Direct marketing is still the best method to test, track results and quickly learn what works so that you can scale up marketing campaigns with confidence.
In his recent blog article, "
Getting to scale: direct marketing vs. mass market thinking", marketing strategist
Seth Godin reminds us that the old-fashioned benefits of direct marketing still apply in the era of mobile technology and social media.
Direct marketers, which includes those who use postal
mailing lists and/or email marketing, can:
* test on small quantities to learn which message copy and pricing offers work best, then roll out to increasingly larger lists of targeted prospects and buyers
* learn quickly what works and doesn't work from their marketing campaigns
* devote smaller amounts of money than mass marketers when testing new products and business ideas
The open rate of your email message is nearly 100% dependent upon your subject line. Your potential customers typically spend less than two seconds deciding if they want to read your message. Which means that you have to use compelling subject lines to be a successful email marketer.
Here are 12 tips for creating better subject lines:
1. Communicate fast, just like on an outer envelope. Use 40- 50 characters or less.
2. Mention your primary benefit in the subject line. You must motivate the reader to read your note now.
3. Build your subject line around your desired action. If you're selling a webinar, include date/subject/registration in subject line. If you're selling product, include price savings in the subject line.
4. Write your subject lines first, then create your email marketing message to complement the subject line. The number one mistake of most email marketers is a last-minute subject line.
5. Only use personalization in subject line if you already have a business relationship with the recipients of your email message.
6. Give urgent reason to act now. Examples include "order by x date", "offer ends tomorrow at 6 pm", "registration deadline is today".
7. Be specific. Use phrase such as "Get up to 80% off" rather than "Save money".
8. You can use the word "free" with caution by following these guidelines:
* Don't make "free" the first word in your subject line.
* Don't use exclamation point such as Free!
* Don't spell out FREE in all caps
9. If use the word "complimentary" instead of "free", make sure it's spelled correctly. Many email marketers incorrectly use the word "complementary", which has a completely different meaning.
10. Test your subject lines continuously to find the winner for you. Make sure to send each version of subject line to at least 5000 email addresses.
11. Look at newspaper headlines and magazine covers for ideas on how to express ideas quickly with great appeal.
12. Use software to check the spam score of your subject line and body copy prior to sending email message. Then make changes as needed.
Contactology has free software tool which allows you to quickly determine a message's quality and deliverability.
Learn more about creating more effective email subject lines from these sources:
*
Email Marketing Resources from Lyris *
3 Ways to Write Better Subject Lines*
"All About Creative" book from Direc MarketingIQ
I recently purchased new business cards from Vistaprint, a leading online marketer which provides full color printing of marketing promotional materials.
I am very pleased with the new card, and with the pricing.
But as a veteran direct mail marketer, I'm even more impressed by Vistaprint's ability to upsell and cross-sell at every step of the order process. As I moved through the design and order steps, Vistaprint gave me the opportunity to buy a dozen additional items featuring my company's logo. Each of these items showed how our logo would look, and offered special pricing.
Anyone who's involved with direct marketing -- or any type of online marketing -- should order something from Vistaprint to see how easy it can be to add incremental sales from your website.
Some people may be turned off by Vistaprint's aggressive marketing, but it obviously works. According to information on their mailing list datacards, Vistaprint is selling each month to approximately 50,000 business customers and approximately 150,000 consumer customers.
Direct Magazine's recent Broker Roundtable asked the following questions of leading mailing list brokers:
* What's the biggest change you have seen to the brokerage profession in the past five years?
* What newer skills are needed to succeed? 
You can see the full article online. Here's a summary of the participants' answers.
Heather Cantley of Infocus Marketing
Biggest change: More and more mailers are looking to their list broker for solid recommendations on more than just lists.
Newer skills needed: Today’s list broker needs to be more educated regarding new rules, new regulations and new marketing strategies. Mailers need to feel confident that their list broker has their best interest in mind and will spend their marketing dollars in the most effective way possible.
Greg Branstetter of Hippo Direct
Biggest change: The widespread lack of new postal lists of direct mail buyers which a broker can recommend to clients, as well as the declining quantities of available names on the lists which mailers have been using for years.
Newer skills needed: The newer skills needed to succeed are mostly Internet-related. Today's broker needs adaptability and a willingness to learn new ways to help clients find new customers with traditional direct mail as well as online marketing, inbound marketing and social media.
Geoff Batrouney of Estee Marketing Services
Biggest change: The rise of social media and 24/7 connectivity between people, network members, companies and organizations. Twitter and Facebook are the new "high frequency direct-to-consumer" media of choice.
Joe Borellli of Borelli Direct Marketing
Newer skills needed: The skills needed to succeed have and will always be the same: Be smart, efficient and diligent; continue to learn; and above all, treat and respect every client as if they were your only customer, and always do what is in their best interest.
See this video which uses ham and cheese sandwiches as examples for setting up simple tests for your direct mail and email list campaigns. The video explains how to construct both two-part and three-part split tests, which are commonly known as A/B splits or A/B/C splits. The formal statistics term for this kind of market research is "multivariate testing".
Check out the new Hippo Direct YouTube Channel which will feature short videos related to mailing lists, email lists, direct marketing, and online marketing tactics.
And sometimes we'll just have silly videos to give you a laugh.
You can bookmark the Hippo Direct YouTube channel at
http://www.youtube.com/user/HippoDirect
The best way to improve results from email marketing 
is to improve the appeal and responsiveness of your
subject lines. Better subject lines immediately lead to
higher open rates, which will increase the number of
people who click through to your website.
In my work as a list broker I see every day that the companies which have the most success with email marketing continually seek to improve their subject lines. The companies who give little attention to subject lines continue to struggle with their emailings.
Here are 10 tips which you can begin to use with your next email marketing campaign. These tips can be used for emailings to both consumer and business markets.
10. Include an emotional or wishful benefit such as "Take a few days off to grow your business."
9. Include name of company whose product or service is being promoted in the message.
8. Use personalization by first name only if you have a relationship with the recipient.
7. Use "your" or "you" to increase relevance to the reader.
These 6 below are from Lisa Sparks of Constant Contact and her excellent article "6 Tips for Better Subject Lines: Get your emails opened with attention-grabbing taglines"
6. Test your subject lines
5. Think of your subject line as a tweet.
4. Encourage action
3. Get inspired
2. Include numbers
1. List your audience's hot topics
Business marketers who want to reach top 
executives at nonprofit organizations have
easy access to mailing lists, email lists, and
other responsive marketing methods, including:
1. Most Popular Lists of Nonprofit Executives, each of which can be ordered from Hippo Direct.
2. Marketing2Nonprofits.com connects you with top sources for reaching nonprofit executives via:
Mailing Lists
Email Lists
Advertising in Print Publications
Advertising in Email Newsletters
Advertising on Websites
3. I recently completed a project for one of our mailing list clients who needed accurate market research on nonprofit organizations by employee size. Here's a summary of counts of nonprofit organizations by employee size
# EMP SIZE QUANTITY % of TOTAL
1 - 4 500,148 58.43%
5 - 9 186,599 21.80%
10 - 19 80,976 9.46%
20 - 49 53,137 6.21%
50 - 99 17,718 2.07%
100 - 249 12,810 1.50%
250 - 499 2795 0.33%
500 - 999 1005 0.12%
1,000 - 4,999 742 0.09%
5,000 - 9,999 63 0.01%
10,000 + 54 0.01%
TOTAL 856,047
SIC codes included in these counts:
8322 Individual and Family Services
8331 Job Training and Related Services
8351 Child Day Care Services
8361 Residential Care
8399 Social Services, Nec
8412 Museums and Art Galleries
8422 Botanical and Zoological Gardens
8611 Business Associations
8621 Professional Organizations
8631 Labor Organizations
8641 Civic and Social Associations
8651 Political Organizations
8661 Religious Organizations
8699 Membership Organizations, Nec
(Above counts by employee size from the InfoUSA Business Masterfile.)
Education association mailing lists are among 
the most responsive marketing methods
used by our list broker clients. The Hippo
Direct website contains datacards for the
most popular lists of college administrators
and faculty; K-12 teachers and staff; and
school district executives.
We also have ordered lists from dozens of leading educaton association lists which are not widely promoted. Contact Greg Branstetter via email at gbhippo@hippodirect.com for details on any of these higher education and K12 association lists:
American Colleges of Nursing ACN
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education AACTE
American Association of Community Colleges AACC
American Association for Employment in Education AAEE
American Association for Public Opinion Research AAPOR
American Assn of Sexuality Educators, Counselors & Therapists
American Association of University Presses
American College Health Association ACHA
American College Personnel Association ACPA
American Educational Studies Association
American Evaluation Association
American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges AMATYC
Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education AACE
Association for Asian Studies
Association of College Unions International
Association for Continuing Higher Education ACHE
Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication AEJMC
Association of Fraternity Advisors
Association for Gender Equity Leadership in Education AGELE
Association for Higher Education and Disability AHEAD
Association for Institutional Research AIR
Association of Research Libraries
Association of University Programs in Health Administration AUPHA
Association of University Technology Managers AUTM
Broadcast Education Association
Collaboration for the Advancement of College Teaching & Learning
Council of Administrators of Special Education CASE
Council for Adult and Experiential Learning CAEL
Council of Graduate Schools
Council on Social Work Education
Council on Undergraduate Research
Education Law Association
International Alliance of Teacher Scholars
International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators
International Leadership Association
Middle East Studies Association MESA
Modern Language Association
NASPA Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education
National Academic Advising Association NACADA
National Association for Bilingual Education NABE
National Association of Colleges Stores NACS
National Association of College and University Attorneys NACUA
National Association of College and University Business Officers NACUBO
National Association of Colleges and Employers
National Association of Elementary School Principals NAESP
National Association for Multicultural Education NAME
National Association of Research in Science Teaching NARST
National Association of School Nurses
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
National Catholic Educational Association NCEA
National Council of Teachers of English
National Orientation Directors Association NODA
National School Public Relations Association NSPRA
National Women's Studies Association NWSA
Professional and Organizational Development POD Network
Society for Research on Adolescence SRA
University Continuing Education Association
University Council for Educational Administration
Email list of subscribers to the Philanthropy Today Enewsletter is available for the first time. Go here to see details on renting this email list which gives marketers entree to top management of nonprofit organizations.
Philanthropy Today condenses the day's latest developments into a quick, easy-to-read news briefing. Readers are alerted to news articles just posted by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, as well as nonprofit-related articles that appear in newspapers and magazines across the United States and around the world.
Philanthropy Today subscribers are leaders of nonprofit organizations and agencies, plus fund-raising executives, development professionals, and foundation executives.
Email lists from The Chronicle of Philanthropy are in high demand and have already proven very responsive for the select group of advertisers who've been granted access during the past few months.
Hippo Direct has been given permission to make this email list available to a wider range of companies and organizations. To maintain the high standard of responsiveness, usage is carefully controlled, with only a limited number of marketing messages each month sent to each name on the list.