Zoo Marketing Increases Conservation, Digital Stress

Significant changes are occurring in zoo marketing, per several recent reports. Consumers' rising concerns about conservation and ethical treatment of animals have been a driving force. As the public loses its appetite for viewing animals in cages, zoos are initiating a new stress on realistic exhibits and conservation--and their marketing is reflecting that shift. A Platform Magazine article on the new wave in zoo marketing, noted to its PR-pro readers that the winning zoo marketing strategy seems to lie in finding the middle ground between promoting conservation and creating entertainment. Many zoos do this by creating exhibits that mimic animals’ natural habitats. For example, the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington, promotes exhibits for jaguars, penguins and grizzly bears, which have won exhibit design awards. Meanwhile, the Houston Zoo not only advertises the fact that it shares part of the money from each ticket with conservation programs but plans to build a new exhibit to showcase the Texas Wetlands, which have a large variety of animal and plant life. The Platform article also cites Zoo Atlanta's strategy for merging consumer experiences and conservation by promoting its contributions to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan (SSP) with new animals’ births that help "maintain healthy, genetically diverse and self-sustaining animal populations within North American zoos." However, one marketing challenge for nonprofit zoos like Zoo Atlanta is stretching "our limited advertising budget," Vice President of Marketing and Membership Tracy Lott acknowledges. And digital media investments are one way her zoo stretches marketing resources. For zoos following Zoo Atlanta's lead, Search Influence, a digital marketing agency, suggests key steps to digital success. Efforts need to begin with planning, with an emphasis on defining member/donor/visitor profiles and segments for targeting. Then local prospects, loyal members and tourists can be sent the different messaging that will resonate and drive response. Next comes a polished website to showcase attention-getting content and provide a platform for sales and donations, supported by a traffic-building investment in search optimization and paid search. Third, zoos need a curated content-marketing strategy for website, social media and paid digital advertising to promote unique draws, from exhibits and events to conservation and education. Leveraging that great content requires a targeted digital advertising strategy. Since 90% of time online is spent outside of search, mainly on Facebook, Instagram and other social platforms, one focus should be social media ads with enticing video, graphics and messaging. These ads can be targeted by interests, location, family status, buying behavior and more to boost response. Finally, to maximize ROI, marketers need analytics with defined KPIs per platform, including use of Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. For the full post, see http://www.acculistusa.com/todays-zoo-marketing-embraces-conservation-digital/

Smart List, Mail Design Cut Postage Costs

Maximizing direct mail ROI requires cost efficiency, especially in the postage realm. Good list selection and hygiene are key to avoiding mailing waste. Another important factor in controlling postage costs is mail package design. If you are sending mailings to the wrong people, people unlikely to be interested in your offer, lower response rate and cost inefficiency will be reflected in poor ROI. Using tools from predictive modeling to customer profiling to segmentation can improve list choices and targeting parameters. Plus, AccuList USA's proprietary list research can help clients find the top-performing lists for their specific vertical market. But no matter how data is targeted, dirty data with duplicates, errors, invalid addresses, and old demographic or purchase history information will create costly delivery failures and misdirected waste. That's why AccuList USA goes beyond list brokerage to provide expert merge-purge services that combine and standardize data in order to eliminate duplicates, identify and correct old or undeliverable addresses, verify zip codes, and maximize postal discounts. In fact, by comparing names and addresses to real-time information on multiple public and private databases, AccuList USA offers an advanced hygiene regimen that is able to identify and correct twice as many addresses as standard USPS FASTforward and NCOALink use, which only represent a portion of U.S. movers and undeliverables. USPS offers postage discounts to mail pieces that are not only addressed correctly but also designed for processing on automated equipment. For mail to qualify for the lowest postage rates, the mail piece needs to be at a letter size, which is a minimum of 3 ½" high by 5" long and a maximum of 6" high by 10½" long. Larger mail pieces fall into the flat category, which can cost more than twice as much per piece as a letter. Plus, to take advantage of automation, the piece must by rectangular, with an aspect ratio (length divided by height) of 1.3 to 2.5, or risk costing twice as much in postage. The addressing and barcode block on letter size mail also must fit into the USPS OCR read area to avoid additional postage. Naturally, weight matters. Keep the weight of a folded self-mailer under 1 ounce; if the piece weighs over 3 ounces, it must go in an envelope. Thickness counts, too.  If a mail piece is less than 0.009" thick, it costs more in postage. On the other hand, the maximum thickness for letter size mail is ¼" and for flat size is ¾". For more, see http://www.acculistusa.com/smart-list-mail-design-choices-help-save-on-postage/

Personalization Spurs Digital Results, If Done Right

Personalization is becoming best practice for e-mail, mobile marketing and digital display ads, and recent marketing data underscores digital personalization's potential power, asserts a ClickZ article by Tess Wegert. Consider "Share a Coke" labels personalized with 250 popular names, which "reversed a decade-long decline in U.S. Coke consumption," per a Wall Street Journal report. Another example from Wegert is the personalized interest- and location-specific video ad campaign by automaker Land Rover, which lifted brand awareness by 50% and purchase intent by 53%. In the e-mail arena, data shows that personalized e-mails can yield transaction rates and revenues six times higher than non-personalized messages, she notes. And when it comes to online ads and content, Yahoo reports that 78% of consumer surveyed say they want some degree of content personalization. But, Wegert cautions, personalization can be a double-edged sword, turning off audiences if it is inconsistent, intrusive or mistargeted. She cites three basic tactics for succeeding with digital personalization: 1) coordinate messaging across all channels; 2) go slow and avoid creepy, excess personalization upfront and all at once; and 3) make sure personalization is targeted based on accurate data and profiling. For the complete story, go to http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2374653/the-importance-of-personalization

Retailers Can Use 'Big Data' for Bigger Holiday Sales

OK, retailers, if you've been gathering reams of online and offline data about your prospects and customers, it's time to use it to wrap up a holiday sales gift to yourselves. How? A recent MarketingProfs article suggests three tips for using "big data" to deliver a merrier holiday season to e-commerce and brick-and-mortar merchants. No. 1: Combine customer profiles and buying/shopping histories with real-time situational data (location, time/seasonality, limited-time offers, remaining inventory, etc.) and apply that data across devices and channels for more targeted, personalized and relevant promotions in real time (in-store mobile ads, for example). No. 2: Retarget site abandoners with video ads, which drive more engagement than display ads and e-mails--and use data to make sure videos are relevant and timed to the customers' buying cycle. No. 3: Don't stop with customer acquisition. Deliver multi-channel welcoming experiences to new customers for retention, cross-sell and upsell to keep sales flowing into the New Year. For specific implementation ideas, see the article at http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2013/11924/how-to-harness-big-data-for-better-holiday-shopping-experiences