Yes, I'm back from vacation. If you were following me on Twitter or in Facebook you would have received some of my great updates from our almost 9 days in St. Croix.
As usual we had a big pile of snail mail to go through; I was able to stay up on my email using my iPhone so no big email box. What still amazes me is how marketers cling to old techniques that every day are becoming more obsolete. Case study after case study, marketing online and even mobile are where they should be focusing their efforts Take for example.....
- Steve Lonegan's campaign to be the NJ GOP nominee to take on a vulnerable Gov. Jon Corzine. Now I don't have anything against Lonegan's campaign and may even vote for him in the Primary, but what I don't understand is how they can WASTE DIRECT MAIL to voters for a branding campaign. That's right a political campaign was willing to pay upfront mailing, printing, database, and postage costs for the honor of heading to the waste paper bin before it was opened. All of this while not running a single PAY PER CLICK ad on Google where you get free branding and only pay for clicks when people respond to an ad.
- Comcast - yes that private sector company that bombarded me with direct mail for their triple play. While they undoubtedly are spending money on the internet, I can't excuse someone of continuing to dump useless mail. Look, if you are trying to market a triple play of TV, Internet, and Phone and I haven't responded via the internet, what makes you think that direct mail is a better channel? Why not work on improving your online advertising or segmenting your list better?
- Bank of America, Chase, Citi and all of the other banks on Life Support because they ruined their business. STOP DUMPING DIRECT MAIL. Again, focus on segmenting your audience and using your online advertising more efficiently. Heck, use your modeling and stop direct mail to anyone under say the age of 60 and then take those dollars and expand your internet operations. How about just marketing to the top decile in your responder models only?
- Protect Fairness aka Stop The Fairness Doctrine - I like the folks behind this petition drive and they have a Facebook group and are already running ads in Google, but they are just targeted right now in specific states (I saw ads in Iowa but not in NJ). They are looking for donations to run TV ads in Iowa, but who cares? What kind of audience will that reach? Why not ask for money to expand the Google campaign beyond a few targeted states? How about money to run the commercials online in pre-roll positions? How about expanded click to play video ads?
It is time to dump out the old or massively scale it back and try expanding into new techniques. I can't wait for the day when I come back from vacation and a big pile of crappy mail doesn't await me.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
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