It's interesting in marketing, how everyone is an expert and a critic commenting and critiquing at will. Given vastly diverse company structure, budget and priority - could you ever expect a "one-size fits all strategy" or ever be so bold... More
It's interesting in marketing, how everyone is an expert and a critic commenting and critiquing at will. Given vastly diverse company structure, budget and priority - could you ever expect a "one-size fits all strategy" or ever be so bold as to espouse "my way is the right way?"
Absolutely not.
At Yesmail although our specialty is email marketing, we obviously face the same challenges of every other business on the planet; lead generation, brand perception, product awareness. We leverage the same programs as everyone else, creating and executing our own marketing mix that makes sense for us. All on a budget, all executed based on company priority.
Like many other companies, today we are focusing our time on search engine optimization of our sites, paid search, online advertising and experimenting with social media. A much smaller portion of the budget is dedicated to the execution of traditional lead generation programs that range from industry events, email marketing (of course), and webinars, to network-driven cost-per-lead (CPL) programs. Through all of these activities one of the main goals is to grow our marketing database of prospects. We do this by offering topical content that we hope readers will find useful - and here's the standard practice of which many differing opinions collide - we collect basic contact and qualification information, thereby opting them in. Why? Because then at least we have a somewhat qualified prospect to try and start a conversation with... and Yada yada yada.
So, the question for people on this blog post is, do you (those of you that are marketers) go out of your way target numerous criteria within a publisher-rented acquisition list? Do you suppress competitive domains ? And if the answer is yes, then why? If it doesn't save you even a buck when it's not a CPM-based mailing - is it worth it? Or do you believe in the theory of casting a broader net to start and then build you targeted campaigns on subsequent mailings? Answers that I imagine I'd get:
A. My products/services have only 1 true target - there's no chance of cross-selling or upselling, so I have to narrow the original list
B. I want to keep the competition away from my stuff (you know they'll find it anyway - right? Let's not be naïve), and so I suppress their domains
C. I'm a master of targeting. Come on, it's just plain standard practice
D. I don't care what you say - it saves me money
It's just an interesting discussion to have among marketing professionals - discussing best practices. By the way - the impetus of this post raises a thought provoking discussion based on a flurry of barb-trading between the well known, Ken Magill of Magilla Marketing and eROI a local competitor in the ESP space about the publisher list I rented for an opt-in campaign. Back to the earlier point; everyone is a critic. Less
Absolutely not.
At Yesmail although our specialty is email marketing, we obviously face the same challenges of every other business on the planet; lead generation, brand perception, product awareness. We leverage the same programs as everyone else, creating and executing our own marketing mix that makes sense for us. All on a budget, all executed based on company priority.
Like many other companies, today we are focusing our time on search engine optimization of our sites, paid search, online advertising and experimenting with social media. A much smaller portion of the budget is dedicated to the execution of traditional lead generation programs that range from industry events, email marketing (of course), and webinars, to network-driven cost-per-lead (CPL) programs. Through all of these activities one of the main goals is to grow our marketing database of prospects. We do this by offering topical content that we hope readers will find useful - and here's the standard practice of which many differing opinions collide - we collect basic contact and qualification information, thereby opting them in. Why? Because then at least we have a somewhat qualified prospect to try and start a conversation with... and Yada yada yada.
So, the question for people on this blog post is, do you (those of you that are marketers) go out of your way target numerous criteria within a publisher-rented acquisition list? Do you suppress competitive domains ? And if the answer is yes, then why? If it doesn't save you even a buck when it's not a CPM-based mailing - is it worth it? Or do you believe in the theory of casting a broader net to start and then build you targeted campaigns on subsequent mailings? Answers that I imagine I'd get:
A. My products/services have only 1 true target - there's no chance of cross-selling or upselling, so I have to narrow the original list
B. I want to keep the competition away from my stuff (you know they'll find it anyway - right? Let's not be naïve), and so I suppress their domains
C. I'm a master of targeting. Come on, it's just plain standard practice
D. I don't care what you say - it saves me money
It's just an interesting discussion to have among marketing professionals - discussing best practices. By the way - the impetus of this post raises a thought provoking discussion based on a flurry of barb-trading between the well known, Ken Magill of Magilla Marketing and eROI a local competitor in the ESP space about the publisher list I rented for an opt-in campaign. Back to the earlier point; everyone is a critic. Less
