Brian Gilbert

on January 21, 2009

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

Campaign-specific SEM.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about her small business and found out she knew absolutely nothing about search-engine marketing. She’d never heard of Google AdWords or Microsoft adCenter.

As I thought about it, I realized that SEM can be overlooked by some of the bigger players, too.

So here’s a reminder. Put it on your to-do list. Whenever you run a direct marketing campaign -- particularly on TV or radio -- run a related SEM campaign.

For example, if you’re on the air saying, "Ask for your free Such-and-Such booklet," buy "Such-and-Such booklet" as a keyword on the search engines, as well as anything that sounds remotely like "Such-and Such." (Would that be "Such-and-So"? Note to self: pick more interesting names.)

Your SEM campaign won’t cost much, because you’ll probably get only a few clicks, but just about every click-through will be highly qualified.

And don’t forget to create a campaign-related landing page to capture your leads’ contact information! It doesn’t have to be complicated, but you’ll lose those precious qualified leads if you send them to your home page.

 

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Brian Gilbert

on January 7, 2009

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

Doing more with your database.

If the new theme of 2009 is "doing more with less," as Carolyn said yesterday, a great place to look is your own database.

Customer acquisition is even more expensive in a downturn, so taking good care of the customers you have should be a very high priority. VERY high. You know your competitors will be luring them with the best deals possible. But you have an advantage. You know them. Idea # 1: Determine their preferences and cater to them.

You can also easily focus on the most profitable customers and -- here’s Idea #2 -- fire the customers who cost more than they're worth.

Of course the really fun part -- if you're a data geek like me -- is figuring out what to do with the mass of customers in the middle.

Idea #3: What has the customer bought from you and what should they buy next? Send them an email offer.

Idea #4: Are there trigger events that suggest a customer communication is in order? For example, if a re-order is smaller than usual, should you make another offer to get the amount up again? If it’s larger than usual, should you give them a special thank-you offer?

Idea #5: If it's hard to know what your customers want from you, why not ask? A customer survey can give you a ton of useful information -- about particular people and about your customers in general. Just make sure you keep track of the information in your database -- and use it.

 

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Brian Gilbert

on December 18, 2008

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

An apples-to-apples approach.

Traditional direct marketers look at costs with an exacting eye.  All costs are included.  This is the only honest way to approach measurement, budgeting and goal-setting.  And most importantly, it’s the only way you can effectively optimize your spend across channels to maximize your return.

 

However, even in direct marketing, standards can slip.  We’ve run into many DRTV marketers that only count media against the cost-per-sale goal, because the creative costs may be amortized over a long campaign.  It’s appropriate to optimize your buys and placements based upon media-only analysis, but too many marketers forget to allocate the production costs when comparing DRTV results to other channels, such as online or mail.  Let’s face it - creative production can be cheap or it can be very expensive.  Creative ideas can succeed or fail miserably.  The only fair thing is to include creative fees and production costs in the analysis to create an objective ROI analysis.

 

Are the metrics for your multi-channel campaigns comparing apples to apples? Here are a few questions to ask the next time you get campaign results:

• For TV and radio advertising:  Are you including production costs, or is this just media?  If this is a direct response campaign, have you included call center costs?
• For print campaigns:  Is creative included in the costs?  If you’re making a special offer, are fulfillment costs included?
• For SEM campaigns:  Is this what Google (or Microsoft or Yahoo!) says your cost-per-click is, or have you also added in agency costs?
• For banner campaigns:  Did you include Web development costs associated with this campaign?
• For email campaigns:  Have we considered creative production costs?  What about fulfillment costs for responders?
• For social media campaigns:  Are there any sales we can directly attribute to this effort?

Cost accounting is not a mystery.  Measuring the inputs to your campaign should be relatively straightforward. Demand accountability and a fair measuring stick. Your company will benefit from the fact-based decision-making it allows.

 

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Brian Gilbert

on October 16, 2008

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

Should you go all-in with digital marketing?

Economic uncertainty can bring opportunities for brave souls.  Many business advisors are telling marketers that -- while cost-cutting is important -- cutting marketing budgets too much can be deadly. Considering the marketing mix becomes crucial when there’s little room for error.

Here’s data from an August survey done by Epsilon:

To offsest budget cuts, CMOs are shifting to more targeted and measurable marketing strategies. When asked how their firm determines target market for each channel, 50% said they use data-driven marketing techniques: 31% stated they use sophisticated modeling tools to analyze existing customer data (behavioral, preference and demographic) and 19% said that they analyze past purchase behavior. In contrast, 28% said they made “rough estimates based on past experience.”

Of course, as a direct marketer, I think CMOs ought to put accountable marketing strategies high on the list -- in good times and bad.  It’s just smart.
But in the same survey, "social computing" was "the most popular emerging channel with 42% of marketing executives expressing interest in adding it to their marketing mix."  The definition of "social computing" in this survey includes word-of-mouth, social networking sites and viral advertising.  At least two of those three -- word-of-mouth and viral -- are more of a crap shoot than something to build your marketing plan around. 
Maybe I’m overstating.  To express interest in a channel isn’t necessarily a commitment.  But it is surprising to me that mobile marketing -- a much more serious contender as an accountable marketing channel -- was only cited by 29% as worth a look (with 22% already dipping their toe in).

 

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Brian Gilbert

on June 2, 2008

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

Grossly Irrelevant.

Why are online media plans based on gross impressions?

It continually frustrates me that impressions is considered a key metric by many marketers.

For one thing, you have no idea if you've made any kind of impression.  Back in the day before VCRs and DVRs and TiVo, when you ran a TV commercial, you could pretty much count on having some impact on the subconscious.  Unless, of course, your target audience took the opportunity to either go to the bathroom or go to the kitchen to make a sandwich.

Online?  Unless your rich media banner is truly obnoxious and takes over the screen, you know that viewers have trained themselves not to look. You’re largely invisible to them. They adjust their screen size so they don't see your brightly blinking ads.  They look past your leaderboards. They regularly delete your email without opening it.

Any marketer worth his or her salt would never base the success of a direct marketing campaign on impressions.  It’s like a batter basing his performance on how many pitches he’s faced – not how many hits or RBI’s he’s scored.  Certainly, the first step is knowing the size of your target market and how many of them you can reach in each medium.  But that's the first step, not the ultimate goal. 

I'd feel better about calling it reach or audience.  Impressions implies some kind of impact -- when nine times out of ten there's no impression made at all.

So let's stop talking about impressions and start talking about how we can reasonably measure real results.

 

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Brian Gilbert

on May 20, 2008

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

First things first.

Email may not be as sexy as advertising on Facebook or launching a mobile marketing campaign but, for most of us, it's the bread and butter of online marketing.

Email is also more complicated than it looks.  Sure, my Mom can send an email to me and my sister -- but that doesn't make what e-marketers do any less complex.  When I was seven years old, I could write a thank-you note to my Grandma and Grandpa.  That doesn't mean I could do the job of our copywriters.  There's a little more to it than pressing a send button.

Each of our clients has their own unique email best practices.  We have our own list, as well, that we push our clients to adhere to. 

In an article published earlier this month, Alterian said only 5% of 700 emarketers surveyed qualified as expert users.  After taking their quiz, it's easy to see that the questions are biased toward organizations that use Alterian's product (no real surprise there… so I take the results with more than a grain of salt – a full shaker perhaps), but it got me thinking.  These results still indicate that many marketers have a way to go before really benefiting from the power of email marketing.

Granted, there’s a ton of factors that come into play when determining the appropriate level of investment and resources companies should put behind email marketing.  I wouldn’t expect a small B2B services company operate at the same level of an e-commerce powerhouse like REI, Amazon or New Egg.  However, I continually encounter more and more companies that could get phenomenal returns from email, and yet they appear to have no interest or aptitude in making it work for them as a channel.  

From my experience, the two major roadblocks marketers face are content creation (“OK team, who’s got the time to manage this…”) and technology hurdles (integrating CRM feeds, list management, etc.).   There are a ton of ESP’s (email service providers) out there that can solve the technology portion and make that a non-issue (as long as you can keep your own IT teams out of the conversation).   As for the resources to manage it, I would be willing to place a wager that if executive management knew what the potential return from email marketing was vs. more traditional channels, they would find a way to staff the resources appropriately.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that every company needs to hire a dedicated team member to manage the channel… but too many companies are treating it as an afterthought… and that’s a shame.

Email can be tough, but it's not rocket science.  Before worrying about the next advertising venue, let's make sure we're taking full advantage of the ones we already know are viable.

 

 

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Brian Gilbert

on April 22, 2008

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

Why is ''integrated marketing'' important?

Marketing Charts says "integrated marketing communications" is the number one priority of senior marketers. They surveyed 157 members of the Association of National Advertisers.

That's nice. But it looks like it may be putting the cart before the horse. The number two concern is "marketing accountability." And number six (!) is "advertising creative that achieves business results."

Dang. Integration is more important than getting results. Excuse me?

Don't get me wrong. I believe in integration. It's my job title, for Pete's sake. But if you can have cave men in one commercial and a gecko in another and make it all work for your brand – by which I mean "achieve business results" and ultimately grow revenue and profit – that's fine with me.

If your creative isn't achieving business results, why the heck do you care if it's integrated with anything else? If you don't have accountability, how do you know integrated marketing even works?

It makes me wonder… Do most firms in the U.S. run their business without a scorecard and disciplined approach? I don't think so. So is it just the marketing departments within them that tend to operate differently? Has marketing become a haven for people that love "creative" and "cool campaigns," but forget why they have a job and how their company makes money?

This study is another example of people drawing conclusions without having a clue about the big picture.

"The rapidly evolving marketing landscape demands an integrated approach," said Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA. "The survey findings confirm that integrated marketing is one of the foundational pillars the ANA believes are critical to create a transformed marketing environment."

Come on. "Transformed marketing environment"? We’re all grownups here. Business is competitive. Frankly, business is cut-throat. Every CEO expects employees to show up every day and play to win. If they aren't, they shouldn’t be there if you ask me. Marketing shouldn't be held to a different standard than their colleagues in Sales or Manufacturing.

If you're not measuring everything against your business results and holding people (and your creative) accountable, how can you expect to win? Heck, are you even competing?

 

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Brian Gilbert

on April 10, 2008

category: direct marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

Thinking critically.

You must remember Charlie Brown's saying, "I love mankind. It's people I can't stand."

I love statistics, it's analysis I can't stand.

It drives me nuts that people derive their own conclusions that basically just prove their own point when looking at data. And when the "data" isn't that great to begin with, the conclusions just get wackier.

What got me going this time is a Forrester report called The Connected Agency. Looks like it was released in February. I exaggerate when I say it involves data. Mostly it's about observing the agency zeitgeist and piling on the "what this might mean" conclusions. It looks like they plan to market this "intelligence" to the big agencies they're trying to throw the fear of God into.

Here's one takeaway from this report that makes no sense to me.

Rethink consumer segmentation. Traditional segmentation models work with demographic approximations of consumer understanding, similar to the blunt target audiences of the mass media. But a 41-year-old woman may have little in common with a 25-year-old, even if they both watch Desperate Housewives or American Idol. In reality, consumers cut across multiple lifestyle, life-cycle, and behavioral segments. Today’s generations have shortened, requiring marketers to reformulate audience strategies. For example, Nike now plans with age gaps of as little as four years; Procter & Gamble has moved from decades to a handful of years.

I agree that traditional agencies don't have a grip on segmentation -- but, judging from this paragraph, neither does Forrester.

For one thing, marketers -- as we've said many, many times in this blog -- shouldn't be segmenting on "demographic approximations." To me, it's much more interesting that a 41-year-old and a 25-year-old may something in common-- something that has relevance to me as a marketer. So what if their lifestyles differ? If I sell kitty litter and they both have cats, how old they are makes no difference. If they're both fashionistas and I sell shoes, there may be a difference in how much one is willing to spend on accessories -- but I'm not ready to hazard a guess which woman is which until I see a previous buying pattern, not an age.

And how do they justify the statement "today's generations have shortened." Really?? It seems to me a lot of 40-year-olds have more in common with their teenagers than parents and kids back in the 1970s or earlier. My guess? Procter & Gamble and Nike have better data now, so they can identify ages with more accuracy. They haven't provided the data to back this conclusion, so my conclusions have as much weight as theirs . . . until they show me the difference those shortened generations really make on their marketing (or on their products).

 

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Brian Gilbert

on April 3, 2008

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

Does recession mean more budget for online?

We've seen it in the past. Direct marketing spending holds up, even when the economy tanks. When you have the numbers to back you up, it's easier to justify spending on direct -- even when you can see the cost-per-sale go up.

Six or eight months ago, before the word "recession" had been spoken aloud, the outlook for online marketing was hot. Now it's gotten even hotter.

Just so I don't sound completely self-serving here, let me put on my contrarian hat.

I love online marketing as much as the next guy . . . but you can't rely on it to be your whole media plan. At least not yet.

National marketers simply won't get the scale necessary via that single channel. You need the aggregate impact of all medium – broadcast, print or even direct mail, etc. – to hit the growth numbers and new customers most companies need.

Search. Banner. House email campaigns. They all can deliver phenomenal results and ROI, but there are only so many people to market to – finite searchers for your product on the major search engines, finite opt-in email addresses of prospects or customers. No matter how much more you wish there were – there aren’t. There’s no way your CEO is going to be content to grow sales by this channel alone. If you need to sell to crowds of people, you probably need more than the Internet can give you by itself.

Chances are, it’s likely much of your other marketing efforts – PR, TV, Mail, Print, and Events – that are driving your search and online activity.

The crux of the discussion (and a heated one at that) shouldn't focus solely upon giving credit to the channel where the response came through … but how should you attribute the credit appropriately to all the channels that influenced that sale.

Go ahead, put more eggs in your online basket – it will surely pay dividends in the future . . . but don't abandon other media just yet.

 

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Brian Gilbert

on March 11, 2008

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

Targeting technology

The New York Times published an article last week about how Alaska Airlines is now able to personalize ads on the Internet using behavioral targeting. As a Seattleite and frequent Alaska Airlines customer, I’ve always been impressed with the innovations that they have brought to market. They were early adopters of personalized mileage plan statements via email and are continuously improving their website to provide a world-class online experience. It’s apparent they are innovating again.

In the article, it is described how they will be taking data from the pages and destinations you visit on Alaska's own site -- but didn’t buy a ticket -- and will tag you as someone interested in that specific destination (Hawaii, for example). Then, as you are seen on other sites on the internet (the NY Times for example), they will serve you ads that present you special offers to that destination you were researching (such as "Hawaii for as low as $250, learn more"). It sounds incredibly sophisticated and is the perfect application for behavioral targeting technology.

I am very curious how concerns – and potential legislation – regarding online privacy will shape the future of behavioral targeting.

Here's my favorite quote from the article:

Mr. Gould of Alaska Airlines is quick to admit that data drives online marketing, and does not mince words when asked about his view of other marketing professionals who are more focused on tag lines or catchy videos."I think they're very afraid of getting into the data," he said. "It's either overwhelming, or it will tell them something other than what they actually believe."

I like his style. I wonder what the data will tell Mr. Gould.

I'm sure he's telling his team, "Please be sure your tray table is stowed and your seatbelt is securely fastened… we’re in for an exciting ride."
 

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Brian Gilbert

on February 19, 2008

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

What's the return on the cost of getting ROI data?

It's all about ROI nowadays ... and everybody and their (big) brother appear to be getting on the bandwagon.

This is from last Monday's (February 11) Wall Street Journal:

A new media research company, TRA — for "True ROI Accountability for Media" — is taking another crack at the problem. It merges data from people's cable set-top boxes with consumer-purchase databases, such as the information stores gather from frequent-shopper cards. For instance, a company could see whether households that watched an ad for its toothpaste later bought that brand of toothpaste.

Here's how TRA itself explains the technology:

TRA's engine which was developed over a ten-year period, and exclusively licensed to TRA, has the ability to cross-tabulate second by second advertising audience data from television digital set boxes ("DSTBs") in over 1,000,000 homes with other media touchpoints and actual household product purchasing data in the same 1,000,000 homes, and then providing advertisers with real-time online access to Web-based dashboard research reports of the processed data. This permits the advertisers and their agencies to reallocate their advertising, shifting money from advertising with lower sales per dollar, to advertising producing higher sales per dollar, so as to increase the advertising ROI. TRA's customers can generate media research reports from diverse databases, employing TRA's proprietary validated algorithms.

Did you get all that?

The desperation in this chasing after some way to measure ROI makes me a little sad. It's the holy grail of CMOs with big TV ad budgets — an online dashboard to justify their case when they are battling their colleagues from online and direct marketing for budgets. "Don't cut my $100 million media budget, look here ... my panel research shows that people bought our product as a result of my ad! I project an ROI on this ad campaign of 34:1. Of course that's the media cost only, excluding our agency fees, $750K in production expenses, the location shoot in Key West that my team had to personally oversee, the power lunch at Oceana ..."

Ummm, there's so much wrong with that picture. It's trying to isolate the buying decision for a TV spot ad amongst thousands of other variables ... I'm sorry, I still don't buy it. Trying to make the link from ad viewing to purchasing behavior is much different from measuring brand awareness and recall.

It's why Hacker Group says we'll only work in measurable media. Of course, for us, television actually is measurable — because we make an offer that requires people to raise their hand and be counted in order to receive it. There's no "black box" mojo about it — it's a direct and measurable link.

It strikes me that the money and energy taken to get at that ROI data would be better spent learning how your target market goes about purchasing your product and engineering creative ways to measure your marketing's effectiveness through breakthrough creative and innovative measurable offers — across all media — online, TV, point-of-sale, call center, direct ...
 

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Brian Gilbert

on February 7, 2008

category: direct marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

If you were spending $2.7 Million, wouldn't you try to get the most out of it?

I love the Super Bowl. All the hype ... fantastic athletes ... it's the one time of year I allow myself to eat Ruffles and French Onion dip guilt-free ... and just about as much excitement regarding the ads as around the game. As an integrated marketer, closet junk food junkie, and die-hard football fan, it's a day that hits on all cylinders.

In the "post-game analysis" of the ads, there has been some interesting research released from Reprise Media. Only 6% of Super Bowl advertisers offered an online call to action during their 30 or 60 seconds of fame. That's a pretty odd decision for 94% of those smart marketers. If you were hoping to drive some consumer action – or even (gasp) revenue for crying out loud – why wouldn't you make it clear what you wanted the millions of watchers to do.

Some brands definitely seemed to make their ads work harder and get my respect as a direct marketer. My "touchdown" marketer this year had to be Tide. They engineered a masterful scoring drive:

DM strategy - included a call to action in their spot driving them to a campaign specific microsite (www.mytalkingstain.com)

Creative – offering bizarre but intriguing creative that broke through and was memorable

Integration – they supported their campaign with Search Engine Marketing

Follow-through – they built a great microsite that involves the consumer and gets you to identify yourself. Heck, they even got me to build my own customized talking stain – and now they have my mailing and email address.

Brands that also scored apparent touchdowns – but the score should be called back on a penalty for bad creative – include GoDaddy.com and SalesGenie. They offered strong integration, but they need to fire their agencies for negatively impacting the brand with horrible concepts. Talking cartoon Pandas with horrible voice over talent ... Teenage boy humor ... Gimme a break!

I'm also surprised to learn from reprisemedia.com that 30% of these big advertisers failed to buy any paid search advertising on their own brand names in case somebody decided to seek them out online. Wake up people!

Many of these advertisers teased their ads to the trade press. They love talking to themselves ... they just seem a little frightened about starting a dialog with consumers. Isn't that where they should be focusing their energies first ... and then getting into the Super Bowl "hype" only after they hit the mark for the brands they represent?

I can't wait to see if marketers roll out anything interesting for March Madness ... you can bet I'll be watching ... and snacking on some chips and salsa – Tide Stain remover at the ready.
 

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Brian Gilbert

on December 4, 2007

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

What in the world are you measuring?

Recently EmailStatCenter.com released results from an August survey that indicate that email marketing "professionals ranked click through rate and deliverability as the most important metrics to track."

Third on the list was conversion rate and measuring ROI was fourth in importance on the list. Revenue was sixth out of eight options. Yikes! Can you believe this?

It's as if most email marketing pros are more concerned with getting people to click on emails than they are whether their campaigns are actually performing their most important function – DELIVERING REVENUE! Wake up people! Isn't that the function of marketing – to help drive sales? Feed the beast.

As an e-marketing professional, I have to be grateful for my roots and passion for direct marketing. These survey answers would be comparable to stating that measuring the performance of a direct mail campaign is most importantly gauged by whether the mail entered the USPS stream successfully and a consumer opened the envelope. Ummm, last time I checked, I'd get bounced out of the room (and out of a job) if I suggested that ROI and revenue were in the middle of the pack of key metrics.

I am picturing conversations out there…

“Sorry, boss. I know we're not hitting our revenue target for the quarter and profit is down, but I got 18,000 click-thru's to my blog and 7,200 downloads of my widget – isn't that fantastic?”

“No, Spam boy, it isn't. We're in the business of making money, not measuring clicks. Figure it out.”

Perhaps I'm being unfair.

It's hard to know whether every email sent had a revenue component. I guess a newsletter email without a transactional offer might not have a revenue goal. Yeah, that might explain some of it.

Or alternatively, this could be an indication that while many companies have figured out how to launch email campaigns, they struggle with the technology that can actually link email activity into site or commerce behavior.

Or this could point to a structural problem organizations haven't fixed yet. Perhaps email marketers can't make the leap to measuring performance by revenue and ROI because ecommerce revenue is the domain of the “web team” and not marketing – similar to the “over the transom” mentality we see every day between Marketing and Sales departments. “Not my job.” Do you say that? I hope not.

Who knows . . . I'm still baffled by these results – and I'm grasping at straws to justify the results.

At least the responders to the study were honest in their answers. They rank Strategy/Planning as very high on the list of challenges these marketers face.

Wow. I couldn't have said it better myself.
 

Comments:

12/8/2007 at 11:39 a.m.
You Gotta Wanna
You’re right Brian, it is alarming when no none wants to connect the dots on ROI for email marketing campaigns. I have found that there are two reasons why people don’t do things: 1. They don’t know how. 2. They Don’t want to. Maybe it is their reliance on CRM systems that may deliver leads but don’t close the loop and produce a sales results. Let’s face it, when it comes to accountability, many people don’t want to take the risk. Jim Lenskold’s book on ROI is still the best out there but someone has to read it to make an attempt. We formed the Sales Lead Management Association www.salesleadmgmtassn.com just for the reason of bringing a spot light on the failure to manage leads even while companies spend millions on CRM systems. Keep up the pressure Brian, maybe someone will listen: ROI counts and always will. Jim Obermayer Sales Lead Management Association
>>James Obermayer, Orange CA

Brian Gilbert

on November 7, 2007

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

Please behave.

Behavioral targeting is the new watchword of Web and mobile marketing. The buzz has now hit the 100 decibel level and I'm starting to go a little deaf.

Direct marketers have been talking about behavioral targeting probably before most of us were born. What we meant was buying behavior. If someone had responded to a direct marketing offer — in just about any way, shape or form — they had the behavior we were looking for.

Because of my DM DNA, that's still my bias.

Behavioral targeting now means something quite different. If someone visits a marketer's web site selling cell phones but doesn't convert to a customer, that's their "behavior." With the targeting available now, a savvy direct marketer can now serve relevant banner ads to this individual as they are "encountered" on the Web — even if they're not on a cell phone or technology site.

That's a very non-direct-marketing way of looking at behavior — and something that wasn't possible before the advent of this technology. And here's why: general agencies were never really interested in changing behavior. Their focus has been to change awareness and attitudes.

I'm okay with that — but I still find the new definition of behavioral targeting a little disconcerting based on my DM roots.
 

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Brian Gilbert

on September 25, 2007

category: integrated marketing

Vice President/Integrated Marketing

If it doesn't have an address, is it still direct?

In direct, we’re used to thinking about mail and email. But other media can be measured – and that’s why they’re great opportunities for direct response marketers.

Direct response TV may not be right for your product. However, if you’re marketing a consumer product at a decent price point, you can’t dismiss TV out of hand. Is there a niche audience that particular programs or channels target that’s right for you? Radio can be less expensive than TV, and possibly more targeted. Print ads can have a toll-free phone number call to action – or a web address. And there are a number of alternative media, including free-standing inserts in the Sunday supplements, card decks and coupon mailings that may look like national media but can be bought for a specific geography.

One thing to remember is that the cost-per-thousand reached in non-addressable media will almost always be much lower than with direct mail. And you’ll be able to reach far more people than with email or even mail. It all depends on your goals and your ROI target.

So don’t get caught with a half-baked media plan. Think outside the mailbox.
 

Comments:

9/26/2007 at 8:24 p.m.
Great whitepapers!
Reading through your whitepapers I learned a lot about direct marketing - especially from a business-to-business standpoint. Also liked the one about evaluating market strategies. Very informative information about direct marketing!
>>James Whitesand, San Jose CA