Interactive, Online and Direct Marketing Ideas

Do Small to Mid Size Retailers Need a Web Presence?

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:36:00 +0000

Reading between the lines of a New York Times Article entitled, "The Gloves Come Off at Amazon and Wal-Mart" by Brad Stone and Stephanie Rosenbloom clearly answers with a loud YES. It seems that Wal Mart got into a price war with Amazon. Now, why would the largest retailer in the country, with sales of approximately $437.6 billion (according to the article) be worried about a significantly smaller company.

The answer is simple. Wal Mart is worried that Amazon, due to their online presence, is slowly increasing their market penetration. As Fiona Dias, executive Vice President was quoted by the Times, this is "...part of a greater strategic plan. They [Wal Mart] are not going to cede their business to Amazon."

What is especially interesting is that the Amazon's demographics is different than Wal Mart's. The former caters to affluent urbanites while Wal Mart owns Middle America. Again reading the fig leaves, if Wal Mart is so worried that a company less than 1/10th the size with a different demographic illustrates the increasing inroads online sales are making into all facts and all demographics of retail trade. Otherwise, why would Wal Mart be competing so vociferously against Amazon?

The skinny is you better have an online presence with a robust website that does more than have a few static pages. The days of retailers to open up shop and wait for the people passing by their shop is long gone. Due to the Internet, there really is no geography. It is a competitive landscape and the internet has changed the rules of the retail game.

Read a companion piece I wrote Why Small Businesses Need the Internet.

How Do You Define "Success" In Direct Marketing

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:38:00 +0000

Success in Direct Marketing is very easy to define and caculate. However, many unsophisticated companies, especially in the small to mid-size business (SMB) community, don't take advantage of the inherent tracking and analytical capabilities direct marketing provides.

Historically, SMBs use local advertising vehicles (that were geographically, but not prospect/customer defined) such as:

Penny Savers
Val Paks and other local co-op mailers
Saturation solo mailings

Failing to test concepts before committing significant advertising dollars ignores direct marketing's major advantage. We can take a small sample and test the concept before committing greater financial resources. Assuming the initial test was successful, we can replicate the same test parameters and have a high confidence of success.

In many cases companies will commit xx Dollars and it is "make or break". If it "does not work" then direct marketing does not work never to be tried again. Companies should test different concepts before making a significant financial investment. There should be a coherent marketing budget with an actual line item for testing. This line item represents marketing dollars devoted to testing, some of which may or may not work.

A response rate is not the single measure of success. Response rate are affected by the cost of the product/service. Generally as your cost of service/product increases, response rates decrease. A "lower" response rate does not automatically translate into an unprofitable campaign. A profitable marketing program is one that has a positive return on investment (ROI). This metric ranks the "success" of any marketing program regardless of media deployed because it calculates the promotional cost and COG to determine profitability. ROI normalizes analysis by providing a metric useful for any marketing campaign.

There are two general types of direct response programs. A "one step" program generates an order from an initial mailing, outbound call etc. A "two step" promotion is used to create a lead generation program. You capture leads and then follow up converting some to sales. In this case you have two costs. They are cost/lead and cost per order. You have to include both to calculate the program's ROI.

The list or media you use is the single most important aspect of any direct marketing (on or off line) program. It accounts for approximately 40% of the program's success. The second most important component is your offer (another 40%).If you target incorrectly, you can have the best offer in the world and it will not make any difference.

Internet and interactive marketing programs have similar financial metrics as off line direct response programs. For example you have click through calculations (CTR) and conversion very similar to off line leads and sales conversion. We still have to calculate the ROI for each search, email marketing or any other media used.

If you are contemplating a direct response campaign or would like additional information, visit www.ebmdirectmarketing.com and complete the registration form selecting the solutions of interest.

Using Trigger Marketing to Enhance Customer Relationships

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Sun, 10 May 2009 14:46:00 +0000

Consider the following scenarios:

Any salesperson knows, a lead has to be nurtured. Why? Because most everyone you initially speak to is not ready to buy. There are various steps a prospect must go through before purchasing. Would you throw out the "non-purchasing" leads? This allows the salesperson to "work the lead" gathering information, follow up calls and/or visits culminating in a purchase. Equally important, prospects are handled differently based on their specific requirements and actions. Some will need additional information, others a call back in "x" days.
Now think about the traditional marketing process. A direct marketing program is executed generating sales from responders. Often the marketing department plans the next marketing campaign for another target audience. Or, in some cases, non responders from the past program are re-solicited with another campaign.

The two scenarios are diametrically opposed. The second scenario represents "lost opportunity" in sales dollars by not nurturing the "non-purchasers".

Historically, it would be a manual process of developing various queries through the IT department identifying each "group" based on their pre-determined marketing "actions". The marketing department would take the data and coordinate with external printers or email providers to launch the targeted message to those groups. Secondly, you would incur minimum production costs. It would be financially prohibitive to launch one piece of communication. Finally, the logistics of tracking and analyzing responses would be a manual process requiring another request into the IT department. All but the largest companies, having ample financial resources and time, could develop this type of sophisticated marketing program.

Now, you can. Recently, I came across a software offered by my company I call DMTraffic. This cloud software specializes in, what I call trigger marketing. What is a "trigger"? It is a responder's action (or lack of action) such as:

A request for information by telephone
Filling out a web form and requesting specific information
Responding to an email via a web form requesting follow up in a specific time period
Making a purchase
Filling out their birthday for special announcements
Not making a purchase in a specified time period
Making a particular type of purchase indicating a particular preference encouraging cross and upselling opportunity
Requesting a follow up phone call

DMTraffic, automates the sales and marketing process through the development of specific "touches". What is a "touch"? Simply, it is a series of emails, phone calls or direct mail pieces sent to an individual contact at a predetermined time. It is an outbound communication compared to an inbound inquiry. You create a series of Touches in DMTraffic using personalized post cards, emails and business letters. You assemble the series of Touches in a Track and the Track is assigned to a Campaign.

Campaigns are set up with all pre-defined collateral (i.e. emails, direct mail, web form(s)) along with rules determining which prospects receive which series of "touche(s)" based on their "triggers". Once the rules and budgets are established, the marketing campaign is on auto pilot. It starts and stops based on the your predetermined instructions and budget. Responses are collected within the same platform facilitating response analysis and ROI.

DMTraffic integrates with your website. Specialized web forms can be created to collect specific information from a campaign's visitors. Based on the selection(s) through the web form, (they will be stored in the internal database), the prospect will be funneled into a particular track based on pre-defined rules.

Another technical feature is something called Variable Data Printing (VDP). This is a high tech printing, (email or print), feature allowing any collected data element change the message for each recipient. Why is this valuable? Because response rate increase when communication is personalized to the individual receiving it. Examples include:

Changing the name and address
Changing images
Changing promotional offers

What is especially cost effective is that the software will execute (on demand) one response or 1000's of responses. DMTraffic is customer relationship marketing at its best.

In an earlier post, "A Marketing Database-Your Business' Central Nervous System", I discussed the importance of a database in collecting and storing information about your company's prospects and customers. Your database along with DMTraffic goes to the heart of customer relationship marketing. Customers will generate the greatest return on investment (ROI). Therefore, focus your marketing dollars on your customers and highly qualified prospect leads that require nurturing.

Think of DMTraffic's possibilities:

Develop a campaign to cross sell customers after they make purchases. Specific products are tailored to customers based on their specific purchase. Based on specific customer triggers, automated communication is emailed or mailed.
Sales executives can automate their follow up communication with a series of touches to each qualified lead to increase their closing ratio.
Birthday announcements can be tailored to each specific announcement. For example, a picture of women's clothing can be included in one announcement, and men's clothing in another based on gender (The gender would have to be a data element stored in the database).
Special loyalty promotions with different promotional offers can be sent based on the customer's historical purchasing behavior.

In the May 4, 2009 issue of DM News an article entitled "Mining for (data) gold" dicussed the increasing importance of well maintained in-house customer and prospect databases. Mr. Jonathan Marguilies, of the Winterberry Research Group stated that non-targeted, saturation and "spray and pray" type mailings were declining. He went on to state:

"Where we're not seeing declines is in data-driven, impactful, relevant communication. The channel that continues to drive and be positioned for growth is personal, digitally produced, variable content around creative offers - the true one-to-one communications."

In short, just the type of marketing communications DMTraffic produces. If you would like additional information about DMTraffic and how it can help increase your customer revenue please visit my website. Please complete the information page, selecting "DMTraffic" under Media Interests. Additional information can be found on my web page, customer relationship marketing (CRM).

Is Direct Marketing Still Relevant?

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:49:00 +0000

Recently, the following question was posted on LinkedIn's "Questions and Answers", "Is direct marketing still relevant?"

On January 5th, Marketing Executives Networking Group, MENG, released their second annual marketing trends study providing some relevant information answering this question. Advertising Age wrote an article about the study's findings.

MENG consists of senior level marketing executives who at one time in their career were at the Vice President Level (or higher). Consequently, these executives, due to their career level, are in charge of and handling the strategic direction of their organization. Therefore, their collective marketing insight is relevant. The study was sent to over 1800 members resulting in approximately 600 responses collected.

Let's keep in mind my definition of direct marketing. In an earlier post entitled, "A Marketing Database Your Central Nervous System" I defined direct marketing from the late Bob Stone's and Ron Jacobs' book "Successful Direct Marketing Methods" (7th Ed). If we accept their definition of direct marketing, we see several direct marketing capabilities within the study's findings. The survey's findings, in part, were revealing.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention are the two most important and relevant to marketing executives.
Other important marketing concepts include, Marketing ROI, Brand Loyalty, Segmentation, Quality, SEO, Competitive Intelligence and Data Mining.

Customer Retention: this plays to the strength of database and relationship marketing. Capturing customer information on past purchasing aids database marketers make more intelligent decisions in the areas of merchandising marketing. It also improves future marketing programs by identifying the customers' LTV and value to the organization thereby directing financial resources for the highest ROI.
Marketing ROI: direct marketing is a 100% quantifiable advertising channel. By replicating your roll out with the exact same components of your test, marketers can predict with a high degree of certainty the response and ROI. This is the heart of direct marketing.
Segmentation: Direct Marketing emphasizes quality over quantity. The key objective is to achieve the highest top line sales at the highest ROI. Segmenting your database enables direct marketers to carefully select those customers/prospects most likely to respond to any given promotion.
Data Mining: As any database marketing professional knows, the customer database is the heart of the any company. I discussed this at length in an earlier post called, "A Marketing Database Your Central Nervous System". "Data Mining" is the art of identifying underlying trends and patterns within a customer database. This can take the form of predictive models, customer profiling to name two examples. The database marketer's objectives are multi-faceted:

Identify customers with similar purchasing patterns. This enables marketers to tailor specific campaigns, message, or merchandise based on the information gleaned from the data.
Identify new marketing opportunities. Mining a customer database can reveal new markets to penetrate. For example, as Director of Database Marketing, data mining I performed on a B-T-B customer database revealed additional SIC's the company could target in general advertising and mailing lists.
Customer profiling improves on and offline advertising channels. Increased customer knowledge can reveal where to direct advertising placement or conversely where existing advertising should be pruned or eliminated. Based on simple frequency counts, marketers can identify geographic areas where more merchandise should be allocated or increasing advertising expenditures.

In this Internet age, traditional direct marketing (i.e. off line channels) are now (or should be) intertwined with online marketing. SEM, SEO, Email Marketing, Social Media are new communication channels. However, at their root, each of them, like traditional off line direct mail, TV Direct Response, Infomercials, Package Inserts, CO-OP fall under the definition of direct response marketing. We are still offering direct response marketing services so the same financial metrics are still required. We still must test, calculate ROI, profitability and determine response rates (i.e. click through, conversion rate) to determine success.

In these difficult economic conditions we are facing, direct marketing is more relevant today than ever before. Only direct marketing provides marketers the ability to analyze with small carefully selected test panels before committing significant financial resources. And only direct response marketing provides the analytical ability to predict with a high degree of certainty future response rates and ROI.

Social Media and Psychosocial Marketing

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:29:00 +0000

It is an axiom word of mouth is the best form of advertising. This is an obvious truth because people speak to friends, colleagues and associates about their likes (and dislikes).

About 15 years ago I ran a direct response promotional agency near New York. Keeping customers was of paramount importance. I read a book at that time by an author Michael LeBeauf entitled "How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life". He stated that a satisfied customer will tell approximately 5 other people, but a dissatisfied one will tell approximately 11. Hence the power and influence of word of mouth from both ends of the stick. In short, there is an inherent trust between both parties that what is being discussed is untainted by the powers of advertising.

In Web 2.0, social media dove tails with this concept. There are all kinds of social media such as LinkedIn, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook. Any electronic channels enabling people to exchange ideas and viewpoints thereby enabling an exchange of views can be considered social media. Under this definition, I would also consider blogs, twitter and the like.

Recently, I discovered a company, Colligent Direct, (www.colligentdirect.com), who aggregated over 100MM publicly available records of people belonging to social networks. Through proprietary software, Colligent Direct harvested information, much like Google, creating a massive database that marketers can turn to for a wealth of usable information.

What is so special about social networks? They contain self reported information from millions of users. Information such as age, income, popular brands, music, books, movies, political views, religion, sexual orientation are posted by individual users.

Marketers can use this information in various ways. Some of them include:

Suppose you have a customer database. Colligent can match your customers against their 100MM records and identify the matches. Then, the various attributes (demographic and psychosocial) can be appended. Once appended you can identify purchasing likes (and dislikes) and tailor future marketing program catering to your customers specific lifestyle or interests.

Colligent has in depth analytical reporting. A "Customer Snap Shot Report" is available. The company will take your customer data and match it against their database. Based on the matches, they will prepare an in-depth report on a range of demographics and psychosocial attributes. This information can reveal hidden marketing opportunities, cross promotions with brands, music, books your customers like.

Other analytical reports include "Brand Snap Shot Report", "Customer Trend Report" and "Brand Trend Report". The "Brand Snap Shot Report" provides a profile on a brand, not your own customer base. Suppose you are looking for competitive information on a brand that competes with yours. Colligent's "Brand Snap Shot Report" analyzes the "fans" of that brand that are on their database. Much the same information is reported as in the "Customer Snap Shot Report". The only difference is that the former is reporting on the brand's profile on the social networks, NOT your customer. This is very useful for competitive information.

Last, but not least, the company can perform "reach outs"; highly targeted campaigns reaching the individuals on Colligent Direct's social networks matching your exact psychosocial profile provided. Here is the big benefit. You only pay for the fans originally receiving your message. However, this is psychosocial marketing. The recipients are going to post this information on their pages for their "friends" to see and discuss. Your marketing program reaches the fan's "friends". While you do not pay for this, you reap the rewards. Colligent's analytical services tracks the campaigns "fan's" performance as well as their friends! Pretty cutting edge stuff.

Colligent Direct is a new paradigm. Picture Search Engine Marketing (SEM) as a funnel with the wider spout at the top. SEM begins with the premise of identifying a target audience, (based on demographics and other lifestyle attributes that appear to match your audience). A subset of the total reach will click on the link and a smaller subset converting to customers.

Colligent Direct begins with the narrower end of the funnel at the top. They begin by identifying KNOWN fans of your product or service based on their self reported information. Through the inherent power of social networks, word of mouth begins.

In SEM's financial model, you pay for all the clicks, not just the ones converted to sales. Colligent charges on the initial "reach out" to targeted fans, NOT the ancillary word of mouth that occurs. But, and this is a big but, their analytical reporting tracks the performance of the initial fans AND ancillary effect of the fans' friends!

Other off line marketing initiatives can also result from this information. For example:

Through identifying popular brands your customers like can open up cross promotions, joint sponsorships, TV, Radio to name a few.
Internal customer relationship marketing programs are improved. The additional information appended from colligent direct should be added to your customer history. Highly target customer retention and cross promotional database marketing programs should be implemented.

In short, there is a lot of hidden untapped consumer information that is now readily available. This goes beyond SEM's targeting, and most likely is the next "new thing" in internet marketing. If used correctly, Colligent Direct's services integrates the confluence of on and the off line media playing right into the strengths of Internet and relationship marketing initiatives.

Finally, I read the head line and lead story in the New York Times, (Tuesday 11/4/2008). The headline read "The '08 Campaign: A Sea Change for Politics as We Know It, From Internet to Turning Out Vote". The article discussed the way Barack Obama used the internet to his advantage. In the article, Mark McKinnon, a senior advisor to President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns stated, "The year campaigns leveraged the internet in ways never imagined. The year we went to warp speed. The year the paradigm got turned upside down and truly became bottom up instead of top down.[My emphasis]" I believe, social media will play an increasing role in future elections and marketing in general. With its inherent capability of reaching "the bottom up", leveraging word of mouth, interactive video and blogging, I believe Colligent Direct's data, and others like it will play an increasing role in ways as of yet unimagined.

Integrated Media Planning for B-to-B Marketing

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:28:00 +0000

Blogger's Note:

Occasionally, I come across other professionals sharing a similar interactive perspective of web marketing. Ruth Stevens is one such individual. A brief bio of Ruth's professional background follows.

Ruth P. Stevens consults on customer acquisition and retention, and teaches marketing at Columbia Business School. She is past chair of the DMA Business-to-Business Council, and immediate past president of the Direct Marketing Club of New York. Crain’s BtoB magazine named Ruth one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Marketing in 2002. She is the author of The DMA Lead Generation Handbook, and Trade Show and Event Marketing. Ruth serves as a director of Edmund Optics, Inc. and NetFactor Corporation. She has held senior marketing positions at Time Warner, Ziff-Davis, and IBM and holds an MBA from Columbia University.

I invited Ruth to contribute an article in the editorial content of my blog. The article is reprinted with permission. It first appeared in DMNews (March 2008). Ruth can be reached by emailing her at ruth@ruthstevens.com.

Integrated marketing has become a very hot topic in recent years, as media outlets proliferate and marketers struggle to be heard over the din.

In B-to-B, it’s particularly important, because the products and the buying process are so complex, that a series of touches is essential to success. So marketers grapple with a zillion challenges, among them:

What is the optimal number of touches?
Which media are most effective at each stage of the process?
How do the media work together to best effect?
How can we measure the effectiveness of each touch, and of the program as a whole?

Regrettably, there are few reliable answers to these questions today. But some principles are beginning to emerge about what works best for business marketers.

The business case for integration is compelling. First, multiple media working together generate better results than single media. Second, if communications are not delivering a consistent message, they can cancel each other out. Customers expect a consistent message from their vendors, and an inconsistent customer experience causes confusion and erodes the value of the brand.

But pulling this off is not easy, especially in medium to large companies. Functional silos in marketing communications have arisen, all with their own vocabularies, cultures, budgets and objectives. Getting them coordinated requires tenacity, a maniacal focus on the customer experience, and support from senior management.

But the payoff can be huge, in terms of the power of a well-oiled machine. And the kicker is the bonus that lead generators reap from brand communications. All outbound contacts with customers, whether they be customer service messages, or even billing-related messages, can potentially be harnessed for the lead effort.

Taking advantage of every touch point

The simplest way to gain this kind of leverage is to put the company website URL, which has a registration offer prominently placed on the home page, on all messages received by the customer. The same principle applies to customer touch points that are less obviously part of marketing communications, such as packaging, point of purchase displays, billing statements—any point where the customer comes in contact with the product or service.

Similarly, with a little effort, some marketing communications can do even more to support lead generation. To stimulate your thinking:

· Include a white paper offer, with response instructions such as an 800 number or a web response URL, in every press release.

· Ensure that all brand awareness advertising includes an offer, a call to action and a response device.

· When executives give speeches, invite your customers and prospects to attend.

If you put your mind to it, you will come up with an endless stream of good ideas for integrating the marketing communications function. The best way to approach this effort is systematically to review everything in your company that touches customers and prospects, and consider ways to convert the touch point into an actionable inquiry that can be nudged along toward a completed sale.

How multiple media work together

Ideally, business marketers seek to leverage the power of various media channels working together. The whole being greater than the sum of its parts, as they say.

Here are some examples of how multiple media work well together.

Telephone follow-up to direct mail. This tried-and-true approach combines the deep penetration of the telephone with the persuasive power of the mail. Together, they can build on each other to deliver a lower cost per action than could each element working on its own. Just make sure the follow-up call is a substantive part of moving the prospect along the buying process, and not simply an empty confirmation that the mailing piece arrived. In fact, telemarketing experts recommend that you avoid mentioning the mail piece during the phone call, since it diverts the discussion from the objective at hand.

Direct mail follow-up to phone. Some business marketers reverse the process, by telephoning first, and following up with mail later. This approach works well when asking for a specific action, like attendance at a seminar. Calling is also a good way to qualify inquirers from trade shows, where many people may stop by your booth but only a portion of them will ever become qualified buyers. Rather than invest further in the inquirer by sending an expensive fulfillment package, a phone call can be used to screen out the duds.

Email pre and post direct mail. As long as you already have some kind of business relationship with the target, email enhances the communications mix due to its low cost. Email is proving unusable for cold prospecting, but for inquirers and current customers, it combines nicely with other communications to reinforce key messages and provide an additional touch.

Postcards as support to other media. Some marketers find that varying the mail format is helpful. Begin with a series of postcards, follow up with a letter and a phone call or email. Because the phone is so powerful and intrusive, you may find that a simple postcard in advance is enough to grab attention.

Print ads mailed as reprints. It’s wise to make your advertising work harder by redeploying it as part of an ongoing program for keeping in touch. Accompanied by a letter saying “In case you missed our recent ad in such-and-such a magazine…”, this technique can provide a good excuse to contact your house file directly.

Using corporate communications as “air cover.” Mass media awareness campaigns, in such channels as television and print, provide excellent support for a lead generation program. If you can time your campaigns to coincide with, or follow shortly after, a branding campaign, your response rates will be stronger than usual.

How to select the right media mix

The media mix is a function of several variables, which you need to examine:

The cost of each medium. As a rule of thumb, it makes sense to use lower-cost media at the early stages of the process, and the more expensive media later, as and the likelihood of closing increases.
The medium’s availability. When are the industry trade shows scheduled throughout the year? Profitable banner ad media may exist, but can you get enough of them to satisfy your needs for leads?
The campaign’s time horizon. Print is faster to create and place than direct mail, for example.
The business objectives. Your sales team may need more leads in the first and fourth quarters, for example.

To manage all these variables, a spreadsheet makes an excellent iterative planning tool. Lay out the media options on a spreadsheet and start tweaking. Conduct pro forma scenarios and seek to optimize the communications stream.

Here is a simple example of how this can work. Click on the image below Performance Campaign Planning Tool to enlarge the image of the chart. (Please note: these numbers are hypothetical and not intended necessarily to represent current average costs or response rates.)

You can expand this spreadsheet to include other key variables, like timing and geographic territory requirements. Click on the thumbnail Outbound Campaign Media Types below to expand the chart.

Notice that this spreadsheet breaks out the expected qualification rate by inquiry source, a refinement that will assist in your making the best media mix decisions. You are likely to end up with some very inexpensive leads in your mix. The unfortunate thing is that, typically, these leads will not be enough to meet your growth needs or support your sales force’s quota. So you’ll need to select several options, ranking them by ROI, availability and your lead flow criteria, to come up with the optimal mix.

The Beginning of a Customer-Lead Generation Marketing

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:29:00 +0000

If we accept, as a premise, your marketing database is central to your marketing we can better understand the evolution of leads to customers. In his book, "Database Marketing, The Ultimate Marketing Tool, Edward Nash refers to 'The Relationship Ladder". This represents five evolutionary stages an individual (or business) progresses ultimately becoming an "advocate" for your brand. The 5 "Relationships" are:

Suspect-this applies to a name that has some strong capability of being interested in your product or service and becoming a customer. The example his book gave, if you are selling white wine, someone playing tennis or golf might be interested due to similar socio-demographics.
Prospect-the next stage describes someone who is "reasonably certain to buy your product, or a competitor's, in the near future". Examples are people (or businesses) who have purchased similar product in your category or expressed some interest in purchasing your product via a questionnaire.
User-This is someone who has actually purchased your product at least once.
Customer-is someone who has purchased your product more than once. In other words, if they purchased at least 2 times, they can be considered a customer because they are thinking of your brand before selecting any other.
Advocate is the ultimate customer. They are satisfied loyal customers who unofficially sell your product on your behalf. They refer new customers to you because they are satisfied customers of your product.

My discussion refers to the first two "relationships" defined above. A lead is the starting point that a customer begins their journey through nurturing (marketing). Sources of "suspect" leads abound. They come from:

SEM/SEO
CO-OP direct mail (i.e. Val Pak)
Online Registration
Card Decks (industry or consumer specific)
Package Insert Programs-inserting advertisements into packages being mailed to other company's clients that ordered something from them through the mail.
Billing statement-(credit card, cable bill etc)
Mailing lists rented from competitors-to be used for telemarketing or direct mail
Bind-in response cards in magazines
Free Standing Inserts (FSI)

Your selected media has to match the profile of your product or service. In a future post, I will discuss how "data mining" your marketing database provides direction for media selection. For our discussion here some examples:

SEM/SEO -in the online world, your key words and/or your site is optimized in alignment with your content. In addition your key words, but meta tags, page titles, alt tags and descriptions would all align with the content of each page and the overall site. The end result are highly qualified suspects since they searched for key words relevant to your site.
CO-OP direct mail-this is a little more difficult on a local level since Val Pack engages in saturation mailings into specific regions. However, as a local company, you would select the geographic areas most closely aligned with the majority of your customer base. If you are a national marketing organization, things are a little easier because Val Pack can offer demographic targeting. You can select specific areas based on the demographic profile of your customer base. There are and have been other co-op mail programs that catered to specific demographic groups (i.e. young parents, new births to name two).
Card Decks are similar to CO-OP's because both share the same outer envelope, mailing list and postage. Card decks are usually mailed in a clear square envelope and have certain set size advertising pieces. However, the mechanics of selection relative to your business is the same. You have to understand the demographic (consumer) or firmagraphic (business) profile of the audience they reach and select accordingly.
Billing Statements-these have been around for quite a while. Companies insert their advertisement in the same envelope in which the company's billing statement. Since these are always mailed first class, you are marketing via optimum mail delivery. Like any other medium, this channel should be assessed if the audience is a "suspect" for your product or service.
Mailing Lists-target business or consumers. They are compiled (telephone directories) or response generated (TV, direct mail, questionnaire etc). Mailing lists are "RENTED" not "SOLD". For those not in the direct marketing industry, this is a somewhat confusing statement. Mailing lists belong to the company that went to the trouble of compiling the names into its finished form. Therefore, think of them in a similar fashion to an apartment. The landlord allows you to stay in the apartment so long as you pay a monthly fee. But, you do not own the apartment. Similarly, lists are rented for a ONE TIME use. If you want to use them more, you have to ask permission to the list owner. If granted, there is an additional charge.
Bind-In Cards-Many times you will see a post card attached to the spine of a magazine. This marketing vehicle is leveraging the magazine's circulation. To get a profile of that magazine's audience, ask their sales representative for their audited statement. Many magazines have their circulation audited by an outside company. This is your assurance that the statements being made by the magazine are true and accurate. Some times, and it depends on the magazine, you can "selectively" bind in the cards to specific audience profile. As with any direct response program, quality, not quantity rules. If you can narrow your audience by selecting those subscribers more closely aligned with your profile, you can improve your response. Ask the sales representative if they provide this capability.
FSI-as the name implies, these are advertisement that, (unlike bind in cards that are attached to the spine of a magazine), are loosely inserted between pages of a circular or magazine. You can tell they are a FSI by simply holding the vehicle with the pages pointing downward. If any advertisement falls out, that is an FSI. They are similar in concept to a bind-in card because you are riding along with the magazine or circular to reach that audience. The major advantage to FSI's and bind-ins is cost. They are significantly less expensive than sending a direct mail piece.
On line registrations-companies like "Lending Tree" generate qualified leads and then sell them for a price. You are purchasing these leads because they have been pre-qualified in your product or service.

Media ROI

Regardless of the media you use, basic direct response analysis rules are in order. The decision which media to use is NOT based on a comparison of the the initial media outlay.
A short real life story will explain my point. While running a direct marketing department, I had one of my staff prepare a media plan. This individual staff member was brand new to direct marketing. Upon presentation, I asked him which lists he thought we should use in our next mailing. He pointed to two or three. When I asked why he selected them, he responded they cost less than other magazine lists he researched. I asked him to conduct an analysis to measure the response rates and profitability of each list based on previous campaigns. He found out that the ROI was greater on some lists that had a higher media outlay, BUT greater profitability due to their performance.
The moral of this is you evaluate media based on their ROI. For people not familiar with this metric it is a very simple equation. It is: (Gross Sales-Cost)/Cost. Please note, this is the formula you use for each individual media. Once you know the ROI, you can rank each media based on its ROI. You can also use this formula for our overall campaign to measure its ROI. However, you need to know the ROI for each component of your campaign.
Please also note. If you make multiple selects within the same media, EACH selection MUST be analyzed individually. You accomplish this by identifying each media and each selection of a particular media with a "KEY CODE". This code becomes part of the promotional piece. When the recipient responds, the key code is captured thereby assigning the response to the specific media of a particular campaign.

Capturing the Information With Your Marketing Database

As stated in my earlier post, your campaign can not be considered direct marketing unless the responses are captured and stored in your database.
It is imperative all responses are captured. Relevant information includes Key Code, Contact Name & Address, what they requested (if a lead generation program) or purchased, (complete order information).

Future Marketing

The evolutionary journey continues now that the prospect responded to your lead or inquiry program. Now that you have their contact and response information, you are in a position to analyze the campaign's effectiveness to improve campaign effectiveness in the future.
Secondly, you can now market to the leads to convert a percentage on them via direct response channels: direct mail, email marketing, outbound telemarketing (compliant with the FTC's Do Not Call Laws).

Thank you
I noticed that my posts are being read in Europe. I want to thank everyone who has found my blog and taken the time to spend your valuable time here. I hope everyone finds the information useful.

While I am unable to provide specific reference to direct mail delivery outside of the United States, my posts discusses direct and relationship marketing concepts that are universal. To those visitors in Europe, thank you for visiting and hope you (and everyone else) profits from this information.

Please feel free to leave your comments. They are always welcome. Please subscribe to my email blasts on various direct response solutions.

A Marketing Database-Your Business' Central Nervous System

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:45:00 +0000

In this day Web 2.0 of blogging, websites, search engine marketing, and You Tube, we lose site of the most important fact in marketing. Each of these vehicles represent different contact points of your business' prospects and customers. The "central nervous system" of all this information was (and still is) a "marketing database".

The late Bob Stone in his book, "Successful Direct Marketing Methods, 7th Ed (co authored by Ron Jacobs), defined direct marketing as follows:

"Direct Marketing is the interactive use of advertising media, to stimulate an (immediate) behavior modification in such a way that this behavior can be tracked, recorded, analyzed, and stored on a database for future retrieval and use."

The database, and I will refer to it as a "marketing database", is a central part of direct marketing. Without a means of collecting all the information into a logical and meaningful order, your marketing will fail because you lose the ability to track and analyze each campaign's effectiveness and ROI.

What is a database? It is a collection of information stored on a computer. A "marketing database" is more than a name and address of an individual or company. It is a collection of customer and prospect information from all contact points. Contact points include in part:

Search Engine Marketing visitors to your site (that left some contact information)
Inbound telephone
Direct Mail Responses
Sales orders-on or off line
Prospects: website visitors, catalog requests, BRC's responses, post cards for additional information, subscribers, past customers etc.
Responses from Infomercials

A marketing database collects and organizes this information and has at least the following pieces of information:

Name
Address
Telephone number
Source of customer or lead
Email address
Ongoing sales information related to each contact/purchase-(date of sale, sale amount, number of purchases, skus purchased)
A unique identifier for each record on the database
Responses (and their key codes identifying the specific campaign and media) from all campaigns linked back to the specific recipient.

Having this information, you can begin to develop multiple initiatives. They are designed around the data collected to improve marketing initiatives, and identify historical customer value to your organization. These are not mutually exclusive. The more analysis you perform improves future marketing campaigns. These initiatives fall into two broad categories:

List segmentation for marketing campaigns
Customer analysis of data

List Segmentation

Segmentation by Sales -conduct an analysis by RFM-Recency, Frequency and Monetary variables. These are three metrics found on any transactional database. Having this kind of analysis will identify the old "80/20" rule. 80 per cent of your sales come from 20 percent of your customers. Identifying who they are and having the ability of scientifically selecting them saves a lot of wasted advertising dollars.

Select by trigger event-maintain and update RFM information on each customer. Evaluate the change in behavior month-to-month. If there is a decrease at a set amount, say 10%, pro-actively create marketing programs to change the customer's behavior.
Segment by Communication Channel response information to identify best customer or channels of communication. For example, you can evaluate ROI by channel. You might find that a two step lead generation and telephone follow-up produces a higher ROI than mailing a large catalog for an immediate sale.

Data Analysis

Use analytical information to pro actively trigger marketing campaigns. For example, update your RFM scores. Based on the customer's historic value, create a VIP club with sliding scale of rewards. The more valuable customers receive greater rewards.

Overlay demographic or firmagraphic information onto your marketing database. Identify customer penetration by demographic or firmagraphic criteria. When I worked at a b-t-b catalog marketing company, we overlayed SIC code and employee size data. I found that there were significant pockets of customers in SIC codes other that our core groups. Based on this profiling, I looked for advertising vehicles reaching the uncovered SIC's.

For more sophisticate analytical procedures, conduct a model to predict behavior. You will need a specialist for this who understands statistics and data. The beauty of this procedure is that you are able to predict behavior and identify the likelihood with a certain degree of probability that action will take place. You can select only those customers or prospects most likely to exhibit that behavior. This saves you a lot of money because your advertising dollars are spent on those people most likely interested in your service.

The size of your customer base and your technology budget will determine your database software needs. For many small companies, a MS Access database is sufficient. You have to know database technology to properly set it up. Access databases can easily accommodate several hundred thousand records. If you do not know database design, you can contact us for a consultation.

If you database is larger, you probably would go onto some server such as SQL or even Oracle. You would need technical experts who would maintain this data for you. There are also online databases, but I do not know or recommend any company.

In summary, you can lose site of the key components needed for marketing in Web 2.0. You need a professionally designed website, email communication, direct mail AND a database to maintain in a logical order all of this valuable marketing information. Without a database to analyze the data, you could be spending a lot of advertising unwisely.
By Eric B. Mohr/EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC ©

Effective Email Marketing Strategies

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:10:00 +0000

Email marketing is a cost effective communication channel. If used correctly, and not abused, your business will benefit. When marketing via email your business has to comply with CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) regulations enacted into law in 2003. These are FEDERAL regulations for all commercial enterprises engaged in email marketing.

CAN SPAM was enacted due to abuse by companies engaged in spam-unwanted and unsolicited email flooding your in box. Briefly, the law stipulates:

"It bans false or misleading header information. Your email's "From," "To," and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email"
It prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.
It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a "menu" of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.
It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender's valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.
Each violation of the above provisions is subject to fines of up to $11,000. Deceptive commercial email also is subject to laws banning false or misleading advertising.

Having said this, email marketing, should be embraced. There are programs and services that are geared for marketers of all sizes. Constant Contact is a web based email marketing solution specifically geared for small to mid size businesses. The software is CAN SPAM compliant so the small business does not have to worry about out in or opt out.

Two terms you have to know in email marketing are:

OPT IN- is when an individual grants permission for you to include their email address in any email solicitation.
OPT OUT- is when the same individual elects to remove their name from any email solicitation.

There are multiple objectives in email marketing including;

Building your opt-in email list
Segmenting your email list
Analyzing your email program
Integrating your email marketing with other on and off line communication channels

Building your opt-in email list
There are many approaches open to building an email list. Once such method I discussed in an earlier post entitled "Using Event Marketing And Your Website". They do not have to be complicated. Some include;

Have 3x5 cards or a sign in book near your cash register with a sign "join our email list". You or someone at your business will have to manually enter the information.
If you have a website, create a customized form that people fill out (online). The data is stored on a database for retrieval. This is a preferred method because you are saving a significant amount of money by having the consumer enter the information. You can also build in validation rules to insure accuracy of the information.
If someone purchases from your establishment, ask for their contact/email information.
Create a VIP club
In restaurants, leave a post card on the table with the check. The post card asks for their contact information for future event notifications.
If you notice on my blog, I have a link inviting readers to be added to my email list. If you have a website that does not provide forms to enter visitor information, you can put some html code on the site, provided by Constant Contact, that will direct the visitor to a data entry form created on your Constant Contact account.

Segmenting Your Email List
As with any direct response program, you want to target those recipients most likely interested in your product or service. Because email marketing does not have the high fixed costs associated with traditional direct mail, people are prone to email everyone. I think this is a mistake. You want to target only those people who will most likely have an affinity to your email. Equally important, you do not want your customers or prospects to think you as flooding their in boxes with solicitations that do not interest them. Remember, your recipients have the legal right to opt-out which you must comply. So it is in your best interest to heed this advice.

In order to accomplish this, you have to know a little about your contact. When asking for their email address, also ask a few, but not many, questions about their likes. For example,

If you sell clothes, ask what type of cloths interest them
If you are a restaurant, ask if they are a business, are they interested in parties, catering, etc.
Whenever I send emails, I provide a link in my email for the recipient to update their account. I created in Constant Contact broad categories of solutions that I provide. The responder can check off any solution that are listed. I create a customized email dealing with that solution emailed to that audience

Analyzing Your Email Program
A direct response program, to be effective, has to be based on Return on Investment (ROI). You want to choose your communication channel based on how much money you made relative to your investment. There are many different communication channels open to you. They include:

Email marketing
Solo direct mail
CO-OP direct mail
Newspapers
Free Standing Inserts
DRTV -Direct Response Television
Radio
Text Messaging
SEARCH (SEM/SEO)

Many SME's marketing is haphazard. All marketing results have to be tracked, analyzed and stored on a database. The easiest way to identify each response or sale is to code the initial advertisement during it creation and request that source code for the response. For example:

When driving traffic to your website from an event marketing, provide a source code specific to that event that has to be entered along with their contact information.
When responding to a direct mail piece, ask for the source code.
DRTV and Radio can also ask the viewer/listener for source code information when ordering.

When responses come in and tabulated, you are analyzing the effectiveness of each program by the source code. Make sure you keep track of each source code, the promotion, type of advertising, data of advertising, how many people were involved, expenditure (cost) for the ad.

Integrating With All Advertising
Now that you know your ROI, you can consider your email marketing in relation to the ROI of all your advertising. You will make sound, financial decisions, enable you to select which communication channels to use to achieve the highest ROI and fall within your overall marketing budget.

By Eric B. Mohr EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC ©

Promotional Products For Long Term Exposure

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:17:00 +0000

There are various ways to promote your business. Direct response promotion is immediate. But businesses and consumers are bombarded with advertising every hour. They include;

Radio
TV
Outdoor advertising
Flyers
Infomercials
Print-(magazines, newspapers, etc)

So the question is how do you maintain your business' mind share in the marketplace long after the promotion?

A solution, that has been around for over 200 years, is called promotional products. The industry can be traced to commemorative buttons issued in honor of George Washington's inauguration.

Wikpedia defines promotional items or promotional products as:

"articles of merchandise that are used in marketing and communication programs. These items are usually imprinted with a company's name, logo or slogan, and given away at trade shows, conferences, and as part of guerilla marketing campaigns."

Promotional Products is a multi billion dollar industry. According to Timothy M. Andrews President and CEO of ASI, (Advertising Specialty Institute) 2007 sales reached $19.6 Billion, up 5.4% from 2006.

The marketing approaches you take are only limited by your imagination. With the age of the internet, you can search websites for product idea. You can use distributors to provide expert guidance in this type of marketing. A distributor has access to all promotional product manufactures.

One of the oldest distributors in the country, dating back to 1920, is Larick Associates Inc. Their website, www.larick.com contains almost 800,000 items to peak your marketing mind.

So what are the ways to use this multi-billion dollar industry:

Video Message Pens-this is a pen with the capability of displaying up to 6 different messages through a cut out in the barrel of the pen. When you "click" the pen to write, the message appearing in the barrel rotates to the next message. You can also have your company name and address imprinted on the barrel. Great leave behind at sales presentations, with customers and at trade shows.
USB Drives-all computers today come with USB drives. You can place your company logo and message on the outside of the drive. The drive can contain customized product messages, drive people to your web site etc.
T Shirts-when someone is wearing your t shirt, they are advertising your company, services etc. These are great handouts at experiential marketing events (i.e. college spring break) and other guerrilla marketing venues.
Computer laptop bags-as an example-a well know college's law school hands computer lap top bags out at incoming orientation. The bags have the college name and logo. They are a walking bill board.
USB Hubs-it is a hub that connects to your computer via a USB socket. The hub has multiple USB connections allowing multiple USB connections to your laptop or computer via one USB port. The hub is imprinted and sits permanently on your desk top offering visible advertising of your company and brand.

For additional information on these ideas, please feel free to leave a post or email us. If you are interested in receiving periodic emails on our solutions, please join our opt-in email lists

Using Event Marketing and Your Website to Build Your Customer Database

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:34:00 +0000

Recently, I attended a tasting at a local restaurant. The event was organized by the local adult education in the town that I live. Because the restaurant was new, the obvious objective of this this event was to expose as many people as possible to their food.

The event was well attended by mostly new people. I also noted to myself, before writing this blog, that the restaurant has a web site that captures email address.

At the end of the tasting, the owner gave everyone in attendance a coupon, (nothing professional, just an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet ), with a discount good until the middle of May.

Here was a perfect opportunity for the restaurant to combine the event and their website! Instead of handing the discounts to everyone, they could have directed everyone to go to their site and REGISTER for the discount. A coup would have been emailed to each customer who registered.

The advantages are obvious:

The restaurant builds their customer database.
They build their opt-in list of emails.
They will have a permanent record (of at least an email address) for future communications.
They can begin an ongoing dialog with requests for additional information and feedback from future emails. This can be captured with a customized form in your website and stored in your database. If your website doesn't have this capability, go to www.dmwebsites.net to see how I use a registration form to capture leads in my web development business.
The restaurant can also use this email list for referrals to people they might know.
By encouraging sign ups at the site, it dramatically lowers the owners cost of keying in the information themselves.

Instead, they handed the customers their discount and thanked everyone! They were very professional, but missed a golden marketing opportunity. Here was a simple and very inexpensive marketing approach integrating two communication channels, your website and event promotion.

Your website is, or should be, a very flexible marketing tool. Use it and integrate it in as many creative ways that comes to your imagination.

Integrate Offline With Online Advertising

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:32:00 +0000

Recently, I discussed the necessity of integrating Search and offline marketing. I read a very interesting study published in August 2007. iProspect.com and JupiterResearch conducted this study. I believe their study has direct implications for small business marketing, discussed in my earlier post.

The study's objective was "...to gain a better understanding of how exposure to offline channels influences their search and purchasing behavior." In a recent presentation I gave on the subject "How Small Business Use the Internet", I stated that the two most prevalent internet activities are search and email. It is imporant to understand the effect different advertising channels play in Search. The study analyzed if search happens in a vacuum or if offline advertising channels plays a role.

The study asked the following question:
Within the last six months, which of the follow prompted you to go to a search engine and look for information on a particular company, product, service or slogan? Select all that apply." It revealed that 2/3rds of search result from exposure to some off line advertising. They also found that 33% of searches, initiated from offline advertising, resulted in a purchase.

What is the marketing implications for the Small to Mid Size Business? Historically, small business traditionally advertises in:

Local newspapers
Circulars
Local Shoppers
Industry specific magazines
Cooperative direct mail programs such as Val Pak
Solo direct mail for acquisition and/or customer retention

Increasingly, small business are developing a web presence. The study should influence small business marketing. Obviously, the business must have a website.(See my post "Why Small Business Need the Internet").

Based on this study's findings, small businesses must have a multi channel approach to marketing. All to often, small business use a scatter approach without any relevancy between advertising channels. This is a mistake as this study reveals.

The ways of integrating are boundless. For example,

Begin with an advertisement in a local flyer or circular driving traffic to your site. Have the visitor register online with some inducement or discount on your service. The contact information should include their email address (adhering to all opt-in standards). You now have a means of communicating future promotions that originated with a off line channel.
Integration can be very simple. A local pizzeria client placed his web address on all pizza boxes. When those pizza boxes leave the restaurant, they are a billboard driving web traffic.
Expanding on #2, place a "post-it" on the outside of the pizza box with a series of coupons with different expiration dates. The coupon is only valid on web purchases.
There is always tried and true direct mail. In 2002, the Winterberry Group conducted a study on the interaction between direct mail and its ability to increasing website traffic. Using this channel increased web traffic by 21%. This channel can be used for customer promotions. Use your customer database to advertise new products or services your customers may be interested. Drive the customers to your site with an inducement not offered for off line purchase. (If your customer has not already done so, make sure they register online).
Re-solicit customers who have not purchased from you in a while (6 months or one year). Perhaps they don't know you have a website? Maybe they moved? With a website, you are not geographic bound. (Collect their any missing contact information, especially email addresses for future communication.

These are some examples of media well known to small businesses. Some of them are free (printing your web address on a pizza box). Others cost some marketing dollars. However, when combined with Search Engine Optimization and Paid Per Click programs, this study suggests that offline marketing compliments Search marketing programs.

Your comments and other examples are welcome.

Why Small Businesses Need the Internet

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:27:00 +0000

As reported in the February 14, 2008 issue of the New York Times, 36% of small business, defined as companies with less than 100 employees, have a web site. This represents a market that is still yet to fully embrace a medium in which over 231 million people use in North America. The Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, listed the following ways a website benefits a business. They include:

It lowers your cost of doing business. Each interaction lowers your cost of handling that transaction off line.
Allows business to compete with companies much larger.
Brings in new business from other markets.
Is open 24/7.
Reduced unit costs.
Increased sales outside the US.

Other benefits include:

Better customer service-being open 24/7 visitors can get their questions or information answered immediately.
You can display your entire inventory, (if you sell) without necessarily purchasing it upfront.
You can run your business more efficiently. Brochures, product inventory, and marketing communication material can be updated instantly.
Credibility is also important. People will ask "what is your web address". Not having one makes your company seem outdated. A poorly designed website, with outdated information, makes your company look even worse.

Yet, there are almost 60% of small business without a website. The costs to obtain one have dramatically decreased over the last several years. For a website to be an effective two way communication channel should have certain key features. They include:

The ability to easily update content. Web authoring tools should not require you to learn intricate html code.
The ability to create customized forms facilitating capturing visitors' registration, surveys, or other relevant information.
An internal database that stores the visitor information for future marketing and communication.
The hosting company supplying the service should offer unlimited (free) technical support.
If you are going to sell online, e-commerce software that includes a secure shopping cart and online merchant verification.
To give you an example, go to www.dmwebsites.net.

Creating and maintaining a website takes time and planning. Many companies provides template driven products. While they are very inexpensive, a little more money will provide a unique experience for your visitors. To reiterate, the web is interactive. Your website should facilitate that two way communication.

Some caution should be noted. Business owners, hard pressed to run their day to day operations, should assign the development and/or maintenance to someone. If that is not possible, wait until you have the time. I also advise, get help from experts.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

What happens to the lead after a click?

sales@ebmdirectmarketing.com (EBM Direct Marketing Services LLC) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:59:00 +0000

A while ago, I was speaking with the president of a Search Engine Marketing company. I believe his company to be a fine organization. I asked him a question prefacing it by stating that at the end of a click is a name and address. How will his company monetizes that name and address from a lead to a customer or (if it was a sales generated campaign) a repeat customer. His answer was revealing They did not get involved with that end of the marketing. It was left up to their client. This same company president also stated that one of his clients wanted to know who were their best customers based on the names generated. He could not help his client.

Now, put yourself in the eyes of that president's customer. What if the SEM company could provide an integrated SEM and monetize those best customers. How much more valuable would that SEM company be viewed? Equally important, that would be a real differentiator in a very competitive marketplace. I have seen no differentiator separating themselves from competitors. Each is selling a better mouse trap. While I am sure each is good in their own right, the value proposition, from the customer's perspective, is neutral.
Search is here to stay. It is a very ROI driven medium. In it's evolution, SEM companies have to go to the next step and integrate traditional database marketing.
If you have any questions how to accomplish this, we would love to hear from you and answer your questions.

EBM Direct Marekting Services is an internet/web development and direct response marketing company. It principle has over 28 years experience handling direct response campaigns for lead generation, customer retention, cross and upsell programs. If you would like more information on our company, please visit Eric Mohr's LinkedIn profile.