Micro-Channel Consultant Success Stories

This image is of the Libey Economic Outlook. Don Libey is a multichannel direct marketing consultant. Once a month, he mails a newsletter filled with topics and parables relevant to the catalog-based direct marketer. When this document arrives in the mail, my first priority is to set down what I am working on, and read the publication.

Lenser marketing also has an e-mail marketing newsletter, though I tend to read the newsletter online. The online newsletter doesn't allow comments, though honestly, it doesn't need to facilitate a conversation.

The Rimm-Kaufman group hosts a blog. I almost never visit their website, though I am an avid reader of their information when it arrives via Google Reader. Their articles are among the content I most appreciate receiving. The blog does accept comments, allowing for a conversation to happen.

John Hagel is lucky to publish a handful of articles each year on his blog, but when he publishes them, they are must reads. I also read his articles via RSS Feed.

The next image is from Amy Africa's E-mail newsletter, called "Thinking Inside The Box". This newsletter has stories and is full of best practices to help struggling marketers improve performance. You can subscribe to her monthly newsletter here.



What's the point of all of this? Each example represents a specific use of a micro-channel, a preferred method for these folks to communicate with their audience.

Sometimes we're led to believe we have to do everything in order to be successful. We have to do direct mail, and e-mail, and have a website, and host a blog, and participate in social media.

Maybe we're better off focusing on fully capitalizing on a fusion of micro-channels that are appropriate for the audience we want to speak to? None of these folks are doing everything --- instead, they are specializing (and, by consequence, excelling) in specific micro-channels.

Increasingly, we have an opportunity to be excellent at one or two things, rather than being good across multiple channels. We have a chance to stand for something.

Multichannel Forensics Interview Hosted By Alan Rimm-Kaufman

Alan Rimm-Kaufman, blogger, guru, and leader of the Rimm-Kaufman Group, was kind enough to interview me on the topic of Multichannel Forensics.

Here is a link to the Multichannel Forensics interview, and here is a link to the Multichannel Forensics podcast.

If you are in Boston this week, you can hear Alan speak at the NEMOA Conference.

Honor Roll For May 3, 2007

A few articles worthy of MineThatData Honor Roll consideration.

• Valeria Maltoni has a smart discussion about Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie retail marketing strategies.
  

• Spike at the Brains on Fire Blog makes an interesting observation at the end of this post about spreading good news. How often do we, as e-mail, online and catalog marketers view our craft as "spreading good news"?
  

• One of the most popular topics on this blog is the "square root rule". Born out of the old catalog advertising rule that a ten percent increase in pages circulated yields a five percent increase in demand, Alan Rimm-Kaufman further developed the concept. Today, I read this discussion from John Hagel about how power laws are changing business.
  

SpyFu, Inaccuracies, Rimm-Kaufman Group

Recently, I discussed the use of SpyFu for analyzing the online marketing spend of businesses. Alan indicates that the information is probably not reliable, stating ...

"We've found little correlation between our client's actual PPC spend and the numbers reported by SpyFu. For the sites we checked, SpyFu was off, sometimes by an order of magnitude, for small ($10k/month), medium ($100k/month), and large ($500k/month) advertisers. A neat idea, but needs better accuracy."

One of the great things about blogging is that folks can point out flaws in the work others do. And when folks do it in an honorable way, everybody benefits.

Alan and team have built a great business --- please check his team out.

The Square Root Rule: Better Defined

One of the great things about the blogging world occurs when individuals improve upon your simplistic work, developing the concept into something better, something more useful. Many big analytical companies hoard ideas and intellectual capital. Others freely give, in an effort to benefit all.

Enter Friend of MineThatData Alan Rimm-Kaufman and his development of the Square Root Rule --- found on his organization's excellent blog. Please click here for a well-written exploration of the topic of understanding how much money should/could be spent on advertising.

Alan Rimm-Kaufman on Holiday PPC

Alan frequently offers his readers valuable information, providing insights into customer behavior without giving up proprietary secrets. He has a good post on Holiday PPC over at his blog. Give it a quick read.