“Did you bring your passport?”

As you were travelling this holiday break. Inevitably, you would have asked/been asked this question before you head to the airport. Despite the endless hours of packing, the only one thing you really need for your trip, is your passport (or ID).

What’s the equivalent for marketing campaigns?

When you really narrow down your plans for your marketing campaigns for 2010. What is the one thing that you really need for successful campaigns? We say, it’s technology, campaign technology in particular.

Why? When used effectively, technology can make your campaigns more:

1. Interactive
   
2. Novel
   
3. Response-inducing
   

There’s social media and then there is social marketing. What’s the difference you say?

Think of social media as tools (blogs, twitter, facebook, linked-in, youtube, slideshare) that you can use to spread the word about your company, product, cause or just to share the knowledge you have and position yourself as the expert. That model is still 1-to-many, but with the opportunity for 1-to-1 conversations.

Now there’s also the reverse side, there is the email message, direct mail, sales calls, sms, print ads… that you should be using to create 1-to-1 conversations. While many think of these as traditional marketing channels, they are in fact not. They are just as much tools for making a marketing campaign social.

If you honestly believe you have something relevant to say to your prospects and customers, then they’ll want to share that message with their friends. You need to make it easy for them to do that.

#1 Include a ‘hook’
Is there a good enough reason to respond to your campaign? This doesn’t always have to be a discount, but there needs to be a compelling reason for your recipients to act now, rather than later. Depending on your audience, a limited time offer may help boost your campaign response. (Be one [...]

What is the “right” solution for your cross media marketing needs? It can be a daunting process trying to figure that out. Depending on what each vendor is pitching to the market, the cross media marketing challenge is presented differently. No doubt, each vendor will tell you their solution is the “right” solution for your [...]

Your customers and prospects are social. They like interacting with brands online. You already do email marketing, you already send direct mail, some of you are already creating effective multichannel marketing campaigns, but do you have the right strategy for going social?

Chris Brogan frequently blogs about social media strategy and how technology can be used to create applications that interacts with the online community.

Uncertain times? Definitely, but its not all depressing.

Bradley Johnson and Kevin Brown, in their introduction to Ad Age’s annual 2009, looks at how marketers still launch new products, campaigns, and tweak marketing messages even in major recessions.

Here are some strategies marketers could adopt in this down time.

1) Targeted rather than mass marketing.

Most have already made the leap towards sending marketing messages that are relevant and customized to each individual, but those that haven’t/ refuse to will likely lose out in 2009.

Targeted messaging creating campaigns that are relevant to each segment and each individual in your datalist. Customizing everything from messaging to the offer and design.

2) Build marketing applications.

Applications add variety to your marketing message and can help brands build better relationships with their customers. They can be as simple as Facebook applications, interactive games or content aggregators that work through viral marketing.

Read: Applications- The next wave of marketing.

2009 will be a year where marketing has to find more innovative and cost-efficient ways to connect with the customer. Competing on price may not be sufficient in the fledgling economy.

3) Quality in direct mail not quantity

Suzanne Obermire, reports news of a postal slump for the USPS in volume and revenue. Sending direct-mail isn’t cheap and with decreasing marketing budgets, they have to be used more effectively with other mediums through interactive campaigns.

4) Measuring effectiveness of marketing

One of Seth Godin’s first 2009 blog posts has to do with ensuring ads work. No longer can marketers run ads they don’t measure or track. The same level of analytics that we associate with adwords campaigns, will be necessary to measure response from email, web, print and direct mail campaigns.