6/30/09
Messaging for the Apathetic
So I look at the mail yesterday and there’s a catalog from Bliss. If you don’t know Bliss, they are an online / catalog / storefront multi-channel retailer. The tagline on the book is “beauty by mail from new york’s hottest spa” - yes, no caps at all. So you pretty much know this book is positioned for younger - or want to feel younger - gals.
The book had a wrap on the outside with a message for the Apathetic. This is a great technique to use because you can do it “in-line” with the rest of the mailing, which saves a lot on postage. The Engaged just get the catalog, the Apathetic get the catalog with this special wrap around and they all are processed inline and enter the mail stream together.
It’s one of my favorite catalog tricks, check out the piece:
Let’s do the copy thing:
You can see on the left spine the macro message of “we want you back” - again, no caps. This is an acknowledgement of the state of the relationship - we’re not sure if you like us, but we still like you! This is a classic Date message tactic, it sets the proper tone and pulls the customer into the conversation.
Then they just come out and say it:
We haven’t had an order from you in a while and - what can we say? - we miss you. We feel lost without those 3 a.m. ‘beauty’ calls and the sweet, soft sound of your mouse clicks.
Yes, they’re great copywriters, but there’s a bigger point I think you should take away: you couldn’t possibly get away with copy like this if you had not set up the personality of Bliss in the first place. They can speak like this because they have spoken like this to the customer in the past - all over the web site and throughout their catalogs and hopefully in customer service phone / e-mail. Consistently. Everywhere. That’s a Brand in remote retailing, that’s how Brands are built. Theatre of the Mind is the best weapon you have. Copy. Art. Get it? What about your web site?
This is probably the most common retail problem on the web today - web sites / businesses that completely lack any kind of personality. Catalogs know how important this idea is in remote retailing and have been using it for a very long time.
So, in a totally shameless attempt to woo you, we’ll send you a Free full-sized bottle of our clog-dissolving cleansing milk (a $28 value) when you order $75 or more from this catalog or at blissworld.com.
The classic Dating offer, complete with a threshold ($75) as explained here. They’re testing. The importance of the words “full-sized bottle” you don’t know about but I do; about 4 weeks ago we received another “we want you back” effort that offered a trial size. They’re essentially starting small with the offers and when we remain Apathetic, they up the offer.
This approach drives down the cost of the average customer reactivation; the strategy is called The Discount Ladder.
(If that’s not a great excuse to arm yourself with our all-out flab attack kit (p. 49) or smooth yourself citrus with our lemon+sage set (p. 09), we don’t know what is.)
This is just very smart merchandising, it is persuasive because it directs you to a specific place rather than giving you a lot of choices - by the way, how many different offers do you make in a promotional e-mail? The choice of products promoted here may have been customized (not sure of my wife’s buying history) or they may simply be very popular products with a high conversion rate to lapsed buyers on catalog covers.
I would bet the latter; that’s how I would play it because after all, she’s a lapsed buyer. She’s stopped buying because she doesn’t want what she has bought before. Do you make offers based on what customers have bought before? Why is that? Why not offer the products that convert people like the targets?
Unless you have specific evidence that “people who buy this also buy this” I’m pretty sure that outside of certain niches, you depress response by making “forced offers” to customers - especially lapsed ones - to buy a specific item or category just because they bought it in the past. Think about it. “Buy anything over $75″ is a lot stronger offer than “Buy these specific things we are promoting”.
A lot to test there as well…
To take advantage of this special offer, just order something from us before March 1, 2008. Our land of lotions and lip gloss just isn’t the same without you. Bliss on, the entire bliss team
Par for the course here - a deadline and an “in personality” close. Urgency and persuasion. If you’re busy, you probably keep the book at least to check out p. 49 and p. 09…
P.S. If you’ve been getting your Bliss fix somewhere other than our catalog or web site (it happens), don’t forget to keep up with our latest and greatest by signing up for Bliss beaut-e-mails at www.blissworld.com
Ah, the beaut-e of multi-channel done the right way.
They probably don’t have perfect visibility between the direct channel (web and catalog) and the retail channel (who does?) so they are acknowledging that, telling you it’s OK, and then offering you a service so you can “keep in touch” - the general theme of “we want you back”. They don’t want you to feel bad if you find their retail distribution more convenient, and at the same time they’re trying to re-engage you electronically and generate value from this catalog drop even if you don’t buy.
I guess the channel managers are team players. By the way, this relationship started on the web site…and in my experience, you can extend the LifeCycle by switching customers to another channel. But you don’t want to force it, you let it play out the way the customer wants it to. Test and look to the behavior; they will tell you what is right on an individual or segment basis through their actions.
bliss-ful job on the catalog wrap gang!
P.S. Well, almost. A search for “flab attack” (phrase from the promotional copy above) on the web site returns this result:
We’re sorry, but your search for flab attack returned no results. Please try again with a different keyword, or double check the spelling. (You’re not alone - we only learned how to spell ‘fuchsia’ properly a week ago.)
Gotta love that personality thing though…
The Low Down on Bulk Mail Permits
Wow! You’re still reading after the title. That must mean you need some help with a bulk mail permit. I’m here to help.
Before getting a bulk mail permit, consider the following:
- You will spend $360 to get the permit. ($180 for application fee and $180 for annual fee). Will the money saved having the bulk-mail permit cover these fees?
- Ex.- A first class stamp is $0.42. Bulk mail rate is roughly $0.17 per piece. The savings is $0.25 per piece. Therefore, the break even point is 1,440 pieces over the course of the year. This would drop to 720 pieces after year one since you will not pay the application fee again.
- If you will be mailing more than 1,440 pieces then consider getting the bulk-mail permit
Step 1: Complete Form 3615, Mailing Permit Application and Customer Profile.
Step 2: Complete From 3624, Application to Mail at Nonprofit Standard Mail Rates.
- At a minimum you will need to complete all questions in Part 1.
- You will also need to complete the top half of the “Checklist for PS Form 3624) by checking the boxes for all the documentation you are able to provide. It is best to provide as much documentation as you are able demonstrating that you are a legitimate church. At a minimum include your Articles of Incorporation (or Articles of Association), Bylaws and any pre-printed materials you have such as a business card, brochure, program/bulletin, etc.
Step 3: Take both completed forms to the post office. Include the following:
- A check for $180: This is the permit application fee (Form 3615). It is a one time fee and separate from the annual fee you must pay for mailing
- 2 forms of identification: One must be a picture ID. Options include: valid driver’s license; armed forces, government, university or corporate identification card; passport; current lease, mortgage or Deed of Trust; voter or vehicle registration card; home or vehicle insurance policy.
- Evidence the organization is nonprofit: IRS letter of exemption from payment of federal income tax or a complete financial statement from an independent auditor. As a new church you may not yet have received your 501(c)3 status. Don’t let this stop you. By default churches are nonprofit. It says so in the IRS code. You may have to persuade your local post office employee, but you can submit the application without it and be approved. Stand firm.
- Documents describing the organization’s primary purpose: This will most likely be articles of incorporation.
- Documents explaining the organization’s operations: This will most likely be the church’s bylaws. You can also include bulletins, brochures, financial statements, membership applications, minutes of meetings, newsletters or a listing of activities for past 6-12 months. If you do include any of these things be sure to check the appropriate boxes on page 3 of the Form 3624
Step 4: Wait
The post office will send the Form 3624 to the national office for processing. This typically takes 4-6 weeks. You will receive a permit imprint number and a receipt from Form 3615. Keep this receipt for documentation. Once Form 3624 is approved it will be associated with your imprint number and you will be ready send bulk mail at nonprofit rates. Before your first mailing you will have to pay the $180 annual mailing fee and make a deposit into your account.
6/29/09
Historical Inventory Trial Balance
The Historical Inventory Trial Balance (HITB) report shows your inventory value as of a specific date or date range and the value of the five different quantity types.
If you want to use this report, you will need to use the HITB reset tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0, Service Pack 2.
Not sure if you want to use this report? The report shows your inventory value as of a specific date or date range. You can use this report to tie your inventory balance to General Ledger based on a specific date. So, yes, you do want to use this report.
What does the IV Reset Tool do? In order to track historical inventory information a new table was added in Dynamics GP 10.0, Service Pack 2. The tool will populate this table and it will also find a starting point where the value of your Inventory and General Ledger are the same.
Before running the tool, there is important information you must understand. You will want to complete the process on a test company first and I would recommend engaging with your partner to work through this process.
6/28/09
You receive error "Someone is clearing company files and you cannot get into this company" when logging into a company - The Clear Data process
This one was actually a very interesting case reported on the Dynamics GP newsgroup, so I figured I needed to get to the bottom of it. The very frustrated user reported seing the following error trying to get into a company in Dynamics GP.
In an attempt to replicate this issue, the most logical place to start was to login into Dynamics GP as my 'sa' user and open the Clear Data window and try to do something there.
Since Clear Data is a distructive process, the Dynamics GP Development team figured they had to find a way to prevent users from accessing the system while this process was being executed by, perhaps, the system administrator. This is how the Clear Data Comp reserved user ID was born. When the window is first accessed by the system administrator, Dynamics GP checks for any users currently available in the system. If there are no users, it will display the Clear Data window and create a record for the Clear Data Comp user ID in the system databases User Activity table (DYNAMICS.dbo.ACTIVITY). The following query shows the content of the ACTIVITY table.
If a second user attempts to access the same company, the code will check for the Clear Data Comp user activity record before allowing the user to access the company. If the record is found, the system will issue the error message originally described.
Since this user ID is internal to the application, there are no locks placed or sessions logged in the tempdb..DEX_LOCK or tempdb..DEX_SESSION tables respectively. If you noted the query results, the Clear Data Comp user ID's SQL session ID is 0.
What happens when Dynamics GP crashes in middle of running Clear Data?
If the system crashes in middle of the Clear Data process or SQL Server becomes unavailable, the ACTIVITY record for the Clear Data Comp user ID will not be properly released. Hence, when users attempt to log back into the company they will receive the same error message.
To correct this problem, the system administrator must log into SQL Server Management Studio and remove the record by running the following query:
Hope this helps in your troubleshooting efforts and to understand another one of those 'old' Dynamics maintenance utilities.
In an attempt to replicate this issue, the most logical place to start was to login into Dynamics GP as my 'sa' user and open the Clear Data window and try to do something there.
Since Clear Data is a distructive process, the Dynamics GP Development team figured they had to find a way to prevent users from accessing the system while this process was being executed by, perhaps, the system administrator. This is how the Clear Data Comp reserved user ID was born. When the window is first accessed by the system administrator, Dynamics GP checks for any users currently available in the system. If there are no users, it will display the Clear Data window and create a record for the Clear Data Comp user ID in the system databases User Activity table (DYNAMICS.dbo.ACTIVITY). The following query shows the content of the ACTIVITY table.
If a second user attempts to access the same company, the code will check for the Clear Data Comp user activity record before allowing the user to access the company. If the record is found, the system will issue the error message originally described.
Since this user ID is internal to the application, there are no locks placed or sessions logged in the tempdb..DEX_LOCK or tempdb..DEX_SESSION tables respectively. If you noted the query results, the Clear Data Comp user ID's SQL session ID is 0.
What happens when Dynamics GP crashes in middle of running Clear Data?
If the system crashes in middle of the Clear Data process or SQL Server becomes unavailable, the ACTIVITY record for the Clear Data Comp user ID will not be properly released. Hence, when users attempt to log back into the company they will receive the same error message.
To correct this problem, the system administrator must log into SQL Server Management Studio and remove the record by running the following query:
-- created by Mariano Gomez, MVP
DELETE FROM ACTIVITY WHERE USERID = 'Clear Data Comp'
Hope this helps in your troubleshooting efforts and to understand another one of those 'old' Dynamics maintenance utilities.
6/2/09
How to change net time servers in Windows
How to change net time servers in Windows
Accurate time settings in Windows is crucial, especially if one is using Kerberos for authentication. This is because Kerberos relies on time stamps as a part of its security token mechanism. As long as all of your clients and servers are synching time, then Kerberos will work pretty well. But what if you also want your clocks to maintain accuracy? Like, atomic clock accuracy?I had a user in one of our remote offices complain that her workstation clock was three minutes off of her digital atomic clock that she always uses. I looked at the time on my workstation and noticed the same thing. I decided to see what time servers our Domain Controllers were syncing to. Can you take a guess? That's right, they were set to sync with time. microsoft.com. I wanted to change the time servers to a more accurate group, so I decided on using the time servers at ntp.org. According to many websites I have visited, the NTP.org servers are more accurate, and more reliable that the Microsoft time server (Can anyone substantiate that for me?).Want to know what I did to set the ntp servers as the default time servers? Simple, from the command line I ran the following command:
net time /setsntp:"0.pool.ntp.org 1.pool.ntp.org 2.pool.ntp.org"
This set the server to use the following time servers in a round robin format:
0.pool.ntp.org
1.pool.ntp.org
2.pool.ntp.org
After that I restarted my w32time services to make the changes active right away:
net stop w32time
net start w32time
After the services came back up, the last thing I wanted to do was to force synchronization with the new time servers, so I ran the following command:
w32tm /resync /rediscover
BAM! Time was correct again! Now by default in a Windows 2003 domain environment all clients and member servers are supposed to automatically sync with the primary domain controller. That is good news for you, because you only have to make this change on your primary DC.If you don't want to use the NTP.org servers, here is a list of other time servers provided by NIST.gov: (List of time servers)
Accurate time settings in Windows is crucial, especially if one is using Kerberos for authentication. This is because Kerberos relies on time stamps as a part of its security token mechanism. As long as all of your clients and servers are synching time, then Kerberos will work pretty well. But what if you also want your clocks to maintain accuracy? Like, atomic clock accuracy?I had a user in one of our remote offices complain that her workstation clock was three minutes off of her digital atomic clock that she always uses. I looked at the time on my workstation and noticed the same thing. I decided to see what time servers our Domain Controllers were syncing to. Can you take a guess? That's right, they were set to sync with time. microsoft.com. I wanted to change the time servers to a more accurate group, so I decided on using the time servers at ntp.org. According to many websites I have visited, the NTP.org servers are more accurate, and more reliable that the Microsoft time server (Can anyone substantiate that for me?).Want to know what I did to set the ntp servers as the default time servers? Simple, from the command line I ran the following command:
net time /setsntp:"0.pool.ntp.org 1.pool.ntp.org 2.pool.ntp.org"
This set the server to use the following time servers in a round robin format:
0.pool.ntp.org
1.pool.ntp.org
2.pool.ntp.org
After that I restarted my w32time services to make the changes active right away:
net stop w32time
net start w32time
After the services came back up, the last thing I wanted to do was to force synchronization with the new time servers, so I ran the following command:
w32tm /resync /rediscover
BAM! Time was correct again! Now by default in a Windows 2003 domain environment all clients and member servers are supposed to automatically sync with the primary domain controller. That is good news for you, because you only have to make this change on your primary DC.If you don't want to use the NTP.org servers, here is a list of other time servers provided by NIST.gov: (List of time servers)
6/1/09
Printer Clear Out VBS Script
strComputer = "."Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _("Select * from Win32_Service where Name = 'Spooler'")
For Each objService in colServiceListIf objService.State = "Running" ThenobjService.StopService()Wscript.Sleep 5000End If
Set FileList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _("ASSOCIATORS OF {Win32_Directory.Name='C:\Windows\system32\spool\printers'} Where " _& "ResultClass = CIM_DataFile")
For Each objFile In FileListobjFile.DeleteNext
Next
Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _("Select * from Win32_Service where Name = 'Spooler'")
For Each objService in colServiceListIf objService.State = "Running" ThenobjService.StopService()Wscript.Sleep 5000End If
Set FileList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _("ASSOCIATORS OF {Win32_Directory.Name='C:\Windows\system32\spool\printers'} Where " _& "ResultClass = CIM_DataFile")
For Each objFile In FileListobjFile.DeleteNext
Next
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