Scott Rakestraw

Marketing Spill or Client Number 9?

srakestraw@upperquadrant.com — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:57:00 GMT

Did you ever wonder how terms take on a meaning?

I am always amazed at how a concept gets a word and multiple people from multiple companies know it. If you were asked are you, "Master of Your Domain?" you would most likely know what that means. I hope one day to coin a term that gets adoption and to be master of my domain.

This takes me to the term at hand, Marketing Spill, which is used to represent responses or sales to a program that occur in geographical areas outside of the circulation areas. For example, a direct mail campaign has sales but no circulation in zip code 20191, the sales in 20190 are considered spill, hence the term Marketing Spill. Marketing Spill occurs for several reasons; someone could receive the mail piece at home and call or stop by a store near the office.

As a follow-up blog, I will highlight some techniques we are using to allocate spill sales to the geographical area that received circulation and most likely drove the action. To explore the world of urban or coined terms or if you just need a laugh, visit http://www.urbandictionary.com. Below is a sample from the Urban Dictionary.

Moneymoon

The time after your purchase of a good or service and before 'buyer's remorse' happens.

Spank bank

A memorable collection of mental images that one wishes to retain for master debational purposes.

Gullible

The only that is not in the dictionary. Go Look.

Slacktivism

The act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem.

Newspapers are Innovating to survive

srakestraw@upperquadrant.com — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:08:00 GMT

I recently attended the DMA Insert Days and learned what the Tribune Newspaper is doing to be more competitive. They have a new service offering, Direct Plus that allows them to compete for direct mail dollars because they can target at a sub-zip level to areas that match the desired demographics. Also, unlike direct mail the insert is wrapped around the paper inside the plastic, forcing it to be noticed.

In addition to the sub-zip delivery, they have a very unique targeting capability where they will match a prospect/customer list or demographics profiles against their subscriber database, allowing for great targeting. They can also guarantee in home dates, something direct mail is lacking.

I applaud the Tribunes effort to innovate.

Applying Geo Analysis to Insert and Print media, no Jedi mind trick…

srakestraw@upperquadrant.com — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 20:30:00 GMT

The last few of months I have been heads down working with our development team and clients to develop UQube Geo™, a web-based application for allowing marketers to visualize performance for geo targeted media (ValPak, Advo, Money Mailer, etc) at the market level daily. One of our objectives is to eliminate ad-hoc analysis that takes week, empowering clients with actionable insight to impact every media buy.

Market level is the evolution of media optimization for insert and print media. Once you are settled on your mix of marketing channels (direct response/alt media, direct mail, tv, and online), media categories (inserts, FSIs, circular, etc), and programs (Advo, Money Mailer, ValPak, SmartSource, New Movers), the next logically step is to optimize the programs at the market level.