Data-Driven Marketing Power Drained by Basic Mistakes

Data-driven strategy is an ideal that many marketers, especially in the B2B world, have not fully mastered. For example, a 2015 survey of marketing professionals by Ascend2 and ZoomInfo found that only 33% of respondents called their data-driven marketing strategy “very successful.” The good news is that just 10% said their data strategy was somewhat or very unsuccessful. Still that leaves a lot of room for improvement! What's preventing marketers from maximizing data success? In a recent martechadvisor.com post, Hila Nir, vice president of marketing and product at ZoomInfo, cited the three most common mistakes sapping data-driven marketing potential, with a focus on business-to-business marketing. No. 1 is wastefully "throwing the net too wide" and hauling in confusion. While there is a mass of multi-channel data you can gather and analyze, only some data and patterns are relevant to marketing success. So where do you start? Nir advises going to the foundation of the customer relationship--the actual customer contact--and building from there. The No. 2 error is failing to frequently refresh customer and prospect data. Data value erodes over time as basics such as mailing address, job title, phone number and e-mail change. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that stores lots of outdated legacy data can make the problem worse. And maintaining data quality is a big job that only grows with the size of the database. That's why 79% of the most successful data-driven marketers in the survey said they outsourced some portion of data management. Finally, mistake No. 3 is simply failing to take full advantage of customer and prospect data to improve cost-effectiveness and ROI. Trying to find a path through the data weeds to ideal customer targeting can certainly be daunting and strain internal resources--which is also why many successful B2B marketing efforts turn to consultants for database analysis. Needless to say, DBM Designs is among the data service partners who stand ready to assist! For the full article, go to http://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/audience-market-data/3-mistakes-that-kill-any-datadriven-marketing-strategy/

Personalization Driven by Bad Data Ends Up Crashing

Personalization is a fundamental necessity for direct marketing response today. So why do personalization efforts still flop? It's usually a data problem. A recent post by Spider Graham for bizjournals.com highlighted five common personalization mistakes and illustrates our point. First, pretending to know a recipient when the marketer clearly has nothing more than a name is a response killer. True personalization is about crafting message, offer and value proposition based on understanding the target and his or her needs--which requires recent, multifaceted, quality data. On the other hand, getting the name right is still the first, most basic requirement. Using the wrong name or a misspelled name is a data sin, but even using the wrong version of a name can backfire, especially with opt-in e-mail or telemarketing, Graham points out. Spam suspicions rise when someone who always subscribes as Bob is addressed as Robert. That's why it's important to consider list data sourcing when personalizing, especially in terms of hygiene and rented versus house quality. Third, Graham reminds that marketers are chasing moving targets; many attributes, from address to relationship with a brand, change over time. Good personalization relies on up-to-date data about multiple demographic factors and purchase patterns. A promo for stuffed toys to a household where all kids are grown and gone stirs up nostalgia not dollars. Fourth, don't lie and imply a relationship that doesn't exist based on a one-time visit or query, warns Graham, or "come back" and "we miss you" will not only alienate but waste an opportunity to start a new relationship. Finally, check your basic data quality! Dedupe, normalize, update and watch for missing data fields as well as faulty fill logic so you don't end up with "Dear FirstName" or "We miss you, N/A." The good news is that the worst personalization errors can be avoided by committing to smart data hygiene, logic and processing. See the complete article: http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/marketing/2016/06/5-personalization-mistakes-marketers-make.html

Fundraising Letter Fall Flat? Check for These Mistakes

Nonprofits around the country are starting to gear up for year-end fundraising campaigns, and that means scrutinizing any disappointing direct mail results from last year for areas to correct. We can help them analyze response by list, segment and package, but when it comes to marketing copy missteps, we'll pass along the advice of Joanne Fritz, nonprofit charitable orgs expert for about.com. In her June online post, "8 Things You Should Never Do in a Fundraising Letter," Fritz starts with a fundamental error that our mailing data services can help nonprofit clients avoid: lack of personalization or faulty personalization. It's hard to say which is worse in the eyes of a donor, an impersonal "Dear Friend," using the wrong name or misspelling a name! Fritz also notes various copy and design flaws that can make the mailing so difficult to get through that potential donors toss it. For example, a mail package overwhelmed by inserts can confuse recipients into inaction. Appeals can sink under the weight of fancy vocabulary, too; the most effective promotions are written at the 4th-6th grade level, say experts. Hard-to-read design elements--such as reverse-out type or small fonts--can frustrate others, especially older recipients. And remember that urgency drives action. If you don't want donors to set aside your appeal and forget it, stress that you need a donation now and what will happen to needy people, animals or causes if those funds don't come. As added incentive, offer to match their gift if they act right away. Fritz provides links to real-life effective mailings as examples of how to succeed with simple yet emotionally resonant appeals. For more of Fritz's fundraising letter taboos, read http://nonprofit.about.com/od/fundraisingbasics/fl/8-Reasons-I-Did-Not-Respond-to-Your-Fundraising-Letter.htm

Retail Leaders Still Count on Mailings to Deliver Sales

Any retailer hesitating over the role of direct mail in their marketing mix should read a recent Entrepreneur magazine article that spotlights how much today's retail leaders count on physical mailings for sales success. For example, Costco, which sends 8.6 million magazines per month, reports that 56% of members who receive the magazine buy something based on what they read in it, according to article author Shaun Buck, CEO of The Newsletter Pro. Costco did consider dropping the print version in favor of a digital version to cut costs during the Great Recession--until it found affluent members overwhelmingly preferred a print edition. It's no surprise Costco now projects print circulation growth for the foreseeable future. Williams-Sonoma, parent brand to seven companies including Pottery Barn and West Elm, also considers catalogs "a very, very important part of the marketing strategy,” and 50% of the company’s marketing budget is spent on catalogs each year. Online men's retailer Bonobos, which only entered mailed catalog marketing in 2013, now sees more than 20% of its website’s first-time customers placing orders because they received a catalog in the mail--and spending 1.5 times as much as first-time buyers who did not receive a catalog. Author Buck adds that when The Newsletter Pro is late with its own print newsletter, phone consultations with prospective new customers drop by 25% to 33%! For the complete article, read https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/275303

Are Duplicate Fields Hurting Your Database Marketing?

A basic requirement of cost-effective direct marketing is elimination of duplicates, meaning multiple database records for the same person or company account. But marketers today need to watch out for another, trickier duplication challenge: duplicate data fields. Expanding use of multi-channel, multi-sourced data fuels the problem. The same prospect or customer record is often enriched by data from different online and offline sources--data appending services, lead-gen services, list rentals, predictive and lead scoring services, e-mail validation services, call center entries, online ad and social platforms, events, and so on. The marketer may intend to validate, update and unify this data, but efforts are delayed or incomplete for whatever reason. Then the marketer gets ready to launch a campaign and discovers many contact records have two job titles or four industry codes or three e-mail addresses. If the data entries are not clearly dated and sourced, the marketing team has no clue which data are the most up-to-date, accurate and appropriate for targeted promotion! We were pleased to see a recent MarketingProfs article by Ed King, CEO of the data automation firm Openprise, offer cogent advice on avoiding this costly problem. Obviously, marketers should first strive to unify field content promptly while the data is fresh. If data unification must be delayed, new data should be labeled by its source and age for use in future data consolidation decisions. Whether field data unification is immediate or delayed, the marketing team needs to agree on a data-unification logic. King advises that this logic should be based on at least three key factors: source authority (giving priority to trusted data sources); source focus (preferring sources more aligned/specialized for the marketer's industry/target); and age of data (for example, in B2B, more recent contact name or company size is likely to be more accurate). Consistency and scalability are the goals; ad hoc, manual record decisions are not only less efficient but less likely to yield optimal overall results. While unifying data in fields, the database process should also normalize data so formatting and coding are consistent. Plus, a smart database effort can remap field content for better targeting. King provides the example of consolidating 2,000 industry codes into 10 custom definitions that better fit market targets. For the whole article, see http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2016/30069/your-duplicate-data-problem-has-an-evil-twin-that-is-much-worse-duplicate-fields?adref=nlt060816

Pairing Mail and Digital Can Max Marketing Power

Digital marketing and traditional direct mail marketing often seem to run on parallel but separate tracks. However, several recent articles show why an intersection of online and offline is a more desirable destination for marketers. Consider a Forbes magazine article by Jenna Gross, CMO of the national direct marketing agency Moving Targets, who explains how her agency combines digital marketing with direct mail to deliver a powerful one-two marketing punch. In her June 1 piece, Gross describes how her agency pairs all direct mail campaigns with digital advertising, using the identical demographic and behavioral data, and leveraging e-mail marketing to boot. As a result "prospects see an ad in their mailbox, inbox and social media feed." Using such "cross-media tactics produces an exponentially better response rate, typically 25% or higher than direct mail alone, based on my agency’s findings," Gross says. Meanwhile, a MarketingLand.com post by Lewis Gersh, a leader in retargeting and e-commerce, argues that the marriage of digital and direct mail is also an ideal way to deal with the tough problem of cart abandonment and lost digital conversions. Currently, digital marketers spend 10% to 50% of budgets on retargeting efforts, he points out, yet many fail to capture attention in the noisy digital landscape, or fail to even reach the growing number of customers who resort to ad blocking and unsubscribes to escape the digital marketing onslaught. In contrast, direct mail has the advantage of guaranteed arrival and attention as a physical, tangible presence in the home of consumers, where it can be saved and referenced in future and also can be seen by people other than the intended recipient, which is rare for digital media, Gersh points out. So, leverage digital and direct mail advantages to solve the retargeting challenge, he urges: Apply digital's valuable real-time, intent-driven data to direct mail, transforming online activity into mailing of a highly relevant piece that retargets a known site visitor. To read the full Forbes article, http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2016/06/01/how-to-deliver-a-one-two-punch-combining-direct-mail-with-digital-marketing-tactics/#7216e69f4342

How Direct Mail Joins in Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is a strategy that sometimes has more buzz than sting, embraced by 88% of B2B marketers but with only 30% saying they are effective at it, per a 2016 MarketingProfs/Content Marketing Institute survey. But more than half of B2B marketers are planning to increase their budgets for content marketing, with a focus on digital delivery for social media content, case studies, blogs, e-letters, website articles, videos, white paper downloads, infographics, webinars, etc. Direct mail is notable by its absence. Yet we think it's a mistake to assume that mail can't fit into a content-oriented pull strategy to build leads and sales. The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as "a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience--with the objective of driving profitable customer action." That certainly works with direct mail, too. In fact, a recent business2community.com post by Yvonne Lyons, Right Source vice president of content marketing, cited five reasons to include direct mail as a content marketing tactic: 1) the unique ability of print to engage via design, dimension, and sensual appeal (color, texture, and even sound and scent); 2) targeting with mailing list selection and segmentation that is unmatched digitally; 3) trackable response devices; 4) integration with digital content via PURLs, QR and AR; 5) and high response rates--3.7% for a house list and 1% for a prospect list, compared to 0.62% for all digital channels combined. More specifically, Paul Bobnak, director of Who's Mailing What!, offers some great examples of mailers delivering content marketing's "valuable and relevant content for the defined audience," such as Williams-Sonoma and Trade Joe's. See his presentation at http://www.piworld.com/xchange/dm-spotlight/content-marketing-direct-mail/