It started innocently enough, as do most on-line, long distance relationships.  One evening after hours, I was alone in my office surfing the internet, and came across this website that was truly engaging.  It seemed to offer something that I had been missing.

So I explored further, digging deeper into the background. I reacted to what I saw.  Making sure it was a match I felt comfortable with, I shared some information, and inquired further. Then there was reaction on the other end. Some emails quickly followed; some even contained very interesting attachments. All very good stuff. Then along came Twitter and the relationship blossomed.  The messages were delivered timely, and all seemed to be speaking personally to me. As the inquiries intensified, so did the responses to them.  Email, direct mail, text messages, and yes, even that first, somewhat nervous “live” phone chat.

Our much anticipated face-to-face meeting came during a conference, in a restaurant near Chicago’s Midway airport.  As expected it was slightly awkward at first.  But then, because we had developed this relationship on-line, meeting in real life only confirmed the fact that this was bound to happen, sooner or later:

I invite you to join my friend John Foley (@johnfoleyjr) for our next Lunch & Learn series on Thursday, June 23rd from 11:30 - 1:00.  This exciting session will introduce to you the best methods of a multi-channel marketing approach to increase your marketing effectiveness.  Register here.

In the meantime, since John will be visiting us from Boston, he wants to make the most of his Arkansas experience.  He has already expressed a desire to experience a HubCap burger.  What suggestions do you have?

I admit it, when it comes to direct marketing, I’m drinking the Kool Aid.  After all, it’s what I do. It’s my livelihood.  So when I attend seminars on the benefits of direct marketing, it’s easy for me to get excited to learn about the opportunities that can benefit our clients.  Admittedly, I am somewhat biased.

And when I hear vendor partners like Kodak, Xerox, and even the USPS tout the benefits of direct marketing, even someone as jaded (and as old) as me can often lose sight of the fact that they are trying to sell me something. But when I take a step back and look at the facts it becomes obvious that today’s tools can combine for some incredible direct marketing campaigns.

Consider that according to a 2010 DMA study every dollar spent on Direct Marketing returned $11.73 in revenue. And the beauty of today’s direct marketing tools is that now, more than ever before, marketing budgets can be used to produce measurable results – orders, leads, traffic, etc.

What is it that is driving this direct marketing success? Is it about being social? Is it about being viral? Is it about being mobile?  Certainly this all comes into play, but more importantly, it’s about the data we now have access to via these channels.  Data provides us the opportunity to get personal with our clients and prospects.  Good marketing is all about conversations.  Good data, and the various channels we have, makes these conversations possible. 

But why take my word for it?

I recently received not one, but TWO direct marketing campaigns from GOOGLE.  Yes, the behemoth of on-line advertising sent me offers via DIRECT MAIL. 

One was addressed to “business owner”, but the other, using better data, was addressed to me personally.  And it followed direct marketing best practices: it was designed to generate a response; it has a clear and obvious offer; it calls for a specific action; and that action would be entirely measurable.

Will I accept the offer?  Probably not. I will continue to rely on our own Direct Marketing techniques.  After all, if it’s good enough for Google…

 Paul Strack, CustomXM

Integrated marketing is what most forward thinking companies strive to achieve with marketing efforts. However a large gap exists between print and web making integration difficult. The use of QR codes in print advertising and marketing can help bridge this gap.

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