insights.
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.
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.
Apr 8th
Searching for the right words to describe the marketing automation, management, or execution systems you're looking for? Maybe we can help.
Marketing Asset Management. Print Automation. Marketing Automation. Communications Portals. Distributed Marketing. Web-To-Print. Confused yet?
Wouldn’t it be nice if everything fit in a nice, neat package that is easy to understand and explain? In the world of marketing communications management, many people would think the above terms all mean the same thing. I actually think they don’t. I think there are so many terms because each means something a little different:
Focuses on creating an online library of digital marketing assets such as logos, templates, stock photography, videos and radio ads for use by centralized marketing staff or a network of remote users.
A term coined to define organizations that have many local markets that are marketed to differently, whether marketing strategy and execution is controlled by a central marketing department or the local stores and locations.
The ability to order printed materials through an online printing management system. Typically, this reduces a company’s inventory waste and improves the customization available on the printed pieces.
A central repository for ordering and downloading all types of marketing communications and assets, including email, logos, direct mail, radio commercials, fliers, buck slips, etc. Marketing Communications Portals are very useful for distributed marketing organizations.
Eliminates human intervention in creating printed pieces. This could be obtained via a web-to-print application or communications portal that also employs print automation, or could be a standalone system that creates printed pieces automatically based upon data streams and live data feeds.
The process of triggering marketing communications to a specific individual or audience segment without human intervention. This differs from print automation in that the automated marketing campaigns could include email, direct mail and other channels, by themselves or combined.
I’m sure there are many more terms and buzz words that I haven’t noted here. Just like any rapidly advancing technology solution, new terms are created every day. The most important thing to understand is what you really need in a solution, regardless of what it is called.
Feb 15th
Loving reduced inventory costs: On-demand printing systems allow you to quickly and easily manage printed products and mailings via an online interface.
In industries where physical products are sold, a number that is critically analyzed is inventory turnover. Without going into a long calculation, this number illustrates the company’s good or poor management of inventory. It can highlight that too much inventory is in stock, causing high carrying costs and poor use of cash, or it can show that too little inventory is being held, causing shortages and lost revenue.
Recently while attending a client review meeting, I witnessed how this client applies inventory turnover to using an on-demand printing platform. Being a numbers person myself, I was immediately intrigued. (Just so you know, an “on-demand printing,” “web-to-print” or “marketing communications portal” solution basically allows easy, speedy, online ordering of printed products like stationery, forms, labels, envelopes, postcards, business cards, etc. For more info you can see a demo of our solution.
Not to mention the thousands of dollars they are saving by streamlined invoicing and ordering processes. They are “virtually” in love with on-demand printing. Yes, they pay a little more per printed piece, but probably not as much as you think. And yes, they know exactly what they are saving using this solution, although they weren’t willing to share the numbers with me. Hmmm… I wonder if I’m not charging them enough?