USPS, Marketers Meet to Plan Sampling Programs

The U.S. Postal Service recently hosted the 2012 USPS Sampling Innovation Symposium, working with  direct-marketing leaders from consumer packaged goods firms and advertising agencies to develop  a turnkey home-delivery product sampling program. There's a clear reason for marketers' eagerness to help: 81% of consumers buy a product after they receive a free sample, and most prefer to sample products at home, according to a recent study by Opinion Research Corp. "Mail is the only medium that really enables marketers to do this," noted Marc McCrery, USPS executive manager for the sampling program. "It provides access to people's homes, and it can be tracked to determine if the samples actually convert to sales." The Postal Service will launch sampling opportunities inspired by the symposium over the next year. For details, see the news release at http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-postal-service-convenes-direct-marketing-industry-leaders-to-collaborate-on-new-product-sampling-revenue-strategies-2012-06-25

Poor Timing Mars Aim of Retailers' Digital Efforts

Timing is everything, especially in quick-paced digital marketing. Unfortunately, there is often a gap between when multi-channel merchants send e-mails or post on social media and when customers are most likely to engage, according to Yesmail Interactive, an Infogroup company. Its latest research report, "Using Digital Market Intelligence to Drive Multi-Channel Success," tracked and analyzed an array of big-brand retailers' Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and e-mail campaigns over a three-month period and found that many social media and e-mail efforts did not match with consumers' engagement preferences. For example, Facebook campaigns achieve the highest level of engagement on Tuesdays, yet that day ranks fourth in terms of when actual campaigns are deployed. The majority of Twitter campaigns take place on Friday, which is the least engaging day for those campaigns. The most interaction on YouTube occurs on Monday, but it is the least used weekday for campaign deployment. The report also found a mismatch between retailers and customers when it came to favored time of day. Plus, while sending an e-mail on the day of a social media post clearly boosted customer social response, many "multi-channel" merchants did not coordinate channels to maximize impact. For more detail, check out the press release at http://www.marketwatch.com/story/yesmail-interactive-study-reveals-marketers-are-missing-out-on-key-social-and-email-campaign-opportunities-2012-06-25