This video, “The Break Up,” by Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions does a great job of illustrating the state of customer “relationship” marketing at many firms:
Thanks to Indiemark Chronicles and Jim Gilbert for sharing this.
200 foot tall declaration of love
Thursday, April 16th, 2009DeMartine on 1Q09 Data Card Quality Report
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
Chris DeMartine, Director of Business Development at NextMark, discusses the recently published first quarter 2009 Data Card Quality Report. Chris' comments include some tips for getting high scores.
Top List Managers Revealed for First Quarter 2009
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009Don't think for a minute that neglecting a data card doesn't have a cost. While it is easy to get distracted by the demands on our time, keeping these documents current is essential to the direct marketing process and quality data cards improve the odds of getting list orders. Here's what one expert list broker commented on the subject:
"Our content strategy team has a good handle on the lists that work best for our clients, but we still need to know that the counts, pricing, and other information are up-to-date before making a formal recommendation," said Lisa Donnelly, Senior Director at Merkle, Inc. "Quality data cards give us the confidence we need to stand behind all of our recommendations."
NextMark publishes a quarterly report titled "Top List Managers by Data Card Quality" to encourage the users of our free data card publishing tool to post quality information and keep it current. This report presents the top list managers (up to 50) per category; a minimum of 50 mailing list titles per company is required to be ranked. The categories are based on the number of managed titles per company as indicated below:
Category I = 500+ Titles (21 companies)
Category II = 250 – 499 Titles (37 companies)
Category III = 100 – 249 Titles (61 companies)
Category IV = 50 – 99 Titles (73 companies)
For a complete report of the top list managers, including risers and fallers, visit our web site: http://nextmark.com/mmse/top50-list-managers-dccqr.html
San Francisco passes first ‘Do Not Mail’ law
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009As reported in DM News, Fox Business, and others, San Francisco became the first American lawmaker to pass a "do not mail" resolution. Although non-binding, the measure that passed by a 9-2 veto-proof majority in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors calls for the creation of a do not mail program.
The Forest Ethics Council was "unbelieveably pumped" about the decision. Meanwhile, the Direct Marketing Association and its Mail Moves America coalition was "disappointed that the committee would endorse an action that would hurt small businesses and destroy jobs."
I've got to believe there's some middle ground here. It's not that people want "no mail." They just want better control over the mail they get. They call it "junk mail" because they don't want it and feel powerless to stop it. But they want to continue getting catalogs and other mail that is relevant and interesting.
A "do not mail" program is a blunt instrument that serves nobody well. Can't we put some bright minds together to give people control over their mailbox without further destroying the economy?
Do List Managers Have Long Tails?
Thursday, March 12th, 2009Mary Elizabeth Hurn referenced the following search trend in her March 10, 2009 DMNews article titled "More words in average search query: Hitwise".
"Longer search queries are becoming more popular year over year according to a report put out by Hitwise. Though the majority of searches are one, two and three word queries, these length terms are down 3%, 5% and 1%, respectfully. But queries with four to eight words and over are all up year over year in growth ranging from 3% to 20%."
So what does this mean for you if you are a list manager? It may be good news for you if your data cards are on a search engine optimized (SEO) platform. Every mailing list data card indexed by Google as a unique web page contributes to a successful long tail SEO strategy. List managers, who focus on creating a list marketing environment and data card quality within a certain domain, will ultimately benefit from this trend. Yes, list managers do have long tails.
Every list title, segment, selection and description is a target for the web robots (bots). The more of your data card content they find, the better your chances are in getting noticed on the search engine results page (SERP). The most visited web page, other than your home page, may account for less than 1% of your traffic. However, it is the sum of all of the traffic from all of your web pages that you want to maximize. Winning the battle for the long tail will not only improve your search traffic, but it may also improve your conversion rate.
For example, an attorney looking for a mailing list of small business owners in Rhode Island searches on "small business leads" using Google and pages though 76,800 results. She subsequently clicks on a link that registers her for a third-party lead service that fills her voice mail and litters her in-box with responses from various sales agents. She is not a happy camper, but she knows from experience that it's not worth suing them.
Her paralegal comes to the rescue and runs a search on "small business owners mailing list and RI". He gets one targeted result linked to a data card showing over 12,000 small business owners in Rhode Island. He calculates the cost using the base rate directly from the data card, clicks on 'get more information' receives an e-mail with the contact information, places the order on his company credit card, and delivers the list to his manager that same day.
Are you going postal? You should be… (Winterberry Group)
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009The Winterberry Group has just released a white paper reporting the first decline in direct mail spending in recorded history starting in 1945. The white paper, entitled A Channel in Transformation: Vertical Market Trends in Direct Mail 2009, is the New York-based consulting firm’s fifth annual study of trends in direct mail media. It stresses the importance of the trends away from "mass" and towards "targeted" direct mail programs:
"Squarely impacted by the “triple assault” of the recession, rising postage rates and growing marketer preference for low-cost digital communications, total U.S. direct mail spending declined sharply in 2008—falling 3.0 percent—and was accompanied by an even more significant cutback in mail volume"
[…]
"The accelerating shift from “mass” to “targeted” direct mail programs has been enabled by an increasingly powerful array of marketing automation technologies, many of which are making their way into the toolsets of marketers both large and small."
[…]
“The dramatic events of the last few years have come home to roost for direct mail. Postal shocks, environmental pressure, recession, media consumption shifts and enhanced targeting tools have brought about an end to the ‘batch-blast’ era of direct mail,” said Bruce Biegel, Winterberry Group’s senior managing director. “In the face of exceptionally challenging conditions, it is apparent that mailers have shifted their focus to lower-volume, more targeted and higher-value campaigns, with traffic generation to the store, Web and call center being the primary objective. In turn, this shift is generating a realignment of the supplier community and the marketing operations process—opening the door for more and better integrated marketing over the next several years.”
A Channel in Transformation: Vertical Market Trends in Direct Mail is available for complimentary download via the Research page of Winterberry Group’s Web site, located at http://www.winterberrygroup.com/research/.
So what are these automation technologies that will enable you to survive and thrive in this scary new world?
First, consider the fact that your choice of mailing lists is a very significant factor in the outcome of every direct marketing program. Experts attribute more than 40% of the success of direct marketing to your choice of mailing lists:
As Winterberry reported, it's even more important than ever to be targeted in your marketing. Direct mail is one of the few channels that enables this level of precision.
Good news!… in the last few years, there's been innovations in technology that can help you find better mailing lists. A great example is NextMark's Mailing Lists Search Tool.
And the best part? It's free.
Access to this information and technology used to be hidden behind passwords and high user fees. Now, thanks to Marketing Freeconomics, you get it for free.
Now is a great time to be in the mail. There's less noise and competition. There's better tools. If you do a good job with your targeting, you will be positioned for growth. Start today by finding some great mailing lists!
Top Ranked List Managers Revealed
Monday, January 12th, 2009NextMark released its fourth quarter 2008 data card quality report this morning, revealing those list managers who are actively engaged in updating their data cards and those who are not. Among the findings were emerging list managers with expanded data card portfolios in the 500+ data category.
You wouldn't serve a t-bone on a trash can lid, so why would you represent a high quality mailing list with a poor quality data card? While list quality and data card quality are mutually exclusive, counts are changing all the time and a neglected data card could be a warning sign of a neglected list. It is important to keep this information up to date. With 40 percent of direct marketing success is contingent on list selection, mailers and list brokers need quality data cards to make the best purchasing decisions.
List managers may use the free data card publishing wizard to post and update their data cards online. There is also a user-friendly video tutorial (about 20 minutes long) that provides step-by-step instructions for publishing data cards online.
Are you paying too much for that mailing list?
Friday, January 9th, 2009In a recent interview by Jim Emerson of Direct Magazine, Wayne Romisher of List Strategies Inc. cites marked up mailing list prices as an ethical concern in the direct marketing industry:
"Roimisher notes another big issue involves smooth operators who'll markup list prices in excess of the rates published on data cards. But that's an easy one to check up on using NextMark, SRDS and other directory sources."
Wayne is right: it's very easy to verify prices. Especially, with NextMark's mailing lists search tool. It gives you free access to a comprehensive directory of information (including pricing and counts) on postal mailing lists, email lists, telephone lists, package insert programs, and more. No registration is required, either. Check it out!
Is Google search ranking optimization dead?
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009Here is an informative interview with Google's Matt Cutts by Mike McDonald of WebProNews posted in November 2008 on the looking forward at search engine optimization in 2009:
Among other things, he stressed:
- Don't get hung up on search results rankings because they vary from user to user anyway
- Universal search is big. Videos, pictures, and other media will become more integrated with the search experience
- Of course, "white hat" seo is still the way to go
Bottom line, keep creating great content and you will do well. Now is the time to be learning about video content if you are not already.