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May - June 2006 Issue
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DATABASE SCREAMS! In This Issue:  The Professor's Corner: Is E-Marketing "Back to the Future"? WiseGuys Case Study: Building Multi-Channel Analytics on the Desktop.
Branding in the E-World
Database Marketing: Are You Getting Your Money's Worth? How DMSI can Help You
Dear Friends, E-marketing, Interactive marketing, Internet marketing, Web enabled marketing. Whatever you wish to call it, we all know by now the Internet has changed the landscape of marketing profoundly. This month we begin by seeing how the new fits within the old, early definitions of direct marketing. We then provide a case study from a client that has succeeded using WiseGuys in the multi-channel world. Also, Peter Madden highlights an area of interest to marketers: Branding in the E-world. Finally, we are announcing a Database Marketing seminar to be held June 14 - hope to see some of you then. As always, please let us know how DMSI can fit into your database plans!
Adjunct Professor, Marketing Information Systems
By this definition, one can make the case (as I do) that much of the interactive marketing that we see today is really a high tech extension of
what our direct response pioneers envisioned. Two dramatic examples come to mind: Agree or Disagree? Click here Learn more: Don't take my word for it: read an interesting discussion of the problem with definitions, authored by Denise Zimmerman, NetPlus, at IMediaConnection
Things hadn't been running as effectively as he'd hoped, and now was the time to reassess their goals and move forward. Joe and his brother Jeff work together to run two very different companies: Porter's Camera, a business-to-consumer photography store, and RAPIDS Wholesale Equipment, a business-to-business wholesale restaurant equipment firm. Any solution they chose had to be adaptable to both business models. "We've been struggling for several years to quickly assess marketing campaign results and have consistent reporting for both companies," he said. Their current system took several weeks of effort to run and test direct mail campaigns, and he needed to find a better way. The following week, Joe received an e-mail newsletter about WiseGuys software and decided to investigate. "WiseGuys sounded like everything we wanted from our marketing, but couldn't figure out how to do. But the company was small and I was skeptical about WiseGuys' scalability." Between the two companies, Schmitt knew he'd be loading over a million transactions into WiseGuys, something he wanted to ensure the software could support. Schmitt went to Minneapolis to meet the president of Desktop Marketing Solutions, Inc. (DMSI), Bruce Gregoire. "Bruce's responsiveness and willingness to expand WiseGuys for his customers, especially direct marketers, impressed me," said Schmitt. "The tipping point in my decision was how quickly WiseGuys would enable us to get the analytics done," he explained. "It was clear that we could hire an administrator to generate the WiseGuys reports, and I could do the analysis myself in minutes." That difference alone would save Schmitt $40,000 annually. Within six weeks, Schmitt had launched his first direct mail campaign using the WiseGuys system. "We had several million mail pieces in the database and roughly 600,000 names. Any time we hit a hurdle during the process, DMSI had us back on track within 24 hours. It was painless." Over the next eight months, Schmitt saw an even greater return on investment than expected. "Our new ability to analyze mailings helped us determine that return customers were buying as much from an e-mail as a catalog. We'll save $120,000 just in mailings this year." In addition, they've identified areas of substantial savings by reducing mailings on unprofitable segments, and even hired an in-house telemarketer with the money they've saved. Next on the list is taking full advantage of the WiseGuys cross-sell module. "The cross-sell analytics seem to work tremendously. We're in the middle of running tests and so far the results are impressive," he said. "With WiseGuys, I can go in and find everybody who bought 3 months ago, but hasn't made a purchase since. We're finding the sweet spot for contacting them again, and determining at what point they'll be ready to make another purchase." Schmitt has also found WiseGuys to be valuable in his multi-channel marketing efforts. "We'll be executing the cross-sell program weekly," he said. "If I don't contact a customer who bought a camera within a couple of days, it's likely they'll go to a competitor to buy their camera bag." Overall, Schmitt has been amazed with the volume of testing he's been able to accomplish. "With WiseGuys, you can do more testing and analysis than you've probably ever done, because the timeline has been consolidated dramatically. What used to be painful is now simple." Learn More: to see how WiseGuys can help you, Download the WiseGuys FAQ
So how should you consistently expand your brand in the E-World? First, know who you are and what you/your business stands for. Secondly, ensure your brand's "strong truths" are being positioned and created for maximum effect online. This encompasses everything from the colors you are using, the set up of the overall site, to the copy feel and length. Finally, know your customer! While some companies' customers may appreciate a slick flash introduction to your site, others may be completely turned off to it and simply want to get to the meat of the site. Finally, don't shy away from constructive criticism. Contact long-time customers who you respect. Use them as a sounding board for your site. Trust me, they will appreciate the fact that you respect their opinion enough to care what they have to say about your soon-to-be-launched brand-powerful site. As we often tell our clients, the key to great branding is to develop the brand in a way that creates a new category. One that with the right branding across every medium, especially the Internet, you are able to dominate. Learn More: Peter Madden is the Founder of AgileCat, a branding, design, and public relations agency based in Philadelphia. AgileCat has been named Innovative Business of the Year for branding in Philadelphia and Madden was recently named one of the "40 Under 40" most influential people in the Philadelphia Region. More information is available at www.agilecat.com , or by calling (215)508-2082.
Learn More: To attend this valuable seminar, please contact Becky Bell at McArdle Custom Communications: 301-789-2761.
And now, pick up the phone! One call gets you 15 minutes of Free Database Advice
Feedback from our readers: "The newsletter is terrific. The content was valuable and interesting. Thanks for sending it, and we are looking forward to the next issue already. |
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Why is it that a company will put so much effort into branding their businesses "offline" but treat their interactive marketing campaigns as an afterthought? Too often I see a company's website that backs off the initial brand promise made in an advertisement, sales collateral piece, etc. The design, copy, and look/feel may look inconsistent with the initial branding and messaging, and inconsistency is the Achilles Heel of branding. You've heard a million times that the Internet is a completely different medium, but beyond being different, it offers limitless opportunity to "expand the brand" as opposed to turning a potentially powerful brand into a shrinking violet.
DMSI is pleased to announce a Database Marketing seminar to be held on Wed. June 14th in Upper Marlboro, MD. The seminar - "Database Marketing: Are you getting your money's worth?" - is sponsored by McArdle Custom Communications. The seminar will give marketing professionals step-by-step approaches to getting valuable marketing information from their customer database. Each attendee will be encouraged to provide their own real-world challenges with using their customer database (e.g. managing silos of information). The facilitator - Bruce Gregoire of DMSI - will then lead a discussion of how these challenges can be overcome with both the theory and the practice of Database Marketing principals. 
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