Archive for the 'Direct Marketing' Category
The hottest buzzword in marketing right now? It may well be content, judging by a new survey done by Junta42.
Of 250 marketers surveyed, 59% plan to increase their spending on custom content, up from 56% last year. And they apparently plan to spend the bulk of it online, according to Junta42, a producer of online content programs.
What’s custom content? It’s value-added information with a soft peddle on selling, everything from recopies to technical articles, even a little humor. Read the rest of this entry »
Hear that rustling sound? It’s the sound of money being shifted from traditional media into digital.
That’s hardly news by itself, but a survey by Alterian shows that it is taking place on several continents, and in large amounts.
Of 1068 respondents in America, Europe and Asia/Pacific, 40% are shifting over a fifth of their budget dollars to digital media, and 21% more than a third. Read the rest of this entry »
How’s this for a miscalculation? Per Annum, a small firm specializing in corporate gifts, eliminated its annual direct mailing last year, and suffered a 25% drop in orders.
“We realized we had made a huge mistake,” Alicia Settle, president of the New York firm, told the Wall Street Journal. The firm has since restored its hand-signed letters program, and is pleased with the results.
That change of heart was one of several uncovered by the Journal in an article titled, “Firms Hold Fast to Snail Mail Marketing.” As the headline implies, the Journal found that “some entrepreneurs who were quick to write off direct mail as too pricey or passé are finding it’s not so easy to dismiss.”
Another was Peter Taffae, founder of ExecutivePerils, a wholesale insurance broker. Customers missed the firm’s colorful postcards based on satirical movie themes—and they let Taffae know it. He, too, has returned to the mails. Read the rest of this entry »
A B2B marketer asks: How do you prevent factory mail rooms from blocking your mail?
Good question. It still happens despite the decline in paper mail volume. We consulted our mystery guru, and he offered this suggestion: Make sure you have titles on your direct mail list.
“Corporations may have anywhere from 30 to 100 or more separate and distinct departments, each one with a head bearing a title,” he noted. Read the rest of this entry »
Maybe it doesn’t qualify as a boom. But a new report shows that many direct marketing companies are hiring again.
Of the 544 firms polled this month by Bernhart Associates Executive Search, 46% plan to add staff in the first quarter. That percentage was 30% in Q4 of 2009.
In addition, only 7% are planning layoffs, and 26% are maintaining hiring freezes (down from 45%). Read the rest of this entry »
It was, to paraphrase Queen Elizabeth, an “annus horibilus.”
If you thought things were bad in the fall of 2008, they got even worse during the early months of 2009. There were layoffs, budget cuts and a pervading sense of gloom.
Here are some of the leading direct marketing stories of 2009. Not all are happy. We’ve saved the best for last. Read the rest of this entry »
Marketing pundits have already posted their annual New Year’s predictions. Some started hitting the eggnog before they did, but a few were sober. Here’s a sampling of what they said:
Sales and Marketing
“2010 will be the year when the practice of allowing sales and marketing to operate as separate, conflicting silos ends once and for all. The problem of “sales-marketing alignment” will disappear, because the urgency to get online and social marketing right, coupled with the challenging economy, will force the issue.” –Steve Parker Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t believe the rumors about outbound telemarketing. It may be dead in some markets, but not in B2B, according to Bernice Grossman, the veteran direct marketing database consultant.
Calls are being made every day, although they may not be described as telemarketing.
“In most cases, you have account person,” Bernice says. “He/She calls you or you call him.”
But there are many other ways to use the phone, and they do qualify as telemarketing. For one, you can call to confirm an address or find out who works in a company. Read the rest of this entry »