Professional athletes are some of the highest paid brand influencers in the world.... whether it’s Lebron James unveiling his newest pair of shoes or Tom Brady drinking from a Gatorade bottle during a game. A lot of these brand partnerships are decided for them by the league. However, some of these partnerships are decided by the equipment managers, members of the team in charge of selecting the best equipment for each player to use.

Just in time for the NBA playoffs, this episode of J&See: Views on Marketing features a special guest: Steve Pankow, Assistant Equipment Manager for the Chicago Bulls. Steve and Meg break down how he chooses equipment for the players and what the Chicago Bulls look for in a brand partnership.  And of course, make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a compelling interview like this once a month.

 Personalization is simply a must for marketers. Consumers and business buyers want personalized communications and organizations see a greater return when implementing it. In Salesforce’s Fourth Annual State of Marketing Report,  52 percent of consumers and 65 percent of business buyers stated they would switch brands if a vendor did not personalize communications. Personalization was once as simple as inserting the contact’s first name and maybe even a company, and that was all that was needed, but it has evolved to so much more.

The customer buying journey involves getting clicks on your ads, guiding customers through your website, and completing a sale. You can have all the online traffic in the world but one tiny technical error can halt that journey in its tracks. Making sure your website functions properly and running your ads efficiently is the goal of conversion rate optimization, or CRO. On this episode of J&See, Meg Goodman talks CRO with Kurt Philip, founder of Convertica. Kurt and his team of experts identify issues with existing websites and provide support to increase traffic and click-through rates. Kurt and Meg also discuss running a remote company and the future of online businesses. Read on for some of the highlights of their conversation. And of course, make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a compelling interview like this once a month.

The pandemic has changed everyone’s priorities.

Right now, people are worried about their health, safety and financial stability. And further down the list is — ah, yes... business objectives.

In the midst of this crisis, you may want to rethink your marketing strategy. Any plans you made pre-pandemic may be off the table. So take time now to evaluate your method, your messaging and more.

Direct mail is a promising avenue for the current state of things. According to the WHO and the CDC, sending and receiving mail is considered safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. And with so many people staying at home, the mailbox is a direct line to your prospects.

Whether you are a small hardware store in the Midwest or a corporation based in LA, brand positioning matters. Where you show up in the search results matters. The type of customer reviews you are generating matters. What people are saying about you online helps to define your brand. Recognizing that is the first step to smart online marketing.

 Marketing and sales teams have the same goal: sell. But too often, they're not on the same page. The content created by the marketing team doesn't always align with the type of conversation the sales team wants to have with a potential customer. And this disconnect holds companies back. 

The solution is called “Togetherness,” a concept created by alignment expert Jeff Davis.

Sound the death knell...

• Direct mail is dead!
• Catalogs are dead!
• Email is dead!
• SEO is dead!
• Retail is dead!
• Brands are dead!
• Advertising is dead!
• Agencies are dead!
• Digital marketing is dead, post-GDPR!
• AI is replacing people and jobs!

There is some truth in all of these statements. But, none of these statements reflects the true state of marketing.

This week, I delivered a keynote at the Hewlett Packard (HP) Innovation Center in San Diego, California. The title of my presentation was “Data, Disruption and Decisions. Reinventing the way people, machines and insights work together.” One of the main topics of the presentation was “A New Digital Marketing Channel. Direct Mail.” Direct mail, new? Digital? Isn’t direct mail a 20^th century analog channel?

Modern marketing is nothing like the practice of marketing just a few years ago. It’s more data-driven, focused and relevant. Digital marketers have had the ability to use variable data in email, landing pages and websites for years. It was a little harder for direct mail to have same level of relevancy and focus. Toner-based solutions (laser printers) also enable variable data printing. But direct mail produced on toner-based systems is slow, expensive and has limited formats.   

Email marketing automation has become a competitive necessity for many organizations. While still not in use among all categories, marketers that have adapted email marketing automation report great success. This blog post will explain email marketing automation, describe its benefits and explore some ways that email marketing automation can be used to improve marketing response and conversion in different kinds of organizations.

Personalization in communications is not new. Direct marketers have used it in direct mail since the first computers and printers were used for marketing in the mid-twentieth century. Today, variable data printing technologies mean that marketers can personalize every word of a direct mail package, from outer envelope to letter, brochure and response device. Email marketers have had the same option since email’s first day.

Today, personalized email or direct mail communications don’t seem optional. Yet many marketers that use personalization often report poor results. So, what has held personalization back?