Spicing Up Direct Marketing Campaigns
As the hype of social media dies down, the dust is clearing and we can finally see the light again. The light is around getting back to good marketing basics, and focusing on how marketing can bring more value to the business.
What marketing basics, you might wonder? I'm talking about the meat and potatoes of marketing, the stuff that feeds your audience's hunger. But we still need to do the things that worked well before the world of social media. And that means organizing marketing campaigns that grab people's attention. When budgets are tight, we tend to stick to digital marketing as a primary means of communications because it is cheap. The problem is we are not a species who like one flavor diets of anything, never mind communications. An all-digital communications approach after awhile gives you that light feeling like you ate rice cakes for a week straight.
It doesn't have to be that way. Here are five things to consider for spicing up your marketing campaigns:
1. Take a multichannel approach to marketing
Over the recent years, marketers have gotten away from using a multi-channel approach in their marketing campaigns. It's vitally important to connect with customers and prospects in a variety of mediums to keep things interesting. There are multiple digital channels as it is, with social media, search, pay-per-clicks, and on and on. That's why bringing back direct printed mail is a novel idea. Clever printed material gets people's attention, and it brings substance to a brand unlike digital. Sure it costs money to print, but it doesn't have to be something fancy. Even an oversized postcard would be a good thing to intermix in a marketing campaign.
2. Experiment with personalization
In reading a few studies about personalization recently, there seems to be an opportunity to take personalization deeper than our traditional "Dear Juliann" approach. The level of marketing sophistication can really spike if we can customize marketing messages for each audience, using content, images, links, and information. I know I always appreciate it when I receive something in the mail or email that is tailored to me, providing me information that I would want or need to know if I am working with that company. Segmenting campaigns is not a new concept, but adding tailored content and images based on those segments all of a sudden gets you closer to 1-to-1 marketing. You can specify custom blocks of content based on gender, geography, industry, and just about any information that you have in your database. That certainly kicks things up a notch. At the very least it's a worthwhile experiment.
3. Add PURL landing pages
Another extension of personalization in a direct marketing campaign is using personalized URLS, known as PURLs. A PURL is a dynamic landing page that allows for more detailed tracking of who responds. The URL usually looks something like this: http://Juliann.Grant.landingpage.com. What's neat is that you can take the same approach with personalization described above - adding specific content based on the person's demographics and behaviors, and create specific landing pages that fully carry through the direct marketing campaign elements. If this is not possible due to your software capabilities, then it is still recommended to incorporate landing pages in the campaign to help with measuring campaign performance. Test different aspects on a landing page, such as adding video to one landing page and experimenting with questions and forms to see if any of those elements affect response rates.
4. Mix up the offers
Remember the days when offers were actually things you could hold in your hand and play with? I still have a classic can opener on my key ring from a trade show about 8 years ago. Anyway, it brings to mind that we should not overlook adding a fun trinket to your offer portfolio, as a bonus item for downloading a white paper or something like that. I know that I kind of miss the days when you could walk a trade show and pick up some cool trinkets, coozies, stock up on pens, and the occasional t-shirt. It adds some fun, and could even play into a theme of a campaign. I know it all comes down to budget, but it's something to keep in mind and may end up being cheaper than the standard $25 gift card.
5. Use social media to support your direct marketing program
As we begin to understand how social media really works, we can now apply the technology so it supports all our marketing programs. If you are launching a new direct marketing campaign, then use the tools the way they can best serve the campaign. Write a blog post about the new offers, give people who are not targets in the campaign a way to participate and download information. Share the offers in Twitter and Facebook, let people know they are available and expand your direct marketing efforts. Of course the language needs to be conversational vs. promotional and all the cultural issues of social media apply.
All in all, it's time to make direct marketing fun again and inspire new creativity that has been sidelined due to budget concerns. In all cases, we want to connect with our audience, build relationships, and get people to raise their hand and respond. The key is to get something out there and benchmark your efforts, and from there you can make educated decisions about where and what to change to improve campaign performance.
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