Archive for 'Offline Marketing'

Corporate events can equal happy clients

admin
August 17th, 2007.

What do you do when you are in a dying industry? Let’s say that when you were young the industry was a hot market but not in this new generation. Technology has taken over and switched course.

A corporation must somehow reassure their client base that the industry is able to change direction and keep a wide eyed audience. Let’s now say that this industry is DRTV. Television commercials are slowly being tucked away. Soon they will not exist at all. What happens to the ad agencies and media firms in this situation? They must change their entire business model.

To change with the times you have to seek out what the consumer finds alluring. It is pretty simple. You are a consumer even if you are the CEO of a large firm. Right? Now let’s assume that the the new generations media preference in anything ONLINE. The internet my friends is the biggest thing for advertisement these days. That is why Yahoo! is able to charge $30,000 for 1 day of advertising on their homepage.

Every day the DRTV industry waits, the more they are losing out on an expanding audience. Every single day millions of people get online for the first time. An overwhelming percentage of those people are teenagers.

I seem to be getting ahead of myself… Back to the issue of keeping a happy client.

The best way to introduce your DRTV client to the new media generation is to hold a corporate event. Bring the technology to the client n an environment that the new generation would most likely visit on a regular basis. Use a large hall and setup arcade games, video games, computer stations, vending machines, music, flat screen tv’s, and all the things the new generation is attracted to. the entire point of doing so is to make your client understand who they are targeting. It’s the noise, the movement, the lighting, the atmosphere that makes the place off the charts as far as teenagers and young adults are concerned.

Use the entire event to show how tv commercials can be thrown in front of the eyes of the young consumer by flashing commercials before a avideo game starts, an audio ad before they listing to the music and after every 4 songs, tv commercials played on the flat screen in this wonderful atmosphere. DRTV is NOT dead. It is just the way that it is being presented. In order for the DRTV industry to survive, it needs to live in an atmosphere that will make it thrive. Kids are NOT at home watching tv commercials. They are at popular hangouts.

Distributing the media can be as simple as expanding the publisher market. Make the offering to local hot spots to incorporate the commercials into their media. Force the commercial into the face of the young consumer and keep up with the changing ways.

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Over-hype branding

admin
August 17th, 2007.

Let me get you up to date on what I like to call “over-hype branding”. It is basically the act of publicising something so much that suddenly that something becomes worth millions more than it would be worth normally. For example, the Apple iPhone which was selling for $600+. Call me smart but what is the big deal about the stupid phone. Sure, it has a motion sensor. OH MY GOD! Gotta have that! LOL. I like my Blackberry Pearl just fine. I got it free with a T-Mobile plan that I saw advertised on Yahoo! homepage. I got my fiance an older Blackberry on a barter deal also and she is fine with it. We don’t need a video game system embedded in a phone. Useless is what I like to call the iPhone.

People went crazy. They were standing in line for days camping out just to get one. Then they couldn’t even get service! It is just a phone. Without the hype it is nothing more than a circuit board and display screen. Get serious. That $600 could have paid someone’s rent.

Over-hype.

Now, the question on the minds of marketing execs everywhere is how to go about getting that type of hype. It was so played out that stock shares go up in companies when people take apart the iPhone and discover who helped manufacture parts.

Taking it to a new level would be to ask “how do we over-hype DRTV in such a way?” How does a DRTV company gain that type of popularity? If you look at it, the purchasers of such over hyped items are the younger crowd.

My thought brought me to the idea of getting the younger generation involved in the DRTV biz somehow. Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing you can have. Pair that with the overpowering need for status and popularity from your peers and you have loyalty for the brand. It is like gang loyalty. You don’t question why the item is a big thing and you have to have it. Just like you don’t question why you are loyal to a gang. It doesn’t even cross your mind.

So how do we get the younger generation involved in DRTV? Celebrity status of course! What kid or teen does not keep an eye on celebrity updates and have a need to be that popular? So you simply offer the kids a chance at becoming one of those celebrities. A highly successful DRTV company should have some major connections. They can create some incentive package with a sponsor or advertiser in exchange for getting the chosen kid a main part in a hit show or a recording contract, etc…

Now where the kid comes in. Each kid/teen will be passing the word of mouth to everyone they know. News spreads like wildfire. The news they are spreading is “watch this show and this show between these hours. Look for a message in order to get your chance at becoming the next celebrity”. There you have a HUGE younger following watching television. Now you have a reason to go to your advertisers who target the younger generation and say “Hey, we have millions of kids watching. How much do you wanna pay for advertising?”

Now by this time, you have millions of kids watching shows that are great. Shows on prime time that people love, but still not as many viewers as they want because kids normally would rather be out with friends or on the internet. By doing it this way you will have a good amount of new loyal viewers for that great show that they never knew about or never cared about knowing about.

You have just created a boost in the DRTV industry and all it took was a little thought.

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Direct Mail Campaigns

admin
July 14th, 2007.

MARKETING AIMED at customer acquisition has leaped to the forefront in 2005 as many companies move away from more generalized branding efforts toward programs that yield measurable ROI. Measurement and accountability are today’s watchwords, and a conspicuous increase in spending on direct-mail programs is the result.

Direct mail produces a relatively fast and measurable return, and it’s a great prospecting tool. Here’s a look at the best ways to use direct mail to win new customers.

1. PLAN FOR LARGE MAILINGS. There’s a big difference between a sales letter and direct mail, which is generally sent to lists of at least 5,000 at a time. Your lists must be large, since even good response rates may fall between 2 percent and 4 percent. There’s another difference, too. Direct-mail campaigns are built around a single goal–an action your prospects must take in order to move farther along in the sales cycle. Not surprisingly, mailings that are designed to produce leads yield higher response rates than those designed to close sales.

2. CHOOSE THE BEST FORMAT. In addition to catalogs, there are three basic types of direct mail: postcards, letters and packages (called dimensional mail). When creating your annual campaign, you can choose one type or all three. Postcards, preferably oversized to grab attention, can be an inexpensive way to alert prospects to an upcoming event. Successful direct-mail letters, on the other hand, are complex packages: They generally consist of a teaser envelope–which promises something appealing inside–a one- or two-page cover letter, various inserts expanding on the offer and often a business reply card with a return envelope. And if you want to virtually guarantee your mail gets opened, you can put it in a box. Last year, dimensional mail averaged the highest overall response rate–5.49 percent–of any direct-response medium, according to the Direct Marketing Association.

3. ASSEMBLE YOUR CAMPAIGN. Direct-mail marketing is rarely a do-it-yourself job. The steps include: designing and printing the creative pieces, choosing the lists, and delivering them both to a mailing house for labeling and distribution.

With customer acquisition as your primary goal, direct your team to create pieces that are relevant to the needs of your target audience and contain a strong offer. Studies increasingly show that interesting-looking packaging, as well as mailings that tout a special offer or discount, yield the best results. Also, be sure to provide alternative ways for prospects to respond, including a business reply card, a toll-free number, an e-mail address and a website.

A basic list allows you to pinpoint your ideal prospects according to geography and demographics or Standard Industrial Classification codes and job titles. Decide exactly whom you want to reach, and then obtain rental lists through list managers and trade and business publications or associations. Or engage a qualified list-broker to pinpoint and negotiate for the best lists for your campaign. It’s a good idea to mail multiple times to the same list, and you can reduce your costs by negotiating for duplicate mailings at the time your initial list purchase is being compiled.

For best results, engage a mailing house that can personalize each piece with the name of the recipient and apply tracking codes to the response mechanism. And while metered mail is the norm, campaigns that require that extra bit of personal attention will get it if you choose to have stamps applied instead.

4. TEST AND MEASURE RESULTS. Direct-mail success is measured one campaign at a time. It’s essential to test various components of the campaign–the lists, your offers and creative approaches–in order to continually improve your response rates. The key is to test just one component at a time and make incremental adjustments until your campaign produces optimal results.

Contact marketing expert KIM T. GORDON, author of Bringing Home the Business, at www.smallbusiness now.com. Her new e-book, Big Marketing Ideas for Small Budgets, is available exclusively.from Entrepreneur at www.smallbizbooks.com.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Entrepreneur Media, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group
Bibliography for “Stamp of approval: looking for a marketing campaign that will get your name in front of new customers? Direct mail takes you right to their mailboxes”

Kim T. Gordon “Stamp of approval: looking for a marketing campaign that will get your name in front of new customers? Direct mail takes you right to their mailboxes“. Entrepreneur. June 2005. FindArticles.com. 14 Jul. 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DTI/is_6_33/ai_n13784691

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