Marketing Commentary from interlinkONE
Marketing. Web-to-Print. Warehouse Management.
The Royce Funds: Congratulations on MEFA Awards
Posted by 
on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 
at 12:43 PM 
in We wanted to express congratulations to The Royce Funds, a long-time interlinkONE customer. They recently won 7 awards from the Mutual Fund Education Alliance (MFEA).
MFEA recognizes mutual fund companies that provide outstanding shareholder communications.
The Royce Funds won awards for marketing efforts related to their:
- Videos
- RSS Feed
- Best Communications Campaign
- Best Printed Newsletter
- Best Annual Report
- and more…
Here is the official announcement:
http://www.roycefunds.com/News/News/2009/1026-MFEA-Awards.asp
——————————————————————–
The Royce Funds utilizes interlinkONE’s marketing software to build, manage, execute and measure marketing campaigns across multiple channels.
If you would like information on your company could benefit from our integrated marketing software solutions, please contact our team today!
Tags Cross-Selling in your Marketing Campaigns
There are very few marketers out in the world that will confess to having “enough time”.
Marketing departments are typically full of ideas and excitement – but they face the same clock as the rest of the world.
Their file cabinet may have marketing strategy documents… their whiteboard full of plans and action items…. and their desks may be covered in sketches.
However, the best intentions in the world do not always mean those projects will see the light of the day. Thus, when you do get a project done, you need to capitalize. Take full advantage of the content that you are pushing to the world.
Here is an example.
Contact Form and Newsletter Subscription Option
A customer recently launched a campaign that primarily consisted of a landing page with a quiz. All respondents that successfully answered the quiz were eligible for a prize.
Well, at the very bottom of the quiz, they asked people for their contact information (of course), but they also asked if people wanted to subscribe to their newsletter.
Yes, they certainly may have had other ideas for campaigns that would specifically drive newsletter subscriptions. But here, they took advantage of a campaign that did see the light of the day, and used it to also try to get people to subscribe.
Marketing during the Holidays
The holidays are usually all about fun, friends and family.
Well, they also can help add a bit of good news to your business as well.
Here are a few ways to execute successful marketing efforts around events such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc…
- Throw an open house. By doing this you are opening your doors and welcoming your customers to spend time with your company on a causal level. Use the holidays as the theme on your invitations, as well for some of the decorations in your office.
- Send out creative emails and mailers with the current holiday theme. Reach out to your customers with a small holiday card. Almost all companies send out a holiday card in December, but why not a Thanksgiving card or a Valentine’s Day cards? Be unique and make your marketing efforts stand out. Use variable data to create personalized pieces.
- During the “time of giving” send out gifts to your customers and prospects… it fits the spirit, and helps people know that you are thinking of them and/or thanking them for another great year of business.
These are just a few ways to extend your marketing efforts during the holidays. Sure, it will take a bit of time and effort. But your customers and prospects will be thankful that you reached out to them.
Using Flash on Your Landing Pages
Customer Service Tip from interlinkONE!
The experts on search engine optimization very wisely discourage heavy use of Flash on a corporate website. However, Flash may have a great place on landing pages and micro-sites that are dedicated to marketing campaigns that rely on channels other than Search to reach the world.
With interlinkONE’s marketing software, you can create landing pages and micro-sites that provide personalized content, track downloads to external sites and sales materials, allow people to update contact information, and also collect data from each site visitor via survey questions.
However, sometimes those sites need a bit of pizazz to ensure that people will respond to the survey, or download the ebook. Yes, sometimes those sites need Flash (excuse the pun!).
Here are a few ways that Flash could improve the success of your landing pages and micro-sites:
As the Welcome/Splash page:
Rather than directing people immediately to the survey page, you can present them with a Flash movie that greets them when they access the landing page. It should have a similar creative and theme as the original piece – the mailer, email, banner ad, etc. The Flash movie can entertain the user, and help to push across your message in a slightly different format – an animated movie, with or without sound.
After the movie plays, users can automatically be redirected to the survey page. Or, you can give them a “Click here to Proceed” link.
Animated Banners on Top of the Response Page
Best practices dictate that your Response/Survey page should not be too busy. The main goal of those pages is to get people to provide some information, and click the Submit button. Thus, you don’t want to distract them too much, or provide too many other options.
However, putting a Flash banner at the top of the Response page can help add a bit of life and oomph to your response page. Not only can it entertain the viewer, but it also might be used to further push your message. It can be an extra incentive to get people to provide answers to questions below, and to enter/update their contact information.
These are just a couple of ways that you could use Flash to help improve the success of your landing pages and micro-sites. If you have any questions about how to add Flash movies to your landing pages, please let us know!
QR Codes: from the city to the forest
QR Code in action... Try it!
At interlinkONE, we are very excited about the opportunities that are being created thanks to QR Codes. More and more marketing departments are looking at these as a way to add a bit of excitement to their printed materials, but even more important, as a way to increase the success of their marketing efforts.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve read a couple of stories related to how QR Codes are starting to enter a bit more into our daily lives.
In the Newspaper
On October 8th, the New York Times published its first QR Code. It was advertisement from TIAA-CREF. The QR Code directed people to a mobile site that had more information about the company.
In the Forest
The Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism are using QR Codes to help visitors to their state more quickly get information and find their way around. For example, the codes will be used to help me get information on subjects such as driving routes, itineraries, maps, city dining and lodging information, and hot deals and packages.
These are just a couple of the recent stories that help demonstrate ways QR Codes can be used. While traveling yesterday, I noticed them on the front cover of a magazine, and in a few print advertisements as well.
Ready to give QR Codes a try?
Would you like to try QR Codes in your marketing effort? Would you like a bit more information on what they are, how you can create and test them?
If so, we’ve put together a site that provides loads of QR Code-related information.
Here is the link! http://interlinkONE.com/home/qrcodes/
