Tip: What Does Your Competition Miss?

Whatever it is, it could have your name on it. Often, when looking for a niche to own, it's a good idea to see what is not being done well - or at all - by your competitors. Now you may get lucky and find something that isn't being covered and really does need to be addressed. But then, sometimes there's a good reason why no one is addressing a given niche already. Approach with a skeptical but open mind.

5 Keys to Building Better Benefits Communications

	Identify and address your key communication challenges
	Increase participation through strategic communications
	Increase message comprehension and retention
	Use communciations to successfully manage problem issues and areas
	Optimize your messages through tracking and measurement

Tip: Learn from Your Competitors

Before you spend any money, before you budget any funds, see what your competitors are doing. What email channels are they employing? Solo emails? In-line ads within newsletters? Do they have their own newsletters? How do they get new subscribers? Do your competitors run offers similar in nature month in and month out? If so, it's probably working for them, or else they'd do something different. Mind you, sometimes they're testing and don't know themselves if a given campaign is working, which is why you want to track them over months, not weeks.

It's all well and good to closely track and mimic you competitors, but you don't want to do that exclusively or else you only follow in their footsteps. Look for venues where they are not. There may be a good reason why they're not there, or it may be an oversight, or a personal preference that causes them to overlook an opportunity rife with prospects.

Avoid Landing Page Disconnect

Try to avoid making one landing page that fits all outbound messages. The first job of a landing page is to confirm that the readers of your outbound message have indeed come to the right place. If you've advertised one white paper, but you have four others to offer, first play off the one you originally heralded before you present the others. You may offer the other three white papers after the advertised white paper or on a subsequent screen, but do lead with the original offer. Yes, some forms of email marketing "bury the lead or offer" and force you to read through hundreds or thousands of words of copy, and this can work. But you really need to know how to do this right. The delayed gratification offer better be so juicy as to keep visitors reading on and on before hitting pay dirt.