Welcome to the Connecting Print & Digital Directly Blog
Our purpose for this blog is to share our direct marketing experience, particularly around direct mail, catalogs, paid search, and website optimization. Since Stephen Lett founded Lett Direct in 1995, retailers and e-tailers across the country have valued its transparency and educational approach to improve their profitability by planning, executing and analyzing their marketing programs. Since our modest beginning 25 years ago, we've achieved Google Premier Partner status since adding digital services over 10 years ago.
Each month, someone from our team will share useful information on strategies and tactics to improve your marketing return on investment as well as to better understand how to win at direct mail and digital advertising.
What to Expect
We will answer some of the most perplexing questions facing direct marketers today. What’s the best place to acquire new customers — print or digital? Why is search engine optimization so important? How can I develop more content that's relevant to my brand? Where is the best place for my digital spend? Where does social advertising fit in? Should I launch a catalog for my store? What key performance indicators are crucial to gauge my success?
It’s important and critical to use every channel available to maximize sales profitably. With the onset of work from home, consumers are turning to their desktops and phones to explore new brands. Email inboxes are stuffed while mailboxes are relatively empty. As per Google, 41 percent of all retail web visitors were new from March to July, and 32 percent of U.S. shoppers purchased from a new brand — and said they’ll continue to buy. Furthermore, 73 percent say they will shop online more to be ready for the holidays.
Now is not the time to stop promoting your brand. But what are the best methods to get in front of these new buyers, and retain existing customers?
Catalogers
Many mailers haven't gravitated towards using digital marketing to promote their businesses. This is a mistake. Whether your business is catalog-centric and/or operates a few storefronts, digital ads elevate your program to audiences where they are when they're ready to buy.
Pure-Plays
If you're fully optimized to a point of diminishing returns, have a 0-24 month buyer file of at least 5,000, and want your brand story to stand out in the homes of potential new customers, print offers a way to target your buyers, as well as new prospects, in a very engaging way with proven results.
In Conclusion
Balancing your spend between print and digital cannot be done in silos. Defining the right blend for your brand, tracking the results, and being able to pivot will deliver stronger results through good times and bad.
We look forward to sharing our insights with you and welcome your questions and topics for discussion at SteveLett@lettdirect.com.
- Categories:
- Direct Mail
- Marketing
- Online Marketing
Steve Lett graduated from Indiana University in 1970 and immediately began his 50-year career in Direct Marketing; mainly catalogs.
Steve spent the first 25 years of his career in executive level positions at both consumer and business-to-business companies. The next 25 years have been with Lett Direct, Inc., the company Steve founded in early 1995. Lett Direct, Inc., is a catalog and internet consulting firm specializing in circulation planning, plan execution, analysis and digital marketing (Google Premier Partner).
Steve has served on the Ethics Committee of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and on a number of company boards, both public and private. He served on the Board of the ACMA. He has been the subject of two Harvard Business School case studies. He is the author of a book, Strategic Catalog Marketing. Steve is a past Chairman of both the Catalog Council and Business Mail Council of the DMA. He spent a few years teaching Direct Marketing at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
You can contact Steve at stevelett@lettdirect.com.
