A Direct Marketing Agency - Helping Brands Acquire and Retain Customers

As we were reviewing results from a multi-channel campaign designed to generate new leads, we noticed that new leads generated through search and trade advertising were 99% and 95%. What surprised us was to find that 40% of the leads generated from emailing the house list were new! As we dug deeper, we found that some were from new people at a known company (either passed along or picked up by the replacement person) while others were from new people at companies new to our database (passed along through forwarding.)

While using the house list as a primary means to generate new leads is not a solid strategy, making sure that the email is suitable for forwarding and the offer is easy and inviting enough for new leads will perform double duty.

Our e-mail watch of top merchants shows a 52% increase in volume for the month of December. It's no wonder as most retailers realize what the Direct Marketing Association reported in their Email Effectiveness study that "The average ROI on an e-mail marketing campaign dollar is $48.29"

Retailers are taking advantage of every chance to reach their prospects and customers. Here are a few highlights we have seen this season:

Deal of the day – retailer creates a daily anticipation, and a one day offer that fits the typical immediate response of e-mail.

Shipping offers for the last minute shopper – if you have postponed your shopping you can still order and get it by Christmas.

End of sale reminder – again, create the sense of urgency with an "ending soon" message.

Nostalgia – traditional mood creation and tradition building message, relaxed offer.

Here are a few examples of what we have seen today.

1) Keep the message simple

2) Be true to your brand

3) Connect one to one when possible

K-Mart made the news this week with its holiday lay-away plan – not a new thing for them.They've been doing it for some 40 odd years. Back in the day, when my hubby and I first were married and beyond broke, we used the lay-away plan to buy our first big TV. But somewhere along the way, people like us opted to turn to the immediate gratification of the credit card and left the reckoning for later. Ouch.

So why is it big news that K-Mart's technique is working? The economy is a mess, and if you listen to the daily doom, it's not getting much better any too soon. Shoppers are scared. They still have purchasing wants and needs, but the reality of taking on excess debt has finally hit home. So now, some consumers are taking a step back in time to an old fashioned technique with roots in the Great Depression – saving before spending, and paying as they go.

What's important to consider is that K-Mart has refused to roll over and play dead in the midst of an economic mess. The company is going back to its roots and offering consumers a helpful tool to help meet both sides' needs. They're still selling. And consumers can still buy – but buy smarter.

As you look at the economic forecast, consider the K-Mart experience and look at how you can apply it to your business. Are you offering prospective customers tools they can use to help them reach their goals without causing fear? Some online merchants have implemented their own online lay-aways, allowing customers to purchase items by making partial electronic deductions from checking accounts. Dedicated lay-away Web sites are available, offering the added benefit of enabling participants to build their credit debt free by using their services. Lay-aways, wish lists, and associated tools offer a "back to basics" perspective that can help customers see the goal, provide a way for businesses to sell, and take baby steps toward building confidence that is noticeably absent.

Ovation recently developed and executed a multichannel marketing campaign to launch a new product for one of our clients. The goals of the campaign were to create awareness for the new product and generate leads for the sales force. We used a number of tactics, such as paid search, trade advertising and e-mail to drive traffic to a microsite. Once a visitor came to the site, we tracked a number of actions – whether they downloaded a brochure, requested a sample or signed up to receive e-mail. As expected, nearly 100 percent of all leads coming to the site via paid search or trade advertising were new leads. In other words, they were not already in the client's database. Search generated the most visits to the site (49%) but the least number of sample requests (10%), whereas the trade advertising campaign generated approximately 29% of the site visits and 26% of the sample requests.

But the surprising thing we found was that by e-mailing their house file, we were able to achieve 45 percent more new leads. This shows the power of the e-mail list and how it is virally passed to colleagues within the company to generate new leads. We also tested various outside trade publication and association lists. Overall, e-mail was the most effective in producing sample requests. Twenty-two percent of the site visits and 64% of all samples requested were from people receiving an e-mail.

I love spiders. They are quiet and patient. They scare the hell out of some people. They are exceptionally comfortable on the web.

They remind me of myself - except for the quiet part.

Spiders teach us a lesson in good Web project management. The processes they follow when building their webs are (I imagine), much the same as a successful Web project. Here is what I mean.

There are essentially six (and arguably seven) steps to the basic Web development process. They are as follows.

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• Analysis
• Project Definition
• Design & Development
• Content Creation
• Coding
• Test & Launch
• Promotion (the bastard child)

Analysis. The first step in Web slinging is to determine what we are going to catch. Sure, bugs (customers) is the obvious answer, but which ones. There is a remarkable difference between a web designed to catch flies, and a web designed to catch grasshoppers. Defining our audience is a crucial step.

Project Definition. During this phase, figure out what exactly we are going to build. Is it a Web that will require us to monitor it constantly? Is it one that will simply be a home? The idea is to outline what we are building and how it will function.

Design & Development. For the spider, instinct takes over at this point. They inherently know how their web will look. We, however, need to use some very basic tools. These are the sitemap, the creative (Photoshop) document, and the wireframe. It is an amateur mistake to start building immediately after figuring out the project definition.

Conversely, some developers put too much emphasis on creative, allowing it to eat up the budget until all that is left for the rest of the process is a dried out husk. Design is as much about planning as it is about how something will look.

Content Creation. This is where the real work happens. In my world, as in the spider's, the content creation goes hand-in-hand with the coding. A spider is putting together the threads and intersections as one process. In the human world, content can be created at the same time the coding is being completed. It allows the designers, writers, and coders (assuming they are different people), to work in tandem. Each role is boosted by the others', while none are entirely dependent on the others.

Testing & Launch. Spiders have it easy. All they have to do to test and launch their web site is to sit back and watch. However, their concerns are the same. If holes form, or it turns out they are in a different "market", they can make adjustments. As humans, we do this as well. It is just that our lunch is directly dependent upon a test's success.

Promotion. For most spiders, promotion is a bad thing. The last thing they want is for their site to be visible. As humans, however, it is vital. Dyersville is a myth. I've been there, and it wasn't because they built a baseball field. If you build a Web site, it isn't enough to let it sit. It is much more important to be sure it sparkles in the morning dew.

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The final note here is that this process is not linear. It is not a waterfall where one step happens before another. Instead, it is cyclical. You may design one piece of the site while still doing analysis on another part. As changes happen and new hurdles and opportunities present themselves, it helps to fall back on a previous step and reevaluate. Eventually, you will get that juicy catch upon which you can feed for a week.

Is your product or service something that the Gen X consumer wants or needs? Are you NOT a big, well-known brand? Are you priced competitively? Congratulations! Today’s economy could mean more Gen X shoppers are seeking you out.

Many Gen Xers (people born between 1965 and 1981) are saddled with college and credit card debt, and the high housing costs associated with subprime mortgages are even more bad news for their financial situations, so they’re on the lookout for bargains whenever they buy. A study by Reach Advisors says Gen Xers love to brag about bargains and they don’t have any problem shopping discount stores. Target’s “cheap chic” brand was built for these bargain-hunting, but style-conscious shoppers.

Some of the well-known characteristics of this demographic group, such as distrust of corporate America and being tech-savvy, make them very scrutinizing shoppers. Their online comfort level means they’ll research a purchase to find the best deal and they look for the usually better-priced lesser-know brands.

This is good news for you. Advertising messages that acknowledge and compliment these shoppers on their desire to find value will be right on target. Demonstrate how your product or service delivers quality at a good price, and these shoppers won’t care that you aren’t a big brand. In fact, they love to “discover” a brand — be the first among their circle to find it. Especially in today’s economic environment, they don’t believe that big is always better.

I recently saw a :30 TV commercial for a new skincare product from Oil of Olay. The ad directs you online to a landing page where you are then offered a coupon for $5 off your purchase of the particular product. In order to receive my $5 off coupon, I was required to fill out a form with personal information (name, address, phone, etc.) which I of course expected, and then take a short survey regarding my buying habits and purchase preferences. I thought the whole process was easy, well-done and worth my two minutes to fill out.

Once the form was completed, the screen informed me that my coupon would be in the mail within 6-8 weeks (really? that long!?). This was completely out of sync with my expectations. In the online world of on-the-spot promotional opportunities, I expected to be linked to their e-commerce store to purchase (and given the $5 off right there in my shopping cart) or at the very least, be given immediate access to a downloadable coupon to be printed off and used to purchase the product in-store. The initial TV spot was compelling enough for me to get on my computer and find the promotion, but my expectations with the promotion "deliverable" was not even close to being met.

There were a number of missed opportunities:

• No link to the online store to purchase
• No downloadable coupon for in-store purchase
• No follow-up "thank you" e-mail for participating in the promotion and assurance the coupon is on its way
• No onboarding program to continue brand engagement

As companies combine traditional advertising with the online world, they need to first understand how and why consumers have flocked to the Internet for information and for buying. It's not with the anticipation of receiving a coupon in the mail 6-8 weeks later.

BtoB Online offered an interesting Webcast in October on how to market in a down economy. The jist of the message was that customers want advice and insight—not a hard sell. In these economic times, it makes sense to develop e-mail into the cost-effective hub of your marketing program.

A couple of topline takeaways:

- Be mobile and social friendly in your e-mails with text rendering, format preferences, and sharing links.

- Avoid e-mail fatigue—increase content value and relevancy. Don't increase e-mail frequency.

- Develop pre-sale and post-sale contact plans to enhance repurchase and build loyalty.

- Integrate data from your entire organization to better manage the customer relationship (CRM).

BtoB’s e-mail marketing insights dovetail perfectly with Ovation’s strategic marketing approach. We help our clients achieve results and deliver value to customers through marketing messages that:

1. Reinforce the messages and relationships through multiple channel connections.

2. Deliver targeted, relevant content that are personalized and customized to the individual's interests.

3. Provide authentic, interesting content—no exaggerated advertising claims.

Review more of BtoB Webcasts and get ideas for lead generation, e-marketing, and more.

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