Marketing Commentary from interlinkONE
Marketing. Web-to-Print. Warehouse Management.
Looking for the Right Mix
Posted by 
on Friday, January 29, 2010 
at 10:11 AM 
in 
When it comes to friendships and relationships, nearly all of us seek out people from the past.
Sites such as Facebook have made it easier than ever to connect with people from our high school years. We all must admit to getting a little rush as we search and find an old buddy or a former crush that we haven’t seen in years.
Why do we look to the past?
Often, it’s because we have good memories. Sure, we may greatly enjoy where we are in life today. We may love the new people in our lives and the opportunities that have been opened up to us.
However, there’s something about the “old days” that we may look to cling onto.
Marketing And The Good Old Days
The same attitude should apply to our marketing activities. However, it may not come as naturally.
In the world of marketing, we are often attracted to what will happen next — we are constantly looking forward and pushing to ensure we take advantage of new channels and ways to communicate with prospects and customers.
This can be a very good thing.
Looking forward may help us to beat our competition… It may help us to save money and reach new people… It can help position us a leader.
However, we need to still take the time to look for “old friends”. What worked for us one, two, or even 5 years ago may seem ancient compared with our new, favorite marketing channel. However, there’s a good chance that a portion of our target audience may still prefer communication via a more traditional marketing channel.
It might be print. It could be a phone call. It could be a TV or radio ad.
If that is our audience’s preferred method of communication, we need to find ways to honor that.
The Right Mix
Certainly, solely clinging to old friends will not help us to succeed in life. We need to balance “the good old days” with where we are in life today.
The same principle applies to our marketing efforts: If we find a way to create the right mix in between traditional and new channels, we will give ourselves an opportunity to succeed.
Tags Determining the Best Mix for a Marketing Campaign
Many businesses see the value in using a mix of channels their marketing efforts. However, the question is: what are the key factors in determining the best product mix for a particular marketing campaign?
Here is my answer:
Determine the client’s long-term goals so you are prepared to handle growth or shrinkage of the application set with minimal administrative effort.
For example, if you have a direct mail client utilizing PURLs and landing pages, be prepared to take on the associated response activities (analytics, e-mail, VDP, fulfillment, etc.) to support the entire campaign.
The biggest cost comes from moving data between multiple systems, due to poor planning of what a client’s projected data workflow needs truly are. Considering upfront how to handle expanding requirements without running into software integration and implementation roadblocks will be the key to success.
