With Earth Day just a month ago, green is on the minds of many. I recently conducted a training session for a "green company". In order to maintain their status as such, they must conduct events in venues that are also green, offering recycling programs, for example, or conserving use of natural resources. Which made me think, what about green marketing?

Just this week the USPS mailed a campaign about environmentally friendly direct mail. The campaign walked the talk since all components were produced with 100% post-consumer-waste paper, eco-friendly petroleum-free inks, green energy, and were recyclable.

The color of email is definitely green, not only because it is environmentally friendly, but especially because of its high ROI. Email marketing, when done right, continues to produce return on investment that outpaces that of other direct marketing channels. Its payoff over time makes it not just green, but evergreen.

So if you haven't done so already, put some green in your marketing. It's the perfect antidote to a down economy and the belt-tightening that marketing budgets will surely undergo (see our second feature below for survival tips).

And, it's our color at Synchronicity too! Enjoy the green of the season,

Karen

Web 2.0 is hot. Social media, virtual lives, user generated content, viral marketing. All are excellent at generating interest. But seldom is a click a conversion. For many marketers, the downfall of new media is its failure to prepare a prospective or current customer to buy.

The consideration path is the psychological process every prospect or customer goes through when deciding whether or not to do business with you; that is, whether to buy. Some paths are short and quick, some are long and winding, and still others fall in between. Certain marketers assume that getting a potential customer to click on a search result or published link is tantamount to a conversion, but marketers working on-line need to ready audiences for purchases just as they do offline: by introducing products with longer and more winding consideration paths gradually and building relationships over time.

This is where email marketing excels, and integrated marketing soars. Email dialog tracks can be created which impart information to interested site visitors over an intentional, sequenced series of messages designed to guide the prospect or customer through a buying decision. A well thought-out email track will not just tell, but show (through images or links to video) and will be crafted to address and overcome common sales objections.  Email may also help qualify and triage responders, directing them to unique and separate conversion paths on-line.

Integrated marketing takes a sequenced impression strategy into multiple channels. Different marketing channels work together to bring consumers (or business people) to the point where they are motivated to buy. That may mean use of radio, TV, email and direct mail in conjunction to "show and tell" before bringing responders to the phone, Web site, or store.

While marketers seem open-minded and democratic about channels, they often run into trouble when it comes to multimedia execution. Running a truly integrated campaign is no small task, and it pays to crawl before you walk. Try integrating multiple direct response channels (such as email and postal mail) first before bringing in big-budget mass media channels or cutting-edge Web 2.0 endeavors like Virtual Life avatars and Facebook widgets. Seek and vet an agency that has proven experience and the resources to handle multiple media buys across a variety of properties. Most of all, be sure you can track and measure response from multiple channels. The more sophisticated your integrated campaign, the more sophisticated the measurement tools you'll need to determine success.

We all know the economy is not as robust as it was in the past few years. The skyrocketing cost of petroleum-based fuel alone has not only consumers but also businesses rethinking their activities.  Some companies are reducing expenses by a flat percentage across the board; others are taking a look at specific line items or functional areas; others are laying-off staff - whatever it takes to end up in the black at the end of the fiscal year.  Unfortunately, marketing budgets are one of the first line items to be cut in a down economy, after all - conventional thinking is that if there is less natural demand for something today, then why spend money trying to create more demand in the future?

Wrong!

This is a perfect example of a "penny wise, pound foolish" move.  Marketing budgets need to be reviewed and the dollar spend optimized . . . but this is not the time to stop spending, period. Believe me, those businesses that stop marketing now will lose market share when the economy swings the other way.

Instead, now is the time for smart marketers to fine tune their budgets, focus on ROI, and put financial and human emphasis on the marketing channels that are testable, flexible, and measurable to make the most of their marketing dollars.

Marketers should focus on direct response measures vs. general branding and mass advertising, and take a look at direct marketing efforts - on-line and off - in particular to make sure customer and prospect databases are clean, lean and mean.  This means, for example, taking advantage of all the list hygiene options available for direct mail to make sure that precious postage dollars are spent on mail that is being successfully delivered.  It also means taking a hard look at the non-responsive sectors of email lists to suppress them and instead, send more customized and segmented offers and creative to the responsive, interested list members.

The bottom line? Don't stop marketing; your competition isn't.  In fact, they're counting on you to scale back so they'll stand out in the mailbox, and especially the inbox.  Remember, those businesses that maintain their marketing momentum and keep their name in the public eye will reap the rewards in the long run.  In a down economy, think marathon, not sprint.