The other night my husband, 5 month old daughter and I video chatted simultaneously with my parents who live in LA, and my sister who just moved to Chicago. My sister was able to give us a virtual tour of her new apartment and everyone was thrilled to be able to see my daughter chat away. It got me thinking about what sort of world my daughter is growing up in. She is only 5 months old and I am already exposing her to the computer and all of the amazing technology available to keep people connected. I can’t even imagine what she will be doing when she is in elementary school, or high school for that matter. How advanced is technology going to get? How will she be communicating with peers, family and her parents? Will Facebook and Twitter be part of her day to day life or will they be a distant memory? I am going to seem like a dinosaur when I explain to her that when I left for college I didn’t have an email address, or even cell phone, and I had to go to the library to gather research from actual books for assignments. That was not very long ago so it goes to show how quickly things have changed over the past few years. Will we maintain the same pace?

Salesforce.com is widely regarded as the premier Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool available in the market place today.  The platform has seemingly endless applications for sales and relationship-driven business; and because it is a hosted solution it requires very little maintenance.  EDU Interactive has worked with the Salesforce.com platform for several years delivering leads into the system in real time via the Application Programming Interface (API).  What has proven most interesting about Salesforce.com is that each of our clients on the platform uses the software in slightly different ways to facilitate enrollment.  This has a lot to do with the fact that Salesforce is highly customizable.  Our clients are leveraging the customization suite to build the system that suits their enrollment needs.

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Vertical Response recently addressed five good reasons why, despite the overtaking of email marketing, direct mail is still an efficient tool.

1. You don’t have email addresses for all of your customers. There is no way that every prospective customer or actually customer has provided you with a correct email address to reach them at, and a simple post card that directs your customers to new deals or alerts is much easier.

2. New customers are going to be hard to find through email lists scrapped from the web, and everyone needs new customers! Buying a list of relevant prospects is completely up to standards, and can quickly be converted into a direct mail piece.

3. If your product is expensive, you might get more of a reaction by putting your product in front of them on a piece of mail.

4. Everyone likes to be welcomed into a new neighborhood or community, and what better way to do that than with a new mover special direct mail offer, or an introduction of your institution that is near by their new home.

5. A direct mail piece gives you a reason to call, as well as telemarket your business. With a postcard offering, you include a reminder that you will be following up, and then call about a week later, and continue to market your product!

Most importantly, it is important to note that a direct mail piece should always include a call to action, a boldly displayed offer, an expiration date, benefits, and of course your company logo. Direct mail is STILL a great way to grab prospective customer’s attention, and direct traffic to your website and product/service.

EDU Interactive recently attended PR Newswire’s panel discussion: “Industries in Flux: Media and Public Relations and the Impact of Social Media.”  Here is a brief overview of some of the important discussions:

* Social Media should not be considered a campaign, but a strategy to build relationships.

* The level of engagement should be the true measure of success, not simply the number of fans, members, or followers.  It’s the time spent, level of interaction, intimacy, and influence.

* Social media should not be used to outright promote a company or product.  Instead it should be used to share expertise, build relationships, create a conversation, and/or be more human.  What is your ultimate goal?

* 60% of people online use social media.  93% believe companies should have a presence in social media.  85% want to interact with select companies and/or brands and 56% feel closer to a brand when they have the opportunity to interact.

Are you interested in raising money for your favorite charity?  Consider getting your message out on one or more social media sites.  Many charity websites reach only those affected by or interested in a particular issue.  They “preach to the choir.”  But social networking sites reach out to everyone, and messages spread quickly.

As noted in the article “Can Twitter and Facebook Help Fight Breast Cancer?” , one of the reasons that social networking posts are so effective in soliciting charitable contributions is that posts are short and sweet.  Readers from all walks of life are more apt to read messages on Twitter or Facebook than other websites because space is limited and messages are “to-the-point.”  Readers are gently “nudged” into making small donations within the framework of their day-to-day lives. 

Many of us are looking for ways to support causes that are especially meaningful to us or to others in our social circles.  Getting the word out on broad social media sites gives more and more people the opportunity to answer the call to give.