How 1800Flowers.com Embraces Direct Marketing

September 29, 2010 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Direct Marketing Strategy 

Gift retailer 1800Flowers.com met the challenge of fusing together the latest technology with wanting your customers to have the very best experience online.

Testing all new hot technologies to determine if your customers will have the best experience online model and social media. Surveying customers for feedback and asking customers what they like and dislike online and what experiences they like.

1800Flowers.com makes the most of it’s sales online since they have been involved with E-commerce since 1992 after first initially after driving business to its 1800 Website.

The companies first adventure into direct response marketing began with apps with iPhone and Blackberry; SMS texting and mobile display advertising. The Website was optimized to use a variety of other use devices.

The timing was great for many of its mobile apps for the Iphone they can now send reminders to subscribers during the holidays for the gift of flowers. In addition toi the smart phone app 1800Flowers has a heavy presence in social media with Twitter and Facebook allowing shoppers to post products on their pages and marketers to gauge which products are most popular with online shoppers.

They also test to see which segments of shoppers are reacting the most to different technologies. Tracking and developing ROI tracking methods to determine what works and what doesn’t.

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About The Author

Tim G. Little has a BS in Business Administration, and has worked in the magazine publication and circulation management for the past 20 years. As an Internet Publisher and Entrepreneur, he has developed a website to help small business entrepreneurs find the best mailing list and marketing programs ps: I would like to recommend a tool to you to help find Boost Sales… Gain Market Share.. . With Focused List Selection, Tips and Tools for Finding the Perfect List. Once you e-mail segments, track how they differently they react to messaging options 

Hot New Trends in Email Design and Marketing

September 27, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Marketing Lists 

Usage of animated gifs

in the emails of major online retailers is up more than 100 percent this year. That’s because animation’s movement is eye-catching and offers up a variety of creative opportunities.

Testing is the best way to determine if animation works for you animated versions of emails have generated several additional percentage points of clickthroughs.

Personalization and triggered emails. Along with segmentation and dynamic content, triggered emails are becoming critical to maximizing the performance of your email program.

Testing is the best way to determine in small groups of a 100 to see which segments perform the best

Examples would be showing comparisons of complimentory items like Amazon based on past buying purchases or preferences after checking out with shopping cart.

Both examples are highly targeted and packed with personalized information, which dramatically boost performance.

Rendering is critical. According to the latest research 60% of email users block images by default. That figure has done nothing but climb in recent years, so this is a reality that must be confronted when designing emails.

Using preheader text, alt text and HTML text instead of graphical text when possible are all ways to convey your message when images are blocked.

The “2010 Email Design Look Book” includes a novel example from Nike of designing for blocked images. The retailer used several blocks with background colors to spur subscribers to enable images. Once enabled, the images worked seamlessly with the background color blocks.

Nontraditional interactivity. To help wake up subscribers who may be tuning them out, more brands are sending emails that deviate significantly from email norms.

Horizontal-scrolling emails are perhaps the most visible and talked about example of this tactic at work, but there are certainly other approaches.

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About The Author

Tim G. Little has a BS in Business Administration, and has worked in the magazine publication and circulation management for the past 20 years. As an Internet Publisher and Entrepreneur, he has developed a website to help small business entrepreneurs find the best mailing list and marketing programs ps: I would like to recommend a tool to you to help find Boost Sales… Gain Market Share.. . With Focused List Selection, Tips and Tools for Finding the Perfect List. Once you e-mail segments, track how they differently they react to messaging options. 

The Future of the Email Marketing Campaign

September 22, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Email Lists 

Spending on email, social, mobile and search marketing will continue to grow at a compound rate anywhere from eleven percent to twenty percent over the next five years.

Analysis with Web analytics is also experiencing high growth as marketers clamor to better understand their customers behavior and leverage this data in their retention remarketing efforts.

With such fast paced growth and new best practices that emerge everyday, it is becoming increasingly difficult for
marketers to understand which vendor segments are best at managing their marketing efforts in a big way.

Responsibilities within the organization are constantly changing. This reshaping of the marketing buying center is being driven by the following market conditions:

– Emerging marketing channels lack dedicated champions and when they do exist they change rapidly. Today’s marketer is either a jack of all trades and a master of none or they are siloed in discreet functional areas such as email.

Include emerging social and mobile marketing channels and the once dedicated email marketing specialist is often tasked with managing marketing campaigns across a variety of disparate channels.

to do too much in a non-integrated way leaving these functional champions at a loss to optimize cross-channel initiatives that are not integrated. Even in the largest enterprises that have more labor resource than middle market companies, roles and responsibilities can shift often.

Just in the last six months email marketing vendors have acquired or merged with social marketing solutions, digital asset vendors have extended their reach into the web-analytics marketplace, and offline direct marketing firms have augmented their data businesses by exploiting newer digital marketing components.

– Acquisition: The ability to measure the effectiveness of a marketer’s acquisition tactics and take the appropriate follow-on action will depend on the timeliness and quality of the acquisition source and the data that is being generated from it.
Whether it is evaluating search engine spending in terms of its ability to grow list size, implementing social marketing acquisition tactics, or qualifying business prospects in a sales force.

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About The Author

Tim G. Little has a BS in Business Administration, and has worked in the magazine publication and circulation management for the past 20 years. As an Internet Publisher and Entrepreneur, he has developed a website to help small business entrepreneurs find the best mailing list and marketing programs ps: I would like to recommend a tool to you to help find Boost Sales… Gain Market Share.. . With Focused List Selection, Tips and Tools for Finding the Perfect List. Once you e-mail segments, track how they differently they react to messaging options. 

Making Mobile Direct Response Better

September 20, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Direct Marketing Leads 

There are many marketing vehicles being introduced that allow you to meet your buyers.

Online advertising using the Internet and online advertising and search engine, marketers are now using social networking to find new prospects and developing new applications for smartphones.

Email marketing is now the workhorse of Internet marketing, but the sheer number of different outlets to get your message across to prospects makes it more of a challenge to track which campaigns are working and why.

With new software developments marketers can now focus on marketing to several channels without losing track of how to measure which campaigns are working and why?

Spending on business to business is expected to increase by 26 million for Mobile marketing to $106 million by 2014 and this represent a quadrupling in mobile marketing activity over the next 5 years. Mobile marketing abilities to convert SMS messages into email messages and in reverse.

Using metrics to analyze the results will improve the bottom line performance. The major appeal to mobile marketing is to send SMS messages and email as a part of the integrated campaign. The key is to find one platform that is driven by customer preferences.

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About The Author

Tim G. Little has a BS in Business Administration, and has worked in the magazine publication and circulation management for the past 20 years. As an Internet Publisher and Entrepreneur, he has developed a website to help small business entrepreneurs find the best mailing list and marketing programs ps: I would like to recommend a tool to you to help find Boost Sales… Gain Market Share.. . With Focused List Selection, Tips and Tools for Finding the Perfect List. Once you e-mail segments, track how they differently they react to messaging options. 

How to Make for Your Holiday E-mail Promotions a Success

September 15, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Email Lists 

Review last year’s holiday campaigns.

In preparing for the holiday email season to come, thoroughly examine what went well and what didn’t and repeat the best
campaign and determine. Analyze and be sure not to repeat the same mistakes.

  • Which of my email campaigns generated the highest conversions? On what days were they sent? What were the emails about and what were the subject lines?
  • Which campaigns generated the lowest conversions? On what days were they sent? What were the emails about and what were the subject lines?
  • Which segmentation tactics were most successful?
  • Which campaigns were forwarded and shared the most? What about those campaigns made them so viral?
  • Which campaigns generated the highest unsubscribe rates? The highest spam complaints? Why was that?
  • Have steps been taken to fix the problems?

Start Christmas campaigns early.

On average, retailers began their 2009 holiday campaigns 67 days before Christmas (Oct. 19), according to the report. This is on par with the 2008 holiday season, but it’s nine days earlier than the 2007 holiday season.

Last year’s soft economy and the precedent set in the 2008 holiday seasonwas likely behind the earlier start. With a slowly recovering economy, retailers may begin their holiday campaigns a bit later this year, the report says.

Survey Your Customer Database

  • Ask subscribers directly to update their preferences, or make the link to your preference center more prominent by moving it above the fold.
  • Ask subscribers to complete a survey about your email program.
  • If you’ve recently relaunched or improved your website, tell your subscribers about it.
  • If you’re using product reviews in your emails, make sure products have a sufficient quantity of reviews by encouraging subscribers to review products during the summer and early fall.
  • Try a delayed reward program designed to bring customers back during the holiday season.
  • If you have a private-label credit card, loyalty program or member-based shipping program, promote it in advance of the holiday season.
  • Increase holiday email frequencies. With consumers actively looking for ideas, 90 percent of major online retailers ratchet up their send volumes during the holiday season, according to the report.

While these days are popular because they achieve better results, they’re also the days when emails have the most competition in the inbox.
If that logic appeals to you, then send on the days just before or after these high-volume days, the report advises.

Also, the report recommends targeting brand loyalists with a “daily deal” email series or a “X Days of Christmas” campaign that requires an additional opt-in. Stand out among inbox clutter. With the increase in volume pouring into subscribers’ inboxes, it’s critical to stand out with not only relevant content, big deals.

DYMO Label Writer Twin Turbo The perfect printer for any small business! See why people rave about this direct mail marketing printer and why you can’t survive without it!

About The Author

Tim G. Little has a BS in Business Administration, and has worked in the magazine publication and circulation management for the past 20 years. As an Internet Publisher and Entrepreneur, he has developed a website to help small business entrepreneurs find the best mailing list and marketing programs ps: I would like to recommend a tool to you to help find Boost Sales… Gain Market Share.. . With Focused List Selection, Tips and Tools for Finding the Perfect List. Once you e-mail segments, track how they differently they react to messaging options. 

Direct Mail Enters a New Era

September 13, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Direct Marketing Mailing 

We all know that the new economy is having some obvious consequences for direct mail and the United States Postal Service.

Today there is more of a fusion of different technologies driving direct response marketing for better effectiveness including e-mail, smartphones, Web pages and search engine optimization.

The explosion of digital technology was suppose to be the death of direct mail marketing.  The digital rather than killing direct mail marketing has rather help usher in this new era of direct mail.

Direct mail marketing and direct response helped us to understand the internet better. Catalog mailers have always known that mail can drive additional sales and online visits and many digital marketers have turned to direct mail to drive people to the inbox.

Today marketers are now finding methods for combining digital technology with mail to increase the power of the message. Digital tracking devices like QR codes and personalized URLs that helps get the message across.

The efficiencies of mail and the ability to target the prospect or customer along with the way you can expand the message has many marketers thinking of direct mail as “Old School” .

It’s about the fusion of traditional with digital and what we will see is a revolution that will launch mail into the next generation and beyond.

DYMO Label Writer Twin Turbo The perfect printer for any small business! See why people rave about this direct mail marketing printer and why you can’t survive without it!

About The Author

Tim G. Little has a BS in Business Administration, and has worked in the magazine publication and circulation management for the past 20 years. As an Internet Publisher and Entrepreneur, he has developed a website to help small business entrepreneurs find the best mailing list and marketing programs ps: I would like to recommend a tool to you to help find Boost Sales… Gain Market Share.. . With Focused List Selection, Tips and Tools for Finding the Perfect List. Once you e-mail segments, track how they differently they react to messaging options. 

Converting Leads by Showing Value

September 10, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Direct Marketing Strategy 

Many marketers have good intentions about offering superior content and trusted information.

But few turn this information into leads or increased referrals. Some marketers are offering free information to help them make complex decisions.

These marketers are smart because they are taking action and taking their customers through the action phases.

Financial planners could provide value to their customers by providing them with educational content and providing their customers with answers to hundreds of financial questions.

The key is in delivering the correct information

that prospects need which leads to a comprehensive lead nurturing system. you must do this in a way that prompts customers to do what they already want to get involved in which is the process of buying your product or service.

You need to share answers about investing into a new financial product or plan to save for a college education that will lead to a mutually beneficial answer.

This information isn’t just passively sitting on your Website but it’s proactively getting the information to your key customers. Fining out your customers preferences this could be in Word, PDF via email or cell phone. You only are able to supply this information when you survey your prospects.

Communicate to your prospects that by doing this they will be saving money or avoiding costly mistakes. Offer your customers direct dial phone numbers where customers can get the answers they need.

You need to prove to your customers that you are adding value content with proper personalized follow-up.

DYMO Label Writer Twin Turbo The perfect printer for any small business! See why people rave about this direct mail marketing printer and why you can’t survive without it!

About The Author

Tim G. Little has a BS in Business Administration, and has worked in the magazine publication and circulation management for the past 20 years. As an Internet Publisher and Entrepreneur, he has developed a website to help small business entrepreneurs find the best mailing list and marketing programs ps: I would like to recommend a tool to you to help find Boost Sales… Gain Market Share.. . With Focused List Selection, Tips and Tools for Finding the Perfect List. Once you e-mail segments, track how they differently they react to messaging options. 

Will The United States Postal Service Survive?

September 8, 2010 by · 12 Comments
Filed under: Marketing List Broker 

The US Postal Service began negotiations today on a new contract with the 211,000-member American Postal Workers Union (APWU).

Top USPS negotiator calls one of the most important negotiations in his 35 years

The negotiations will occur as the USPS is seeking permission to reduce home delivery to five days per week and enact a series of rate increases.

As you may know the Postal Service has suffered from the economic downturn just like other businesses

Email and digital communications make a significant dent in mail volume. Mail volume has declined by 35 billion pieces since 2007, according to postal experts and the Postal Service expects to lose another 28 billion pieces by 2020.

The USPS can’t count on mail volume growth in the future and they need to be flexible in order to survive.

The Postal Service needs greater flexibility in how it schedules its employees,accoding to experts in that it no longer
needs all employees to work a fixed eight-hour schedule.

The Postal Service has gone from an operation that runs 24-hours a day, seven days a week, to a smaller organization that processes mail only 16 hours a day for five or six days a week, he said.

The USPS needs to look at workload and schedule people for when the work needs to be done and how it needs to be done.

We need a mix of different types of employee positions including full time, part time and non-career
employees.

APWU President William Burrus said at the opening of negotiations that “the history of the Postal Service is replete with
forecasts of doom and gloom, but such dire predictions have not prevented us from exploring every opportunity to achieve
agreement.”

The contract with the APWU and a separate one with the National Rural Letter Carriers Association expire November 20.
The USPS will begin negotiations on September 13 with the Rural Carriers.

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About The Author

Tim G. Little has a BS in Business Administration, and has worked in the magazine publication and circulation management for the past 20 years. As an Internet Publisher and Entrepreneur, he has developed a website to help small business entrepreneurs find the best mailing list and marketing programs ps: I would like to recommend a tool to you to help find Boost Sales… Gain Market Share.. . With Focused List Selection, Tips and Tools for Finding the Perfect List. Once you e-mail segments, track how they differently they react to messaging options.

Prospect or Grow Existing Lists

September 6, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Direct Marketing Leads 

Do you have a marketing plan strategy

for building your lists?

If your thinking about generating more income for your business than you better have a good plan for building your mailing lists.

Define your marketing plan objectives like are you trying to build your active customer base with high  quality as far as prospects with money with an immediate need for your product or service.

What are the best channels for completing your objectives by email, direct mail or mobile phone or telephone marketing platform.

Profile your current customer base you can append with major business to business databases and look for the best profiles are far as segments or age groups that purchase the most with frequent high dollar volumes.

If you can combine channels you can double your conversion rates. For example mail or e-mail and follow-up with a telephone call with an appealing offer. Improve your return on investment by negotiating multi-list volume use.

Offer a deal that will create urgency to increase response rates. Build your list through lead generation. Do you have a library of well written products that appeal to your target group?

Build back links to strategic product pages on your Website to informational white papers with hyperlinks pointing to your website.

Find Websites that are generating more traffic than yours and exchange articles. Build landing pages with white papers that can be downloaded from your Website and collect prospective data for promotional reasons.

DYMO Label Writer Twin Turbo The perfect printer for any small business! See why people rave about this direct mail marketing printer and why you can’t survive without it!

About The Author

Tim G. Little has a BS in Business Administration, and has worked in the magazine publication and circulation management for the past 20 years. As an Internet Publisher and Entrepreneur, he has developed a website to help small business entrepreneurs find the best mailing list and marketing programs ps: I would like to recommend a tool to you to help find Boost Sales… Gain Market Share.. . With Focused List Selection, Tips and Tools for Finding the Perfect List. Once you e-mail segments, track how they differently they react to messaging options. 

Six Steps To a successful Holiday Email Campaigns

September 3, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Email Lists 

September could be the busiest month of the year for email

Marketers because it’s usually when they begin planning their holiday email campaigns. How big the email
list volume and how many responses do you need to meet objectives? Which days should they send their holiday messages?

What should the offer will be and how will this beat our control package.

The following are six best practices outlined in the report, designed to help retailers and other B-to-C email marketers have a successful holiday season this year:

1. Review last year’s holiday campaigns. In preparing for the holiday email season to come, examine what happened during your 2009 and how can we improve response.
Ask yourself the following:

* Which of my email campaigns generated the highest conversions? On what days were they sent? What were the emails about and what were the subject lines?
* Which campaigns generated the lowest conversions? On what days were they sent?
* Which segmentation tactics were most successful?
* Which campaigns were forwarded and shared the most? What about those campaigns made them so viral?
* Which campaigns generated the highest unsubscribe rates? The highest spam complaints? Why was that?
* Did you have to send any apology emails? If so, why? Have steps been taken to fix the problems?

2. Start Christmas campaigns early. On average, retailers began their 2009 holiday campaigns 67 days before Christmas (Oct. 19), according to the report. This is on par with the 2008 holiday season, but it’s nine days earlier than the 2007 holiday season. Last year’s soft economy and the precedent set in the 2008 holiday season was likely behind the earlier start. With a slowly recovering economy, retailers may begin their holiday campaigns a bit later this year, the report says.

Clean your lists by asking customers for their preferences:

* Ask subscribers directly to update their preferences, or make the link to your preference center more prominent by moving it above the fold.
* Ask subscribers to complete a survey about your email program.
* Try a delayed reward program designed to bring customers back during the holiday season.
* If you have a private-label credit card, loyalty program or member-based shipping program, promote it in advance of the holiday season.

4. Increase holiday email frequencies. If that logic appeals to you, then send on the days just before or after these high-volume days, the report advises. Also, the report recommends targeting brand loyalists with a “daily deal” email series or a “X Days of Christmas” campaign that requires an additional opt-in.

5. Stand out among inbox clutter. With the increase in volume pouring into subscribers’ inboxes, it’s critical to stand out with not only relevant content, big deals and helpful advice, but also with compelling subject lines, eye-catching creative and effective designs. To do this, the report offers the following suggestions:

* craft better subject lines;
* introduce a holiday header and navigation bar;
* add a gift services footer;
* use animated gifs more frequently; and
* leverage social sharing.

6. Change strategies over time. To maximize your holiday email revenues, adjust your strategies throughout the season, the report recommends. There are 18 phases to the holiday email season, according to the report, including Christmas in July; early holiday messaging; core holiday messaging; Thanksgiving Day sales; Black Friday sales; Cyber Monday campaigns; X Days of Christmas campaigns; the end of express shipping and guaranteed Christmas delivery; and so on.

DYMO Label Writer Twin Turbo The perfect printer for any small business! See why people rave about this direct mail marketing printer and why you can’t survive without it!

About The Author

Tim G. Little has a BS in Business Administration, and has worked in the magazine publication and circulation management for the past 20 years. As an Internet Publisher and Entrepreneur, he has developed a website to help small business entrepreneurs find the best mailing list and marketing programs ps: I would like to recommend a tool to you to help find Boost Sales… Gain Market Share.. . With Focused List Selection, Tips and Tools for Finding the Perfect List. Once you e-mail segments, track how they differently they react to messaging options 

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