Comparison of Direct Mail Marketing and Email Marketing

Comparison of Direct Mail Marketing and Email Marketing

For direct marketers, the print-to-online transition is an ongoing one. Consider the following facts comparing direct mail to e-mail for marketing purposes.

Paper costs

The 20 percent increase in the cost of paper over the past two to three years is being caused in part by higher labor costs as well as higher fuel costs to get wood to the mill, run the papermaking machines and transport the finished product to warehouses and on to printers.

Moreover, many paper mills are making investments to become more eco-friendly, incurring costs to train employees in new processes and procedures. Printing and postage costs are also rising, and additional paper price increases are likely.

E-mail costs

For companies whose customers are largely online, e-mail is a cost-effective replacement to direct mail. For organizations that have a blend of online and non-online customers, it can be a welcomed alternative for e-mail-equipped recipients that also lowers the cost of marketing for the company.

Direct mail efficiency

A direct mail campaign can take weeks to design, lay out, print and mail. Moreover, while deliverability and response are trackable with direct mail, they take time. Undeliverable mail can take weeks to be returned and addresses must be manually removed from a list. In addition,response can take days by postage paid reply.

E-mail efficiency

An e-mail campaign can take as little as a few hours to a few days from concept to receipt, enabling companies to respond rapidly to market dynamics and competitive pressures. In addition, with e-mail sent by an advanced e-mail delivery system, bad addresses are discovered within minutes and culled from a list. Then, marketers know exactly how many recipients opened the message.

With links back to a Web site, purchases can be made immediately and tracking systems can show which pages or items were viewed, providing invaluable customer data for future campaigns.

Green marketing -- direct mail

While many direct marketing firms are instituting green standards in their companies, the direct mail business is under environmental pressure because of the huge amount of paper it consumes and the waste that paper generates.

Green marketing -- e-mail

While e-mail servers require electricity, no trees are destroyed, no pollutants are sent into the air, and no gasoline or other petroleum-based products are used to get a marketing message across with e-mail.

Source:http://www.emarketingandcommerce.com/article/direct-mail-versus-e-mail-you-decide/1 by Berry Abel

Marketing Mix Four P's

Although marketing is commonly thought of as only consisting of promoting a product or service through advertising and publicity, there is actually much more to it. Marketing is the process of establishing a product, pricing it, promoting the product and placing it for sale, as a way to make profits for the company. These items are called the Four-Ps or the marketing mix. it is an easy way to remember the parts of marketing.

Questions you may have include:

• Why is promotion often emphasized?
• What are the Four-Ps?
• What is the advantage of using the Four-Ps?

Most think only of promotion

The general public normally thinks of marketing as promotion, advertising, branding and publicity of products or services. They often lump those items together as promotion.

What they do not realize is that there are other factors that a business must consider as part of delivering their products or services to the market and selling them.

Four-Ps

Marketing can be classified into four categories, called the Four-Ps:

• Product
• Price
• Promotion
• Place

These activities are also called the marketing mix. They are the variables that marketing managers can control in order to satisfy customers in the target market.

Using four words starting in "P" is an easy way to remember the items.

Product marketing

The product part of the marketing mix concerns determining what products or services customers want and establishing specifications for those items.

Considerations include functionality, appearance and quality of the product, as well as packaging, warranty and support.

Pricing marketing

Setting a competitive price for a product or service is an important part of marketing. That price may be based on the marketing strategy of whether to give the impression of quality or to appeal to the price-conscious buyers. Supply and demand also affects pricing.

Pricing includes not only the list price, but also discounts, financing and leasing options.

Promotion marketing

The promotion part of the marketing mix concerns communicating and selling to potential customers. This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity and personal selling. It refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand or company, as well as the message and media to be used.

Advertising and promotion costs can be a large part of the product price. Analysis should be performed to determine the actual value of the promotion in getting new customers.

Place marketing

Place is the location or channel where the sale can be made. This may include geographic location and market segment. Sometimes this "P" stands for placement or distribution, which refers to how the product or service gets to the customer.

Distribution includes market coverage, channel member selection, logistics and levels of service.

Advantage of Four-P system

The advantage of using this marketing mix of products, pricing, promotion and place is that it is easy to remember and provides a good organization of marketing.

There are other combinations of the factors in marketing, but the Four-P classification has been the most useful is sticking in the minds of marketing students. In other words, the expression has become a "brand" for marketing.

Summary

Marketing is commonly thought of as only consisting of promoting a product or service through advertising and publicity. Actually, marketing consists of the process of establishing a product, pricing it, promoting the product, and placing it for sale, as a way to make profits for the business. These items are called the Four-Ps, and they are an easy way to remember the factors of marketing.

Source:http://www.schoolforchampions.com/marketing/basics_four-p_mix.htm

Challenges in Affiliate Marketing

Life is full of Challenges

A person who succeed here is a person who loves challenges. Affiliate Marketing is an opportunity for those people who are imaginative and love challenges. If you want to make money quick, this is not an opportunity you are going to relish. Statistics shows that 90 percent of those affiliates make less that 100 dollars per month. Most of these affiliates make loss.

What are the Challenges that we face as an affiliate? The Challenge begins from searching for a merchant. Finding a great product sell itself is a challenge. If you want to copy the success of other affiliates, you will not succeed here. You must choose a product that will be successful in the target market. If you fail in this first step you will not succeed. Remember quick money programs will not get you anywhere. Knowledge accumulated through experience is the key.

Once you have a product, your next challenge is ready to greet you. A marketing plan is necessary to sell this product. How will you do it? It is a difficult task. An affiliate must burn lot of his night oil in this. Having a right kind of strategy is the key here. If you have a website with good traffic you have a beginning. You can employ lot of different marketing strategies. Most affiliates base their affiliate marketing strategy on PPC. Pay per click programs like Google adwords, Yahoo search marketing serve their purpose. I have seen Top affiliates promote their products using articles. It is free and a valid promotion technique. If you are ready to spend some time promoting this articles you have a starting point. If you are a beginner forums and blogs are also a starting point. But do not spam forums and blogs as it will not help you at all.

Classifieds and Yahoo answer is considered as a genuine opportunity to sell your products too. You can follow this strategy too. Once you have a Product and a marketing strategy you are on track. Here you must make calculations and strategies based on the sales and amount spent on these campaigns. You must be on your toes because more money spent on PPC campaigns will wipe away the profit you make selling affiliate products.

You will learn the strategies with experience. A good affiliate is a person who will tread carefully in the beginning to unleash all his potential once he amassed enough experience. So begin your career carefully as an affiliate and progress with experience.

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Source: http://makemoneyideas.in/blog/2010/01/26/challenges-in-affiliate-marketing/