Yikes! Getting marketing guidance on the Internet may or may not be a good idea. What prompts me to say that? Yesterday I read an article (writer shall remain anonymous to protect his identity) about integrated marketing. It was all great until I saw the list of channels. They were ALL online.
“Integrated” means online and offline as appropriate for a specific business and market. In the world of B2B direct marketing — lead generation especially — two offline channels have proven (in real A/B split testing) to be the most powerful: direct mail marketing and telemarketing.
Yes, for generating leads, you can’t do any better than sending a direct mail letter followed within 5 days with a phone call. So don’t believe everything you read on the Internet, just what you read here.
On Sunday I watched a DVD of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and am sad to say that looking at cars, the clothes and the hairdos (definitely NOT the atomic testing) made me wish to experience the simplicity of life in the 50s. B2B marketing was simpler then, too. This was pre-Web sites, pre-SEO/SEM, pre-email, pre-PURLs, pre-Twitter. Back then, integrated B2B marketing meant print ads, a limited use of broadcast, and the field I was to enter in the 80s — direct mail marketing.
Yes, today’s new media is deservedly hot in spite of its complexity. What I miss, however, is the understanding on the part of my B2B clients (especially the high-tech folks) of how vital it is to include direct mail in their B2B integrated marketing mix. Why? Because it still WORKS!
“Well, my clients are all IT professionals. They prefer to do all their business online” is what I typically hear. Yet, time and time again, campaigns including direct mail — at least, those that follow best practices — consistently show, not only a huge boost in response, but a lowered cost-per-response and cost-per-sale even when the audience is IT.
The other big advantage is that rented mailing lists typically have more names, and more information about those names (titles, company size, company behavior), than email lists do. B2B direct mail lead generation best practices are easy to follow. Just take a look at a direct mail letter I wrote for Epicor, a leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution provider. It follows best practices and is a powerful tool in today’s B2B integrated lead generation campaigns.
Even if you hate the cars, the clothes, and the hairdos, there is something from the 50s you should re-experience today. It will make a difference in your marketing success.
What’s the best thing about being an independent direct marketing consultant and copywriter? Every day my brain gets refreshed and I’m forced to address the 
challenges of a new client and a new market. No two days are ever alike. In the morning it’s writing lead generation emails to Fortune 1000 companies selling enterprise-wide, mission-critical software. In the afternoon it’s marketing flow meters to engineers and municipalities for monitoring the flow of water and waste water.
But regardless of the product and market, with each new client, I continue to see easy-to-fix gaps in their marketing. There’s really no logical reason to not follow best practices in every B2B marketing effort. Have a marketing professional review your Web site, online and offline marketing messages, product brochures, and other marketing programs to identify what you are doing right and what you are not. It’s a low-cost, fast way to learn methods to quickly and easily move the success of your B2B lead generation and sales marketing efforts up to the next level.
Integrated Marketing | Susan Fantle | 
March 30, 2009 9:22 am | 
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