It’s a tough time to be in advertising. Things don’t work like they used to. More media choices, more competition for the consumers gaze, time and attention. Just throwing more ‘out there’ doesn’t work like it did.

The Secret to Super-Effective Marketing with superb response rates is being able to migrate from this traditional mass market advertising model (i.e. ‘Spray and Hope’), to one that helps clients receive relevant, personalized one-to-one communication – Direct Mail pieces (paper or electronic) that are WANTED.

But adopting this new strategy brings many new challenges:

1. Most clients have not collected the right data, or any data, on their customers, and if they have it, they are reluctant to share it.
2. Companies that have successfully produced programs using new bells and whistles are not sharing their results for fear that their competition will learn how to catch up to them.
3. A majority of creative content providers (writers and designers at the agencies) are totally without any understanding of or how to write and design for variable, versioned pitches, let alone Web-print-to-Web programs, or database mining. (read this)
4. There is the commoditisation in the products offered by a majority of print providers, and how it affects content providers, like creative firms.

Although challenging, none of these issues are insurmountable. The blueprint for success, although not widely known, is there and well proven. And like all successful marketing or advertising campaigns, expert planning and execution is the key.

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