Author: Patricia Uhrich

Five last-minute tips for maximizing year-end charitable campaigns

If you’re a non-profit marketer, hopefully your year-end campaign strategy is close to launching. The point of this post is to ensure your best made plans DO NOT go awry. Better yet, let’s hope they add fuel to an already glowing campaign.     1)   Avoid launching on Giving Tuesday: While integrating Giving Tuesday into your social and email campaign is important, it’s too crowded with competing messages to serve as a launch date. Ideally, you should launch before Thanksgiving.     2)  Consider testing your direct mail approach: Many organizations have a proven format that they recycle for year-end campaigns. Now’s a good time to test something new. Ideally an A/B split test if you have a volume of at least 5,000 or whatever it takes for you to get 100 responses from your audience. Some ideas to consider:   Make it more personal. Be sure to personally thank existing donors and focus on...

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Advertiser’s Survival Guide for the Final Weeks of Political Ads

By now, you’ve already heard that 2024 election spending is on track to be a record-breaker. The question is how much more can competing advertisers expect? And more importantly, what they can do to stand out.   Three key facts about the remaining political ad spend.  $569 million worth of ad time booked is already booked from October 1 through the election.*   86% of that remaining ad spend will focus on the 7 battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.*   Pennsylvania has a chance at seeing the largest ad spend, including Senate GOP candidates.   *Source: CNN   What advertisers can do to survive the final rush of political clutter. While making a drastic decision to wait out the rest of the election season is an option, there are plenty of better ways to make intelligent use of your marketing resources. Consider these top 5 options:   Look beyond overcrowded channels: While traditional...

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GEN Y: OUR BIGGEST & BADDEST GENERATION

In our continuing series on generational marketing, we’re moving down the timeline from Gen Z to Gen Y. Among the media and marketing worlds, the two generations are often lumped together for their similarities. Both are associated with a prominent tendency to shop online and through social channels. That’s also where they get their news and entertainment.   Gen Y and Gen Z are also lumped together for their world view and politics. According to a report from the Centre for the Future of Democracy at the University of Cambridge, they are more disillusioned with democratic politics than Generation X or baby boomers were at the same stage of life. That comes as no surprise in the U.S. where the presidential and congressional seats are filled with Boomers. Time will tell if this election cycle changes any of that.   How Gen Y differs from generations before and after  They’re the biggest: Generation Y/Millennials, born...

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GEN Z’s Rapid Economic Recovery: What You Need to Know

As the college class of ’24 launches their mortar boards into the air, they should be celebrating more than academic achievement. They navigated the social and educational perils of COVID 19 and came out of it with unrivaled economic success.   According to CNN, the unemployment rate for recent college grads ages of 21 to 24 has recovered more than 2.5 times faster than after the Great Recession of the late 2000s. Better still, fewer of them are underemployed compared to Gen Y, which bodes well for their economic success and the marketers who have goods and services to sell to them.   SOURCE: Economic Policy Institute   Gen Z from A to …uh… Z Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z, along with the tail end of Gen Y, share some defining traits that should shape how we marketers approach them. Here are our top 5:   Behold THE mobile tech generation: Gen Zers knew how to...

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Keeping Pace with Social Media in 2024

New Networks. New AI Tools. Facebook turned 20 last month. Twitter/X turns 18 this month. Teens who quickly adapted to TikTok are now graduating college. Yeah, time flies. And as Einstein taught us, time is relative. A year in social media marketing must be the equivalent to at least 50 years in non-digital media. We could easily miss the dawn of the next big thing while figuring out Meta’s latest targeting options (updated this month). On that note, we’ve compiled some novel social media trends that deserve our attention.   New Networks: At the very least, keep these on your radar.   Threads: Built by the Instagram team, Threads is sold as a safer alternative to the free-for-all that is Twitter/X. The big difference is that Threads gives users more control. You can control who replies to or mentions you and limit replies to select groups. You can also post longer messages (550 characters along...

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UNCOVERING THE MARKETING POWER OF SWEEPSTAKES

Door Dash “All the Ads” Super Bowl Giveaway   If you caught the post-Super Bowl Late Show, you heard Stephen Colbert joke that, “For the second time in Super Bowl history, we went to extra innings, so I think we all know the real winners were CBS ad sales.” This is in no doubt true with advertisers paying up to $7 million to air a spot. But as curious marketers, we would argue that the real winners were Door Dash’s in-house studio and their agency Wieden+Kennedy Portland who pulled off the biggest Super Bowl giveaway ever.   Announced on January 30th, Door Dash promoted an “All the Ads” sweepstakes that would DoorDash all of the items advertised during the Super Bowl to one lucky winner. You can find the full list of items here. Ahead of the game, the outrageous giveaway gained huge momentum online. This boost in awareness coupled with message of Door...

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Does direct mail have a powerful role in your 2024 marketing mix?

Here are 5 reasons it should. In a world of ad blockers and spam folders, direct mail feels like a safe haven for marketers and consumers alike. Even new brands are turning to direct mail to make a larger impact on key audiences. In a USPS survey, 72% of Gen Z respondents said they're "excited to discover what the mail brings every day."   Let’s hit the pause button on the AI and social media hype and rediscover the power of direct mail. You may want to reshuffle the marketing mix for your 2024 campaigns.   Reason #1: High Open Rates. According to Earthweb, the average person receives 100 to 120 emails per day with an open rate of between 20 and 40%. On the other hand, people in the U.S. receive an average of just 2 pieces of marketing mail per day. The Association of National Advertisers reports that up to 90% of direct mail gets...

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Why Holiday Giving Is Good Business #GivingTuesday #HolidayGiving

Amid the holiday madness and crass consumerism, a message of charitable giving is a welcome break. Whether it’s a simple round-up for charity or company-wide philanthropic campaign, small businesses and large corporations alike are finding value in having a larger purpose.   Even if it’s driven by greed or narcissism, the act of giving is good!   Benefiting society is important to business because it meshes with what consumers want. Based on a recent survey by global consultancy Bain & Company, environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) has become a top-three key purchasing criterion for more than half of consumers! As a result, companies who score highest in ESG are enjoying 5X revenue growth compared to those who score badly.   How are consumer businesses sharing the wealth this holiday season?   With the Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday season here, keep an eye out for campaigns with a philanthropic spin. Here’s a sampling of...

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5 TOP TRENDS THAT RESHAPED MARKETING IN 10 YEARS

Our undying love of digital media over the past decade has driven a historic revolution in marketing. Such massive transformations are rare but not unprecedented. The shift from outdoor signage to print (16th century) and then print to radio and TV (20th century), were also driven by new technology.   Welcome to the New Age, to the new age…   That refrain from Imagine Dragon’s Radioactive in 2012 couldn’t have been more on point. The digital media revolution was in full swing and by 2019 it had surpassed print and television as the dominant advertising medium.   The fact that we witnessed the shift to a new age of advertising is amazing and challenging. The digital age is unlike any other in its worldwide scale, diversity of channels and mind-bending rate of change. To help us all stay ahead of the curve, here are the top 5 trends that have re-shaped marketing over the past 10...

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Who do you follow for inspiration?

Ideas and advice can come from anywhere outside of your own brain. The challenging part in our age of information overload is separating the wheat from the chaff as the old expression goes (and as expressions go, that’s one of the oldest with roots in the Bible).   We’ve filtered out a lot of noise and distilled our list of experts down to a comfortable number of sources to follow. Whether you’re in a creative rut and need some inspiration, looking for latest marketing trends, or simply want to spend your screen time reading something that will enrich your career/business, this is for you.   Mostly Creative:   Design Taxi: Since 2003, we’ve been gaining inspiration from brilliant ad campaigns and new product designs featured on their website. It’s no surprise that they have over 400,000 followers. If you crave new ideas or fear missing out on the innovative campaign everyone is talking about, tune in. Twitter   Creative...

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The DCI Team enjoyed a festive holiday luncheon and white elephant gift exchange last week at Trattoria San Nicola. So nice to see everyone IN PERSON! Happy Holidays 🎄! ...

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🎉 We are thrilled to announce that Direct Choice, Inc., in partnership with @centercityfilmvideo , won two Telly Awards! 🎥✨
🥈 Silver Telly in the Insurance category for Jefferson Health Plans` "Reshape Your Medicare" campaign
🥉 Bronze Telly in the Insurance category for Blue Cross NC`s "Yes Plan 2" campaign
A huge thank you to our incredible team and partners for their dedication and creativity. We couldn`t have done it without you! Here`s to many more successful campaigns ahead. 🥂
#TellyAwards #DirectChoice #CenterCityFilmAndVideo #BlueCrossNC #JeffersonHealthPlans #AwardWinningCampaign
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Had a little sprinkle last week for our Production Director, Tom Mellon! He and his wife Marghi are expecting an addition to the family in May. Delicious lunch @whitedogwayne ! Best Wishes Tom and Marghi!! ...

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Direct Choice was honored to present this check to Alex Archawski from the Greater Philadelphia Veterans Network (GPVN). GPVN’s mission is making Greater Philadelphia the Best Place For Veterans. #phillyvets #gpvn #communitymatters #givingback ...

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To celebrate the sentiments of peace, love and understanding, this year we are contributing to the Greater Philadelphia Veterans Network, who work to make our city the best place for Veterans. Happy Holidays from Direct Choice Inc!
#Phillyvets #GPVN #HappyHolidays
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A fun time and great food at our annual holiday luncheon and gift exchange held @autographwayne! Many alcohol-related gifts beginning with the letter “I”! Thanks Nick! (We missed you Beth!) #happyholidays #whiteelephant #funholidaytimes ...

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Had a fun and informative time at the @BCAPhilly Hospitality Breakfast last Friday. Speaker @TarynSouthern gave a thought-provoking presentation focused on how AI is changing our world. #ai #aimarketing #bcaphilly ...

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Proud to report that Direct Choice picked up 2 Benny Awards last night in the digital/social media marketing categories - Congrats to All!! #pdma #bennyawards #socialmediamarketing #digitalmarketing ...

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This holiday season, we’re continuing to support @philabundance to help them end hunger in our local communities. Happy Holidays from Direct Choice Inc! #philabundance #happyholidays ...

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Kudos for Direct Choice at the PDMA Benny Awards last night. DCI won the top award in 3 categories PLUS WON BEST IN SHOW! Congrats to ALL #PDMA #bennyawards ...

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