June 1, 2011
Direct Marketing Is On The Rebound. Be Prepared.
The economic recovery might not yet be in full swing, but one area projected to show increased activity in 2011 is direct marketing. Bernhart Associates’ Quarterly Digital and Direct Marketing Employment Report for the first quarter of 2011 brings some encouraging news for the industry. With hiring and mailing volumes expected to increase, the firm describes the results as “…the most positive quarterly improvement we’ve ever seen in the 11-year history of our quarterly survey.” As business activity rebounds, marketers must be ready to step up their game.
Come Off the Bench with Fresh Players
New work coming in is an opportunity for the adoption of new and improved ideas. With established practices like VDP and p-URLs already in widespread use, this is the time to embrace more recent technology. QR Codes are one example. Now making the leap to mainstream, these supercharged bits of printed data are popping up on marketing materials everywhere. They are an exciting new tool and will eventually be used in ways that direct marketers are only now discovering.
Game Plan for Every Situation with Cross Media
Today’s direct marketer implementing a cross media campaign shares something in common with a great football coach: They both excel at the science of anticipation.
The best campaigns foresee, embrace, and predict possibilities in consumer responses, seamlessly directing the results into appropriate channels and triggering the right follow-up. The process unfolds automatically because technology makes this happen, but only when direct marketers prepare carefully. The software, lists and databases are better than before, and your use of them has to be smarter and more thorough than ever.
Play Defense with ROI; Play Offense with Expanded Financial Metrics
When communicating with CFOs and CIOs whose natural language is numbers, the marketers’ message about the value of their campaigns can sometimes get lost in translation. Direct marketers should broaden their financial reporting capabilities to always include vital ratios and measurements:
- response rate
- average gift/donation
- package cost
- cost to acquire a new customer
- retention rates
- RFM (recency, frequency and monetary value)
- lifetime value
These concepts – and their application to the numbers from your campaign – help make the case to your finance department just as effectively as you make your pitch to your customers.
Direct marketing is on the way back. Be ready with your own game plan.
For your next direct mail marketing campaign, be sure to tap into the key emotions driving your recipients to respond. Download EU’s free resource, Boosting Direct Mail Response Rates: 13 Ways to Drive Emotion.
