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.

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.
  

The MineThatData Honor Roll: John Hagel at Edge Perspectives about The Gap

John Hagel at Edge Perspectives earns an Honor Roll nomination for his strategic discussion of the problems at Gap. I wanted to write about their business all week, John saved me from an hour of work that couldn't possibly measure up to what he wrote.