Direct Mail on the rise in the US

Marketers will spend $163 billion on direct marketing in 2011, a 5.6% increase compared with last year, according to a report released by theDirect Marketing Association (DMA) on Oct. 2. The report also found that direct marketing accounts for 52.1% of total U.S. ad spending.

The DMA projected that direct marketing ROI will reach $12.03 of sales per dollar of expenditures in 2011.

Next year, digital marketing's share of marketing budgets will increase by two percentage points to 21%, according to the DMA. Of the various direct marketing channels, mobile is forecast to experience the most growth over the next year, rising by 38.7% to $1.2 billion. By contrast, direct-response magazine, radio and newspaper spending are all expected to decrease over the next year, with direct-response newspaper advertising predicted to decline by 9.9% to $7.0 billion.

Telemarketing is expected to remain the top spending channel, growing by 0.8% next year to $36.9 billion. Direct-response TV is expected to follow at $22.9 billion, a 3.8% bump from 2011.

Tactics to keep pace with print evolution

An interesting article From the November 01, 2011 Issue of Direct Marketing News

The printing and production sector has undergone major transformation in a digitally dominated market, and many marketers can now use the dual impact of print media and technology to communicate marketing messages to customers. At the same time, there has been a recalibration of expectations for improved sales and greater return on investment.

The Direct Marketing News experts offer up their best advice to help marketers take advantage of these advancements, including Web to print technologies. As Natasha Kesaji, VP of client services at the Jacobs Agency, notes: “Print communications need to connect with online assets to continue the dialogue with customers.” Rocky Abbett, VP of NOVA Marketing Services, advises marketers to segment lists carefully, and get creative with design and packaging in traditional campaigns. Dustin LeFebvre, EVP at Specialty Print Communications, indicates that internal culture must change and become more nimble, collaborative and relationship-focused in order to drive advancement.


Dustin LeFebvre, EVP, Specialty Print Communications

For much of its history, the evolution of print seemingly moved at the pace of a drifting continent. Even in recent years as digital has taken root, print has been perceived by many as a fading tactic of the luddites. A couple years back, I even concealed my badge in shame at an Association of National Advertisers event, as digital and social media became the rage and threatened to render "old media" obsolete. 


However, today digital is driving print, and printing is now digital. A tectonic shift is at hand; the same technology that threatened to displace print is providing it new vitality.


Digital and hybrid printing 
are now delivering a user-driven customized experience that drives to digital. It is quietly insistent, a vital tool to extend an engagement. Print is now intertwined with digital technology, and moving forward, the two will evolve in concert. Expect a major, industry-changing innovation every few years. 


As a marketer, keeping pace with this "hyper evolution" in the printing industry will work to your competitive advantage. Here are five tips to help 
you do so.



1. Create a culture of change.
To keep pace with the ongoing innovation and new technology in today's printing industry, you should contribute towards a company culture that is amenable to change. Expect and anticipate change as an organization, and structure your company to be adaptable. 


Entrepreneurial spirit and autonomy will enable first mover advantages on new trends and technologies. 



2. Collaborate.
Discuss ideas in a team environment, both internally and externally. Use strategic partnerships already in place to share ideas, laterally apply experience, and ask unexpected questions. 


By leveraging partnerships, we were able to pioneer a four-color hybrid imaging process to enable companies to tailor direct mail to individual customers with the visual combination of variable words and pictures. We were able to realize this as a capability thanks to vendor partners, technology providers, and academic cooperation. 



3. Use whitepapers.
Read 
consultant whitepapers to stay abreast of new industry 
technologies, trends and innovations. Additionally, don't limit yourself to traditional media. Follow relevant social media feeds for real-time updates. 



4. Attend trade shows.
Many new products and technologies are launched at trade shows for maximum exposure and effect. Attendance and curiosity will put you on the cutting edge as sales reps fall all over themselves to share with you how their new widget will revolutionize your professional landscape. 


These types of shows occur every year in the U.S. and throughout the world, and can be invaluable in terms of keeping you ahead of the competition. The largest worldwide show, Drupa, takes place this coming May in Germany.



5. Be relationship-focused.
Business isn't sterile; it's conducted between people. Being approachable as an individual and a company provides opportunities to make both professional and personal connections. Oftentimes, people seek to do business with people they like and respect, so understanding the value of relationships makes good business sense.



Rocky Abbett, VP, NOVA Marketing Services, a division of the Matlet Group

Greater technology capabilities, including the rise in popularity of quick response (QR) codes, has fed the growth in dimensional mailing. It has also reset expectations for improved sales and greater return on investment (ROI) among marketers. Combining dimensional mail pieces with QR codes can help improve campaign effectiveness by increasing the number of touches with your target audience. Here are four things to keep in mind.

1. Do your data homework.
It begins with list management and your database. Segment your in-house list to selectively reach those customers that best match the parameters of your campaign in order to generate the best ROI results. If you are reaching out to new customers, emphasize quality over quantity. More names for less money is not always the best choice. Choose demographics that mirror your customer profile.



2. Trust your design.
It is a 
visual world, and your mailer needs to make a statement. Be bold about the colors, shapes and unique sizes you use. Use these to drive customers online, where you can continue to engage them on your website.


3. Make packaging a 
priority.
Use a substrate or paper stock that will travel well through the postal stream to ensure the piece arrives 
undamaged. Bring multiple 
technologies into play and consider the latest advancements using foils, scents or shiny coatings. Also keep in mind that Pantone recently introduced 175 new colors for designers, so think about some that would make an impression with your target audience.



4. Analyze and learn.
Make sure to analyze the ROI for each marketing campaign. It takes time and is often overlooked, but it is the only way you'll know if your efforts have paid off. Did this mailer accomplish your goals and reach the intended audience? What did you learn from your customers? What could you do differently the next time to enhance the customer's experience?


Natasha Kesaji, VP, client services, Jacobs Agency

With the fragmentation of media, marketers need every audience touchpoint to further engage and drive the next interaction. Print communications need to connect with online assets to continue the dialogue with customers, as well as maximize the impact of marketing investments.

The integration of variable printing with digital response technologies has allowed print communications to become more relevant and prompt digital experiences directly. Here are three ways to leverage the print to Web technologies to spur further audience engagement.

1. Determine the next appropriate touchpoint beyond print.
Evaluate where the print media aligns with your audience's decision-making process, and then provide them with the next touchpoint towards their purchase. Deliver content or brand experiences in the form of a video, webinar, text message or social media. Drive prospects to landing pages or microsites 
to complete purchases or 
other actions.


2. Identify the best response technology.
If you have enough customer data, consider using personalized URLs (PURLs) to create a richer and more one-on-one online experience. If you lack the level of customer data necessary for PURLs, try leveraging a quick response (QR) code on your non-variable, printed pieces to send targets to rich media, promotions or specific Web pages. 


3. Ensure content fulfills expectations.
There is an expectation of a more robust experience beyond a standard HTML website when targets respond through these mechanisms. After your prospect makes the effort to engage, the last thing marketers want is to disappoint them. Be sure to create a personalized experience that acknowledges past interactions compared with asking the respondent to identify themselves. Remember to optimize the resulting QR code content for mobile Web so you fulfill that expectation for "quick response" and do not have deterrents like slow-loading video.

For More information on how CFL can help you combine printed marketing materials with online media please log on to www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Life After Christmas!

I'm sure you’re aware it’s only 4 Weeks till Christmas......however how do you plan on bringing in the punters in the new year? Its easy to fall into the trap of spending all your time and resources making the festive period a success and forgetting about what comes next!!

Now is the perfect time to plan you marketing activity to both Businesses and Consumers going forward into 2012.

The next few weeks are will be the busiest time of the year...so why not put a bounce back promotion in place for all of those customers for the new year?

Why not contact CFL to build a bounce back promotion?

Whether its Design, Adverts, Posters, Flyers, Mailings, Door Drops, Data Capture, Banners, HTML Emails, Landing Pages, Websites or SMS text messages, we can help!

CFL posses that rare combination of operational experience, marketing flair and industry knowledge, our dedicated client services team will custom build a solution to fit any given brief or requirement.

Take a look at some examples on your website – www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Like us on Facebook for all the latest client news - http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/CFL-Marketing/193903033957534

Follow us on twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/cflmarketing


Remember - you don't have long so drop us a line 01225 782669 - or email philm@cflmarketing.co.uk

Combine email and direct mail for better results.

Like the big mail drops of yesteryear, people are being inundated with email, which gets ignored and deleted. The "wow" factor, once a signature of direct mail pieces, is sorely absent in email. Thus, we're seeing a resurgence of direct mail. However, direct mail alone can't capture what it did when there were no other alternative channels. To 
harness that lost "wow" factor, one option is to try a hybrid approach: a combination of email and direct mail. 

Email is inexpensive where direct mail has to account for postage costs. If the agency is exceptional at creating a mailer that begs to be torn open, that feat will most likely be a prohibitively expensive proposition. But there's a work-around.


A hybrid approach allows you to reach a receptive audience. Assuming we already have an email opt-in list, let's use email as a call-to-action, to persuade our targets to register to receive more enticing information through a nicely illustrated direct mail piece. With the short attention spans people have online, direct mail has to be that much more elaborate. The mailer must be the closer.


The art is to create an incentive through email. It should be enticing enough to cause the consumer to click for more information. With this kind of opt-in, the mailer is allowed to have more meaning. Consumers prefer the tangible, in contrast to just directing them to a website. The direct mail piece can go in-depth, make its presence known, and serve as a constant reminder. Email can't do that. 


The risk is disruption in continuity. The consumer has to wait for fulfillment, unlike electronic campaigns which are instantaneous. When building the campaign, this disruption period has to be factored in. 


Imagine the opposite scenario. You receive a direct mail piece and the call-to-action asks that you log in and then enter a promotional code to receive a benefit. Most likely this won't fly too well. 


Email can be the driver that gets the opt-in permission for the direct mail piece. Once that's established, marketers can justify investing in the creation of more durable and memorable direct mail pieces. This produces an efficient use of the direct mail budget, allowing art to produce a more elaborate "wow" piece. 


This hybrid approach ought to give a campaign better lift, better creativity and a chance that the direct mail piece will be read and acted on. Limiting the number of mailers to a selective list reduces your production and mailing costs since you'll be printing less of them. Hopefully, the direct mail piece brings prospects to the next action item and steers them to your target objective.

To see how to implement an integrated marketing approach please log on to www.cflmarketing.co.uk or email philm@cflmarketing.co.uk

4 ways to format your emails to increase readability.

When it comes to sending messages online, readability is an important issue. The ability for your recipients to read their emails and respond to your offers is critical to your email marketing success. While subject lines and delivery times are key factors in whether or not your emails get opened, the readability of your messages determines whether or not your emails get read and acted on, which is, after all, the real point to email marketing in the first place.

The formatting that you use for your emails makes a big difference in whether or not they get read. Here are four ways that formatting can help improve your readability.

1. Formatting makes emails visually attractive.

Like it or not the way that your emails look can be a lot more important that the words contained in the email. The web is a visual medium – which means that a great template can do a lot for less than stellar content. And it can make a newsletter full of great content shine even brighter.

Make sure your newsletter and email marketing messages are built on a great template that looks appealing and encourages your recipients to read. Your template should organize information into different sections so that it’s easy to read.

2. Formatting makes your content “scannable.”

It’s a proven fact that people do not really read online. At least not the way that they would read a book or a newspaper article. It’s difficult to truly read online because of the way that screens are illuminated. It’s hard for people to read through large blocks of text and stay focused when they are reading on a screen.

Instead of reading in depth and reading each word, people scan through information. They look for bullet points, bolded sections, call outs and bite sized chunks of information. You can improve the readability of your messages by doing the same. Look for opportunities to add call outs and headings and chunk information into parts.

3. Formatting helps to show what is most important in your email message.

As you create your email marketing messages, you need to think about how your end user will receive the emails. Many of them may be pressed for time and reviewing your message in a hurry.

Formatting shows the readers what is most important at a glance. For example, if your marketing message is designed to get your reader to make a purchase, you can create an HTML button to bring attention to your call to action. The reader’s eyes will typically zoom right to the HTML button and they’ll be compelled to click.

4. Formatting encourages your readers to take the next step.

When your email readability is improved, your readers know exactly what they should do next. The point is not only to get your emails read but to get your audience to take the right action. No matter whether that’s making a purchase from you, visiting your blog or clicking through to a survey – improve your readability through formatting can help.

By creating a clean and easy to read email with formatting, you can ensure that your readers are taking the next step.



For more info on CFL’s online marketing services please visit www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Email marketing hits new highs in most successful half-year

An increase in website traffic generated by email, growth in the number of email addresses under management and a rise in the number of campaigns being run have resulted in the email marketing sector recording its most successful half-year to date, research published by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has revealed.

According to the findings of the DMA’s 2010 H2 Email Benchmarking Report, click-through rates from emails leapt from 12 million in H2 2009 to 16.1 million in H2 2010 - an increase of 33 per cent in the amount of traffic email is marshalling to clients’ websites. The half year also saw a 35 per cent rise in the volume of emails being sent during H2 2010. The number of email addresses that Email Services Providers(ESPs) manage grew across the year from 90.2 million in Q1 2010 to 101.7 million in Q4 2010.

Email marketing budgets rose through the half-year, with a third of clients spending between 21 – 40 per cent more on email in Q4 2010 compared to Q4 2009.

Surveying 20 of the UK’s ESPs, the biannual Email Benchmarking Report is produced by the DMA’s Email Marketing Council. Commenting on the findings of the report, the Council’s James Bunting said:

“Email marketers in the UK are continuing to improve on their success. The DMA’s email tracking study earlier this year showed that consumers are receiving more emails of interest to them than ever before and this latest research shows that those relevant emails are working. Email is driving more traffic to websites than ever before.

The future looks to be even brighter because this success is occurring at a time that ESPs are promising advanced tactics within their product suites enabling even greater targeting and relevance.”

Dela Quist, CEO of Alchemy Worx – sponsors of the report, added:

“Our clients are sending more emails than ever before as they begin to embrace the ‘more is more’ maxim. With increases in volume and frequency, of course, comes the corresponding challenge of producing ever more innovative emails and the demand this places on internal resources.”

The H2 2010 Email Benchmarking Report also features the latest data on strategy and segmentation, as well as open rates and deliverability. To download the report click here>>

CFL are creating more and more email marketing campaigns sending over 3 million client emails in the last 12 months, which is up a million from the previous year. Phil Martin, Marketing Manager said "We are helping our clients to build their own warm databases including email and mobile numbers, these clients include Pub Chains,Breweries, Greyhound racing tracks, nightclubs, bars and other local businesses.

Emails are always targeting and timely, and we are achieving 24% open rates and 20% Click rates and up to 96% deliverability."

www.cflmarketing.co.uk

How to Create an Email Marketing Campaign Based on Your Reports

Reporting can give you valuable insight into the nature of your email marketing list and how you can improve your marketing campaigns in the future. By paying close attention to your reporting you can develop a strong strategy for email marketing. Make it a point to regularly review your email marketing performance metrics so you can plan better email marketing campaigns.

1. Look to Your Clicks to Find the Most Interesting Topics
If you are sending regular newsletters, there are plenty of opportunities for your recipients to click on a link within each message. By analyzing which topics received the most clicks, you can easily plan future email marketing content and special offers. For example, in your newsletter you feature articles on three topics and you notice that one category consistently gets more click throughs, you can create an offer related to that topic or a resource guide. Your list has shown you exactly what type of content they are interested in receiving in the future so you can act accordingly.

2. Look at Your Open Rates to Find the Most Loyal List Members
High open rates show trust. They show that your audience is engaged with what you are delivering via email and recognizes your delivery address. You can target these most loyal list members with specific marketing campaigns. Review your open rates for the last several months of messages and send a special offer to those list members only. Due to the high past open rates of those list members you can almost insure that they will open and take action on your message.

3. Compare Your Calls to Action on High Click Through Rate Reports
The call to action of your email messages need to be strong and clear in order to be effective. Your reports can give you insight into which calls to action work for your audience. Since getting your list recipients to click through to your offer page and take action is the hallmark of effective email marketing, it is important to review your reports for click through rate. Compare those calls to action and see if you can find a common thread between them. Use that as a template for all of your future email marketing messages.

4. Pay Attention to Unsubscribe Reports to Measure Relevance and Frequency
The top two reasons people unsubscribe from your email marketing list are too many emails and irrelevant emails. Make sure that you are not sending messages too often to your list. Just because they subscribe to your email marketing list does not meant that they want to hear from you frequently. Pick a delivery schedule and stick to it. Send out regular newsletters and alternate those with targeted offers to your most responsive list members. In addition, be sure that your content is relevant. You can survey your list members, look to your frequently asked questions or client feedback to find a suitable list of topics to share with your list members.

With these key reports and list metrics, you can target your future email marketing campaigns for better results.

CFL are experts in HTML email design and execution, providing full and comprehensive reporting statistics and analysis of every campaign (see below). To see some examples please email philm@cflmarketing.co.uk or call 01225 782669

www.cflmarketing.co.uk

CFL Email reporting

Rise in B2B marketing spend

The fifth B2B Barometer report published last month (October 2011) reveals a surprisingly healthy past 12 months in the B2B marketing sector.

Over half (57%) of client side marketers report a rise in marketing spend, with one quarter reporting increased billings.

This is a marked improvement to the first B2B Barometer in 2009, where 45% said that revenue was falling.

The survey was carried out in August 2011 and is based on the opinions of 137 B2B agencies and marketers.

A sneak preview of the results appeared in Andrew Daglish’s B2B research blog. In it he explains that the bounce back is accompanied by confidence in the future. According to the survey, two-thirds (69%) of agencies and client side marketers are confident about their organisation’s outlook for the next 12 months.

However, the blog does point to a slowdown in growth. While around half (55%) of agencies report an increase in enquiries, the level of growth has dropped since the January 2011 B2B Barometer when 67% had seen a rise.

Phil Martin, Marketing Manager at CFL Marketing said "Last year was slow due to the ecconomic environment, however we have seen a large serge in client B2B marketing activity and spend which is very pleasing"

www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Consumers like marketing emails

Consumers are responding more favourably to email marketing than ever before, new DMA research reveals.

The 2011 DMA/fast.MAP Email Tracking Study, produced in conjunction with Alchemy Worx, credits improved segmentation and better targeting for this surge.

Consumers welcome marketing emails from brands they trust.

More consumers find the marketing emails they receive are of interest.

In 2010, one in 10 of consumers said that 50% or more or emails they received were of interest. In 2011 this went up to one in three consumers.

The study also reveals that consumers are signing up to receive regular emails in ever-greater numbers.

And 50% of consumers report that they now receive 20 or more emails from brands they trust every week.

There were also some surprising findings. Only 3% of consumers normally pick up their emails on a smartphone and the majority (61%) don’t check or use email at work.

The annual Email Tracking Study surveys 1,800 UK consumers to monitor their perceptions, experiences and responses to email marketing.

The study provides insight for marketers by comparing its results gathered in preceding years to highlight new and prevailing trends within the email marketing sector.

Chris Combemale, executive director at the DMA, says:

“The massive rise over the past year in the number of emails that consumers report as being of relevance to them is a direct consequence of improved targeting and segmentation techniques, as well as a greater understanding of the kinds of content that are appealing.”

If you would like to recieve samples of some targeted HTML email campaigns CFL have produced for their clients, please email philm@cflmarketing.co.uk or call 01225 782669.

www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Still not too late to market your Christmas Parties???

I'm sure you’re aware it’s only 8 Weeks till Christmas......however did you know over 60% of office Christmas parties have yet to be organised!!

Now is the perfect time to market the festive period to both Businesses and Consumers

So why not contact CFL to build a targeted promotion?

Whether its Design, Posters, Flyers, Mailings, Banners, Emails, or SMS text messages, we can help!

CFL posses that rare combination of operational experience, marketing flair and industry knowledge, our dedicated client services team will custom build a solution to fit any given brief or requirement.

Take a look at some examples of our work below


Remember - you don't have long so drop us a line 01225 782669 - or email philm@cflmarketing.co.uk

Trick or Treat???

Are you all sorted for your Halloween Party???

I'm sure you’re aware it’s Halloween weekend at the end of the month. This means there is going to be plenty of zombies, ghosts and Horny Devils looking for a party.

Halloween is getting bigger and bigger each year and is now seen as a perfect time to dress up and party, this provides you with the perfect opportunity to drive custom to your venue.

So why not contact CFL to build a targeted promotion?

Whether its Design, Posters, Flyers, Mailings, Banners, Emails, or SMS text messages, we can help!

CFL posses that rare combination of operational experience, marketing flair and industry knowledge, our dedicated client services team will custom build a solution to fit any given brief or requirement.


Remember - you don't have long so drop us a line 01225 782669 - or email philm@cflmarketing.co.uk

Are you Making these Common Email Marketing Mistakes?

Email marketing has extensive uses for your business, and when used properly, it can drastically increase conversion rates and boost your profits at a very low cost. However, because of the fast growth in popularity of email marketing, there are many misunderstandings about it. These common mistakes can lead to low profit and conversion rates – are you making any of them?

Sending emails too infrequently.
Many marketers do not want to annoy their subscribers and so they will send infrequent emails. However, from a marketing perspective, this is a terrible move. People receive a lot of email and if they are not reminded of you regularly, they will forget who you are, what your list offers, and what you can do for them, and unsubscribe to your list. The ideal frequency of sending emails will depend on your subscribers and how they react (different audiences react differently), and you should test several different frequencies to see which they respond to best. However, you should be sending at least one email a month, and preferably 2-3 emails a month to keep your brand and offerings fresh in your subscriber’s minds.

Sending emails irregularly.
People like regularity – they like to know that twice a week on Mondays and Fridays, you will send them an email. If people do not know when to expect your next email, it will throw them off. If you send three emails one week and then one in the next two weeks, for no reason, subscribers will be confused.

Vague subject lines or “from” names.
Again, people receive a lot of email. If they cannot tell who the email is from or what it’s about with a quick glance at it, the email will likely be deleted without ever having been opened. Make sure to give your emails clear, enticing subject lines, and have the same “from” name every time.

Not making use of list subsections.
You can divide your email lists by location, age, date signed up, and interests they choose when they sign up, among other factors. Many email markets do not do this but you can use this information to send super-targeted offers to a very specific subset of your list. When you do this, it gives you a chance to write the email to such a small segment of your list that everyone who receives it will feel as though it was written for them. Targeted specific offers like this tend to have much higher conversion rates than offers sent to your entire list.

Adding old emails to a new list.
Even if someone signed up for one of your lists, to add their email to a different list without their explicit permission is a violation of the CAN-SPAM act. And after you are reported as spam a few times, which is likely to happen if you do this, your emails are much less likely to get through to the rest of your list. As a rule, do not put anyone on your list unless they have signed up through your opt-in forms or specifically request that you add them to your list.

To see some examples of CFL's Email marketing capabilities email: philm@cflmarketing.co.uk or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Social media sites not trusted with personal data

Consumers do not trust social networking sites with their personal data, according to a survey by Symantec.

More than a third of consumers (38%) surveyed felt that they couldn’t trust online communities such as social networking sites and forums with their personal data at all.

The most trusted sector was financial services, with more than half (55%) of respondents saying they trust banks and building societies to keep their personal data safe.

More than 2,000 UK adults took part in the survey, which was carried out by YouGov and commissioned by Symantec. Respondents were asked to give sectors a trust score of one to seven (one being ‘don’t trust at all’ and seven ‘trust completely’).

On average, nearly 60% of respondents gave social networking sites, online publishers and the online gaming industry a trust score of three or below.

Protecting the integrity of confidential information is of course vital, but making it clear to the public that their information is safe is crucial as well. Security conscious online retailers need to differentiate themselves from bogus sites and the public are increasingly looking for visible signs that a retailer is proactive about security.

Trust seals show that an organisation is what it says it is and has passed a rigorous malware scan enabling a boost in customer confidence for businesses investing in these and displaying them clearly throughout the site.

Six Keys to Doing Something Different in Email Marketing

Getting a subscriber on to your email list is a victory, but the battle is not over yet. Chances are that if your email subscriber is on your list, they are also on others’ lists in your industry. This means that they are potentially receiving several emails per week or even per day that have to do with similar products and services as the ones that you are selling. What’s a business to do? Find ways to do something different and stand out from the crowd. Here are few ideas to get you started:

1. Subscribe to your competitor’s list, and see what they are doing.
If you subscribe to several competitors’ lists, you might be surprised to see that all of them are doing exactly the same thing in every email. This gives you an opportunity to break away from the herd and do something new and different. It also lets you see what the standard is – what quality of marketing and content that’s being offered through others’ lists, so you can go a step above and do your own take on it.

2. Get your subscribers involved.
There are several ways to do this. One great idea is to do a customer of the month profile – featuring someone who purchased your products or services last month, drawn randomly. Another way to do this is to have a monthly drawing with prizes for answering trivia questions about your industry or your products and services. Getting your subscribers involved creates a feeling of community and will skyrocket the open rates and responsiveness of your list.

3. Ask for feedback.
People love to give their two cents about things. By asking your subscribers for feedback, you are not only opening the pathway for communication between the two of you, but you are also getting the chance to get valuable input on what to do and where to go with your emails, products, and services. This sets you apart from your competitors because it shows that you actually care.

4. Customize by location.
This is most useful for business’ who have both an online and offline presence, in obvious ways. You can send an email to people who live in your town and advertise an in-store sale, without emailing people who live elsewhere. But you could also run location-specific promotions – for example, say you had a large percentage of subscribers in New Orleans when the Saints won the Super Bowl. You could then send an email campaign to subscribers who lived in New Orleans with a special victory discount. This will make the subscribers feel like you pay attention to their local news and create a feeling of loyalty.

5. Keep it short.
People lead busy lives, and the longer your email is, the less likely it is that it will be read. If you keep your emails at a reasonable length, your subscribers will know that you value their time and attention, and don’t want to waste it.

6. Make it valuable.
For an email to get opened and read entirely, it needs to be more than a pitch about your latest promotion. If you really want to make sure that your emails are opened and read, then you will want to create valuable information that your subscribers actually need and want to read. Aside from this increasing the likelihood of your emails being opened and read in their entirety, it creates a feeling of reciprocity. If your subscribers are consistently receiving something of value from you, they will feel the need to repay you, often by buying your products and services further on down the line.

www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Direct mail makes a comeback

Nearly three-quarters (71%) of consumers are happy to receive mail from organisations they already buy from, according to an independent survey commissioned by Acxiom.

The results are a major boost for direct mail and the direct marketing industry as a whole, with some 57% of respondents also saying that postal contact was appropriate for prospective customers.

The question was part of a study conducted among both marketers and consumers on behalf of multichannel marketing services and technology company Acxiom.

The research examined consumers’ preferences for communication with client organizations. An explosion of new technology has changed people’s relationships with brands, and marketers are keen to understand how best to build conversations with individuals they are trying to target.

Murray Dudgeon, European client services director at Acxiom, commented: “The unique targeting opportunities that mail provides are clearly backed up by the number of people who think it is an appropriate form of contact.

“Clearly, if good data is used correctly to target the right people with postal campaigns, they are happy to receive marketing through their letterbox – whether or not they have an existing relationship with the sender.”

Email is similarly popular among customers, with 78% of people willingly accepting this form of contact; the figure dropped to 52% for prospects, but this was still the second most appropriate way of targeting people.

Newer forms of marketing are yet to be as wholeheartedly accepted by either customers or prospects. Only 9% of customers felt SMS marketing was appropriate.

Social media was similarly unpopular. Just 4% of customers approve of contact through Twitter and other social media.

Chris Combemale, executive director of the Direct Marketing Association UK, comments: “As Acxiom’s survey highlights, consumers are very clear about how they want to be contacted, with mail and email continuing to be their preferred channels.

“And above all they respond best when the communication is timely, relevant and targeted. This should be at the forefront of every marketer’s mind in these tough trading times, as they fight to retain customers and win new ones.”

To see how you can build a responsive direct mail activity as part of an integrated marketing campaign, please contact CFL on 01225 782669 or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Many people still prefer physical post

Over half of people still prefer receiving bills and financial statements by mail according to a recent national poll.

A poll by the Envelope Manufacturers and Suppliers Association (EMSA) reveals that 54% of people want to continue receiving important documents such as bills and financial statements by mail, rather than solely online. And 73% would like to receive them by post and online.

Although 76% of survey respondents used the internet, they showed a strong preference for receiving important documents by mail, particularly among members of public aged 45 and older.

“The mail continues to provide an important delivery vehicle for critical financial information and even internet-savvy citizens are reluctant to eliminate it,” said Keith Bartlett, the Chairman of EMSA.

While internet usage in the UK, according to government statistics, now includes 73% of households, it is important to recognise that one in four households remains offline.

Consumers like door drops says new survey

Over 80% of UK consumers are happy to receive door drop material through their letterbox if it is of relevance to them, according to a Royal Mail study.

The survey into attitudes to door drops was carried out by FreshMinds Research and reveals an attitude that shows people to be particularly receptive to door drops from retailers and FMCG brands.

The findings contradict the view that consumers perceive the channel as junk mail, as reported in the Panorama junk mail programme last month.

The survey found that 81% of people happy to receive door drops from the retail sector at least once a month while a quarter of them want to receive such material at least a few times a week.

The next most popular sector was FMCG, with 74% saying they were happy to receive consumer goods leaflets on at least a monthly basis.

The survey also reveals that door drops are particularly effective for localised marketing by local retailers, councils and to a certain extent restaurants and takeaways.

74% of those surveyed said they were happy to receive door drops about local events while 70% were happy to receive information from their local council.

Free samples and vouchers are also in demand, with 60% of adults saying they are happy to receive them.

CFL Have been designing, printing and organising targetted door drops for many years, and have seen a marked increase in the last few month.

Phil Martin, Marketing Manager at CFL Marketing “In the last few months we have conducted door drops for National Bowling companies as well as large pub chains and managed houses. Our clients are seeing a real benefit.

As long as the drop is segmented, targeted and the timing is right, there is no reason why it can’t be as effective as direct mail”

If you wouuld like to receive a quote for design, print and distribution (either solus or via a newspaper) please give us a call on 01225 782669 or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk

CFL to add large format poster printer

CFL Marketing are to add a brand new, large format poster printer to their growing production unit.

Marketing Manager, Phil Martin said "we are getting more and more requests for large format print, especially for promotional posters. Its got to the point we need the new printer to meet demand. We already house a full digital print facility

Its amazing the power and impact that digital print can have. The Key advantage is that all elements of the artwork can be variable - both images and text - so that each individual item is unique in it's own right. Gone are the days when simple black overprint was as personal as it got, now the personalisation is an integral part of the artwork itself. Digital print also offers amazing savings at low volumes, as low volume litho work is notoriously expensive"

Our product list covers:

Flyers
Posters
Postcards
Menus
Table Talkers
Bespoke Mailers

For a sample pack of our digital work, or to request competitive pricing on our new poster printer simply contact us on 01225 782669 or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Royal Mail delays decision on stamping its mark on mail

Direct Marketing industry have welcomed Royal Mail’s announcement that it is now ‘taking additional time’ to consider its proposal to stamp all bulk mail with the message ‘Delivered by the Royal Mail’.

Before Royal Mail made its announcement today (26 July), the mailing industry was on a two-month notice period until its new initiative was due to come into effect.

The industry has reacted with a mixture of horror and anger at the proposals, with manydirect mail service providers and clients complaining about ceding control of the area of the envelope that is reserved for their branding and messaging. Many others have argued that the short notice period would leave them out of pocket from having to change creative work and scrapping stockpiles of printed envelopes.

Lessons in email marketing

Over half of people delete email messages within two seconds without ever opening them.

Two new white papers from the DMA Email marketing Council give marketers practical tips on how to ensure their message doesn't go straight to the recycling bin.

The first (the DMA email creative white paper) looks at 10 common factors that impede the performance of an email marketing campaign and offers advice on how to deal with each one.

While it doesn't have detailed instructions on what to do, it does cover the basics for each area.

From testing and avoiding spam filters to technological issues that affect how a message renders on different platforms and browsers, the paper offers solutions to most common email problems.

It also offers a solution to the problem of images and video, with advice on how to use them without hindering the deliverability or readability of the email.

Personalising an email is one sure-fire way to improve response rates. The paper looks at the potential pitfalls, which could lead to recipients hitting the dreaded spam button and how to avoid this.

One way to show recipients you know them is to send trigger-based emails. The second paper looks at trigger-based email marketing.

Advances in technology allow marketers to deliver personalised, relevant emails following 'triggers' such as the birth of a baby or buying a new gadget.

Aligning the content and timing of the message with customers' needs, increases the relevance, response and the ROI from an email campaign.

This short paper outlines the different types of trigger-based campaigns and what email marketers need to be aware of before embarking on one - including permissions, data and frequency.

CFL Marketing have also created an Integrated Email Marketing Best Practice guide - See below

Integrated Email Marketing Best Practice

View more presentations from CFL Marketing

Direct marketing budgets get a boost

The results of the latest IPA/BDO Bellwether survey reveal a boost in direct marketing budgets.

Overall, UK marketing budgets are down in Q2 for the third consecutive quarter, but direct marketing budgets are up. Direct marketing budgets increased 2.5% in the three months to 30 June.

Internet advertising budgets are also up, but by a smaller have seen a drop-off (up 1.9%, compared to a 9.3% increase in Q1). Internet search also grew – by 4.6% - a slight drop from the 4.3% increase in Q1.

With 22% of UK firms reporting a cut in marketing budgets, it is clear that business confidence has fallen and the outlook for the economy is more pessimistic.

Speaking to Marketing Week Mel Cruickshank, chairman of IPA’s direct marketing group said companies “are turning to direct marketing to provide return on investment against marketing spend”.

For more information on building and integrated direct marketing campaign, contact CFL Marketing on 01225 782669 or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Royal Mail news alarms business mailers

Royal Mail has announced plans to apply a new mark to the mail it delivers.

From mid-September all machineable mail will feature the mark ‘Delivered by Royal Mail’ on the envelope.

This proposal raises a number of concerns since it will be printed in an area that Royal Mail customers use for their logos and messages creating problems with the existing creative treatments and design of envelopes.

The proposed positioning of the mark also appears to conflict with existing Royal Mail specifications such as where to print return addresses and Advanced Cleanmail.

The lack of consultation and advance warning means that Royal Mail customers will have less than two months to comply with this change and many could be left holding stocks of pre-printed envelopes that won’t comply with the new requirements.

There has been no consultation about the impact and not enough notice of a change to specification, which has left the business community understandably shaken.

Head of postal and environmental affairs at the DMA, Alex Walsh says: “We’re disappointed that Royal Mail has chosen not to consult the industry ahead of this announcement to understand the problems this would cause its business customers.

“It is already causing a lot of concern within the direct marketing industry and we are consulting with the regulator, other trade associations and postal user groups to decide on the next course of action.”

Alex is also concerned about the effect on future mailings. “This is different to previous changes that have been introduced for operational reasons. If this is not challenged, then it could set a dangerous precedent where Royal Mail can overprint envelopes with whatever they choose.”

Find ways to Pique Curiosity in Email Marketing

Your open rate, click through rate and conversion rate are all integral to the success of email marketing campaigns. All of these factors can be affected by piquing the curiosity of your audience. If your list members are genuinely interested in what you are sending them, they will be more likely to open your emails and take action.

Creating interest in your messages is the best way to create the connection, relationship and response you are looking for. This might seem like a tall challenge, especially if you are in a B2B industry or other industry that is not exactly positioned as being fun and exciting. Even if your company has a reputation for being straight laced, there’s no reason why you cannot pique curiosity to encourage opens, click throughs and conversions.

1. Craft a compelling subject line.

Your subject line is your first opportunity to capture interest and the first hurdle you have to overcome in order to get your click through or sale. Looking at your open rate metrics and split testing your subject lines is the best way to find the right approach for your particular mix. Generally, you should try to create a subject line that gives your audience an idea of what to expect. Opt for something persuasive and interesting – like “Are you making one of these accounting mistakes?” rather than “Jones Accounting Firm Newsletter 26.”

2. Have some personality.

Creating a persona to speak for your company – or a few if you are a large organisation – is a good way to make your messages more interesting. Your email messages should read as if they are coming from a specific person, complete with a specific tone and approach. Your audience will be a lot more responsive to messages from a personality than corporate speak.

3. For newsletters, include a preview of blog posts and articles.

Sending a newsletter with entire posts? You can get a lot better click through response and train your recipients to visit your website by including just a snippet of your blog post or article. Your newsletter should include your most recent post tiles and a few sentences to describe your article. Instead of including the first few sentences of your article, consider writing a summary that entices the reader to click through and read the rest of your article. The more comfortable they are with following your links and visiting their site, the more likely they’ll click through to take action on your offers.

4. For your sales messages, emphasise the benefits of clicking through and checking out your offer.

Piquing curiosity with sales messages is most important of all. The key to keeping your audience interested is to emphasise the benefits of the offer and not the features. For example, if you’re selling a new accounting service you need to craft an email that explains how the accounting service will reduce their stress, eliminate billing hassles and make their lives easier overall. You wouldn’t want to focus the email on the ins and outs of the particular program. Tease them with the benefits and they follow through with a click to your offer.

Please see below CFL Marketings best practice presentation in integrated email marketing. (or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk)

Integrated Email Marketing Best Practice

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Email Lists can Build Brand Loyalty

It’s almost always harder and more expensive to find new customers than to retain your current customers. By creating brand loyalty with your existing customers, you can hold onto the customers that you have while still building your company. Creating a sense of brand loyalty will encourage your current customers to stick with you instead of switching to a competitor.

You might not realize it, but your email list is a powerful tool for building brand loyalty, especially when utilized in the right ways.

It gives you an easy way to reward your customers.
When customers are regularly rewarded, they feel a growing sense of loyalty to your business and your brand. You can do this in a variety of ways.

One of the most common ways is creating discounts only for people who are on your email list. This is a good place to start, but when overused can end up devaluing your products and services, so make sure to use it sparingly and irregularly.

Other ideas include giving customers insider information about what’s coming up next for your business, having VIP only products or services available to those on your email list, and letting your email list members have early access to new products or services.

It activates reciprocity.
Reciprocity is what happens when someone gives us something of value – we feel the inherent need to pay them back at some point in the future. The important thing to remember here is that you have to be giving them something that’s actually of value, not just an inflated or made up value.

Customers can tell when you are trying to pull one over on them, and they do not like it. But if you are actively rewarding your customers, they will feel the need to repay you – by buying more of your offerings, telling others about you, and staying loyal to your brand.

It gives customers an easy way to stay in touch with you – and for you to listen to them.
This is something that many businesses forget, and their customer retention and loyalty suffers as a result. In this day and age of cheap outsourcing, businesses that actually listen and respond to their customers, or even ask for their customers’ opinions, are incredibly rare.

Invite your customers to respond to your email campaigns and tell you what they think, or send them surveys asking about their opinion of what could be improved in your business, and then actually listen to their responses. After this, your business will automatically stand head and shoulders above the rest in your customers’ minds.

This can also backfire, because if you invite a customer to tell you what they think and then either don’t listen or send back a canned auto-reply, they can be turned off to your business. Make sure to honor the effort that the customer has put forth in telling you their thoughts, and you will gain a customer for life.

www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Keeping Email Content Interesting

In email marketing, there are a few golden rules to follow. Forgetting any of these rules can lead to a marked decrease in the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, which is something no business wants to experience. Chief among these rules is to keep your email marketing messages interesting.

Obviously you are not sending out boring emails on purpose, but many email marketers get stuck in the trap of thinking that if the content is interesting to them, then it will be interesting to their readers. Unfortunately, this is simply untrue a large majority of the time. It’s an easy mistake to make, but one that you should watch out for, because the results will be less than pleasant.

Once you acknowledge that keeping your email marketing interesting to the reader is the most important thing to consider, here are a few concrete suggestions for ways to do that.

Survey your readers.
Ask them what they want and need. Everyone loves being given the opportunity to talk about themselves, and a survey lets your readers do just that. For best results, keep the number of questions low, and the questions clearly worded and to the point. Your readers are busy and most likely, do not have the time to answer a long list of questions.

Have special, incredibly useful VIP only content.
Here’s where the results from the survey come in handy – not only can you use that information in future product and service development, but it also gives you the opportunity to figure out what they are interested in at this moment and then provide it to them. When email list members know that in addition to your marketing, you provide useful, actionable content that only they get access to, your open rates will soar.

Have a reader questions column.
Encourage your readers to submit questions that you will then answer in your email campaigns. Not only does this give you even more information about your readers’ wants and needs, but it gives readers who submit a question the opportunity to be featured – which is interesting to them, of course – and chances are, if one person has that question, several do, so your answer will be interesting to them as well.

Have a featured client column.
Pick a customer or client who has purchased your offerings in the past, and do a short write up about them. It will be a pleasant surprise for the client, and it fosters a sense of community, which tends to increase goodwill towards you and your business.

Encourage engagement and interaction.
The willingness of your email list to interact with you and your business is, by far, more important than the sheer size of the list. From now on, every time you send out an email campaign, ask yourself if it will be interesting to the reader and what kind of response or action it will prompt them to take. If it will not be interesting to them or will not prompt them to take some kind of action, then rethink the campaign


www.cflmarketing.co.uk
Here at CFL, we send hundreds of thousands of emails out each week for our clients. To see some examples of our custom built HTML emails please drop a line on 01225 782669 or log on to



visit us on your phone -

Mobile Phones Boost the Power of Email Marketing

Every now and again, people like to declare a certain form of marketing “dead”. One of the forms of marketing that has been declared “dead” or outdated several times is email marketing, the latest declarations coinciding with the rising popularity of platforms like Facebook and Twitter for business purposes. Aside from other issues with that declaration, the people who claim that email marketing is no longer useful are usually ignoring a huge factor in the debate: the rise of smart phones.

By Christmas 2011, one out of two Americans will own a smart phone. That’s a full 50% of the population who will have access to email on their mobile devices. In addition to the fast growth rate of smart phone users, studies that have been done on the ways people use smart phones imply that email marketing will not be obsolete any time soon.

The ComScore 2010 Mobile Year in Review analysis of smart phone usage showed that accessing email far outranked any other kind of mobile web use. The same analysis showed that in Japan, smart phone users are beginning to use their phones for email more than text messaging, and given that Japan is a world trendsetter when it comes to technology, it’s a fairly safe assumption to make that the United States and Europe will soon follow suit.

How can you take advantage of these factors in your email marketing? Here’s a few tips:

Optimise your emails for mobile viewing.
This includes keeping them fairly short, making them easy to skim by using bold text and bullet points, and keeping the number of large images to a minimum. Before you send out an email to your list, check it on a mobile device if at all possible, to make sure that it’s easy to read when on the go.

Make sure that your website is optimised for mobile viewing.
Most email marketing campaigns include links within them, and having a mobile optimized email does not do much good if the user clicks on the link and then is led to a website that they cannot view on their phone. Double check to make sure that your business website is usable on a mobile device, up to and including all steps of checkout.

Consider having the option at sign up for users to choose mobile emails.(As opposed to HTML or text emails.)
This is an option that has been available to email marketers for a while, but has not been used much, because until recently there was not a need for it. Letting them choose to receive mobile emails shows that you are on top of recent trends, and also shows that you understand that many people now prefer to view their emails on mobile devices. Giving your customers the choice will make them happier and also make things easier for you in the long run.

The DMA’s stance on “advertising mail”

In light of the recent Panorama programme The DMA has produced a fact sheet on the advertising mail industry. ram on Junk Mail – the DMA have produced a

How damaging is advertising mail to the environment?

We agree wastage from advertising mail needs to be reduced and the DMA has been helping the industry shape up.

In 2003, Defra set the industry the target of ensuring that 70% of all used advertising mail is recycled by 2013. This target was smashed four years early in 2009, with 76% of advertising mail being recycled.

Since 2003, the volume of advertising mail now being sent to landfill every year has fallen by 80%. Now, advertising mail represents just 0.4% of the average household’s unrecycled waste.

What is the industry doing to clean up its act?

The DMA and BSi have produced an environmental standard called PAS 2020, which provides the guidelines for producing environmentally sustainable advertising mail.

Targeting practices are continually improving, meaning that excess advertising mail is not produced.

The Mailing Preference Service www.mpsonline.org.uk is an industry funded scheme for householders to opt out of receiving unwanted advertising mail. More than five million households are now registered – nearly 20% of all households.

I’ve never bought anything from junk mail. Does it really work?

Really, you’ve never redeemed a coupon you’ve received in the post? The vast majority of people have.

Advertising mail works; if it didn’t then companies would not spend money on it. According to the Mail Media Centre, 17.7 million people bought something after receiving a mail order catalogue in the past 12 months.

Every year, advertising mail generates £16 billion in sales – a massive contribution to UK plc at a time when high street retailers are suffering.

For the majority of businesses, it’s the only form of advertising they can afford. Most companies can’t afford to pay for TV, radio, billboard, or newspaper ads.

People hate receiving junk mail, so why bother sending it?

Research conducted by Royal Mail shows that the majority of people still prefer to be contacted by mail by the businesses they’re customers of, than by any other method of communication: for example, 46% of BT customers prefer to be contacted by mail, compared to 22% by email; 50% of Churchill’s customers prefer to be contacted by mail, compared to 20% who prefer to be contacted by email.

There’s plenty of research to show that the majority of consumers welcome receiving advertising mail that provides them with exclusive offers on products they like. For example, research by BMRB reveals that 75% of consumers like receiving special offers and vouchers through the post. The same research also reveals that consumers like mail alerting them to new products and services they might want to try, etc

While many people conduct their lives online, there are still plenty of people who don’t. Advertising mail is a source of information on products and services they might not otherwise have access to.

The delivery of poorly targeted mail – ‘junk mail’ – is unacceptable. The industry now has sophisticated data collection methods and data cleaning tools, so there is no excuse for sending poorly targeted mail. And, it’s not in the interest of businesses to waste money and annoy consumers with badly targeted mail.

Why should the taxpayer have to foot the bill for disposing junk mail?

The majority (76% at last count in 2009) of advertising mail is now recycled, and so doesn’t go into costly landfill.

The cost of disposing adverting mail is more than offset by the industry’s contribution to the economy. UK businesses spend £11.2 billion on advertising mail every year and it generates £16 billion in sales.

Also, the advertising mail industry is responsible for an estimated 280,000 jobs, all of whom are taxpayers of course.

Why should Royal Mail be allowed to profit from delivering junk mail?

Royal Mail actually loses 6.4p per item of stamped mail that it delivers. The average household now spends less than 40p on postage per week. Royal Mail can’t survive on this revenue alone. Advertising mail provides 25% of Royal Mail’s revenue and therefore subsidises the postal service. (Source: Hooper Report / Postcomm)

Consumers accept that commercial TV, radio, online, free press are funded and subsidised by advertising. However, consumers don’t understand the fact that advertising provides them with an economical postal service.

Also, consumers can’t blame the messenger if they receive mail they don’t like. Royal Mail has a legal obligation to deliver the mail.

Viewers unimpressed by Panorama episode on “Junk Mail”

BBC's Panorama programme (4 July) has come under fire for its report on the so-called ‘junk mail’ industry.

Viewers expressed their confusion over the programme’s treatment of the issues surrounding scam mail and junk mail through social media platforms, such as Twitter.

Tweeters using the hash tag #panoramamail were quick to point out that the two issues are unrelated – one is a criminal activity, the other is legitimate advertising.

Many more were critical of the programme’s sensationalist tone and challenged the programme’s claim that unwanted and used advertising mail costs the British taxpayer £50 million per year to dispose of.

Critics pointed out that it was a figure extrapolated from Cornwall County Council’s estimated cost of disposal, which was based on landfilling a variety of waste paper not just advertising mail – and is not necessarily typical of other councils across the country.

Others also queried why Cornwall Council is putting recyclable mail into landfill, and that taxpayers should incur no additional cost when there are schemes in place to collect and recycle all forms of waste paper.

The DMA’s Chris Combemale, who was interviewed for the show, said that he was disappointed with the confusion of the issues the programme promised to deal with.

“Junk and scam mail are both challenges our industry must face up to, but I thought it was unfortunate that the programme lumped them all together and tarred our industry with the same brush.

“Scam mail is illegal and plainly wrong. And of course we agree badly targeted, unwanted mail needs to be eliminated. As an industry, we are making progress to tackle both problems.”

Combemale added:

“I was pleased, however, that the programme did carry some facts about the legitimate advertising mail industry, such as the fact that now 76% of all unwanted and used mail is recycled and generates £16bn of sales for UK companies.”

“Green” DM service that offers physical mail opt-out launched

A new service that allows consumers to choose to receive DM by post or email has launched.

People signing up for the Green Preference Service will allow people to opt-out of receiving physical mail, instead setting up a “web box” to receive DM electronically.

Direct marketers pay to use the service to check the channel customers prefer to receive information. If email, brands can send a message to their web box.

Multi-channel campaigns are the most effective

Multi-channel campaigns that focus on a central brand theme deliver the best return on investment, according to a new report published by the IPA.


In its “New models of marketing effectiveness. From integration to orchestration” report, the IPA looked to identify what works in terms of integration and why.

Kate Cox, co-author of the report says the analysis aims to “put a stake in the ground” for the industry by defining ways of integrating marketing activity and assessing their effectiveness.

To See how you can implement your own multi-channel campaign, log on to www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Don't let your customers fade from view

Latest figures indicate that people are becoming less inclined to hand over their personal details in return for benefits such as discounts and samples, challenging marketers to step up their powers of persuasion.


Data may be the magic ingredient that allows marketers to finetune their targeting, but research exclusive to Marketing Week shows that consumers have become significantly less willing to provide their details to brands.

According to the latest Data Tracker, conducted by consultancy fast.MAP and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), incentives to provide data, such as store cards, discounts, money-off vouchers and free samples, are losing their appeal for increasingly critical consumers.

CFL Marketing have created a Data Capture Best Practice presentation to help brand maximise the capture of customer data. See the presentation below or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Data Capture - 12 tips

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Retailers missing a trick with emails

Over two-thirds of emails from UK retailers have no personalisation at all, a new industry study reveals.

Most of the UK’s top retailers adopt a one size fits all approach to their email marketing, according to the report. 87% of messages sent following a purchase were identical to those sent to cold prospects and only 13% of retailers customised their emails based on gender.

The study shows that retailers are missing opportunities for personalised targeting and cross-selling from their email marketing. The vast majority of retailers apparently made no attempt to drive cross-sell, up-sell or repeat purchase based in the customers previous online buying behaviour.

Only one retailer (Amazon.co.uk) followed up an online purchase with an email marketing message tailored to that purchase.

However, there were some encouraging results, with 93% using triggered emails following a purchase to reassure and build customer loyalty and 67% keeping online purchasers informed on the progress of their order, through the use of timely emails.

Top five post-sales email targeting tips

1. Invite web customers to sign up during checkout – ask for the most important data.

2. Incentivise customers to sign up to your email marketing – e.g. with loyalty points, discounts off future purchases or exclusive special offers or previews.

3. Map put the data you need to collect from your customers, the data you can collect from their transactions, and how can you use it to personalise and tailor post-sale communications.

4. Use customer surveys as part of your post sale messages to collect valuable data on the customer experience and help build loyalty and trust.

5. Don’t forget basic triggered communications like order confirmations – purchasers expect this at minimum.

There are some good resources on this subject on the DMA website including the DMA Email Marketing Council’s two white papers: Guide to data analysis and segmentation and Split testing.

For more information on how to use Email marketing as part of an integrated marketing campaign please call CFL on 01225 782669 or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Direct mail drives digital response

Direct mail plays an important role in integrated campaign, according to one industry expert.

Writing on uktalkmarketing.com, Luke Griffiths, vice-president of client services at e-Dialog said that although future lies in digital marketing, print is still extremely effective.

He went on to say that email marketing and other digital influences have encouraged advances in direct mail.

A recent Mail Media Centre report backs this up with some encouraging figures on how direct mail works with digital activity.

The report reveals that direct mail can help online search – 58% of people said they were more likely to click on a search link for a company if they’re received something in the post.

And 67% refer to physical mail when searching for a new product or service online.

Direct mail can also improve the performance of other channels. For example, the TV component of campaigns is 37% more effective when direct mail is in the media mix. In the report Tess Alps, chief executive of Thinkbox says: “Direct mail can satisfy those appetites that TV provokes.”

Direct mail has seen its ROI level rise steadily over the last three years, a trend credited to improved targeting.

To see how an integrated marketing campaign can work for you please call CFL on 01225 782636 or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk

How the Leisure and Licensed Trade can target Students

Currently the student market is a thriving segmented area which is constantly changing and moving and is proven to be highly profitable.

They might lead a fast paced lifestyle but don’t be fooled! They are very careful with the expenditure and can loose interest at a click of a finger.

So it is crucial that business’s adapt to maintain interest, and demand through their marketing. Fortunately there are some key tools which will help gain and retain students.

Please find below our top tips to accessing the student market

Accessing students

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Tomorrow’s marketers believe in door drops

A new study has found that the next generation of marketers recognises the valuable role of traditional door drops in marketing campaigns.
The research, carried out among marketing students at University of Hertfordshire, underlines the role of unaddressed mail in future communications strategies.

Nearly half (45 per cent) of those surveyed said they believe that door drops have a valid role to play in the media mix.


The study by Royal Mail Door to Door also found that over one third (35 per cent) believe that current marketing directors underestimate the value that unaddressed mail can add.


One fifth of the students said they plan to use the door drops in their future campaigns. This is an encouraging statistic for the future growth of door drops, which currently account for four per cent of total media spend.


The Royal Mail study also highlighted the key benefits of door drops as a channel. Respondents identified its ability to deliver product samples directly to the hands of the consumer, reach, and tangibility as its key strengths.

CFL Marketing have recently organised a number of door drops for a national bowling company as well as one of the UK's largest pub chains

Phil Martin, Marketing manager CFL Marketing said "We are seeing an increased demand of door drop distribution, and providing done in the correct way can return a compelling ROI, especially when used as part of an integrated marketing campaign. That said we would still see personalised direct mail much more responsive"


To find out how a door drop can help your business call CFL today on 01225 782 669 or log on to www.cflmarketing.co.uk

CFL Sponsor and Present the Award for Digital Promotions at The IPM awards

Over 650 people attended this years IPM Awards at the London Hilton, Park Lane, to cheer on the winners of the coveted trophies – all 98 of them.

CFL Marketing MD - Mike Bronson and Creative Director - Paul McCoombe attended the IPM Awards last Thursday to present the Award for Digital Promotion.

The award went to "The Big March" campaign.

Campaign: The Big March
Promoter: Beatbullying
Agency: Beatbullying/Arnold KLP
Account director: Karen Delaine-Smith
Creative director: Andrew Watkinson

Bullying, particularly cyber-bullying, is a huge issue in the UK, and charity Beatbullying wanted to use the UK’s existing National Anti-bullying Week platform to mobilise children, teachers, parents, businesses and brands to get a debate on bullying in Parliament. They needed 100,000 petition signatures to do so: this campaign delivered 915,000. The key element was the idea of a virtual march, with avatars of petition supporters ‘marching’ across the websites of participating companies, brands, personalities and organisations before arriving at the No 10 Downing Street website. The more than 75 brands included MTV, Orange Rockcorps, Robinsons Fruit Shoot and The Sun, while celebrities included JLS, Pixie Lott and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. All on a budget of less than £50,000.

Mike Bronson said "we would like to extend our congratulations to the Beatbullying team for their Big March promotion - a worthy winner!, we would also like to thank the IPM for a fantastic night and for allowing us to be involved"

For a full list of winners click here>>

A level results……A time to celebrate???

I’m sure you’re aware it’s A levels results day coming soon (Thursday the 18th August). This means there is going to be plenty of thirsty students looking to let their hair down, with 4 long, well deserved days off.

With students keen to celebrate getting their University place or to drown their sorrows, this provides the perfect opportunity to drive custom to your venue.

So why not contact CFL to build a targeted promotion?

CFL Possess that rare combination of operational experience, marketing flair and industry knowledge, our dedicated client services team will custom build a solution to fit any given brief or requirement.


Remember - you don't have long so drop us a line 01225 782669 - or email philm@cflmarketing.co.uk

www.cflmarketing.co.uk

CFL Marketing for Pub's

CFL Marketing are helping more and more Public Houses to Market their business and improve their trade.

Please see our latest brochure for the pub trade.

let us know what you think!

www.cflmarketing.co.uk

CFL Marketing for Pub Trade

View more presentations from CFL Marketing

What digital marketers can learn from DM

In an age of information overload, digital marketers could learn a lot from the personalisation and value pursued by direct mailers.

Hardly a month goes by without some development in digital being hailed as the next big thing in marketing innovation. It is easy to see why - digital can engage consumers more quickly and effectively than other marketing techniques, as well as provide instant and detailed data on financial returns.

In an era of information overload, however, digital channels - and in particular mass email marketing - are in danger of alienating, rather than attracting, consumers. For example, email open and click-through rates are declining year on year, according to a survey last year by MailerMailer.

With a renewed emphasis on better targeting and deeper personalisation, direct mail is once again in the spotlight. In the past, brands have all too often been accused of looking at direct mail in terms of volume, rather than value, in their pursuit of response rates.

Mail volumes, however, have been falling year on year, and developments in the medium, from behavioural targeting to improved personalisation, suggest that direct mail is now at the forefront of customer relationship management (CRM).

Standing out on the doormat is becoming ever-more difficult, and achieving it requires creativity.

Like conventional direct mail, email should only be used wisely, discriminately and with respect to the consumer and the brand.

Cut-through is becoming more and more difficult due to spam filters and consumers' patience wearing thin.'

Email campaigns all too often suffer from poor targeting and low optimisation, due to the low cost of email, which reduces the financial impact of getting things wrong; in contrast, the higher cost of direct mail makes testing an economic necessity.

Email marketers can learn the value of testing from the direct discipline. 'Messages, data segmentation and profiling, subject lines, offers, creative, timing; all should be continually tested and measured to help improve response and understanding of consumer wants and needs

Mail can also be an effective driver of engagement and dialogue between brands and consumers. The innovations detailed in this piece, from data cleaning to behavioural targeting, demonstrate how the medium is a force to be reckoned with, despite the exponential growth of digital communications. Direct mail is not so much fighting back as finding its niche in an industry that recognises consumers differ in the way they want to receive information and promotional offers.

For more information on implementing an integrated Direct Marketing approach please contact CFL Marketing on 01225 782669 or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk

Leverage retention in email campaigns for more profit!!

When you are in the midst of executing an email or social marketing campaign — rushing to meet deadlines, pulling together creative, copy and 
getting approvals — it is easy to lose sight of your campaign objectives.

All direct marketing activity can be simply put into two brackets: names or profits.


With acquisition marketing, your objective is to win a maximum number of new customer names within your allowable "cost per name" budget. You can do this through paid search, SEO, co-registration, email sponsorship and social marketing. This is how you build subscribers, fans and followers.


However, acquiring new names is an expensive process. As competition heats up, most online marketers take a loss on that first sale. If the objective is to make or grow profits, 
marketers need to see acquisition marketing simply as an 
entry point. The challenge is to find ways to make up for 
rising acquisition marketing costs by securing repeat sales with existing customers. This is where advanced tactics for retention marketing come in. 


Marketing to existing clients is where savvy marketers make all their profits. Retention marketing campaigns are inexpensive because there is no media or advertising cost. These kinds of campaigns can generate tremendous profits because cost is low and response rates are high. The reason this happens is that you are sending campaigns to clients who already know and trust your brand. 


Marketers tend to go through three phases:

1) Investing in building their email and social names,

2) Reaping early rewards with basic email and social campaigns and

3) Obtaining higher profits by adopting advanced tactics such as segmentation, personalisation, trigger marketing and split testing. In the past, advanced tactics required investments in people and technology, but unfortunately these expenses often offset the increased profit contribution. However, new generation software companies have now emerged, offering easy to use tools to execute advanced tactics in email, mobile and social marketing at a fraction of the cost.


The last 10 years of online marketing have mainly been about using the Internet to win new names. This has led to heavy investments by most marketers in acquisition marketing. However, there is a significant shift taking place. The years ahead will be more about capitalising on those names and turning them into profits with retention, email, social and mobile marketing.

If you would like to know more about how you can use email as part of an integrated marketing approach please call CFL on 01225 782669 or visit www.cflmarketing.co.uk

CLIENT CASE STUDY: Somerset Arms, Wiltshire.

Back in the Summer of 2009, The Somerset Arms, based in Semmington Village, Wiltshire, re-launched their public house after an extensive re-fit.

CFL Marketing approached the pub after hearing of the launch and a glowing customer recommendation, to see if they could help with their marketing activity.

After being impressed with the samples CFL provided, Sally Tyler, Landlady instructed them to create an awareness flyer that was dropped to every household in the village, this included a free bottle of wine offer with 2 or more people dining. Not only did this bring in extensive extra trade but the Somerset Arms were able to capture the diners details via a data capture form on the flyer for future marketing use.

There after CFL helped with the promotion of Halloween offers, a well attended beer festival, through to their 1st Birthday party.

CFL's Creative department also aided the re-design of their menus and took over all advert design for the local press and trade magazines.

This year the Pub is organising their 2nd Beer festival, "The weekend of 1000 pints" (being held on the 27th - 30th May) and have created t-shirt designs, branded beer glasses, banners, posters and advert design.

CFL created a toad based design (see below) for the festival, The pub was so taken with it, they approached Ramsbury Brewery to create a special beer for the occasion, call "Toad" - The design will be used on all the glasses as well as a specially made beer pumps.

Phil Martin, Marketing Manager at CFL Marketing said "Our Design Team have worked really hard, producing the artwork and branding for the beer festival. We hope the weekend of 1000 pints is a great success. I am looking forward to sampling a pint of Toad!!"

For more info on the Somerset Arms, log onto http://www.somersetarmssemington.co.uk/

www.cflmarketing.co.uk