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.

 

5 Simple Ways to Embrace Twitter

Day in day out, we hear it, “twitter”, “facebook”, “myspace”… From a professional organizations standpoint, we get a lot of these questions. What does this really mean? How do I utilize these tools?  To get a jump and at least get started with some of these new social media tools, I will start today with how to get started with “Twitter”.

Here are 6 simple steps any online firm can take that will allow them to utilize the power of social media and twitter in a professional manner.

1. Alert your followers, wheter they are customers or prospects of brief and timely updates of news and project development (if applicable).

2. Drive followers to sign-up, formally for e-mail newsletters.

3. Request feedback on current methodologies or systems, even about utilization of competitive products. This will help your product development team determine what features or items are really needed.  (simply invaluable)

4. Encourage your social media guru, marketing director or even your customer support team to post information daily.

5. Add Twitter links on your branded materials and e-mails to encourage following.

Feel free to view my LinkedIn profile at www.linkedin.com/in/yalerieck.

 

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.

 

Power of intelligent cross sellling

When we worked on the e-house hunting project in the midst of the real estate boom, we noticed and realized the power behind intelligent cross-selling.

Building technology that reviews your submissions and makes intelligent decisions upon the next possible item you might be interested is not only good businesses, but couple that intelligence with the “I need it now” sense of the Internet and you have a system that not only sells, but a real-time analytical results system, where minor tweaks and changes and their effect on the conversion is realized immediately.

The genius behind that particular project was its flexibility, so that on any given day, a small change could be made to test the effecitveness or lack thereof upon the system, giving the business owners the information to determine where to continue to put forth their marketing dollars.  Less red-tape, resources on call.

 

E-Mail Marketing – Segmentation

Effective E-Mail Marketing, it’s about Segmentation.

A quick tip, when running e-mail marketing campaigns it is a best practice to segment your lists into different categories of prospects and customers.

The effectiveness of this tactic of sending out messages, specific and relevant to each segment has a unofficial click-through rate 3x higher than a general, “one size fits all” message to all prospects. After all, its mostly common sense, would you want to send the same message to a print broker as you would to a commercial printer?  No, of course not, each operation is completely different.

Tailoring your messages to their intended audience is a huge gain in effectiveness for a small price of time spent thinking and dissecting your lists.

 

Getting Started – Marketing Mistakes

Before you get started with your online endeavor, I like to ask prospects and colleagues and I even ask myself this question from time to time, what are my passions and the passions of my team. I sincerely encourage others to follow their passions and if they can work  and make money following them, even better. Find a job you like, even love and you never work a day in your life.  But I digress…

After being involved in many start-ups and endeavors, I usually consult others to follow the road and avoid these 3 common mistakes.

1. Don’t chase the hot topics or opportunities. They may come and go, instead pursue something you are passionate about. You’ll have many late nights and having a true passion will see you through the difficult times.

2. Listen to your target.  Getting feedback and knowing your target prospects is key to providing products and services to help them and to conduct business.

3. Sales is about relationships.  Attempting to make a sale on a first phone call or client visit is not realistic. Especially, when your products or services are considerable amounts of money. Instead, start the dialogue and again listen to your target prospect’s needs.

Avoiding these 3 common mistakes will increase your chances of success considerably. Have a story to share? Disagree? Feel free to comment.

 

The eHouseHunting.com Project

eHousHunting.com is an intelligent form of of B2B lead generation that inlcudes technology for search engine marketing, effective PPC expenditure and cross-selling.

Yeloweb, Inc. is one of the best known and most reliable online marketers and ecommerce companies. Founded in 2003 we have built our company by providing customized online marketing solutions. We focus primarily on lead-generation and search engine advertising.v

 

Getting Started – Social Media Visibility

Getting started with Social Media – Visibility

Question came up.  How to get started with a corporate vision for building social media awareness? Or better summarized “visibility”.

First, I would like to mention that getting started is sometimes the most difficult aspect of social media.  An overall vision is definitely needed, but I like to mention that the web, and especially social media is meant to be flexible and somewhat, for lack of a better word(s) “friendly” and “informal”.  Using tools and sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook and even Twitter are a great first step.  However, I would like to throw a curve ball at you.  In corporate settings, and especially in instances where a multi-user corporate blog exits, some leadership needs to exist.  This leadership, must state the general “rules of engagement” for and corporate approach for the blog to ensure it meets the objectives and falls in-line with the marketing endeavors put forth.  More on blogs in particular, you want to encourage your colleagues to utilize the technology to create visibility and awareness, but not at the expense of your brand or corporate integrity.  Thus, proceed, with caution.  So, to sumarize, first steps in social media, define your goals, investigate some tools, and start to create or update your profiles on the major players.