Jorge's Thoughts: Innovate Your Marketing with Direct Mail

Of all the marketing vehicles, direct mail marketing gives you the most opportunities to specifically target your ideal prospect, to be innovative and to be more personal. 

From new technology in printing to the delivery of fresh ideas in messaging to the ability of addressing your prospects in a creative and personalized manner, direct mail allows you to drive response and drive engagement with your most ideal audience in a way that can powerfully impact your business.  

Here's how:  

1. Personalization:  Personalized mail stands out and gets attention. For your target audience to receive a direct mail piece from you shows that you have taken the time to deliver a customized message based on their potential needs. 

Additionally, 73% of American consumers said they prefer direct mail and 62% said they enjoy checking their mailbox. Give your target audience not only something to look forward to but also something that is personalized and will help you develop an initial impression.  

2. Packaging:  Direct mail response rates are higher than all digital media. Before your prospects respond to your direct mail, they first have to open it. You've got a small window of time to make that happen: 5-7 seconds. Make sure you stand out in the mailbox with creative packaging. 

Maximize response by using the latest print and imaging innovations to create the best looking and highest impact invitation in the mailbox. Take advantage of live stamping, handwritten fonts, full color graphics, odd size envelopes and other techniques that will help you avoid that dreaded look of junk mail. 

Pro tip: Postcards are for coupons and local general advertisers. All important and personal mail comes in envelopes; just ask Hallmark! 


3. Digital components:  Digital vehicles on their own may not generate enough response to keep you interested. You are targeting that guarded 50+ age group who still like traditional media, so you will need to reach with a mix of personalized direct mail, TV , radio, social media and internet ads. That approach will cover more ground, expand your message and give you more reach - what we call “critical mass” in the marketing world. It’s a combination of all or some of these that gives you maximized exposure, more opportunities to generate a higher response and stand above your competitors.

I've created a series of podcasts on this and other marketing tips to help you reach your target audiences. If you have suggestions for topics you'd like for me to cover via this type of content (or any type of content), tweet me at @JorgeVillarRME! 

By: Jorge Villar, President and Founder 

#howdoyouinnovate

3 Tips to Develop Connections through Digital Marketing

Earlier this week, our founder and president Jorge Villar shared his thoughts on the value in adding digital marketing to your prospecting strategy, specifically in the boomer market. He noted that it is just as important for advisors to understand how boomers respond to today's digital marketing as it is to understand their various - and diverse - financial concerns. 

As you begin to connect with your target audience more effectively through digital means, here are some tips to follow up with Jorge's:

Use data. 

The growing volume and range of information that come with data will help you make critical decisions about how to improve client engagement with social and web content, how to increase website and landing page visits, how to convert more sales and how you measure up with your competition. (Hint: Monitoring your competitors on social media can provide you with data on how their content resonates with clients and prospects.) 



Know your audience.  

Clearly identify the audience you want to serve. The needs, problems, challenges and goals as well as how that audience uses digital avenues will shape your messaging. Having just one marketing message and hoping everyone hears it doesn’t work, but diversifying your messaging and how it is delivered according your audience will allow you more opportunity to earn a greater ROI.



Personalize your marketing. 

Communication across all digital avenues should be personalized and relevant to your target audience. You are competing for people’s time; yours is one of hundreds of messages that are being delivered every single day all day long via social media, websites, emails, landing pages, display ads, etc. Clients are likely to pay attention only to those that create impact and establish a personal connection.









              Which digital avenue has had the greatest impact on your brand?

Tell us below or tweet us:

@RME360

             By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

Jorge's Thoughts: 3 Simple Ways to Get More Response from Your Emails

Email marketing should be a critical component of your 

overall marketing strategy. 

According to Salesforce/Marketing Cloud, 73% of marketers agree it's core to their business and 74% of them believe email produces marketing ROI.

But email marketing only works when you know how to make it work. How can your next campaign be more effective and get more response?







Check out these 3 simple tips:

1. Include clear, engaging subject lines. 

Newspapers provide us with headlines that not only share succinct details but that also seek to entice us to read further. Your email subject lines should provide that as well. Don't add to the noise and clutter of your prospects' and clients' inboxes; be specific and distinguish yourself.

2. Personalize your message.

I'd venture to guess that 95% of the emails I receive are not personalized beyond my name in the email address. Take the time to acknowledge your recipients, the businesses for which they work, the cities in which they live or even recent news about the cities.

For instance, when I get an email that uses my first name or that mentions RME360, it's likely to grab my attention. Referencing my city (Tampa) or recent sports news such the Tampa Bay Lightning's run at the Stanley Cup further increase that likelihood.

3. Be conversational.

Formal scripted emails are not likely to evoke response from prospects and clients. They simply appear as words on the screen. Your emails should jump off the screen, spark a connection with you targeted audience members and engage with them on relevant topics. It may be difficult to personalize an email blast to several prospects, but using a more informal and less sales-y tone will increase your chances that they read it and then respond to it.

My challenge to you:

Look at each of the emails you receive this week. Count how many of them get your attention in 2-3 seconds. Count how many of them you can tell are mass emails in 4-5 words. How can you use your impressions of those emails to impact your next email campaign?

Tweet me and let's chat about tips to improve email marketing:

 @JorgeVillarRME

By: Jorge Villar, President and Founder 

#smartdataemail

Back to Basics: Three Tips to Make Direct Marketing Work for Your Brand

So you think direct mail is dead, huh? Think again! 

Direct Marketing Association found that the response rate for direct mail to an existing customer averages 3.4%. 

Epsilon found that 50% of U.S. consumers prefer direct mail to email. 

And Target Marketing found that direct mail has the highest rate of success in new customer acquisition at 34%. 

An effective direct mail piece walks your brand, your products and your services into your prospects' homes and you become the topic of conversation around the dinner table. Professional, personalized and compelling direct marketing packages coupled with targeted consumer data will open the door for you; the quality of your products and services will close that door on your way out of a successful sale.

























Check out these three tips to having a successful direct marketing campaign: 

Use a list that best fits your needs. Use multiple data files to identify your prospects by age, income, zip code criteria and other important selects. What about your markets should you consider? What lifestyle choices of your prospects will make a difference when narrowing your target? Work with a list database expert to ensure you have the right list. 

Create a professional, personalized and compelling mail piece. This isn't the time to mail our your company brochure. Your direct mail piece should have a strong offer and a strong call to action as well. Your brand's brochure allows it the opportunity to inform, but its direct mail pieces should ask for specific action. Give your prospects multiple ways to respond to increase your chances of that action. A marketing services expert can provide you with copy and design services to ensure your message invokes the response you seek. 

Manage your responses. While you can't anticipate the exact number of responses you will receive, you can plan ahead so you can manage those responses swiftly and effectively. This will depend on the action you identify in your messaging. Are you asking prospects to email you for more information? If so, have that information ready to send and/or discuss. Are you asking prospects to call in and discuss a particular product or service? If so, train the team who will field those calls on what types of questions to expect and how to answer them. Are you asking prospects to visit a landing page and download something? If so, make sure the messaging of that deliverable matches the direct mail piece and that the link is functional and accessible. 

What other tips should you consider when launching a direct mail campaign? Tell us in the comments! 

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

Make the Multi-Channel Approach Work in 2015

Yearly mail volume sent in 2007: 212 billion

Yearly mail volume sent in 2013: 158 billion

Weekly average of business and marketing emails read by consumers in 2007: 304

Daily business and marketing emails sent in 2013: 100 billion

While email and all things digital remain powerhouses in marketing, direct mail is also an effective medium when it’s part of a multi-channel approach. The numbers above clearly reflect a downturn in print mail pieces, but they also speak to a key direct mail strategy: the use of effective targeted marketing. What does this mean? The age of big data stepped in. For marketers, that meant targeting their messaging to more than mere demographics. For consumers, that meant fewer pieces to sort through and a greater likelihood that targeted pieces received were considered.

In 2015, the intersection of effective targeted marketing and integrated print and digital messaging can optimize consumer engagement with your brand. Here are a few tips to help you plan your marketing and make a multi-channel approach work for your brand:

Personalize your campaigns.

Data selects such as age, ethnicity, gender and zip code are the fundamental bits of information needed to begin any direct mail campaign, but big data is about more multifaceted information. Who are your prospects? What do they like? What are their buying patterns? What are their lifestyles like? This level of data will help you better target your ideal audience.

When you can more strategically target your ideal prospects, you can more effectively personalize your marketing. When your ideal prospects receive personalized marketing, they are more likely to respond to your offer. MindFireInc®, a direct mail tracking software company, studied 650 multi-channel marketing campaigns and found that personalized campaigns consistently and overwhelmingly beat out static campaigns in generating a high response rate from recipients. 

Tell your story.

Brand advocates are the most powerful force in marketing. Do you have customers who can attest to your brand’s way of doing business? To your brand’s products and service? Using their testimonials on your direct mail pieces can not only tell your story but can also build your credibility.

What other stories are meaningful to understanding your brand? Think about marketing pieces you connect with: what types of stories do they tell? Solidify your relationships with your target prospects by evoking emotional responses; sharing your brand’s stream of stories that create its overarching narrative is crucial when earning connections with your prospects.

Mix your marketing.

Print marketing has more than earned its place at the table, and so has digital. 2015 will see this integration pushed further, making both mediums work for your brand. Use your social media footprint on your print pieces to encourage your prospects’ engagement with your brand. Conversations on these platforms build brand awareness as well as brand advocates. Also, track responses with personalized URLs (PURLs). This gives your prospects a way to respond online and gives them a more unique experience with your digital identity than merely sending them to your company website. 

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

Jingle All The Way to Successful Holiday Marketing

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, but the holiday shopping season hasn’t shown any sign of slowing down. What does that mean for your business? Hold on to that marketing steering wheel; it’s time to drive those sales home! The end of the year is mere weeks away, so let your holiday marketing wrap up your brand's 2014 with a red shiny bow. 

Need help tying that bow? Check out these tips:

1.     Hark! The user-generated content sings

According to a recent MIT study, the human brain can process and identify images seen for as little as 13 milliseconds. According to our collective common knowledge about people, we love to post photos of ourselves. So why not combine the two for your holiday marketing a la Starbucks style? Take a look at the coffee conglomerate’s cover photos album on Facebook and you’ll find several photos taken by fans a*k*a brand advocates. These photos add a layer of authenticity to Starbucks’ marketing, a layer that prompts fans to feel more connected to the brand. Fans whose photos are used feel valued and appreciate the interaction. Fans who see those photos feel more motivated to follow a brand that pays attention to and interacts with them.

Here’s an example of one of their user-generated cover photos:

And here’s how popular it was:

2.     It came upon the holiday video

Not a Christmas goes by without me thinking of my beloved late brother. And inevitably during the holiday season, I run across the Folgers commercial online when big brother Peter comes home to visit for the holidays and his sweet baby sister bounds down the stairs to see him. The soft sell in this video stands in the shadow of the overarching tone of family and holiday cheer. That cheer is of course celebrated over Folgers coffee; after all, Folgers isn’t selling feelings and big brothers. But what makes that commercial memorable? (I’m 36 years old and still remember it from my childhood.) The sense of family and the opportunity Folgers took to showcase a special sibling bond to create a holiday moment fit for Hallmark.

3.     Deck the local halls

What holiday traditions, events and trends are popular in your market? What makes prospects and clients in your market different than other markets? Recognize how holidays impact your market and who your prospects and clients are; by doing so, you can create messaging personalized just for them so that you increase the likelihood of appeal.

4.     Carol of the call to action

So you’ve created effective holiday messaging via videos, direct mail, social media and/or other preferred marketing outlets, but what have you asked your prospects and clients to do after reading the message? Don’t leave them hanging like ornaments on a Christmas tree; provide them with clear instruction on how to interact with you. Of course you would like for them to call your office, visit your website or stop by to see you, but what other actions can they take that will immediately benefit them? Encourage them to download a piece of targeted content such as a white paper or an ebook. Or direct them to a personalized landing page with more information about their particular need. 

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

How to Use Postcards to Generate Leads and Website Traffic

When compared to traditional letter invitations, postcards aren’t the best choice to promote seminars. However, what they can provide is a cost-effective way to generate website traffic and additional leads if done effectively.

Here are a few tips to consider before you start your next direct mail campaign with postcards:  

·        Use the right list: The first and most important step is to find and work with an experienced and credible list broker. Make sure the addresses are up-to-date (no more than 60 days since the last update) and have been run through the National Change of Address (NCOA) system. You will have the choice of renting the list for one-time use or multiple use. If you know your market well (and the zip codes of your market) and you’re going to mail postcards consistently for 6 months or more, you should buy the list for multiple use.

·        Personalize: Be sure to work with a printing company that can personalize the first name of person on the mailing list on every card. This is above and beyond just the address block.

·        Get right to the point:  Postcards get delivered in a format that's ready to read. Take advantage of this by making the biggest benefit you offer the first thing the reader sees. This will make them want to read the rest of your postcard. (Example: “John, are you retired or retiring soon? You have options!”)

·        Sell the right thing: Marketing postcards are most effective when they are used to generate website traffic or interest. (Example: “Call me today for a free retirement planning consultation and receive a copy of my free report.”)

·        Make it easy to respond: Be sure your company phone number and website address are both easy to read and find on the postcard. And, because most people get their mail after they get home from work, you should consider getting an after-hours answering service. People prefer talking to another person – not a machine – so if you’re going to invest in postcard marketing, invest in a live 24-hour phone answering service to capture your leads.

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360