Newsstand

June 8, 2011
Pin the Tail On the Marketing Strategy [DMA11]

Ask anyone who’s been in marketing for a long time what the best way is to find new customers, and they’ll likely tell you the same thing: Cast your net wide to increase your yield. An online marketing strategy is no different than those that professionals have been pursuing for decade after decade. The core method hasn’t really changed—only the avenues used to reach customer. The answer to realizing the true power of online marketing is to take the existing technology and go “old school” with it.

Direct marketing is essentially the same thing as going door to door seeking potential customers—with the notable exception that you don’t have to physically knock on anyone’s door anymore in order to make their acquaintance, and that you don’t run the risk of having a door physically slammed in your face. The Internet has made the world a much smaller place than it ever has been, and the advent of social media has infused online marketing with the kind of lifeblood for which marketers just 20 years ago would have sold their souls.

So what’s the secret to effective direct marketing in 2011? It can all be summed up in a single word: Data. No marketing strategy will ever work if you don’t have a system in place to collect and analyze data. Going about it any other way is like trying to play a game of pin the tail on the donkey without even knowing if you’re in the right room, let alone anywhere near the donkey’s tail. Pairing up with a professional online marketer prevents you from making some potentially grievous mistakes when attempting to learn digital marketing on your own.

You can meet face to face with digital marketing experts and rub elbows with thousands of others just like yourself seeking to explore the many opportunities in digital marketing at the DMA Conference & Exhibit, a six-day event taking place this October in Boston. Visit www.dma11.org for registration information.

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