Great Links!

Welcome to this week's edition of the Friday Blog Log! Here are our fav's of the week:

Our first link is one from BtoBOnline regarding Green Marketing. You may recall our earlier post from this week on the same topic. There we discussed how important it is to practice what you preach, i.e., you can't say you're a green marketer if you aren't. In other words, don't talk about your "green-ness", then direct market environmentally inefficiently. Makes for some really bad press -- that's for sure! Anyway, back to BtoBOnline . . . in this post, author Carol Krol provides a readout from IBM's presentation at DM Days (going on this week in NY). IBM's VP Marketing, Elaine Lennox presented on this topic and how IBM is moving towards being a truly-Green company. “Don’t think about green in terms of ‘How do I make this product look green?’ ” she said. “You are ‘green-washing’ it in that scenario. Instead, ask: ‘How will I make my company green and make my products green because of it?’ ” Lennox proves that she "gets" it -- and for a company as huge as IBM, that is extremely significant!

Next, we'd like to feature our friend Becky Carroll and her Customer's Rock blog. This week, she's shared with us the results of some recent work that she's done for one of her clients on what makes for 5 Star Customer Service. In this economy, customer service becomes more important than ever . . . and Becky's research proves this out. The biggest "aha" is that the idea of excellent customer service, particularly 5 Star Customer Service, is different to every person. The business who understands that they need to create a phenomenal situation for each individual customer is one that will be looked upon as 5 Star. There are some great comments in this post and we know you'll enjoy it as much as we did!

Finally, check out Ted Grigg's post from this week on how he defines the next great "Big Idea" in marketing. We love Ted's down-to-earth and downright honest attitude. Ted keeps it real, man. In this post, Ted discusses his answer to a client question, "What's Your Big Idea?" Ted's response is accurate and well-put or as Ted says: "I gave my typical response, 'Direct marketing relies upon a set of discovery processes including research, testing and analytics. It is out of this discipline that big ideas emerge.' " Amen! Come on people, there aren't any silver bullets out there . . . or the one Big Idea that will turn your business around. We agree with Ted in that as you are planning your direct marketing strategy in this or any other economy, take it back to the basics and start by using an intelligent approach. If you do this rather than flying by the seat of your pants or just going by your gut feeling (something that we see way too often by the way), you'll weather any economic situation and make each campaign more successful than the last.

Happy Father's Day to all of you Dad's out there! Have great weekends all!

Favorite Weekly Links

Can you believe that it's already Friday again? Dang -- I love these short weeks! Anyway, here are our favorite links this week. Hope you enjoy them.

I love this first post by the Servant of Chaos. Entitled "Seeing the Wonder in Technology," Gavin Heaton discusses how cool it is to be able to engage with the technology today and communicate real-time with folks across the globe. And it's all at our fingertips. It's very cool and as I pointed out in a comment, it hasn't been that long ago that none of this was possible. I remember when internet access was restricted at AT&T in the 90s because the leadership team thought people wouldn't work if they had access to the internet. Can you even imagine doing your job without it today? And that doesn't even take blogs, podcasts, instant message discussions and the like into consideration. Great post!

The next post we really liked was my 2 cents: Holding the bag? Author David Reich discusses the recent announcement by American Airlines about the additional cost of checking even one bag. Reich wonders if this announcement and the resulting consumer uproar makes for a great marketing opportunity for rival airlines -- or not (because they'll follow suit). I personally think the bigger issue is that, unfortunately, the airlines now treat us all badly -- it doesn't matter if you're a once-a-year flier or some super-executive-plutonium-platinum frequent flier status. Anymore, it's just not a good experience with the airlines. They tend to be surly and confrontational, as opposed to customer oriented. That's fallen by the wayside. I think this post will resonate with many!

As a post-script to this, however, I've got to give my friends at Southwest a shout out! They do, really try to treat their customers better. And, I think that they've separated themselves from the rest by keeping their customer focus -- and by doing things like writing a blog where customers can interact with them. If you haven't checked out their blog, definitely do -- it's a good one! By the way, the most recent post features a video from their CEO talking about the fact that "Fees don't fly at Southwest." See what I mean?

Can you think of all of the advertising you've seen lately on being green? Well, if you read our blog, you know we're environmentally friendly marketers and a big fan of Kermit the Frog. On a recent Melodies in Marketing post, blog author Mario Vellandi posts "10 Signs of Greenwashing" by Futerra Communications. It's a cute post that gives us both pictures and words of some of this over-the-top marketing that may be just that . . . over-the-top. Some products (take cigarettes for example) just can't be made to be green, no matter how much the manufacturer may try!

Enjoy these posts and a lovely weekend to all!

Links of the Week!

Another week has come to an end -- so time for the weekend!

To get your weekend started, here are our favorite links this week:

Ron Shevlin's Direct Marketing Whims: Ron has a great blog -- and he is really smart and better than that, he's extremely funny. So, we love reading his posts. Our favorite post this week concerns his favorite industry -- banking -- and how two particular marketing channels (branches and online) interact to create satisfied customers. And, further, he makes the point that particular customers need to be able to interact through different channels -- depending upon their specific preferences. Bottom line: all channels are cost centers but are very important to the customer experience. Our take is that no matter what the industry, if you're utilizing all channels to better serve the customer, and taking the time to understand customer preferences, the costs incurred will be money well spent because you'll keep your customers satisfied -- and loyal to your brand.

With our celebration of Earth Day this week, here is a wonderful post from Dan Smolen's Sturdy Roots blog. Dan is a marketing recruiter, and he specializes in in hooking up environmentally conscious companies with like-minded direct marketing professionals. His post this week was a great one about the need for businesses to embrace the concept of virtual office employees -- especially those outside of sales. Both Suzanne and I have been virtual office employees for most of our professional career -- whether in corporate America or self-employed. It's definitely a good thing -- it saves time, wear-and-tear and the environment. Check out this post -- we think you'll like it. Dan gives some great ideas about how to open your mind to allowing more employees to be virtual, and how to do it most effectively.

Mobilestorm's Digital Marketing blog had a very interesting post this week on how internet video is the 21st Century Gold Rush. The post quotes the NY Times as saying: "A Florida-based producer, whose clips are on varied topics like 'how to turn a flashlight into a laser' and “how to simulate a gunshot wound,” earned more than $102,000 in a year from MetaCafe, which pays content owners according to how many views their videos garner." This is wacky -- but there is a whole revenue-generating world out there making bazillionaires with internet videos. Crazy!

Finally -- and selfishly -- take a listen to my favorite acoustic finger-style guitarist, Steve Berger. Steve also happens to be my husband who has just created a site featuring many of his original songs over the past 25 years or so. I'm pretty proud of him as you can probably tell! If any of you would like to become his fans after listening to his music, please feel free to do so (you just sign up with SoundClick as a listener, then select the "Fan+" button from Steve's page)! Take a listen to the song "Time to Live My Life," which is the story of how Steve made the difficult decision to leave his life in Corporate America to pursue his musical passions. I think that this song will resonate with many!

Have a great weekend!

Customer Data Management is Good for the Environment!

Green marketing and direct mail seems like an oxymoron. I don't know about you, but I still get a ton of direct mail (and I love it, as you know). As an environmentally-minded person who is involved in direct marketing, nothing makes me madder than direct marketers who over-mail for no good reason. Case in point: My husband fancies a tall-person's retailer, Rochester's Big and Tall. Therefore, I normally purchase clothes for him from these folks. I love getting their catalogs, particularly around the various holidays. However, not only do I get a catalog from them at my home address, my husband gets his very own copy at our home address, and I get a third copy at our post office box. Now, being a good direct mail steward, I have contacted Rochester's to tell them that we really only need one catalog -- not three. I just called them again (because I just received more catalogs -- hence the rant), and I'll let you know if it works this time around. Grrr.

So, what's my point? Not only does it make good business sense to be green, it also makes for better customer relationships. Green marketing is about more effective data management -- that's it in a nutshell. There are businesses and consumers out there who love to receive direct mail -- they want to be communicated with in this fashion. The key is to identify them and communicate with them more efficiently.

In an article from Multi-Channel Merchant, appropriately entitled "Is Your Data Green," author Jeff Zabin stresses this point. "Each year, more than 100 million trees are destroyed, three million cars’ worth of energy is consumed and reprehensible-by-any-measure amounts of greenhouse gas is emitted into the atmosphere—all in the name of producing, distributing and disposing of direct mail solicitations." Yikes! That really drives the point home.

But there is also some good news. Zabin notes that some of the largest retailers, such as Office Depot, is taking steps towards greener direct marketing. "For its part, Office Depot has adopted a number of database marketing practices and technologies to help eliminate duplicate and returned catalogs, including a real-time customer data integration solution. The solution combines transaction data with advanced analytics to enable employees at the point-of-sale to cross-sell and up-sell in a more effective manner. It also allows Office Depot to know which (and how many) direct mail offers and catalogs to send to which customers—and when—to maximize revenues while minimizing both costs and environmental waste."

This is an excellent example of utilizing intelligent data management tools to increase Office Depot's ROI and increase customer satisfaction. While this example utilizes real-time customer integration techniques, there are also lower-tech data management tools that can increase your efficiency. We have clients who have simply added in old-fashioned address hygiene tools and effectively decreased the amount of returned mail that they had been receiving. In addition, there are many companies out there who don't update their data as often as they need to. So, you can go as high or low-tech as your particular business needs dictate. The important thing to remember is that what you do impacts both your profitability and helps to cut down on your carbon footprint. It's a win-win scenario.

Zabin is so passionate about this, he is in the process of creating a benchmark report “Green Marketing: Leveraging Customer Data to Reduce Environmental Waste" for his company the Aberdeen Group. According to Zabin, "The goal of the report is to further educate the marketplace about the value of customer data management from a green marketing perspective." We applaud Zabin and the Aberdeen Group for bringing greater focus to this area. We've also written a handy white paper on Effective Customer Data Management if you're interested in learning more about the different types of data management tools available for you to use in your businesses.

Once again, it IS easy to be Green!

Direct Marketers Viewpoint

With all of the focus on the upcoming Presidential election, there has been an unprecedented number of pundits out there predicting all sorts of things for 2008. Couple that with the continuing struggles in the housing market, and the naming of 2007 as the Year of "Subprime," and you have an interesting forecast -- to say the least!

BtoBOnline has reported on how all of this impacts the viewpoint of direct marketers. In the article, Amy Syracuse reports on those items foremost on our minds. Not surprisingly, the economy heads off this list. Between the mortgage crisis and the state of consumer spending (or lack thereof), it behooves us all to keep a wary eye on the economy. More than ever, diversification across industries is key. Also, if you think that your marketing strategy is set -- think again. We respectfully submit that with this existing climate, we all need to test, analyze, learn -- then adjust accordingly.

Also on this list of what keeps us up at night are the concepts of Green and Social Marketing. You know how we feel about social media and marketing -- we've driven that point home over the last six months or so. Regarding environmental concerns over direct mail, the article reports that in addition to increasing federal government scrutiny, the "DMA will ramp up its green initiatives this year. The group will unveil target goals in June to reduce members’ environmental impact through paper procurement and use; mail design and production; packaging; recycling and pollution reduction; and list hygiene and data management."

In addition to what our association and government are doing, we strongly believe that by using a solid targeting and analytical approach, you can more effectively implement direct mail campaigns -- this will both provide you with better response rates and help to save precious environmental resources.

Finally, in terms of what the role of direct marketing will take in 2008, the article quotes our good buddy, Bob Frady, of LiveNation.com. Bob (pictured above -- and you were wondering who that handsome devil was, right?) is the VP of Direct Marketing at LiveNation, and an incredibly savvy direct marketer. Here are his thoughts: "Marketers might also reconsider their metrics. [Today] a consumer will see a promotion, then, rather than follow the neat path we’ve laid out for them, they’ll go searching for in-depth levels of information about what we’re offering. Many times we’ll lose the tracking we’ve put in place. … Traditional direct marketing measurements need to be tweaked to capture how customers are actually behaving.”

This is great insight, and it goes hand in hand with not only marketing smarter when developing your direct marketing strategy but also closing the loop to ensure that your efforts are worthwhile by tracking the effectiveness of each marketing program. Frady also pulls in the customer behavior piece which becomes more complex as responders utilize all of the different channels available to them today to spend their dollars with you.

Overall, these are some great viewpoints that provide a roadmap of what to manage for -- and to -- in 2008. It's also going to be fun to see how the role of politics -- and each Presidential candidate -- plays into all of this as November gets closer.

Queens of the Direct Mail Soapbox!

Long Live Direct Mail! Say it loud -- say it proud! Really.

Guess what? Even though we have a plethora of direct marketing tools in our picnic basket -- and a lot of them are way cool, way sexy -- direct mail is still the most effective way to get your message out. Yep, there's been a new survey conducted about this very topic. A recent article in DM News by Dean Rieck states that:

A recent survey by International Communications Research concluded that people prefer receiving things by direct mail. Seventy-three percent of respondents said they prefer receiving new product announcements by mail, versus 18% for e-mail. And, a whopping 86% said they prefer direct mail for official correspondence, such as bills, bank statements and financial reports, compared to 10% for e-mail.

For those of us who have long lauded the benefits of highly-targeted, intelligent direct mail, this is music to our ears. Further, Rieck goes on to say that, "fewer people trash unsolicited direct mail when compared to e-mail, 31% to 53%." Now, we all love e-mail and it's very apparent that there are those who prefer to be communicated with via e-mail. However, this study simply points out that direct mail does still work -- and when you're trying to get a particular message out to a specific audience, you can do it quite effectively with direct mail.

If you're avid readers of this blog (and we hope you are!), you know that we're huge proponents of strategically utilizing all of the available direct marketing channels. And, by listening to your customer's preferences, you can make your campaigns very successful utilizing a multi-channel approach.

The point of this post is to remind you that as you plan your DM campaigns, don't rule out direct mail. When executed correctly, this channel is a great way to get your message across -- and an excellent way to ensure that it will not be ignored. You can use any format you like and many different methods of delivery.

Now, here's the next conundrum . . . how do you effectively utilize direct mail and be a "green" marketer at the same time? Because as more and more studies point out, both businesses and consumers are getting greener by the day. Something to think about as you go about your day!

Have a great Tuesday!

It's Not Junk Mail, If It's Not Junk

We post a lot about 'good' direct mail programs in this blog--innovative campaigns that generated new customers and sales. We like to cite industry numbers that illustrate the growth of DM, and other direct response channels. We like what we do. We like the data, analysis and database aspects of DM. We like the fact that at the end of the day, our campaigns are measurable--we KNOW we've made an impact (or not).

With all that love of marketing, sometimes it's easy to forget that the majority of the consumers out there think that Direct Marketing is right there under terrorism...Let's face it, people HATE junk mail. They hate telemarketing. They see all of it as bad, bad, bad.

See this blog from Seattle Post Intelligence, called Livin' la Vida Eco: No More Junk Mail (great headline, by the way). Author Janna Cawrse wants to "Just Say No to Junk Mail." Her post gives helpful advice as to how to remove your name from mailing lists by signing up with the Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) service.

So, here's my challenge to all of you who dabble in direct marketing. We need to make it relevant! Consumers would not hate junk mail if they didn't perceive it as junk. Anything arriving in your mail box should be relevant, should be something that you have at least a little bit of interest in. The first thought in the recipient's head shouldn't be, "Why did they kill a tree to send me THAT letter?".

Direct marketers need to make sure that they've targeted the list. We need to always be on the look-out for ways to cut the mail quantities down, by only sending to people most likely to want the offer. We need to stay on top of privacy rules and make sure that we're applying all the right suppressions (such as the DMA Do Not Mail file).

We need to always strive for customer delight and we need to listen to our customers and prospects. We need to try to reach them through the channels they want to hear from us (maybe they truly DO hate snail mail--stop sending them things!).

A direct mail campaign done right will make the company money. More important, it will not make customers mad, IF they can see a value in the offer sent to them.

I'd love to hear more ideas on how to make sure that it's not Junk Mail. Any tips, case studies, ideas out there?

It's Easy To Be Green!

In a recent DM News article, Chet Dalzell reports on how direct marketers are right in step with the environmentally friendly attitude that prevails today. In fact, the article touts 3 "green" companies -- Starbucks, General Electric and Toyota -- as companies who are actually "building their growth on products and strategies aimed at helping to preserve the planet."

When you think about what we do each day, it's true! We are measured on our ability to be efficient. We are constantly being measured for targeting better, increasing response rates on our direct mail campaigns, increasing the efficiency of our marketing databases, etc. As Dalzell so aptly points out, "Avoiding waste, more often than not, is avoiding cost." Deep isn't it.

It's nice to know that through our efforts to make our marketing strategy as efficient as possible, we are also being good corporate citizens -- both from a budgetary and environmental perspective. This philosophy goes hand in hand with corporate goals of doing what's right for all of our stakeholders -- and more importantly, for our planet.

It turns out that Kermit was wrong . . . it IS easy to be Green.