SMA March 2007 Newsletter

It's the Ultimate Marketing Grudge Match:
BRAND VS. DIRECT
3 rounds, March 20, San Diego DMA

For the first time in San Diego, former heavyweight marketing champion - BRAND - meets its match against 2007 measurable marketing darling - DIRECT.

And there's no love lost between these two traditional marketing rivals . . .
"DIRECT marketing efforts never look good. And there's no consistent branding at all."
versus
"BRAND advertising isn't measurable, and doesn't give enough information to sell."
and
"It's not creative unless it sells." but "It doesn't sell unless it's creative."

Don't miss this special event!
The part of "DIRECT" will be played by Karen Marchetti.

Join us ringside where you'll learn: the elements of branding and how to maintain a consistent brand "architecture"; how to incorporate the latest uses of direct marketing interaction, engagement, and emotion; and how to shorten your sales cycle and boost your ROI. Read more at www.SMAresource.com/

Have you redesigned your email for preview panes and "images off"?

Preview panes used to be just an issue with business-to-business email efforts, as the majority of businesses make use of MS Outlook to view email messages. But now, preview panes are becoming the norm across the range of email services. And a growing majority of email readers default to "images off". Have you redesigned your email to be as effective as it can be with preview panes and "images off"? read more at www.SMAresource.com/

Copyright Strategic Marketing & Advertising, Inc. 2007. All rights reserved.
You may reprint or copy or distribute "SMA Resource February 2007 Newsletter" with this copyright notice included.

March Seminars . . .
3/14 in San Diego: Offers that Sell! (USPS Certificate in Direct Mail Marketing Class)
3/14 in LA: Creative Strategy for Direct Mail (DMASC)
3/20 in San Diego: Combining Brand + Response (SDDMA)

You can earn a USPS Certificate in Direct Mail Marketing, by boosting your direct mail knowledge in 6 morning classes. The San Diego Postal Customer Council will again offer the classes in 2007. (If you didn't get to complete all 6 classes in 2005 or 2006, you can take the classes you missed and still earn your Certificate.)

Karen Marchetti will again be presenting 4 classes, including:

Offers that Sell on 3/14
Copywriting Workshop I on 4/18
Direct Mail Design on 5/16
Direct Mail Testing and Financials on 6/13

For registration information, visit www.sdpcc.org.

OFFERS That Sell!!! (USPS San Diego)
March 14, 2007 10:00 am - 12:00 noon

What's the fastest way to improve response? Change the element that drives it -- the Offer. Is your Offer an afterthought? In direct mail, the Offer is one of the 3 critical elements for success (along with List and Creative). In this information-packed session, you'll learn:

How to craft a Direct Sell Offer versus a Lead Generation Offer
How the specific words you use will affect response - either positively or negatively
How to design your Offer(s) to correspond with the logical steps in your sales process
What you need to know to NEVER be surprised about the quality of your leads again
How to actively manage the Lead Quality/Quantity Tradeoff
How to banish the ho-hum "more information" non-Offer
How to make every offer sound irresistible

Plus, over 100 Offer ideas! For registration information, visit www.sdpcc.org.

Creative Strategy for Direct Mail (DMASC)
Wednesday, March 14 6:30 - 9:30 pm Los Angeles
(part of the DMASC Direct Marketing School)

You will learn how to:

Develop a strong direct mail creative strategy
Select the most appropriate direct mail formats and package components
Specify the critical components of direct-response design
Write a creative brief to guide creative development efforts

Plus -- recognize effective headlines, leads, and copy that will get read

We'll cover:

Creative elements - features versus benefits, long copy versus short copy, principles of effective copywriting, and critical elements of effective design
Package formats - how to choose the most appropriate format and your package components
Writing the creative brief
Crafting offers that sell
Creative testing

Plus, a creative critique of your samples. To learn more, visit www.dmasc.org

Branding + Direct: How to combine both for superior ROI
(San Diego DMA)
March 20 7:45 - 11:30 am

Branding 2007:

What is branding - beyond your logo - and how do you get there?
The strategic, messaging, and design elements of branding
How to test creative and still maintain consistent branding
How to evaluate your current branding
How do you know when you're "off-brand"?
The effect of branding on your response efforts

Direct Marketing 2007:

Building emotion into your marketing efforts
Offer construction: the most common errors that brand-focused agencies make
Interaction: How to shorten your sales cycle while improving ROI
How to engage your prospects on the web

Brand+Direct 2007:

Combining the right level of Brand and Response into your marketing: how to deliver consistent, persuasive, relevant messages
Why response rate isn't the best metric - and what are the best numbers to use

For registration information, visit www.sddma.org

Have you redesigned your email for preview panes and "images off"?

Preview panes used to be just an issue with business-to-business email efforts, as the majority of businesses make use of MS Outlook to view email messages. But now, preview panes are becoming the norm across the range of email services. 9 out of 10 email users have access to a preview pane - and 7 out of 10 either frequently or always use it. Preview panes are now included in:

AOL 9.0, AT&T, Express 6+, Lotus Notes 7+, Mac, Mozilla Thunderbird, Outlook XP/2003/2007, Terra/Telefonica, Hotmail, Yahoo beta (next version of Yahoo email), and Windows Live Mail (next version of Hotmail)

What does this mean for your email design? Be sure you modify the top of your email messages to include:

Your brand in TEXT, not an image (so it's clear who the email is from, even if images are turned off)
Your key calls to action in TEXT
The URL of the page(s) you're linking to, in TEXT (in case links are turned off, as they are in AOL 9.0, Hotmail, and MSN as the default). You'll notice in our email to you that we added a visible URL following our "read more" links.

This proliferation of preview panes means your image-heavy masthead should NOT be the first thing at the top of your email (see our design, where the masthead follows the headlines). If your recipient has "images off", your email might just show a bunch of code at the top, instead of your masthead. "Images off" is now the default in:
AOL 9.0, AT&T, Gmail, Hotmail, Mac, MSN, Outlook 2003/2007, and the Yahoo beta. In addition, "images off" is the default if your email is delivered into the Yahoo spam folder.
Be sure to use alt tags behind your images, so your messages will make sense with and without the images visible. Encourage your recipients to add your email address to their address book, as some email readers (including AOL 9.0) will turn images back on if your address is in the address book.

The real deliverability challenge for 2007:

It used to be the lists of email "trigger terms" that we used to worry about, when trying to ensure that emails wouldn't be blocked as spam by ISPs. (We had to promote a golf ball that had "Long and Soft" as part of its name . . . needless to say, we had some challenges with that one.)
Currently, 26% of consumers unsubscribe from email by clicking the "this is spam" button. If as few as 0.5% - 1.0% of your email recipients click "this is spam", an ISP may block ALL of your email. Work hard to get your email address into the address book of your customers and other email recipients. And be sure you continue to send email that is RELEVANT to your audience.