Direct Marketing Skills Still Valued

In these turbulent economic times, it's refreshing to see some good news for our industry. It seems that the core skills of database marketing and analytics continue to be valued by employers. From BtoB Online's Daily Report:

"Two-thirds of marketers (67%) says resources for database and analytics to support online marketing efforts call for the most marketing investment this year, according to Alterian, an enterprise marketing company, which released the results of its fifth annual marketing survey on Tuesday."

Interesting that this survey calls out "online" marketing, but we'll take that! Database marketing and analytics expertise are definitely transferable.

We challenge direct marketers to think outside the box and consider how your skills can apply to many different areas of marketing. Even if you've only had specific experience in, say, direct mail, so many of the disciplines you use can be translated to online marketing. And, if that is where companies are investing, then it might be a good idea to highlight your resume with examples of how your skills can improve online programs.

Here are a couple of examples that come to mind immediately:

1. Apply segmentation strategies to e-mail campaigns. While e-mail remains an inexpensive channel, it's no longer good enough to blast the same message to your entire list (and then do it over and over and over again). Increasingly, e-mail marketers are segmenting their customer and prospect lists and presenting the appropriate offer and message. They're starting to understand the importance of understanding how frequency impacts results. Who better than traditional direct marketers (who may only have segmented a postal mailing list so far) to teach e-mail marketers how to mine their database and understand customer segments?
2. Use ROI techniques to understand and measure the effectiveness of social media campaigns. Like database and analytics, social media is another area that corporations believe that they need to invest in (or miss the boat). As a leader in using numbers and results to justify your direct marketing spending, take those skills over to the world of social marketing. Attempt to quantify every investment (even if it's only the costs of someone's time taken to blog, for instance). Articulate to senior management, for example, how your social marketing efforts are targeting your market with pinpoint precision. Simply take your deep understanding of building your ROI for each campaign/program to the world of social marketing, and you'll be ahead of most of your competitors.

The above are only two examples of how you can migrate your direct marketing expertise to other, potentially more high-growth, areas within your organization.

Think about where your specific skills can apply (or have applied) to high-growth online marketing initiatives. And, please, share them here!

Direct Marketing and the Environment: Score Two More!

It's been awhile since we've featured our favorite frog . . . and today, we're glad to bring him back. Today, more than ever, there's increasing evidence that Direct Marketers and Consumers are paying a whole lot more attention to environmental issues. It is impacting how we market, and it's impacting how our customers spend their dollars.

In two recent articles from DM News, increasing awareness of being environmentally conscious is highlighted. In the first article, it is reported that "Cooler, a provider of commerce solutions that address global warming, has launched a new program to help manufacturers and retailers of consumer products and services address the global warming impact of what they sell."

Cooler takes a unique approach wherein it "provides an emissions assessment, a roadmap for emission reductions and high-quality offsets from renewable energy and pollution prevention projects. It also includes a marketing kit to help clients communicate the actions they are taking to address global warming." Then, they went a step further by launching a website where consumers can choose from over 400 internet retailers who support environmentally conscious ways of doing business (i.e., reduce emissions, use renewable energy as part of their business, etc.). As the holiday shopping season approaches, we'll keep our eyes on how Cooler does with this effort.

In a second article, DM News reports that UPS has recently "asserted its commitment to environmentalism by ordering 167 compressed natural gas delivery trucks and 139 new propane delivery trucks. These additions make the delivery service company the largest private alternative fuel fleet owner, with a total fleet of 1,629 vehicles." These are pretty impressive statistics. As one of the leading direct mailers, UPS has definitely set the benchmark for its competitors.

These recent articles point to the fact that consumers and businesses are not only becoming more concerned about the state of our environment, but that this awareness does not look like a passing fad. It will be interesting to see how this evolves over time. When it comes right down to it, we vote with our dollars. As time goes on, we'll see how corporate revenue is impacted by those like Cooler and UPS who are blazing the trail in environmental responsibility in direct marketing. On the flip side, it will also be interesting to see how those who are not changing their strategy to reflect the shifting attitudes of public opinion will fare revenue-wise.

Kermit has always said (or sang) "It's not easy being green." We think that while it may not be easy, it may be imperative to your direct marketing efforts.

Measuring and Tracking Your Marketing Effectiveness

I hate to admit if for all of cyberspace to know but . . . I guess we are kind of geeky. And, now, we have reason to be proud of our geekiness!

There have been countless studies on how few companies really have a handle on how their marketing campaigns truly perform. And, in the frenetic pace of life that exists within most companies today, marketers simply move on to the next campaign without fully understanding what occurred in the last one. This is pure craziness . . . and definitely where that geekiness comes into play.

Vtrenz has recently written a whitepaper on this very subject and some of the statistics noted within it are astounding. For example, "38% of marketers say that new marketing campaigns are rushed to market based on the limited intuition of a few people." What??!?!?! The paper goes on to talk about the fact that the very nature of many marketers is that they are more drawn towards the sexy, creative, right-brained part of marketing, rather than the "boring" left-brained analytical part of it. As strange as it may sound, this boring stuff is the very thing we live for! Let's face it, without the power of analytics, how are you ever going to know -- beyond a gut feeling -- how your marketing campaigns are actually performing? You can't know unless you close the loop and measure each campaign's performance.

Vtrenz also tells us that most companies are struggling with measuring the financial impact of marketing campaigns, and, in fact "42% of them say that their company's ability to measure financial returns from marketing programs is a long way from where it could be."

We're not saying that it's easy to put measurement systems into place, however, it really isn't that hard and it doesn't have to be expensive.

Vtrenz cites five first steps of getting this measurement system in place:

• Define marketing ROI and obtain agreement from the Leadership Team
• Create a closed-loop process through your marketing systems
• Draft marketing ROI plan and include sales in the thought process
• Monitor implementation for areas of improvement
• Incorporate ROI findings into the planning process

Now, we're not saying that a lot of thought and time doesn't go into this. In fact, it does. However, we'll argue any day of the week, that without some way to track the effectiveness of your marketing programs you are doomed to failure. Some time or another, you are going to be asked about the dollars that you are spending on your campaigns, how what you are doing is increasing sales or bottom-line profitability, or some such question. If you can't provide proof of the success that you are creating through your marketing programs, management scrutiny will increase, your budget will be cut or worse.

It is incumbent upon all of us direct marketers to take a scientific approach to what we do on a daily basis to increase profitability. If you are struggling with putting a measurement system into place, take a look at this whitepaper (you'll have to comment and ask for it from us or look on Vtrenz's website for it). It will give you the insight you need to get started on this process and at least provide an outline that you can share with your Leadership to get them to buy-in. We predict that you'll come out smelling like roses.

Just tell your boss that the geeks from RRW think it's a good idea!

More on the Effectiveness of E-Mail Marketing

Continuing on our theme of effective e-mail marketing . . . Marketing Sherpa has recently released some very interesting statistics about the use of this channel in their E-mail Marketing Benchmark Survey.

The results of this survey are very compelling. Here's a sample:

• 61% prefer to receive marketing materials via e-mail
• 77% will open marketing emails from trusted sources
• 76% want to receive "relevant" marketing e-mails
• 67% are more likely to visit your website after opening a marketing e-mail

In fact, e-mail marketing sent to in-house lists has been shown to have excellent response rates, and can really help your company build customer loyalty. Further, due to the cost effectiveness of this channel, conducting relevant e-mail marketing campaigns can do a lot to help you reach your marketing budgetary goals -- and kick-start your ROI. The report also confirms earlier suspicions that the use of e-mail campaigns on prospect databases is at the opposite end of this spectrum -- open and click-through rates remain very low. Getting potential customers to opt-in or ask for your e-mail messaging is the only way to make e-mail campaigns effective.

And, the definition of spam has changed a bit. Where it used to be viewed as simply "junk e-mail" it is now more accurately viewed as "non-relevant e-mail from a source I don't trust."

If you'd like to review our ideas on integrating e-mail marketing effectively into your marketing strategy, take a look at our E-mail Marketing Best Practices White Paper.

TGIF!