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Wednesday, March 11 2009
Direct mail marketing is often part of a bigger picture and longer sales cycle. In such cases, your direct mail postcard or letter serves a ?learn more" function. This is where direct mail and websites become perfect marketing partners.

Postcards make excellent website promoters. With their easy readability and "at-a-glance" impact, direct mail postcards can help you entice people to your website. Here are five ways postcards can drive qualified traffic to your site.

1. Free reports and white papers.
Create a valuable report and make it available for download via your website. Feature the report (with graphics, excerpts, and other teasers) on a postcard. Make sure you have a web-based lead-capturing system in place to collect the name and email address of each respondent.
2. Seminars.
Seminars are a great business-building tool for certain industries. Real estate, financial services, investing, technology - each of these sectors can use seminars to increase their exposure and gain clients. Direct mail makes it easy to promote your seminars. Put the primary benefit of your seminar in the headline, and offer multiple incentives for attending. Offer a web-based form to simplify the sign-up process.

3. Free trial.
If you're selling software, e-books, or anything else digital, you can offer a free trial or sample download through your website. Then use the direct mail piece to build interest and point readers in the right direction.

4. Newsletter subscription.
Want to increase the size of your subscriber base? Send a postcard that conveys the value of the newsletter, along with a strong bonus incentive for signing up. Create a landing page with a short URL / web address so it's easy for people to type.

5. RSS Feeds.
RSS feeds are becoming a popular web-marketing tool, and for good reason. They're easy to produce, and they give you another way to stay connected with your audience. So why not send a postcard to your customers showing the value of your RSS feed (and how and where to sign up for it).

Leveraging your website can reinforce your direct mail, which in turn can lead to higher response rates. So think about your own website, audience, and product or service. How can you bring them together to accomplish your goals?

Posted by: AT 02:43 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email

 

Email Marketing Done Right - We've been lied to - It's not all about the "Open",...initially

Toyota & GMC; Preferred Vendor- Marketing & Eccomerce

What emails yield the highest open rates, and which are relevant to your campaigns success? 
Let's begin by addressing the "Open".
It's not enough to get the email solicitation (for lack of a better word... perhaps informational piece? Nah.. we all know it's a solicitation... 

Any email deployment company can promise high open rates, but if they aren't opening the message for the right reason it will yield limited results. We have tested this time and again. 

Example Market Test: 

We deploy an email campaign with the subject line: "What do you think of Candi's new Bikini?", and yield an impressive 15% track-able open rate. Not bad ... if that's my only goal... We'll call that subject line "A". 

We launch another email to the same business prospect list, this time with the subject line "B"; "Dealers add profit with Security System Installs". "B" yields a mere 2.5% open rate... but wait...

Now you may think the first subject line is the way to go, however let me share further results...

Test Subject line "A" received 5 click-throughs to the landing page with further details and order options.

Test Subject line "B" received 200 click-throughs to the landing page with further details and order options 

The question is.. what are we trying to sell? Security Systems? or "Pictures of girls in Bikinis"...
Which yielded the best return?.... 

The fact is, "it's not all about open rates"... It's about relevancy. Now.., what could we do with the contact records of those who "Opened" our email based on a relevant Subject Line?.... We now know they are in the market or have a need or interest in what we have to offer, based on the fact that they opened, our relevant subject line... and what could we do with the contact records... the knowledge of which business prospect took further action; i.e. clicked through, based on that 'relevant" subject line?

This leads me to the final word in my headline...'initially"... Once an email is opened based on a relevant subject line....action was taken (click through), the highest yielding "OPEN", on an outbound email marketing lead generating initiative is the "follow-up" email to those recipients who opened and read your initial email based on a relevant subject line. We've seen anywhere from 35% clear up to 65% open rates on follow up letters... Now how could this change your prospecting efforts?