Nonprofits have the same goal as any company: to increase their reach and spread their message. Normally, that’s what a marketing team does for a company. Large corporations typically rely on an in-house team with a massive budget or an outside agency to build the company brand. Nonprofits have none of that. A nonprofit is expected to create effective campaigns to achieve their mission with a fraction of the budget that corporations have. Most of the time, they don’t even have a marketing team, the work simply gets unloaded onto other positions in the company. So how do they do it?

To answer the question of “how," Meg Goodman spoke with Brooke Wiseman. Brooke is the CEO of Blessings in a Backpack, a charity that mobilizes communities, individuals, and resources to provide food on the weekends for elementary school children across America who might otherwise go hungry. Brooke explains how nonprofits leverage corporate partnerships, volunteer evangelists and social media to compensate for the lack of resources available to them. Read on for a few excerpts from their insightful conversation. And of course, make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a compelling interview like this once a month.

Even as the use of social media and email push us further from written communications, direct mail is still one of the biggest marketing channels around. But as the world of marketing hurdles into a new digital age, direct mail has to adapt. To do that, marketers are now using customer data to personalize the user experience. Ron Jacobs, CEO of Jacobs and Clevenger, recently spoke on the Marketing Over Coffee podcast. In this episode, he talk about how brands must start hyper-personalizing in order to keep the attention of their customer base. Listen to the whole episode to hear Ron’s conversation with John Wall about direct marketing.

Customer experience (CX) has become a key differentiator among businesses — and that’s across all industries. With fierce competition and disruptive startups, your business needs to give customers a reason to make your brand their first choice… and foster loyalty so they come back, too.

But how important is customer experience, exactly? To understand the impact it has on your bottom line, you have to understand what customers think. This infographic shows a few statistics that shed light on why customer experience matters now — more than ever.

Customer experience (CX) has a huge influence on the way customers perceive your brand. But what exactly makes up customer experience?

Well, it’s not just one thing. It’s formed by every customer touchpoint: how consumers discover your business, how your website looks and functions, the shopping experience (either online or in-store), the purchase and payment process, how and when your product is delivered, customer service interactions, product usage and performance and post-purchase communication. All of these steps along the customer journey impact your customers’ perception of your brand — and ultimately determine if they come back or not.

Described as economic theory with a dose of human nature, the concept of behavioral economics has been around for over 40 years. As marketers, we need to understand why consumers do what they do and what affects those decisions. Behavioral economics can help us identify behaviors and adapt to irrational biases that influence every consumer. Why do we trust others more than ourselves to make financial decisions? Why are we more afraid of what we might lose than what we might gain? To help us understand, Meg Goodman sits down with Lou Carlozo on the BAI podcast to discuss the nature of human decision making and how we as marketers can predict it. 

Marketing isn't limited to brands and agencies. In fact, it can be as simple as a resume sent to your dream company. In order to snag that job, you'll have to sell them on one product: YOU. In this episode of J&See: Views on Marketing, VP of J&C Meg Goodman sits down with career coach and recruiter Michelle Barnard to discuss how you can successfully market yourself to potential employers. Read on for a few key points from their conversation. And don't forget to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear an interview like this once a month.

Direct mail marketing has experienced a major resurgence. Contrary to popular belief, even millennials read and respond to direct mail. Despite the emergence of countless digital marketing channels, consumers actually respond to direct mail more frequently than online channels. Why? Well, consumers view direct mail as credible. Yes, traditional direct mail techniques are still relevant — but technology is changing the game. Here are four ways one of the oldest forms of marketing has evolved in the age of technology. 

An average of 227 million adults tune to AM/FM radio each week, creating almost $20 billion in revenue for radio stations. The majority of that revenue comes from advertisements. Marketers have been using radio as a major channel since the first paid radio ad in 1922.

Although they are limited to only what the listener can hear, marketers use some of the same techniques for radio that they use for every type of marketing. In this episode of J&See: Views on Marketing, Meg Goodman sits down with Mark Long, the Production Director for Townsquare Media in Boise, Idaho. Mark breaks down the differences between radio and traditional marketing as well as the different types of radio. Mark also provides insight into the direction he sees radio heading and how marketers will need to respond. Read on for a few excerpts from his insightful interview. And of course, make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a compelling conversation like this once a month.

As an expert in the direct marketing field, Jacobs & Clevenger CEO, Ron Jacobs, is always looking for the latest developments in the industry. Recently, Ron joined Mike Gastin on The Currency podcast to “demystify AI for direct marketing”. In this episode, Ron breaks down AI’s role in direct marketing and the possibilities AI will present in the near future. Listen as he also explains how businesses can use AI to predict and implement more efficient marketing strategies across all channels.

Email marketing is both an art and a science. The art comes in with elegant designs, punchy subject lines and well-written copy. Then there’s the science. The data and statistics prove which parts of the art gets people to interact with your email… and which parts don’t work as well. That’s where A/B testing comes into play. Running head-to-head tests allows you to experiment with the creative and understand the effect. Read on to understand the rules of A/B testing, the parts of an email you can test and the metrics you should look at afterwards.