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!

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                

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/

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.

They were leveraging enticing promotional sweepstakes as a way to drive email activation from customers who had not previously provided email addresses.  Clearly, they understand the communications savings of the email channel and current customer marketing trends in this area.   Take a look below, according to a recent industry channel preference white paper, over 70% of consumers would prefer the email channel for communications from companies they have granted permission to send ongoing communications:

Customer preferences are continuing to evolve … becoming more understanding when email communications is the most effective for their lives.  Clearly, marketers understand the cost efficiencies and speed of the communications.

For marketers, the use of a well designed sweepstakes can be a great way to increase your customer email coverage … ultimately allowing you to lower your customer communications costs and speed to market.