I am eating my words a little in this blog post, I have preached a time or two that we have moved beyond direct mail in marketing. I am wrong, what is happening is a revolution in direct mail, and it is still very relevant.

Thanks to web services like google analytics, tiny url, twitter, and others we can easily integrate our direct mail campaigns back into our online world and accurately measure the results. But there is one small problem, what if you work in an industry that either does not respond well to online, or just simply prefer to call?

Historically we had a few options here: we could set up a phone bank, this however was typically expensive, and you had to trust the workers to provide accurate reporting; or you could have it direct back to a single number or company switchboard, which tended to be the most common option. Our company recently did this; we had it go to the business developer’s number. The problem is that our business developer left halfway through the campaign. Other problems with this are people being busy and not answering phones, potential customers not leaving messages, along with endless other potential problems.

Then you throw in organizational issues. I can create a phone line that rings various people in the office, but working for the state like I do takes an act of congress and a personal signature from God himself to do anything.

There is a solution to all this that few have seemed to realize, Google Voice. With Google Voice you can create a specific number tied to your marketing campaign (I know google says 1 number, but multiple accounts are not too difficult), even better you can typically localize the number if you are going after a specific region.

The real beauty of all this comes in Google Voice’s web interface: from there you can check calls missed against calls received, you have a central location for all messages, and see generally where the calls are coming from. Want to take it one step further? You can add notes to the call logs, allowing you to put the results of the call back into the central location. You can set up multiple phones to receive the calls, and even schedule when those phones ring. One of the even nicer additions is the ability to have that phone receive SMS text messages, even further expanding the possibilities of direct marketing.

Direct mail and marketing just got a lot easier. There are tons of other possibilities with Google Voice beyond what is covered here; a world of opportunities can open up when you integrate your direct mail list with your Google Voice contact list.

I am personally am planning a large direct mail campaign towards the end of the year. I would not even consider it if it was not for Google Voice. Be sure to leave some comments about your take on Google Voice and how it can enhance marketing.

Sometimes in life it doesn’t matter how smart, skilled, or talented you are; you are going to fail. Blame it on the economy, the job market, George Bush, or your mom. You are going to fail, and failure sucks. Sure, you can make yourself feel better by recalling the old adages of get back up and dust off, you only learn through failure, or what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. Regardless of how much you try to make yourself feel better the cold fact remains that you just failed.

I’ve dealt with a lot of failure lately. Working with the manufacturing industry it is almost an everyday occurrence. Beyond that I have had a number of impossible jobs. I feel like I’ve become a bit of an expert on how to fail here lately. So here is how I have learned to fail.

1.    Know when to give up. I hate failing, even more I hate knowing that no matter how many times I try I and how hard I work at it that I will never succeed. I also don’t like quitting though so I have a hard time giving up. Sometimes you have to just take your loss and walk away, it is never going to get better and you are only prolonging the torture. You are not less of a person for giving up when the time is right, some things are just not worth the effort to fail over and over again.

2.    Know when to ask for help. I go at everything full speed and all at once. I have a multi-tasking mind and if I am not working on 10 things I go crazy. Asking for help seems like failing to me, so I have a hard time asking for help. What I have had to suck up and realize is that although I can take on 10 intensive projects and do a good job at them, I can only do 5 and do a great job. By offloading some of the work I am able to produce better results and fail less often.

3.    Know when to say no. If someone comes to me and says “hey I’ve got this job that no one else has managed to succeed at yet, do you want it?” My response is always hell yeah I’ll take it. I love doing something that no one else has managed to get right. Sometimes there is a reason no one has been able to do it. I’ve had to learn to say no to the impossible, not matter how bad I really want to make it work.

4.    Know when you are not the failure. I’ve been in jobs before where I am put in situations time and time again that I fail at. Sometimes it isn’t the task and it isn’t you. When you are being forced to measure your work by unreasonable task and goals you are not the one failing. Most the time it is something out of your control and you will never be able to compensate for a much larger failure that is not yours.

5.    Know when succeeding is not worth it. Again, I really don’t like giving up on something. I am the type that I will work for a week straight with no sleep just to succeed. The problem is that there are more important things in life than filling that workshop or promoting that event. Sometimes failing at work is less important than failing at life. Eventually in the drive for success you will have to make that choice, and you have to know how to make the correct choice.

What emerged is a revolution in communications forcing us tothink in words rather than paragraphs. We now have to cut through the BS andget to the point, quickly.
 
Instead of causing less communication due to the characterrestraint tweeters have found a way to do even more with less. Each word now hasa higher level of value, often times requiring users to write and rewrite toget the message across in 140.

 So what effect has this actually had on the industry?
We pitch better stories, create better ads, and presentbetter ideas. That old elevator message that we were all taught suddenlybecomes the way we communicate.
 
We as an industry present our ideas clear, concise, andwithout the BS that an ADD society can’t retain.
 
Moving forward how can we become even better communicators?
The social aspect of this communication, in particular theart of retweets, can be the biggest, most game changing part of this all. Yespeople already see value in this and tap into it. But the possibilities aremuch larger when we begin to communicate with the purpose of being retweeted.
 
The Goal: Effective Communications with 100 Characters.
Communicating for retweets of course takes us from 140 to120 or so when we account for the RT and username. Then if we take into accounta link we are looking at 100 characters, which should be the ultimate goal.
 
If we can then build compelling enough statements in 100characters our ideas can move quicker and reach more people than ever thoughtpossible. We are no longer reaching local media, existing clients, regionalmarkets, and friends. We are tapping into a global audience. Just imagine, 7degrees of separation. A few of your followers retweet, a few of theirsretweet, and so on. Suddenly your ideas, ads, and news are communicating inways never dreamed.
 
So hold on communicators. We are evolving, becoming better,more effective, and reaching more people, all in 140 characters or less.
 
So “What are you doing”? Drop me a line in the comments andlet me know what you think.

This will be the first in a series of social marketing tips looking at First Why your company should not try social marketing, second why your company should social market, and third how to get started with social marketing. These will be living post so if you have ideas on how to make these articles better post in the comments and I will keep working to create a better article. 

1. Twitter, blogging, and social media take a lot of time. So much in fact many companies are going to a dedicated social media person.

The worst possible thing you can do is having a page out there that the last update was in 2007. For this reason alone social media is not for most companies. Social media is dynamic and in need of constant updating, if you cannot keep it fresh then don’t do it.

2. Social media requires a level of creativity that most companies do no have.

Most of your old school direct mail marketing people will not “get” social media. They can’t understand why people use it and they do not know how to utilize it. Marketing with social media requires the ability to think outside the box and be on the cutting edge of marketing. Simply put unless you are lucky enough to have that, or willing to get it, your classic marketing techniques in social marketing will fail.

3. Finding the right are of social marketing is difficult and often you are trying the wrong medium for your audience.

Social marketing takes an extensive amount of research in finding where your target audiences are and how to reach them. More often than not you are trying to reach different audiences such as media and customers and this typically doubles the effort. Most companies either give up before they get started or end up doing it wrong.

4. Social market seems to change daily. Most companies lack the flexibility and willingness to change on the fly.

As if the time researching and the time updating is no enough, you also have to spend time keeping up with the latest trends. This also means that there will be times when you have to abandon all this work and shift to a new focus. Most managers/directors in companies simply cannot handle this sort of change and uncertainty.

5. Social Marketing is not easy; you will eventually fail.

There is no book about how to execute social marketing, inevitably you will spend months working on something and get it wrong. If you have got through #4 and started questioning if you should do social marketing then it is not for your company because you are afraid to fail. 

If you made it this far, congrats. Next time I will take a look at why you should try social marketing with your company. 

Working on a beginners guide to social marketing book aimed just at giving companies without any social marketing knowledge a starting point.

If you have any topics you would like to see covered in this shoot me over an email and I will work it in. I plan on posting a few excerpts here as I go.