Clients and prospects will interact and remember a dimensional direct mail piece for months, even years after they receive it.

For instance, last year several hundred financial prospects received a corked bottle in the mail - without any packaging! The mailing label on the bottle didn't have a return address or any indication of who it was from.

Inside the bottle, bound by a rubber band, was a piece of paper with a message. How many of the bottles do you think got opened and had their messages read? But this company took the mystery a step further. The message read, “I’m lost. Need help, please rescue!” followed by a personalized URL address.

This strategy resulted in 46% of recipients visiting the site, far exceeding expectations.

5 Tips for Dimensional Mail Lead Generation Success
Dimensional mail can be an excellent lead generation tool if done properly. Here are five keys to focus on:

1. Aim for “Wow”. Forget mailing pens and coffee cups. Send something the your audience wouldn’t expect. Make them say “wow” when they open the package and your results will be “wow”.
2. Make the creative tie to your company. As important as the item is, the message you say needs to tie the item to your company. I once did a dimensional mail piece promoting tourism in Northern Minnesota. The box included a plaid winter had with fur ear flaps. The message was “Disneyland isn’t the only vacation where you can get a hat with ears!” The more creative the more effective.
3. Keep it simple. Dimensional mail doesn’t have to be complicated to be good. Just look at the message in the bottle idea. The goal is to get them intrigued so they take the next step.
4. Target your prospects. Dimensional mail is more expensive, so it is best used when targeting a select list of your best prospects.
5. Work closely with sales team. Work closely with sales to select recipients and pinpoint the exact decision-maker to be targeted at every prospect company.

If you ask business owners where they get most of their new customers, they’ll usually say word-of-mouth. A parent at a kid’s baseball game tells you about a great product she found, or friends invite you to a cool restaurant they discovered. It’s also the part of marketing that businesses feel they have the least control over. However, you actually have the most control.

You can inspire word-of-mouth by focusing on two things:

1. Creating products or services that are worth talking about.
2. Providing an amazing customer service experience that exceeds their expectations.

You walk into a restaurant with great décor, are greeted by a friendly waitress who calls you by name, she provides a special treat to pacify your child, and then your meal arrives with a taste that makes your mouth water. Chances are you’ll share your experience with others.

However, if the place is wonderful and waitress is friendly, but the food is horrible, chances are not only won’t they come back, but they’ll tell others not to go as well. So rather than crazy advertising gimmicks to get viral buzz, learn how to do what you do better.

I recently facilitated a “Creating a Wow Experience for Our Customers” workshop for a company that resulted in hundreds of ideas of how they could improve their product and customer experience. Contact us to learn how we could do the same for you and inspire word of mouth that fuels your business.

The Minnesota Grape Growers Association needed a website that could allow members from around the state to update content. So we designed the site using WebGenius CMS. The site also features a mini-store with future plans to add complete conference registration.

Glacial Wood Products is the largest manufacturer of custom wood turns in North America. The company already had an existing website but it needed a facelift.
Th!nkCreative updated the home page, adding more SEO rich features and developing a custom "instant quote" feature.

Cathedral High School is a private school with a long history of tradition and excellence. With a renewed emphasis on connecting with past graduates, Th!nkCreative helped develop an Alumni & Friends website. The site allows Cathedral staff to add content, events, create photo galleries of class reunions, highlight past graduates, and accept donations.

DAKA Corporation produces some of the finest wood burning stoves available. To highlight the many benefits and provide a resource to order parts online, Th!nkCreative developed a robust ecommerce store. The site features videos, full product descriptions, and an online FAQ area for a better customer experience.

Raven Performance Group is a dynamic, multi-faceted resource for business owners and executives. They help improve professional skills through peer groups and one-to-one sessions.
To communicate this mission and allow for the Raven team to easily update events and add valuable content, we developed the site in WebGenius CMS with clear navigation, testimonials and benefits.

Ram Jack of Minnesota originally had a franchise connection to the corporate website. Unfortunately that also meant losing their ability to have a site that really focused on what was important to their customers. Utilizing the assets from the corporate site, we created a more dynamic site with calls-to-action and clear, easy-to-understand benefits.

Your customers are your best salespeople, telling of their experiences with your company in their own words. Your customers have unparalleled credibility and selling power. Videos are the best way to share their experience with your audience. Here’s why they are so effective:

• Testimonials are attention-getting – They are engaging because we are curious about other people and like to hear their experiences.
• Testimonials are credible – When you hear a person say good things about a company or product and can see the expression and hear the emotion, it’s powerful and believable. Testimonials are personal.
• Testimonials are reassuring – We are all skeptical. A prospect may feel you have a great solution for them, but they’ve been lied to before. A video testimonial assures them they are making a smart choice.
• Testimonials highlight your best – It’s hard to please every customer, but every business has a raving fan who you have helped tremendously. It’s your way of showcasing your company in the best light.
• Testimonials are mini-documentaries – Great video testimonials are well executed to clearly show the customer’s problem, your solution, and how the customer feels about the experience in a slice-of-life approach.

Th!nkCreative offers a turnkey video testimonial service in which we handle everything from start to finish – video taping your customers, editing, crafting the story, uploading to your site, helping you promote through social media sites. Contact us today to learn more.

Click here to check out our testimonial video examples.

Or Why Switch to a CMS Based Website!

The biggest complaint for corporate marketers is being at the mercy of the WebMaster for updates to what should be their most important marketing tool. That lack of control can be frustrating. The solution is converting your website to a content management system (CMS).

To determine if a CMS based website is ideal for your company versus a standard HTML site, simply ask yourself these easy questions. If you say "yes" to any of them a CMS site may be right for you:

• Want a site that you can update or change yourself?

• Do you want a photo gallery that you can add and delete images easily?

• Would you like feedback from visitors from comments, suggestions, or surveys you create?

• Do you have products you want to sell online?

• Would you like a password-protected employee-only area on your site?

• Want to list a sale or special announcement on your site immediately?

• Do you know who is viewing your site and what they are reading?

• Do you want the ability to tie in SEO, social media, and blog tools to increase your ranking?

These are just a few of the great reasons to make the switch to a CMS based website solution with Th!nkCreative. Find out how inexpensive CMS sites can be, whether designing a new site or converting your existing one. It's one of the best marketing investments you can make.

Click here to watch an overview video on Th!nk WebGenius CMS, then contact us today to explore your options.

Marketing is most effective when it takes consumers by surprise, makes a memorable impression, and pops up where people least expect it. With a little creativity you can add some fun and personality to your brand by incorporating your message into the everyday landscape in a unique way. Take a look at these ideas.

Now this would get a guys attention - a truly interactive ad that's memorable and gets people talking.

Great radio station promotion - giving away Free Air Guitars!

This ad is all about location, location, location.

Tired of kissing your bosses a__? This company's hilarious entrance banner to a career fair makes it seem like a great company to work for.

One of my all time favorites. Mercedes sent out their hood ornament with a suction cup base so any driver could get the sense of driving a Mercedes. Great branding campaign.

Think you have an acne problem? A great graphic for a college campus' climbing wall.

Rather than a door hanger, this extermination company added some mystery by placing mouse holes under doors.

Ever wonder what your car is thinking. These cars in a parking garage are wishing they were a VW.

The more you can make an ad interactive, the more memorable it becomes. In this case, people can express themselves by signing a cast. How cool is that?

Here's an ad that spills out of the traditional display case and grabs the audiences attention.

This ad is nearly impossible to ignore. Great use of location and emotion to make a point.

Visual images are like duct tape, they stick to you long after words are forgotten. Video takes visual memory to the ultimate level, integrating two of our most prominent senses – sight and sound – to deliver messages with staying power.

According to national research conducted by the Wharton School of Business, consumers are 72% more likely to purchase an online product when video is used. That’s the power of video. By engaging the 3 Vs of communication – Verbal, Vocal and Visual – video provides optimum connection between your sales team and potential buyers.

Over the course of three decades researchers studied human response to verbal and non-verbal communication and developed the 7%-38%-55% Rule, now an advertising industry standard, which describes how consumers evaluate information. Applying the 7%-38%-55% Rule to the 3 Vs reveals how messages impact consumers, whether it’s a face-to-face meeting, television commercial, online video or sales presentation:

• Verbal. The words used account for just 7% of a person’s receptiveness to a communicated message.
• Vocal. The presenter’s tone of voice is responsible for 38% of a message’s effectiveness.
• Visual. By far the most critical element in message dissemination, non-verbal communication, particularly facial expression and body language, accounts for 55% of a message’s impact.

Adding quality video to your online marketing efforts allows you to capitalize on the considerable power of visual communication to draw customers and boost sales. It can reflect the personality of your company, setting you apart from the competition and ensuring that visitors remember you when they’re ready to buy. Check out these examples of Th!nkCreative produced videos to see the impact video can make for your business.

With the growing adoption of smart cell phones, more and more people are browsing the internet on their mobile device. Even though some phones, like the iPhone, have browsers that make viewing regular webpages suitable, a mobile version of your website can mean several benefits, like faster load times, and ensuring your content can be viewed on a wider range of phones.

Th!nkCreative can create a mobile version of your website to ensure you reach your audience in a user-friendly format. There are a number of solutions out there based on how your current website is structured. Contact us today for a quick analysis of what will work for you.

The benefit of a QR code is that it gives you a way to get a prospect to take immediate action - easily! The problem with QR codes is when they do not give a customer value they can become frustrating. There is nothing worse than promoting a QR code, but the end result is something that could have been achieved without it. You will also want to make sure of the following:

• Inform your audience of what to expect when they scan the code. 
• Make sure the destination is mobile friendly. You don't want them to land on a web page that does not render correctly using a mobile phone.
• Think about how your QR code integrates with the campaign. 

Who are you trying to reach with your QR code? You must determine that before launching a campaign. Merkle and Webtrends created the following profile of those that use QR codes:

• Between the ages of 25 to 54
• Mostly male with a baseline income of $50k
• Customer uses an iPhone or Android Smartphone

The overall QR user is affluent and younger. Make sure that your target audience fits that profile, otherwise it may not bring you the desired result that you want.

If your ideal customer fits the above there is no reason not to launch a QR campaign. Here are some ideas of how you can incorporate them into your marketing mix:

• Offer coupons
• Drive traffic to target pages on your website
• Contest and promotions ��� like a scratch card with only a few winning codes distributed
• Bus schedules or other access to time tables or events
• Add them to your business cards
• On “For Sale” signage such as real estate for easy access to information
• On bike/hiking trails or historical areas to show maps or area attractions
• Links to sales videos from product packaging
• In areas where people wait in line or in bathroom stalls

A QR code campaign can be very effective when well designed and thought through. Contact us today and let us help you decide if they are right for your business and how we can make your campaign a success.