Koreans are the second most hardest working people in the world. For them going grocery shopping once a week is seen as a dreaded task.

Tesco (now known in South Korea as Home plus) decided to make shopping easier for Koreans by setting up virtual stores in locations such as subway stations walls using large printed backlit displays. People could then purchase items seen on the wall by scanning QR Codes with their mobile phones, adding each item to their shopping carts. Couriers would then deliver the goods to their homes.

Not only did Tesco investigate their market and provide a solution to a problem, they also increased their online sales by 130%.

Every year, marketers search for the next big thing that will make or break the success of their interactive marketing campaigns. A lot of buzzwords like “mobile” or “social” inevitably get thrown around but what does it really mean for marketers? Before you refresh marketing goals for 2011, here are five resolutions to consider.

1. Make data the foundation of your marketing

Collecting data has never been a problem as we know that it fuels our marketing programs and overall business decisions. But achieving visibility and usability is often another story. Many times information is stored in data warehouses and databases across the organisation and tedious exporting needs to be undertaken before being able to take any action. Simply put, many marketers are missing opportunities to engage with customers because their information and processes have become outdated before the customer engagement metrics are aggregated and sorted.

Making a change to the way you currently use click-through rates, online browsing history, shopping cart abandonment, previous purchase history, and other customer information starts with an assessment. Understanding what tools you have before you take action will pay off in the long run.

2. Use mobile to connect with customers

Mobile marketing is often overshadowed as social media and email marketing becomes more sophisticated. But as consumers rapidly begin to adopt smartphones, mobile marketing can no longer be viewed as a “silo” in a marketing campaign.

One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to begin mobile marketing is SMS. Creating text-in voting programs, Q&A text response campaigns and mobile coupons for your target audience are simple tactics to engage customers. Developing content that is specifically designed for mobile phones is also important – perhaps you might even consider creating a mobile app for your company.

3. Market to customers as individuals

It’s all too easy to be swept away by the creativity of the advertising instead of its relevance. Prioritising customer service before sales is crucial and there are some innovative and simple ways to do this. One example is to listen and be a part of the conversations that are happening online about your company. There are many online monitoring tools available to easily do this and you’ll be surprised by the amount of insight you’ll receive from listening to you customers.

4. Make social media a real part of the marketing mix

For many, 2010 marked the year that social media became a reality instead of just a trend for marketers to watch out for. We know that in the past, customers who had a bad experience with your brand would share it with 5 of their different friends but today, a bad customer experience could lead to negative information about your brand posted to 500 Twitter followers.

One way to integrate social media into your campaigns is to do some social ‘soul searching’. Gather metrics about who is hitting the ‘like’ button on Facebook, who is re-tweeting and what content attracts more user engagement. Another simple tactic is to use social media to gather local data. Geolocation devices and apps such as Foursquare give you the opportunity to find out who is visiting your store and how often.

5. Engage in ‘smart’ automation

In any campaign, there are some jobs that are tedious and time-consuming but remain essential. At the same time, marketing budgets aren’t getting any bigger so marketers need to find ways to work smarter, not harder.

With so much data to manage, automation is a great way to make information usable. Marketers can engage in ‘smart’ automation tools that integrate new customer data and preferences such as tweets on Twitter or likes on Facebook into every communication that is sent out.

Each new year offers a blank slate and a new outlook to start the year off right. And while you may not stay as organised as you’d like or as in shape as you had hoped by mid-year, making resolutions to improve your interactive marketing program can be well worth the investment.

Toys “R” Us Hong Kong has launched an iPhone app that integrates QR codes, content and rewards. The app is primarily intended for Hong Kong’s 700,000 Toys “R” Us Star Card loyalty program members. By scanning QR Codes (referred to as unlocking “R” codes) that can be found in the Toys “R” Us catalog, on their website, in-store and on posters users can view videos and accumulate rewards.

One way to increase the ROI of a direct mail marketing campaign is to include a promotional offer, exclusive to recipients of the mailing.

For example, a restaurant that wants to send out postcards to recruit new customers and retain existing ones should feature

• high-quality and attention-grabbing graphics of the decor and food
• a sample of menu items
• contact details
• and even a small map showing customers how to find the restaurant.

Yet in addition to all of these features, the restaurant should offer some kind of discount or promotion to the postcard recipients, such as a free appetizer or dessert, or a two-for-one meal.

Though some businesses may get the impression that doing so makes them look less professional or classy, the realities of the recession have overridden any potential negative connotations with coupons and discounts.

In fact, a recent survey from Nielsen found that affluent consumers are actually among the most frequent coupon users – 39 percent of consumers who earn more than $70,000 are classified as "super heavy" coupon users, while 42 percent fall into the category of "coupon enthusiasts."

Therefore, even high-end businesses should not shy away from using coupons in their direct mailings, as any incentive or discount will likely boost sales.

This is especially the case now that competition can be fierce  – and coupons may make the difference for a customer choosing between one business and another.

A study released this week regarding online retail coupons captured the make-or-break nature of promotions in today’s economic environment, showing that 30 percent of online adults will not make a purchase at an online store if they cannot find a coupon for that store – marking a 3 percent increase from 2008 – while 22 percent of online adults will go to a different store to make that purchase.

One way to measure the effectiveness of a coupon-focused direct mailing campaign is to require that the recipient brings the coupon into the store or business in order to receive the discount. Doing so can allow the business to compare the number of people who received the mailing with the number that brought the coupon in for use, guiding any changes to the campaign such as the mailing list or the offer itself.

Sometimes it’s fun – and profitable – to use a marketing gimmick, by introducing an intentional error into your direct mail campaign.

Not long ago, Jeff Kaller mailed a mountain of postcards driving people to call – the wrong number. Followed by mailings apologizing for and correcting the mistake.

And getting better than ever response.

In another case a sales letter and registration form was sent out for a very pricey event with the dates, place and price missing. Nearly 70% called to inform the sender of the mistakes: some irritated, some trying to be helpful. This put 70% on the phone with his three telemarketers, who closed half during the calls; net 35% registration vs. best ever prior sign-up rate from same customers for comparable events, 15%.

Joe Sugarman gave discounts and rewards to people who found the most mistakes in his ads. The technical term for this is: involvement.

Intentional errors… are they gimmicks, or are they ‘hooks’?

You’ll know once the responses start coming in!

Place point of sale signs at appropriate locations (check-out, table, counter or wall) and let the customer subscribe to your emailing list before they leave – just by using their cell phone!

• Set up your own unique text keyword
• Tell customers to text the keyword to a three digit number (easy)
• add that they’ll go into a monthly prize draw!

It takes under a minute and over 90% of customers will use their phone without hesitation.

And once they’re on your email list, we have tools that can automatically gather up more details from them online into your customer database, like their names, delivery address, favourite wine, interests, birthdays etc.

Building a customer database has never been this easy!

• Build up the customer database
• keep in touch with them via text, email or direct mail
• use offers to encourage visits to your physical or online store

This can boost monthly sales by 15-25%.

This is a great “print to mobile” loyalty marketing campaign.

CQ can help with all of the steps required to make this happen.

• POS signage
• TXT and email services
• Direct and personalised mail.

Email dean@cq.co.nz to find out more.

The top disk is a regular matt disc. The lower left is a high quality gloss watershield CD, followed by the new silver printable CD.

The photo doesn’t accurately show the difference between them so I recommend viewing them before printing.

We also have a new precut CD case stock available.

Double sided full colour CD cases production is now available on pre-perforated and creased stock. We print them for you, punch them out and assemble them. It’s as easy as that.

This is an excellent way to create high quality CD’s and DVD’s in a very short space of time, for runs of any size (even 1 if you need it).

So think about this the next time you’re sending data, audio or video out. Do you want to personalise the case so that it’s targeted directly to your market? Do you want to create a gift for friends and family?

Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2010

Looking to cut costs amid the recession, Alicia Settle initially thought it would be a good idea to eliminate her company’s annual direct mailing.

Spending about $20,000 on the personally signed letters, which offered customers a discount on early orders, seemed indulgent for Per Annum Inc., which sells city diaries, albums, and planners in the struggling corporate gift market. But after swapping snail mail for email last year, Ms. Settle saw a 25% drop in early orders compared with the same period the previous year.

"We realized we had made a huge mistake," says Ms. Settle, president of the New York firm.

The affordability of e-marketing, along with the explosion of social media and the desire to trim costs in the recession, has prompted many small companies like Per Annum to slash traditional direct-mail budgets. U.S. consumers received about 5.2 billion pieces of direct mail in the third quarter of 2009, a 27% decline compared with 7.1 billion in the same period a year earlier, according to Mintel Comperemedia, a research firm that tracks direct-mail marketing.

However, some entrepreneurs who were quick to write off direct mail as too pricey or passé are finding it’s not so easy to dismiss.

Ms. Settle says that at first she blamed the economy for the dropoff, until she "started hearing from customers that they never got their ‘reminder’ in the mail." Ms. Settle quickly sent a postcard mailing in June, which recouped the 25% loss, she says.

Costs are still taken into account. Many entrepreneurs find that the boiler-plate methods of the past—such as purchasing mailing lists and sending fliers or coupons to a mass audience—often aren’t cost-effective. Instead, business owners are creating personalized mailings, which may include special offers or other valuable information, and sending them to a hand-picked list of current and prospective customers.

The idea is to send something that’s more appealing than "junk" mail and potentially more noticeable than an email message, says Eric Anderson, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. That allows business owners "to offer a personal touch the larger firms may not be able to have," he says.

To save money, Peter Taffae, founder of ExecutivePerils, a Los Angeles wholesale insurance broker, stopped his small firm’s humorous postcard mailings last year. The colorful marketing pieces showcase the insurance broker’s offerings through satirical movie themes, such as "Full Metal Policy," a parody of "Full Metal Jacket" and "Singin’ in the Renewal," from the classic film "Singin’ in the Rain." About 2,000 current and potential clients received the postcards, which cost the company $4,000 to send out every four to six weeks.

Customers complained when ExecutivePerils dropped its humorous postcards.

"We would visit some clients and notice they were hanging the postcards on the wall, collecting them," says Mr. Taffae, who says he secured $270,000 from a new client who chose to do business with the firm in late 2008 after receiving the postcards.

"After two or three months [of no postcards], we got a lot of emails and phone calls asking us, ‘Did you take me off your list?’ I figured if even 1% complained, then a much larger percentage were thinking about it," says Mr. Taffae, who restarted the postcard mailings in November.

William Kapas, president of J.C. Kapas Real Estate Co. in Rochelle Park, N.J., says he has secured clients as a result of his high-gloss, four-color monthly mailings that list who has bought or sold restaurant properties though the firm.

"Our clients look forward to knowing, and it’s a little bit of gossip, too," says Mr. Kapas, who exclusively uses traditional mail to reach clients. "I think it’s easier to delete the electronic junk mail without taking a second look."

Mr. Kapas spends about $1 a piece for the monthly mailings, sent to about 2,200 current and prospective customers.

Prof. Anderson says other business owners are trying to figure out how to integrate Web marketing—such as email campaigns, banner ads and social-networking sites—with direct mail. "The introduction of new media has forced [business owners] to go back and revisit the whole playbook on what’s the best way to communicate with customers," Mr. Anderson says.

Ms. Settle, for instance, plans to use e-marketing to complement the hand-signed direct-mail piece, not replace it.

Meanwhile, Mr. Taffae is starting to take his satirical marketing approach to YouTube; he’s created a parody of F Troop, the 1960s sitcom, to promote his firm online.

Have a look at how marketing has dramatically changed over the last few years, and how a well planned direct marketing campaign can produce extremely good responses, profit and return on investment!

Let your clients know you love them, ask them how they have they’re coffee and spring one of these on them!

For a bit more fun add in a PURL (personalised web address) to visit your website.

Design templates available from Dean dean@cq.co.nz