Name that Tune!

List brokers are singing the blues. Competition is vicious; rental volume, blamed variously on the weak economy, jittery clients and postal increases is down; prices—which do seem to obey certain inviolate economic laws are down; ultimately commissions—the lifeblood of list brokers and managers—are down.

All in all, it's truly a downer. In years of being in direct marketing, I have never seen so many emails from list mavens desperately hawking lists, offering to make free recommendations, or to put lists "on sale" to get my order.

As striking as the situation appears to be, the pain is not felt evenly across the list rental market. Specialty subsets within the larger list industry are faring better or worse than their peers. Here's a quick view of what's what, according to information just released by Worldata, one of the largest list brokerages in the world.

Attendees/Members, Public Sector and Donor files are the only categories of lists that have increased in price since 2006. They have seen increases of $16/M ($16 per thousand records), $12/M and $2/M respectively.

Donor files remain the lowest priced list category, with an average rental price of $85/M.

Permission-based email lists have gone from $290/M in 2005 up to a high of $299/M in 2008, dropping slowly to their current average rate of $269/M. Even with the drop in price, this category of list remains the most expensive domestic category.

Permission-based consumer email lists fell 49% in cost over the past 5 years. Why? The market is oversaturated. Too much supply; too little demand.

Permission-based international email lists have remained stable, with a continued average price of a whopping $407/M.

Permission-based Business-to-Consumer email category saw the largest price decrease year over year, plummeting 20.54% since 2006 to today's $89/M.

The highest percentage increase was in the Attendees/Members list category which saw a very modest 1.54% increase in price year over year.

So what does this mean to a list broker? Simply put, it means pain. Intense economic pain. List brokers are desperately looking for ways to differentiate their lists from the pack, even as margins get tighter, the rental market shrinks, and competition gets increasingly fierce. Times are bleak.

What does this mean to you, a list user? It means you may have just gotten lucky. Most list brokers are hungry. They are willing to reduce costs, accept lower minimum rentals, multiple use for a one-time use fee, or strike other deals with you to get the sale.

But those deals still do not include turning over lucrative opt-in email lists to the end-user. It's a line the legitimate list brokers/managers/owners are not prepared to cross.

Times are undoubtedly tough in the list industry. As a list user, you can expect brokerage consolidation soon. Expect to see marginally performing lists disappear off the rental market. Expect new selects that will help you dig down to find exactly the right people for your project. Expect new "hidden fees" for "special services" to emerge. And expect prices to keep moving around.

On a less upbeat note, you can expect a plethora of fly-by-night operators who offer a terrific-sounding product for an amazingly low price. If the offering price seems too good to be true, (I've seen offers of 100,000 records with full postal and email information for $99!), then it probably isn't true. Walk away. Don't let opportunistic predators into your wallet.

The list industry is in a bit of an upheaval right now. "Hard Times" to be exact. And that's the name of that tune.

In email, your timing is everything.

In real estate, they'll tell you that success is based on only three factors: location, location, and location. It's a simple formula, and it works every time.

But you are in marketing, not real estate. And you're looking for ideas that work.

Maybe you've thought about using emails to promote your business or service. And you should be! It's fast. It's inexpensive. It's a foundation of multi-channel marketing.

But you don't want to deploy the emails yourself because you've heard that the all-powerful ISPs could decide you are a Dreaded Spammer, and then they could yank your email privileges. That would be not good, no sirree.

On the other hand, you've read that the Marketing Sherpas say for every $1 spent on email advertising you should get $43 back in sales. Sounds good. Maybe even Great! But if you don't reach that level, are you a failure? What does it take to get to that level?

Maybe you should stick with the gal what brung ya—traditional print advertising and direct mail. Maybe you should sit this one out until you have a clearer view of what to do and where to go. Maybe you need a team of expensive twenty-somethings who were born with computer mice in their grubby little hands to help you. That's when panic and doubt set in.

Whoa, pardner! Stop a moment. Take a deep breath.

You're in marketing, right? By now you should know that there is no such thing as magic fairy dust. One person's magic fairy dust is another person's dust allergy. You need to test, record and analyze.

Timing is to email what location is to real estate. Your job as a marketer is to find the optimal time of day and day of the week to deploy your email.

So what is your "Optimal Time?" Unless you've tested, you simply don't know.

Obviously, you have to consider when your audience would be most receptive. A pizza company should do well on a Friday or Saturday night, or before the big TV football game. But a company promoting motorcycle gear might do better on a Saturday morning when people are thinking about taking a ride.

Sometimes testing leads to non-intuitive results. Poolawg.com, a Colorado-based retailer of billiard supplies, tested emails every day of the week and several times during the day. After extensive analysis, they found that late Tuesday mornings worked best for them. Their open rates soared 200% and their conversion and click-through rates tripled. Michael Feiman, president, explains "Customers are far more likely to open an email if they are already online."

However, Pittsburgh-based nonprofit SponsorChange.org found that 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. got more volunteers and more donations. Why? They reason that being first in the in-box (first in the morning, first after lunch) was their winning formula.

Printing and Direct Mail: We're in a Growth Industry! Or you can't believe everything you hear.

Doom-and-gloomers say that print is doomed. Direct mail is a goner. What started with the ancient papyrus-wielding scribes, grew exponentially when Gutenberg discovered offset printing, is finished. Caput. Stick a fork in it, they say. It's done.

They name the internet as the one singlehanded instrument of destruction. They cite video-game-generation short-attention spans as an accomplice and falling postal usage as evidence. Those of us in the putting-ink-on-paper business might as well be selling buggy whips, they say. We're done for.

But whoa, there, guys. Not so fast!

A leading marketing research firm, the Winterberry Group, has dramatic evidence that flies in the face of these print pariahs.

Winterberry predicts that direct mail spending will grow by 5.8% this year; while direct response print will increase by a not so robust, but still sweet 2%. But Digital and the variable data printing it provides—will increase by a whopping 14%.

14%! Wow! But let's back up a bit.

2008 to 2009 was catastrophic for print-based marketers. Printing and direct mail volume declined by a staggering 16.7% in that one 12-month period, ending up the year at $43.8B sales volume. But by mid-year 2010, things were turning around. From July to December, volumes bounced back by 3.1% producing an EOY value of $45.2B.

Winterberry predicts that all signs are for 2011 to continue the rebound, increasing by 5.8% and coming in with an EOY value of $47.8B—$4B higher than we were just 2 ugly years ago. Not bad for an industry on its deathbed, eh?

So what's going on?

The great recession seems to be easing. People are spending more again, and many marketers are returning to the mail. Furthermore, the long-touted email revolution isn't panning out quite the way it had been expected to. So marketers are abandoning the electronic world for good old fashioned print again.

At the same time, USPS-enforced regulations to keep lists cleaner, and greater acceptance of detailed response analytics mean that mailers can mail smaller, but more accurately and with more highly targeted campaigns. Hence, they should see better ROI for their efforts.

The USPS is doing its part by not seeking huge postal increases for 2011.

Digital is the big winner because as marketers mail with greater specificity, their volumes drop. And as you—savvy marketer that you are—probably knows, digital is more economical at lower run lengths. Added to the digital difference is digital's ability to create custom pieces for each recipient, thus targeting the messaging even more tightly.

So before you believe the doom-and-gloomers who are predicting the end of the print world, please consider that we are in rapidly evolving times. It's happened before and it is happening today.

We're at the conflux of technological availability and economic necessity. Printing and marketing is changing; it is not going away.

Listen Up. I’m only going to tell you once…

The masters of marketing say that you have tell prospects what you are going to tell them... then you tell them... and then you remind them of what you told them. In other words, repeat your message.

So why would you think that one email or one direct mail or one tweet or one text message would be enough? Surely one of anything will pull in some business, but if there were an easy way to multiply your effectiveness wouldn't you want to do it?

You'd be an idiot not to! And yo' Momma didn't raise no idiots. Right?

But if you've read this far you already know how to create this marketing magic.

Need a hint?

Go back and read the first paragraph again. And again.

Got it now? Repeating your message is good marketing.

No, I'm not saying to robotically say the same thing over and over again until you hypnotize your audience into zombie-like group think. I'm saying to use multi-channel marketing. Mix the media, but not the message.

Need corroboration? Consider this statistical gem: Direct, targeted direct mail, combined with a same-day delivery of an email can boost response rates above 10%.

It starts with direct mail. 98% of consumers retrieve their mail the day it is delivered; and 77% of that 98% sort through it immediately. A great DM piece—well written, well designed, well presented—grabs eyeballs and attention. It probably lands in a "to do" pile, and it probably brings in a 3-8% return.

Now add a little "sweetener" in the form of a complementary email. Same message. Same graphics. Same call to action. Same day. Voila' marketing magic!

OK, usually only 10% of your email recipients open your email, and only about 10% of that 10% click through to your offer. Now that's an itsy bitsy group, but if the email and the DM appear on the same day, they exponentially reinforce each other.

Let me say it one more time:

Mix your media and repeat your message.

Then get out of the way.

Say it Ain't So! You're Too Busy to be Social?

Dearest CEO/BMOC or other overworked executive,

Don't think you have time to get involved in social media? Hmmm. Remember 15 years ago? You didn't have time to use email either. Hah! How times have changed.

Get with it.

I know you're busy. I know you are overcommitted. Spare time is precious. So I'll keep my comments to you short as well, thus respecting your time. I promise I won't take more than 2 minutes today.

Here are a few tips to help you get in the swing of things socially:

1. Write your own content. Your own voice will be more genuine than a hired hack.

2. Schedule time for social media into your day. Just 10 to 15 minutes twice a day will be enough at first to learn the ropes.

3. Don't get distracted. Remember why you're using social media. Is it to build your business, get business leads, or reinforce your web presence? Is it to keep up with your teenagers? Keep your eyes on the prize.

4. Focus on 5 or 6 relevant sites. We're taking baby steps here, remember?

5. Share information, ideas. People appreciate others who contribute to the conversation.

6. Remember, it's not just about you. When you find interesting content outside of yourself and your business, share it. Start a conversation…or add to one.

7. Showcase your expertise. Succinctly. People will learn to value your wisdom.

8. Hire a social media expert to help. You write the content, but let a "pro" distribute it. It will save you time, and keep you focused.

Think it's all just too much? If Virgin CEO Sir Richard Branson, Marriot CEO Bill Marriott and Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz can write their own blogs and tweets, so can you.

I'd say more, but I'm out of time I had allocated for this task today.

Ta Ta!

I want OUT!

Listen to me, online advertisers. I mean it, dammit!

No, I don't want to be a pharmacy technician. I do not want to buy a foreclosed property. And I certainly don't want the electronic cigarettes you've been pushing at me lately.

So I've taken the next step.

Knowing that it is a matter of months before the FTC will force you to honor my request to leave me alone in my self-imposed cyber isolation, I have decided to preemptively kick you guys off my screen and out of my life.

It was easy. I simply visited www.AboutAds.info, an admittedly Beta Website (ie maybe not ready for prime time yet), and opted out of the 43 companies that were following me online.

The site which introduces itself as a self-regulatory effort by the online marketing industry (sponsors are listed in the right column) lets consumers like me see which advertisers are following us. By clicking on the box to the right of the advertiser's name, and then hitting "submit" I informed all 43 of you to take a hike.

Bye bye!

Now if those ads for the electronic cigarettes keep showing up, I'll know what "self-regulation" means in the advertising industry.

The FTC is looking for comments on its pending legislation to control online tracking which the ad industry insists can be self-regulating. I can't wait to tell them what I know.

Spam Alert!

I’ve long suspected that the gazillions of spam messages I get every week are bogus.  And now I have proof.  Unadulterated, irrevocable proof.   From the fingers of the perpetrator himself.

One day this week, after deleting all the fascinating offers for sexy new electric cigarettes, slinky lingerie and Viagra…and obliterating the ads inviting me to go back to school to learn to be a pharmaceutical assistant…and rigorously culling all the sweepstakes in which I have magically won a fortune…and momentarily grieving all my unknown relatives who have died in a foreign country leaving me filthy rich…in this jungle of craziness I finally found THE TRUTH.

It was an email promising me that I could make $138,000 a month on the internet.  From home.  Wearing my bunny slippers and sipping pina coladas.  If I only had a home computer and a couple of hours a day to devote to this effort, I was in like Flynn.

And there it was.  Above the colorful photo of the happy couple clutching handfuls of dollar bills, celebrating jubilantly before their blessed home computer was this copy in tiny, tiny type: “Phony picture and fake testimonials.”

I gasped as reality dawned.  The evil genius who concocted this ad had spoken THE TRUTH!

I wonder if a tiny bit of conscience had pricked him, and he had wanted to warn off the gullible, but I doubt it.  I suspect that he was in a hurry and he simply slipped up.

I hope I will never meet this creep who is preying on vulnerable people.  But his five little words summed up so much of the email crap I get every day:  Phony picture and fake testimonials.

Truer words were never typed.

Easy Does It! Maybe.

It’s summer again. Children—young and old—are kicking back lemonades and heading to the beach to squish sand between their toes once again.

Colorful tattoos are appearing in places that weren’t even visible two months ago. Haircuts and skirts are shorter; nylons are history and neckties aren’t far behind.

Monday-to-Friday is now Monday to Friday-ish. People start wandering out the door at noon, only to reappear on Monday with a deep tan and a zen-like air of serene relaxation about them.

Nothing is hurried. It’s too hot to rush, anyway. Everybody has gone into “vacation mode.”

But maybe there’s too much of a good thing.

Studies show that students lose two and a half months of their hard-earned math skills over the summer break which is, conveniently, two and a half months. Hmmm. How about that. A one-to-one correlation between “time away” and “information lost.”

Now translate that to marketing. A lot of the effort of marketing is simply keeping your name, your brand, your message in front of your clients, donors or prospects.

Consider McDonald’s. Mickey D spends millions of dollars a week just to remind us that they are there. They just want to keep their name in our consciousness.

Focus group of one: when I get thirsty, I head to Mickey D’s for the unsweetened ice tea. So as I was driving through the line today to get my daily tea fix, I spotted a new menu item: Real Fruit Frosties. Sounds yummy. I passed it by today, but I can almost guarantee that lunch one day next week will be a Real Fruit Frostie. I’ll be fantasizing about that frostie for days until I can’t resist any more. Their ads won’t let me forget. That’s good marketing.

Why is your business any different? If your clients/donors don’t hear from you for two and a half months, that’s a lot of time lost. You’re out of sight, out of mind. You’re losing market share simply by wearing your summertime cloak of invisibility.

Taking it easy now is fun, but do you really want to have to rebuild your business again in the fall?

Use the summer to stay in touch with a newsletter, an email or a postcard. Use social media, text messaging and PURLs to let them know what you are doing and why it is important to them.

You’ll be top of the mind, and poised for business when the time is right.

And that’s even better than a long weekend at the beach.

We have a simple misunderstanding here...

Your email campaign is a rousing success, right? You’ve got a great open rate, lots of clicks, and even a good number of conversions. The metrics prove you’re doing everything right. Pop the champagne.

Andrew Robinson begs to differ. Robinson, director of international services for marketing services provider Lyris, says there are obvious metrics that most emailers are not even considering. Oops!

“The real screamer is short visits to a Web site,” he explains. “Once people click through, if they spend less than two seconds on the site and then move away, then that’s a short visit.” Short visits are bad news.

Short visits mean the email campaign is doing its job of generating interest, but the website is mucking it up. Robinson says this phenomenon happens when there is a disconnect between the people creating the e-mails and the people creating the Web site. Sometimes they just don’t see eye-to-eye and they don’t even know it.

Prospects feel that disconnect—and then that’s just what they do. When the website doesn’t live up to the expectations established by the email, short visits result. The opportunity is blown.

Like everything we do in direct marketing, companies should measure their email marketing program’s performance based on business goals, Robinson insists. “Test for particular goals. [When] people…make a purchase, or download a whitepaper or download an application or whatever goals you have, you need those goals reported on your e-mail campaign.”

But when they are with you for less than 2 seconds, you need to know that statistic as well. It’s not good news, for sure, but it’s a learning opportunity.

Put the champagne away for another day. Go back to the basics. Test. Analyze. Measure.

That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Email could learn lessons from Snail Mail Marketing

"Snail Mail"-aka direct mail-is truly alive and well. Need proof? Just look at your mailbox. Every day there are provocative mailings that demand you read them.

Old technology snail mailers have a thing or two to teach tech-happy eMarketers about good marketing. Here are some Marketing 101 errors I found in my email just this week-amateur errors that cost these companies my time and attention.

Lesson #1 Verify the basics: presentation, spelling and grammar. We all know that direct mail isn't instant. But it's typically better thought out, more compelling and better composed than text messages or email blasts.

Just this past week I received email blasts from bona fide companies offering to get me some of the "simulous [sic] money that's flooding the market" and help me "refiance [sic] my home." And I don't even want to think about the spam I get offering a "free colege [sic] education" or cheap "Canadan [sic] pharmaceuticals."

Can you imagine a direct mail piece going out with those egregious errors?

eMarketers: Check your spelling before you hit the "send" button. Your error makes it easy for me to ignore your message. It makes you seem unorganized and ill-prepared. And I don't choose to spend my time or money with someone who is either unorganized or ill-prepared.

Lesson #2. Time is your ally. OK, direct mail takes longer to produce, longer to deliver and longer to start to get feedback. But time can be your friend. Truly.

Time gives the marketer a chance to think about his message. It lets him prepare it in a compelling way and select graphics to reinforce the presentation. It gives him an opportunity to consider what audience would be most receptive to his message and to craft his message to that audience. It gives him time to reflect, to reconsider, before he pulls the trigger.

eMarketers: Don't be a cowboy. Plan then execute! Doing things fast and doing things right shouldn't be mutually exclusive.

Lesson #3. Know your audience. Good direct mail does a terrific job of talking to its audience. Successful marketers who put direct mail together think about their audience before they launch. That's why letters are personalized to the recipient-to reestablish the existing relationship. That's why people living in apartments don't get letters meant for homeowners. Or why hunters don't get letters intended for PETA members.

It's patently obvious: market to someone you know with a message that is right for that person, and you'll increase your response rate. Duh!

If my incoming email is an indicator, the guys (I'm assuming they are guys) who generate this electronic stuff need a few lessons in who they are reaching out to.

As a woman, I don't need little blue pills that will give me "hours of exstacy [sic, again!]" and I certainly don't need to "keep her happy all night long." ...As a college postgrad, I don't need a free college education...As an owner of a company, I don't want to work out of my house at night to generate extra income. I am not interested in buying foreclosed property or in becoming a secret shopper, or in getting free coupons for products/stores/restaurants I don't buy/frequent/eat at.
Come on, guys! Focus!

eMarketers: Rifles work better than shotguns. Targeted, personalized messages work better than helter skelter get-as-many-out-as-you-can-in-as-short-a-time-as-you-can. That's leaping before you look. That's stupid marketing.

Lesson #4. Quantity does not equal Quality. If your marketing plan is to send out as many emails as you can to as many people as you can hoping that something will register with someone, then you have no plan. You're wasting your money and my time.

By the way, sending me the same email twice in 5 minutes does nothing to endear you to me. Sending it to me four times in two days alienates me. Got it?

Lesson #5. Give me a way to get back to you. Let's suppose I'm interested. Please be sure your email has an obvious "Contact us" link that I can use. Better yet, give me the name of a real person with a real phone number.

Oh yes-back to Lesson #1. Check and re-check your info. Be sure you've got the phone number and "contact us" link correct. Last week I responded to the Contact us link and got back a bounced message that [name of intended recipient] was no longer employed at [name of company that sent me the email]. Geez. No one is watching that store to be sure! Makes one wonder.

Maybe I am a little old gray-haired lady who is a bit crotchety and stogy. But I am your potential customer. That should count for something.

Take a lesson or two from the fuddy duddies who do direct mail marketing. Focus on the marketing basics. Good copy. Good graphics. Correct spelling. Relate your message to the recipient's interests/needs. Provide a reliable respond-back mechanism.

They've been doing it right for 50 years. Study the masters.

Need help with your direct mail marketing and email marketing? Consult a professional like Paul&Partners. We'll help you navigate the postal regulations to ensure you get the best postage rate available to you. We'll help you find the perfect people for your message, and then we'll design a package that is the right one for your audience and your budget.

Check us out at www.PaulandPartners.net. Let us know how we can help make your next marketing program more successful.

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