OK…it’s about time I send you something that’s about direct marketing…no more woo woo stuff! 🙂
Here’s my beef: I cringe every time I attend a conference and I hear folks describe themselves as “Internet Marketers.”
Why would anyone want to define themselves by a “channel” rather than look at themselves as a solution using as many different and appropriate marketing and media channels?
My quote for this week is one that conveys a concept that can exponentially change direct marketing as we know it…and of course I am making the assumption that all marketing that I will ever be talking about is “direct…”
“…O-to-O-to O…Where the life cycle of the customer engagement can start in either galaxy, online or offline, be directed to the alternate, and then pulled back to the original touch point”
-Pat McGrew, Hewlett Packard
I believe that our ability to combine the technology available to us today with the fundamentals of direct marketing and direct response learned over decades of testing, makes “right now” the most exciting time to be a marketer…ever.
Examples: Bringing a highly qualified buyer or prospect from a direct mail piece or a print ad into an online funnel will certainly create higher lifetime value customers; or using direct mail on the back end of a winning offer from e-mail or the web to create more intimacy and value with those customers…and sell more too.
And don’t forget about direct response television, space advertising or inbound and outbound telemarketing to weave in and out of different kinds of offers…whether they start online or offline.
I own two URL’s that I know will come in handy soon:
OnlineOfflineDirect.com and ItsAllDirectMarketing.com…
Single channel marketing is just so boring…
Warmly,
Brian