A New Era of Marketing – Integrating Direct and Digital Marketing

We have a new white paper to share with you! It’s titled:

A New Era of Marketing – Integrating Direct and Digital Marketing

Marketing has changed since we founded Ballantine in 1966, or has it? Ballantine has been espousing the virtues of integrated campaigns for years. It has brought fantastic success for our clients, but it’s time to go a step further and redefine marketing in a way that makes sense for today’s customers.

In this white paper, we give you some insight and ideas as well as a case study that shows the potential power of combining direct and digital marketing. See below to start scrolling through the pages. If you’re having trouble using the reader, click here for a PDF or scroll down for the text version of this white paper. And we encourage feedback!
 

 

A New Era of Marketing

Integrating direct and digital marketing

Marketing has changed since we founded Ballantine in 1966, or has it? Ballantine has been espousing the virtues of integrated campaigns for years. It has brought fantastic success for our clients, but it’s time to go a step further and redefine marketing in a way that makes sense for today’s customers.

Some integration ideas to consider:

• Integrating direct and digital marketing
• Direct mail that contains personalized URLs for lead capture and detailed
  reporting.
• Direct mail with a follow up email blast, or a pre-email blast that announces
  direct mail is coming.
• Direct mail that directs customers to a landing page with remarketing code
  on it so the customer continues to see targeted ads.
• Integrated campaign that combines (some or all) of direct mail, personalized
• URLs, email marketing and social media.
• Direct mail with social media integration: sending direct mail to a targeted niche, like “lawyers in Northern New Jersey,” and then running Facebook ads targeting lawyers in the same geographic locations.

 

It’s time for a change

Marketing continues to change. How will you adapt?

We have always had marketing.

Ever since the Middle Ages when shops put up hand-carved wooden signs, the benefits of marketing have been clear: to help people who want to do business with you find you.

Much has changed. These signs became logos. The street corner-poster became a billboard. The door-to-door salesman became a telemarketer. Carnival barkers became radio pitchmen, and radio pitchmen became infomercial personalities.

The now two-decades-old transformation to digital has brought new opportunities. As more people became “search first, ask questions later” enthusiasts, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and public relations emerged as contenders for the almighty advertising dollar. An always-connected population spurred the growth of email marketing. Marketers began to track, test, optimize, and improve marketing at an exponential rate.

At first, it was prudent to separate digital into new departments and form silos around the work that they did. No wonder – most people didn’t understand the whiz kid wizardry happening in the new medium of screen and keyboard.

Those same kids chastised for tying up the phone line again are now pushing 40 years old. They aren’t a department in the agency. They are the agency.

But while everything has changed, nothing has changed.

Selling products is still about reaching out to customers and making an emotional connection. It’s about building relationships, trust, and customer satisfaction in the marketplace. It’s about creating products so spectacular that people can’t help themselves – they have to share them with their friends. It’s about being a trusted resource that can help businesses understand how to communicate their product offerings, and which technology, old or new, is best to do that. Digital shouldn’t be a department. It should be integrated into every facet of your business.

 

We believe marketing is greater than the sum of its parts.

If a tree falls in the woods and is processed into paper, printed with your carefully crafted marketing message, hand-delivered across the country through snow, rain, heat, and gloom of night by the U.S. Postal Service, and then promptly finds itself in the wastebasket, does it make a sound?

If it’s read, pondered over, considered, forgotten on the coffee table, and then cleared off to make room for the next morning’s paper, is that successful marketing?

As marketers, we have to consider more than just whether or not your campaigns are turning a profit for your company. Our job is to figure out how we can maximize that profit.

We’ve been integrating direct and digital marketing for several years to help clients earn higher ROIs, and here’s what we’ve found:

1. People spend more time with direct marketing than any other form of marketing. It’s great for delivering in-depth information because it’s possible to engage with a prospect for several minutes while reading a brochure.
2. People spend fleeting seconds with digital marketing. The digital medium is fast-paced,transient and nimble. Prospects need both – in depth guidance and thought leadership and frequent, but not intrusive, reminders.
3. Combining direct and digital marketing is most successful when you play to each channel’s strengths in a cohesive campaign.

 

Saint Peters reaches integration nirvana.

Goal exceeded 3 years in a row!

Challenge

The goal for Saint Peter’s University was simple in concept, but complex and strategic in execution. They wanted to acquire 140 donors in 24 hours in honor of the University’s 140th anniversary.

Solution

To accomplish this goal, they took a multi-step and integrated approach. The strategy behind this fundraising effort was to build buzz and awareness leading up to the giving date. This was accomplished using three postcard mailings, four email blasts, social media and personalized URLs.

A staggered approach allowed alumni to receive communication about the campaign through a different outlet each week. The email blasts would be sent one week, and a postcard would arrive in mailboxes the following week. Additionally, a final e-blast was distributed the day before the giving date.

Social media was an important component in the promotion of the “Let’s Get it Done” campaign. In advance of the event, the campaign logo was made the cover photo on the alumni Facebook page and a lead story on the Saint Peter’s website and alumni website. Posts regarding the promotion of the personalized URL website were distributed via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter a month in advance of the event.

Results

The goal was 140 donors in 24 hours. Saint Peter’s University surpassed this goal by 273 percent. The final number came in at 382 donors, who made gifts online, over the phone and through regular mail, resulting in more than $90,000 raised.

Saint Peter’s has repeated this campaign twice, and both times, their goal has been exceeded.

 

Exploring a new marketing paradigm

Instead of categorizing marketing strategy into “traditional” and “digital,” Ballantine wants to help you integrate “push” marketing and “pull” marketing across both the digital and traditional space.

Push marketing helps you deliver a message directly to prospects. It’s built around cutting through the clutter and delivering targeted sales communication that drives results. In push marketing, we find the customers. Pull marketing is the marketing that we do that allows customers to find us. Commonly called organic or inbound marketing, it’s a crucial component to a modern marketing plan thanks to the way the Internet has revolutionized how prospects find products and services.

 

Push Marketing

Outbound communications

• Paid Search Ads
• Direct Mail
• Email Marketing
• TV, Radio, and Print Ads
• Billboards & Outdoor Ads
• Contextual Ads
• Sales Calls
• Interstitials
• Trade Shows
• Social Media Advertising
• Video Ads
• Tends to have a higher cost per acquisition
• Better targeting and ROI measurement
• Powered by budget and repetition
• Costs tend to be static
• Can scale up or down quickly
• Faster (usually immediate) share of voice in the marketplace

 

Pull Marketing

Inbound communications

• SEO & PPC
• Thought Leadership
• Supporting/Sponsoring Events
• Press & Public Relations
• Community Building
• Influencer Outreach
• Blogging
• Public Speaking
• Earned Advertising
• Word of Mouth & Viral
• Content Creation
• Video Content
• Powered by creativity, talent, effort
• Generates momentum, making future marketing easier
• Earns attention organically without interrupting customers
• Cheaper over the campaign’s lifetime