Post written by Kat McDaniel, Chief Innovator at MEDiAHEAD | Marketing Portal Guru | Variable Data Promoter | Analytics Advocate | Explorer

Personalization using data is much more than simply addressing a piece of direct mail.

By using your data and analytics, and segmenting customers, marketers can craft a personalized piece of direct mail that speaks to the customer. This usually generates a much better response and ROI.

Years ago we encouraged one of our customers, the YMCA, to let us analyze their yearly campaign to attract new members in January.

They dropped hundreds of thousands of postcards after the holidays, hoping to encourage people to adopt a healthier lifestyle and participate in the many programs they offered.

We analyzed 10 years of data and segmented their potential members into five categories.

They then developed a campaign with different photos, an offer and copy to appeal to each category.

We also matched up the categories with the “most likely to join” people in a 5-mile radius around the centers.

Instead of mailing 900,000 random postcards, we only mailed to 220,000 to very targeted households.

The overall response was five times more than a random mailing.

Even better, the YMCA saved the print cost and postage on 680,000 households!

I’ve always appreciated that the YMCA’s CMO was so forward-thinking and innovative many years ago when not many companies approached their marketing this way.

Using data and analytics in your marketing effort saves time, money, and yields better results.

To find out how we can help you and your company put your data and analytics to work, give us a call today!

Post written by Kat McDaniel, Chief Innovator at MEDiAHEAD | Marketing Portal Guru | Variable Data Promoter | Analytics Advocate | Explorer

One of those small comforts has come to be Fred Rogers’s famous advice to look for the helpers.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news,” Rogers said to his television neighbors, “my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

I attended the 70 over 70 Awards luncheon recently. This event recognized older adults in our community who are doing good works all over our great city.

The event was put on by the Sheperd’s Center whose mission is to help older adults live healthy, engaged and independent lives.

They honored the many outstanding adults who are passionate people and who give their time every day to enhance our community. Thank you Kelly Jander for organizing this wonderful event!

Wouldn’t it be helpful if we all worked to make our community better like these older adults through contributions of talent, funds and most precious, our time?

On a personal note…

I’m engaged to a wonderful caring man who gave up his career at 60 to teach in the inner city schools for five years.

He’s inspired all of us at MEDiAHEAD to volunteer in our community and to help people who are less fortunate than we are.

Just knowing him has made me a better person.

Teaching is hard, both physically and mentally. He writes lesson plans every night to make sure he’s prepared for the next day.

And it can be frustrating because so many children in the school system are far below their grade level in reading and math.

One of the reasons I LOVE our city is because there are so many helpers here who are so generous with their time and money.

Be a helper. Give a little. Give a lot. Change the world.

Post written by Kat McDaniel, Chief Innovator at MEDiAHEAD | Marketing Portal Guru | Variable Data Promoter | Analytics Advocate | Explorer

I never came home from school and didn’t see my mother with a book in her hand.

My parents always read in the evenings and on vacations in front of me and my three sisters. They instilled a love of reading in me at a very young age.

My father would take me to the bookstore on Saturday mornings. Each time, I was allowed to pick out one book to add to our library at home. It was never anything I considered fun – he started me on the classics, which were pretty painful to read at that age.

I also worked in the school library and was a pretty shy, nerdy kid – always with a book in my hand. People who know me now can’t imagine that I was painfully shy until after college.

Most of my peers read tons of business books. I just can’t do it. Why? Because I read to escape, to distract, to travel, and to visualize imaginary worlds.

Most people will tell you that PRINT is dead, but we still consume books—we just do it differently now.

According to a new survey from Pew Research, about three-quarters of us (74 percent) have read at least one book in any format in the past 12 months.

That figure has remained relatively unchanged since 2012. Most (67 percent) have read a print book. Fewer have read an e-book (26 percent) or listened to an audiobook (18 percent).

I’m currently reading 10 books that Afar recommended about adventurous hikes that people have done all over the world.

My favorite so far is Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail by Carrot Quinn. Thru-hiking is hiking a long-distance within one hiking season.

As most of you know, I have a son that has been a thru-hiker since he was 18. He’s hiked in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, India, the Himalayas, the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the Moab and the Grand Canyon.

He also biked through Australia for two years, lived in New Zealand and crewed on a boat in the Pacific.

I wish I’d been brave enough at his age to see all the incredible things he has. For now, I’ll have to be content to hear his stories and read about the incredible hikes other people have done all over this beautiful planet.

What about you? What books are you reading right now? What are your favorites?

Post Author: Michele Stillwell, Marketing Distribution Portal Enthusiast | Marketing Guru | Accounting Shark | Lover of All Animals

Half Way, Baby! #KATSTRONG

Remember my blog post titled Kathryn McDaniel – Perseverance Personified?

Perseverance means to not give up.

It’s persistence and tenacity.

It’s doing something and keeping at it, no matter how hard it is. 

With that in mind, I wanted to take a few minutes to bring you up-to-speed on Kat’s condition and treatment.

Kat has been keeping up with her treatments and it definitely hasn’t been easy.

We’ve all watched her come and go, week to week, in and out of KU getting stuck again and again.

I’ll be honest…it made me tear up as I wrote this post.

Anyone who knows Kat knows she’s not a quitter.

She is strong and just keeps getting stronger. We’re so incredibly lucky to have her and we’re inspired by her every day.

The great news is that she is HALF WAY THERE!!! And…. all of her tests keep coming back cancer free!!!

We’re so grateful for this wonderful news and we just had to share it with all of you.

If you haven’t come by to see Kat, drop in sometime and say hello. She’s trying to be in the office more and more.

Even more impressive, she still keeps that incredible smile and keeps laughing, even though we’re sure she’s not always feeling well.

We’re so thrilled to have this great news.

All we need to do is keep encouraging her for the next six months. She can and will do it!

Kat takes PERSEVERANCE to the next level!

Post written by Kat McDaniel, Chief Innovator at MEDiAHEAD | Marketing Portal Guru | Variable Data Promoter | Analytics Advocate | Explorer

“Today my heart broke into a million little pieces…”

When those words, that I’d written eight years ago, rolled across my Facebook feed memories recently, it almost stopped my heart.

I’d just come from the KC Chamber Top Ten lunch with my daughter Amy and Andy Rieger (who was Tom’s son).

Had it really been eight years since Tom Rieger passed?

Anyone who knew Tom Rieger will tell you that he was one of the nicest people, both professionally and personally, that they’d ever met.

Later in his career, after he left the banking world, Tom managed sports teams including the Blades, the Comets and the KC Explorers. He had an extraordinary ability to bring people from all walks of life together for a common cause.

Another name for what he was able to do, and the phrase we hear often today, is build great “corporate cultures”.

Corporate culture is made up of the beliefs and behaviors that determine how a company’s employees and management interact and handle outside business transactions.

Often, culture is implied and not expressly defined. Or it develops organically over time from the owners, management or the cumulative traits of the employees.

When you look at the overall job market today you’re likely not going to get very far without hearing people tossing the phrases “culture fit” and “company culture”, and assuming that everyone is talking about the same thing.

The whole conversation wouldn’t even matter if corporate culture had no impact on business success.

The reality is that it does.

A lot.

It’s a lesson every business owner should know, learn and live…take care of your employees first and they will take care of your clients.

And no one quite understood that like Tom Rieger.

I miss him every single day.