Strange as this may seem, as I would have to agreed with them, but done correctly email is still the best form of communication. Social media is what is being muted as the next big thing, and as someone very cleverly pointed out to me recently, it is all about the media. It is not worth just turning up to social media, you have to work to get the message out within a social environment. So in conclusion, no I do not think that email marketing is dead, it just needs to be handled properly and used as a communications tool. Get the message?

And it’s not just us that say it, here’s some statistics on email marketing:

• Email marketing generated a ROI of £43.62 for every pound spent on it in 2009 (Direct Marketing Association)
• Email and e-newsletter marketing are considered a second-most effective tool for conversions (just behind CEO) (Ad Effectiveness Survey, Forbes Media)
• A 2009 survey of retailers found that “email is the most mentioned successful tactic overall” (Shop.org)
• In 2008, Marketing Sherpa did a survey of hundreds of marketers; pay-per-click ads ranked tops in ROI, with email marketing (to house lists) at a close second.
• A 2009 Marketing and Media survey had 80% of industry executives saying that email channels performed strongly for their company (Datran Media)
• Cost per order of £6.85 for email marketing, vs. £19.33 CPO for paid search (February/March 2008 survey, Shop.org)
• Datran Media’s 2009 Annual Marketing and Media Survey had 58.5% of industry executives planning to increase their investment in email, while only 5.7% planned to cut back.
• An April 2009 survey of senior marketing executives revealed that 46% of respondents planned to invest more in email (European Interactive Advertising Association)
• Across the board, it’s estimated that expenditures in email went from £600 million in 2008 to £700 million in 2009.
• A 2008 survey showed that 95% of marketers surveyed were using email marketing, with 4% planning to get on board with it by year’s end (Forrester Research)

Vespa poster campaign in the US

28 Weeks Later

Pet Shop Boys, Music Video

Restaurant in Barcelona. Provides daily menu updates.

Mini Poster Campaign

Pepsi Max

Featuring in a book. Provides links through to Wikipedia articles.

QR Codes on chocolate bars

McCode McDonalds using QR Codes

QR Calendars

Adidas QR Codes.  Count down to the World Cup

Walt Disney QR Codes

Tokyo Communications Company.  Sandcastles campaign

BBC Radio 1 ‘Big Weekend’ QR Code

What do you think?  Do you know of an even better example of QR Codes, send us a link below?  As always if you are excited by the prospect of using QR codes in your next campaign please get in touch.

1

Its all about the data.

Think about all the information that could be collected about your target market. And think about how much could be collected over a period of time. That kind of information is worth its weight in gold, don’t you think? To be able to see the habits of your audience, pre-determine their decisions based on historical data…it’s all a gold mine at your fingertips. Marketing automation software allows this data collection and analysis and it’s obvious how important this information is for your future marketing campaigns. Why shoot in the dark for leads when you don’t have to?

2

Build and manage multi-channel campaigns.

Your audience resides in a vast universe. And not all of your prospects will respond to a message sent via a single channel. Imagine resting your marketing campaign on a banner ad. Okay, so the banner ad is on several highly visible sites that your audience frequents. And the banner ad is actually pretty cool and you’ve received great feedback when you’ve tested it. But not everyone clicks on banner ads. And many people may turn a blind eye to them after cruising the internet for too long. Multi-channel campaigns allow you to send a consistent marketing message across several channels. Email. Direct mail. Text messages. Larger campaigns that seemed unmanageable with your current manpower are within your grasp when you implement automated marketing software.

3

Get to know your audience. Give them what they want.

You can make it easy for your prospects to find the information they need by having a clear call to action and the ability to follow through. Landing pages, personalised URLs…when your call to action is combined with an offer, your prospects are induced to move, heading to the automated responses that you have set into place. And in fact, as they move forward and receive those automatic responses, your sales team is in the wings, waiting to work the warm and hot leads.

4

How good are your leads?

Not every lead is equal. Some people are ready to buy. Some need more time and information. Some are just looky-loos. And you don’t have the time or resources to waste on the leads that aren’t ready. So one of the best things about automated marketing software is the lead scoring capability, informing your sales team who is cold and who is hot!

5

Measure. Measure. Measure.

If you throw a marketing campaign out there you want to know what parts of it were a hit and what parts were a miss. Did the email message fall flat? Was the text message the best received? The more you can analyse, the better, because it will enable you to design and implement further campaigns that are even more successful.

So if you think you are ready for automation. Get in touch with us now. Our SafeKeepa solution could automate many of your marketing activities and cost you less money, plus our unique managed approach means you have as little or as much involvement as you like.

But only a very small amount of people are taking advantage of it. In today’s world everything is ‘on demand’, films, TV even software (including ours!) so why not print?

Digital printing and ‘Print on Demand’ lets you print very small quantities as and when you need them. Unlike offset or litho printing presses, which traditionally use plates made from film, new digital presses takes your digital files and prints direct from them. There’s no plates involved at all. All this results in cheaper setup costs and faster turnaround. What if you’ve got time and you want items in bulk? Luckily our solutions allow you to mix ‘On Demand’ with bulk printing.

Here’s some logical reasons why, in print, you should ‘go digital’:

You can Print as little as one

Seriously, your print runs can be low, even for full-colour printing, and because there is hardly any setup costs you won’t be hit with huge unit costs. With traditional offset printing, consumers tend to print far more than they’ll ever need due to the decreasing price structure. Many people waste 30 percent of what they print.

Quicker Turnaround

You can print a small quantity of your corporate brochures in time for that important event next week. Lead times are much shorter with ‘Print on Demand’. You can get new business cards for that last-minute business trip.

Individual Bespoke Print

You can print different versions of your pieces for different markets and test out their effectiveness before you settle on one look. Plus you can change the content more often with digital printing, keeping your material current and accurate. So print less brochures every quarter and update the copy, instead of printing thousands of brochures per year and living with outdated and incorrect information.

Personalise

You can personalise your documents by taking advantage of the latest technology called ‘Variable Print on Demand’. It lets you practice ‘one-to-one marketing’, because every piece has different content. It marries a database with the design template. And every printed piece has different information to help make it more personal, more attractive, and more effective. Plus, you get higher response rates with VPOD.

You could use this so every salesperson or executive have their own version of sales materials, tailored specifically for his/her own clients or prospects. Or create co-branded print with a few clicks of the mouse.

No Wastage

Finally you can say goodbye to wastage. With digital printing, you can reduce or even eliminate waste by only printing what you need when you need it. Does that tick the environmentally friendly box?

Easy to Manage

It’s easier to manage. With offset printing you have to manage the print files and revision versions, we all know what a nightmare that can be. With our ‘Print on Demand’ solution you can forget print files. We’ll manage it for you and give you a handy online order facility so you can place orders anywhere in the world at any time of day.

Digital vs Offset

So we might have convinced you digital is the way to go but remember its not always the right method. Our solution gives you the tools to manage POD, VPOD and bulk print. You’ll know when to make items ‘On Demand’ and when to print in bulk and store. Now that’s convenient.

To get a full demonstration of Print On Demand – Get in touch today.

In tough economic times, it is crucial to continue marketing your business, and maximise your marketing spend. Email marketing is a perfect way to keep your business in front of your customers’ and prospects’ eyes!

Targeted mailings to an interested audience will result in high email open rates, and an opportunity to build relationships with your customers and make some sales.

The following is a list of five reasons why you must start email marketing now!

1. Email marketing is inexpensive.

Email marketing is an affordable way to stretch a tight marketing budget. Email marketing can cost as little as a penny per email.

Our solution provides you with an easy to use online platform for reporting purposes and plus our managed approached allows you to have as little involvement as you like.

2. Email marketing is highly targeted.

You can easily segment your email database into different groups, so that your promotions go to individuals most likely to respond to your offer. For example, you may send one offer to existing clients, and send a different one to prospects who’ve expressed interest in your products or services.

3. Email marketing is proactive.

Email marketing enables you to proactively communicate with your existing customers and prospects, instead of passively waiting for them to return to your website or storefront.

It is a highly effective way to communicate promotional offers, news, events, which may result in an increase in sales, drive traffic to your website or store, and develop customer trust and loyalty through relationship building.

Sending out a monthly email campaign will keep your business in front of your customers’ and prospects’ eyes.

4. Email marketing generates an immediate response.

Promotional emails include a call to action that can result in immediate responses. Initial campaign responses generally occur within 48 hours of the time the email campaign is sent; testing and refining your campaigns is immediate. You can gauge the open rates of your email campaigns, which provides useful and immediate information you can use to tweak your campaign messages.

5. Email marketing is easy.

Our Web-based email marketing products are easy to use. The services available, list segmentation and targeting capabilities, as well as automatic tracking and reporting of your email campaign effectiveness, such as for open rates, bounces, and spam reports. Worried about the work involved? Our designers can provide you with a professional HTML template.

If you’re not a “techie”, have no fear. You don’t need a Webmaster or technical person on staff to handle the development and distribution of your email campaigns. Our managed approached will do all the work for you.

Email marketing works because it allows precise targeting of your marketing message, it builds loyalty with your customers, it is inexpensive, and best of all, it drives sales. Include email marketing in your arsenal of marketing tools today!

But what must you do to ensure that you do not waste your precious marketing pounds? How can you measure the quality of the data that you currently have, and decide what you must do to improve it?

Why not download our datasheet on Data Cleansing Services Data Cleansing Services

What?

What do we mean by optimising your marketing data? The idea may sound a little abstract but the principals behind data optimisation are actually very straight forward. In a nutshell, we are attempting to ensure that we have not only enough data, but also the right type and quality of data to achieve our particular marketing goals.

A typical data optimisation project will need clear answers to at least some, if not all, of the following questions:

• What are our key marketing goals, and what activities are we planning to carry out?
• How much data, and what type of data, will we need to support these goals?
• What data do we have and how good is it – e.g. how suitable is it for say emails, direct mail, and telemarketing?
• How much more data will we need in additional to our current data set and what will be the most cost effective means to sourcing that data?
• Does our data strategy encourage us to collect the right type of data to allow us to segment and analyse our prospects and customers effectively?
• How will our data be managed, maintained and refreshed to ensure that the data quality and sufficiency does not deteriorate?

Why?

Why should you consider a data optimisation project? Essentially, because your data is your most valuable asset. It tells you all about your existing customers as well as providing the means to reach and impact your potential customers.

One of the main reasons that even the best formulated marketing plans fail, and direct marketing campaigns consistently underachieve, is poorly targeted and populated data.

However, buying and maintaining data is expensive. You need to ensure you buy enough and the right type of data to support your plans, but not too much! Data that is not utilised quickly goes out-of-date! Optimising your data and its usage ultimately enables you to spend less to achieve more.

How?

Documenting your activities, objectives, expected results and timetable will provide a simple forecast of the data required, broken out by sector, geography or category. This will allow decisions to be taken on what data is required, exactly when it is needed, and which type of activity is most likely to deliver the results that are needed. You may need to enhance your existing data, or buy new data targeted directly to a campaign. For example, you may have 5,000 contact records already, but can you identify how many of them are in the correct business area, how many have up-to-date email addresses and telephone numbers, etc.

Our data analysis report will help you to quantify what you have got, and what you need going forward.

Your data is most likely held in several different systems, guarded jealously by different people. You probably have customer data held in the finance system, sales people will have data in a CRM system or personal spreadsheets, marketing will have their own database of ‘suspects’, often gathered from different sources over time, and so on.

All of this data is valuable, but in different ways. The first task is to gather it together and analyse its quality and completeness. For example, finance data may hold different attributes from sales data.

You may need to involve your marketing, sales and finance department to determine what data there is, and how to extract it. Once the data has been assembled and enhanced you can decide on how it is to be used and if the enhanced data should go back into the original systems.

Take action now!

Contact us to arrange an initial meeting when we can review your plans and assess the suitability of your data. Using our simple scorecarding we can quickly identify any areas for improvement and recommend tactics to achieve them.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zog/5249099/

• Update it frequently
• Make sure the content helps other people

However, while most businesses start off with great intentions, their blog quickly finds itself in the “neglected” pile.

If you would like to re-ignite your blog, or just get one started, here are common roadblocks that you may run into. But then some tips and tips on how to overcome them, and ensure your blog remains a productive channel in your marketing efforts.

I don’t know what to write about…

• Write about subjects that you’re comfortable with. Are you the go-to person at your company for coming up with wording or phrases? If so, write posts about how to write effective copy in marketing efforts.
• Write about what you are interested in – new technology, new services, industry news, etc.
• Write about things that make you more productive. It could be a tool on the web, or just a strategy for managing your to-do list. That kind of advice will be appreciated by all readers, regardless of their industry.
• Subscribe to other peoples blogs – See how others write and what they are writing about.

I don’t have the time to write…

• A blog post does not need to be long! In fact, many people read multiple blogs and news sites each day. Therefore, if your posts are brief and to the point, it may increase the chances that people will read them.
• Once you start writing blog posts, you’ll be surprised how often ideas for new posts pop into your head – often at random times. Therefore, find some way to jot those down. It might be in a Word document, or it may even be in the “Notes” feature on your iPhone.
• Use pictures! Do you have a chart or some other sort of image that can help tell the story? If so, plug it in. People will appreciate it – and it will eliminate the words that you have to write.

I’m very, very busy already. My to-do list is full.

Treat your blog post like an important appointment, or an anniversary. Tell yourself “Every other Tuesday I will write my blog by the end of the day” and stick with it.

These are just a few tips and tricks that could help. Let us know if have any specific questions about ways to get your blog going!

Image credit: Annie Mole

Multi-channel marketing is all about using various methods (channels) to get your marketing message to the people who matter the most – your target market. It involves the integration of websites, phone, email, texting, print and other available channels to market relevant messages. It’s all about sending the right people the right message using the right channel. By failing to maximize your opportunities using multi-channel marketing, you shoot yourself in the foot and lose out…losing future customers and future profits.

One of the key elements behind multi-channel marketing is consistency in your branding. Using various ways to get your marketing message across to your prospects is pointless if that message isn’t consistent. In fact, if you muddy the marketing waters with different messages to your target market using various channels, you will in fact turn off your prospects.

While it’s easy to get caught up in the marketing game and think only of the message and reaching that target market, there are other points to consider. You have to make it easy for those prospects to contact you. You have to make it effortless to do business with your company. If your prospects experience any speed bumps along the way you are bound to lose them. Think about it – perhaps you perform all your research of companies you want to deal with online without batting an eyelash. But not everyone is so trusting of or at ease with the internet. Those people want to talk with a warm body. They’d rather make a phone call and speak with someone directly to get all their questions answered. In this case, if your marketing messages lack a phone number for your prospects to call, you’ve just lost potential profits.

This is where personalisation comes into play. By personalising your marketing messages to the recipients across the various marketing channels, you are increasing your odds of success. It doesn’t take in-depth market research to understand that a mobile text campaign targeted at senior citizens may fall flat on its face. But a well-crafted direct mail piece might be a home run! Demographics are key to a successful multiple channel marketing strategy. You want your message to be heard, to be understood…but you need it to be received by the targeted group of people via the correct method in order for it to work.

Multi-Channel Marketing is all about a seamless, almost effortless (for the target market) process. Getting your message to your prospects using various channels and keeping those messages and your branding consistent and understandable. And making it easy for your prospects to contact you to inquire further or step up and make a purchase of your products or goods. Remember, “convenience” means different things to different people. A sound multi-channel marketing strategy will keep this in mind and be able to deliver that convenience to a receptive target market.

Here are a few essentials that every business may want in their sales pack:

Standard Sales Letter (Introduction)

A standard sales letter should explain to a prospect just who your company is – what your goals are, and why you feel your solutions are important to your prospects.

Contact Us

Designate a page on your website strictly for information on how your company can be contacted.  It should be easy to locate and clearly list your important contact information.  When someone wants an answer, they are often left leaving unsatisfied if all they have available to them is a phone number.  So, even if your office is closed for the evening, allowing a visitor to fill out a Contact Us form can help keep the lines of communication open.

This information should feed directly into your Marketing system for your Sales team to follow up on.

Landing Page

Create a landing page that is hooked up to an easy-to-remember URL… Perhaps,
YourDomain.com/Info.  This way, your sales reps can quickly tell people about this address when they are talking to prospects.  The advantage of sending them to a landing page (instead of directly to your home page) is that you direct people to the important details about your company and services.  Also, if you put a response form on the page, you can increase the chances that the prospect will request additional information, or provide more data about their interests.

Email Blast

You should have a standard email blast that can be sent out by your sales reps, at any time.  The email blast should focus on a key solution that your company provides – perhaps it’s your ability to offer marketing services.  This way if you ring in a new contact from an exhibition, webinar, etc.., you can get something out to your prospects right way while they still remember meeting or hearing about you.

When running a campaign, it is very important to consider the product being offered, and the audience that is being targeted.

With Safekeepa, you can not only collect responses from a personalised URL, but you can also collect responses from other forms, including BRCs. At the end of the day, we can use SafeKeepa,to see all of the responses, no matter what the response type was. Our customers can instantly see how people are responding. Picture a pie chart – Fifty-Five percent of the chart shows the online responses, 40 percent shows the BRCs, and 5 percent makes up the call-in responses.

Personalised URLs are absolutely a great component for running an effective marketing campaign. But as the old saying goes, don’t put your eggs all in one basket. To truly offer an effective marketing solution, you must be able to deliver and measure campaigns across multiple medias, to different lists, and among many different response types.