We've won 27 Gold & Silver SouthStar Awards, presented by the Direct Marketing Association for the challenging combination of Strategy + Creativity + Results.
Is Direct Marketing
Your Secret Weapon?
David Ogilvy — probably the most famous creative ad guy — called Direct Marketing his "Secret Weapon." You might think if it that way, too.
Direct Marketing -- also known as Direct Response Marketing, Database Marketing, One-To-One Marketing, even just Targeted Marketing -- is about identifying prospects. Benefit-oriented selling. Strong offers. Persuasive, action-oriented content. Media you might not have considered. Targeted Marketing that produces results.
Lead Generation & Sales:
Target your best prospects
Cut Thru Online Clutter with in-hand, full-attention, tactile interactions
Capitalize on Social Media contacts — with higher engagement and close rates
Gain Higher Response with high-impact, engaging formats, papers, finishing techniques
Engage Powerfully, Cultivate Clients & Cross-Sell: build more powerful cross-channel campaigns based on previous contacts and their activity
"As you know, your team’s direct mail piece was tested against another direct mail package we had developed elsewhere -- yours pulled three times the response.”
Nancy Payne
Direct Mail Manager
PowerDirectSM
Fresh. And time-tested. With certifications. Awards, and testimonials from clients amped about the results.
David Ogilvy considered Direct Marketing his "secret weapon" — and this approach remains powerful across a wide range of digital media.
Direct Marketing — also known as Direct Response Marketing and Database Marketing — is a highly-targeted marketing approach. Why would you "target" just anybody?
Direct Marketing includes Prospect and Customer Data, Offer/CTA, sophisticated benefit-oriented creative selling approaches designed to elicit response. In any medium social, email, direct mail (flat and 3-dimensional), print ads, digital ads, Direct Response TV and radio, billboards, retargeting, using channels effectively, and more.
You can gain leads and sales via phone response… provide promo or access codes and links, and drive people to a landing page or website… build a higher level of awareness and engagement, and much more.
When does Direct Response Marketing work best?
This approach works best when highly targeted... and it's highly valuable for small and large companies and non-profits. Your customer database is your strongest resource in this regard. And if it's segmented and ready to go to market via an effective CRM system, even better.
Email and direct mail are proven workhorses for this targeted marketing approach.
Direct Mail ain't dead. It never was.
"Snail Mail" is way more powerful and cost effective than you might have thought, and can integrate digitally with online media. Believe it or not, it's more cost-effective, and time-efficient than building a following of social media tire kickers.
"Paper" puts your message in the hands of your prospects and customers, in an infinite variety of formats, for their full attention. We get to employ dimension and folding, and paper texture and color and special effects like gloss, emboss and foil stamp, and even surprises, as your prospects sift through your offer with their full attention. And direct mail has longer "legs"... often people start to read, then have it sit around their desks, creating additional impressions.
This is the most flexible and powerful medium you have in marketing.
And if you have select high-end prospects, we can help you gain high impact among these key prospects, C-Level executives, and other special must-get audiences, with 3-Dimensional promotional mailings. We break through here, where other approaches fll flat.
Dimensional mailings cut through the clutter with highest response rates — engaging key prospects with this highest-impact breakthrough messaging.
FYI, multiple certifications, and truckloads of experience with a wide range of clients is behind our work with you
“I find your mailing pieces well thought-out, well-written, and well-designed.”
Ed Burnett,
President, Ed Burnett Consultants
Legendary Direct Marketing Industry Expert
3D "blueprints" mailer in a tube, marketing a not-yet-completed subdivision, for an ad agency client in Mississipi
3-D - Dimensional Mail
'3-part campaign to introduce IBM/CD Group's new eCommerce software platform, resulting in successful launch of the program (after 2 other agency attempts)..
3 square colorful pieces were mailed, building brand interest, driving webinar attendance; third piece is tabbed and expands into a rocket launch in stages.
4-part 3-D campaign targeted for shipping managers, to introduce or expand their use of CSX Transportation's intermodal services
"You’ve created a major problem for us. The direct mail piece that you did for [our client] did so well that we had to hire extra temporary help for a larger-than-expected response. We didn’t even run the newspaper space ad you developed, the response to the mail was so good. It’s kicking tail!”
Ken Sandridge, President
Maris West & Baker
Direct Mail, Self-Mailers and Email
Disruptive direct mail for Champion Mortgage
AirTouch/Verizon: Self-Mailer "customer satisfaction survey" also identified interests of high-end purchasing accounts
Email promoting a consulting offer from a specialized insurance company
Final email in a campaign promoting a community event
Postcard invitation, part of a series, promoting annual insurance conference. We also developed the event branding and logo.
Effective, award-winning work
in other engagement media
Company/Product/Service Names...Logos...Taglines
"Joel is truly a person that has taught me and impressed me with his deep and wide understanding of Direct Response Marketing when I had the opportunity to work with him. Even though he is a Master at his craft — he never stops being a student of the discipline. Trust him."
(see "They're Saying...")
Digital Response Media
Animated banner ads for Jetstream, a company that decompresses gas cylinders
Linked email graphic promoting a special event
Location-based (LBS) smartphone app creating immediate response and new business for service providers
Animated banner ad targeted to trade show attendees, and retargeted
Banner ad retargeting a CTA/Offer from an IT consulting firm
Joel Alpert (middle) with recognized industry icons Bob Stone (left) and Martin Baier (right) at the Professional Direct Marketer certification program at the Center For Direct Marketing.
Bob Stone co-founded the renowned Stone & Adler agency, known for strong strategic and creative thinking. He is author of the acclaimed "bible of Direct Marketing, Successful Direct Marketing Methods" (14 editions, translated into multiple languages), and he said:
"Joel is a talented and creative marketer...
with a flair for the unexpected!"
Martin Baier, author of Contemporary Direct and Interactive Marketing, and one of the inventors of the ZIP code system. said:
"Joel has given us some of the strongest
strategy, creativity, and presentations we've had.…"
David Ogilvy called Direct Response Marketing his "secret weapon"…want to make us your secret weapon?
Joel is certified as a Professional Direct Marketer — part of a select group of working professionals accepted into this program at The Center for Direct Marketing. And he has worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies, and done high-level consulting alongside Bob Stone and Martin Baier — the two industry-leading icons who developed the PDM Certification program.
Joel also studied and worked with other pioneering Direct Marketing industry strategic and creative experts including Bob Nash, Emily Soell, Sol Blumenfeld, John Francis Tighe, Herschel Gordon Lewis. And more.
He's worked for 5 of the leading Direct Marketing
agencies in New York City and Atlanta — Ogilvy & Mather Direct, Rapp Collins, Stone & Adler, The Stenrich Group, KKB Direct...and as a Secret Weapon (shhh!) for other respected agencies and consulting firms in the Southeast.
And have you see his client list? The testimonials? They're not too shabby….
“By the nature of our business, we don’t get a huge number of responses on any of the material we send out... but your group’s work is doing so much better than anything else we’ve done.”
Sharon Tanner, CEO
Jackson Liability Solutions
SECRETS
This Direct Response Marketing perspective could be part of your re-energized marketing program! No email signup or forms. It could be yours right now… with just a click!