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Best Practices for “Push-through” Pay-per-Click Marketing

2010-09-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

In our last Marketing Tips, we outlined the best practices for “pull-through” pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. This week’s Tip will focus on “push-through” PPC advertising.

What is “Push-through” PPC Marketing?

“Push-through” PPC marketing refers to online advertising that “appears” to a consumer based on the consumer’s location, behavior, interests or demographic information. Unlike “pull-through” advertisements, the consumer is NOT entering keywords into a search box. Rather, the website is using information about the consumer to determine whether the ad should appear.

For example, Facebook members will self-report facts such as their location, age, interests, etc. Based on this information, advertisers can request that their ad appears only to the Facebook members who fit a specific profile (demographic, geographic or behavioral).

Other sites, like Yahoo! can target individuals based on the location of the consumer’s computer, past sites the consumer has visited (behavioral) or demographic information.

In other words, an advertisement is “pushed” to an individual based on selected criteria on the belief that the ad will be relevant to the individual. This creates the opportunity for highly targeted advertising programs. However, similar to the “pull-through” PPC advertisements, the advertiser only pays if a consumer clicks on the ad and back-end reports provides valuable analytics.

Best Practice Tips

Many of the “Best Practices” outlined in our last Tips applies here as well:

o Consumers who click on the advertisements should be driven to a narrowly focused micro-website. This site can be used to collect information about the respondent, deliver documents and ultimately drive them to a “main” website.
o Micro-websites should be linked to a contact management system to collect the respondent’s contact information, and provide an opportunity for follow-up communications.
o Set up analytic reports for all steps in the advertising and selling process to track activities and provide a comprehensive view of the marketing environment.
o Support your PPC campaign with phone support so respondents who are interested and ready can talk to a person before making a purchase.
o As always, integrating a PPC advertising campaign with other online and offline advertising initiatives generally provides the best overall results.

To discuss “push-through” PPC marketing, or other forms of direct-response marketing, contact us at DMC Advertising. We are specialists in highly targeted and measurable marketing programs.

Best Practices for “Pull-through” Pay-per-Click Marketing

2010-09-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

The advertising category of “paid search” has grown at a rate of nearly 30% year-over-year for the past several years. A study published earlier this year by Forrester Research and Shop.org (a division of the National Retail Federation) revealed that nearly 40% of major companies’ online marketing budgets were allocated to “paid search” tactics. This is significant compared to other popular online tactics such as email marketing (11%), search engine optimization (3%) and Social Media (1%).

What is “Pull-through” PPC Marketing?

We define “pull-through” pay-per-click search marketing as advertising that appears in the search results based on the keywords a person types into a search engine. In other words, the ad appears and “pulls” a person through to the vendor’s website based on the interest expressed through the use of key words in the search. This process is used in both major search engines (such as Google or Yahoo) or in vertical search engines (such as Business.com or Thomasnet.com).

This form of advertising has become very popular for obvious reasons – your ad only appears to those who have expressed an interest in your product or services, and the marketer only pays for the ad when the respondent clicks on the link. In other words, it is demand-driven. Additionally, PPC advertising is highly measurable.

Best Practice Tips

Here are some tips for best practice in “pull-through” PPC marketing:

o Since marketers “bid” on keywords, test and measure a number of different keyword combinations. Sometimes longer strings of keywords are cheaper, yet are more targeted to the most relevant shoppers.
o Research and choose the best search engines to place your campaign. For consumer searches, Google is dominant for shear numbers, but depending on your target audience, other search engines, such as Yahoo!, may be a better choice. For business searches, many marketers may select certain vertical search engines such as Business.com or Thomasnet.com. The key to success is understanding your audiences and how they generally conduct a search.
o Set up AdGroups based on keyword groupings so they can be tracked and measured.
o Set up specific micro-websites where respondents are driven. It is important to keep respondents’ interests focused. If a respondent clicks on an ad for a specific product, but is driven to a general website, the person will likely get lost and abandon the search. Also, the URL for the micro-web sites should relate to the keywords that are part of the established AdGroup.
o Set up the analytics reports for each of the micro-websites to identify respondents’ behaviors. The focus should be on measuring and testing these ads to optimize performance.
o If you are a B2B marketer, it is important to tie the responses into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to track these leads through the sales process.
o It is also important to back up the online experience with phone support. Often people get to a point where they are ready (or need) to speak with a sales representative before they make the purchase.
o PPC marketing, like all media, is most effective when integrated into other supporting media, rather than as a stand-alone medium.

Evaluating “Pull-through” PPC Marketing Results

When planned, monitored and managed correctly, “pull-through” PPC marketing can be a very effective and efficient form of advertising. Some of the key metrics you may want to monitor:

o Which search engines are being used to conduct a search?
o Which keywords are used most often?
o How are “responders” different from “buyers”?
o At which point are responders abandoning the search process?

There, of course, are many other ways to measure performance. They will depend on your audiences and offerings. But establishing a process to routinely test, monitor and analyze results can provide the opportunity to experience improved campaign performance at a lower acquisition cost.

To discuss “pull-through” PPC marketing or other forms of direct-response marketing, contact us at DMC Advertising. We are specialists in highly targeted and measurable marketing programs.

Watch for our next Marketing Tips when we focus on “push-through” PPC marketing.

Calculating Advertising ROI

2010-08-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

In our previous blog, we used ROI calculations as a tool to prepare an objectives-based budget. Today, we will discuss how ROI calculations should be used to determine if your advertising efforts resulted in the incremental growth of your organization’s profits.

One of the leading experts in this field of marketing ROI is James D. Lenskold, who literally wrote the book, “Marketing ROI”. You can find many useful tips regarding marketing ROI on his website www.lenskold.com .

According to Lenskold, the key to calculating ROI is to focus on profits, not gross sales revenue. In other words, how much are you willing to invest to secure incremental profits? This idea seems like a “no-brainer”, but Lenskold outlines many of the common obstacles that exist in organizations that prevent the application of this approach.

In its most simplistic and fundamental form, Lenskold’s equation for calculating ROI is:

Gross Profit Margin – Advertising Costs / Advertising Costs

Here, the organization takes the gross profit margin (or profit before the marketing costs are taken into consideration), subtracts the advertising costs, and then divides that value by the advertising costs. The result is a percentage return, much like financial investments may produce a return.

For example, if an organization’s “gross profit margin” is $750,000 and their advertising cost was $500,000, the resulting ROI is 50%:

$750,000 - $500,000 / $500,000 = 50%

What is the “correct” ROI level? Well, that becomes a management prerogative based on the business, industry and market conditions.

With his book, Lenskold explores some very complex variations of this equation and other consideration, such net present value, lifetime value of a customer, cross-selling current customers, and so forth. However, the book is a useful guide to determine how best to calculate marketing ROI within your organization.

If you are looking to move your organization to a more measurable approach with your marketing efforts, I recommend you check out Lenskold’s website and begin to transition your marketing budget from an expense to an investment within your organization.

For more information on measurable marketing, or other strategy-based advertising applications, contact DMC Advertising at (262) 523-2000. We are specialists at targeted and measurable marketing programs.

Objectives-based Budgeting

2010-08-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

Why is the advertising budget the first area to be cut during a recession? Most likely, it is because advertising is viewed as an “expense” rather than an “investment”. And the reason advertising is often viewed as an expense is because the methods to determine the appropriate budget has little to do with revenue goals, and the activities are not measured to link advertising with sales results.

Today, we will review a few of the most common methods companies employ to establish their marketing budgets (and why they are not the best approaches).

Then we will discuss an approach that ties advertising to revenue and begins to turn the advertising budget from an expense to an investment.

Common Budgeting Methods

Percent of Sales

This is a formula-driven method based on the previous year’s sales results (such as 2% of sales). This is considered to be one of the most common approaches because it is simple, and ties the budget to revenue (albeit, historical). However, by looking backwards, companies are ignoring the current or projected economic conditions, marketing trends or the future opportunities.

What Can We Afford?

This approach considers the financial projections for the organization, and management decides how much it is willing to spend on advertising. This approach is used often because it sounds “fiscally responsible” and is very simple. However, this method is unrelated to sales revenue and (again) ignores future opportunities.

Increase Over Last Year

A third common approach is to take last year’s budget and allocate an increase (or decrease). Generally, this becomes an Accounting process rather than a Marketing one. Again, this makes budgeting simple and may even account for economic conditions such as inflation or a recession. However, it also assumes that the “original” budget was developed soundly (and this is often a very big assumption). The budget may be completely arbitrary and ignores current market conditions.

Objectives-based Budgeting

A better approach is Objectives-based Budgeting. This is the process of developing a marketing budget based on measurable revenue objectives and projected return-on-investment (ROI) to determine the correct advertising allocation.

Key Advantages

o It is based on FUTURE business opportunities and economic climate, not historical
o It forces organizations to make sound business decisions that align resources with organizational goals
o It turns advertising from an “expense” into an “investment”

So why doesn’t everyone use this approach? Objectives-based Budgeting is a more complex approach and requires individuals within the organization to be accountable. Also, many of the measurements needed to prepare the budget have not be available in some organizations. However, we will attempt to provide a straight-forward, simplistic approach to this method.

Key Steps

o Establish an ROI Parameter

ROI is generally expressed as a percentage, such as a Certificate of Deposit generated a 3% ROI on the initial investment. For organizations, it is common to set a more significant ROI level, such as 200% (or more) of the projected profit margin. This level is a managerial prerogative to establish a budgetary tolerance.

o Estimate Client Lifetime Value

If you don’t already know, it is important to determine the lifetime value of your clients, especially if you rely on repeat business to grow your organization. This involves multiplying the average annual revenue per customer times the average client tenure. Then determine the projected margin for your clients to determine the expected value for each new client you secure.

o Establish Objectives

It is important to set specific, quantifiable and realistic sales objectives to calculate projected revenue. Review historical statistics to estimate key metrics such as close ratio, appointment-to-proposal ratios or lead-to-appointment ratios. Each organization will have its own unique set of metrics. Use these historical values to project the level of sales activity that will be needed to secure the correct number of new clients and resulting revenue.

o Do the Math

If you have been able to determine all of the values listed above, you can calculate the appropriate funding levels to acquire new clients.

For example:

o Your organization wants to achieve at least a 200% ROI of its profits.
o You expect that the average annual gross revenue of a new client will be $3,000 with a profit margin of 10% (or $300), and that a new client is typically retained for five years. This means a new client is projected to be worth $1,500 in lifetime profit.
o If your sales objectives call for the acquisition of 500 new clients, then the projected profit margin from these new clients will be [$1,500 x 500] or $750,000.
o The generally-accepted formula to determine an advertising budget that will achieve the target ROI is:

profit margin – advertising costs / advertising costs = ROI

To achieve a 200% (or 2:1) ROI in this example, the advertising cost calculation would be then be:

$750,000 - $250,000 / $250,000 = 200%

In other words, to achieve a 200% ROI on $750,000 profit, you can justify a $250,000 advertising budget.

o Now you need to go back to your sales metrics and determine if this budget is sufficient and appropriate to generate the level of activity necessary to produce the sales. In other words, can you generate enough leads, appointments or proposals with this budget so the end sales result meets expectations?

Clearly, we have provided an incredibly simplified approach to a fairly complex process, but hopefully it will provide enough of an overview to help you to begin applying this process within your own organization.

For more information on objectives-based budgeting, or other strategy-based advertising applications, contact DMC Advertising at (262) 523-2000. We are specialists at targeted and measurable marketing programs.

Broadcast Voicemail – A Low-cost, High-touch Tactic

2010-08-03T07:45:00.000-07:00

Unless you are a hermit or are living “off the grid”, you have likely experienced broadcast voicemail. The most common experience people have with broadcast voicemail is during elections – you check your voicemail messages and listen to a recording from a local celebrity or politician urging you to vote for their candidate.

Some institutions, like school districts, have begun using this technology to alert parents of district school children about specific activities or issues.

However, there is also a solid marketing application in the right circumstances. It can complement other direct marketing tactics for one additional, high-impact touch point. Here are some of the key features of broadcast voicemail.

Key Features:

o Price. You only pay for “completed” messages, and the cost is typically less than the cost of postage.

o Fast & Easy. Most can be set up online to deliver them quickly.

o Automated call list management. Most services have a host of call list management features to meet regulatory requirements and provide back end reporting.

o Delivery Options. With digital advancements in telecommunications, broadcast voicemail systems can be programmed for either “live” delivery or “voicemail message” delivery.

o Transfer options – “press ‘0’ to speak with an attendant”. This allows the recipient to speak to a live attendant instantly for additional information.

But, as you might expect, there are also some restrictions with this technology. Here are some of the “do’s-and-don’ts”:

o For consumer promotions, your organization must have an affinity relationship: either as a customer or as someone who has given permission to receive voicemail messages. The exceptions? Political parties (of course they would exempt themselves) and non-profit organizations.

o Best practice for B2B use is similar to consumers. It is best to have a relationship or permission before sending broadcast messages. However, provided you offer an “op-out” at the start of the message, you can send messages to individuals in a business setting without an affinity relationship.

For your next campaign, keep this unique medium in mind. But like many other media, broadcast voicemail must be used selectively and will work best when integrated with other communications.

For more information on digital marketing tools, or other strategy-based advertising applications, contact DMC Advertising at (262) 523-2000. We are specialists at targeted and measurable marketing programs.

Mass Faxing – More Than Putting Lipstick on a Pig

2010-07-26T08:57:00.000-07:00

At the risk of dating myself, it was a mere 15 – 20 years ago that fax machines were considered high tech communications devices. Modern business was significantly advanced by the ability to electronically send documents in minutes rather than days.

But the shine wore off quickly as email and the internet replaced the fax as the preferred means to share information.

However, what’s old is new again. Internet-based faxing services allow B2B marketers an opportunity to send out mass faxes to your key business contacts.

Six Key Benefits of Web-based Mass Faxing

o Low cost. There is no print production or postage costs to send a fax.
o Quick and Easy. Communications can be created and sent faster than many other forms of communications.
o Personalization. Thanks to digital technology, you can use your database to send out personalized or variable messages to make them more relevant to the target recipients.
o Urgency. Faxes are still treated as urgent messages – usually placed on the recipient’s desk chair rather than being lost in their email inbox or regular mail bin.
o Availability. Unlike email addresses, companies routinely publish their fax numbers so it is easy to find or append to your database from external sources.
o Retention. Emails can be deleted in seconds without even being read. Since faxes are hard copy, they will mostly likely receive at least a cursory reading.

For your next B2B campaign, keep this rarely considered medium in mind. But like many other media, mass faxing will work best when integrated with other communications.

For more information on digital marketing tools, or other strategy-based advertising applications, contact DMC Advertising at (262) 523-2000. We are specialists at targeted and measurable marketing programs.

PURLs – Powerful Web-based Lead-gen Tool

2010-07-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

As a marketing professional, you know that the internet has dramatically changed the way companies promote and sell their products.

Consumers have more access to more information and are more comfortable completing transactions online than ever before. A study by the Direct Marketing Association found that people overwhelmingly prefer to go online to “check out” a company or product before responding.

However, this has also created a challenge. Your website analytics report can provide you with all sorts of traffic data, but it can’t tell you WHO is going to your website.

That is where Personalized URLs (PURLs) provide a solution.

What’s a PURL?

PURLs are a relatively new technology that links your database with digital print and email communications, and drives them to a personalized web-based platform that provides respondents with an interactive, one-to-one communication experience.

Features & Advantages

Some of the key advantages of PURLs:

o You know WHO is responding
o Additional information can be collected to further enhance your database
o All communications, including the web pages, are personalized
o You can combine both direct mail and email to enhance response rates
o You can include survey questions to help score the quality of the leads
o You can automate future communications to nurture the leads
o You can automatically direct the respondents to your website for additional information
o Response activities are captured in real-time through an online dashboard
o Response information can be immediately forwarded to sales staff for timely follow-up calls

Best Practices

However, it is also important to know that great technology won’t overcome poor direct marketing planning or tactics. For a PURL to be successful, it is important to follow direct marketing best practices, which include:

o Make sure the database is accurate and complete
o Make sure the “offer” is relevant and valuable
o Include a strong call-to-action
o Plan an integrated, multi-media approach to lift response rates
o Make sure the promoted brand is strong and well supported.

For a hands-on demonstration of this incredible marketing tool, go to the personalized URL sent to you either by mail or by email.

Respondents will receive a FREE whitepaper on Demand Generation Tactics.

If you didn’t receive an invitation to participate in the demonstration, you can go to http://www.dmcpurldemo.com/invite and participate in a generic version of the program.

Give it a try. It’s FUN!

Integrating Mobile Marketing with Other Media

2010-06-24T12:39:00.000-07:00

Mobile ad spending last year was $416 million. It is predicted that in 3 years it will be at $1.5 billion (Mobile Marketer May 5, 2010 newsletter “Five Trends Driving Mobile Marketing and Commerce this Year”). The consumer package goods, retail, entertainment, travel and restaurant categories are leading the way in mobile spending. How are these advertisers utilizing this medium to generate awareness and sales for their business?

I have been in the advertising business for 23 years and I have never seen the media landscape change as rapidly as it has in the last two years. Some say that the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 was the tipping point for mobile web and mobile advertising. The availability of unlimited data and text messaging plans also opened the door to mobile marketing’s explosive growth. Never has a medium been so personal and had such intimate proximity to the user. Your target audience has a mobile phone in her purse or clipped on to his belt (87% of U.S. households own a mobile phone according to Neustar 11/09). You can communicate with them any time you want. This new medium provides the opportunity for two-way communication, enabling you to directly engage with the user. You invite them to dialogue with your brand; become a fan; view your video; download your app; vote; provide customer feedback; respond to your call to action; and request store alerts, marketing messages, and coupons.

However, as cool as the mobile phone is, I believe that mobile marketing should not stand alone. With the introduction of mobile marketing, the media mix has now become more dynamic. Traditional advertising and mobile make wonderful partners helping deliver results like never before.

Common Short Code (CSC) is becoming an increasingly popular mobile marketing tool. People are invited to text a code to the carrier-approved number for that advertiser
(think ‘American Idol’). When they text, the dialogue begins, the user has now given you permission to communicate with them. However, a key element in this tactic is how to deliver the short code and number to an audience. This is where traditional media comes into play in the media plan. The traditional media delivers to the masses the code and number.

One of the benefits of short code is testing. You can use a different code in each of your media and measure which one pulls better. You can test the media used and test within a medium. For out-of-home you can test if certain OOH units pull better or if an outdoor location generates more response to your invitation to text. You can also test messaging and offers. With the help of mobile, advertisers now have real time results that can be analyzed and then campaigns can be adjusted to generate better responses. Case studies tend to report that short code text messages out perform emails and web based
call-to- action. Short code campaigns keep the offer top-of-mind and make it so easy to respond and the result is strong response rates.

Best practices with mobile and traditional marketing are an integrated advertising program. When you combine print, broadcast, web, and other traditional advertising with short codes you will increase response rates, consumer appeal, measurability, and overall return on your advertising campaign. Short code marketing can act as a unifying component within a broader advertising strategy (Neustar 11/09).

According to Mobile Marketer, we will be in the golden age of mobile advertising within two years. “Every single retailer will need a mobile site or application within three years or they will risk losing business to their competitors.” Other industries also need to learn quickly how to utilize mobile in their marketing plans or they will miss out on incredible opportunities to build relationships with their customer base and generate sales.

THE MOBILE DESIGN ENVIRONMENT

2010-06-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

Before you start designing a wireless application, the first thing to understand is the mobile environment. Obviously, this environment is not the same as the desktop computer environment. But what design implications stem from this difference? We'll address the most important issues, starting with the user.

Users

Mobile users are mostly average consumers, typically in the early majority but not innovators. Unless you are creating an application for a selective audience, it is best to assume that users won't want to try things out and won't have patience for an unusable site simply because it is high-technology or because it provides a rare or unique service.

Writing for Multiple Devices

With the rapid increase of number and variety of devices, the old model of creating one operating system for each device (or family of devices) has broken down. It is not financially feasible to create new operating systems all the time, nor is it good for users or carriers.

Different devices have different user interfaces; the native User Interface should be respected when designing web sites and applications.

• Nokia-style UI ...

• The iPhone uses the principle of "the content is the interface." ...

• Touch interface ...

• Scroll-and-select interface ...

• Backstepping

• 2D navigation

Screen Design

Header -- the text at the top of the screen giving the user context for the screen. Because many people ignore areas of the screen devoted to titles (e.g., the title bar), and because many devices do not display the title element, this is specifically not the title. Title -- the title element within the platform language. Some devices have a fixed area on the screen that displays the title, whether you specify one or not. Some devices ignore the title completely, and some devices use the title as the default bookmark name. Hence, "header" is a design term, and "title" is a programming term.

Each screen must be understandable and unambiguous in the absence of the title element. Some users do not look at the title. More importantly, some devices do not display the title. Do not rely on the title to convey critical meaning. Avoid non-standard abbreviations. Users probably won't understand them. The header of a screen should tell users what they need to do on the screen. This is true unless the goal of the screen is obvious or if there is no action required of the user. There is no need to tell the user to pick an item in a menu or list, nor to type in an entry screen. Hence titles can skip verbs. Example titles include "Pick State" ("State" if space constrained), "Select Pizza Toppings" ("Pizza Toppings" if space constrained), and "Enter Home Address" ("Home Address" if space constrained).

• Use mixed-case format for titles and headers. Mixed-case format (or title-case format) is easier to read than all upper-case, and the device can use other methods to distinguish different parts of the page.

• Use caution when switching between full screen (unstructured) mode and structured mode without user intervention. If the title and ticker disappear and reappear without visible cause, the user will be distracted and possibly confused.

• Provide an option for the user to switch to unstructured mode.

Screen Layout

Make sure content is visible upon entering page. Bold text If the content is an image, make sure something is visible upon entering the page, even before image loads (this may be relevant if you define dimensions for your image). Note that the alt text will appear upon entering the page. Your screen layout should work with and without graphics.

Tables

In the desktop web environment, site designers have used tables to enable precise control over how a page is arranged. In the mobile environment, device capabilities and display size make this practice inadvisable. Most platforms do not allow nested tables.

Contents of Screen

The contents of a screen are what is most visible to the user, and they communicate the point of the screen to the user. They include everything excluding the screen title and commands.

• Use hyperlink styling only for actions that access web content. The hyperlink styling has major connotations of web access.

• Provide confirmation screens for any action that will cost the user money.

Fonts

Font use is more restricted on mobile devices than it is on desktop devices. While you can count on a desktop browser having access to several fonts, usually over 100, you can only count on a mobile phone having two. Thus any font differentiation based on style and size may not appear on the user's device.

Keep color contrast high for fonts. Since some devices will not display background colors or images, this means keeping font colors dark (e.g., black, blue, purple, brown, dark red, etc.).

If you specify fonts, always specify a generic font-family (serif or sans serif) as the last in your list. Devices may have a limited number of fonts; many devices will only have one font. The generic font-family will be a fallback if the device doesn't support other fonts you specified.

Content Authoring: Less is More

J2ME MIDP devices are small, and have small screens. They cannot display a lot of text without the user having to scroll. Further, more text means either a larger application using more memory, or more for the user to download and thus pay for. To make the most of the small screen available, don't use the same content as you have in your equivalent desktop application.

Content authoring tips:

Adopt a concise writing style. Professional publications, whether written or electronic, usually employ a particular writing style: friendly, chatty, formal, humorous, et cetera. But there is only one writing style that works well in the mobile phone environment - concise. Consider relaxing your organization's writing style requirements to cope with this new medium. Make sentences direct and focused. Use active verbs instead of the passive tense. Logically break content into small chunks.

• Avoid unnecessary punctuation.

• Do not break long character strings with dashes, commas, or other traditional separators.

• Put the most important content first.

• Avoid removing underlining from links. Users may not be able to tell your link is a link, even with link coloring.

Links

• Use links sparingly.

• Link only one or two words per link.

• Linked text should fit on one line.

Multimedia and Graphics

In general, graphics on mobile devices should be smaller, simpler, and fewer than on desktop applications. Some devices don't support graphics at all, some support graphics but have pixels that aren't square, many devices do not have color, most devices have small screens, and all devices have limited bandwidth or processor capability.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about graphics, is that devices may have 65,000, 4,096, 256, 64, 16, 4, or 2 colors for graphics -- and some devices don't have graphics at all. On some devices that support graphics, users may not choose to download them.

Color

keep the same small family of colors (color palette) on images throughout the site.

Line weight

keep the same small set of line weights on graphics throughout the site. Of course, the images on mobile sites should be very small, so you do not have a lot of opportunity to create variations here.

Contrast

on mobile devices, keep contrast high.

Size

keep images consistently sized; for mobile devices, the size is small. Placement &

Proximity

this is controlled mostly by the rendering engine, with little control by the developer. Do not control placement using spacer graphics. If you need text aligned precisely with an image, include the text in the graphic. Don't do this more than once per page.

Style

keep the general style (e.g., cartoonish) consistent from image to image.

• Keep images high-contrast.

• Avoid images with text in them.

• Do not anti-alias text in images.

Whew! That’s a lot to take in. Drop us a line if you want to discuss a Mobile campaign for your company or organization! 1-800-952-9165 or Croberts@dmcadvertising.com.

Mobile Marketing: The Opportunity

2010-06-04T09:03:00.000-07:00

Mobile marketing provides organizations the opportunity to engage their prospects and customers unlike any medium before, and it will continue to grow in importance. Today, we will explore the trends, key applications and best practices to capitalize on this new medium.

Mobile Marketing Trends

>Mobile phones have now reached a household penetration rate of over 90%, and at the end of 2008, over 77% of mobile phones had text message services. Today, that number is significantly higher. In fact, in 2009 U.S. consumers sent out more than 110 billion text messages each month. And the growth of “smart phones” is providing a new opportunity for marketers to move beyond Short Message Services (SMS) text messaging and into Multi-media Message Services (MMS) or web-based advertising.

>Mobile advertising spending is growing rapidly from $300 million in 2008 to a projected $1.5 billion by 2013. This growth is fueled not only by the nearly universal adoption of this medium, but because the medium is very intimate (people carry their phone in their pockets or purses) and mobile phone advertisements on the average have a higher response rate (15% - 30%) compared to email (5% average response rate) or direct mail (2% average response rate).

>Mobile marketing provides marketers an opportunity to measure each unique media tactic unlike anything in history. For example, previously it was difficult to assess the impact (or ROI) of outdoor advertising, such as billboards. Today, with the use of Mobile marketing, it is possible to measure the impact of each outdoor advertising site and calculate an ROI.

Mobile Marketing Applications

Currently, there are basically two ways to engage prospects and customers with mobile marketing: Inbound and outbound.

>For inbound activities, marketers promote a Common Short Code (CSC), which is an abbreviated phone number, along with a SMS text message in their traditional advertisements. People send the text in response to an offer in the promotion. This is being adopted rapidly by retailers to promote special offers (like sales, discounts or free items). Once someone has responded, the cell phone number has been captured and the respondents have “opted-in” for future communications.

>For those who have voluntarily opted-in, marketers can now send outbound SMS or MMS communications to maintain contact and create an on-going dialogue with these key customers. Often, marketers will directly link the respondent to a web site to complete additional information about themselves, which can enhance other marketing opportunities, such as email, social media or direct mail communication tactics.

Mobile Marketing Best Practices

While mobile marketing is a growing medium, it is also a very new medium that will likely change with advancing technology. However, at this time, here are some of today’s recognized best practices:

>Plan how you will integrate CSC and SMS tactics into your other, traditional media plans in order to generate responses, collect data and measure results. We will cover this topic in more detail at the end of the month.

>Be sure your outbound initiatives are ONLY to those who have opted-in to receive your mobile messages. This means you need to plan an acquisition strategy within your global marketing plans.

>SMS is limited to about 160 characters, so you must work hard to send a very clear and succinct message / offer to generate results. This means it is important to keep the offers simple and straight forward, and to focus on “immediacy”. As the use of smart phones grows, the ability to use MMS will provide marketers with new and better promotional opportunities. We will cover this topic in more detail in the next few weeks.

>Manage frequency of messages. Since this is such an intimate medium, sending too many messages will result in people “opting-out” at fairly high rates.

>Plan which metrics to track and how this information will help you plan your other communications efforts.

As our society becomes increasingly mobile, this medium will only continue to evolve and grow in importance. Marketers today should seriously consider how to best leverage this technology into their marketing plans to advance their objectives.

For more information on mobile marketing, or other strategy-based advertising applications, contact DMC Advertising at (262) 523-2000. We are specialists at targeted and measurable marketing programs.

Leveraging Marketing Data

2010-05-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

Over time, as your marketing database becomes more robust, it can become one of your organization’s most valuable assets – but only if you do something with it.

Depending on your marketing objectives, here are four ways that you can leverage the data in your database:

Marketing Research

A complete and accurate database can provide you with a wealth of data to parse and analyze to help you understand your markets. Some of the most basic types of research to better understand your markets may include opportunities by geography (perhaps to assist in the alignment of sales territories), by vertical industry segments, or by market potential based on the size of the prospects. The better you understand the dynamics of your market, the more strategic your marketing efforts can become.

Personalization of Communications

Personalization involves more than just mail-merging, “Hello 'name' ”. Today, digital technologies allow for a much more relevant communication experience. Consider these examples:

Digital Print

Using your database, you can use digital printing to make the copy points unique and relevant to each person; insert images that relate to the individual, or even download directions from Google Maps to provide turn-by-turn directions from the prospect’s address to yours. By leveraging your data, you can take the “mass” out of “mass communications” but maintain a high degree of production efficiency.

Online Communications

Your database allows you to not simply maintain constant contact with your prospects and clients, but to engage them interactively through media such as email, mobile texting, web-based faxing and broadcast voicemail.

All of these technologies allow you to send out communications quickly and inexpensively, and some (like email and texting) invite response and interaction.

Plus, most of these web-based communications vehicles provide reports to help you keep your database clean, such as “hard bounced” emails or fax numbers that don’t connect.

Segmentation

Your marketing database will also provide you the opportunity to segment your prospects or clients for more targeted communications. For example, segmentation can be useful if a major competitor leaves a market and you want to target prospects in a specific area, or if you have a new product but it would only be applicable to specific market segments. If built properly, you should be able to segment your data based on any field of data you have collected.

Timing

If your prospects, or segments of your target audiences, have seasonal buying patterns, you can use the database to time the messages you send out so they are received when the prospects are more receptive to receive them. For example, an offer for auto insurance quotes will likely get more consideration when received at the time of a policy renewal than during the term of the policy.

We could go on and on with the many ways organizations can leverage the data they have collected on their market, but we think we made our point. The bottom line is that through proper planning and execution, marketers can gain knowledge, efficiencies and better results by leveraging their marketing data.

To learn more about database marketing, contact DMC Advertising at (800) 952-9165.

Data Hygiene Tactics

2010-05-17T09:12:00.000-07:00

In our last Marketing Tip (Database Marketing Key Issues), we addressed the various sources of data that can be used to populate your marketing database. Regardless of the source of the data, an on-going concern you will need to address is the methods to clean and maintain your data.

There are many ways to approach data hygiene, but we have outlined some of the most common:

Check for Duplicates

Database marketing providers should have software to check your data for duplicates based off of any field, and identify those that are either exact matches or suspected matches for manual intervention. For example, are Bob Jones and Robert Jones the same person? If they have the same address, it may be safe to assume the records are duplicates, but if they have significantly different address, then they may be different. Also, if you want to only send one communication to a household, you may want to check for duplicates by street address.

Postal Delivery Software

There are postal delivery software programs that allow you to analyze your contact data to check for US postal deliverability. It will identify potential address issues and offer potential corrections. This will help assure that simple mistakes in encoding data are caught. It will also help assure that any direct mail initiatives will have a higher rate of success by assuring deliverability.

National Change of Address (NCOA)

When individuals move to a new residence and notify the Post Office to have their mail forwarded, that change of address is submitted to a limited number of National Change of Address (NCOA) organizations. Marketers can submit their contact data to one of the NCOA vendors who will provide information on the updated addresses.

Similar to the Postal Delivery Software, it will help improve deliverability by making sure direct mail pieces are sent to the correct address.

The service is also available for business addresses, but it will only help at the business level, not for individuals working for the business.

Data Appending Services

Occasionally marketers are interested in adding data elements to their database that weren’t previously collected (such as email addresses, fax numbers, etc.), or want to append new records that they didn’t have previously.

There are data service companies that will take your database, match the records against their database, and append the additional data elements to your database. While it rarely results in a perfect match, it provides a quick and inexpensive way to collect valuable new data elements.

Tele-research Services

Often time, especially with business-to-business databases, the best approach to securing accurate and timely data is to use telemarketing services. With well refined scripting, telemarketers can ask more probing questions to secure data or get information on multiple contacts within one company.

This type of service is significantly more expensive than the other electronic approaches, but depending on the nature of your marketing database needs, it can be very effective in providing a solid marketing database.

Using Feedback Mechanisms

Both direct mail and email have feedback mechanisms that can be used to identify “undeliverable” communications. Some postal classifications allow organizations to request information on undeliverable mail, and email service providers should be able to report on “hard bounces”. Organizations should develop an internal procedure to follow up on these undelivered communications to determine why they failed, and update the database to reflect the new information.

Need More Tips?

Applying techniques, such as these, will help organizations assure that their data asset will retain its value over time. DMC Advertising has over 20 years of experience in database driven marketing communications programs. For more information on database marketing or other marketing techniques, contact DMC Advertising at (608) 523-2000.

Database Marketing Key Issues

2010-05-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

Database marketing is a specific marketing approach that uses a single-source database to drive key marketing communication activities. As a result, marketers can capture data to analyze results and make better future marketing decisions.

Obviously, the key to successful database marketing is making sure the data is complete and accurate. But to achieve that goal, there are several key issues to consider. We have addressed several below:

Planning the Database

Define Your Audiences

The approach to defining your target audiences will be different for B2C and B2B marketers.

For B2C marketers, the target audience is generally also the decision maker. When building a database for this one-to-one marketing approach, it will be important to consider relevant factors, such as demographic information or buying behaviors. It will be important to build data fields that can capture any salient data elements for the target audience.

For B2B marketers, the database needs are more complex. Here, it will be important to capture both organization-level information as well as individuals within the organization that affect the marketing of your product or service. It is very common to have multiple individuals, with different roles, involved in the buying process. For each role, you may find it necessary to capture different types of data.

Define the Objectives

Before you begin building your marketing database, it is important to clarify how the database will be used; to determine what types of information you will want to glean from the data. For example, will the marketing database be used for lead generation; for cross selling to current customers; or to conduct market research? The structure of your database will be contingent on your vision of the data base’s utility. Some of the most common data elements to capture include industry or vertical segments; sales or buying cycles; geographic codes or list sources. It will be important to code all records accordingly for later analysis.

Sources of Data

There are essentially three sources of data that you can use to populate your marketing database: internal, external or organic. Let’s look at each in turn:

Internal data

This refers to data that your organization already has in some form. This may be found in various operating or accounting systems to identify current or past customers, prospects who have inquired or received a proposal, etc. The common challenge of internal data is retrieving it from these various sources, and then making sure the data is current and accurate.

External Data

This generally refers to outside lists that can be rented or found in various directories. With reputable list brokers and vendors, we find that most “consumer” lists are very accurate, primarily because there are a number of market-place mechanisms that track changes by individuals. However, “business” lists are more challenging. Identifying the business entity is very straight forward and generally accurate, but the accuracy of identifying the individuals within companies decreases. There are very few mechanisms in the market that accurately track movement of individuals between organizations.

It is important to review and question the list rental data card that is provided for each list to determine the quality and accuracy of the lists. A general rule of thumb is that “compiled” lists are less accurate than those derived from “response” data. In other words, a list built based on someone ordering a product or requesting information recently is more accurate that a list built from compiled directories. Also take a look at how often the list firm states that the data is telephonically updated. The more recent or frequent the better.

Organic Data

Organic data is data collected one at a time. This often occurs either through direct response mechanisms where individuals respond to an offer, or from a sales distribution source that manually adds prospect data based on their activities. Organic data can be highly valuable provided the inputted information is complete and accurate.

Storage of Data

Another key decision in building a database marketing program is deciding how and where the data should be stored. Over time, as your company’s database becomes richer with data, you will come to appreciate its value to your organization. And just like any other valuable asset, you will want to protect it.

Common Access with Security Levels

One tactic to avoid duplication of data is to provide open access to the database for all users. This will allow anyone who has interaction with a prospective or current customer to see any other activities that have taken place. However, giving everyone access to the data also increases the risks that individuals can harm the data (either intentionally or accidentally). Therefore, it is important to use a contact management system that allows for different levels of security for individuals within an organization.

Regular Backup with Offsite Storage

Within the world of Information Systems professionals, there are some basic and accepted protocols for data security. This includes regular back up of the data and remote and redundant storage of the data. If you select a web-based contact management system, most of these organizations already have this procedure built in as a product feature. But if your contact management system is “home built” or housed on your company’s servers, then make sure your company has procedures in place for the regular back up of the data and offsite storage.

By taking a proactive approach to planning the development of a marketing database, marketing organizations can avoid issues in the future and benefit from robust and accurate data.

For more information on marketing databases or targeted marketing communications that generate measurable results, contact DMC Advertising at (262) 523-2000.

Measuring Direct Mail Success

2010-04-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

Direct mail offers the benefit of an immediate measure of success - your response rate. Another benefit of direct mail is that you can test and measure the variables before committing all your resources to a single approach. Here are some of the possible variables and metrics to consider.

List Performance

It is generally understood that the biggest factor in the success of direct mail is the quality of the list. Once a target audience has been well defined, general best practices call for utilizing multiple lists from multiple sources (no one vendor has a list that contains all of your key, target audiences). A simple merge/purge/de-duping process will refine the list.

Coding the list source in your data base is a simple and effective way to evaluate the performance of any specific list.

As responses are generated, credit the response to each list. This isn’t “over counting”, but it will provide an accounting of which lists provided the best relative response rates.

Without this basic procedure, you lose the most valuable feature of direct marketing – the ability to see where your potential customers are and where you can find more of them.

Testing Variables

While it is best to test one variable at a time, few marketers have the luxury of time or budgets to isolate variables this way. However, when done properly, variables such as messages, offers, and packages can all be tested in one mailing by developing a test matrix. Below is a sample 2x2 matrix that shows a variety of variables that can be used in a direct mail campaign.

With a matrix like this, records from the database are randomly assigned to each of the groups (P1 – P4). Make sure the assigned group is coded into each record in the database.

As responses come in, you can perform statistical significance tests to determine which variables performed above expectations. In subsequent mailings, eliminate underperforming variables until you end up with the winning combination.

Media Lift

While direct marketing has evolved over the years it continues to be the most widely used medium in direct marketing.

However, to improve your response rates and surpass the industry standard of 1% or less, you may want to consider integrating other media with your direct mail campaign.

For example, by selecting the most appropriate online or offline media prior to and during the mailing, you can raise brand awareness and positively affect response rates. By using different media mixes in different markets, you can evaluate the overall media lift rate, as well as segment lift rate by medium.

Metrics Planning

The most common error in measuring direct mail performance is the failure to identify the key metrics and parameters as part of the advanced planning process. Marketers should consider historical or industry standards and prepare Performa response models to determine which metrics to measure and anticipated results.

Tracking responses over time will provide longitudinal data to make better decisions for improved campaign-over-campaign performances.

Creative Direct Mail MUST-HAVES

2010-04-14T07:35:00.000-07:00

Creating direct mail that gets opened is a challenging task for even the most experienced direct marketer. However, with these simple steps you can create direct mail that gets opened.

Step 1

Use a medium that is non-traditional. When you use envelopes or postcards that are unique in size, color or shape you have a higher chance of standing out in your recipients' mail boxes.

Step 2

Select a look that is non-traditional or more inviting. Your prospective customers are more likely to open your direct mail if they are under the impression it is an invitation. An envelope that looks less like a sales message or credit card campaign is more likely to be opened.

Step 3

You must have a headline that attracts attention. The headline is a very important part of a direct response component and changing it can result in 200% -300% improvements in response, even when nothing else is changed.

Step 4

Create a design that carries over to the letter inside of the mail piece. For example, if you're selling homes, add an interesting photo of a local home or the neighborhood pool to the exterior of the envelope as well as the interior letter. If it is a recognizable area or landmark, your prospective customers will more easily identify it as a reliable source and be more likely to open it.

Step 5

Demonstrate that your offer is a great deal. Unless your prospect feels that what you are offering has value and that she is getting more in results than you are asking in costs, she won’t take action. Make your offer as free of risk as possible.

Step 6

Personalize it. People love to see their names. Add the customer's name to a call out box on the envelope in a place other than the address label. Again, if it is recognizable, your prospective customers will more easily identify it as a reliable source and be more likely to open it.

Step 7

Have a strong and very direct call-to-action. Show people how easy it is to order, by explaining exactly what to do and making responding easy. The more complex you make it the fewer responses you will receive!

For more marketing tips, check out www.dmcadvertising.com.

Five Key Direct Mail Attributes

2010-04-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

Effective direct mail is simple, but it is not easy. It takes planning and strategy to get results. Here we will discuss five key attributes necessary to make direct mail achieve your marketing objectives.

1. Relevancy

The axiom of successful direct mail is “getting the right message to the right person at the right time”. Think about your own consumption of mail you receive at home. If a mailer offers you a special on lawn service, but you live in an apartment or condo, you won’t bother reading or responding. But if you have a large lawn and find you don’t have the time to take care of it, you are more likely to read the information and possibly respond. In planning direct mail strategy, it is critical to define the target audiences in great detail, to understand the problem they want to solve and to know when they might be the most receptive to an offer.

2. Data

In direct mail marketing, there is a commonly held belief that 40% of a direct mail campaign’s success lies with the quality of the data. Therefore, it is critical that the “list” be highly targeted, clean and accurate. Data can either come from list rental services or from in-house sources. If lists come from rental sources, be sure to check out the data cards, which will give you important information about the age and sources of the data. Generally, “compiled” data is not as accurate as “response” data. In other words, lists produced from people placing orders or responding to other offers are better than lists which are generated by merging multiple public lists. Also, since data does age, the more recent the data, the more accurate it tends to be. All lists, whether rented or pulled from in-house sources, should be subjected to hygiene protocols such as NCOA and deliverability software to make sure the data is as accurate as possible.

3. Integration

Stand-alone direct mail generally does not work as well as direct mail used in conjunction with other support media. By integrating direct mail with other media, awareness of the brand and offer generally lifts the response rates of the direct mail. Which media work best with direct mail? The ones that are the most effective in reaching your target audience! In other words, all of the media used in a targeted direct mail campaign need to also be very strategic and targeted to generate the results you want.

4. Testing

Even with the best strategy and data, direct mail often involves tactical execution using a “best guess”. Therefore, it is always important to track and test many of the variables used in a direct mail campaign. For example, you may want to test various messages, offers, formats or lists. Whatever variables you test, be sure the database is coded to account for each test variable. As responses come in, you can use the data to assess which variables were responsible for the best responses. If you have the benefit of time, it is best to test one variable at a time to avoid misinterpretation.

5. Personalization

Personalization of a direct mail piece can involve more that simply adding the recipient’s name in a greeting. With the technology of digital printing, it is possible to create highly personalized direct mail pieces that significantly increase the piece’s relevancy. For example, if you received a mailer that provided you with specific driving directions and a map from your home to a specific retail store, you are more likely to review the information than a static mailer with simply the retail address. With today’s technology, whatever you can include in a database or attach digitally, it can be printed to make a very personalized message and improve response rates.

DMC Advertising specializes in highly targeted and measurable marketing programs. For more information on direct mail or other successful marketing tactics, contact us at (262) 523-2000.

Moving To Semantic Advertising

2010-03-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

When it comes to online marketing, there are a plethora of options: Pay-per-click, online display, online video, text ads, email marketing, mobile and more. And when it comes to targeting, there are just as many options. One of the newest, developing options that has gotten a lot of press lately matches the intent of online content with the intent of the ad. It is called Semantic Advertising.

According to Wikipedia: "The function of semantic advertising technology is to semantically analyze every web page in order to properly understand and classify the meaning of a web page and accordingly ensure that the web page contains the most appropriate advertising. Semantic advertising increases the chance that the viewer will click-thru because only advertising relevant to what they are viewing, and therefore their interests, should be displayed.”

As with contextual advertising, the content of a webpage is matched to the content of an ad, but with semantic advertising the actual meaning of the content on a webpage is also taken into account. Semantic advertising analyzes not just the words in sections of content but the meaning and sentiment of those words. Then, ads are matched based on the semantics of the content, hopefully for a better match and a deeper engagement with the consumer.

There are unique platforms that help advertisers find the best fit between content and ads. And still other platforms that help to detect content that could be potentially harmful to the brand and gives advertisers options for dealing with the potential problem.

Targeting has never been more important. As more content is analyzed it becomes easier to match ads to content, helping to better engage the consumer base. As the recession ends we expect to see even more development of semantic portals, as well as more spending from consumers and businesses online.

The end of the recession will mark the start of a new phase of Internet technology. Most likely, semantics will be a defining aspect of this event.
There will also be resurgence in business on the Web, which will drive ad spending as well as investments by publishers in more effective ad technology, such as that provided by semantics.

For information on how DMC Advertising can help you get up to speed on integrating Web Advertising into your communications mix, please click: www.dmcadvertising.com

Evaluating Web Marketing Options

2010-03-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

Some of the most common paid advertising options on the Internet are Web site banner ads and Paid Search on search engines like Google. We will look at the variety of cost structures, ad units, and metrics to consider when evaluating the opportunities.

Cost Structures

Some of the most widely used cost structures are cost-per-thousand (CPM), cost-per-impression (CPI) and cost-per-click (CPC). Sites like Google and Facebook set up a bidding structure for their ad rates.

CPM and CPI go together when calculating the cost of an advertising program. On some sites you can indicate the maximum number of impressions you want to buy in a given time period. You will be given a CPM rate for those impressions. For example, if you indicate you want 1 million impressions over 1 month, and the rate is $15 CPM, the cost for the program is $15,000. When you buy on a CPI basis, you are paying for the number of impressions on that page and the OPPORTUNITY for your banner ad to be seen. You do not know how many people actually paid attention to your ad. This means that the viewer is only passively involved with advertising campaigns on a CPI basis.

What is a fair CPM? It all depends on a number of variables. It is reasonable to say that mass sites have lower CPMs than targeted sites or pages. Supply and demand also comes into play. Is the site hugely popular or is it a new site with limited visitors? Some national sites may have higher CPMs than local sites. Are you seeking a targeted position on a page or run-of-site (ROS)? The more flexibility you give the site regarding placement of the ad, the lower the CPM should be.

The CPC rate will be higher than CPM or CPI because you now are paying for an actively engaged visitor. You only pay for the ad when a person sees your banner ad, has interest, and then clicks on it. I like this option for the campaigns that desire a response from the target audience verses a branding/awareness campaign. Once respondents click through, you now have a number of opportunities to engage them further, drive them to a landing page or web site, and gather information from them.

The bidding process for getting your ad served on Google search or Facebook is an interesting process. With Google, paid search is based on key words. You enter the desired key words, and they suggest a CPC rate. This rate is based on how many other marketers are also interested in those key words. However, having the highest bid is not the only variable that determines whether your ad gets served or where on the page it gets served. The popularity or value of your ad also plays into the equation. Google moves your ad up on the page if the people searching find it valuable or informative. Key word search advertising is a program that needs constant monitoring and adjusting to get the best results.

On Facebook you can run local ads based on attributes such as geography, gender, or age. After you indicate who you want to reach, Facebook suggests a CPC or CPI for your schedule. Again, the bid rate is based on how many other advertisers want that same audience. If you place a bid and do not see your ad served, then you must go back and adjust the program.

Ad Units

There are a variety of ad unit sizes such as leaderboard, boxes, buttons, badges, squares, expandable boxes, walk outs, peel backs, and on and on. Every site has their own unique mix of units for sale. Each unit has its merits and needs to be evaluated based on the campaign objectives and messaging. The more attention demanded, the more the unit cost will be. Walk outs and rich media that deliver animation in the ad units can be expensive but provide great impact.

When it comes to positioning, I am a big proponent of “above the fold”. This old newspaper term is used with online pages. It is the visible portion of the screen without scrolling down the page. I never buy banner ads at the bottom of the page. You’ll be charged for the impressions delivered on that page, but you do not know if anyone is scrolling down to see your banner ad.

Road blocking is a fun concept but I believe it is often a waste of money. Road blocking is when you own all the ad units on a given page. It is probably overkill and wasteful. It may be a good strategy if the site is in high demand in your category, and you know that your competitors are interested in that site. You can then block them out with your buy.

Metrics

Web sites and Google can provide extensive analytics reports detailing the metrics for your campaign. They can provide impressions, click-thrus, and click-thru rates. They can provide this information for each unique ad unit and creative execution that runs in the program. You can evaluate the pulling power for the day of week, ad units, page position, and creative message. With Google you can determine if you need to make adjustments to your bid price and messaging if you are not getting the results you expected.

To leverage this information, it will be useful to establish a testing protocol in advance for the various applications of your web advertising. By monitoring and tracking the metrics and the pull-through of the leads through the sales process, you can more accurately determine how to incrementally increase your web productivity at a lower cost per unit.

For more information on how to integrate web-based advertising into your marketing mix, contact DMC Advertising.

Clarifying Online Advertising Opportunities

2010-03-08T14:21:00.000-08:00

Over the past two years, the number of online advertising venues has grown. Because of their pervasive nature and relatively lower cost, there has been increased interest in moving more marketing dollars to web based initiatives. We will outline many of the most popular ones and how best to apply them.

Banner Ads

Banner ads have been around since the advent of the Internet. However, the application of these has become more sophisticated. These are popular and useful because responses are highly measurable when “clicked”, and lead opportunities are very trackable. Banner ads are an excellent medium for targeting very specific audiences. For example, if you want to reach “Moms”, there are many websites frequented by women with young children, and the “appearance” of a banner ad on these sites can be further targeted with geographic or demographic parameters.

Banner ads should be used in conjunction with landing pages where additional and valuable information can be shared or collected before driving them to a general website.

Paid Search

Separate from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tactics to enhance a web site’s “organic” search results, Paid Search advertising is a bidding process to compete against other companies for the use of key words. Based on your strategy and budget, your advertisement shows up (usually on the right side of the page) when someone conducts a search using those key words. In your planning, you have the option to control when, where and how often your ad appears. And, generally, you only pay when someone clicks on your link.

If Paid Search is prepared correctly, the result can be a significant source of solid, qualified sales leads. If done poorly, the budget can be wasted quickly.

Besides the general paid search opportunities through major search engines like Google or Yahoo, you may want to consider some of the narrower, vertical paid search options. This utilizes search engines that are developed for specific targeted audiences. For example, sites like Business.com or ThomasNet.com are search engines used by businesses looking to purchase specific business-related products.

Social Media

Social Media sites are viewed as being “free” – and most do have a free application. But many of the social media sites also have paid advertising opportunities. Sites like Facebook or Linkedin do offer paid banner advertising with options to display your ads based on select criteria (such as geography or age), or allow you to control the number of impressions or clicks during a set time period. This is one more way to integrate a Social Media strategy into your traditional advertising plans.

Public Relations

There are several online public relations services which allow marketers to post press releases or articles online and on the news wires. It provides tremendous exposure to an array of publications with online/real-time analytics. Also, posting articles on the Internet with links back to your website can improve your organic SEO rankings as well.

Mass Faxing

Faxing may seem like “old school” technology, but web-based applications allow marketers to send out personalized faxes. And unlike the proliferation of emails that can be deleted with the push of a button, faxes aren’t subject to the same competitive clutter as emails. Faxes are still viewed as urgent messages, and are often placed prominently on the recipient’s desk or chair to make sure it gets read.

Email

We have already discussed many aspects of email marketing, but since it is considered an “online” advertising tool, and often is tied into social media or websites, we wanted to add email to our list of tools.

Email marketing has become more sophisticated by employing many of the same tactics that direct mail has followed for decades – especially in the area of database development, hygiene and segmentation strategies.

Rather than repeat ourselves, we recommend you check out our tips on email marketing posted earlier.

Mobile

The use of web-enabled mobile devises, such as Blackberrys, is growing exponentially. Marketing through this medium is poised to explode. Currently, this medium is self regulated and there are recommended “best practices” to prevent government regulation, but mobile offers such great promise as well. Mobile messages have tremendous intimacy (you have it with you all the time), immediacy (the average time from delivery to read is less than one minute) and interactivity (people respond with a simple click). As this medium develops, it will provide more opportunities for segmentation to deliver relevant messages to the right people at the right time in a very cost effective manner.

Next week, we will explore the best means to evaluate online advertising opportunities so you can make them even more effective.

Email in a Multi-channel World

2010-02-24T14:49:00.000-08:00

Whether you are looking to promote brand awareness, increase sales activity or simply strengthen client relationships, the “best practices” for an email marketing campaign call for integration with all other marketing efforts.

Here are three tips to integrate email as a component of your multi-channel marketing strategy:

Mobile Applications
Today’s world relies heavily on mobile devices. A recent study by AOL indicated that 16% of respondents check their email from a mobile device, and that 55% had recently upgraded their cell phone so they could check their email “on the go”. Trade publications project that this trend will continue and that mobile applications will grow in importance. Therefore, in addition to an HTML version of your email, you should consider creating a version for mobile applications.

Taking your email to a mobile version is very easy to do. Start with the html version of your email and strip it down to the basic components.
* Place a link at the top of your email for mobile users to see immediately
* Shorten your text – include only the most important content
* Reduce the number of graphics
* Reduce the size of images
* Keep scrolling to a minimum

As recipients use their mobile devices, you also have an opportunity to collect their cell phone numbers, which will give you opportunities to communicate to them directly using text messaging.

Web Site Integration
Make your emails work harder by providing many links (and in various forms) to specific areas of your website. Not only can you check the analytics of your emails (measuring click-through), but can match that up to your website analytics for additional conversions. Additionally, if you website is set up for “sharing” or RSS feeds, you can begin to build a relationship with your key audiences.

Additionally, best practices for website Search Engine Optimization (SEO) also apply to emails. Make sure your email copywriter understands the keys to successful SEO – keyword-rich content, headings, tags, and URL links, and apply those practices to creating your email.

If you have content from your email that will continue on your website, make sure the content is publicly accessible, and make it easy for your target audience to find.

Following some of the SEO tactics with your email development will help your email and website create a strong, mutually beneficial relationship.

Offline Applications
Many successful retail marketers such as Kohls Department Stores, Lands End and Bath & Body (to name just a few) understand the importance of integrating online tactics (such as email and websites) with offline tactics (such as direct mail, print or broadcast) to enhance and lift the online response rates.

Many of the offline activities focus on building their email list organically (i.e., the customer signs up to receive special offers), which can then be used to increase traffic to their retail store or to their website.

In today’s world, the use of email messages continues to evolve and grow in importance. As marketers, it is important to remember to integrate email marketing as a compliment to direct mail, print, event marketing or broadcast tactics – not to replace it. A multi-channel strategy can provide you improved results to your marketing efforts.

Email Design Best Practices

2010-02-16T07:49:00.000-08:00

If you’re starting a new email marketing program, or looking for an edge to take your email campaigns to the next level, consider these ideas for designing emails that get your compelling offer noticed.

Subject Lines:

Many readers determine if they are going to open an email based exclusively on the subject line.

•Keep it Short – 6 words or less (between 40-60 characters) is ideal. When your email arrives you
generally have about a second to catch the reader’s attention. After that they will delete the email or
ignore it.

•Specify a benefit that the subscriber can expect by reading your email.

•Inform and intrigue the reader. Provide actionable information that accurately represents the message’s major content.

Alt Tags:

Design your email templates with image-blocking in mind.

• Make sure email content makes sense without images.

• Well-written, relevant ALT tags help describe page content before images are loaded.

• Not every image needs an ALT tag. Too many ALT tags can create clutter. For secondary images not needing an ALT tag, you can use a period or ellipsis.

Use of Pre-headers for Mobile Apps:

A preheader is a small section that appears at the top of your email, above your message content.

• One of the first things in the pre-header should be a link to the mobile version.

• The mobile version doesn’t have to be a text version. Instead, create a highly stripped-down html version of your email content specifically for mobile users.

Placement of Content:

Eye tracking studies show the upper left quadrant of the preview pane is the first spot we look.

• Place your highest value content “above the fold”…you only have about 350 pixels X 350 pixels that will show in the preview pane.

• Place a summary of the email at the top—most recipients of your email will NOT scroll down even if they open your email.

Content is Scanned, Not Read:

Email content is reviewed in seconds, not minutes.

• First, the recipient will review the “From” line, then “Subject” line.

• If you’ve peaked their interest, you’ll have around 5-7 seconds in the preview pane to make your case.

• Use relative scaling and treatment of fonts to create a hierarchy of messages, and lead readers’ eyes where you want them to go.

Link Your Call-to-action More Than Once:

Make sure you have more than one way for subscribers to take desired action.

• People look for different things. Some look for text links—others look for buttons.
• Place your links apart from one another.

For information on how DMC Advertising can help you get up to speed on integrating Email Marketing into your communications mix, please click: www.dmcadvertising.com

Seven Email Marketing Strategies

2010-02-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

Over the years, there has been a growing interest in using email to communicate with prospects and customers. The reason for the interest is pretty obvious – it is immediate, it is less expensive than direct mail and is very measurable. But for email marketing to work well and generate results, it is critical to properly plan your campaigns. Below are 7 key email marketing planning tips to consider before you hit the “send” button:

• Content is King
Today, email marketing is all about relevant content. In fact, if you are reading this right now, it is likely because you found the topic interesting or relevant to you. If you plan to conduct a series of emails as a campaign, we recommend you plan an “editorial calendar” of topics to facilitate timely and cohesive communications.

• Plan Your Metrics
Most Email Service Providers (ESPs) already have back-end reporting functions for metrics like the rate of opening, click-throughs, etc. However, for your purposes, determine in advance how you want to measure the success of your program. If you are driving people to your web, make sure to include your web analytics into your review. Or if you are trying to convert leads into sales, make sure you can track each phase of your selling process. Planning your “pull-through” metrics will help you assess your campaigns more holistically.

• List Quality is Critical
We could write an entire article on list acquisition and hygiene alone. But as all direct mail marketers know, a majority of a direct marketing campaign’s success lies with the quality of the list. Email is no different. Here are a few quick thoughts about your email lists:

o It is best to use “in-house” lists that are grown organically.
o Avoid rental lists or you’ll likely end up in the spam filter.
o Emails sent to subscribers of highly targeted publications can be effective since they are sent by a trusted source.
o Be sure to maintain a “clean” list to avoid excessive “hard bounces”.
o Overall, quality is more important than quantity to have an effective email program.

• Design Affects Your Metrics
Just like direct mail, there are specific “best practices” in the design of the email that can improve the opening and conversion rates for people to take immediate action. In our next blog, we will address some of the key mechanical aspects of designing the email. Sorry for the tease. You’ll have to wait for the next “Tips” communication.

• Integration Lifts Response Rates
Again, email, like direct mail, works best when executed in conjunction with other media efforts – both offline and online activities. Over the next few weeks, we will write another blog that drills down and focuses on this topic more.

• Timing is Everything
Like most things in life, timing is everything. Here are some things to consider:

o Depending on your audience, time the delivery of the email to arrive when your audience is most likely “online”. For example, to reach a business audience across the USA, a mid-to-late morning email will arrive before noon on the east coast and after the start of the work day on the west coast.
o We also recommend against Mondays and Fridays (with some exceptions, of course) to avoid “clutter”.
o You will also want to determine the frequency of sending the emails. If you send them out too frequently, you will irritate your audience and they will unsubscribe. Too little, and they will forget who you are.

• Test, Test, Test
We recommend that you create a series of email accounts using various internet services providers (gmail, yahoo, etc.), and send your test email to these first. Every internet service provider has different protocols for what it will deliver or catch in the spam filter. Also, some will allow graphics, while others will strip it out. Testing the deliverability through multiple email vendors will guide you in adjusting your design to maximize your deliverability rate.

Emails, as a key marketing tool, will continue to grow in importance. Understanding some of the key “best practices” will help you to make emails an effective part of your overall marketing communications plan.

Separating Social Media Fact from Fiction

2010-02-01T08:30:00.000-08:00

Marketers have some strong opinions and some pre-conceived ideas about Social Media, who it can reach, and what purpose it serves. Are they on target or off base? We explore the myths and truths of Social Media as it exists today.

I was reading an article titled “Facebook, MySpace aren’t making the Marketing Cut” on Media Post News. The title caught my eye because it was counter to all the other headlines I’ve read. The article said the Marketing Directors in their survey were intrigued by social media as a marketing vehicle, but were not actually using them. The survey was done in October, 2009 and showed that 55% of the 180 responding chief marketing professionals indicated low current interest in actually incorporating Facebook or MySpace into their plans. One-third said they are “not interested at all” in getting Facebook and MySpace included in their plans. One CMO sited the reason for his lack of interest was because “These networks narrowly appeal to college and high school students…and marketers don’t care about teenagers sharing photographs with one another.” I was shocked to read that a CMO actually was so ignorant about who is using social media or its varied uses. Do these marketing professionals not read all the articles published daily on Social Media touting the wonders of this platform?

Statics say that 47% of people 35-44 years old use Facebook or MySpace and 41% of people 45-54 are users. The largest age cells of users are (74%) are 18-34 year olds. However, 52% of users are college grads. Therefore, it is FICTION that Social Media is only used by High School and College students to exchange photographs.

It is my opinion that social media need not be a dominant medium for all marketers. Marketers need to analyze social media specifically for their business and determine if there are applications that work for their marketing goals and strategies There are some real benefits for certain categories, while other categories the benefits are much more limited. Some of the real benefits that social media can provide are increased Web site traffic, increased lead generation, increased sales, customer loyalty and retention, increased search engine ranking, and improved brand or product awareness.

Another study published by MediaPost in December, 2009 stated that 69% of businesses plan to increase their marketing budget for social media by 59%. I would suggest that the CMO that thought Facebook is for teens to exchange photographs not let his predetermined ideas hold him back because this social media train is out of the station and is accelerating quickly. We suggest you get your company on board and integrate Social Media as part of your overall media mix.

8 Ways Design Influences Social Media Users

2010-01-28T07:00:00.000-08:00

Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels. It is a powerful strategy that can get you links, attention and increased traffic.

There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that can easily give you large numbers of visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again.

Whether you are selling products/services or just publishing content for ad revenue, social media marketing is a potent method that can help your business be more profitable.

But, how should Social Media be designed to gain the best possible result and bring in the masses? The following area outlines some of my thoughts on best design practices for your Social Media pages:

1. First Impression
The first impression of any visitor, regardless of how they arrive at your site, will be heavily influenced by its appearance. Generally, opinions are formed in a matter of seconds, not minutes, so creating a positive impression is critical.

Obviously, when it comes to social media, first impressions can help you or hurt you. Try to evaluate your site from the perspective of a first-time visitor that is arriving from social media. Does it reinforce your brand position? Would the page increase the chances of getting your vote, or would it make you want to leave and visit another site? Pictures and images can often help with creating first impressions.

2. Page Load Time
Because most social media users are multi-tasking, and because they have hundreds of other pages to visit, page load time becomes even more of a factor. If you plan to market heavily with social media, it’s a good idea to design your site to load as quickly as possible.

3. Readability of Content
If social media users are voting for content that they like, they need to be able to read the content quickly and easily. Most visitors that come from social media will be scanning the page rather than reading word-for-word, so make it easy on them by using short paragraphs, plenty of whitespace, bulleted lists, bold text, etc.

4. Emphasis of Content
If you hope to impress social media consumers with your content, make sure it is at the top and to the left where eyes tend to look first. Also, there are distractions in the design that can take emphasis away from the content. Keep non-content items, like advertisements, to the bottom of the page so readers focus on your content.

5. Implementation of Buttons/Widgets into the Design
Most social media sites provide buttons, widgets or links that you can use on your site to encourage visitors to share. These can be very helpful, especially if they are effectively incorporated into the design. When designing with these in mind, you’ll want them to be located where they will be noticed, but not in the way.

6. Branding
If you are marketing your site through social media on an ongoing basis, your branding will be impacted as more and more social media users are exposed to your site. Consider how the design of your site allows you to brand yourself in a way that will make an impact with social media users.

7. Navigation
Typically, social media traffic will average a low number of page views. You can improve this by using effective navigation that leads visitors to other content that they will likely find interesting. From my experience, the most effective way to encourage social media visitors to look at other pages is to include internal links within the body of the content. With this strategy, you may be able to increase the amount of traffic that older posts receive.

8. Subscribers, Friends and Followers
If you are attempting to gain subscribers through social media marketing, be sure to design your pages so that your subscription options are clear and easy to see. Typically, you will want to keep them high on the page so they are noticed right away, and you may want to use standard icons that are easily recognized by potential subscribers.

For information on how DMC Advertising can help you get up to speed on integrating Social Media into your marketing communications mix, please click: www.dmcadvertising.com

Leverage Social Media with a Four-step Strategy

2010-01-06T07:20:00.000-08:00

As we have written before, over the past 18 – 24 months marketers have become very interested in utilizing social media to promote their company’s products and services. However, in the race to develop and implement their social media programs, many marketers are not sure how it will fit in with other marketing communications initiatives.

Below are four key steps to consider when developing a social media program.

However, first let's clarify the term “social media”. From our perspective, “social media” is one aspect of the overall Web 2.0 evolution in which the internet turned from a source of static information and into a venue for interaction; where control of content moved from producer to the end-user. As a result, “social media” incorporates a number of applications:
• “Shared sites” such as Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and You Tube
• Blogs and whitepapers
• Webinars
• Mobile short codes
• Interactive FAQs for reviews and feedback
• Directories and listings
• Online press releases
All of these “free” (or “low cost”) venues provide an opportunity for companies to dialogue with consumers/end-users. Because there are so many different ways for companies to participate in social media, the need to develop a strategic plan is even more important.

With that understanding, here are four key steps to developing and implementing a social media program for your organization:

1. Focus on Your Target Audience

No different from any other medium, it is important to understand your target audience. Clearly, the use of social media will differ widely depending on whether you are in a B2C or B2B market; whether your target audience has regular and easy access to the internet; and where, when and how your audiences consume information.

For example, Twitter may be a great tool for certain B2C products or services (such as promoting special deals or sales), but may be marginal for a manufacturing company selling capital goods.

2. Determine Your Marketing Objectives

So far, social media has been cited as providing several mar-com benefits: raising awareness of a company’s brand; improving the search engine optimization rankings of a company’s website; or building a relationship with key audiences by engaging them in a dialogue where the consumer gets to know the company and the company gets to know the audience.

Understanding what you want to achieve with your social media program will go a long way in developing a plan that will make sense for your organization.

3. Pick Your Battle

The one major obstacle in developing and implementing a social media program is the significant time commitment it requires. A quick review of the various forms of social media listed above should help you understand how one can be come overwhelmed very quickly if you try to use all of the available tools.

Very simply, if you understand your target audiences and agree on what you hope to accomplish with your social media program, then it is really the matter of deciding which aspects of social media will work best for your organization. Keeping in mind the significant time commitment, only take on what your organization can reasonably handle. If you can’t provide fresh and relevant content on a regular basis, then trim back your plans. Walk before you run. Focus on doing fewer things well rather than doing a lot of things poorly.

4. Integrate Social Media with Your Other Off-line and On-line Communication Channels.

As a smart marketer, you know that you never want to rely on just one communication channel to achieve your objectives. So don’t start with social media. Based on the decisions you’ve made above, integrate social media into your marketing communications plan so that it supports and reinforces other media in your plan. For example, if you send out an email newsletter to your prospective customers, incorporate a simple means for your recipients to share the information with others, and provide a means for others (not on your list) to “join in”. Or, if you use mobile short codes with an outdoor media execution that drives respondents back to your website, provide an opportunity for them to tell you how they want to be communicated with or the topics that interest them. A sound integration process will allow you to leverage the power of social media to achieve your overall marketing communications goal.

To learn more, visit www.dmcadvertising.com, or let us know what you think by providing your feedback.

Digital Marketing Trend forecast for 2010. Not surprising, but take notice:

2009-12-17T06:56:00.000-08:00

Marketing as Conversation: Listen, facilitate, and create advocacy. Marketing is less about pushing messages at consumers and more about co-creating experiences with consumers.

Media: The New "Creative:' Marketing message distribution-timing, context, and relevance—is as important as creative execution.

Marketing + Math: Data quality, quantity, and accessibility have brought math to marketing. New digital tools, predictive models, and behavioral targeting will turn insight into foresight.

Mind the Gap: Marketing spending in digital media is far from commensurate with consumer behavior shifts—when will the divide between traditional and nontraditional media end?

The "Digitally Savvy" Organization: Technology without an aligned organization, the right talent, and a progressive culture is inadequate. Functional skills are rising to the level of brand strategy.

The Network Effect: Partnerships and collaboration among agencies, media companies, and marketers will grow in number and depth. New players will assume important roles and continue to reshape the value chain.

American Association of Advertising Agencies

For more information on how you can turn the corner with your digital marketing strategy, click http://www.dmcadvertising.com

Social Media: Advertising Panacea or Field of Dreams?

2009-11-20T08:42:00.000-08:00

No doubt about it. Social Media is the new darling that has attracted the attention of marketers. But in our rush to court Social Media applications, one has to ask -- can FREE Social Media vehicles really live up to the hype? Is Social Media going to be the great advertising panacea for marketers, or is it just wishful thinking that "if you build it, they will come"?

In an article from Target Marketing magazine this summer, Social Media was evaluated from an "economics" perspective. Since one of the key attributes of Social Media is its price tag ("free"), Target Marketing examined the economics of "free", or what they called "freeconomics". Very simply, to implement a Social Media program one must evaluate "vendor costs" for traditional media against the "opportunity cost of time" incurred with Social Media.

So what is the "opportunity cost of time" for businesses to create and maintain an effective Social Media plan?

A recent webinar about creating and managing Social Media initiatives estimated that companies need to allocate 32 hours per Social Media site per month. If a company utilized the five most common Social Media sites, that means a company must allocate 160 hours of staff time per month! That is equal to one full time position!

During this recession, marketing staff have gotten smaller, not bigger. Attempting to create and update Social Media profiles, write content for blogs, regularly tweet and produce whitepapers or webinars on a regular basis with diminished staff resources does not sound like the recipie for success. Plus, most marketers are still struggling with the means to measure Social Media's effectiveness.

So, what is the lesson here? It is important to keep Social Media tactics in perspective. Remember that Social Media is A medium, not THE medium. Yes, organizations should utilize Social Media as part of an integrated media mix to brand and position themselves in the market; to engage their audiences in dialogue, and to improve their website search ratings. But organizations should decide which applications make the most sense for their needs, develop a strategic plan to implement and manage the activities, and only take on as much as your organization can do well.

For information on how DMC Advertising can help you get up to speed on Social Media, please click: www.dmcadvertising.com

Social Media: A Branding or Response Medium?

2009-11-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

Social Media. Marketers are scrambling to include social media into their plans like the beloved Lemmings driving blindly to the sea. The motive for such ambition is clear -- social media appears to be "free". In fact, in a recent conversation with a marketing manager of a Wisconsin-based insurance company, the senior management is pushing for an extended use of social media simply for that reason.

In a recent study on social media and marketing, produced by MarketingSherpa.com, 48% of resondents indicated that they will be increasing their "spend" on social media this year. However, many saw two barriers to implementing this initiative. First there is a general lack of knowledge on how best to implement a solid social media strategy. The second is the inability to measure its impact and determine an ROI.

This latter issue raises an interesting question: should social media be considered a branding medium or a response medium? The difference being that traditional, branding media, like print advertising or outdoor, are "generally" considered useful for building brand or awareness. They don't typically lend themselves to clear and decisive measurements (although new techologies are changing that, too). On the other hand, response-oriented media such as web sites, email, internet search, direct mail, email and DRTV are highly measurable.

So it comes down to expectations. Should we expect an inmature medium such as social media to be highly measurable? Maybe not. The medium is so new and undeveloped that marketers may not be in a position to ascertain this yet. However, this will likely change as the medium evolves. For now, perhaps it is best to utilize it for branding and awareness. As better measurement techniques are developed, its utility will change.

The Tide of Change

2009-10-21T09:02:00.000-07:00

The September 28 issue of DMNews included a news brief that the Direct Marketing Association, the national trade organization, is considering repositioning its entire organization around interactive marketing, and may consider changing its name. While this may seem like a small story, it has a profound impact on a significant segment of the advertising industry.

Direct marketing is clearly at a crossroad, with the current recession being the tipping point. Surveys and commentary abound illustrating that marketers are moving their money into online venues. However, historically (and unfortunately), direct marketers have not claimed the internet as their territory. Yet, when it comes to "targeting" and "measuring" (hallmarks of direct marketers), online applications like paid or organic search, web advertising, personalized URLs, micro-site landing pages, web-based CRM and email, are clearly within the direct marketing skill set.

As a results-oriented agency, we at DMC Advertising are also moving away from using the term "direct marketing" to describe our services because people equate it with "direct mail". We utilize all forms of targeted, response-oriented media applications, especially those online. Our focus will continue to be on sending relevant messages to highly targeted audiences, regardless of the medium. Any marketer who values the benefits of targeting, testing and measuring needs to remain current with the ever changing technologies that impact our industry.