Future of Direct Mail – Not So Hot

According to  one of our respected resources, Borrell Associates, the future of direct mail is not so hot. The exact figures show that e-mail marketing is the number 1 medium and that direct mail itself is going into a decline.  This particular report from Borrell states that direct mail itself will have a 39% drop.  The takeaway from this is that direct mail isn’t going to completely fall off, as this is in our opinion a shift, mainly due to the economic climate, but a major shift nonetheless.  Furthermore, the ability to incorporate a complete cross-media solution (e-mail, direct mail, sms, PURL) will continue to be of major importance and significance for direct mail and print providers. Happy to share our insight on some of the better, established cross-media providers upon request.

 

Dircect Mail Marketing is not dead

Why direct marketing is not dead.

Many people have been reading and hearing about how traditional print and direct marketing is dead. I would like to disagree.  Sure, e-mail marketing is more “now”, but with the increase utilization of spam filters and the continued increase in e-mail marketing, how many of us are already tuning-out emails.

I for one, love to receive a well designed and engaging 6×9 postcard in the mail.  Having the postcard personalized and with a PURL is even better.  That is the essence of cross-channel or multi-channel marketing.  As a businessman myself, I know the conversion for personalized print pieces is 30-35% better than without.

The take-away from this is direct mail is still a viable marketing method and will never completely go away, but from a marketers perspective having a visually engaging and interesting design with a compelling marketing message, personalize will have the most success. So, marketing tactics my change and shift over time, but good old fashioned direct mailing still has a place, with a twist of course.

 

The Key Integrated, digital marketing solutions?

What is the key to successful integrated, digital marketing solutions?

Digital Marketing, the term itself can easily be misconstrued. Let’s start with a definition.

Digital marketing refers to the practice and approach of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach prospects and consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner. What are the key components of a digital marketing solution?

1. Website development and Search Engine Optimization and Marketing (SEO, SEM)

2. Lead Generation with Pay-Per-Click

3. Social Media implementation (setting up twitter, blogs, listings on social networks)

4. Traditional print design

5. Cross-Channel or Cross-Media Marketing with Personalized URLs

6. Implementation and review of traffic analytics

The key. Like many things the preparation and key to implementing successful digital marketing solutions, is the ability to plan and execute the individual steps that align with your business objectives. Self-examination of your particular niche and reaching that niche is the main objective of any organization, but also knowing your audience will go a long way in your preparation for your effective digital marketing endeavors.

 

Most Complex Aspect of Cross Media Software Development

Most Complex Aspect of Cross Media Software Development

After some research and considerable networking and development the most complicated aspect of application development for a fully comprehensive cross media solution is not the PURL or the personalization of the print piece but in our humble opinion, the ability to provide a user interface that is flexible enough, yet clear and not complex for the campaign manager to or user create the dynamic fields for the PURL itself.

For example, if you the provider want to enable your customer, the marketer the ability to create alternate form fields for their campaigns landing page, how do you provide the means to allow them to easily manage that?

Many companies such as easyPurl and L2 have some really good technology, but I would argue that .net has the most capable means to allow for the creation of dynamic form field as relate them to the fields of the data of the campaign.  Of course I’m biased a bit towards Microsoft technology, but like we mention to our clients, the best part about our software, is that if we are hit by a bus, they can find alternate individuals to pick up the pieces and follow the development patterns relatively easily.

 

What makes a successful cross-media solution?

What makes a successful cross-media solution?

Thinking out-loud here…Is it the ability for the provider to offer a complete procurement, tracking and design solution? Is it the ability for the provider reach new targets? Both? Probably both and then some more. How important is the design aspect of the solution? Does is fall into the same old adage, garbage-in-garbage-out? How much personalization is really needed for a Purl? Name only, or more personalized details? I hear it all. I just don’t know yet. If anyone out there wants to comment, i’m all ears.

 

Moving to Cross-Media

Moving to Cross-Media

It happened again. A printer associate of mine and I were talking. Of course the topic of w2p came up and as I simply offered my opinion and suggestions for his research, the conversation quickly turned into a very friendly and rapid-fire Q&A. Seems like most printers are not only printers, but really marketing providers. Sure they provide the printed materials, but in that very essence, what are 99% of those materials used for? Marketing. As we continued to chat, it becomes more and more clear, even though he didn’t realize it, he was indicating that he wanted to offer and provide more marketing-campaign related technology for his prospects. List purchasing, PURLs ect. This is just odd, that its the 3rd time this week, a week of semi-work, that I’ve heard this. There are some really good PURL and cross-media solutions out there, like MindFire and EasyPurl, but from what I can see they don’t really have the professional services and consulting packages for helping a client, like my associate, implement and manage. Needless to say, I recommended that they very seriously look at having us customize our engine and add-on the campaign management aspect, which all-in-all is relatively easy for us to do. I am hoping that they follow the lead of some others have taken, in realizing that the success is in the details of the solution and the customization of the technology. This trend is a snowball at the top of the hill.

 

Web-To-Print and Cross-Media technology overlap?

Once again, in discussions with colleagues and prospects the overlap of tools that are traditionally associated with web-to-print, more specifically online design are evident in the solution needs of cross-media. Why is there so much overlap in these areas? Personally, I think the cross-media people have nailed it. Firms like MindFire and Nimble fish have marketing engines and great overall technology. Although I have not personally seen the code, I’ve built some of these solutions and integrated them for print and marketing providers and understand and have seen first hand the complexities involved. The only tool that I have not seen mastered yet is the ability to enable online design templates easily. As I am biased at my own team and their technology, particularly our Aurigma friends and their mastery of Adobe files and the ability to dynamically parse them, it is still so new and not much attention is being paid to it, yet. The nice thing about Aurigma’s technology is the same element that is missing in these other engines; the quick and easy way to enable those same templates. After all, enabling and even modifying pre-approved marketing messages and designs is part of the process, isn’t it? Sending out the direct mailer and enabling PURLs are fantastic and IMHO the best and only form of acceptable direct mailing. Especially, with spend management on everyones mind doesn’t it make sense to use the tools that provide the most analysis and hard data? We’ll, I digress. The firms that enable these powerful online design tools and integrate them with PURL and campaign management systems will be the leaders in the industry as print providers are looking more and more like marketing firms, and marketing firms, with new digital presses are looking like one stop shops.