ORLANDO, FL – There was no shortage of advice from Jeff Moriarty as he discussed optimizing the marketing mix and executing an integrated strategy. His message: Don’t analyze the results of each individual campaign.
“Take a deep breath, take a step back [and] analyze the mix,” said Moriarty, the director of sales and marketing at DecisionMaker Media Management, Oak Brook, IL, which provides BTB e-mail, postal and telemarketing lists. “Look at the whole program. Give it a try. Don’t give up on one little piece of it.
“You’ve got to look at the results as a whole, and that takes time.”
His comments were part of the “B-to-B Marketers Tell All: Integrating Online & Offline Marketing Techniques” session yesterday at the Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference here.
His discussion shifted to the challenges faced by direct marketing professionals. Quality of the list is the No. 1 challenge, he said.
“You bring e-mail into the equation, and you’re talking the reputation of your company if you’re not using the right list source for e-mail,” he said.
The lack of e-mail lists that match postal ones also is a hurdle that must be dealt with, Moriarty said.
“What seems to be working best is an e-mail promotion followed by a telemarketing effort,” he said.
Also mentioned were: the lack of personalization or demographics on certain lists; e-mail appending issues; decentralized online and offline marketing groups; e-mail merge/purge and spam filtering issues.
“Your messages, whether you like it or not, are going to be filtered,” he said. “Up to 10 to 15 percent of every name that you send out there will be filtered for some reason or another.”
Attendees were told to avoid anything that can get them trapped in spam filters.
“In the e-mail world, you have maybe about 12 seconds or so to catch someone’s eye,” he said. “In the subject line, make sure you mention the offer and the benefit. You might want to use another word for free. Overall … 50 characters or less seems to work well in the subject line.”
The fact that e-mail lists tend to be higher priced was also covered.
“When you look at the costs of the lists themselves … there is definitely sticker shock,” he said. “You’re looking at a BTB world of anywhere between $270 and $500 per thousand. That’s real expensive. But when you take into consideration what you’re saving on postal and the creative and the time and being able to be flexible and getting things out today and tomorrow and tweaking your subject lines, there’s a lot of powerful things that can be done.”
