Maximizing Your Fulfillment and Collateral Pieces

Here are some simple ideas, when applicable, for print and electronic fulfillment that helps encourage sales and customer lifetime value:

1. Personal Welcome or Thank You letter Catalog (whether it's for newsletters, products, or services. It could highlight all products OR current top sellers).


2. Cross-marketing flyer (a flyer highlighting a current hot product OR a natural, synergistic up-sell from the product ordered).


3. Coupon or special discount offer (or if electronic, coupon/promo code for online ordering).


4. Free sample (Women may remember Avon used to include tiny little lipsticks or perfume with their order. This approach is similar, could be a small, economy/sample size product OR bonus report or download access. Customers love, love, love freebies!).


5. Renewal (in publishing, this is called "renewal at birth". If you're selling a subscription service, include a renewal order form with your first issue).


6. Friends and family savings (another coupon for customer to pass on to friends or family. This encourages viral/word of mouth marketing).


7. Packing slip with product return label/instructions

As most marketers know, the first 0-30 days is when a client is red hot. Don't leave them cold. Leverage this time frame with your correspondence and turn your fulfillment pieces into another way to monetize sales and relationship build with your customers.

Ain't technology great?...

A little video that I think shows great outside of the box thinking. Just goes to show that expanding capabilities and increasing customer base just takes some creative thinking. QR codes and shaping the future...



Until next time,
Jeremy

Why a Blog (Still) Matters in Marketing

B2B marketers have more ways than ever to publish and share marketing content. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Slideshare, and Scribd are just some of the venues for disseminating your content to prospects and customers. With all of the options now available, it can be tempting to think that blogging is no longer important to your marketing efforts.

That's a mistake. A blog can still be a highly effective marketing tool. In the 2011 State of Inbound Marketing survey by HubSpot:

• 57% of companies that publish a blog said that they have acquired new customers from blog-generated leads
• 62% of companies with a blog said that it is "critical" or "important" to their business

Here are just a few of the benefits that a blog provides:

• A blog is an ideal vehicle for providing your prospects with bite-size pieces of your marketing content. Today's business buyers are incredibly busy, and many prefer content that can be consumed quickly. This can be particularly important when you are dealing with prospects who don't know you well. A blog provides a way for them to try out your content without investing a lot of their time.
• A blog is one of the best ways to improve your company's position in organic search. Google and other search engines place a big emphasis on how frequently content is updated. So, if you post to your blog regularly, you can improve your search results.
• Your blog can be used to point prospects to more substantial marketing content. For example, you can use a blog post to summarize a topic covered in one of your white papers and include a link to the paper in your post.
• Your blog can function as a hub for your content marketing effort. For example, when you publish a new blog post, you can use LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to point to the post.

The catch is that just having a blog isn't enough. To reap the most benefits from your blog, you need to post new content on a frequent basis. The HubSpot survey shows that 72% of companies that post weekly have acquired new customers through their blog. That number increases to 78% for companies that post daily, but it falls to only 49% for companies that post monthly.

Posting on a weekly basis can be challenging for many companies, but there are a couple of ways to deal with the challenge. First, you can outsource some or all of the blog writing duties.  In this scenario, blog posts are prepared by an outside writer, but they are published under your "byline." The second approach is to use "guest bloggers" to write some of the posts for your blog. This approach can be effective, so long as it isn't overused. After all, one primary objective of your blog is to demonstrate your expertise, not someone else's.

Victims of Marketing

The In Flanders Fields museum in Ypres, Belgium, is a stark reminder of the folly of war. The unmistakable message one comes away with is that war is tragic; war is a mistake. One we should not repeat. Yet, as I emerged from the museum’s somber lighting and thought-provoking exhibits into the afternoon sunshine, it was hard not to think of the number of times the mistake has been repeated

Marketing Collateral Remains Critical (But Buyers' Preferences are Changing)

Earlier this month, Eccolo Media released its 2011 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report. This survey focused on business buyers who had been involved in a recent purchase of business technology, and it was designed to measure the use and influence of five types of marketing collateral.

• Product brochures/data sheets
• White papers
• Customer case studies
• Podcasts/audio files
• Videos/multimedia files

This survey was limited to technology buyers, so the results may not reflect the attitudes and practices of all B2B buyers. On the other hand, it's probably fair to say that technology buyers as a group tend to be "early adopters" of new communications methods. Therefore, the findings of this survey may provide a good early indication of how other kinds of B2B buyers will use and value marketing collateral in the near future.  You can obtain a copy of the survey here, and I encourage you to review it.

The 2011 survey revealed a surprising shift in the consumption of some types of marketing collateral, so surprising that Eccolo Media conducted a follow-up survey to gain additional insights. (Note:  Eccolo Media has conducted this survey since 2008, so year-to-year comparisons can be made.) I'll describe the change in consumption patterns, but first here are some of the major survey findings.

• Product brochures/data sheets are the most widely consumed type of marketing collateral, followed (in order) by white papers, video/multimedia files, case studies, and podcasts/audio files.
• Marketing collateral continues to have a major influence on purchase decisions.  At least 61% of survey respondents said that all five types of collateral were "very" or "extremely" influential.
• White papers remain the most influential type of marketing collateral.

The surprise in the survey was a significant drop in the consumption of some types of marketing collateral. Compared to 2010, the consumption of customer case studies fell 17 percentage points, white papers declined 14 percentage points, and product brochures/data sheets decreased 11 percentage points.

These results do not mean that case studies, white papers, and product brochures are becoming less critical to effective marketing. The follow-up survey conducted by Eccolo Media addressed five additional types of marketing collateral - company Web pages, social media sites, blog posts, e-books, and presentations. It showed that buyers are using all of the "new" types of content to research business issues and learn about products and services.

So, what's happening is that companies are offering marketing content in a wider variety of formats, and buyers are taking advantage of the expanded options to consume content in the format they prefer.

The results of these surveys contain three important lessons for B2B marketers.

• Informative, valuable, and compelling marketing content is more critical than ever for successful B2B marketing.
• The number of content formats available to companies is increasing, and many of the newer formats are attractive to potential buyers.
• It's becoming important to deliver the same basic content message in a variety of content formats. For example, B2B buyers view white papers as highly influential because they present valuable information in a objective, non-promotional way. This type of information is still essential for marketing success, but it's now important to embody that information in Webinars/Webcasts, podcasts, and presentations, as well as in white papers.

A back-handed compliment to the power of marketing

Does Marketing serve existing consumer needs, or does it
create them?





Sooner or later, a version of this question inevitably pops up
when you’re trying to explain marketing to the general public.



One response to the question is to dismiss it with another:
why does it matter? As long as marketing
influences consumer behavior, should it matter whether it serves pre-existing
needs or

Print...extinct or existential?

In this day and age with the technology and advancement of web, email and social media we can reach thousands of viewers instantly with whatever digital venue we choose. We all know that you can have a campaign up and running instantly with literally with a click of a button and 1/4th of the budget.

This topic has been talked about alot in my tenure as a graphic professional so I am not digging up anything new. But the reality is - the print industry has changed. Am I saying that I think it is totally going away or that print is dying? Absolutely not... But just in the last 3-5 years I have seen a dramatic shift in print requests and direct mail campaigns.

Another strike against the print industry is the added concerns for the environment: recycling, chemical disposal and overall waste. Most printers do their best to meet eco-friendly guidelines but there is still the extra cost and work to comply with the "green" movement.

I am kind of bummed by all of this because I think print is still an effective and very creative vehicle for getting a message out. There is still something special about getting a really cool direct mail piece in your mailbox, or visiting a dealership and bringing home a glossy brochure of your favorite car. Who doesn't remember flipping through the Christmas toy catalog and bookmarking the things you dreamed to have. Even as a designer I find myself hoarding paper sample books because I think they are cool.

Look at the effectiveness of print this way:
How many emails do you trash not even looking at them because you consider it spam or junk mail or that don't even make it to your inbox due to spam filters? On the other hand... How many high quality printed snail mail pieces do you toss without giving them a once over to a least see the message or craftsmanship on their way to the trash? I know my answer to this...print is generally more effective in comparison.

Overall I think the internet is a tremendous tool, however, print is still much needed. A downloadable PDF isn't going to replace a beautiful brochure, printed on high quality paper (might cost less but not as effective). Consumer products still require packaging. Stores will always need point of sale displays. Retail still needs shopping bags, tags, and promotional items. Restaurants still need menus. Business cards, letterhead and envelopes remain necessary elements for every business. People still read textbooks and novels.

Bottom line: Print is here to stay (that is, until we find a way to market telepathically). Let us help you figure out how best to leverage both print and digital medias to maximize your message. Sometimes you need both, and other times one more than the other, but lets face reality, print is always going to be part of the equation.

Until next time,
Jeremy