If you’re supplementing your existing donor database by also buying an outside list, know that there are two types of lists (1) compiled lists and (2) response lists. A compiled list is a database of names and records that have been compiled through public records such as vehicle owner registrations or mortgage loan applications. These...
Mark McGuinness of Lateral Action guest posted a terrific blog at Copyblogger: Are You a Marketing Artist or Scientist? In it he describes two distinct tribes that most marketers fall into (1) the right-brain types that like to create and find inspiration in coffee shops journaling and brainstorming about their next blog, podcast, video or creation or...
When a Dallas-based advertising agency, VLG, needed to engage prospects, it opted to show off its interactive technology through a sitelet or mini-site. The sitelet used a mock company called Crescent Bluffs to demonstrate the amount of time VLG could engage the prospect in the demo. I was engaged for 1 minute 41 seconds. I took VLG’s...
Mail Print (now NextPage) earned five AMBIT awards at the Kansas City Direct Marketing Association dinner March 2013 because we know how to generate financially imperative results. We are proud to be a fifth-year, multiple award recipient for generating measurable, quantifiable results consistently. Mail Print earned four AMBITS in 2012, four in 2011, three AMBITS in 2010, and four...
Do you feel like you’re constantly playing catch up? If so it’s particularly hard to stay ahead of trends. We can relate; thus the reason we’re posting a 2013 marketing trends piece in late April. Take a breather and read the eight trends projected by Forbes and CIO Network magazines. 8 Marketing Trends Projected for 2013 #1 Businesses will...
It’s tempting to skimp on segmenting because of the focus on results. Don’t. In a tight economy, or any economy, casting a bigger net doesn’t mean you’ll bring in more fish. It just means you’ll use more energy and use your resources ineffectively to cast that net. Blanket broadcasting or mass marketing are gone, but companies still...
When your product closely resembles another company’s product, the difference in which company earns the prospect’s business is often the company that can make the prospect feel enough pain to switch services to their company. While many salespeople are trained to find pain, copywriters, account executives, and corporate marketers aren’t. This is demonstrated when you...
No customer wants to hear all messages via email; via direct mail; via social; via traditional media. You get the gist. Today’s preferred channels for communication have created new consumer behaviors. And consumers prefer different channels of communication depending on personal preferences. This means to effectively communicate one-on-one with any customer you need print plus digital...
During the Mad Men era of advertising in the 60s, an agency wouldn’t work on an account that didn’t have several million dollars in mass media spending power. Then in the 90s, an agency wouldn’t work with a client that didn’t have huge budgets to build out an integrated marketing plan that included many...
Political gaffes follow a candidate from one campaign to the next. The campaigns of Romney, Biden, Clinton, Quail and Bush all confirm this. Remember Bush’s premature use of the phrase “Mission Accomplished”, Quail’s misspelling of “potato?” or even Clinton’s more famous situation that isn’t appropriate for this posting. A misspoken word or an entire scandal can take...
