Lead Generation Agencies

My wife and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary this past weekend. We have a lot of "give and take" that makes our relationship work: We enjoy being out together and being with our kids but we support each other's individual interests. She goes away with girlfriends each year; I go away to a Patriots game with some buddies. She goes to a yoga class 2-3 times a week; I run 2-3 times a week. She meets with a regular book club; I play basketball one night a week. As is the case in other successful relationships, each side understands the others' goals and aspirations and encourages those things.

Your relationship with your marketing partner should work the same way. The relationship between a business owner and their marketing partner should be as "open" as any successful relationship you might have in your life. Think of any successful relationship you have  - spouse? friend? neighbor? What makes it successful? Certainly we don't need all the details of your personal relationship but chances are the overriding theme is that you have an  understanding and expectation of what you expect from that person. You might not be the "best friend" to the next door neighbor but if you have a mutual understanding of each other, it works!

The Allied Group works closely with clients so we have a clear understanding of our role in the relationship. For some clients, we are their main resource and serve as the role of their marketing department, assisting on just about everything from lead generation to promotional printed products to redesigning their website. For other clients, they may have their own marketing resources but they need Allied to "fill in the cracks" of what they cannot do internally.

When you are not clear on roles and expectations, like other relationships, your relationship with a top direct marketing agency could be headed for trouble. If your client expects one service and you expect something else, this creates the confusion that generally leads to bad feelings and frustration -- on both sides!

We suggest you sit and meet with the client on a regular basis to discuss goals and aspirations. Our formal Client Retention Program mandates that regular meetings occur with all of our larger clients so that we always are aware of what they want, what they expect and lastly, how they perceive our value to them. On our side, these regular meetings keep us aware of their constantly evolving needs, allowing us to react to those needs.

We have found these retention meetings to be a great source of information and a chance for both sides of the relationship to discuss the future. Like a good relationship with a spouse or a close friend, a clear understanding of roles and expectations can help pave the way for many years of a satisfying relationship for both sides.

How well do you know YOUR client?

The Boston Globe this week showed their annual picture of a large truck driving all of the Boston Red Sox equipment down to spring training in Florida. This is a much anticipated photo for Boston sports fans, as it signals the end of winter and lets us dream about what our beloved Sox will do this summer. For me, it also strikes me as a reminder about the length of the baseball season.

Spring training gets going in February and the World Series does not end until late October - 8 months! Between now and then, you will probably shovel snow, cut the lawn many times, wish your Mom a happy Mothers' Day, maybe take a vacation, rake leaves, see the kids finish one school year and start another. For baseball players, this is one long season with many ups and downs.

Like a baseball season, your marketing season (which basically never ends) will have those peaks and valleys. A baseball season lasts 162 games and teams will have both winning and losing streaks, there will be injuries, there will be high times and low times. A marketing season will have at times an abundance of leads and opportunities to work on - and there will be be "slow" times. There will be marketing campaigns that work and some that don't. Either way, you will have to persevere through the entire season.

Like a baseball team, your marketing program will have strengths and weaknesses. A baseball team might have a great infield, good hitting but poor pitching. A marketing "team" might have strong creativity and proactive ideas but poor execution. Either way, your strengths need to compensate for the weaknesses so, as a team, you win at the end.

Like a baseball game, you will have many opportunities to score. A baseball game consists of nine innings and each inning allows three batters (at minimum) to make something happen. In a marketing game, you get many chances to make something happen. It will be up to your marketing team to be resourceful (like a good baseball team) to execute a plan for maximum "runs scored."

As your favorite baseball team relies on key areas such as hits, runs and good defense, your marketing team should focus on key areas like lead generation, data appending, promotional imprinted products, and mail order fulfillment services. As the baseball managers rely on statistics to manage and guide their team, a top direct marketing agency uses statistics like ROI, sales conversion, and profit margin to manage their team.

So as we see that infamous truck head to Florida with all the bats, gloves, and balls, it makes you remember the long season ahead for both baseball players and marketing people alike.

Play Ball! 








 

Most of us have been on both ends of spam'a'lot. We have missed important messages that our got stuck in our filter and our important messages have been missed by others. This can lead to big problems - hard feelings, lost business and even derailed job searches.

Most spam filters use a scoring system and each violation has a value. The higher the sum of a message’s offenses, the more likely a spam filter will derail the message (or not delivered at all). Just one offense usually isn’t enough to flag a message as spam - it takes a combination of violations. But alas the system isn’t perfect - what computerized system is? And sometimes legitimate messages are wrongly marked as spam. Keeping in mind some do's and dont's should help and assist in furthering your marketing communication strategies.

DO: use plain text - whenever possible. The truth is HTML messages are prettier and many spam filters are regarding them as less spammy but a text email will always score less against spam filters. If you do want to use HTML make sure your code is clean and simple - sloppy code will sure be picked up.

DONT: be super duper awesomely excited! Certain words and phrases will surely be picked up by filters. Talking about money and breakthroughs and using exclamation points are red flags so avoid them.

DO: avoid sending attachments unless you know you are a trusted sender in your recipients filter. Links are better to use.

Ever wonder what is going to work best in that email campaign you're about to launch? Will that short subject line attract more opens? Will this banner perform better? These all are valid concerns and it's hard to figure out - I mean everyone has a difference of opinion and we all want solid marketing communication strategies. Stats are stats however and the results on studies performed can sometimes outweigh someone's bias.

I stumbled upon a great site today called Which Test Won. A weekly poll is put up for people to vote on which email (for example) performed better in a group. After your vote is complete the real stats are shown. You might be surprised by the answer and how well certain items performed over their competition.

If you have a website you are using it as one of your lead generation methods. There are so many factors that go into choosing the 'best' thing for your company to do. While this isn't and definitely shouldn't be your end all-be all of information, it's a great place to start doing some research for that next project.

The Allied Group is a top direct marketing agency and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out.