As I was taking out the trash this past weekend, I realized how much marketing $$$ was being thrown away. I decided to pull out all the direct mail pieces from the trash bag and sort through them. Every piece was composed of different offers, content and images. After a brief examination, I realized a [...]

While browsing though my RSS feeds this morning, I came across an interesting, but dubious article. It was an article written by Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations & Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The article, Why Advertising is Failing on the Internet, strongly expresses the Internet will shatter all [...]

Finding out detailed information about your prospects is made easier everyday. If you are currently using services like Hoovers, Linked In, Jigsaw etc.. You should check out TheOfficialBoard. This new service will provide users with the organization chart to the largest companies. It is basically a report of who the executives are, who reports to [...]

The current economic conditions, intensity of rivalry and reduced consumer spending makes all marketing initiatives seem like uphill battles. As veterans of marketing wars, you are all probably accustomed to fighting uphill battles. Fighting under the overcast of massive media clouds and content contamination, maybe uphill battles are the only battles in a marketing war. [...]

The Direct Creative Blog wrote a great post about “The power of color in direct marketing”. Check out their write-up on the “vocabulary of color”.

How does color affect your marketing?

I suspect that for most, color selection would already be limited to your brand colors and you would be hard pressed to change them. Using a different color would even confuse your customers (Expect to see a Coke advertisement in Blue?)

However, color still plays an important role in whether your creative sells and using it well is an important element in getting better response from your marketing.

Here are some tips for using color in your campaigns:

I heard a bad answer given by a presenter at a direct marketing event once. His answer was “nothing” and he was right from a technical viewpoint, but clearly wrong in terms of the marketing process. He was answering the question in relation to the design of web landing pages, but this is applicable to Email, Direct Mail and most marketing mediums.

Clearly the campaign creation process is substantially different and involves taking a different approach to campaign goals, creation of content and the campaign offer.

1) Campaign goals are different

Typically, B2B campaigns are not motivated by an immedate sale. They usually involve human interaction as an end goal;

* schedule a Webex
* get a meeting with a decision-maker or influencer
* give a free consult

For most B2C campaigns, success depends on how much sales increase. For most, the sale is usually immediate and is done directly from the Personal URL. Purchases mostly happen without a conversation with your sales staff. E.g. buying a pair of Nike sneakers, a book from Borders, etc.

Share with us your stories of how you have reached your customers through the new media via comments and trackbacks from your blog.