Newsletter
June 2011
Email Marketing & Spam – What you need to know
By: David Rosendahl
Many businesses that engage in cross-media marketing use email as a method of advertising and increasing visibility for their company. We all know that sending email messages is fast, easy, and can be done on a large scale blast. But, if someone isn’t interested, this kind of email marketing can be annoying. As a response to complaints from people being bombarded by hundreds of unsolicited email messages for advertising, the CAN-SPAM Act was passed.
The act was presented to cut down the unsolicited commercial email, better known as spam, that bothers so many. This new set of laws places restrictions on the marketing messages you can send. Cross-media marketing can be an excellent way to manage an advertising campaign, but the penalties for violating CAN-SPAM can be severe. That is why it’s important for you to understand how to use email marketing in a way that won’t be considered spam and won’t annoy customers.
Becoming a Marketing Service Provider
By: Robert Carrier
Every once in a while, I have to eat my words. One of those times was a big one, and it was about 15 years ago. I was attending the Linotype-Hell Users Group in Atlanta, right after the Heidelberg buyout. We were discussing email and the internet, and I said it. I had done my homework, was quite sure of myself, and said it with such authority that anyone within earshot might have believed it for a split second.
I said I was convinced that the internet would never be a force in our business. There was not sufficient bandwidth to support the file sizes we were dealing with. Email delivery was sketchy at best. To make matters worse, we were counting on the phone company for delivery. This list of reasons went on and on and on. I said the internet wouldn’t affect us. And I was wrong.
Since that time, I have never looked at new technologies in the same light. I simply refuse to be complacent and apathetic about these things until I see real evidence that can prove it doesn’t have value. Today’s latest marketing tactics – cross-media and social media, just to name a few – have proven their value. But, in spite of proof, I still hear naysayers with a fair amount of frequency.
Increase Direct Mail Response Rates with Targeted Personalization
By: Ramin Zamani
In my last post, I discussed how attention grabbing creative can increase direct mail response rates. But great creative is not the only thing that separates your mail from the customer’s hands and the trash can. Highly targeted personalization makes your message more relevant to each individual recipient, increasing the likelihood that they will respond.
Marketers use personalization to speak directly to an individual, not to an entire mailing list. By creating personas for each segment, they can make every message relevant for each individual. These personalized messages can include references to past purchases, certain product or service preferences, personal interests, and even personalized promotional offers. This kind of relevance drives increased response rates.
Data drives relevance. Relevance drives response.
Measuring the ROI of Social Media
By: Ramin Zamani
We all know that social media is a force in today’s society, and more marketers are jumping on the social media bandwagon. According to SocialMediaExaminer.com, 96% of marketers were using social media as a marketing channel by the end of 2010. And it’s easy to understand why. It’s widely available, it’s easy to set up, and it’s seemingly free.
There are certainly numerous benefits of social media, like increasing customer engagement, communicating directly with followers, learning customer preferences, and increasing brand awareness, but you have to make sure the benefits are outweighing the costs. A social media profile may be free, but the time you and your employees are spending is not. 60% of marketers spend more than 6 hours a week on social media sites, whether their blogging, tweeting, or just replying to Facebook comments. A fourth of those 60% are investing anywhere from 16 to 30 hours a week into social media. With numbers like that, it’s easy to see costs rising.
Despite their substantial investment, many marketers are failing to measure the ROI of their social media involvement. Most avoid doing so because the measurement isn’t as straightforward as it it is with other, more traditional marketing outreaches.
Success stories
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Rich Garigen, President"We have a client who had a need for survey. The MindFire application fits that perfectly."
Digital Printing CPC Solutions
