Archive for April, 2007

Planning - the key to success

The key to the success of any sales or marketing campaign is the calibre of the product or service you offer and whether your prospective clients are interested in purchasing it. 

Marketing planning is therefore the essential first key step in your campaign and the time invested here will pay dividends. Planning identifies the proposition (products / services), messaging and establishes the prospective client base that will give you the greatest chance of success. 

If the plan does not initially meet targets it will be easier assess any shortcomings and re-direct the marketing effort to a successful conclusion. Risks and pitfalls are often eliminated at this stage. 

Many of the best marketing campaigns utilise a number of different marketing channels such as e-mails, advertising and direct mail in combination. Integrating a campaign in this way, we have found, is often more effective. It reinforces the messages to your prospects and does not rely on one method of delivery. 

Differentiation is also a vital element of the best campaigns. What is it about your service that is better and more appealing than your competitors’ service? What is it about your campaign that will make your prospects take notice? When you are up against the campaigns of multiple competitors, the originality and creativity you display will come to the fore. 

Marketing should be about building and fostering relationships with your prospective clients. Marketing that builds understanding, trust and fondness for your company will produce results. And do not forget your current clients or those customers that you might have lost touch with; the basis for a relationship is already there. 

It is a lot of work to implement a marketing campaign well, but the rewards will justify the resource you invest.

A few improvements to take note of

The LiveWire Campaign email marketing system has been upgraded as scheduled between 06:00 and 07:30 on Monday 04th April.

Whilst many of the changes have been implemented behind the scenes to ensure the continued smooth operation of the system, functionality in the following areas has also been modified:

  • Campaigns sent to self or sent to an email address are now tracked in the same way as campaigns sent to users – you are now be able to view opens, reads and click throughs for all campaigns sent since the system was upgraded.
  • Campaigns sent to self or sent to an email address now include a ‘Click Here’ link in order to view the campaign within a web browser.
  • A number of minor compatibility issues have been addressed to ensure that campaigns display as intended in the widest possible range of email clients and web browsers.
  • Clients sending large campaigns may notice that the delivery confirmation screen is shown almost immediately when they click ‘Send Campaign’, rather than there being a delay as the campaign is being processed as was previously the case. (Please note, there may still be a small delay between this screen being displayed and the campaign arriving in the recipients inbox, due to constraints imposed by systems which are outside of our network)