THE ROLE OF DIRECT MAIL IN 2019: USING THE BUYER LIFECYCLE AND MARKETING AUTOMATION (PART 2)* Marketing automation is vital today to help retailers and marketers respond to market changes and customer changes.* Customer databases are predominately one-time buyers* The benefits of direct mail are clear: much less clutter than the average e-mail inbox has or the average Facebook browsing session has, and a lot more durability.* Traditional mail, whether it’s postcards or letters or catalogs, having a tangible reminder in your hand to drive you to the Web for fulfillment seems to be very effective for marketers.* Direct mail needs to be synchronized with the communications online that customers are receiving.What follows is a lightly edited transcript of Episode 16 of the Inevitable Success Podcast with special guest host Mike Ferranti and his guest Gary Beck.(Listen Here)TranscriptMike: Welcome back for part two of our podcast and our interview with Gary Beck on direct mail in 2018. If you’ve not listened to part 1, do yourself a favor and give it a listen. You can find it in the Inevitable Success content hub on BuyerGenomics.com and on iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.In Part 2 Gary provides a great example and wraps up the discussion on affinity or lifecycle marketing, and the two biggest requirements to deploy a successful direct mail campaign. The first of course is creating the intelligence and knowing the discrete stages in each individual buyers’ lifecycle. And second is aligning those buyer lifecycle stages and the changes from one stage to the next with marketing automation, so that you can act on them in real time. Both are critical components to your success in buyer lifecycle management. Now with that context, let’s go back to this thought-provoking discussion that can help you make a better performing direct mail campaign and be a better direct marketer.There’s a phenomenon that is referred to as “cocooning” that comes probably not far after children where the focus goes from that early life-stage where the focus is on going out into the world, traveling, working, spending time with friends to tending to the nest. There’s this nesting phenomenon where you’ve purchased the first home in expectation of children, or shortly after children, and spending more time at home and really feathering the nest because that’s really the focal point of their life now.And for a marketer, that as well as other stages that they go into are marketing bonanzas, really, because they have more needs and a greater appetite to fill them. But probably most importantly is that at each of those stages, they’re different. And if you have the intelligence to know what those differences are, well then you could use that perhaps to market to the right person, but do so at the right time as well.Gary: And that is true. One of the things that we have known for quite a long time is that new movers, people who have changed residents, are likely to spend significantly more in the upcoming year than they have in previous years just because of that nesting phenomenon- that when they change their residence, they have lots of new needs whether it’s needs for new furniture or different furniture. Usually, there’s some catalyst that has caused the move such as perhaps the need for more room due to the potential arrival of a new child in the family. So there are many pieces of data that can help us piece together that change in life-stage. And as a result of that change in life-stage, it should, for those companies that have a relationship with the customer, it should provide important clues as to what’s the next most likely set of products that this customer is likely to purchase or likely to need.

Today's episode is part one of a two-part podcast on direct mail and database marketing with our very special guest Gary Beck. Gary is a DM veteran and a tremendous wealth of knowledge we’re very happy to have with us. In part 1: The Role of Direct Mail in 2018, we will give a general overview of where direct mail as a channel stands today, how it has changed, and where it’s headed. We’ll also discuss life stage marketing and affinity marketing and how you could leverage these approaches to positively improve campaigns that integrate direct mail.

Including Paid Search in an Omni Channel Marketing Strategy

* Don’t look at the aggregate CPA. It is not reality.

* Look at your search term data to create a search acquisition matrix to better understand how your metrics really look between brand and non-brand and net new acquisition and existing customers- the mix of those four items.

* Build a strategy that shifts the dollars to the best performing quadrants for your business.

* Create an omni channel strategy that nurtures individuals from brand aware and net new customer acquisition into the brand loyal quadrant using quadrant shepherding as a strategy.

* Have the goal within your organization to get to the place where you can do what the most sophisticated brands do which is actually to bid on search based on lifetime value- also known as ROI-based bidding.

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of Episode 14 of the Inevitable Success Podcast with Damian Bergamaschi

Transcript:

Welcome to the Inevitable Success Podcast, sponsored by BuyerGenomics where our goal is to help you, the marketer, make success inevitable. Each episode will discuss the craft of data-driven marketing, helping you uncover new and profitable ideas. You will also learn what works and what doesn’t work from top marketing professionals and thought leaders. I’m your host: Damian Bergamaschi and inevitable success starts here.

So today we’re doing a little bit of a different format. I will be doing my first solo episode. What we’re going to try to do today is understand the effectiveness of your paid search investment, and we’re going to go through it using my experience, having worked deeply in segmenting paid search accounts to basically uncover some opportunities for you guys to think about. 

So the very first part of understanding the effectiveness of your paid search investment is to first determine well, what was the objective of that investment to begin with? So for most paid search strategies, it’s about driving sales, and sales can come from a few different places. Primarily, it’s from repeat transactions and also from new customers. So when it comes to hitting the quarter in that particular period, they’re both very valuable. However, I tend to think that net new customer acquisition is a lot more strategic. When you’re driving new customers to your business, that is the lifeblood of a successful organization, and it really speaks about hitting your quarter next quarter too. So the very first thing you need to do to determine how you’re doing at your objective, specifically I’d say new customer acquisition, is to segment your results.

So often I see agencies and even internal marketing organizations look at the aggregate and blended result of, let’s say, something like Google AdWords or your paid search accounts, and what you’ll typically see is, Oh the Blended CPA or the CPA –they won’t even say that– is $6 per sale. And it may feel very good because you may intuitively know that your average order value is maybe $50 or $100, and even after you take the cost of goods sold out,  you’re highly profitable on that sale or that acquisition.

But what is typically not known is: would I have gotten those sales anyway because a lot of them are branded search? And how many of them are new customers to begin with? So, the very first thing you need to do to answer those questions… –and by the way, we work with people and organizations that are very very large and also very experienced marketers. Not a lot of people do this. So if you don’t do this today, don’t beat yourself up.

On today’s episode, we have Mike Ferranti Founder and CEO of Endai. In this episode, Damian and Mike speak about the shift in thinking Marketers need to do when thinking about new customer acquisition. Many marketers today think of customer acquisition as just a cost but they really need to think about it as an investment.

On today's episode, we have Mike Ferranti Founder and CEO of Endai. In this episode Damian and Mike detail how to transform your business by acquiring not just any customer but customers that buy like your very best customers do today.

On today's episode, we have we have recurring guest Gary Beck 30 year marketing veteran. Damian and Gary cover Share of Wallet. For those who do not know what share of wallet is well it is simply calculated as the amount of money spent on your products versus the total amount spent on the category. Gary and Damian discuss the way modern marketers can grow their share of wallet for their customer base.

Marketing Strategies to Scale Up Your Acquistion

On today’s episode, we have recurring guest Mike Ferranti Founder and CEO of Endai. Damian and Mike continue their talk on New Customer Acquisition. Part 3 is all about how a company can scale net new customer acquisition.

Mike, first,  gives his impressions on where the marketer is thinking today when it comes to scaling new customer acquisition. New customer acquisition is always on the minds of marketers, but it is getting expensive. There’s a very big desire to understand how media mix is impacting customer acquisition. Companies are looking to better understand how various touches in a new relationship lead to that ultimate sale.

Next, Damian gets to the heart of this topic and asks the logical question, “How do you scale New Customer Acquisition?” Mike answers by explaining his 3 levers to acquiring new customers:

* Increase the number of prospects you get in the top of the funnel

* Increase the rate at which you convert them

* Increase the value of those customers

Looking at those levers it seems pretty straight-forward but Damian asks Mike, “What challenges does cost create in scaling new customer acquisition?” Mike responds by going deep on the fourth lever cost/return

Marketer’s who have begun a new customer acquisition campaign and see signs of life are in a tough spot because to scale they will need to spend more. Mike answers the question, “How should a marketer go about asking for more budget to begin scaling?”

Then the guys get into a discussion about CPA and ROI. This then turns into a discussion about Lift-off and how to think about what lift-off means to other businesses.

The episode ends with a wrap up of Mike’s scale-up methodology:

* Wide Reach

* CPA that is inline with ROI

* Iterative testing

* Target

* Message/offer

* Creative

All of this and more in Part 3 of the Inevitable Success’s ongoing 6 part series on New Customer Acquisition.

 Part 3 of a 6 Part Series

Need to catch up? Here are the first 2 parts:

New Customer Acquisition: Prime your Business for New Customer Growth [Part 1]

New Customer Acquisition: the (Real) Cost of Customer Acquisition [Part 2]

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of Episode 10 of the Inevitable Success Podcast with Damian Bergamaschi and special guest Mike Ferranti. 

Transcript

Damian Welcome to the inevitable Success Podcast, sponsored by BuyerGenomics where our goal is to help you, the marketer, make success inevitable. Each episode will discuss the craft of data-driven marketing, helping you uncover new and profitable ideas. You will also learn what works and what doesn’t work from top marketing professionals and thought leaders. I’m your host: Damian Bergamaschi and inevitable success starts here.

So Mike, in picking up where we left off. Where is the marketer’s thinking today when it comes to scaling new customer acquisition?

Mike So that’s a great question because this is one of the biggest topics on the minds of virtually all marketers that we deal with. Marketers are under some pressure.

THE (REAL) COST OF NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISTIONOn today’s episode, we have recurring guest Mike Ferranti Founder and CEO of Endai. Damian and Mike pick up their conversation about new customer acquisition. This episode focuses on the (Real) cost of customer acquisition. Some companies try to disguise the cost but it is real and needs to be uncovered for any business that wants to be successful.First Mike answers the question “Why is knowing the cost of customer acquisition important?”Next, they try to figure out the right way to measure the cost of acquisition.Damian then brings the conversation to the Practioner’s point of view. The practitioner is the marketer who is trying to implement a new customer acquisition strategy.The conversation turns to the differences in companies that have a large brand presence and those companies that need to rely on non brand clicks.Then they get into a discussion about Seasonality and how some businesses can thrive while others are dying throughout the year.Damian then brings up Attribution and how some businesses use Last Touch Cost while others use Cumulative Touch Cost. As well as how do you really attribute any marketing to new customers. Mike gives an example of a shortcut that some businesses take when it comes to attribution.Mike and Damian then discuss how some companies refer to organic traffic as a free channel and how you can match an organic searcher to a previous expense. This then brings up the idea “is new customer acquisition a part of your Cost of Goods Sold”, which both of them refute.Finally, Mike brings up an example of how a company was marking the sizes on their website was increasing returns. This brings up the idea of, “is a returner a new customer?” This topic is debated and it comes down to of course they are a new customer, getting all the way through the sales cycle is the definition of acquisition.All of this and more in Episode 9 of the Inevitable Success Podcast.Part 2 of a 6 Part SeriesNeed to catch up? Here is part 1:New Customer Acquisition: Prime your Business for New Growth [Part 1]What follows is a lightly edited transcript of Episode 9 of the Inevitable Success Podcast with Damian Bergamaschi and special guest Mike Ferranti. TranscriptDamian On today’s episode part two of our six-part series about new customer acquisition we’re going to discuss the real costs of customer acquisition.I’m here with Mike Ferranti and the very first topic that comes up is Why is knowing the cost of customer acquisition so important. When I think about it’s pretty simple, are we making money?Mike Yup that’s that’s where most folks start. One of the things I would raise strategically is the ultimate answer to the cost of customer acquisition usually depends upon where an organization is in their development and what their goals look like. So just to give an example I would say an early stage company that doesn’t have a great acquisition model or doesn’t have a brand that is driving acquisitions because they exist, the way they view it would probably be very different than an organization that was acquiring customers and had all of those things.So there might be some expectation that it would be very low because with brand power behind it and maybe with hundreds of physical locations or other assets you know there might be very different thoughts and expectations. Also, a mature business may have so many customers in their database already that they have different priori...

NAILING THE RIGHT MARKETING MIX IN 2019On today’s episode, we have recurring guest Gary Beck – a 30 year marketing veteran. Damian and Gary go back to school and review the 4 P’s of Marketing and the Marketing Mix. More than just telling us what those terms mean they apply it to the current marketing landscape.First, they kick it off by defining and digging into each of the 4 P’s of Marketing:* Product* Price* Place* PromotionDamian brings up a very important nuance that many marketers don’t know, which is promotion doesn’t exclusively mean price. Gary breaks down the difference and how those two P’s can work independently from each other.Next Gary answers the question, “What can we do to get the mix right?” This gets the guys into a conversation that Damian says “is one of the reasons why this podcast exists.” Getting the mix right is all about testing and understanding the dynamics of how the different channels work together.After that back and forth, to really drive the point home,  Gary and Damian discuss how using Search and Broadcasting together can benefit some companies while using them independently might benefit others. The decision on how to allocate money in the marketing mix is all about finding the synergy that works for you and your companies budget.Damian then asks Gary “So, what are the key things that marketers should watch out for whether it’s designing experiments or just coming up with the marketing mix and media mix strategy?” The number one thing, Gary says,”is that marketers need to be on the lookout for are what we might call market disruptions of some sort or some competitive activity.”Finally, Gary answers the question, “Is it possible to objectively construct a model that can inform our decisions on shifts to this marketing mix?”Gary with his extensive modeling background answers that question with his method of attribution modeling.What follows is a lightly edited transcript of Episode 8 of the Inevitable Success Podcast with Damian Bergamaschi and special guest Gary Beck.Transcript:Damian: Welcome to the Inevitable Success Podcast, sponsored by BuyerGenomics where our goal is to help you, the marketer, make success inevitable. Each episode will discuss the craft of data-driven marketing, helping you uncover new and profitable ideas. You will also learn what works and what doesn’t work from top marketing professionals and thought leaders. I’m your host: Damian Bergamaschi and inevitable success starts here.Good morning Gary. How are you doing today?Gary Good morning Damian. I’m well. Thank you. Thanks for having me again.Damian Absolutely. So today we’re going to speak about something that everybody probably learned back in school, something called marketing mix. And I want to kind of bring it back to what we all do now in the real world, every day, and what marketing mix means now and try to make it as actionable as possible. But first, for anybody that maybe didn’t hear that term before, or you didn’t make it to that day of class, what is marketing mix, Gary?Gary Marketing mix refers to all of the components of selling a good or service to a customer. So, in business school in marketing 101 we refer to those components as the four Ps of marketing, and those four Ps typically were product, place, price and promotion.Damian I’ve even seen if you Google this, there’s some that go as far as Seven Ps, but I think that’s enough Ps. Why don’t you walk us through what that is?Gary Great, I’d be happy to do that. Before I started, in digital marketing and direct marketing,

PRIME YOUR BUSINESS FOR NEW CUSTOMER GROWTHOn today’s episode, we have Mike Ferranti, Founder and CEO of Endai. This episode is the first part of our six-part series on The (Real) Cost of Customer Acquisition and How to Do it Right. In part 1, Damian and Mike give a high-level overview of customer acquisition.New Customer Acquisition: the (Real) Cost of Customer Acquisition [Part 2]New Customer Acquisition: Marketing Strategies to Scale up your Acquisition [Part 3]New Customer Acquisition: Acquiring your Most Valuable Buyers (MVBs) [Part 4]New Customer Acquisition: Marketing Cost vs. Business Investment [Part 5]Mike kicks off the interview with a story from a CEO round table that shapes the rest of the interview. Spoiler Alert: no matter how large a company, there is always the need for net new customers.Mike then tackles the question, “What is customer acquisition?” This might seem simple, but it isn’t—thanks to how widely companies differ on the meaning of “new customer.”Damian asks the question that every business needs to ask themselves: “What is the strategic value or importance of customer acquisition?” Mike responds with a simple breakdown: “A strategy is informed by where you want to take your business in the future—and what creates your future is net new customers.”The conversation then turns to how companies that do customer acquisition well have a different valuation than businesses that don’t do it so well. Damian and Mike each share real-world examples of companies that have different valuations because of how they view customer acquisition.Mike addresses the very important question, “What does success look like when you are doing customer acquisition really well?” with a breakdown of what he calls “signs of life.” If you can identify signs of life, you can avoid stopping a campaign before you should.Finally, Mike and Damian discuss the spectrum of time, effort, and money that should go into new customer acquisition for any size of business.There is a ton of information in this podcast—and it is only Part 1 of 6.What follows is a lightly edited transcript of Episode 7 of the Inevitable Success Podcast with Damian Bergamaschi and special guest Mike Ferranti.TranscriptDamian: Welcome to the Inevitable Success Podcast, sponsored by BuyerGenomics, where our goal is to help you, the marketer, make success inevitable. Each episode will discuss the craft of data-driven marketing, helping you uncover new and profitable ideas. You will also learn what works and what doesn’t work from top marketing professionals and thought leaders. I’m your host Damian Bergamaschi, and inevitable success starts here.To kick this off we are going to have a several-episode discussion about customer acquisition and we’re going to go into a few different topics:What is it? Why is it valuable?In later episodes we’ll go deeper and talk about:What is the real cost of acquiring customers?How do you evaluate the scalability of customer acquisition?We’re also going to think about the quality of the customers that you acquire, how that factors into the equation, and, ultimately, how you calculate the ROI. There are so many different ways to do that.To make it as actionable as possible, the last episode will be how to do it. We will cover the steps required to go out and build a best-in-class customer acquisition program.Mike, a little bit earlier you were telling us a story.