for eCard/Landing Page

• Subject line: Highlight asset, then need, benefit or feature and product (if room), e.g., “Webcast: Optimize Your Code with Toad”

• Top: headline with need, benefit or feature; -sub1 with product/solution-sub2 with call to action and featured asset

• Body Text: Elaborate briefly on need, benefit or feature, and product/solution; call to action, with date

• Landing Page: Brief recap eCard, with more detail (what audience gains), author/presenter bio

• Auto-reply: Webcast time/place or whitepaper’s related links

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Best Practices: Writing

• Organize like a mini essay (think 3-30-3 rule)• Make text scannable (subheads, short

sentences/paragraphs, bold, bullets; again, 3-30-3)• Active language (e.g., “The tools deliver top

performance,” not “Top performance is delivered…”)• Simple words (e.g., “use” not “utilize”; or “do” instead

of “perform”)• Conversational (“carry out” not “implement”; or “best”

not “optimum”)• Chunk it up (save some for the landing page)• Follow conventions (no underlines unless text linked;

no “click here”, avoid all caps and italics)

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E-Cards Worth Noting

http://www.quest.com/ecard/22778/307/ - Become a Toad Expert

http://www.quest.com/ecard/22780/279/ - France SQL Server

http://www.quest.com/ecard/23125/628/ - Aussie SharePoint

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Landing Page – the Future?

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E-Card: Before

Database Benchmarking

Tips from Expert Bert Scalzo

Click Here for More Information

Have you ever wondered…  •Does Linux or Windows yield better benchmarking results? •How many bits are best, 32 or 64? •Which database platform provides the best performance benchmark? – Oracle 10g, SQL Server 2005 or MySQL 5.0 •How do I determine the maximum concurrent OLTP users a server can sustain? •How do I determine the maximum size data warehouse a server can sustain?

Find out the answers to these questions from database expert Bert Scalzo by downloading his new White Paper, “The Top Five Database Benchmarking Questions.”

Click Here for More Information and to Download:

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E-Card: After

Subject: Answers to Your Top Five Benchmarking Questions [Head] Got Benchmarking Questions?[subhead 1] Expert Bert Scalzo Knows What They Are [subhead 2] Get His Answers in a New Whitepaper [body copy]The topic of database benchmarking invites so many questions. But Bert Scalzo, a leading database expert and designer of several Toad features, knows your five most common ones. And he has the answers for you. Download his new whitepaper, The Top Five Database Benchmarking Questions, to read them.

Download whitepaper >>>

Landing Page Content:

White Paper: The Top Five Database Benchmarking QuestionsIn this whitepaper, database expert and author Bert Scalzo, Ph.D., addresses your most frequently asked database benchmarking questions: •Does Linux or Windows yield better benchmarking results? •How many bits are best, 32 or 64? •Which database platform provides the best performance benchmark? – Oracle 10g, SQL Server 2005 or MySQL 5.0 •How do I determine the maximum concurrent OLTP users a server can sustain? •How do I determine the maximum size data warehouse a server can sustain?

Get Your Copy

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E-Card of the Month Contest

• Based on Both Results and Committee Votes– Judged by Ed, Andrew, Chris,

Rebecca

• Announced First Week of Month via Email

• Prize: $50 gift card • First-Ever Winner Is:

Rich Brown– “Become a Toad Expert” -

Nicely constructed and drove $38k in revenue

– Deb Randel collaborated

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Advice from Pros

• Eric Myers: “Always write content that is going to be helpful to customers. Does it answer the obvious questions they will want to ask?”

• Andrew Kordek: “Be strategic, relevant and credible.”• Isaac Asimov: "Try to write reasonably well".

– Don't agonize over every little word when you're drafting content

– Get your thoughts down, starting with an outline.

– Fill in the outline

– Fine-tune to check the flow of information and cut extra words

– When you've finished that, then do it again

• Remember, everyone needs an editor, no matter the skill level or experience. – Marcom Queue, Final Check for Assistance

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Additional Resources

• “Elements of Style” (Strunk & White): Any bookstore or Amazon.com

• Great article about writing for the customer: www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=843281

• Customer Focus Message Calculator – The “We We” Monitor : http://www.futurenowinc.com/wewe.htm

• “Made to Stick” – Chip and Dan Heath

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Questions and Comments?

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Additional Examples

http://www.quest.com/ecard/22968/451/ http://www.quest.com/ecard/22917/410/ http://www.quest.com/ecard/22946/452/http://www.quest.com/ecard/22922/443/http://www.quest.com/ecard/22923/441/http://www.quest.com/ecard/22791/289/http://www.quest.com/ecard/22793/310/http://www.quest.com/ecard/22815/351/http://www.quest.com/ecard/22703/228/http://www.quest.com/ecard/22594/120/