Articles by Alan Sherman
Blog Archive
A Discussion of Direct Marketing Trends with the AMA Southern Connecticut
I recently participated in a virtual panel for American Marketing Association’s southern Connecticut chapter on direct marketing trends titled "An Industry Reset: The Resurgence of Integrated Marketing and Direct Mail.” There were some 60 marketers from the greater New York area in attendance who had great questions for me and the other two direct and digital marketers on the panel. Here are a few of those questions and a summary of some of my responses:
Medicare Marketing: How Will COVID-19 Impact This Year’s AEP?
As marketers continue to develop their Medicare marketing plans for this year’s Annual Enrollment Period (AEP), the impact of COVID-19 means we are no longer marketing within a business-as-usual setting. While some AEP tactics will change, and others will remain the same, direct mail will remain a key part of an omnichannel strategy. For example, […]
Email Behavior Targeting Solves the Prospect Abandonment Problem for Direct & Email Marketers
Triggered marketing campaigns based on prospect or customer behavior achieve some of the highest response and conversion rates we see in marketing. Cost per acquisition for triggered campaigns are also considerably lower than “business as usual” campaigns. The reason is simple: triggered campaigns (whether they are initiated by abandoned carts, browse, or product applications) take […]
To Achieve Email Best Practices, Look No Further than Direct Mail
As a direct and digital marketing strategist, I frequently get asked questions about the relationship between direct mail and email best practices. Questions about email creative and frequency pop-up, particularly due to email’s low cost to send. How much email is too much? That answer varies by business and product, and there’s no one good […]
Direct Mail Can Work for Any Business—Including Yours
For decades, direct mail has driven profitable customer acquisition efforts for financial, insurance, cable, and a variety of other verticals across both consumer and business-to-business industries. With the rise of digital marketing, we’ve seen marketing dollars shift in part to digital, but much of that spend later returns to direct mail after marketers found they […]
Conjoint Analysis Lowers Cost and Increases Speed of Direct Mail Testing
If you are a regular reader of IWCO Direct’s blog, you’ll know that we are active proponents of direct mail testing as part of a comprehensive direct marketing strategy. When we test direct mail, we learn what creative messaging and formats (and data) achieve the best results for our clients. At the same time, […]
When Does Personalized Marketing Get Creepy?
Have you ever been in a store making a purchase when an employee asks for your name and email address as if it’s part of the transaction? I have, and my thought (before I usually say no) has been, “What gives you the right to my personal information?” Everywhere, companies are either asking for, demanding, […]
How Digitally Automated Direct Mail Makes the Best of Digital and Physical Marketing
You may be aware of programmatic online advertising. For those less familiar, this is the automated buying and selling of internet advertising via the use of sophisticated software utilized by online ad platforms. Marketers looking for the right locations for their ads at the right price are automatically matched by software to those with web […]
The Legitimacy of Direct Mail in a World of Fake News, Bot Traffic, and Click Fraud
Between the spam, phishing attacks, fake ads, troll farms, and other forms of ad fraud, how do we really know what we see and read online is real? The short answer is, we don’t always know. We are all subject to potential phishing attacks designed to steal our identity and it seems like major data […]
How to Structure Your Medicare Marketing for the AEP and Beyond
Medicare Advantage program enrollment continues to grow year over year in a booming age-in market. For healthcare marketers to take full advantage of these growth opportunities, a detailed strategy will help optimize enrollment during both Age-In and the Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) running from October 15th through December 7th. Your Medicare marketing strategy should include […]
