Direct marketing - when to communicate?
In advising a client about telemarketing recently, I was asked the question “when should we call our prospects to get the best response?”.
A very good question and unfortunately not one that I had a solid answer for. So I hit the books and put some study in to find out if there are any facts or recent studies completed that I could base our decisions on, but I couldn’t find anything. Stuck for info I approached the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s librarians to find out if they had access to any data I could use. The answer was an apologetic no, even the CIM is stuck for this kind of knowledge.
But I can’t believe there haven’t been any studies on this, especially with telemarketing being such an established and profitable business. So, if you know anything on this subject, please share it here. For small businesses this would be invaluable in helping them to get the most from their budgets.
However, some good news on email marketing. Rosalind Gardner’s Net Profits Today blog has a post about the best day to send marketing messages via email. She concludes that it’s different depending on whether you are b2b or b2c. For b2b the preferred day for receiving email is Monday and for b2c it’s a Thursday. However for b2c, Saturday and Sunday are also both very good days.
In terms of response, email marketers have been achieving between 32-38% open rates and 4-5% click rates for both b2b and b2c. I.e. for every 100 emails sent, around 35 people will actually open the email and 4-5 will click on a link to visit your website. How many of those convert to sales is dependent on your product and site design. For more info on this data, cut and past the link below into your browser.
(http://www.netprofitstoday.com/
blog/index.php/archives/2006/10/13/
the-best-day-to-send-marketing-messages/)
In terms of telemarketing, we decided to test various times of the day to evaluate when our targets were most responsive. Based on the test, we would evaluate the overall likely success of the campaign, as well as the most successful time of day.
Tag:Update on blog experiment
I also want to add that my blog experiment has already provided one potential new business avenue. That’s around two weeks into the test which is very interesting. However, it has taken a good amount of time to write the posts and also to keep reading and contributing to the blogosphere. Much like any other marketing activity it takes time, money and effort.
Tag:Web 2.0 for small business
I’m so lucky, I was going to write a summary of Web 2.0 ideas for you to think about, but I’ve found this one on Smallbusinesscomputing.com that wraps it all up in a fairly digestible format (http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/emarketing/article.php/3635851).
I suggest you read this and have a think about how you could use the next wave of Internet advancements to improve your business. I’m certainly looking at blogging as a way of helping my clients to communicate with a whole range of stakeholders - everyone from old customers, to new customers, students, local government and more. If you start with blogging then RSS and more will certainly quickly follow.
My advice, start doing this before your competitors do. I’ve mentioned English Cut before because they started blogging early on and built a very successful business. I wonder how many other Saville Row tailors have taken this step? As they are fond of saying “if a Saville Row tailor can do it, why can’t you”. Look for that first mover advantage while you still can.
Tag:Google buys YouTube
Today Google announced it’s acquisition of internet video company YouTube for a massive $1.65 billion US dollars. By the time you read this, it will no longer be headline news, or possibly even news at all. But the implications or opportunities this has for your business and online marketing may yet be obvious.
What it may well mean is that your Google marketing campaigns can be stretched to include video, alongside the text and picture adverts currently available. This might help you to achieve higher click through and conversion rates depending on your ability to produce effective video ads.
But thinking further a field, how long until the internet becomes more like your TV, with content being delivered in video rather than text? You might find it hard to believe but some commentators are already predicting the death of text on the internet. Surely not you say, however if Google, the undisputed king of the internet, is thinking in this direction then maybe you should also.
I’m not saying you need to move to video tomorrow, definitely not. There’s still a need for text in your online marketing, but can you make a move to video before your competitors? Can you achieve that first mover advantage that the established bloggers and others are enjoying right now?
Now that’s a thought.
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