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.
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".
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.)
As a mailing list broker I work with many different
types of clients. Some of them want to mail to the
continental US only. Others want to avoid military
and/or federal government addresses. Here is list
of special zip codes which mailers may want to
avoid for certain types of postal or email list offers.
Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands = zipcodes 00600 - 00999
Guam = zipcodes 96900 - 96999
Alaska = zipcodes 99500 - 99999
Hawaii = zipcodes 96700 - 96899
Military APO/FPO numbers:
Germany = zipcodes AE 09000 - 09299
Contingency = zipcodes AE 09300 - 09399
United Kingdom = zipcodes AE 09400 - 09499
Ships = zipcodes AE 09500 - 09599
Italy & Spain = zipcodes AE 09600 - 09699
Other Europe = zipcodes AE 09700 - 09799
Middle East/Africa = zipcodes AE 09800 - 09899
Central & South America = zipcodes AA 34000 - 34099
Korea = zipcodes AP 96200 - 96299
Japan = zipcodes AP 96300 - 96399
Phillipines = zipcodes AP 96400 - 96499
Other Pacific Islands = zipcodes AP 96500 - 96599
Federal Goverment = zipcodes 20200 - 20599
I've found a great email marketing terms glossary from EliteEmail. Anyone who uses email lists or who is involved with online marketing should check out this site for definitions and useful tips.
For example, according to EliteEmail, "almost all web browsers and email software are capable of displaying four primary fonts properly: Verdana, Times, Arial, and Helvetica, including their variants (Arial Narrow, Times New Roman, etc.) If a web developer or email marketer decides to use a different font he or she risks compatibility problems and the potential that their pages/emails may render inaccurately when viewed by these people."
You can find easy-to-understand definitions for all of these email marketing terms at the email glossary page
* A/B Split
* Above-The-Fold
* ASP
* Auto Reply
* Auto Responder
* B2B
* B2C
* Bandwidth
* Blacklist
* Bounce (Hard)
* Bounce (Soft)
* Call To Action
* Campaign
* Can-Spam Act of 2003
* CAPTCHA
* Challenge Response
* Click-Through Rate (CTR)
* Content
* Conversion Rate
* Cost Per Thousand (CPM)
* Database
* Dedupe
* Domain Key / DKIM
* Double Opt-In
* Email Blocking
* Email Client
* Email Newsletter
* Email Service Provider
* eZine
* False Positive
* Font
* From/Sender Address
* From/Sender Name
* Harvesting
* Header
* HTML Email
* IP Address
* ISP
* Landing Page
* Links
* Load Time
* Mailing List
* Multi-Part MIME Email
* Open Rate
* Open Relay
* Opt-In Subscriber
* Opt-Out List
* Opt-Out Subscriber
* Permission Based Email
* Personalization
* Phishing
* Preview Pane
* Privacy Policy
* Rental List
* Segmentation
* Signature
* Single Opt-In
* Spam / UCE
* Spam Trap
* SPF Record
* Spoofing
* Subject Line
* Targeting
* Unique Selling Proposition
* Unsubscribe
* URL
* Viral Marketing
* Web-Friendly Fonts
* Whitelist
Direct Magazine online recently featured an article by
Stefan Pollard called "
Three Vital Elements of E-mail to Test".
In this article Stefan explains in simple terms how and why to test these elements of an email message:
1. Audience segmentation -- do A/B splits on variables such as customer vs. prospect; or what type of product purchased.
2. Subject line -- test brand-specific vs. action-oriented vs. benefit-driven subject lines.
3. Call to action -- test the action which you want reader to take; the words you use to describe the action; the way the call to action looks (fonts, image, location)
I'll add two more key elements where testing has improved the results from email marketing campaigns for clients of Hippo Direct:
1. Transmission time -- can test both the time of day and day of week. Most marketers get the best response with either a 10 am or 11 am Eastern transmit time on Tuesday thru Thursday. But I know of technology-related marketers who get their best response with a 3 am Eastern transmit time; and marketers to Europe who email at 6 am Eastern time, which is 10 am London time.
2. Graphic images used in message -- can test messages with and without image. When photos of people are used, test pictures which feature various combinations of age, gender and ethnicity. In many cases, the choice of photo is made by a designer at an advertising agency. The smart marketer will always test various photos to determine which one is best for their target audience.
Whenever you use Excel to create a mailing list make sure that you define the zip code field correctly, rather than having Excel automatically define field as a "number" field. If not, the leading
zeros drop off records.
If the field isn't correctly defined, zip code 00988 will become 988 and zip code 02222 becomes 2222. And none of your mail pieces whose zip codes begin with a 0 will be properly delivered.
To fix the problem:
In your Excel spreadsheet...
a. highlight the entire zip code column, including column description
b. click Format from commands at top of screen
c. click Cells
d. click Special
e. click Zip Code
f. click OK
The Gilbert Direct Marketing Blog featured a recent guest post from Marjorie Bicknell reminding us why the classic #10 letter package can produce better results than self-mailers such as postcards and flyers.
Marjorie's 6 reasons for choosing a letter package:
1. A letter in an envelope is "real" mail.
2. A letter is still the most effect tool a direct marketer has.
3. A letter package offers privacy.
4. A letter package gives you room to tell your story.
5. A letter package is more personal.
6. A letter package can be more economical than a self-mailer - and provide a higher ROI.
I'll add 4 more reasons why "letter inside envelope" direct mail packages can generate more sustained response than self-mailers:
1. Can include premiums such as bookmarks or imprinted magnets.
2. Can use a "buckslip" to highlight the main element of your offer.
3. Can include your business card as part of the mailing.
4. Can include coupons to stimulate immediate purchases.
The new website www.Marketing2NonProfits.com gives mailers and advertisers one-stop access to the leading publishers and professional associations who market to charities such as hospitals, universities, foundations and social service agencies.
Marketers can learn details regarding marketing programs to reach leading non-profit organization executives, including: development directors, executive directors, fundraisers, marketing managers, public relations and events coordinators.
The site features links to 48 leading sources of marketing to non profits:
* Mailing Lists
* Email Lists
* Advertise in Print Publications
* Advertise in Email Newsletters
* Advertise on Websites
The new website www.Marketing2HigherEd.com gives mailers and advertisers one-stop access to the leading publishers and professional associations who market to administrators and faculty of colleges and universities.
Marketers can learn details regarding marketing programs to reach professors and college admiinistrators such as: presidents, deans, department chairs; plus directors of continuing education, distance learning, fundraising, human resources, information technology, public relations, and student affairs.
The site features links to 35 leading sources of marketing to dentists via:
* Mailing Lists
* Email Lists
* Advertise in Print Publications
* Advertise in Email Newsletters
* Advertise on Websites