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Is there Interactive Marketing Burnout?

Posté par Luis Paez le December 30, 2009 – 10:48 am

dans Digital & Social Media, Direct Mail Marketing, Marketing Strategy

It’s true that direct mail sometimes has a tougher challenge of trackability when compared to the email realm. This is the way it should be – no one should be in my home looking over my shoulder as I open my mail. It’s a question of place, and privacy. Direct mail gives us the time to consider a message before acting upon it or recycling it.

There was a comment on a blog about the trackability challenge of direct mail vs. email – that was not on topic. It didn’t talk about effectiveness metrics, but instead cried out at the emotional appeal of a message sent through the physical mail. Here is an excerpt:

I don’t know about anyone else – but I LIVE on my computer 8-10 hours/day – nearly all of it either in research or in email correspondence. Although only one lady’s experience and therefore hardly a trend…I must say I now look forward to mail delivery (again) and opening traditional envelopes and reading traditional postcards. Beyond the visual impact – it’s tactile and it’s (now) DIFFERENT! I own a business that needs to make decisions on which medium to use, and based on this personal experience, I continue to use at least color postcard mailings in my mix. This is backed up by a duplicate digital mailing to both the same as well as wider audience. – Jane

Are we headed this way as a society? Are we on the cusp of societal online burnout? Having been at technology companies for the last 10 years as a “knowledge worker” in sales, marketing and tech roles, I can say that personally, I love to unplug when I get home. Frequently, I’ll go a few days time without dilligently going through all my email messages – only will scan any emails from friends/family. It’s all about catching up at the dinner table, seeing the family, and talking about the physical real world things that we are going to do that week. It’s at those moments when we talk about any flyers or mail correspondence we got in that day… and that is the moment that marketing departments who focus on exclusively “interactive marketing” are missing out on. They’ll just have to wait another few days until I sit down for an hour and sort through my personal email.

I love digital. I love online. But there’s no replacement for the physical.

Driving Online Conversations

Posté par Eric Cosway le August 26, 2009 – 2:43 pm

dans Integrated Marketing

Eric Cosway talks about various techniques in using personalized direct mail to drive customers to a company’s online presence, including Facebook and Twitter, to engage them in an ongoing dialogue and track the results.

Marry Direct Mail and Online with “Pre-Conversions”

Posté par Robert "Dude" Spellings, Jr. le June 19, 2009 – 3:42 pm

dans Direct Mail Marketing, Direct Response Marketing, Email Marketing

There has been alot of talk about combining online marketing and direct mail, but execution has been more difficult than expected. Combining the two marketing channels has been difficult because of the inherent technology differences in traditional direct mail versus newer and more technological online solutions.

Online marketing is very attractive because it is usually accompanied by really effective measurement tools that can tell you whether or not your campaign is actually working (ie: are people really opening my emails and clicking on the links?). The unrealized desire among marketers has been to figure out a way to capture the same kinds of metrics for direct mail as are available for email and online channels.

This is where the idea of “pre-conversions” comes in. What is a “pre-conversion”? Its just a term that I am using to convey the idea that some recipients of marketing messages might interested in your message but may not actually convert. Traditionally, this interest never has been captured and the potential sales are lost.

Let me explain by example. Lets say you receive a direct mail piece and it happens to be for something that you are very interested in. So you set the direct mail piece aside (because, like everyone, you are busy) and intend to get to it whenever you have time. The next time that you go through the stack on your desk, you see the direct mail piece and decide to call or whatever, but to your disappointment, you see that the offer has already expired, so instead of calling, you toss the postcard in the round file.

In the above example, you clearly had interest, but you didn’t convert. The concept of a “pre-convert” is that you want to capture the interest that recipients have and measure it, even if they don’t convert. To capture this interest, I suggest imposing an intervening step prior to conversion that does capture the recipient’s interest without making the user feel like they are committing to anything. For example, on your direct mail piece, require that the user “activate” the offer by simply going to a PURL. Users are more likely to do something simple like going to a webpage, than they are actually going through an entire purchase/conversion process. Once they “pre-convert” like this, you now know that they are interested and you can be sure to keep them on your radar. Without the pre-conversion step, you have no way of tracking this kind of interest.

This kind of engagement also helps make your direct mail effort better by eliminating some of the main pitfalls people run into with direct mail:

Having an attractive offer – Believe it or not, many people send out direct mail without an attractive offer. Having a pre-conversion step built in to your direct mail piece will help reinforce why you are sending the direct mail campaign in the first place. Why would anyone convert if the offer isn’t very good? Forcing yourself to think about enticing the user to “pre-convert” will help eliminate this pitfall.
Effective Tracking – its very difficult to effectively track direct mail, but using online tools to “pre-convert” customers helps solve this problem and can tell you all kinds of things about your direct mail efforts. You can even combine a/b split testing to refine your artwork, your offer, etc. The pre-conversion will help you create a better campaign.

There are many ways to combine online and traditional direct marketing. This is just one idea. As online marketing matures, there will be more ideas out there. If you have an idea that is working in your industry, please let everyone know by posting a comment or dropping us an email.

Can Sending Direct Mail Boost Website ROI?

Posté par Cynthia Fedor le May 11, 2009 – 2:42 pm

dans Direct Mail Marketing, Integrated Marketing

There are a lot of online advertising, marketing and SEO options available to help build brand awareness and drive traffic to a business’ website. To list a few, there’s the use of email marketing, contextual ad space, social networking sites, blogs, pay-per-click advertising, viral video… well, you get the point. The availability of all these options is great. But, what happens when it starts getting harder to cut through the digital clutter?

Although some may want to fight against it with all their might, direct mail is a great medium for capturing attention and extending a personal touch to your existing customers and prospects – especially when used in conjunction with online media and when the message is personalized and highly relevant.

Consider these statistics regarding direct mail and online website performance:

The results of a 2007 Multi-Channel Direct Mail Study by comScore highlighted that 67% of prospects whom have received direct mail and printed catalogs were persuaded to visit company websites.

According to the DMA, close to 33% of consumers go online to respond to direct mail. This response rate is increased 20 to 30% when PURLs, personalized URL addresses and landing pages, are used.

In a recent article found through DMNews online, “Problem Solver: Is it Smart for an Online Business to Use Direct Mail,” author Dean Rieck outlines several ways businesses can integrate direct mail into their marketing plan.

Take a look at those and let me know why your business is or is not using direct mail to drive traffic to your online site. Share your success stories with me.

Have a great and productive workweek!

The Eyes Have It

Posté par Eric Welch le May 5, 2009 – 6:59 pm

dans Marketing Strategy

Being the visual thinker that I am, it always fascinates me to see any kind of study that involves the eye. Eye tracking is nothing new. The earliest experiments date back as far as the 1800’s, where it was originally used to better understand how people read. These days, it is commonly used in applications ranging from communication systems for the disabled, to analyzing web site usability and the effectiveness of advertising and marketing materials.

Recently, an eyetracking study was conducted by The Poynter Institute (their third study since 1990). Although the focus was on consumer behavior when viewing news web sites, many of the fundamentals apply equally to advertising and marketing web sites, campaigns and related materials:

While testing our participants’ eye movements across several news homepage designs, Eyetrack III researchers noticed a common pattern: The eyes most often fixated first in the upper left of the page, then hovered in that area before going left to right. Only after perusing the top portion of the page for some time did their eyes explore further down the page.

Of course, even though studies like this have yielded a wealth of behavioral data, one should not come away thinking that a few simple tweaks will magically make your website more popular or effective than it is now—The Poynter Institute cautions that eyetracking is “a tool rather than a solution”—but it may give you a better sense of how your web site or campaign materials are likely being perceived and enable you to make smarter decisions about what to change.

Until next time!