I like Target Marketing Magazine’s research summary overviewing the growth factors in SEM, SEO, online advertising (a.k.a., Pay-Per-Click) and Email Marketing which are among the listed 16 online marketing trends.

More than 80% of marketers are using paid search and SEO and plan to expand search into more segments. As consumers search more online, Google’s AdWord inventory continues to grow.  All music to marketers’ ears as you expand your paid search and SEO efforts. 

Online advertising, “performance-based” media buys and integrated email marketing are also slated for substantial growth through 2014.

These four trends are what ICS is all about and what we’ve been preaching for increased sales lift, better Marketing ROI and overall business growth.  Now, direct marketers across the country are finally starting to see these four tenets as "hot trends for 2010" according to Deliver Magazine.   

Targeting — With our advanced analytics, data management tools and direct marketing experience, you can target on a one-to-one level with specific customers and prospects using a tailored offer at the right time in the customer’s preferred channel.  Plus, you can focus your marketing dollars on targeting your most valuable prospects. 

Measurement/Analysis – Data not only gives you the clearest view of your customers for targeted marketing, but collecting and analyzing data is critical in matching-back sales to specific marketing efforts.  Now more than ever, marketers are on the hook to prove that every dollar you spend is growing the business. 

Integration –  Marketers who execute cross channel campaigns experience a 50 – 400% better response rate than singularly focused campaigns.  To learn about integration trends and what leading companies are doing in multichannel integration, view our on-demand webinar:  "Transforming Practices in Integrated Marketing Communications."

Prospecting — I like the quote in this article, "Today, everybody at every stage of life is open to marketing."  However, you can’t have great sales lead generation without well-honed targeting AND channel integration.  Lead generation is where it all comes together… in my opinion, this is where this article misses the 2010 mark BIG TIME.  Plus, online lead generation didn’t even get a mention!   SEO, SEM and paid search (where customers are actively searching your product/service) are only getting hotter in 2010 and beyond.

So, here’s a timely gift to all of my in-house marketing executive friends that will boost your department’s status in your organization.  This article, "Make the C-Suite Believe", from chiefmarketer.com breaks-down the marketing planning process into simple terms that will not only bring cheer to your CFO, but maybe even get the accounting department to sing your praises on growing the company’s business.

For both in-house and agency marketing friends alike, you will find the “test” section of this article most important for any marketing plan or stand-alone program. Here’s to more measurable marketing ROI in 2010!

Whether or not you choose ICS for your next email marketing project, I want to make sure that your investment and reputation are protected. 

So as you’re putting those finishing touches on your 2010 marketing plans, here are few critical points to consider when choosing an email marketing partner.  And while this article focuses on email lists, the same cautionary tips can apply to almost any direct marketing area.

Sometimes the most targeted campaign is still missing something.

By: Adam Henige

While more and more organizations have at least begun to dip their toes into the world of search marketing, some still fail to see how it will fit into a traditional marketing campaign or precisely how it supplements more traditional methods.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have this discussion in-person with a variety of audiences. It’s been well documented how successful email marketing and direct marketing campaigns can be, particularly when built on excellent lists.

Add onto your mail/email marketing with traditional media buys in print/radio/television with highly targeted demographic ads and you’ve really covered your bases, right? Well, from a push marketing perspective, you sure have (and we’re not even getting into newer media like blogs, Twitter, and Facebook). 

But, what about those people whom you just can’t seem to target?

There will always be a group of people who want what you’re selling, but either don’t know they can get it, or don’t know that you provide it. But when they finally decide to look for a solution, how will they find you?

Well, think about it yourself. How do you find things? Conservative studies have shown that from a retail perspective over 42% of people find Web sites by using search engines. More importantly, compared to the other forms of advertising, a Web site provides you with a stationary audience.

The more complex, innovative or differentiated your product is, the more important it is to provide a detailed and immersive Web experience. Companies who get this have integrated their marketing strategies - using traditional media as a vehicle that often supports a strategic Web experience that captures and maintains the interest of potential customers, hopefully for multiple visits.

So while traditional media can certainly be an effective tool to finding your target audience and generating leads and sales, online search helps widen the net.

Especially in this day and age — it’s just not an option to leave money on the table by missing customers who may literally be heading to Google and asking for your product, which is why digital marketing makes more and more sense as a piece of the marketing mix.

Adam Henige is Managing Partner of Netvantage Marketing, a Strategic Partner of ICS located in East Lansing, Michigan.

While email response rates are continuing to be challenged, Triggered Communications are a key component to adding relevancy to the communications.   And just like any form of communications, the more relevant and engaging, the more likely it is that you will get your message not only opened, but responded to.

A new conversation can be triggered from almost any customer touch point:

• External factors – website forms, shopping cart abandonment, customer service, etc.
• Messages – email activity (opens, clicks, unsubscribe, etc.), address change, etc.
• List – subscribe, profile update, and address change
• Link – specific link in email message

Once the “customer or prospect event” is captured, you can set a communications cadence around the key attributes of this event.  These campaigns allow you to communicate with each subscriber individually based on his or her behavior or response.  Because the messages are related to the specific action taken by the recipient, the conversations are natural and progressive, not sporadic and interruptive. 

For example, a prospect clicked on an email to find out more information on your product, but did not take advantage of the offer.  In the case of triggered communications, we can capture all “like prospects” and design communications cadences specific to this marketing situation. 

These automated campaigns can be structured to follow up in a period of time after their initial response, or even so many days before the offer expires.   Content can be specific to the link they clicked, or specific to the fact that they opened the email and didn’t click on a link.  Testing strategies can be easily incorporated into the process as well.

According to Forrester Research’s US Interactive Marketing Forecast 2009-2014, marketers are taking on a more strategic leadership role in organizations because of their close connections to customers and prospects.   Transactional, triggered email communications are on the rise because they improve open, click and conversion rates dramatically.  

This builds off from the marketing foundation that a “handraiser” is one of your most effective prospect segments (from a percentage basis).  Adding relevant and engaging follow-up communications will nuture leads through the sales cycles to drive more sales.  

Give one of our account managers (or myself) a call to discuss triggered communications in more detail.  

2009 Direct Marketing Association's Annual Conference Oct. 17-21

I can’t remember a year where we have had as much change in our marketing world.  With the economy struggling, this alone has had significant impact.  Add onto this the evolution of new digital tools such as Search, Social Media and Mobile and this year’s Direct Marketing Association’s national convention is bound to be interesting. 

Yet my initial day at the conference reinforces much of what I thought.  While  new tools and mediums evolve, much of the foundation for targeted marketing remains the same:

• Test, test, test:   Continues to be the foundation for targeted media.  With today’s powerful analytics, you can set up your testing strategies to optimize your marketing efforts whether it is your direct marketing acquisition effort, search or your web site. 
• Permission-based:  Permission-based marketing comes in the form of many names now (i.e. opt-in, preference centers, social media invitations), but a constant thread has been forming in marketing for over a decade.  Today’s marketers realize that putting the consumer in the driver’s seat of their communications is the key in today’s world.  Now there are just more targeted consumer options to opt-into than ever before.
• Technology Centric:  Technology continues to drive our advances on many fronts.  More user friendly tools to use without tapping the IT department.  Increased abilities to personalize the medium to known customer attributes, easier and lower cost tools to manage all these efforts.
• Integration:  A couple of decades ago, it was integrating targeted marketing with mass media to deliver improved performance.  Today, these integration points are still important, but can be taken much further.  Web site integration, retail point of sale, digital targeted media campaigns are now all thrown into the mix as well. 

My point in all this is that while times are changing, likely 99.9+ percent of what we see at this year’s DMA will be based on the foundation already set.   Should be an interesting time to see how the industry is doing and where the experts see it all going.  From my first day in attendance, what is being touted as “new” looks very familiar.

In our opinion, one of the easiest ways for organizations to address these new complexities is to create a replicated marketing database driven from your enterprise customer data management tools.  Rather than trying to make your enterprise tools something that they are typically not meant to be, creating a replicated marketing database provides the security and fully functioning marketing features for integrated electronic and traditional communications to your customer base. 

While you may be concerned about costs, we find that this approach provides significant advantages:

• Typically costs much less than trying to customize your own enterprise system
• Can be launched much quicker and with less hassle than changes to your own system. 
• Immediately offers more features (i.e. Landing pages for customer email and general updates, customer preference centers, activity reporting, demographically enhanced customer data) that would require even more costs and development time if done internally

Given the growing demands for integrated marketing communications, you are likely looking at this area if you haven’t already set a strategy for your organization.  We recommend that you consider this approach when you do.

Feel free to give us a call to discuss options in this area, or listen to our recent webinar How Changing Communications Trends Drive Integrated Marketing ROI for more concrete Direct Marketing Association facts in this area.  You will also find an overview of ICS’s Integrated Communications Platform (ICP) which may be consideration for your business as well.

But as marketers, that satisfaction is forever elusive when it comes to Web site optimization and making sure you’re being strategic across online and offline mediums.  Why?  Because your job should never be considered “done.” 

At ICS, we’re constantly looking at our Web site optimization AND how our online marketing efforts integrate with our offline efforts… as well as, doing the same for our clients!

Maybe that’s why I thought you would like to see this article on 5 Ways to Get Your Website Up to Speed.  Don’t let the title mislead you.  It’s not just about online marketing, but more about multichannel integration and amending the age-old saying to:  “targeting the right consumer with the right offer at the right time via the right channel.”

If you haven’t done so already, add these action items in this article to your “to-do” list and start reaping the sales benefits.  If you’re not sure how to get started, just drop us a line and we can help. 

http://www.insidedirectmail.com/article/are-you-prepared-moment-your-prospect-whose-interest-piqued-your-mail-piece-visits-your-website-409180_1.html

• How to use online paid search to generate qualified sales leads
• How you can :

                 –         Target geographically
                 –         Control your budget
                 –         Qualify Website traffic
                 –         Pause, resume and edit your campaign anytime

• Tricks for choosing the right keywords, ad text and URLs
• How to track your traffic and ROI
• How to put it all together and ensure success