While quantum physics deals with discrete, indivisible units of energy called quanta, marketing programs deal with concrete, divisible units of measurements called metrics. It’s a rabbit hole all folks in marketing need to know how to go down to pull out what they need. No organization can continue to spend on a marketing effort without...
Over lunch my friend described the duress his associates were going through because of a switch from a fixed- to zero-based budgeting. In essence, department heads could no longer use last year’s budget adjusted for inflation. They instead had to cost justify each expenditure line item by line item. These are the signs of tighter times...
Are your marketing messages hot, cold, lukewarm, or 86’d upon receipt? If you don’t know, you probably haven’t been testing. When in doubt that your marketing messages are truly authentic or well received by your customers, do the trusted A/B split. People who A/B test their email or web campaigns get 11% better open rates and...
Theoretically, a marketing department should constantly be testing, reviewing their budget, and moving money to the best performing initiatives. Unlike other forms of media, which can prove influence, but are challenged to prove profitability, direct marketing has an advantage in that it can produce exact ROIs. In my marketing practice, I find myself continually striving to get...
For the marketing community, social media is the newest, shiniest toy we’ve had in a while, and most of us are rushing to learn how to utilize each new social platform to our advantage. Marketing budgets have begun shifting as well. Of the participants in the 2009 PRWeek/MS&L Social Media Survey 31% reported shifting in...
In the past two weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with a couple of fellow direct marketers. One is a prospective client, considering the use of variable data printing for the first time. The other is a long-time friend who needs help getting a better ROI on his direct mail and email campaigns. Both have worked in...
PART ONE: Defining Your Customer Life Cycle Academically speaking, the customer life cycle begins with a prospect: an interested party who may potentially need your product or service. Adept companies qualify their prospects to pinpoint their sales efforts on leads that are ready to buy, while using automated marketing tactics such as email campaigns and direct mail programs...
My favorite iPhone app is Pandora Internet Radio. Not only am I captivated by the depth of the music offered, but being a data geek, I am fascinated by Pandora’s ability to dissect a song into 400 attributes to deliver me song after song that match my unique music tastes. For those of you who...
Google Analytics is a great FREE tool for tracking website traffic and visitor behavior. However, with the recent addition of Annotations, Analytics is now an excellent tool for tracking how your direct mail campaigns and other marketing activities drive traffic to your website. Annotations, which was released to Google Analyticsusers during January 2010, allows users to note events...
