In Part 1 of this how-to on the basic steps of marketing, I discussed gathering essential intelligence on your customers and personalizing your direct mail. Today, we’ll cover the final two steps.

4. Take advantage of direct email’s special benefits. You can, for example, divvy up recipients based on subject matter; test response to different subject lines; automatically capture email addresses; track responses to email and e-newsletter offerings; and compile data on what visitors do on your site. Check out email marketing services that can help push the envelope on your direct-email programs, including Constant Contact, iContact and Vertical Response.

5. Marketing increasingly involves social media. The basics are simple: a website and blog, and, depending on your audience, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Its capabilities go much further. Social media analysis, for example, does for Internet direct marketing what Billy Beane did for baseball strategy – made it a numbers game. 

Don’t let the excitement overwhelm you though – one step at a time. For a resource to simplify it all, try David Meerman Scott’s “The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly.”

 I’ve also created a companion checklist for this blog that works. If you’d like a copy, let me know. What other problems are you facing? Are you expert on a topic that will interest this community? Contact us. We’re always looking for what interests you and for expert guest bloggers.

Péllo Walker                                                   Scott E. Smith
Daily Digital Imaging                                       Guided Message Communications
pello@dailydigitalimaging.com                       scott@guidedmessage.com
925-935-3621                                                925-566-456