As marketers, we’ve always been good at figuring out what to sell and how to sell it. Advertising guru Les Wunderman says, “What we often can’t figure out is when to sell.”

Precision timing is critical in an artillery strike, the New Year’s Eve ball drop, aerial acrobatics, and a lead-nurturing campaign. A trigger is a flag that cues you to send a customer an email, coupon, whitepaper, or presentation invitation at just the optimal point in time – precisely when the customer needs it to make a decision.

Yes, it takes work, trial and error, and recalibrations, but the value of trigger marketing is it delivers three to 10 times more returns to your marketing bottom line.  “Triggers always work better than random outreach,” says Mail Print CEO Gina Danner. “Because you’re working in sync with their decision making process.”

Know Your Customers’ Triggers

CRM News cites six types of marketing triggers that you can use to automate your marketing campaign.

1. Customer life events- Birthdays, weddings, new baby and a new car purchase are all customer events that could merit an action or message on your company’s part based on your product or service. Automating the timing of these life events is critical.
2. Transaction behaviors- Does a customers credit card purchase show that they’re in the middle of a home remodel? Does their declining credit score cue you to sell them on credit counseling or credit repair services?
3. Online behaviors- Is your customer hot on the trail for information that signals a future purchase? Have they hit your insurance website, downloaded a life insurance eBook, or interacted on a social network?
4. Expiration Triggers- Does your product or service have a maturity date that can be used to signal a context –sensitive offer or message from a lending institution?
5. Credit Bureau Triggers- If a customer has a mortgage with a bank and the bank sees them looking for other credit lending solutions it could trigger a loyalty program or retention call.
6. External Triggers- Changes in market or environmental conditions may indicate it’s time to kick in a campaign to protect your company’s reputation and environmental stewardship.

Don’t Be That Salesperson

You know you hate the pushy store clerk who runs up to you as soon as you walk in the door. He/she further creates a relationship gap by blurting out all the items on sale without even asking what you came in for. She makes you want to run for the exit door by telling you even more irrelevant store information you didn’t request.

Don’t be that person when you are nurturing relationships through your sales funnel. Push marketing is out, trigger marketing is in.

Hang back in the corner instead and be an expert observer ready to answer questions or provide more information when your customer asks for it. Listen and watch for virtual body language that signals interest and the need for assistance. Let the customer raise their hand before addressing their needs.

It’s respectful, fruitful, and the new way of doing business in this customer-driven world.

A landing page (also known as a squeeze page, jump page, or a microsite) is relatively simple to build. Most companies should have at least one landing page for every product or service. A landing page should serve a purpose— to gain customer information so you can develop a relationship with him or her over time so they will trust you and buy your products. The cardinal rule is never send ad traffic to your home page where they might get lost and never return.

Building a landing page that gives the prospect clear value increases the likelihood of getting their contact information. But here’s the rub, you only get 56 seconds to persuade them to do this, according to data from Nielson. To optimize your chances of success, here’s a simple checklist to follow:

• Make sure the call to action is clear
• Make sure the headline is strong and matches your advertising promise
• Put the important content at the top, so there is no need to scroll
• Make sure your landing page loads easily and quickly so you don’t lose your prospects
• Include links to your contact page and privacy policy in the footer
• Don’t ask for too much information in your opt-in form (name and email are standard)
• Give clear details of what they’re getting, when they’re getting it, and what to expect next
• Include the copy, pictures, and when applicable, video, necessary to earn their trust
• Testimonials that reinforce the benefit to opting in work wonders

Building strong landing pages has enough curriculum online to be parlayed into a college degree. However, if you don’t have time to go back to night school, just watch The Art of Crafting Effective Landing Pages by Daniel Johnston.

In case you don’t have time to watch all of Dan Johnston’s presentation, let me point out the four worst things you can try to do with your landing pages.

1.  Throw in the Kitchen Sink. Trying to cram as much as possible onto one page puts the burden on the respondent to sift through it. Stay focused on the one action you want them to take and why they should take it.

2.  Rush to get their number. Landing pages that immediately ask a visitor to complete a form, fail. Build up to it, then ask for their email or number.

3.  Optimize too much. Test which combination of headline, image, and offer button works best, but don’t waste a lot of time on minutia or microscopic tweaks.

4.  Not honoring brand. Just because landing pages are quick and cheap to build doesn’t mean they should look cheap. Make sure the image your page presents is professional and matches your brand.

We hope this gives you plenty of ideas to run and execute in the New Year with your landing pages. Build many, attract many, measure always, and remember to stick your landing.

As 2012 begins, it’s important to review your marketing tactics to get a clearer picture of what worked and what didn’t. Technology is constantly evolving, and it’s wise to keep up with new trends.

That said, if email marketing is a part of your marketing plan, are you utilizing it the best way possible to ensure the best results?

What are we talking about, in particular? Well, let’s start with the basics:

• You don’t necessarily want to just add anyone to your mailing list. What you send them should be relevant and you should have a real relationship with the individual.  If possible get permission.
• Don’t be spam … or look like it. Show clear intent in the subject line and write the email to match. Identify yourself in the from line and provide a physical address. Make sure you have a prominent opt-out feature and stagger your sends in smaller batches to avoid looking like a spammer.
• Try personalizing your message. Put their name at the top. Let them know you know who they are and this isn’t a random message. You think you know what they want and have the means to give it to them.

Next steps are a little more intermediate. But we’re sure you can keep up! (And if not, you know who to call!)

• Always test your email before it goes out! See how it looks in different email clients … with pictures and with pictures blocked … in text and in HTML. You’d be surprised the massive effects these things can have on your message.  Think about it like this – you would never send a direct mail piece without doing a LOT of proof reading.  Be sure to do the same with your email.
• Track, track and track some more. Watch your click-through rate, conversion rate and delivery rate. Make sure people are getting your message, wanting to open your email, and clicking through.
• Try different options based upon your tracking rates. Send your email with a different subject line or offer. Send it on a different day and/or a different time of day. Find what works.

And for those a little more advanced (or who are savvy enough to find folks who can help!), these tips are for you:

• Separate your list into different segments based upon demographics and/or shopping habits and history. Tailor your message and/or offer to match that audience and get even better results!
• Keep your mailing list clean. Remove hard bounces (those addresses that don’t work), NEVER send to those who have opted out, and trim those contacts who never view your message or click on anything.
• Watch your feedback loop. If someone clicks “this is spam,” you have to stop sending emails to that address. Make sure you subscribe to ISP feedback loops and monitor it on a regular basis.

Email marketing doesn’t have to be intimidating, but it can be time consuming. Do it poorly, and you’re not only missing out on key customers but your time isn’t being well spent. Do it properly, and gain a great reputation, expand your brand awareness, and boost those sales and conversions!

If you’re a supporter of going green off the clock, shouldn’t you be practicing what you preach on the clock?  Does your company have environmental initiatives and is your marketing department being good stewards of it resources?

To save the planet, marketers can dedicate themselves to supporting resources that are sustainable. One way to do that is to reuse, recycle, and repurpose what you generate day to day in your work with paper topping the list. Paper comes from wood, which is one of the few true natural renewable resources we have.

Thanks to tree farming (the 95 million acres of forest planted and harvested for commercial purposes) the pulp and paper industry replenishes more than it takes and ensures the sustainability of our forests by planting 1.7 million trees every day – way more than is harvested.

Nearly 60 percent of all paper in the U.S. is recycled. In comparison, less than 20 percent of U.S. electronic devices are recycled.

So while emails are deemed free to send, the technology behind emails has a business and environmental cost. A study by Thomas Jackson of the Department of Information Science, at Loughborough University, reports that emails cost a business between $8,000 to $16,000 per employee based on an averaged salary of $40,000.

Email costs resulted from ambiguous unclear messages, email overload, security and privacy issues, and email interruptions. The formula accounts for time spent reading email (average read time and average number of emails per day).

McAfee, released a report in 2009 called the Carbon Foot Print of Email Spam Report. In its report McAfee cited:

• In 2008, 62 trillion spam emails were sent;
• Spam emails used 33 billion kW/h in 2008 in order to be processed (that is equivalent to the energy use in 2.4 million homes for a year, or it is equivalent to using 2 billion gallons of gasoline;
• Spam filtering is equivalent to taking 13 million cars off of the roads; one spam email requires the same amount of energy as driving 3 feet (the annual volume of email spam requires enough energy to drive around the earth 1.6 million times).

A picture is worth a thousand words.  Be sure to check out the great infographic from WebPageFX.

So what can you do to be more environmentally conscious while you boost business for your company? Here’s a list of ideas to become a greener marketer in 2012.

• Become a certified Environmentally Responsible Marketer (ERM)
• Use cleaner mailing lists that limit duplication and waste – yes Mail Print is telling you to mail to few people by making sure they are the RIGHT people.
• Research to effectively target your most likely customers
• Only mail information on products your customer is interested in
• Use recycled materials and water-based inks
• Use paper made from chemical-free processing
• Print on both sides to save resources and reduce mailing costs
• Follow the practices of socially responsible companies
• Take the Direct Marketing Association’s Green 15 Pledge

By practicing good eco-marketing, you’ll help the planet and improve customer relationships with your eco-conscious consumers.

Make your mail pieces relevant and you will never be considered "Junk"

Even with the explosion of the Internet and all the different electronic and mobile marketing techniques there are today, direct mail is still a very important part of any marketing plan. Why? Because it’s direct. It speaks directly to your customer:  someone you know who fits your target audience and may very well want or need your product or service.

Any good direct mail campaign must possess the following:

• a good understanding of the target audience
• a promotional message that appeals to that audience
• eye-catching graphics to grab the reader’s attention
• and a strong offer to encourage them to take action.

Using cross media (multiple advertising, marketing and PR touches) in one campaign can help reinforce your message and, thus, gain you a higher response, as people remember and respond differently to each medium. Plus, it will generate more brand awareness.

According to a survey sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association and Pitney Bowes, 39% of respondents said they tried a business for the first time because of direct mail advertising, and 70% said they renewed a business relationship because of a direct mail promotion.

The great news is, the tactics used in direct mail can not only lead your audience to other media (e.g., e-mail to a website), they can also be replicated in other marketing channels. For example, email has probably become one of the most important mediums. This is great as you can also personalize your message and customize your offer specifically for the reader. Also, just like printed direct mail, email can include variable images and text to tailor it to a specific audience.

Remember, however, that on average, customers view physical mail as “less intrusive” than telephone calls or email because they can view the messages at their own convenience. So, how do you make it relevant?

Your contact database is a great place to start. It contains all sorts of demographic statistics (or it should) that can help you tailor the right message for your audience. The effectiveness of a direct mail piece (just like the effectiveness of an email campaign) is measured by the response it generates. When using direct mail, consider using a QR code or personal URL (PURL) to enable readers to take quick action and enable you to track those specific actions.

A postcard is an ideal direct mail piece for this kind of fast, reliable and trackable method. Its size is perfect for a sales message and call to action, yet it doesn’t need to be opened for the message to be seen. If sending the reader to a landing page through a QR code or PURL, make sure to keep them there by personalizing that content, too, making your visitor feel like you truly understand their world.

What kind of direct mail campaigns have worked for you? Share your experiences with cross media, relevance and response here.

Harper’s Magazine’s editor Bill Wasik invented flash mobs as an experiment about social conformity and people wanting to be part of the next big thing. His first flash mob failed.  Abraham Lincoln said, “Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”

However, Wasik’s meticulously planned his second flash mob, which was held in 2003 in Macy’s Department store. It was a success with 130 mob participants. The engage email power of planning always brings better returns.

Here are five other ways flash mobs can inspire you to construct email campaigns that will be included in the 2012 next big thing list.

Grab Your Audiences Attention
Flash mob and email marketing similarities start with the person who leads the performance. The person who initiates the flash mob is the equivalent to the subject line of your email campaign. This pattern interrupt stops the busy shopper.  In your case the busy prospect scanning his email.  As he scans the various lines he stops at your message simply because your compelling subject line appeals to him.

Engage Them So They Stay With You

Once they click, your email message needs to engage them just as a flash mob moves into Act II of its performance. One way to engage is to be relevant by sending a message that matches the interest of your prospect. A retail shopper who buys socks, white v-neck tees and plaid boxers will engage with your sales reminder that those items are discounted this week. Personalizing your message to reflect their interests, needs, and wants indicates that you know them and increase your credibility to the shopper.  You are more engaging, or rather your message is engaging.

Be Brief, Be Real

An average flash mob dance is three to five minutes. Keep your message brief because the average person spends just 15-20 seconds reading an email.

To keep your prospect from clicking the delete button, make your message conversational rather than a blatant sales pitch.

Keep it Clean

Just as a flash mob keeps its performances G-rated, keep your email list scrubbed and in good hygiene. Good list hygiene includes removing lapsed addresses (disengaged prospects) that don’t respond to win-back campaigns. Also, use deliverability tools such as feedback loops, tracking delivery by domain, and scoring content to avoid looking “spammy”.

Keep your marketing messages and images in good taste, too. CornerBarPR.com got push back from its prospects when it emailed a subscriber solicitation for its online database with a seductive bartender on it. Though the campaign was supposed to play off the company’s bar tie-in, it didn’t win any customers among conservative PR circles.

There’s more to be learned from flash mobs to inspire better email marketing in 2012. Take 30-minutes during your lunch break to watch the 10 most viewed flash mobs of all time and let us know what you plan to apply in the New Year.

Over lunch my friend described the duress his associates were going through because of a switch from a fixed- to zero-based budgeting. In essence, department heads could no longer use last year’s budget adjusted for inflation. They instead had to cost justify each expenditure line item by line item. These are the signs of tighter times where ideally every dime spent brings in a return.

Regardless of which accounting system your company uses, be a good corporate citizen this year by conducting a marketing audit. December is a great month to reflect and plan given business-as-usual stalls due to the holidays, vacations, and in some cases inclement weather.

In a financial audit an accountant or analyst tears the books apart and helps the company put things back together in a more systemized order. In a marketing audit, chief marketing officers, and preferably an independent consultant, evaluate your company’s marketing assets, programs, and results. An audit answers the question, “ Have marketing goals been met?” “Why or why not?”

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.”

Thomas Edison

My recommendation is to secure a conference room and pin each piece of each multi-channel campaign around the room with index cards pinned beneath with the results of that campaign, advertising push, PR blitz, or cause marketing piece.

The immediate visual of seeing your work pasted on four walls will tell you:

• if you were consistent with style and brand
• if you built in ample lead pull into your campaigns
• if the call to action hits you between the eyes or was weak
• if the drop and delivery dates made for a cohesive story or diluted your efforts
• if your direct mail pulled more than your email or vice versa
• if your PURL copy clinched the sale or fell flat
• if you could combine campaigns for more oomph or if you are running so few campaigns it’s a wonder that you can generate any calls or sales

I guarantee you will see things you missed during the campaign. Then invite some friends and colleagues in to review your work – feel free to call me, I’m happy to review your campaigns – no charge and no strings.  With the help of outside perspective you will definitely gain views you can use next year. The single best way to spend wisely and increase ROI is by doing a marketing audit and revamping your 2012 budget with the lessons learned. May you have a Happy New Year filled with rocking marketing campaigns.

In the beginning, there were corner grocery stores where proprietors talked face to face with their customers about their goods. Then individual stores became national chains and managed by far away corporate offices where marketing messages were scripted and passed down to be passed on unaltered.

The result. Conversations dried up. Communication became one-way, controlled, and void of all authenticity. Remote marketing officers fell into the illusion that they were managing and maintaining customer relationships. Far from it.

Then social media shifted everything back to one great big small town. A new generation of communicators stepped in insisting their companies engage customers in real-time conversations on Twitter, Facebook, Four Square, Live Chat, and more.

Thanks to social media, customer-driven relationships are back, according to Gary Vaynerchuk, author of the Thank You Economy. Good marketers talk to their customers about life and how their passions or needs are impacted by their products. Less enlightened marketers continue to try to shove products down their customers’ throats with as little to no conversation.

Social media corporate stars such as V8, NY Jets, Martell Home Builders, Zappos, Southwest Airlines are succeeding despite the economy. Lagging companies such as AT&T, Zagat, Nestle that are not adapting to Web 2.0 fast enough or are screwing up their social media as evidenced by their shrinking marketshare.

To win at social media, Print 2.0 Vaynerchuck suggests:

• Commit to social media
• Set the tone by being real and throwing away the scripts
• Invest in employees
• Empower your people by opening a “Give a Crap” Department
• Get back to the basics using today’s technology to maintain one-on-one customer touch points (email, Twitter, white papers, Facebook, electronic coupons)
• Speak with passion and be truly interested. Customers can sniff out companies who try to fake it
• Talk to your customers as people vs. trying to pick their pockets
• Make your customers feel like royalty by responding to their every email

To humanize your company when using social media, use these five tips:

1. Use Your Name. Putting a name (that’s a real, human name) on your blog posts, tweets or status updates shows your audience that you’re not a robot or an automated stream of sales pitches and company news.
2. Add a Face. By putting a blogger’s photo or the picture of the communication team on your accounts you give followers an idea about whom they’re working with and who is behind the keyboard.  If you prefer to use the company or product logo, you can still add real photos elsewhere under the meet the team or about us page.
3. Connect with People Through Your Writing Voice.  Now that they know your name and what you look like, let them get a sense of who you really are by your personality through your writing, posts, or tweets.
4. Listen. Interact with your audience in the right way by really listening to what they have to say and how they say it. How do they interact with you? How do they interact with each other? Listening, as opposed to talking (or selling), allows you to connect with your customers.
5. Remember Why You’re There.  Participating in social media is a must, but have a clear objective as to why you’re doing it. Otherwise you’re just adding to the noise.

Paper or plastic? Both are possible with direct mail.

First Class,standard class, or Fed X? Again all three and more are possible with direct mail, which is scalable to your budget depending on the overall strategy and of course the budget.

What’s my point? That direct mail is relevant. In fact, it’s thriving despite increases in postal rates, despite social media popularity, despite a growing number of other marketing channel choices.

In the July 2011 issue of Journal of Marketing, the results of a research project on multi-channel marketing (telephone calls, email, direct mail) for the service department of a large auto dealership was reported. Research found that customers accepted about twice as much direct mail, compared to phone calls and email, before spending levels started to decrease. The researchers hypothesized that “customers view physical mail as less intrusive than telephone calls or email—they can view such messages at their own convenience.”

We’ve pulled these facts that show direct mail is alive and being ripped open and read despite all the hype about consumers clicking and tweeting away on their digital devices instead:

• 61% of consumers prefer direct mail over other types of direct marketing
• 85% – say they open, sort, process and read selected pieces from their mail everyday. 15% let it accumulate unopened for 2 or more days
• 75% of consumers say they are examining their mail more closely in recent months for coupons and special offers that save them money
• 40% of consumers say that they have tried a new business after receiving direct mail from that business
• 70% report renewing a relationship with a business they previously ceased patronizing, as a result of receiving direct mail from the business inviting them back

It’s funny, and a reminder of staying power, to look back on some of our modern day advancements. Below are five examples of products that have become obsolete and five that have stood the test of time, including direct mail which has been around since at least 1872.

Like in a courtship, nurturing involves two-way communication. To have an effective dialogue with your customers you must watch their digital body language and listen to where they are in the purchasing process.

Too often marketers make nurturing synonymous with email drip campaigns. While this tactical effort is easy to put in place, it’s not effective in converting leads because it overly simplifies communications by making it one-way and one-size-fits-all.

“Simply delivering the same message to a broad audience (mass marketing), doesn’t allow for the 1-to-1 engagement that yields the best results,” says Carlos Hidalgo with Annuitas Group.

The graph below from Left Brain Marketing shows how good marketing communications involves listening to the prospect, then sending a message, and then waiting for a customer response before tailoring the next message.

Does a lead-nurturing program seem too methodical, time consuming, or too customized to implement or manage? The increased customer appeal and response of proper nurturing brings financial gains that make the process all worthwhile. A recent study by the Aberdeen Group showed that companies who implemented a nurture-marketing program had:

• 46% increase in annual revenue
• 26% increase in lead conversions to sales
• 25% decrease in cost per lead

IBM lead nurtures its customers by dividing them into one of three categories depending on where they are in the buying cycle. Leads are categorized as ‘Learn’ (potential client at the initial stages of a project), ‘Scope’ (interested in case studies white papers, conducting research) or ‘Select’ (interested in comparing and engaging with vendor).

IBM maintains a dialogue with those in the Learn and Scope stages as they progress through the sales cycle, using targeted collateral and promoting IBM’s solutions. Once prospects reach the Select stage, they are handed over to the IBM sales team for direct engagement.

The graph below shows how marketing and sales can work in tangent nurturing prospects during the inbound and outbound marketing process.

Your dialogue with your customers sets the tone for the relationship. Customers know that how you sell them is how you will serve them in the future. So set the tone by nurturing their needs and nurturing their trust.

If you provide valuable education and information to prospects up front and as they need it, you’ll become their trusted advisor. Then you’ll be first in line for their business when they move from the data collection phase into the purchasing mode.

With patience, ongoing dialogue, and a good lead-nurturing program, you can ensure you’re not leaving 8 out of 10 prospects on the table for your competitors.