It may seem like a contradiction - integrating viral/social applications and 1:1 direct marketing.

Personalized direct marketing allows you to engage your customers in 1:1 communication and viral marketing seems to do the reverse (engage the community).

Yet… this ‘mismatch’ if done effectively is really a ‘match made in heaven’ for marketing professionals. Even better if the application, presentation or video is relevant to your brand and what you do.

This summer, we challenged our customers and prospects to ‘climb the multi-channel mountain’ while providing them with resources and best practices to help them prepare for the climb.

Check out the latest video “Preparing to climb the multichannel mountain” .

As a ‘carrot’ for you to view the video, we are running a “most insightful comment” contest. To take part, submit a comment about the video on Youtube and you could be having coffee on us.

When you build a great application, people expect more from the next. When you market an unfinished product or launch a tasteless marketing campaign, people remember you for it. When you tout features/ benefits that are not what the customer needs, they switch off to your product.

When you find yourself struggling to out-do yourself, change brand perception or change the way people think of your product… You’re struggling with the ghosts of marketing past.

Have you ever looked at a datalist and immediate knew exactly what marketing messages would work?

If you have, then you’re either a gem of a direct marketer, or you have been deluded by what marketing messages work on you.

The truth is, you’re not the prospect. As marketers, this can sometimes be the biggest obstacle to the success of our marketing campaigns. We believe that the same marketing messages that work for us would work for the prospect. We believe we are the prospect and so often, we find out we’re wrong.

But, this does not mean we cannot market to prospects that are different from us.

If you do not yet have an understanding of what marketing messages work for your customer segments, or are testing out a new datalist or customer vertical, then your best bet is to plan a marketing system that helps you learn more about your prospects.

Your best bet is to use best practices, industry/ market research, responsiveness to your campaigns, testing your messages (A/B testing), and ask them (2-way conversations)!

Today, we released a product announcement to the press about the launch of our geolocation tool for 1to1 marketing campaigns.

To read the full press release: “L2 enhances targeted marketing with geolocation feature“

We’ve talked a lot about creating 2-way conversations with prospects and making every piece of marketing relevant.

With the geolocation feature, Fuse users will find it easier to initiate this conversation and make it targeted to the recipient’s location.

Here’s some examples of how the geolocation feature can be used:

• A snappy tagline: ‘How’s marketing in {City}’.
• An advanced location finder: ‘Here’s the latest campaign offer for stores near you’.
• Relevant information for the city, 10 things you did not know about auto insurance in {state}
• A viral application: ‘find other marketers in your area’.

How is this different from what other 1to1 marketing vendors provide?

1. You can locate individuals you have no data of (From print ads, TV/radio ads, pay-per-click ads)
2. The application tracks the recipient’s location when the ad is opened (So they can find the nearest store when they’re in the office, at home, driving around, or on holiday).
3. The application automatically tracks the recipient’s timezone (You can schedule future messages at a precise time for that person’s timezone.
4. Everything is automated in the platform.

Marketplace: According to a DMA report, 93.7% of respondents using non-catalog direct mail, receive responses online!

Industry: Only 39% of marketers customize the landing page - Many marketers think the outbound campaign is doing the heavy lifting and the landing page exists only as a passive collection cup for leads generated. - Marketing sherpa report

Marketplace: 54% of respondents in a consumer survey said they had a more favorable opinion of the companies that send them email. - Epsilon (Oct 2008)

Industry: Almost half of interactive marketers surveyed say their organization struggles to prove the ROI of its efforts, while 7 in 10 say there are understaffed to do so. - Forrester Research (2008)

Marketplace: Engaging your audiences in more relevant communications increases net profits by an average of 18 times more than broadcast mailing - Jupiter Research

Industry: 51.4% of printers do not offer variable data printing - Printing Industries of America, Digital Printing Council.

We do what we do, to help marketing service providers produce innovative campaigns that succeed in the marketplace.

This ad ran in Singapore, but has been ruffling feathers all around the world, especially in the US.

In an interview for marketing-interactive singapore, Jayine Chung, copywriter for Religion, the ad agency that worked on the ad, said “Our client wanted something edgy and not something you would expect from a fast-food chain“.

Do sexy messages work for your business? Definitely not with every marketing segment, but that is where variable data printing comes into play.

== Test which messages work for each marketing segment and speak to each person in a way that motivates a response. ==

How do you currently measure the success of your marketing?

Do you take into account the synergetic effect of social media, multi-channel campaigns (email, direct mail, web, sales calls, sms), SEO/SEM, blog, PR… in your lead generation process?

It is a simple concept, but is often overlooked: Conversion is highly unlikely at the first attempt (unlike the dating world, your prospect is almost never in a drunken stupor!)

The solution?

1. Build a relationship with your prospects over multiple touches and across multiple platforms
2. Focus on the marketing tools that your prospects use
3. Use the stacking effect of these integrated marketing touches to get your prospect on board.

Chris Brogan makes a simple and great point about not slowing down your media during the holidays.

He says,

“You can slow down, but don’t let your media slow down. Why? Because your community and/or your audience are quick to find replacements, because they come to rely on your media as part of their diet, because every post is an advertisement for what you do best. “

Chris Brogan, Chrisbrogan.com

So is your marketing on holiday?

Yes, some of your prospects may not physically be at the office and past experience might tell you that summer is a bad time for marketing campaigns.

But, times have changed, slowing down your entire marketing operation at this time is a bad mistake!

Why? Because your fiercest competitor (the ones gritting their teeth and fighting for survival) are not backing off your customers. And some of your brightests prospects, the ones you really want to demo your product to, are still at work (bored by the lack of activity in the office).

So maybe, just maybe, this is prime time for your marketing campaigns. The economy is showing signs of life, your prospects might be slowing down off their work just enough to spare the time to talk to you and, really… marketing technology allows you to schedule entire campaigns in advance (so you can still enjoy the holidays).

Just this week, we sent out a follow-up reminder to our multi-channel education video campaign and within a day, we already had about 55% of prospects open and read the email message. That’s almost double the response we traditionally get.

Now, wouldn’t you say that maybe its time to get off your chair and prepare that multi-channel marketing campaign?

Just in (Via Twitter from @APKOB) New employee Jack Kilby “Invented” the microchip while his collegues were on summer vacation http://bit.ly/m3Evo