Don’t let this happen to you.  Read this article and don’t hesitate to call me if you need help in pulling it all together.

One or all of these 5 tips may help you get out of a rut in your direct mail design, packaging and copywriting. 

Just remember:  Without relevency and getting the recipient to “stop and see what’s in it for me,” your awesome layout, packaging and copywriting might just be perfuming a pig.

Check-out these 5 pitfalls to help you to…

• drive qualified prospects to your site
• improve click-through rates
• be more strategic about your bidding
• lower your costs-per-click

We’ll show you how easy it is to set-up behaviorally triggered email messages that deliver the right message to the right subscriber at the exact moment he or she is most engaged and likely to respond using Listrak’s automated event triggered messaging solution.

You will learn how to:

- Add a powerful, automated email responder system to your integrated marketing mix

- Trigger specific email responses according to your customer’s behaviors or targeted events

- Have one-on-one conversations with each of your customers and prospects

- Increase your email’s relevancy, open rates and your sales

Participation in this webinar is free, but space is limited. So, reserve your seat today.

While we’re putting the finishing touches on our webinar, here are five tips from Target Marketing Magazine for Triggered Communications success.

• Thoughtfully defining your triggers – this is the heart of your program
• Prepare your sales team to handle these leads – without making customers feel like “they’re being stalked.”  You want to your customer to be loyal to your brand and feel, “Hey, this company really gets me and understands my needs.”  That’s a big difference from a creepy, “I’m-being-watched feeling!”
• Put contact frequency in your process so you don’t bug your best customer and burn-out your sales team
• Continually improve your triggered-based program using feedback from your best sales people

I’m excited about what Triggered Communications can do to grow our clients’ businesses and I’m looking forward to meeting you online on April 15 for the Webinar!  I hope you can join us!

• 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                

It struck me that the author overlooked some important points to keep in mind when setting-up a profitable paid search budget.

In many cases – including ICS’s – the company has a diverse product / service mix.  So when thinking about what to spend on key paid search terms, don’t just look at the price tag of the search term and the profit margin of the product / service you’re marketing.  Consider search terms that may provide cross-over sales opportunities as well.

Also, ask yourself if you’re using the best possible search term that would provide the highest quality sales leads at the best price… and if you can get some cross-over marketing into other areas of your products and services, then even better.

Chances are there are some lesser cost (and higher sales value) alternatives to that high price search term that could blow your budget’s profitability.

And don’t forget to keep a close eye on your paid search program.  Don’t just set it and forget it.

The great thing is… if your initial keyword selection isn’t giving you the results you thought it would, then you can always adjust your program immediately based on what your response data is telling you.

http://www.dmnews.com/Set-your-search-budget-to-be-based-on-its-profitability/article/139312/

“Consumers encouraged by promising economic signs headed back to dealer showrooms last month, but sales sputtered in late June as prospective buyers waited for the government to introduce its cash-for-clunkers incentives.”

 This was a timely article for me as we were just putting the finishing touches on ICS AutoNet’s new data card for our “Cash for Clunkers” prospect list. 

 Obviously, it’s in the best interest of these consumers who qualify for this program to wait for the “clunker cash.”  As soon as this program starts, they’ll be ready to purchase. 

 So, hopefully auto marketers and dealers realize that the time to connect with these consumers is right now. 

Through ICS AutoNet’s self-reported data, our “Cash for Clunkers” list allows dealers access to auto ownership and leasing information that State DMVs can no longer provide.  Plus, we specifically designed this file to target consumers who may qualify for the government program.    We can connect dealers to owners of vehicles with targeted makes, models and vehicle years from 2002 and earlier within a specified radius of the dealership. 

 Our list is derived from a comprehensive master file compiled from multiple Shelby-compliant sources and offers more than 100 million records.  Each month, a million fresh records are added to the data file – making it an effective marketing tool for one-time promotions or ongoing campaigns. 

 ICS AutoNet’s Self-reported data file has been successfully applied in automotive marketing, consumer marketing and service-related programs. Following is an overview of available selects:

• Make and Model
• Vehicle Year 2002 and before
• Odometer
• Postal and telephone;  Email available upon request.
• Owner demographics and lifestyle (age, income and geography)

 List pricing starts at $115 / M. Please note that we include make, model, vehicle year and geography at no extra charge.  A complete data card is available for more information.

Possibly you have heard the statistic:  “An iProspect’s 2007 study ‘Offline influence on Online Search Behavior Study’ found that 67% of online users were driven to perform a search as a result of an offline marketing message … And 39% of those offline-influenced searchers ultimately made a purchase.

These statistics make a lot of sense to me, but the sad point of the article was that nearly half (45%) of search engine marketers still do not integrate their online and offline efforts. All kinds of reasons came up as to why.  The top reasons were:

• They don’t advertise in offline channels
• Lack the budget
• Lack the resources
• Don’t know better
• Have separate people managing offline efforts … and they are not synchronized with online
• Just don’t see the benefit of integration

In my opinion, a big part of the issue is that while online marketers understand their medium, they really don’t understand the overall disciplines that drive marketing and consumer behavior.   With the online mediums growing so quickly, many have jumped in without fully understanding how to optimize the overall marketing dollars spent.

It not necessarily big things that involve huge investments.  Look at some of these stats:

• 76% of offline offers could not be acted upon online
• 74% of offline keywords were not used online
• 66% did not use the same images and videos offline as online
• 60% did not include their company slogan / tagline  or even their product or service name prominently online

I am sure the economic challenges of 2009 will force some reevaluation in this area.   From my perspective, this is some pretty basic “marketing blocking and tackling”.  While I am happy that we are addressing these key issues with our clients, more education and awareness is needed to connect the best practice results and disciplines with the average company’s marketing efforts.

Well, my informal poll is really inconclusive.  Some still use Yellow Pages, some exclusively use the Internet and some use a mix of both depending on what their need is.   I searched the Internet for some more statistical backing in this area.  The reports I found were a little dated and one can only believe that today’s stats would point to an even greater share of consumers using the Internet:

•  –In June 2007, comScore Networks reported that 60% of local consumers now go online to search for local businesses, as opposed to 33% that go first to the printed Yellow Pages.
• –Almost 40% of local shoppers say that a presence on the Internet – or lack of presence – will affect their decision about who they do business with. [Source: Web.com, 2007]
• Nearly 137 billion searches were conducted at the five U.S. core search engines in 2008, representing an increase of
  21 % versus the previous year.  [Source: comScore Networks,  2009]
• Search query growth was driven largely by an increase in searches per searcher, which rose 16% from the previous year, while number of unique searchers grew 6% .   [Source: comScore Networks,  2009]
• Google Sites, which generated nearly 85 billion searches in 2008, accounted for nearly 90 percent of the total growth in
  search query volume during the year.  [Source: comScore Networks,  2009]

Clearly, every business needs to think through how they establish their electronic presence … as it is an increasing part of every company’s marketing efforts.