Thursday, June 13, 2013

Data-Driven Mailings Create Arts Marketing Success

If you need an example of direct mail power in arts and entertainment marketing, look at the Everyman Theater Company, a nonprofit Baltimore-based theater group. Last year, it incorporated data-driven strategies to optimize its direct mail marketing with impressive results. The total ROI for one campaign was an astounding 552%, with an 80% increase in ticket sales and revenue, for example. Prior to its data-driven mailings, Everyman's traditional marketing had relied mostly broadcast messages: postcards, radio spots, and e-blasts. Everyman's prior direct mail efforts usually equated to mailing to its entire list. Enter Marketing Director Jonathan Waller. He hired a database services firm to clean up the database (mainly removing duplicate names), to identify segments most likely to purchase tickets, and to build predictive models. After direct-mail testing of segments and messaging, both response rates and cost efficiency improved. For more detail, see the Direct Marketing News story at http://www.dmnews.com/data-driven-marketing-gets-dramatics-results/article/290791/

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Google Reveals Online Buying Processes by Industry

Online consumers who take at least two web “steps” before purchasing a product — say, a paid search ad or an e-mail marketing message — account for 66% of retail revenue, according to data from a new free tool that Google Inc. has made available online. “The Customer Journey to Online Purchase” is a website where users can toy around for free with information designed to show how online shoppers use web marketing in the aggregate. Findings are based on online marketing data from more than 36,000 Google clients and cover industries such as retail, automotive and consumer packaged goods, where the vast majority of purchases are relatively quick given that they usually require little research, according to Google. Data is also available on technology purchasing, a category in which product research takes more than 28 days but leads to purchases worth 3.5 times more than immediate transactions. Among data points that users can review are average order values by the days of research before buying. The site also shows how various online marketing methods impact sales. For more, see the Internet Retailer report at http://www.internetretailer.com/2013/04/26/google-launches-wide-view-tool-online-marketing