Multichannel Marketing for B2B Marketers

The question is on every marketer’s mind: How do you measure the return on social media?

The question is answered, in part, in a report by Forrester research analyst Augie Ray.

“Some marketers try to use proxies to assign financial value to nonfinancial metrics such as likes, followers, retweets, blog comments, and positive reviews,” Ray writes. “But this type of proxy carries risks that include: Failing to measure true business value, getting in the way of achieving objectives, arriving at an incorrect value for social efforts and failing to attribute results to those channels and investments that deliver the results.” continue reading…

As every marketer knows, email response can be affected by dozens of variables: The subject line, the offer, the call to action, the time of day. Here’s a new one: The weather.

Yes. A study from a British firm named Pure360 shows that people are more inclined to open and click through during good weather.

We all know, of course, that postal mail response can be affected by the elements. Planes are held at airports during thunderstorms. Trucks and postmen are delayed by snow. And the consumer’s needs shift with the seasons. continue reading…

B2B author Ruth Stevens has done it again. In a LinkedIn post titled, “Why Buying Marketing Data is Like Buying a Used Car,” she challenged the effectiveness of compiled data.

While most records are accurate, some vendors are weak in certain verticals, or do not have enough contact names, she wrote. One takeaway: Select your supplier carefully.

This created a predictable buzz. Cameron Douglas replied that “people should focus on conversion rates more than list numbers/quality.” Mike Barlow argued that “your marketing strategy should include various forms of outreach in addition to direct marketing.”

Let us add our two cents, for Ruth said something that we’ve been saying for years: Choose your vendor carefully. Go for breadth and depth.

Just what should you be looking for when buying data? continue reading…

Ready for another gloomy update on the decline in email metrics? Open rates worldwide fell from 14% in the first half of 2007 to 11.2% in the second half of 2009, Emarketer reports.

There are many possible causes: cluttered inboxes, the use of mobile devices and the blocking of email images. But we wonder if the economy wasn’t partly to blame.

Clickthrough rates suffered an even more precipitous drop—from 2.9% to 1.6%. And most of that took place in the second half of 2009. The culprits include clutter and list fatigue.

These are depressing findings. But they’re not true for everyone. And emailers can improve their metrics by observing direct marketing basics. continue reading…

Question: Which medium still gets the biggest slice of the average marketing budget? You’re wrong if you said television or the Web.

The answer is direct mail.

Yes, despite their growing activity online, firms still allocate 17% to postal mail. And that’s “larger than the share held by any other media,” according to a new digital marketing survey by the Direct Marketing Association.

This proves, as we’ve long maintained, that direct mail remains a key part of the media mix, especially when used with email and other channels. Don’t drop any of them. continue reading…