News, Ideas & Commentary on PURLs, Email, SMS Text, QR Codes, Video & More

The marketing technology experts at JFM Concepts are proud to announce they have partnered with the Great Lakes Graphics Association, part of the Print Industries Association of America, to provide cross media marketing services.

JFM Concepts has used its industry leading VDP Web® cross media marketing platform to support the Great Lakes Graphics Association in membership development and retention efforts.  The campaign included a multi-channel distribution effort to current and former association members to conduct a highly complex and detailed survey.  The questions were designed to gather detailed feedback from the membership in order to improve services to boost both relevancy and values in a rapidly changing marketplace.

Since 1886, the Great Lakes Graphics Association has represented the printing industry and its allied partners.  The GLGA is a professional trade association representing members in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin that helps businesses achieve powerful results.  JFM Concepts and VDP Web are proud to assist the Association in developing industry leading cross media marketing tools and systems to accomplish their mission.

JFM Concepts is a full service cross media marketing technology firm featuring the VDP Complete® marketing system and VDP Web® Online software as a service. JFM specializes in creating variable data cross media marketing technologies with Personalized URLs, Email, SMS Text, QR Codes, Phone Tracking, Video, QR Codes, and more for commercial printers, agencies, and marketing departments of all sizes. The firm knows that technology development and marketing should come together to document both improved response rates and improved return on investment (ROI).

Special thanks to Steve Anzalone, COO of the Harding Poorman Group for his efforts in this project.

JFM Concepts, the makers of VDP Web, is proud to announce that principal and founder James Michelson will be speaking at the Exact Target 2011 Connections conference in Indianapolis.  The session is titled “Email + Direct Mail: Response Rates on Steroids?”  Reports of "direct mail deaths" have been greatly exaggerated.  In fact, when used in combination with email, direct mail can lift response to new heights.

Connections 2011 is the world’s largest interactive marketing conference with more than 3,000 global marketers attending the three-day event Sept. 13-15. Connections ’11 follows ExactTarget Connections ‘10, which welcomed more than 2,000 marketers to Indianapolis and featured a lineup of industry titans including Virgin Group Founder and Chairman Sir Richard Branson, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and a private concert from Grammy Award-winning band Train.

If you cannot make the event, please contact us to obtain a copy.

To obtain a copy, contact us!

Order now at: https://www.createspace.com/3537914 or amazon.com!

JFM Concepts, makers of the VDP Web cross media marketing platform is proud to announce that James Michelson, founder and principal, has been invited to present in the Advanced Marketing Track at Exact Target’s Connections 2011 to be held in Indianapolis, Indiana on September 13-15, 2011.

The title of the session will be “Integrated Cross Media Marketing with Email, Direct Mail, SMS Text, SEO and Landing Pages for the Print Services Distribution Association (PSDA)”.

Join James Michelson, author of  “Cross Media Marketing 101: The concise guide to surviving in the C-Suite” and founder of embed partner VDP Web® as he creates and executes an integrated cross media marketing campaign that combines email, direct mail, landing pages, web, SMS-Text  and more into an integrated campaign to market the 2011 Print Solutions Expo.   In this session, discover how multiple marketing channels were coordinated and how personas were developed to deliver highly personalized content to prospects of the Print Services Distribution Association.  The speaker will re-create the process from start to finish on how content was created, channels selected, and follow up conducted in order to boost response rates, improve tracking, lower costs, and document return on investment.

The session will explore acquisition, lead generation, and sales techniques from this highly successful integrated campaign.  James will detail how pre and post-show follow up was conducted in order to maximize the impact of the event and to cross-sell / up-sell other association products and services during the campaign.  Detailed reporting metrics will be shared as will actual samples of content.  Items to be covered include:

• Developing personas
• Determining the correct contact channel
• Coordinating content and channels
• Developing a contact matrix and content for each persona
• Follow up techniques
• Results
• Lessons Learned
• Best Practices

Attendees will leave the session with a checklist of activities required to design, implement, and effectively track an integrated cross media marketing campaign using any combination of channels.

 

Connections 2011 is a must-attend event for ExactTarget customers. Sessions will appeal to those responsible for interactive marketing strategy and execution at all levels—from Vice Presidents to Email Marketing Specialists to Web Developers. Anyone looking for new ways to engage with customers through the latest interactive marketing tools and best practices is encouraged to attend. And because the educational value of Connections is unlike any other in the industry, attendees will be able to immediately apply what they learn to their marketing campaigns, prompting extraordinary impact on program results.

The folks at Campaign Monitor shared the following stats about mobile email marketing that I wanted to pass along to our readers.  They analyzed their data from all email clients and more than 3 billion messages from May 2009.  The chart says it all.

The mix of mobile email clients is no surprise either.

I agree with the author of the original study, that it is time to pay attention to how your emails look on mobile devices, including tablets and to consider this as part of your cross media marketing strategy.

JFM Concepts and VDP Web® are proud to announce the publication of their latest case study on direct marketing for Education. Successful cross media tactics for admissions, events, alumni relations, planned giving, donations and more are covered. Campaign goals were to decrease cost, improve response rates, document and measure return on investment, and simplify the follow up process. Download the case study for free at http://education.vdpconcepts.com.

The VDP Web® cross media marketing platform has been deployed by public and private educational institutions of every size to deliver outstanding results. Successful projects have been launched by organizations as diverse in size and mission such as The University of Michigan and Northeast State Technical Community College to regional Christian institutions such as Calvin College and Grace Bible College. Not-For-Profit institutions such as Harrison College and various secondary schools have also used the system for admissions, alumni relations, fund raising and planned giving. Integrated campaigns have been cost effectively run for multiple departments without the need for internal technical assistance or support.

 
University of Michigan Landing Page, one of many samples in the case study.

There are common challenges faced by the academic institutions detailed in this case study. The goals of all the campaigns that follow were to decrease budget, lower man hours required for follow up and fulfillment, increase response rate and add personalization to generate leads. Each of these projects was executed by one decision maker and did not require the support of other departments. The cases examined assume that additional budget expenditures for new projects is unlikely, IT and other internal technical support is not available, and that the department does not have additional manpower resources to dedicate to a new project. If any of these assumptions are not true, so much the better.

It is possible to implement a basic cross media marketing strategy without any major changes to the current marketing mix. Unique landing pages, QR Codes, new 800 numbers, and SMS Text can be added to any existing marketing channel to add new data collection mechanisms and start a two way conversation with prospects, students, alumni and donors.

New Email Functionality for VDP Web Clients

VDP Web has email templates for your use to dramatically decrease the time it takes to build email content. These are free of charge and easy to edit. Simply double click the highlighted variable areas to add images, links, and content without ANY coding knowledge. If you are currently using a template on another email platform, bring it over! Our Template Manager allows you to build your own custom templates to use for future campaigns.

We will be having a live demo on how to use this new technology on Tuesday, June 21st at 1:00pm EST and again on Thursday, June 23rd at 1:00pm EST.

Sign up at: http://education.vdpconcepts.com/

Everyone makes mistakes.  The first time that Canon sent us an email a few months back that had a data mismatch on the PURL and took us to someone else’s landing page, we were shocked but willing to overlook it.  Stuff happens sometimes, no matter how hard you try.  But as an OEM manufacturer of digital presses, there is no excuse to have ongoing data errors in an ongoing campaign.  Here are the emails we received Thursday– two of them – within minutes of each other. 

 
 

The PURL in question on both emails is: http://luciaex.cusa.canon.com/cp/jm186.  Try it.

You’ll notice the following issues with this landing page in addition to the fact that the data is crossed:

• The links on both the email and the landing page are not dynamically rewritten and sent through a collection mechanism to allow link tracking.  There are lots of links to click, but no way to know if we clicked them.
• There is a broken image at the bottom of the page.  See the little X.
• Even after changing the contact info in the survey form, the page still says “Thanks, Jerry.”
• We also dispute the claim of absolutely amazing accuracy, at least if they are referring to the data...

Recently, we also received a standard billing communication from a medical billing company that opened the wrong user account and displayed a different patient’s detailed billing summary.  The repercussions could be dire for both the medical facility and the billing partner. 

Take Away

Despite our best efforts mistakes will happen, but follow these tips to minimize the risk:

• Be sure to test live data and real records every time
• Use a checklist to assure all the details are handled
• Never manipulate data in Excel or any other spreadsheet
• Test again, be sure, wait ten minutes, and test again
• Compare and test original data files versus lists that have been appended with data such as a PURL

Follow these steps, and fewer mistakes will happen.

Traditional email marketing programs rely on very limited reporting to accomplish marketing analytics.  One key to a successful integrated email marketing campaign is to continue tracking the responses of individual recipients beyond their actions in the email.  In typical email marketing, tracking ends when the prospect leaves the email and a "link click" is recorded.

By utilizing a personalized URL (PURL) campaign in conjunction with email, the actions of individual responders can be tracked beyond the inbox.  The additional intelligence that can be gathered from this process include:

•  Link clicks on the landing page
•  Time spent on the landing page
•  Videos watched and time spent watching video
•  Files downloaded
•  Surveys submitted
•  "Seed" content review, and more

Additionally, highly relevant and personalized information based on the segmented persona of the individual recipient can be provided on the PURL landing page that can make a dramatic difference in response rates.

By using a PURL in conjunction with email, marketers can continue reporting and tracking beyond the inbox.  The most important feature is that a marketing decision maker can complete this process without the support of corporate or third party IT resources.

The critical factor for both marketing service providers offering cross media and in-house employees executing the same is the ability to avoid inter-departmental struggles in order to quickly and efficiently launch the campaign.  To avoid complications with the legal department, reuse materials that have already been improved.

The most important result is that marketers who have responsibility for results, but not necessarily the authority across departments to control their own destiny can launch and have access to sophisticated tracking and analytics under their own area or responsibility (AOR).  The case for access to critical data cannot be overstated.  If the data collected by a firm resides in IT, the sales or marketing decision maker may not have access to the data on a timely basis.

JFM Concepts is pleased to have partnered with the Print Services Distribution Association for the 2011 Print Solutions Expo from pre-show marketing to educational sessions and post show follow-up.  The highly successful event was held at Chicago's Navy Pier May 17^th to 19^th.

Marketing

JFM Concepts and VDP Web provided in depth cross media marketing support to the PSDA for the show including data cleansing, segmentation, personalized URLs (PURLs), QR Codes, Generic Landing Pages (GURLs), Personalized Landing Pages, Surveys, Email and more in a comprehensive pre and post-show marketing effort.  The effort was the first time the association had implemented a comprehensive communication plan that included all these channels with unified reporting and analytics.

The results of the campaign included a streamlined work process, coordinated messaging and content, highly relevant personalization, detailed reporting, and improved response rates.  The association was able to access detailed analytics and metrics for each individual channel.

Education

James Michelson presented an extended session on integrated marketing based on his popular book "Cross Media Marketing 101: The concise guide to surviving in the C-suite" from Schooner Press. The interactive presentation focused on the practical development of several real world campaigns from strategy through follow up.  The three hour session was a follow up to the overview of the same topic from the CEO Summit.

Exhibition

Show visitors experienced VDP Web first hand at the double-size booth featuring both Mac and PC, mobile and desktop cross media applications.  At the exhibitor theatre, Josh Driver delivered a session on generating revenue with cross media for print manufacturers and distributors.

 

Sponsorship

JFM also sponsored the show's cocktail reception with an open bar.  Attendees and exhibitors alike were able to relax after a hard day's work with complimentary food and drink before hitting the town.

For additional information or to get copies of presentations and sessions, please visit www.vdpweb.com