insights.
Jan 18th
Discovering new ways to reach and engage audiences with email will be a key challenge for direct marketers during 2011.
Theoretically, a marketing department should be constantly testing, reviewing their budget, and moving money to the best performing initiatives. Unlike other forms of media, which can prove influence, but are challenged to prove profitability, direct marketing has an advantage in that it can produce exact ROIs.
In my own marketing practice, I find myself continually striving to get more and more from email. I add new campaigns, improve existing ones, add triggers, automation and work flows and I do positively move the needle, but I can’t seem to get a really big impact. Why? A story in numbers proves it out:
It’s pretty easy to see why 65% of marketers indicate they will be spending more on email in 2011. (4) Email marketing produces a phenomenal ROI. The problem is that improvements in targeting and timing don’t solve the problems of “reach” and “engagement.”
Email investments should be maximized until you run out of reach. How do you know when you have “reach” and “engagement” issues with current customers and prospects?
Now, what do you do? You test a new approach to improve the reach and engagement with your target audience. For large audiences, that can be social media, online advertising, print, television, or radio. For targeted audiences, direct mail is a highly viable option. Although email returns $43 for every dollar invested and direct mail looks small in comparison at just $11 for every dollar invested, I bet most CFO’s will take $11 for every $1 invested all the time. Furthermore, direct mail can be automated to behave in the same way as triggered email, so there is no need to pull lists manually of opt-outs, hard bounces or the unengaged.
Finally, you may ask, “So why would I send them a direct mail piece?” Allow me to connect the dots:
Testing new ways to expand the reach and engagement of email marketing will be the biggest challenge for direct and online marketers in 2011. Want more information? Here’s a great article from B2B Magazine: “Using email to boost customer engagement.”
(1) Direct Marketing Association 2009
(2) Email Experience Council
(3) Forrester/ExactTarget, 2009
(4) StrongMail 2011 Marketing Trends Survey
Jan 6th
Marketing operations process engineering should be initiated out of marketing.
Throughout the past year, I have attended or presented at a variety of conferences such as the Marketing Profs B2B Marketing Conference, the Integrated Marketing Summit, the DMA’s National Center for Database Marketing conference, and various industry specific events. I can say that I am continually impressed by the content and quality of these events. There is just nothing like taking the time to focus on improving your personal skills and techniques, sharing ideas with your peers, and learning from others.
There was one topic noticeably lacking at all of these events. With the economy still on a flat trend, marketers are still not talking about how to improve the operational aspects of direct marketing. I know, that coming up with the next big idea is how marketers are wired, and typically how they are incentivized and rewarded. But, this is the perfect time to help your company (and get kudos to boot!) by focusing on marketing process efficiency.
Decreasing the length of time it takes to accomplish something saves time. We only get 24 hours in a day and can’t make more. So when marketers figure out how to cut an hour out of a routine marketing execution, what do you do with the time? Hmmm… maybe come up with the next big idea. The problem is that many creative marketing folks have difficulty thinking in straight lines. By their very nature, they think differently from everyone else in the organization. So no one in your department is good with streamlining processes? It’s probably time to get some help either within your organization or with the help of a business process consultant.
Yes marketers, it is possible to love purchasing, supply chain and sourcing personnel. And if you can’t quite get to love, maybe you can get to respect. Often, these individuals have some of the best general business sense you’ll find. Although they are focused on reducing cost and finding the best price available, it is short-sighted to think that they are not focused on value. My experience is that they will listen and participate in helping you find a solution that saves both time and money, and delivers the quality you need to fulfill the image of your brand.
If you are not good at developing process, bringing in a partner or business process consultant is certainly a valid option. But, I am a firm believer that just like all self-improvement programs, you should first start by taking a hard look at yourself. The first step in the engineering design process is to identify where marketing operations can be improved. Challenge yourself with these questions and make a list of areas for improvement:
By completing a self-assessment, you’ll identify your marketing process hiccups and what you could be doing if those hiccups were streamlined or eliminated. From there you can decide if you can tackle the improvements yourself, call in strategic sourcing or consult with a partner outside of the company.
50% of marketers surveyed by the CMO Council say that eliminating waste and obsolescence in their supply chain operation is not a key priority to the overall marketing operational function.
Source: Mapping + Tracking: The Optimized Marketing Supply Chain, CMO Council
I do see more people with titles that include the terms marketing and operations, but more often than not, marketers look outside of their department to operations or strategic sourcing to handle improvements in efficiency. Isn’t it better if it starts with the marketers themselves?
Dec 15th
Auto-triggers allow marketing and sales to turn routine, manual touch points into automated, highly-effective communications.
From a simple email auto-responder that thanks web visitors for downloading a whitepaper, to a multi-touch, multi-channel campaign initiated by a customer behavior, organizations are discovering the benefits of auto-triggered marketing and sales communications. Here’s why:
So you’re ready to institute auto-triggered communications into your sales and marketing processes. But which of your existing manual touch points should be replaced, what additional automated communications do you need, what mediums should be used, and how quickly should each response follow the action?
If you want more information about automating your sales or marketing communications, add a comment to this post, or give Mail Print a call at 800.660.0108.
Nov 16th
In most B2B marketing environments, one of marketing’s main responsibilities is to create conversations and support the sales process. Using marketing technology to automate the process to build customer relationships requires six key elements to be in place and working together. Because these strategies are synergistic, one missing piece impacts the effectiveness of the other parts.
B2B sales are most often won in hand-to-hand combat.
People buy from people, not from CRM systems, automated marketing platforms, or dare I say, a marketing piece. At the heart of any business transaction are real, live people. Marketing automation utilizes technology to communicate personally with prospects and customers to put them back where they belong: at the heart of business. CRM systems on their own are just fancy data collection devices. But enhanced with the right marketing automation solution, CRM platforms can help foster the connections required to earn the business of prospects and customers, while making sales and marketing more efficient.
Aug 10th
Map out the buying process and help prospects and customers navigate their way to a buying decision.
Today’s decision makers have changed. They scrutinize buying options more carefully. Their expectations are higher across the board. They want to understand the opportunity costs of making a purchasing decision; or rather, the value of the alternatives that he or she is giving up to choose your company.
Undoubtedly, your prospects control the buying process.
To help decision makers navigate successfully through the buying decision process, imagine your team of sales and marketing professionals as city planners or heads of transportation. It is their task to build the onramps, highways and traffic lights that will keep your prospects moving to the destination: a buying decision.
As heads of transportation, your sales and marketing will need to define the key communication points needed along this educational and relationship-building process.
Multi-channel marketing campaigns are perfect for complimenting sales interactions with automatic mail and email communications. But be careful. Not every interaction with the buyer or customer is about closing a new deal; it’s about delivering relevant information at the right time to the right individual. If you add irrelevant messages or touches, congestion ensues and the buyer goes elsewhere to obtain the information they need.
Decision makers want more information. We’re not just talking about an extended list of features and benefits. We’re talking about empowerment through education, fact finding, and knowledge acquisition.
Companies are currently grappling for pole position as the trusted advisor, a role now paramount to success for not only new business, but for up-selling and cross-selling existing clients as well. The question for you is whether your company will be the source of this information, or will your prospects go elsewhere to satisfy their curiosity?
Jul 27th
According to new research by Aberdeen Group, Print On-Demand (also called POD, web-to-print or print automation) provides a dramatic improvement in customer retention and ROMI (Return on Marketing Investments). As an underwriter of Aberdeen’s research, we’re pleased to provide exclusive access to their findings.
From research by Aberdeen Group: Users of Print On-Demand achieved a 42% higher customer retention rate than non-users.
Among their findings was a correlation between companies that use a Print On-Demand solution and a dramatic improvement in customer retention. In an economy where every customer counts, a 42% higher customer retention rate among Print On-Demand users is more than noteworthy. But what’s the correlation? How does POD impact on customer retention so significantly?
Follow this link to download a free report including additional findings from Aberdeen: Print On-Demand: Driving Efficiency and Revenue Growth with Organizational Print Portals.
Many times when a company moves to a Print On-Demand or web-to-print solution, another significant shift happens. They move from static off-set printing to digital printing. Several years ago many marketing professionals questioned the quality of digital print. Today, to the naked eye, it is practically impossible to tell the difference between commercial off-set printing and digital.
Using advanced digital printing and marketing automation technology, the delivery of printed materials becomes as easy as sending personalized, triggered email. In fact, the use of both mail and email together becomes fast, efficient and very impactful.
Many companies have found it helpful to integrate their Marketing Asset Management solution with email and automated print deployment, making the creation and execution processes streamlined and efficient. In fact, in addition to improved customer retention, many companies save hundreds of thousands of dollars by moving to an integrated POD system. (See case studies at www.mailprint.com)
Thanks to the Aberdeen Group for investing in the research that quantifies what was previously suspected: POD improves customer retention and bolsters ROMI by putting a serious dent in marketing execution costs.
Jul 13th
An effective catalog has been proven to increase sales, both online and offline, by countless sources. Throw in variable data, variable imagery, on-demand printing and image generation, and an easy ordering interface, and you have a sales and marketing dream come true.
Jason Kort, Director of Marketing for Redemption Plus
I recently had the chance to talk with Jason Kort, Director of Marketing for Redemption Plus, a leading distributor of incentive and redemption merchandise. You may know them as the inventor of the “World’s Largest Whoopie Cushion.” Redemption Plus is no doubt a very fun business focused on delivering all the wonderful toys, games and prizes used by family entertainment and educational franchises nationwide.
Jason recently led the implementation of print automation and variable data technology that is improving the catalog that is essential to their business. Here’s a portion of that interview:
JK: There were really three areas that were driving me crazy:
JK: Variable data and print automation were new to us, so figuring out exactly what we needed and what we wanted to do was the biggest challenge.
JK: This is really like an IT project. Make sure you thoroughly define what you need and scope it out like an IT project.
JK: I’d love to narrow it to one, but I can only get to three:
Easy and relevant are the words that come to mind when describing this new tool Redemption Plus has created. Kudos to Jason and his team! To read more about Redemption Plus and their dream-come-true print-on-demand catalog, read the case study.
Here are some visuals of the new and improved Redemption Plus catalog.
Click on the thumbnail images to view larger, with variable information circled.
On the catalog cover, customer information and the date are personalized.
Inside the catalog, products are customized based on current items in the database. Pricing is specific to the end-users’ mark-up requirements.
Sales rep information and photograph is automatically included.
Jun 7th
Providing too many options in a marketing asset management solution may create a decision process that is too intense and complicated.
Years ago, Columbia professor, Sheena Ivengar ran an interesting consumer test. She set up a “free samples” table in a super market and proceeded to test the difference between sampling 6 jellies Vs. sampling 24 jellies. The net result: when 6 jellies were presented, 40% of the shoppers stopped to sample, and 30% bought jelly. While 60% of the shoppers stopped to sample from the 24 choices and only 3% actually bought jelly.
So we like the shopping experience, but struggle to make a decision when faced with too many options. I buy that.
Users of marketing asset management systems are frequently distributed sales forces, marketing departments, franchises, retailers or local stores. They use these systems to download logos and ads, and create brand-controlled, yet customizable marketing materials.
Having many options creates a great “shopping” experience and initial usage, but if too many customization options are given, over time the users may become stressed by the system. This results in fewer ads being downloaded, fewer email and direct mail campaigns being initiated, and ultimately a decrease in the amount of marketing done by your users or locations. Even worse, they may instead go outside the approved system and create materials that are not within branding standards. All this can happen simply because designing or creating the marketing materials is a taxing decision process.
When this logic is applied to companies who utilize an online ordering application for marketing asset management and marketing automation, a hypothesis begins to form:
When it is important that users repeatedly use an asset management system, having too many options decreases the frequency with which they use the system.
At this moment I have no facts to prove this hypothesis, but it is something I have witnessed for the past six years working with our communications portal. I am not hopeful that I can convince a client to perform a test and actually share the results as this is not a measurement that marketing departments are interested in proving out. So for now, we just have to be wise marketers and consider the decision process of the user when establishing how many “jellies”, asset or options are the right amount for an online marketing asset management system. And by all means, if usage of your asset management system is declining, consider testing the number of assets and options you provide your users. You may find that less is more.
May 6th
Staying in contact with your prospects and customers is key for building and maintaining revenue. However, it can also be an ongoing challenge and resource-draw for your sales and marketing teams. Check out the video below (or here) to learn how businesses are using Mail Print’s multi-channel marketing automation system to transform their lead nurturing and customer retention into automated, repeatable processes.
Apr 20th
Duplicate prospect and customer data is a nightmare for IT and Database Marketing departments, but a requirement for some direct marketing systems. The solution? Integrated systems that use live data feeds.
There is no doubt that an enterprise data warehouse has helped countless organizations consolidate their information into one central database allowing for better analysis and use of the data. This has certainly been the case for improving targeting and segmenting of direct marketing efforts. It has also been a boon to being able to use varying messaging, imagery, offers, and even formats to improve relevancy to the targeted audiences.
Increased availability of data has lead to the usage of 10s, 100s or 1000s of variables within an individual campaign. It has also lead to a new level of complexity for automating a successful ongoing campaign that uses these variables.
Good direct marketing service providers, whether it be print, email, text messaging or direct mail, can work magic with the data… after all the data is brought into their system via a data pipe or XML stream. This often causes IT departments and data analysts to cry “Foul! You just created redundant data from what was supposed to be a single data warehouse.”
So what’s the next step in email and print automation to make sure that redundant data sources are not created? Creating a live feed that continually calls to and from your data warehouse.
We have a client who utilizes a proprietary segmentation model, as well as geographic overlays, and purchase history to determine the targeting of direct mail and email campaigns. After combining this with localized ordering, they have a wonderfully targeted, relevant communications strategy that works like magic. And best of all, their data and segmentation resides with them.
Building a continual data retrieval system is not the easiest way to feed data for automated marketing communications, but is the best way to maintain the integrity of your data warehouse.