You remember Vinnie Barbarino from Welcome Back Kotter?

When Vinnie Barbarino didn’t know something, which was often, he approached his lack of clarity the same way every time: “Who? What? Where?” Sometimes, asking the simplest questions can lead you to a great answer.

Good Morning Bill,
I recently read with interest several of your articles on marketing
communications to CIOs and CEOs. I am doing research on what are the current and
potential communication touchpoints for CIOs and their effectiveness, and I was
interested in any perspectives or work you might have done in the area. For
example, there are a wide range of […]

Bottom line: Relevancy is king.
Your customers and prospects have a wide variety of business needs—ranging from high-level thought leadership to tactical application notes.
As marketers, we must understand the varying needs of our audience—from those who are at a very early stage of product consideration, to those that are ready to buy, to those that are already […]

Gaining insight from a representative “slice” of your target audience is important but can often be VERY time consuming and expensive. Who has the time or budget to spend weeks (and thousands of airline miles) traveling around to run focus groups?
Rather, consider a “pre-campaign” email survey. This cost-efficient and easy-to-deploy solution will provide immediate feedback […]

Yes and no.
Sweepstakes can be effective when used as “icing on the cake” in a highly targeted direct marketing program.
In B-to-B marketing, whether our universe is 500 Named Accounts or 500,000 SMB IT Managers, a sweepstakes can act as the “reward” for taking the time to complete a short survey or set of profile questions. […]

Absolutely. However, you have to put yourself in their shoes—so consider two critical points:
1. You must get past the gatekeeper. This requires a unique “breakthrough” format. Direct mail will ALWAYS perform better when accompanied by additional touch-points (via email, telephone, additional DM touches).
2. Their time is incredibly valuable. Provide them with value-add information that will […]

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