What’s the Interactive Buzz in Today’s Marketplace?

Written by: Frank Iacono

The history of the Internet is interesting. If nothing else, it’s fascinating to see how far we’ve come in such a short period of time. It was back in 1945 that Vennevar Bush, one of the pioneers in radar, published a paper on his theoretical memex machine. The ideas referenced in that paper would later evolve into what we call the World Wide Web.

Today, we as marketers see the impact the Internet has had on the way buyers buy and sellers sell. In fact, a recent DMA study revealed that one out of three direct mail recipients prefer to respond online, so capturing responders who go online is critical. More importantly, we are continuously challenged to discover the best ways to integrate the power of direct marketing with the capabilities of the Internet to generate higher lead volumes, improve agent and field force efficiency, enhance customer retention, and streamline customer service for our clients.

With that said, there are 10 interactive strategies you should engage your clients about on a daily basis:

Search Marketing

Search marketing has been described as pull marketing or reverse direct marketing. Meaning, end-users are actively conducting search queries on Google or Yahoo! looking for your product or service. There are three main categories of search marketing: Paid Inclusion Content Feeds, Paid Listing Management, and Natural Search Optimization. Conducting search-marketing initiatives can increase qualified traffic to a Website, landing page, and/or microsite within a short period of time. This type of marketing can provide marketers with immediate visibility for short-lived programs, such as donor programs, contests, events, seminars, and promotions. Search marketing can be highly cost-effective and can deliver quantifiable results.

E-mail Marketing Campaigns

Even with spam, phishing, deliverability issues, and declining open rates, e-mail is still one of the most powerful marketing tools available today. When e-mail is added to the marketing communication mix, companies will actually expend less time, less money, and fewer resources than with more traditional marketing vehicles (e.g. direct mail, print advertising). E-mail marketing allows companies to quickly disseminate time-sensitive information in minutes, not days or weeks – and they can quickly see the results of the campaign efforts instantly, and make any necessary adjustments in real-time.

E-newsletter Campaigns

E-newsletters are a great way to disseminate relevant and timely information on a regular basis. E newsletters can aid in driving education, prospecting and retention efforts, promoting events, announcing new products, and keeping agents, brokers, and members informed. E-newsletters allow companies to remain top of mind with your audience and encourage two-way communication – ultimately building stronger, longer-lasting relationships.

Landing Pages and Microsites

For any high-visibility e-marketing, direct mail, or DRTV campaign, landing pages and microsites can serve as vital tools. Landing pages and microsites allow for the development of specific time-based, product-focused marketing in a flexible, dynamic manner. If these Web pages are designed, programmed, and implemented effectively the campaign stands to have a higher conversion rate and could yield a greater return on investment. Landing pages and microsites should be synergistic with the creative used in e-mail, DRTV, postcards, FSIs, and direct mail campaigns that drove the end-user to this destination in the first place.

Personalized URLs

Personalized URLs (PURLS) are unique Web pages that incorporate end-users’ personal information (found in a back-end database on a campaign-hosted Web server) so that the offer reflects a high degree of one-to-one communication and customization. Naturally, the more the page “relates” to the recipient, the greater the probability of conversion. PURLs can help increase overall conversion rates up to 20%. PURLs can be utilized with most marketing-driven campaigns such as direct mail, e-mail, postcards, and interactive surveys.

Blogging

Short for Web log, blogs are frequently updated public journals. “Blogging” is the action of posting to a blog; the poster is called a “blogger.” Some sources estimate there are more than 100 million blogs on the Internet today. Blogs can help organizations stay on top and in touch with their audience. Blogs can provide news and updates to customers and investors. Blogs can give a company or a Website a more personable look and creates a dialogue. Search engine optimization experts recommend using blogs to boost site rankings, as search engine robots and spiders often visit blogs more frequently than static Web pages.

Podcasting

Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files (such as audio or video programs) over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. A Pew Internet study states, “More than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players and 29% of them have downloaded podcasts. That amounts to more than six million adults who have tried this new feature that allows Internet ‘broadcasts’ to be downloaded onto their portable listening device.” (Please note: Apple’s iPod is not required to play back podcasts; any portable MP3 player or personal computer with the right software can view and listen.)

RSS Feeds

RSS, or Rich Site Syndication (a.k.a. Really Simple Syndication), is a simple XML-based system that allows users to subscribe to their favorite Websites and receive free news and/or other content as published. These feeds contain headlines, summaries, and links to the actual full page on the Web. Using RSS, Webmasters can put their content into a standardized format that can be viewed and organized through RSS-aware software or automatically conveyed as new content on another Website.

Mobile Marketing and Text Messaging

Mobile marketing refers to direct marketing to mobile phones, PDAs, or (rarely) laptop computers. Technologies such as SMS, Bluetooth, WLAN, and Infrared (IRDA) are being used to distribute commercials onto mobile phones. With the still-growing popularity of mobile phones, mobile marketing could establish itself as one of the fastest-growing and most targetable marketing methods. Text messaging is where e-mail was 15 years ago, or where voice marketing was five years ago. But the beauty of mobile marketing is that consumer participation is 100% opt-in – and 83% of text messages are read within one hour of receipt.

Social Networks

Despite their origin as online destinations to assemble one’s friends and make new personal acquaintances, social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube have evolved to become nothing less than a core navigation paradigm for the Internet. Today, social networking functionality has become an important component of many, many Websites, not just those dedicated to making friends and dating. This same functionality sits alongside keyword searches or Google’s page rank algorithm as an important new way to search for people and discover valuable media and content on the Internet.