Category: Technology

What Gary Vaynerchuk teaches us about passion and social networks

Posted On: Category: Branding, Ideas & Inspiration, Marketing Insights, Shout-Outs, TechnologyPosted By:

If there is one thing social media is good for it’s showing off your passion. People use sites like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to show off their passions for all types of things; politics, music, movies, etc. Businesses need to do the same thing with their social media efforts.

I just got finished reading the book “Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuk, founder of WineLibrary.com and Wine Library TV. This guy is a bit crazy but there is a fine line between passion and crazy. He absolutely loves talking about wine and he uses YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to do it. The main theme of the book is that anyone can build a successful business or brand using social networks, as long as they have passion for what they’re doing. Honestly, I don’t care much for wine. I couldn’t tell you what goes well with a steak, or what wine to bring to a shwanky dinner party; but when I checked out Gary’s YouTube videos I was hypnotized. His passion explodes on camera and even though I had no interest in wine, I watched a bunch of his videos. It will come as no surprise that Gary has built his Wine business from a $2 million a year wine store in New Jersey, to an enormous online wine empire.

You may be asking yourself how you can make your business interesting enough for Twitter or YouTube. The truth is with all of the millions of users online there is bound to be a community of fans. Not everyone’s business is as sexy as fine wine, but once you begin to put quality content online people will listen.

Your customers and prospects are online right now. Some are browsing Facebook pages, some are twittering their hearts out and some are perusing YouTube videos. Oh and some are reading blogs!

Thanks for stopping by.

Great article on making email and direct mail work together

Posted On: Category: Custom Design & Printing, Direct Mail Marketing, Marketing Insights, TechnologyPosted By:

Greg Grdodian, EVP of ePostDirect, recently wrote a terrific article about the ROI benefits of combining direct mail with e-mail.  He states that response increases across the board when direct mail and e-mail are combined in a multichannel campaign, and if executed correctly, response can be double!  Here is a link to the article as well as 5 key tips to executing an integrated campaign successfuly.

Integrated campaigns are growing in popularity

Posted On: Category: Custom Design & Printing, Direct Mail Marketing, Marketing Insights, Technology, Webkeys / QR CodesPosted By:

More and more businesses are utilizing new online marketing opportunities, social networks and even mobile phone apps. However, Twitter, Facebook and iPhone apps aren’t silver bullets and they are more often being combined with traditional offline forms of marketing. Integrated campaigns represent a growing trend amongst marketers to take advantage of the best aspects that each channel has to offer.

The US Census Bureau is running a $133 million dollar campaign created by Draftfcb that includes a microsite, search ads and social networking. These all drive people to the direct mail component of the campaign, the actual census survey. This is the first year the Census Bureau has used an integrated campaign, however during the last census in 2000, they did try search ads which helped reverse the 30 year trend of declining response.

In January FedEx launched their first truly integrated campaign, “We Understand”. The entire campaign is centered around a microsite. All online and offline channels drive people to that site. The campaign which will last the entire year includes email, television, search marketing and direct mail.

According to a recent DMA study, more than 42% of interested direct mail recipients prefer to respond online to a direct mail campaign. Offering these multiple channels of response will simply help increase response. It’s a great example of the symbiotic relationship between online and offline channels.

An increasingly popular component to integrated campaigns is the use of a PURL (personalized URL). A PURL is a database-driven microsite that allows you to personalize the experience for the user. For example, you can setup a custom URL for each one of the prospects on your list: www.example.com/john-doe.  It’s an extremely effective way to learn more about your customers and helps you as a marketer tailor your message to exactly what they are interested in.

So what’s the point of all this? Yes, that was rhetorical as the answer is obvious; starting a conversation with your customers. Through the use of an integrated campaign you can find your customers wherever they are hiding, whether it’s in the mailbox, on twitter or facebook, or directly on their mobile phone. Just don’t forget to make it impactful, relevant and engaging.

Esquire Flirts With Digital Reality

Posted On: Category: Audio / Video Marketing, Custom Design & Printing, Ideas & Inspiration, Marketing Insights, Technology, Virtual Reality / Augmented RealityPosted By:

Hollywood stars are going virtual, in the latest effort to jazz up the printed word-and wake up consumers who have become inured to traditional ads.

Hearst Corp.’s Esquire magazine will pepper its December issue with markers that trigger interactive video segments featuring cover subject Robert Downey Jr. and other actors, as well as an ad for Lexus. In doing so, Esquire is taking advantage of an emerging technology called augmented reality, which mixes real-life images with graphics or other effects. TV networks use AR to make the yellow first-down lines on football fields.

Read Full Article

New Barcode System means less Undeliverable Mail

Posted On: Category: Custom Design & Printing, Direct Mail Marketing, TechnologyPosted By:

In May, the U.S. Postal Service first allowed pieces with the Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB) to circulate.

This new system is anticipated to make it easier to track mail at each stage of the cycle, along with making things easier for consumers and the USPS.

The IMB is set to replace the USPS’s existing Planet Code and Postnet barcodes on all domestic mail. It is expected to help the Postal Service reduce the number of undeliverable-as-addressed mailing pieces, now estimated at more than 10 billion per year and costing upwards of $1.8 billion annually

The IMB will be mandatory on all mailings before May 2011.

Read the article here.