In today’s dynamic marketing environment, it is increasingly important to be able to localize and personalize your marketing messages. Lately, there’s been a lot of marketing buzz about “Big Data” as a means to deliver personalization. If it feels a little nebulous, you’re not alone. A 2011 IBM CMO study (n=1,700) found that 71% of CMO’s feel unprepared for the data explosion.
Many organizations understand the benefits of big data, but don’t have the budget for centralized platforms and advanced analytics. Even when budget is not a barrier, implementing the analysis tools for big data can be complex and lead to long implementation timelines. In the interim, harnessing your organization’s existing data (even if imperfect) with a Marketing Resource Management (MRM) system can be a cost-effective step towards successful localized marketing.

Insurance customers tend to be very loyal but typically only purchase one or two products from their insurance agent. In order to grow customer accounts, insurance companies should engage customers in continuity or drip campaigns to stay top-of-mind between purchases. But, when it comes time for a “sales push”, how do you work with your agents and independent agencies to execute a campaign?

You’ve hired the best web designer you could find, a team of writers is blogging relevant, and informative content, you’ve built customer portals, but what do you have if no one sees it? Although all of these elements will make your online resources shine, there is no point in shining the spotlight when the theater is empty.

Once you have a dazzling site with amazing content, how can you lead your clients and prospects to it? There are several strategies that you can apply to build your audience. One that you may not have considered is a continuity campaign.

As the holiday season approaches, the task of sending holiday cards could be looming on your to-do list. The entire process, from list generation, to design, to distribution can be complicated, but with a little preplanning, it doesn’t have to be. This is the eighth blog in a series to help you organize your corporate holiday campaign. Through the series we have been sharing ideas for your campaign, but when it comes time to execute, how do you do it? In this blog you will find a holiday shopping list for capabilities to look for when you purchase fulfillment services for your holiday campaign.

Creative Services

Introduction

A personalized greeting on a corporate holiday card can set your business apart. That personalization can sometimes be a little tricky if you want to include messages and signatures from your remote sales staff. Many companies have a sales force in the field. It is perfect for building close relationships with your prospects and customers, but adds obstacles to a broad campaign like the corporate holiday card. This is the fifth blog in our series to help you carry out a successful corporate holiday card campaign. Whether you have individual sales representatives spread across your region or sales teams located in remote field offices, here are some ideas to help you send an effective, yet personal, holiday card.

It's rare that a business creates such a significant and iconic logo for their company that nothing else is needed to promote their product. That image sells itself and their brand is known all over the world. For the rest of us, it takes herculean marketing efforts and a myriad of campaigns to establish a foothold in the memories of our clients.

Peter Drucker once wrote, "Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation." This was true years ago and is even truer today. Innovation is still the product of free-thinking, but technology has changed how we market ideas to customers.

In the last several blog posts we have talked about how “today’s marketing professionals are faced with an ever expanding marketing mix”(Post #2) and that “effective communication typically includes a cross functional approach”(Post #3). In other words, utilizing multiple channels of communication (direct mail, brochures, flyers, email, text messages, and social media) is more important than ever if you plan to effectively engage your target audience and grow new revenue streams.

Imagine what this means for the organization who has made a commitment to their shareholders to run a highly efficient lean organization. Not to mention, the impact on the marketing professional who is expected to be both an expert in the traditional forms of marketing and the new marketing options invented nearly every day. In today’s fast paced, information driven economy, time has become the scarcest resource – hands down! So finding ways to make the most out of your time and become more effective and efficient, is not only the job of the organization and marketing professional, but also of your service provider.

Today’s marketing professionals are faced with an ever expanding marketing mix (where to spend their marketing dollars). Not only are they expected to be experts in the traditional forms of marketing, but also continue to master the new marketing options invented nearly every day. There is so much opportunity, yet still the same amount of time in the day and in today’s economic climate, fewer resources to execute on the overall marketing strategy. All these conditions warrant a very serious look at marketing program efficiencies.

One of the key aspects of marketing is to create, mold, and protect the brand. Luckily the marketing professional now has tools to accomplish this key initiative in a self service manner. What do I mean by self-service? I mean that a marketing program can now be launched across a large community and the brand control is built into the program. Local resources are able to access marketing programs, execute on initiates, in a self service manner, under centralized brand control. The focus of the marketing professional is then on strategy, innovation, and creativity – not on day to day monitoring and troubleshooting.