Direct Mail Lives - and Still Delivers

In an increasingly digital age, direct mail is still a highly effective marketing strategy. According to Epsilon’s 2012 Channel Preference Study:

·        42% of U.S. consumers said direct mail is the preferred channel to receive sensitive health information

·        36% of U.S. consumers said it’s the preferred channel to receive insurance information

·        39% said the same for financial services information.

What’s more, a whopping 73% of consumers said they prefer direct mail for brand communications because they can read the information at their convenience. Even the majority of today’s tech-obsessed 20-somethings (76%) said in a recent U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Household Diary Study that they’d make a purchase based on something they received in the mail. And a June 2012 Direct Marketing Association report reveals that response rates for direct mail to an existing customer averages 3.4%, compared to 0.12% for email.

You can read about this and much more if you download the US Monitor eBook.

It makes for interesting reading and reconfirms that even in our multichannel, digital world, there is a place for the much maligned direct mail.

When volunteering can be bad

In a radio interview I conducted with Susan Finch from the Sales and Lead Management Association (SLMA) Radio, we discussed:

Listen to my interview

• What do you mean by “strategic volunteering”
• Is volunteering different than philanthropy?
• How much volunteering do you do?
• How much time does it take?
• What types of organizations?
• How did you decide where to volunteer?
• Why do you say that volunteering can be bad?
• Does this seem self serving?
• What is your advice on how to choose?
• Are you good at saying no?

Some of the take-aways included:

What advice do I have for other women to say no?

Have a personal plan - Figure out how does this opportunity/organization fit into your plan? If it does not - say, "No." At least say no until you figure it out.

What if you have 10% of your time allocated for volunteering and this new opportunity would add another 5-10%? You either need to pull back what you were already doing to make room for this new thing, or take a pass for now so that you don't do a shoddy job volunteering for either organization or project.

Can you leave us with 3 takeaways on how to become a strategic volunteer?

1. Create volunteer activities for your employees. This is a great way to find good leadership candidates and use these opportunities for skill building and training.
2. Men tend to identify mentors at early age both in their career and at a personal level. This development is really valuable in a positive way. Volunteering can help women to develop these mentoring opportunities in addition to networking.
3. Quickly identify if it is not a good fit get out fast. 

Listen to my interview here

Enjoy, and share your thoughts with me on volunteering. 

Marketing Research Chart: Marketing analytics challenges | MarketingSherpa

What is interesting is that the top 2 challenges are related to the interpretation of data - not the collection of data.

We have finally turned the corner on the basic blocking and tackling of data consolidation through technology and processes, and now the most important challenges are focused on how to effectively use the analytics for improved decision making. It has taken a long time to get to this point, but it is encouraging to see that 42% of respondents stated that acting on data to improve marketing performance was their #1 challenge, followed by combining data from multiple sources to draw correlations and make predictions (41%).

Integrating systems and siloed data finally has fallen to the bottom as most marketers have the technology and tools to do this process, now we have to do the hard part and make the data talk to us, guide us, and give us insights.

Marketing Research Chart: Marketing analytics challenges | MarketingSherpa

Stanford gets Schooled on Content Marketing

On March 14 I participated in the Direct Marketing Day @ Your Desk Virtual Conference. During my virtual session, I shared how Stanford University’s content management strategies have increased the global particpation in their Executive Education programs, and improved the performance of push, pull and engagement communications. Some of the key messages from this presentation follow.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business is recognized as one of the leading business schools in the world. Their Executive Education programs are also world ranked for attracting established business leaders to its leadership and management programs. With a mission to recruit senior-level executives into their landmark Executive Education programs in the U.S., and to build the brand outside the United States, the school developed a content marketing strategy that combined highly personalized content delivery and multichannel marketing to both nurture leads and drive conversions.

Why Content Marketing?

Content marketing has become essential in 2013 as buyers demand more personalized, uniquely relevant content.  Between search engines, social networks and peer reviews, there’s a wealth of content available to customers and prospects who are trying to make buying decisions. The result is that in both the B2B and B2C worlds, buyers are typically much further down the buyer cycle by the time they begin interacting with businesses directly.  In fact,  according to Pardot, an Exact Target company, 70% of marketingleads are abandoned by sales, but 43% end up buying in 13 months.

Marketers have found that content can increase likelihood that they buy from you! By providing educational content across the entire buying life cycle, and providing a seamless dialogue from first touch to initial sale to loyal advocate Stanford has been able to increase both engagement and conversion of their target audience. Their quality cross-media content is the foundation of their 2013 marketing campaign.

Top 5 Take Aways

Through vigorous testing and a disciple approach to their communications, Stanford has learned:

1.       Effective use of embedded videos in push communications is highly effective in developing engagement, but it is important testing the placement and length of the videos for maximum impact.

2.       Webinars are effective for lead generation as long as the webinar content is timely, relevant and related to the Call-to-action.

3.       Knowledge content such as white papers and research need to be fresh and current at all times and is best used in the early stages of the buying cycle.

4.       Older or static content should be made available as a call-to-action in the middle of the buying cycle. This content would also be excellent for building your prospect databases.

5.       Incorporating progressive profiling decreases abandon rates on your website and landing pages. Starting with a limited number of qualification questions upfront is best, and progressive profiling is tied to behavior and interaction.