Cross Media 1:1 Marketing

2010 Cross Media Marketing Self Assessment

As we approach the end of the year and there may be a moment to spare, take a few minutes to analyze your current cross media markleting efforts.  Ask your self a few questions:

Do I have access to all the information I need for lead generation?
 
Do I know who visits my web site by name and from what source?
 
Do I have the time to dedicate to project manage another program?
 
Do I know where web visitors came from? 
 
Am I 100% certain I know who my best customers are?  
 
Am I 100% certain I know who my best customers ought to be? 
 
Can I find more of the customers I am looking for? 
 
Can I stay in contact with my B, C, and D tier customers? 
 
Do I know the last time I touched each customer and prospect?
 
Do I target different segments with unique art, copy, and offers? 
 
Can I track who visits my website by name, address, and phone?  
 
Can I get detailed reports and can verify the ROI of my campaigns?
 
Do I know which version of my advertising delivered the best results?
 
Do I know which segments responded to which advertisements?

Taking stock of the strengths and weaknesses of your current marketing program will help determine steps for next year.

December Cross Media Webinars

The experts at JFM will present two free PURL and cross media webinars:

 "How to Sell Cross Media Marketing"

James Michelson, an industry recognized leader in Cross Media will be giving webinars to discuss strategy and sales.

Tuesday, December 08th at 1:00pm EST

"The Latest VDP Web Cross Media Features"

We have launched many new features, and the best way to know the system is to use it! Register for a VDP Web walkthrough on either of these dates:

Thursday, December 10th at 1:00pm EST

Regsiter here.

You can’t trickle market a trickle (and make money)

The latest in email hype has been “trickle marketing.”  The allure of this methodology is apparent in an era of shrinking budgets and decreased staffing levels.  In theory it sounds great.  You develop a lead from any marketing channel and then create an automated series of communications to reach out and touch that prospect without any ongoing effort.  In a previous post we discussed the challenges associated with developing cost effective email campaigns and discovered that the time and cost of content creation must be factored in for the accurate determination of ROI.  The conclusion was that small email lists are often as expensive to market to electronically as by any other means.

 

The same logic is easily applied to trickle email marketing.  Unless the firm has a lead generation system that creates numerous opt-in email addresses, such as an online shopping cart that specifically asks the client to join the marketing email list, then getting enough new leads to email is the first challenge.  Remember, just because you have a prospect’s email, that does not mean you can send them an unsolicited commercial message.  They must specifically opt-in.  The second challenge is the time and effort, therefore hard cost and expense, of creating meaningful, timely, and relevant content for the potential recipients of the trickle campaign.  The last post on email showed that creation of one email blast for the entire file can be cost prohibitive, now do the same calculations on an even smaller number of prospects.

 

When considering the average size of business email lists and the pace at which new opted-in emails are added, the appeal of trickle email marketing decreases dramatically.  The cost required to develop a campaign for a few people every month precludes most businesses from pursuing this strategy, no matter the appeal.  At low volumes calling is more effective.  For those firms that have the ability to generate the necessary flow of new leads, trickle marketing can be a powerful tool in the arsenal. 

 

For most of us, it’s software vendor hype.

Air Travel for Sales? No Thanks...

I will be the first to admit that I hate airline travel.  It is unreliable, inconvenient, expensive and down right unpleasant.  We avoid business travel if we can.  In that vein, both principals at JFM took great umbrage to a recent article in Frontier Airline’s in-flight magazine.

 

Some sales putz flew to Tampa to close a deal and finally got it inked at eight o’clock at night so that it would fall in the current quarter.  If he “Hadn’t been sitting right there” the deal “wouldn’t have happened.” Bullshit. The CEO wanted another day to review numbers and it seems from the article that deal was closed already.   I will grudgingly grant that in certain verticals a face-to-face is still the order of the day.  But seriously, flying to assure a deal closes in a particular quarter?  Under high pressure to make my salesmen’s accountants happy, I would have told the firm to pound sand and would have found another vendor.

 

We have hundreds of long-term clients – I have only met a few of them.  Would I like to go make sales calls?  Sure.  Like many companies, one of our contact’s marketing departments has shrunk by 180 people. Who has the time to have people fly in for meetings and the requisite after hours socializing where the real work gets done?  Five minutes in an abbreviated email is five minutes more than most people have to spare.  Travel throws the work/life balance even further off kilter than it already is.

 

Of course, I did write this on a plane on my way back from an on site client meeting...

FREE Cross Media Marketing PURL Webinars - PURLs, EMAIL & More

The experts at JFM will present two free PURL webinars:

 "How to Sell Cross Media Marketing"

Thursday, November 19th at 1:00pm EST
Tuesday, December 08th at 1:00pm EST

"The Latest VDP Web Cross Media Features"

Tuesday, November 17th at 1:00pm EST
Thursday, December 10th at 1:00pm EST

Regsiter here.