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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

The focus of today’s message is using Legacy In Market Shopper data in the Automotive Space.  Typically, Automobile Manufacturers use the freshest data coming from sources like CarsDirect and Autobytel when prospecting for automotive sales.  This makes sense, as they are likely to still be shopping for a vehicle … and influencing the prospect to consider your brand is a proven email and direct marketing strategy. 

Through the past few years, we have developed an enhanced legacy database for automotive prospecting.  While this might not make sense to you at first, our experience with the data has proven it to be a source of significant power for automotive prospecting:

• First, In-Market Shopper data represents a massive pool of people that historically shop for new cars.  As we know in this space from our years of registration data experience, historic new car shoppers are most likely still new car buyers.  That factor by itself is powerful.
• Second, Brand History is a very important indicator of future buying preferences.  If you have a history of considering Mazda (for example), you are very likely to consider the brand for future new car considerations.  
• Finally, with Enhanced Data, we can utilize shopping history and clustering products such as Mosaic or Personicx to analyze and identify those top clusters of the brand competitive set of the product you are focusing on.   A fairly straight forward approach that has proven to yield excellent results.

While legacy In-Market Shopping data by itself is considered weak, we can use our experience and data enhancement capabilities to turn this data into very productive contributors to your email and direct marketing initiative.   While you can take my word for it, I encourage you to consider testing these approaches in your next email or direct marketing intiative. 

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

“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.

While I am sure the economic climate is an element here (isn’t it the blame for everything these days?), I think the “trends toward the use of electronic mail” are an even greater longer-term issue for the USPS.  And as they are forced to raise prices, it will not make matters any better.

Clearly, companies are having to look at every dollar these days.  Utilizing the most customer-effective and cost-effective communications is certainly an area that nearly all companies are reviewing.   And as most things go, technology continues to bring new solutions to the table that enable the small- to mid-sized companies to do what only the larger companies could do in years past.

What do you look for if you are one of those companies evaluating your customer communications?  

• Likely you will want a partner to help navigate the increasing complex data management issues that come with multi-channel marketing integration
• The organization should also have deep expertise across traditional and digital channels (both technical and strategic)

We see the continuation of these trends (lower mail volumes, stronger use of electronic communcations) for the forseeable future.  And yes, a continuation of the increases from USPS.