Cross Media Marketing: Are You Tapped into the Right Channels?

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Marketing is always changing and being able to communicate and meet consumer’s needs through multiple channels is a must when it comes to developing an effective campaign. With people being exposed to over 5,000 messages a day, engaging your audience and having them recognize your brand is getting harder and harder to do. Recent trends have been to incorporate all individual marketing efforts into a single cross media marketing campaign and the development of new technology whether it is with digital printing or the advancement of cell phones has brought new opportunities allowing companies to do exactly this. A company’s campaign whether it’s their direct mail, their mobile marketing, or their social media marketing, must be consistent and engaging in order to make an impact on their target audience. Most companies today are focusing on integrating four different areas: social media marketing, email marketing, mobile marketing and print marketing.

Marketing through social media
Many companies are hesitant to dip into social media marketing and understandably so. Most are use to communication to customers being one way, but with this new development, customers have direct access to your company and communication has evolved from one way to two way discussions. Having direct conversations with customers may be concerning, but it brings great opportunities. In fact, 41% of B2B companies have acquired a new customer through a social media site such as Facebook. Two way communications is one of the best ways for businesses to be building credibility and brand loyalty. Having total access to customer thoughts, concerns and opinions is a huge advantage when it comes to figuring out how to reach your audience. Whether you are a small business or large corporation, many opportunities lie in social media marketing and it shouldn’t be left out of your cross media campaign.

Email and mobile marketing
It’s been said that by 2015 mobile internet usage will surpass desktop usage. Currently over 50 percent of U.S. mobile phone users now use smart phones and that number is on the rise. When talking about giving customers what they need, a mobile optimized website should not be a long discussion; it’s imperative for success. Having the most important information front and center whether it’s the company phone number, hours of operation, or directions is most important. Engaging customers needs to be easy so when wanting customer to sign up for things make it simple and pain free.

When it comes to email marketing, simple things like adding share buttons to your email message so readers can share your message through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is a great way to integrate your social media marketing with your email marketing. Using both channels together can expand your audience and multiply the impact your message can have with very little effort.

Integrating through direct mail campaigns
With the world going digital many companies are debating whether or not to opt out of direct mail campaigns but it is important that you don’t. Direct mail has the advantage of being tangible and with people being bombarded with digital advertising it provides an opportunity to stand out. When producing your direct mail campaigns engage your customer by personalizing information through digital printing. Let you customer interact with you instantly by using tools such as QR codes and personalized URLs. If consumers can connect with you instantly to learn more about your products or promotions, chances are your conversion rate will increase drastically.

In today’s environment ensuring that every channel of the campaign complements the other, and allowing ways for consumers to connect instantly is what it takes for a successful marketing campaigns. Contact Cerqa today and let us help you move your cross media marketing towards success.

Direct Mail: Is Your Strategy Working?

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qr codeWhen done right, direct mail has always been an effective way to market to an audience. The strategies used in order to make the message effective have changed significantly throughout the years and now more than ever it’s important that you are executing your direct mail campaigns in the right way. In the past, a business would be able to blanket an area with a generic message and be successful. Now this simply does not work and can actually be a costly mistake with postage prices on the rise. When developing a direct mail campaign it’s important to keep a couple of things in mind:

1. Generic messages no longer work when it comes to direct mail
2. Technology plays a huge role in how successful the direct mail campaign will be
3. Direct mail campaigns need to be tied to other marketing efforts through cross media marketing strategies in order to keep the consumer engaged

Direct Marketing News recently published a story about political marketers using interactive direct mail tools in order to reach their audience. The article highlights the importance of QR codes, social media links and personalization that is not only important for political campaigns, but for all direct mail campaigns. To read the full article click here.

It’s important to be smart about who you are targeting and how you are targeting them. Contact Cerqa today to learn more about cross media marketing and how we can make your direct marketing campaigns successful.

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Cerqa: Direct Mail Services

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Direct Mail Direct mail is part of an advertising technique called Direct Marketing. Direct Marketing can be a very successful way to reach your target audience(s) and comes with a number of great advantages. Cerqa is a company that can help you launch a great Direct Marketing Campaign with various direct mail services.

What Is Direct Marketing Anyway?

Direct marketing is an advertising technique that, if used correctly, can be proven to be very successful. Direct marketing is a form of advertising that directly communicates to the consumer using different types of media. In direct marketing you can utilize direct mail. Direct mail can be anything ranging from postcards and fliers to promotional letters and catalogues. These elements all serve the purpose of reaching and delivering your message to your target demographic or intended audience. When companies choose to implement this strategy it is usually called a direct marketing campaign.

There are a number of advantages that are associated with direct mail marketing:

• Highly customizable and flexible
• Inexpensive
• Easy to measure
• Easy response
• Less competition

Cerqa is a company that provides direct marketing services. They assist with direct marketing mailing pieces, offer mailing list solutions, and mailing services. “At Cerqa, our direct marketing services system provides you an easy to use interface to build and manage a personalized campaign utilizing variable data printing production (Cerqa.com)”. Variable data printing allows you to customize your direct marketing material with custom messages and images. This is important because it links back to one of the main benefits of direct marketing, which is customization and flexibility. It’s important to target each of your audiences with unique messages that are relevant to them.

Mailing List Services

The first step of any direct mail campaign is gathering and putting together a mailing list. This list is essential and will foretell whether your campaign will be a success or a failure.  With Cerqa they give you an option of uploading your own mailing list into their system. Uploading a mailing list into their system comes with added benefits. The first is CASS (Certifying and Deduping your list). This means that they will clean it up for you, which will improve delivery, and lower the cost of your postage for free. Or you have the option to purchase a mailing list from Cerqa.

Cerqa lists a number of different mailing list categories that are available for purchase:

• Consumer Lists: Find your best prospects from more than 135 million consumer households using the widest selection of demographic, purchase behavior and lifestyle filters.

• Business Lists: Identify the true decision makers from over 14 million businesses who need your product or service using the most extensive selection criteria including company size, business type and executive title.

• New Movers Lists: Find new movers, including new renters, in any area that are ready to buy from your company. More than 300,000 leads are added each week.

• New Homeowners Lists: Find new homeowners in any area that are ready to buy from your company. More than 100,000 leads are added each week.

• Specialty Lists: Find more targeted consumers, professionals or industries with greater precision and selectivity than traditional compiled databases. Some examples of specialty filers include Expectant Mothers, Newlyweds, Voters, Fortune 1000 Companies and New Businesses.

Mailing Services

With Cerqa you can save both time and money when it comes to delivering your direct mail pieces. Cerqa gets your mail pieces to your consumers faster and at a lower cost. Cerqa offers a number of great services to ensure that you get the high quality work.

• Hassle Free Mailings: Cerqa handles everything from folding and addressing to stamping and everything in between.

• Savings On Postage: Cerqa uses sophisticated list clean up and postal pre-sorting that provides discounts.

• Flexible Services: Cerqa offers a number of direct mail services all under one roof in order to successfully carry out your project requirement from start to finish.

• Superior Results: Cerqa has the expertise and experience to deliver the direct mail results that you demand and at a lower cost.

Cerqa also offers a few more additional mailing services:

• Personalized Mailings: Cerqa uses variable data capabilities to create highly targeted and unique direct mail.

• Match Mailing: Cerqa personalizes your letters with the recipients first and last name and then match it to the corresponding envelope. Match mailing dramatically increases the trust associated with your marketing letters.

• Live Stamping: Cerqa can apply first class, non-profit and standard (bull) tamps in-line on all of their imagers – they can also apply specialty stamps by hand.
Direct marketing campaigns and direct mail are a great way to get your message out to your target consumers. If done right you can have amazing results. Cerqa is a company that can help you from start to finish in implementing a successful and relevant direct marketing campaign.