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Products on the Cutting Edge
By Noelle Skodzinski
It's just like the modern-day chicken and egg: Does technology evolve and change society? Or does society demand technology to adapt to change? It seems with direct marketing, the technological chicken and egg arrive at the same time, spinning around each other in a tenacious dance.
"Click-to-call" technologies became available just as companies began trying to improve unchartered customer-service issues on cold, impersonal Web sites. (If click-to-call is still new to you—as it is to many—you can read more about it below.) But, with do-not-call legislation a reality, demand for this technology is growing fast and will likely take current products to new extremes in the next few years.
But whether demand-inspired or demand-creating, there are many new technologies in place that, like click-to-call, aim to help direct marketers succeed in today's online and offline, highly targeted, highly competitive and challenging marketplace. Here are just a few:
Test Banners Real-Time
No longer is evaluating a banner ad's success a slow and imperfect process. Planning Group International, a full-service direct marketing firm, has launched a product that is likely to change the face of online advertising. BridgeTrack lets companies test online banners and track response rates in real time and respond accordingly.
For example, Company B could slate four banner ads for rotation on a publisher's home page, meaning that each time the home page was loaded, a different one of the four ads would appear. (BridgeTrack essentially is serving a different ad to the publisher for each request for the ad.) BridgeTrack enables companies to monitor the performance of those four ads in real time, and then drop the worst-performing ad from the rotation after, say, 5,000 click-throughs.
For more information, visit www.planninggroup.com or call (305) 253-0100.
An Upselling Chat
InQ has pioneered a new use for chat technology (used to communicate in real-time with online customers): the online upsell.
InQ's "chatskins," or windows, facilitate real-time post-purchase messaging with customers. While reply messages actually are typed in by customer service reps (CSRs), which inQ CEO Steve Nober refers to as "'net reps," each rep can manage eight to 10 chats at a time.
Clients can run tests with inQ on small numbers of customers first, as well as on different offers. If clients opt to use a thank-you offer from one of inQ's partners, there is no charge for the service, and the client gets a percentage of all sales. If a client upsells its own products, a fee is charged.
By Noelle Skodzinski
It's just like the modern-day chicken and egg: Does technology evolve and change society? Or does society demand technology to adapt to change? It seems with direct marketing, the technological chicken and egg arrive at the same time, spinning around each other in a tenacious dance.
"Click-to-call" technologies became available just as companies began trying to improve unchartered customer-service issues on cold, impersonal Web sites. (If click-to-call is still new to you—as it is to many—you can read more about it below.) But, with do-not-call legislation a reality, demand for this technology is growing fast and will likely take current products to new extremes in the next few years.
But whether demand-inspired or demand-creating, there are many new technologies in place that, like click-to-call, aim to help direct marketers succeed in today's online and offline, highly targeted, highly competitive and challenging marketplace. Here are just a few:
Test Banners Real-Time
No longer is evaluating a banner ad's success a slow and imperfect process. Planning Group International, a full-service direct marketing firm, has launched a product that is likely to change the face of online advertising. BridgeTrack lets companies test online banners and track response rates in real time and respond accordingly.
For example, Company B could slate four banner ads for rotation on a publisher's home page, meaning that each time the home page was loaded, a different one of the four ads would appear. (BridgeTrack essentially is serving a different ad to the publisher for each request for the ad.) BridgeTrack enables companies to monitor the performance of those four ads in real time, and then drop the worst-performing ad from the rotation after, say, 5,000 click-throughs.
For more information, visit www.planninggroup.com or call (305) 253-0100.
An Upselling Chat
InQ has pioneered a new use for chat technology (used to communicate in real-time with online customers): the online upsell.
InQ's "chatskins," or windows, facilitate real-time post-purchase messaging with customers. While reply messages actually are typed in by customer service reps (CSRs), which inQ CEO Steve Nober refers to as "'net reps," each rep can manage eight to 10 chats at a time.
Clients can run tests with inQ on small numbers of customers first, as well as on different offers. If clients opt to use a thank-you offer from one of inQ's partners, there is no charge for the service, and the client gets a percentage of all sales. If a client upsells its own products, a fee is charged.
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