Having a bit more free time these days, and a major reduction in discretionary household budget, I have taken this marketing offer to task.  I am shopping and comparing.  I see low-pricing offers in my mail-box, on business walls, and comparisons of pricing in news articles offering ideas on ways to save money in today's economy. 

...By switching my grocery store I can save my family up to $1,000 per year.  By dumping my phone provider I can save another big pile of cash...

The alarm has been sounded for direct marketers to be aware. Consumers such as myself are actually taking the time to tote the weekly shopping list around to various retailers and compare who can stretch our dollars the farthest.

My personal experiment in comparison shopping over the past few months has yielded some surprising results.  Results that may be helpful to consider in your counter-messaging as you go about the business of direct marketing communications.

I found that I was already a pretty savvy shopper when it comes to the basics.  And, that the businesses I rely on to provide my necessities are doing a pretty good job.  In the end, I've changed nothing about the basics and just trimmed the goodies.  Guess I would have already found alternatives if that wasn't the case.  Good for me!  Is this good for you? 

If your organization provides services to direct marketers, such as printing or mail marketing, or you are a direct marketer providing services such as email marketing for your clients, my thought is that you should consider how you are doing with the basics.  By simply offering your clients an evaluation of the services you provide that enable their direct marketing efforts to be conducted in the most efficient way possible you may be able to keep your customers from shopping around.  This will save them time and money, and actually strenghten your relationships in the process.

Some customers and clients will shop around no matter how great your story is.  There's no stopping that.  But, really, do we want to pay $20 for a block of cheese just to save a buck on chicken nuggets?  I can do without the nuggets and get my cheddar for half the price at my usual store, without driving from shop to shop for each and every item I need.

So, how do your direct marketing efforts speak to how well you provide the basics?  Your clients may drift for a moment, but if your services and marketing remind them of all the reasons to come back to you, they won't forget you while off looking for cheaper tennis shoes, or paper, or internet marketing services... 

As direct marketers and client organizations cut the frills, it's the quality of necessities left behind that will count.  So, if you've got a great core competency make sure your customers know and are taking advantage of all you have to offer when they go shopping around.  They'll be back for your cheese if it's good!

The Seattle Direct Marketing Association's annual conference, Market to the Max 2009, was a huge success.  Again.

With 250 attendees and 15 corporate sponsors, the event proved to be a very useful networking tool for direct marketers in Seattle, as well as an important learning opportunity.

This year's session line-up was very heavy with Internet marketing content, including sessions on "The future of search engine optimization", "Winning in the blogosphere", and "Making the financial case for email marketing."  Speakers represented nationallly known direct marketing experts such as Google, eMarketer and Microsoft, as well as many local internet marketing heros, including DNA Brand Mechanics, Ascentium, Wongdoody, Point It, and many more.

In fact, the tech-heavy schedule had some attendees asking, "where's the direct mail?"  Doesn't anyone print anything anymore? 

To this point, the SDMA is conversing about the schedule of upcoming direct marketing events.  We regularly solicit feedback from members and event attendees in order to craft a compelling schedule of direct marketing events that Seattle marketing pros are thinking about, and want to invest their time in learning more about.  Lately it seems that that Internet marketing and email marketing top the charts of many people's needs. Got an opinion about what you would like to see on the schedule for future direct marketing events?  Visit our website and go to the "Contact" page for all of our email contacts. Let us know what you are thinking.

Thanks to everyone who attended Market to the Max this year, and to all of our sponsors for making the event possible.  Also, a big congratulations to the Seattle Sounders FC for a succesful opening season.  We all enjoyed hearing from Adrian Hanauer, owner of the team, at the MttM lunchtime presentation.

If you missed all this fun and want to make sure to get in on this direct marketing event next year, be sure and sign-up for SDMA email newsletters (link on our web site) to keep up-to-date on this and other direct marketing and networking events we host monthly.

Back to school.  Back to work.  Back to internet marketing.

 

The Seattle Direct Marketing Association is kicking off the 2008 season of networking and educational events with a topic of great importance to all direct marketers- Search Advertising. 

 

We expect James Colborn, of Microsoft, to deliver an insightful presentation for direct and internet marketers who are either buying or selling advertising in the search marketing space.  Colborn develops the go-to market communications strategies for Microsoft Advertising, and probably has an insider’s tip, or two, of value to share with us.   

 

Would you like to know where industry insiders think the search advertising market is heading? Need to get a feel for how your search advertising budget compares to your competitors? How about a general boost to your internet marketing plans? Well, then you need to come to this event. 

 

As usual, there will be time for networking before the dinner and presentation.  This is a great chance to catch-up with colleagues you may have missed over the summer and to network with other direct marketers in the Seattle area. 

 

The Search Advertising event is Wednesday, September 10^th, from 5:30 to 8:15 PM.  Networking starts before the event, and Mr. Colborn will end the evening with a Q & A session. (So, bring notes about the search advertising questions your marketing organization is facing, as you may be awe struck and forget what you wanted to know! Like visiting the doctor.) 

 

The event will be in downtown Seattle at the beautiful Hotel 1000.  As of today registration is still available, but some events do sell-out, so be sure and sign-up today.

 

More information and a registration link available here.

 

 

I enjoy receiving email marketing, but as a marketer, I’m not really normal.  I like to analyze the subject lines in my Hotmail and give them ratings, and peruse them for any indication of today’s social or political climate. You can learn a lot about what’s going on by the email marketing you receive. For instance, if you always forget about Mother’s Day or Election Day, just sign up for a lot of email newsletters, and you’ll get plenty of reminders about important upcoming holidays and spending opportunities.

 

When there are few “natural” reasons to communicate with subscribers, direct marketers have to generate other reasons to send intriguing email marketing.  And, when this is done on a regular schedule, it can grow challenging to the creative mind.  Recently I received an email from 24-Hour Fitness that I thought was quite clever. (No, not the “take your mom to the gym for a free workout” one.  That, not such a hot idea!) The one I liked was the “24 years. 12 million lives.” campaign.

 

It is mathematically pleasing, with tying in the name of the company to the years, and then having a nice, round half-value for the second part. So, I clicked to see what this more subtle than usual sales pitch would be.

 

As a marketer, I found it interesting that their email campaign is driving visitors to their own “social media” site, where users can read inspiring stories, enter their own stories, and comment on others’ stories. 

 

There is a smattering of regular guy testimonials mixed in with a few super star athletes, in case we were to forget that it’s a big-budget Internet marketing campaign. The writing is also a mix of professional marketers as well as comments that I can only guess are being made by the real users. Or, very clever marketers disguising their persuasive abilities in bad grammar, punctuation, and notes about how hot one particular lady is in her jogging picture.

 

The first time I visited the site, the links were a bit buggy, with many of the home page stories going to error messages, but that appears to be fixed. One other non-user friendly programming issue is the links to the user profiles.  They take readers to a truncated version of the story, without indicating that it is not the real story, which makes the writing just look bad. If you are not persistent enough to keep clicking around, you may never see the actual story, and most consumers will not wallow in our direct marketing propaganda for long. No matter how ingenious the design team believes it is.

 

Overall, I give one check in the plus column for a good use of combined email and Internet marketing for this direct marketing giant.  Maybe I’ll check on FaceBook to see if they have a group there, and see how seriously social these guys really are!

Click here to see for yourself   

 

At a recent Seattle Direct Marketing Association networking and learning event, representatives of the Parnassus Group presented on how to use social media in your Internet marketing mix. One of the topics they covered was how to monitor your organization’s coverage in the vast, vast Blogosphere. 

 

Due to a technical snag, attendees at the event weren’t able to view this part of the presentation.  But, our friends in marketing at Parnassus have created a quickie tutorial that can be viewed at their web site.

 

If you are a direct mail or email marketer, or any other kind of communications manager, and are not monitoring the Blogosphere because it seems too complicated, then this is good new for you!

 

These are easy-to-follow directions that can get you set-up to monitor any direct marketing (or other) news you want to follow in just a few minutes:

 

<http://parnassusgroup.com/2008/03/monitoring-the-blogosphere-with-google-reader-a-follow-up-to-the-sdma-presentation/>

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