McCarthy and King Marketing

The 5 Levels of Lead Nurturing

admin — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:11:54 +0000

Lead nurturing has a gotten a lot of attention in recent years.

Lead generation has been around forever, but with the advent of email marketing and lead tracking systems, more and more sales and marketing departments are now also focused on lead nurturing.

Lead nurturing is a wonderful idea. It’s hard to understand why it hasn’t been [...]

Are you still using reply cards?

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:46:12 +0000

For years, the reply card was an absolute must for any direct mail package to succeed.

But now with the availability of 800 numbers, faxes, email and landing pages, some marketers have decided skip the reply card altogether.

“We have enough response options,” they argue. “We no longer need a reply card?”

Is this smart? Is the reply [...]

Isn’t all marketing both outbound AND inbound?

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:37:46 +0000

I’ve been reading a lot about “inbound marketing” these days.

You’ve heard the term too, I’m sure. It’s been embraced by social media practitioners who like to call it a new approach to marketing.

Inbound marketing, they say, is an indirect form of marketing in which your prospects take the action of contacting you about your product [...]

Should we believe those response rates?

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:56:51 +0000

Predicting response rates is tricky business and not usually a good idea.

First, it’s too easy to be wrong. Second, it doesn’t mean very much. Getting a high response rate is only good if it comes along with a decent conversion rate. (Topic for another day.)

Yet many new clients and prospective clients are more than a [...]

What’s wrong with interruption marketing?

admin — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:59:24 +0000

Like many of you, I’ve been trying to get up to speed on social media marketing.

I keep hearing about all the great marketing opportunities that can be found on social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

So I’ve been dabbling a bit – you can find me on all three sites – just trying to [...]

Back-end email vs. front-end email

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:07:56 +0000

“Back End” Email vs. “Front End” Email

When we talk to new prospects about email marketing, too often we start off talking about two very different things.

The confusion revolves around the difference between back-end email and front-end email – and the differences are significant.

Put simply, back-end email is email to your House List. Front-end email is [...]

The big picture of lead generation

admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:34:14 +0000

See the big picture of lead generation

It is so easy to get locked into the one or two things you do the most or do the best.

For us, it’s direct mail and email. We spend a lot of time creating direct mail campaigns for lead generation and email campaigns for lead nurturing. And that’s okay.

But what we also try [...]

Why free publications make better lists

admin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:22:43 +0000

So you are looking over some potential mailing lists – all subscription lists from trade journals your audience reads – and you come to the following conclusion:

“The better lists will be those created from paid subscriptions if only because the people on those lists made a commitment to buy the publication and are therefore [...]

What is the most important thing in advertising?

admin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:22:23 +0000

For 10 years, I taught a direct marketing course at Bentley College in Waltham, MA. It was a one-night-a-week course for business and marketing professionals who wanted to learn more about creating successful direct marketing programs.

As a way to kick off each new semester, I would always ask the class [...]

What is junk mail, anyway?

admin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:21:51 +0000

There are some people in my business who will never use the “j” word. And they won’t tolerate others using it either. For them, it’s the ultimate insult for the work we do.

I think we all understand that for most of the population, junk mail is just another way of [...]