Measure Up!

The Marketing Discipline

By Barb Pellow, InfoTrends

Every year, the CMO Council surveys its members to understand the trends in strategic marketing progress and performance, the marketing plans of influential organizations, and the priorities and intentions of industry leaders. One of the key messages is that marketing is no longer art, intuition, or “gut feeling.” It is a rigorous discipline that will continue to evolve in the face of new media alternatives. In this new era of marketing, marketers are placing emphasis on developing a deep understanding of the specific tactics that drive measurable business results.

The CMO Council’s 2010 report highlighted a heavy emphasis on alignment with sales and the generation/delivery of qualified leads. While building a brand continues to be important, it is secondary to selling products and services. This means that cross-media service providers must have robust real-time campaign measurement and metrics that continually monitor the effectiveness of print, e-mail, text, and social media campaigns.

Proven Direct… Delivering Results

Background

Proven Direct is a marketing services company focused on delivering the services that help transform a marketing initiative into true business results. Founded in 1997 as a lettershop, this company currently employs more than 50 people and has revenues in excess of $8 million. Proven Direct has two divisions:

·         Proven Pictures is a leading supplier of wholesale books, greeting cards, and calendars to the professional and consumer markets

·         Proven Direct integrates databases, digital printing, and online marketing best practices to deliver dynamic customized campaigns

According to David Hess, the company’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, “Marketing is like a puzzle. You must have all the right pieces in place for it to work. For most businesses, this means juggling a variety of outside vendors, such as ad agencies, printers, lettershops, and consultants. The trouble is that all of these companies consist of different people with different ideas, different schedules, and different skill sets. Proven Direct worked to assemble all the essential pieces of the marketing puzzle under one roof. Our customers work with one contact and one schedule to efficiently and effectively go from strategy to creative to production to response tracking.”

Creating Effective Marketing Campaigns

Proven Direct’s approach to creating effective campaigns starts with a clear understanding of the target audience and the goals that the client wants to achieve. The company works with its client base by asking a key set of questions about the target audience, including:

·         What motivates your target market?

·         What do you know about them?

·         What do you wish you knew about them?

·         Can you provide an evaluation of historical initiatives and results (what worked and what didn’t)?

Hess also works with his clients to establish clear and measurable goals. He explains, “You need to understand how the customer defines success and how you are going to measure it.”

Service providers must have the right tools in place to increase response rates and optimize tracking. Proven Direct combines data, analytics, analysis, and dynamic response mechanisms in the development of campaigns and tracks each and every aspect. “There are no magic bullets,” Hess noted. “Marketing is a business process that requires tracking, measuring, and adjusting.”

Dianna Bisswurm, a Proven Direct client and Director of Industry Outreach at ISSA (The Worldwide Cleaning Association), stated, “A multi-channel approach works. We conduct one of the top tradeshows for our industry. 2009 was a challenging year for events of all types. We had a series of goals for the event and the most pressing was to ensure that attendance didn’t drop more than 15%.”

In addition to maintaining attendance, ISSA wanted to move show registration online, track registration statistics, and start making the move into social media. The campaign effectively blended direct mail, online communications, and social media. Key elements included:

·         Postcard direct mailers with personalized URLs

·         Letters to key executives

·         A series of three e-mail blasts

·         A microsite with topical tips from speakers

·         Social media from the show floor

·         Comprehensive campaign analysis

Figure 1: ISSA’s E-Mail Communication

Figure 2: ISSA’s Postcard Mailer

Figure 3: ISSA’s Welcome PURL Page

“It’s all about meeting business objectives,” Bisswurm said. “The 2009 show had normal attendance in bad economic times. We even saw a boost in first-time visitors. One out of five registration page visitors registered for the event.”

Even more importantly, ISSA is leveraging this experience as it moves forward through 2010. The association is communicating that in 2010, the ISSA show is “all about you” and is engaging prospective attendees early.

Figure 4: ISSA Communications for 2010 Event

ISSA is conducting personalized URL surveys to query attendees on show preferences and desired speakers. 2010 e-mail communications will vary based on interests, as will links to the ISSA Website. The organization will continue to touch non-respondents to engage them in a dialogue to drive improved participation.

The Bottom Line

Marketing has become more than branding and producing good brochure copies. It is now a results-oriented discipline that will continue to evolve. Strategies and techniques that worked in the past will continue to be important, but they won’t be sufficient for marketers or print service providers. To achieve the mandate of delivering measurable business results, marketers must invest in new approaches. Successful service providers will develop or build partnerships to deliver a portfolio of services like Proven Direct. I recommend taking a few minutes to read the Executive Summary of the CMO Council’s 2010 report so you can assess how you can fit into the 2010 marketing value chain!