The Direct Marketing Voice

Tag Archives: Jamie Klemcke

Tips for Women in Business

Posté par Jamie Matusek le March 3, 2009 – 2:45 pm

Today’s post is more focused on women leaders – sorry guys. Nothing to do with direct mail, printing or email marketing today, but my hope is that you can take away a few key points to start practicing in your current role as a woman in leadership.

I was lucky enough to have attended the AWTAustin (Association for Women in Technology) annual Women’s Business Conference last Friday. Yes I am a bit late on my blog update, but you all know how it goes when you are out of the office for an entire day! The conference was titled, “The Power of One, The Power of Many.” Attendees included, teachers, managers, professionals searching for jobs, CEOs, COOs, CMOs, VPs, mothers, friends and mentors.

The two keynote speakers were amazing. Nancy Graves kicked off the event challenging all of us to be better presenters. She talked about how great technology can be, but also how distracting. She outlined tips like how to ensure you keep the focus on you by asking the audience to turn off their cell phones and put them away! Yes even in our office meetings. She also pointed out that PowerPoint slides can take the attention off of you when you need the focus to stay clearly on what you are saying, not showing.

“Take note of how you stand in meetings, where you are looking and watch your voice inflection,” stated Graves. For example, record yourself speaking. If your pitch goes up at the end of your phrases it makes listeners think you are not sure of what you are presenting. It also gives the impression that you may be nervous.

I was most moved by her assignment to the group. She asked us to break up in teams to answer the question, “What brings you to the center of your power or our personal prescription for success?” My small group decided that we felt most powerful and ready for the day when we focused on key practices such as: prayer/meditation, getting plenty of sleep, being prepared for the discussion and by having fellowship with others whether it is crying, laughing or venting.

She also warned that women are guilty of multi-tasking and urged all of us to STOP and focus on the task at hand. Technology can be a killer, as it takes our focus off of the task at hand. Don’t feel like you have to check email every time one comes in, for example. Ignore phone calls when you are in meetings, especially one-to-one meetings, to show dedication and respect.

Graves also stated that women have a problem being authoritative. “You can be sure of yourself and confident in your knowledge and not arrogant,” said Graves. She stated that it is important to see that everyone at the table, whether you like them or not, has something of value to offer. If you can stick to that mantra, it will change your perception. (More information on Margaret Keys seminar agendas.)

I was also blown away by the professionalism and poise demonstrated by the lunch keynote speaker, Marilyn Johnson, Vice President Market Development for IBM Corporation. She recently helped launch the SEM Toolkit, developed to help small to medium-size businesses. It is offered as a free tool to help entrepreneurs establish key business practices.

One of the key topics she discussed included the very debated salary gap between women and men in the workplace. When asked, “Why do you think that is?” Her answer was, “Because typically we women do not ask.” Her mission as a respected woman leader is to review salary reports on her staff frequently to ensure she is doing her part to close the gap. She encouraged all other women leaders in the group to do the same.

She also had a winning response to questions and comments from the crowd. Someone said, “In today’s economy, employees are being told they should just be glad to have a job.” She responded with, “Yes, we are all grateful to have our jobs, but the company hired us to DO a job. They are trusting us to be proficient in what we were hired for and our expectation in return should always be to be paid fairly for our performance.”
One last main point that I captured came from Michelle Cooper from Applied Materials. She said, “Having a fancy title doesn’t make you a leader. You can be an excellent leader in any position.” She went on to share her prescription for success.

L – Lead the way. Don’t ask people to do what you are not willing to do yourself.

E – Engage. Get to know people.

A – Authenticity. Always be real, we can smell a fake.

D – Dignity & Respect. For others and for yourself.

Other key sessions included: Social Media 101, Communication Tools for Powerful Results, Leadership Power, Small Business Power Boosters, Green Power and others.

What is your prescription for success and what do you do each day to show your purpose?

Until next time,
Jamie

Using Color in Your Direct Mail Campaigns

Posté par Jamie Matusek le February 19, 2009 – 1:24 pm

dans Direct Mail Marketing

Do you ever have that feeling of “forgetting something?” Well when it comes to preparing for a direct mail campaign there are core items you don’t want to forget. First of all, make sure you have a clear understanding of who you are targeting. This key element will determine your imagery, copy and offer. Use of bold headlines, short compelling copy, strong imagery that connects with the audience and a clear call to action are all core elements in creating a direct mail piece. But, what about the use of color? Should you use color on both sides of your piece?

In the February 16 DMNews Technique Column titled, Color Your Campaigns to Boost Results, experts weigh in on whether using color in direct mail campaigns boosts results. Our very own CMO, Eric Cosway is featured.

The key takeaways listed are:

Color usage driven by the value in the consumer data that you have collected really works. Give it a test.
Using Web-to-print tools can help manage campaigns and remove valuable hours or days from the cycle time.
Color can effectively increase brand recognition and call out important information.
Use color for branding elements. According to a recent study by the Color Marketing Group, a firm researching how color affects marketing, color can increase brand recognition by up to 80%.
Color can make your marketing efforts stand out from the crowd.

Take a look at the article before you design your next piece and let us know how using color in your direct mail campaigns has worked for you.

Five Steps to Marketing In a Recession

Posté par Jamie Matusek le February 12, 2009 – 2:53 pm

dans Marketing Strategy

As an add-on to my blog post, Marketing Methods for Trying Times, I thought I would go a step further and share the top five steps to marketing yourself in a recession. The tips were outlined in a feature article titled Four Steps to Marketing Smarter (and for Less) in Today’s Economy on the MarketingProfs website — I added a fifth. (You have to have a membership with MarketingProfs.com, but I’ll share pieces from this article in case you aren’t a member.)

The tips are structured for larger businesses that have a focus on marketing, but you small business owners can always adjust the tips to fit in with your business needs.

Step 1: Get Back To Basics
The author, Kimberly Smith, outlines that now is the time to take that proverbial company-wide deep breath. Really look at what got you to this point, what drove you to be successful in the past and how you can evolve those strategies to work in the changing economy.

Tim Berry, president of Eugene, OR-based Palo Alto Software states, “These downturns are good for spurring us to step back away from the business and take that fresh look; it’s like an artist squinting to see the landscape differently.”

When is the last time you got together with your executive staff and marketing team to go through a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis? It is vital that you understand the answers to questions like:

What makes your company unique?
What challenges can be transitioned into opportunities?
Where do you make the most profit?
Where are your resources being spent?
What is your most profitable customer segment?
What are the emerging trends in your space?
How can you change or update your value proposition to address these trends?

Step 2: Let The Data Be Your Light
This is something near and dear to my own heart. If we are not tracking direct mail promotions and campaigns, email advertising response, print advertising response, landing page results, website statistics and reviewing customer purchasing patterns, then we all have to concede to the fact that we are behind the curve. Yes this will take hard work, but I’ve seen case study after case study that clearly indicates that this is a necessary use of time and resources especially in a down economy. Using your customer data to serve up relevant offers, implement cross selling opportunities and create customer loyalty is a mandatory marketing effort in my opinion.

“And as we begin the process of determining what to keep and what to cut from the old ‘game plan,’ it is important to realize that this is not the time for guessing or playing favorites with campaigns of sentimental value. It’s time to put our trust in cold, hard data–for real this time,” Smith commented.

There are multiple resources on what to do with your customer data. I’ve provided just a few links that may get you thinking: Using Your Data to Know Your Customers and Best Buy, Other Retailers Tap Tech to Boost Sales

Step 3: Take The High Road
Smith states that now it is even more important for companies to focus on best practices, not gimmicks. She goes on to say that companies have to be honest, upfront, smart and innovative showing customers that you can be trusted.

I’ll give you an example: We (QuantumDigital) are putting more focus on educational webinar sessions for how to use direct marketing in specific industries that we service, like real estate. Our customers are telling us that by giving them more educational material to put in the hands of office managers, real estate brokers, franchisees and dealers is more useful and appreciated than a one-time offer that won’t prove any long term value or truly affect the growth of their business.

We are also focusing on showing customers how they can use other channels to market their products/services more economically. So understanding the value of targeted direct mail vs. other media as an example.

According to a recent survey conducted by BtoB Magazine, “2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans“(PDF link), almost 50% of marketers will increase spending on targeted direct mail and email marketing with the intended purpose of acquiring more leads, followed by brand awareness and customer retention. Also, were you aware that 81% of households will read or scan direct mail? Search out articles, surveys and tip sheets in your space as the stats will show you where to focus your time.

We are also looking to highlight the use of social platforms to increase prospecting efforts in different segments.

So look at your current promotions – are they innovative and trustworthy or just another gimmick?

Step 4: Go Social
Don’t ignore this new marketing channel. We can now go directly to prospects via social platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and many others. If you are having to cut PR initiatives, look for other ways to get into the marketplace. Understand how to use these networking tools and have someone on your marketing team or in your office dedicated to keeping them updated with fresh material. If you don’t have much time, don’t try to join everything you hear about, just focus on joining one social network that makes sense for your market segment and be consistent.

Step 5: Consistency
I decided to add in my own step. Consistency in marketing is key. If your budgets are being cut, pick one or two activities that you know work. If you are using direct mail campaigns to target prospects, plus running a radio ad, one TV spot, several email blasts per month, passing out flyers or door hangers, attending trade shows, etc etc… STOP! Look at these activities, which ones are going to keep you in front the your “perfect prospects” more consistently? In my opinion, TARGETED direct mail, where you can easily select demographic filters for prospecting, and email newsletters, for current customer promotions and education, are two of the basics.

Let me know what you think – what marketing mix is working for your industry?

Creating Relevant Marketing Promotions Built for Profit

Posté par Jamie Matusek le January 22, 2009 – 4:52 pm

dans Marketing Strategy

I am sure you have tested offers, retested, A/B tested, retested, hit your entire customer base, implemented ad buys touting your excellent offers, reviewed competitor direct mail, print and email promotions – (oh maybe that last one is just me) only to say, “well that didn’t work.”

So the question in my mind today is how do you structure a promotional program that is both relevant to your target audience, yet profitable? Good question. Here is where I throw up the CAUTION sign.

In my opinion, having data at your fingertips is the answer. Don’t get into a debate with your executive staff or peers about what works or doesn’t unless you have tested it and the data is telling you something. My team’s golden rule is as follows: “Don’t put an offer out until you have outlined how you are going to track its success or failure.” You learn a great deal of information from both. This takes work and a lot of it. I am lucky enough to have an employee dedicated to running everything from usage rates to the gross profit margin. But even at a minimum, review your results to determine how many people used the offer, what they ordered, how much they ordered and, here is the biggie… drum roll…..did you show an uptake in business from said offer(s).

This year, when structuring your promotional strategy, consider these three words: relevancy, relevancy, relevancy. So, when someone comes to you to present an idea for a new offer, ask yourself the following: “Why would the recipient care; how does it benefit them; how easy is it for them to get to the place to cash in?” These elements should be considered when designing direct mail and email creative. That’s a great topic we’ll have to cover in future posts.

Let’s focus on the first step. My question to you is, “How are you rewarding current customers?” Remember my blog post titled, “Marketing Tips for 2009?” I highlighted a short excerpt from an article featured on eMarketer titled, “US Social Network Ad Spending Growth Lowered.” The excerpt included this statement:

“In a difficult economy it is usually easier to market to an existing customer than to acquire a new one.”

- eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson

What a strong statement for all of us. We can’t put offers on the table to hit our entire customer and prospect pool and expect those promos to have relevance to the entire group. Instead, take a look at your current customers, the entire set.

You remember, I have this really intelligent guy, Luis Paez, on my team. He’s one of our bloggers as well. He ran across some interesting articles on this very topic. One is featured on the Target Marketing Web site titled, “Practical CRM.” Go to page 2 of the article and review the steps highlighted under the sub-head, “Tools for Customer Value Analysis.”

Another valuable set of information he provided to me included looking at the RFM (Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value) of your customer base outlined in this article, “How to Create a Best Customer Profile.”

RFM analysis works because:

1. Customers who have purchased recently are more likely to buy again versus customers who have not purchased in a while
2. Customers who purchase frequently are more likely to buy again versus customers who have made just one or two purchases
3. Customers who have spent the most money in total were more likely to buy again. The most valuable customers tend to continue to become even more valuable over time.

I know what you are thinking, and yes it is a lot to take in for any marketer, but I am beginning to see the true value in taking time to evaluate an approach…no the RELEVANT approach.

Until next week,

Jamie

The Direct Marketing Voice Links: 1-09-2009

Posté par admin le January 9, 2009 – 9:54 am

dans News & Trends

The Direct Marketing Voice: Marketing Tips for 2009

…businesses will begin reallocating their budgets away from expensive endeavors like TV and radio and putting the focus back on direct marketing efforts that are more targeted and more easily tracked.

ClickZ: Commit to Email this Year

If we are able to commit to anything within the marketing world these days, it must be the mandate to migrate our marketing and communications programs into the interactive arena. If there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind that e-mail messaging will be the primary channel of 2009, methinks you must have the worst of all holiday hangovers.

BtoB Magazine: Better E-mail Marketing in an Hour a Day

While you might not have the resolve to spend an hour a day on your abs, Jeanniey Mullen, founder of the Email Experience Council, has written a book ( with co-author David Daniels) that can help you improve your e-mail marketing efforts in the same period of time—“Email Marketing: An Hour a Day” (Sybex Language, 2008).

BusinessStrata: Tactical Marketing ‘to be a Major Issue for Firms over the Next Year’

New research has suggested that tactical direct marketing could be key for many businesses over the next 12 months… The study by intelligence firm IDC found that such strategies will command some of the largest program allocations from many technology firms before 2010.