Links of the Week!

Here's this weeks collection of our favorite posts of the week!

1) Bhupendra Khanal's Business Analytics Blog: Bhupendra's post "Management Consulting May Not Be the Right Answer," is a thought-provoking post on why business ventures most often fail. Bhupendra discusses how you must integrate smart analytics, market research and management consulting to make successful strategic business decisions. He also makes the point that customers need to be treated as humans, and unless you utilize all three of these areas in your business venture, the emotional piece (that appeals to human beings) is lost.


2) Bob Sullivan's Sales and Marketing Effectiveness Blog: Bob's post "B2B Marketers Plan 2008 Budget Increases," gives us some excellent news to end our week -- particularly after the DM employment outlook news that we reported on yesterday! Bob reports on a recent survey that found that B2B marketers are going to be increasing their budgets in 2008 -- and mostly in the areas of online, events and . . . drumroll please . . . direct marketing! We think that DM'ers are going to need to strategically plan to really get the most out of their B2B marketing budgets, and put in place solid measurement systems to prove each campaign's success. In this sluggish economy, this will help us to create a better economic outlook for direct marketing professionals as we continue to prove that our efforts pay off -- in terms of increased ROI to the businesses we support.

3) Ted Grigg's Reflections About Direct Marketing Blog: Ted's post "Four Secrets for your Acquisition List Testing Success," provides great insight about renting lists to fuel your acquisition campaigns. Ted gives us some pointers on working with list managers and brokers and then creating sound list testing strategies. He also highlights the importance of selecting a knowledgeable list broker and how these professionals can help you plan successful list tests -- and consult with you all the way through to a successful campaign roll-out.

We hope you enjoy these posts as much as we did!

TGIF!

Driving Direct Marketing Success Through Data

It's been a while since we did a "soapbox" post . . . so here we go!

It occurred to us as we were recently finalizing a client proposal that it's been too long since we have discussed the importance of the annual look at your data assets. It's true for most companies. In fact, the client that we're currently assisting has been purchasing data from one of the large compilers for many years, and called us in because his sales team was not getting the information that they needed to effectively sell to their prospects. Does this sound familiar? While the data that they are currently buying is updated frequently, there are "holes" in it. And those "holes" make the difference between either getting the appointment and making the sale or not getting through to talk to anyone at all.

After doing some research, we were able to find some excellent data that not only augments what the company is currently using, but also finally gives the sales force what they need to be successful. With the consistent flow of data compilers, specialty lists and modelers into the marketplace, we found some "aha's" as we were conducting our research. And we do this sort of research all of the time! There are some excellent options out there, no matter what industry you are in, that can really drive marketing and sales success for your company. And if you don't stay on top of it, you can easily trap yourself in using what is familiar and not as effective because it takes some time to do the research.

We argue that the time spent here is well worth it! With a little research, you can determine the right sources of data that will identify exactly the prospect that you are trying to bring on, what they're spending, who they're spending it with, what their propensity is to buy from you and what their exact needs are today. If you don't want to do the research yourself, call a consultant in (like RRW) to do it for you. It just doesn't make financial sense not to do it. In addition, you can become an instant hero to your sales team, your finance team and your leadership team.

It really is this simple to direct market more intelligently -- and the rewards that you will reap will prove it. If you're interested in how to get started in looking at your data assets, you'll be happy to know that we've written a Data Check List on this very subject. Take a look at it -- then get out there and find the data that will make you a Direct Marketing Superhero! You deserve it!