At the beginning of the year, 855 numbers were being scooped up in huge numbers. SMSGOV, the toll free advisory committee also reports that the summer has seen another surge in the demand for 855 numbers as small businesses join large corporations in competing for the best toll free numbers.
1. 2011 ERA D2C Convention
The Electronic Retailing Association is hosting its Direct-to-Consumer Marketing convention from September 13th through 15th in Las Vegas. This is a great opportunity to get out, discover the newest technologies, meet world class production companies and get tips on improving your direct response marketing campaigns.
Competition between businesses within the same niche is growing stiff every day. With the recent economic turmoil we are experiencing almost every company need to find a way to keep up with an effective marketing strategy in order to remain afloat and profitable despite of the hard times.
Direct marketing has undeniably made a comeback. Everyone is well aware of the opportunities presented by this type of promotion. However the question still remains, what type of direct marketing strategy is working now? In this article, we’ll give you a lowdown of the best possibilities to explore at this point in time:
Mobile Opportunities – with the growing number of smart phone users and apps, there is an increasing opportunity for mobile marketers to send direct and targeted messages to their market.
Local Marketing – geo-targeting capabilities that are offered these days can be taken advantage of. This will improve the impact of your local advertising initiatives on the Internet.
Social Media – while the rate of social adoption is expected to be slow because most markets are already quite saturated, social media itself has already become a part of everyday life. By monitoring conversations and trends in these areas, marketers can have a better interaction with consumers.
Consolidation –the line between traditional and digital marketing agencies is becoming blurred. Many companies prefer agencies that have expertise in both. They want a marketing firm that can work across different channels.
If you own a small business, there are even more reasons to use direct marketing to your advantage. It is relatively inexpensive to implement and you are promoting to a highly targeted audience – so your conversion rate can shoot through the roof.
Despite all the new forms of Internet marketing and the plethora of social media networks that have sprouted up in the last couple of years, direct marketing through direct mail and email marketing still remains one of the most effective advertising channels for businesses of all sizes.
However, that does not mean that rushing and just sending out any direct mail or email campaigns is going to guarantee your success, achieve maximum advertising effectiveness, and result in the best ROI for your marketing budget. Throwing all of your resources into one large campaign that flops can not only stall your operation and income but could even cripple your organization.
Fortunately, by using web analytics and blocks of toll free numbers, you can perform affordable tests quickly in order to hone your direct marketing campaigns and maximize your marketing ROI. By acquiring blocks of toll free numbers, you can use different numbers in a split test campaign to improve the various factors that determine optimal advertising effectiveness, such as your lead and data lists, the copy of your direct marketing pieces, email subject lines, mail packaging, and the timing of your delivery.
Some marketers see testing as something that slows them down. However, testing means you can still get out a partial campaign and receive leads now while you will get a lot bigger return for your money when you go all out. Just look at the difference in not only leads but in actual dollars that a great direct marketing campaign offers. For both mail and email direct marketing campaigns, the response rates can range from less than 1 percent on the low end to over 10 percent for those who have honed and tested. Good campaigns will also yield higher closing ratios. So on the same 10,000 piece campaign, without testing you may end up with 100 responses and one closed deal, while those you have tested could be looking at over 1,000 responses and as many as 250 new deals. Which results do you want for your money?
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Branding
Many new start-ups put off investing in their branding in favor of doing more direct marketing in the belief sheer numbers will pay off. Of course, it really doesn’t matter how terrible your product, service, or business marketing is because you will probably find someone who will part with money for it. However, in order to survive and grow in the current economy, you must operate on higher profit margins and maximize your business marketing ROI. Starting from day one with a great brand, including an easily recognizable vanity number, will not only ensure you see higher closing ratios and be able to charge high premiums for your products, but you can generate thousands in referrals and residual revenues.
Targeting
No matter what industry you are in, there are many forms of business marketing that can produce revenues. However, unless you are making sure you are getting the maximum business marketing ROI, you will lose ground to your competitors. How do you determine your maximum ROI? When you make sure your business marketing brings your product to those who need and want it the most at the exact moment they need it or are looking for it, it will mean higher conversions and the highest returns on your business marketing budget.
Testing
As an entrepreneur or manager these days, you have no doubt already been told that you need or should try out all types of business marketing channels from Twitter and Facebook to direct mail and radio. However, despite all the advice in the world and regardless of your personal hunches and experiences marketing, without testing, you may as well just be gambling. By using toll free numbers for testing, you can now guarantee that you are putting all of your business marketing dollars to their highest and best use.
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Yes, toll free vanity numbers have been proven to dramatically increase response rates and closing ratios for maximizing marketing ROI. However, the value of vanity numbers goes far beyond that.
Toll free numbers have been shown to reduce charge backs in a big way which means the revenues you reel in, you really get to keep. Memorable vanity numbers enable effective word of mouth referrals. This provides the most profitable form of marketing you could ever ask for and has the viral potential to reach masses of prospects you would not otherwise reach. The residual branding benefits of using vanity numbers are absolutely priceless. A winning toll free vanity number will stick in the minds of consumers and stay with them until they need your product and service providing an ongoing perpetual form of advertising.
Like 1800-GET-RICH great vanity numbers can create successful, industry dominating business empires all by themselves. Just look at 1800-FLOWERS. Even 1800-CONTACTS literally sprung from nowhere over night to becoming perhaps the number one supplier of contacts in the country. If you can get your hands on a premium vanity number for a given industry and come up with a good jingle you could rocket your enterprise to star status in no time at all.
On top of this, good vanity numbers are now not just for picking up revenues or building recognizable branding. They are now absolutely necessary for those who want their companies to survive. When consumers need products and services these days, they often just pick up the phone and try to dial the 800 number with the applicable company name or industry after it. You want flowers - your dial 1800-FLOWERS. You need a new mattress - you call 1800-MATTRESS. If you need cable or Internet service in your home then you call 1800-COMCAST. So it is both important to try and get vanity numbers that match your industry and business name. Should the premium choices of vanity numbers for your industry be taken, you may still be able to take advantage of shared usage plans that allow you to control that number for the geographic areas you are doing business in. Or working with the right toll free service provider you may be able to have a great deal for the acquisition of the number negotiated on your behalf.
Direct marketing is one of the most effective ways to advertise to your target market. Why? Because it is more intimate and personal – customers will feel special because their individual needs are addressed. Now, direct marketing can come in different forms. But one of its best manifestations is mail and email campaigns because they enable marketers to reach a vast number of individuals with minimum time and effort spent (compared to face to face contact).
Testing remains the best way to find out what works for your company. However, general guidelines need to be followed. The best practices in the direct marketing field include:
Readable Emails– No marketing campaign can be effective if people don’t even know what you’re trying to say. In email marketing, a lot of companies integrate multimedia images and content – but these are not necessarily readable on some computers. Even if you include multimedia content, you should still make it a point to put HTML text content so the recipients will still understand what the email was all about.
Interesting Subject Line– If your company is associated with a certain brand or product, it is best to use that. Around 69 percent of recipients make the choice whether to open their mail or not at first glance. Maximize the success rate of your email campaign; it is critical to ensure that the sender name you use is trustworthy and recognizable.
Personalized Mail and Email– Direct marketing is all about establishing a personal connection. With the email management technologies available today, there is no reason why you cannot personalize emails (by adding the recipient’s name, etc). The process allows your campaign to become even more effective.
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Without a doubt, the current economic environment requires businesses to be more careful with and more demanding of their marketing budgets than ever before. If you want your company to survive and prosper, you must maximize your business marketing return-on-investment. So how do you calculate your business marketing ROI? What factors are the most important?
Most forms of advertising and lead generation are invested in terms of how many pieces or leads you receive for your money. For direct mail, it is how many pieces you send out; for pay-per-click, it is the number of prospects that click through to your site, and for Internet leads, it is how many actual leads you receive. When calculating expected business marketing ROI from an advertising campaign, it is important to recognize the difference between leads and revenues. It really does not matter how many leads or calls you get on your toll free numbers if none of them are converting into actual customers. In fact, too many contacts not following through will actually begin to cost you more money. While most lead generation companies will shy away from giving you any hard figures on what you can expect in actual closing ratios, the prospective close ratio is still the most important figure when calculating business marketing ROI. However, smart marketing companies and lead generators, who offer direct marketing like direct mail and use toll free numbers for tracking, should be able to show you real numbers from what similar campaigns have generated in actual prospects and incoming calls. These historic results help close the gap between your marketing pieces and actual business marketing ROI, but in the end, it still comes down to your staff to ensure conversion.
When calculating business marketing ROI, what you really need to look at is cost-per-action. In other words, what is it really costing for each new client and each dollar in revenues? Compare these numbers to your other advertising options; then strive to achieve the lowest cost-per-action possible and hone your campaigns to maximize business marketing ROI. This strategy includes doing a better job of targeting your ideal customers and improving the conversion capability of your phone staff or website.
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It is no secret that to survive and succeed in the business world today you must become efficient at testing marketing strategy. Split testing is the best way to compare quickly the advertising effectiveness of different factors of your campaigns. Direct marketing via direct mail and print advertising is one way to achieve split testing and can be incredibly effective and accurate using blocks of toll free numbers to pinpoint the successes and issues with your marketing campaigns. Now with most businesses extensively marketing online, it is also essential to test your Internet advertising campaigns before committing to one channel or strategy.
