It is a simple idea, really: orchestrating brand building and direct marketing (DM) into a synergistic harmony. Marketers use brand ads as instruments in the critical role of consumer awareness building. DM identifies prospective consumers and helps the sales team convert them to paying customers. Brand ads create an emotional connection, while DM uses persuasion and incentives to get the prospect to act, ultimately choosing your firm over a competitor. Achieving synchronization between the two is key in creating a seamless buying process for consumers, the kind which leads invariably toward a successful conversion.

An effective brand/response campaign combines branding ads across television, radio, print and online media channels, and joining them with response vehicles such as direct mail and e-mail. A successful marketer ties it all back to a centralized prospect database. The database connects these individual media channels into a closed-loop marketing system, adding power without increasing the media expenditure. It’s like fitting a Harley cruiser with a turbojet engine.

A well-executed brand/response campaign builds awareness, identifies qualified prospects and then leads them along the purchase path with a series of communications designed to educate and inform. Each message includes a purchase incentive and purchase mechanism. Over time, prospects progress from general interest, to desire, to conviction, and finally to buying your product or service. This approach recognizes the disparate levels of interest and purchase conviction among prospective consumers. It treats each one accordingly, without letting qualified prospects fall through the cracks because of some ill-suited, one-size-fits-all approach. Read more

Iowa voters spoke loudly this week in the Democratic and Republican caucuses. And depending on the campaign, the roster of candidates in both parties is recalibrating itself as things roll on towards New Hampshire and beyond. Republican winner and upstart Mike Huckabee heads to the Granite State with clear momentum from his 8 point victory in Iowa, as does his Democratic counterpart, Barack Obama. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney are left sorting through the debris of millions in Hawkeye advertising expenditures and little real return for the investment.

What does any of this mean from an online marketing standpoint? Well, it’s a mixed bag. Candidates are surely spending loads of cash on display advertising and socking away tens of millions of monthly impressions. At the same time, they’re investing in website development that’s allowing online visitors to view candidate videos, make instant campaign donations, sign-up for local volunteer efforts and meetings, and otherwise jumpstart viral campaigns that run less on money and more on word of mouth. In a phrase, the 08 online campaign season is shaping up to be consistently unpredictable.

Overall, there are two important lessons to be learned.

Lesson One: A wave of political advertisements, paid and otherwise, are flooding the ether. Read more

I was thinking the other day about what makes great ad copy and, more importantly, how great marketing copy is integral to successful marketing and sales. One theory on this subject lists several core components of good marketing copy. Allow me to explain…

First of all, the marketing copy should be true. It is vital to always keep this in mind. In my business, I constantly ask myself whether the product or service I am helping to market could/should sell on its own without any marketing. Try it. Ask your co-workers as well as your business and personal stakeholders. Is this product or service potentially interesting to them - is it authentic? Does the proposition of the product/service ring true? The answers to these questions will be invaluable to your marketing strategy and focus.

Alright, so we’ve established that truth is necessary to great copy. Well then, let’s define TRUTH. Dictionary.com (Truth. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved October 23, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: dictionary.reference.com/browse/Truth)

1. The true or actual state of a matter.
2. Conformity with fact or reality.
3. A verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
4. The state or character of being true.
5. Actuality or actual existence.
6. An obvious or accepted fact; truism; platitude.
7. Honesty; integrity; truthfulness.
8. Ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience.
9. Agreement with a standard or original.
10. Accuracy, as of position

Each of these definitions can be perceived differently and be used as a basis for anyone’s justification of the ingredients in their ad copy. As an example, “conformity with fact or reality” could mean actual and absolute alignment with fact or reality, or it could mean “conforming” within accepted norms - i.e. I may conform to a conservative or liberal position, though I don’t accept that all parts of that position are true. I guess the message is that all advertising needs to have a basis in truth, and that truth must be defined by the agency or service provider promoting said product or service. Using the truth as a meter of your advertising message will always serve you and your clients well.

Anywhere in the world, SPEED WINS! In the Internet Marketing world, SPEED trumps perfection, SPEED dictates taking chances, SPEED empowers innovation; SPEED enables the smart to get smarter, the rich to get richer, and the SLOW to die. Get it, your site, your banner ads, your registration forms, your call to action, whatever it is, out there on the Net as fast as you can!

Why the rush? The searches, the clicks, the impressions, the calls to actions of today will be gone tomorrow. For each additionally day you spend NOT out there, your target consumers will have made decisions, started relationships, moved closer to your competitor and further from you.

Far too many major marketers spend far too much time planning, building, and launching cyberspace initiatives. In the process they have lost far too much opportunity. They CAN’T get it back. It’s GONE!

Each of us has to challenge ourselves and those around us to INNOVATE around the concept of SPEED. Ask yourself today, how are you going to change your thinking, your culture, and your processes to get your company’s marketing initiatives out there FASTER???

One of the principles of Craigslist CEO, Jim Buckmaster’s management philosophy is: Put speed over perfection: “Get something out there. Do it, even if it isn’t perfect.”

Buckmaster is not alone in focusing on getting something out there, even if it’s less than perfect. A panel discussion with Manish Mehta, Dell’s Director of Global eCommerce, and Stan Joosten, and “Innovation Manager” with P&G explored how much of the innovation we have seen on the Internet happens in iterations. Build, launch, tweak, measure, and repeat… Digital marketing initiatives seem to be “always in beta”—learning and evolving along the way.”

While perfectionists and control freaks twitch in discomfort at the SPEED idea, the pace of business is becoming so fast, SPEED trumps the need for a flawless release. Plus, with innovation at a premium, requiring perfection can stifle people’s willingness to play and solve problems creatively.

SPEED truly is the key to competing and winning on the Internet!