Rational Marketing

Author: Catherine

  • Creating More Value in the Mail

    DMNews published a story about trends in marketing campaigns that stress customers’ ideas of “value”.

    US consumer spending grew at the fastest rate in three years during the first quarter of 2010, according to figures from the Commerce Department. Overall spending grew 3.6%, with spending on durable goods increasing 11.3%. For nondurable goods, the increase was 3.9% and for services, 2.4%. These figures suggest the worst of the recession may be over, but it doesn’t paint a clear picture of what the consumer will do next.

    The power of putting money back in consumers’ wallets explains the growing popularity of coupons. NCH Marketing Services reports that coupon distribution rose 11% in 2009, while redemption rates have increased consistently over the past six quarters. According to a recent Nielsen report, direct mail is the second-fastest growing redemption method for coupons, posting a 69% jump in 2009.

    Price promotions aren’t the only way to a consumer’s heart. Sprint does a good job providing value and relevance to consumers in its communications, including direct mail. Over the past year, the company has shifted its focus away from acquisition toward more loyalty- and customer retention-oriented efforts. There is so much more information about your customer base, so it is a lot easier to get relevant and meaningful. In February 2009, Sprint introduced a complimentary loyalty program for wireless customers and is promoting it through direct mail and e-mail. A mailed welcome package details the benefits of the program.

    Determining your customer base’s definition of “value” will drive the right direct mail strategy.

    The economy has made things tough for everyone but, in the end, mailing successfully means being able to tap into what’s going on in consumers’ minds. As marketers, we are responsible for giving customers what they want, and at this particular time, that means value.

  • The “WOW!” Number

    A recent Harvard Business Review Blog asked, “What Surprising Number Will Change Your Business?”

    Numbers are the universal language of business. We use them to win approval for product introductions, to attract investors for our startup ideas, to make the case for expanding into new markets or entering new categories. In other words, numbers, when used well, tell a compelling story.

    Marketing and advertising is about big ideas. But it is also very much about numbers: budgets, ratings, impressions, ROI. Which brings us to the search for the “Wow!” Number, and why one piece of data may be worth a thousand words.

    Here are a few such numbers.

    • 70% of teens who abuse prescription drugs get them from home.
    • 80% of women plan to exclusively breastfeed; only 20% actually do.
    • Many are in front of whiteboards 4 hours a day, but only use them for 4 minutes.
    • 80% of people age 45+ consider changing careers; only 6% actually do.

    Why do these numbers tell a story? Because they’re simple and easy to understand. Because they’re human and easily relatable. Because they surprise us, and/or capture the gap between intentions and actions.

    And how do you get to such numbers? Juxtapose: “Put related numbers together to create new information.” Try different contexts: “What’s the social angle? The green angle? Put it in terms of time, or length, or volume.” Turn them over: “2% one way might not be as interesting as 98% the other way.”

    However you choose to rethink your approach to numbers, it’s an important way to address a huge missed opportunity. Business isn’t just a battle of products and services. It’s a battle of ideas about priorities, opportunities, values, and value. Ultimately, those competing ideas get reduced to competing numbers. So, if you can arrive at numbers that matter, you’ve got a better chance at winning the battle of ideas.

    We have told you some surprising numbers about mail in the last few months:

    More than 70% of Gen Yers (born 1977-1994) and Gen Xers (born 1965-1976) sort their mail immediately

    76% of internet users were directly influenced to buy an item or service thanks to direct mail

    78% of email recipients do not open the message, so that means that 94.1% of email recipients are not clicking through to landing page

  • What about Doodling

    In a blog post titled “Does doodling make you smarter?” the author presented some facts from: “What does doodling do?” from Applied Cognitive Psychology, Volume 24 Issue 1, Pages 100 – 106

    Doodling is a way of passing the time when bored by a lecture or telephone call. Does it improve or hinder attention to the primary task? To answer this question, 40 participants monitored a monotonous mock telephone message for the names of people coming to a party. Half of the group was randomly assigned to a doodling condition where they shaded printed shapes while listening to the telephone call. The doodling group performed better on the monitoring task and recalled 29% more information on a surprise memory test.

    The act of touching and feeling something could be a factor in this doodling study. We shared about the power of touch and how that helps response rates. Is it time for you to use mail to put something that can be touched and felt in your customers’ hands?

  • Scott Berkun’s 10 Innovation Myths

    BNET recently summarized a book on innovation, ‘The Myths of Innovation’ by Scott Berkun. Berkun is a writer and speaker and former manager at Microsoft:

    1. The myth of the epiphany: If many innovations are described as magical moments, the truth is often more complex: hard work is required and the Eureka moment often comes at the end of that process.
    2. We understand the history of innovation: Most of the stories we read about innovation aren’t real. Google wasn’t a search engine to start with, nor was Flickr a photo sharing platform. Most innovations are the results of errors, changes and corrections.
    3. There is a method for innovation: Despite our attraction to recipes, innovation is essentially a leap into the unknown, method for innovation is an oxymoron.
    4. People love new ideas: Changing one’s habits is always a challenge, and that is true of customers too, so says Geoffrey Moore’s ‘Crossing the Chasm‘. There is no end to the list of rejections and outright hostility from the critics that innovators have to face.
    5. The lone inventor: We like stories in which a genius single-handedly changed the world: Edison invented the electric light; Ford invented the automobile — neither is quite the case. More usually, successful companies are often started by a group of people, or by developing others’ innovations.
    6. Good ideas are hard to find: Ideas are everywhere, not just found in a brainstorm session.  Most come through trial and error. Picking other people’s brains and making notes of the ideas they have had but have never had the pluck to implement. “It would be so nice if we could…” is often my starting point for innovation.
    7. Your boss knows more about innovation than you: Berkun argues that managers can make decisions that others can’t but this doesn’t mean that they always know what to do. Managers can be afraid of innovation because it undermines their own position of authority.
    8. The best ideas win: There is a common assumption that the inventions for the job are the most successful. There are so many counter-examples such as the QWERTY keyboard , HTML and JavaScript and the M-16 rifle. There are seven factors that drive product success: culture, dominant design, inheritance and tradition, politics, economics, subjectivity and short-term orientation.
    9. Innovations happen by chance: You can’t produce great innovations unless you are able to spell out clearly the specific problems that the innovation is meant to solve and how it does it. Believing that serendipity plays a major role in innovation is a product of the myth of the epiphany.
    10. Innovation is always good: Rudolf diesel is said to have committed suicide when he realised that his invention would only be bought by the military. His innovation was being used to do harm and kill people, not to do good and improve people’s lives. Other examples abound quoted by Berkun in his book are DDT and personal computers which has created a digital divide in global society.

    We hope you will be encouraged as you seek new innovative ways to reach and talk to your customers.

  • People Still Want Mail

    In a recent LinkedIn discussion a member of the group overheard a conversation at a table in a restaurant between two couples…

    … One couple recently bought a home, and they were excited about it. Although they had the new address for a couple of months, they were disappointed that they haven’t gotten any mail yet. They weren’t talking about personal mail or bills – they were talking specifically about retail offers, coupons, and personalized direct mail pieces. They mentioned that the couple in the house next to them had received offers – and the couple without mail was actually jealous of them…

    Direct mail is desired! Especially to new homeowners. We offer lists of new homeowners and are happy to talk to you about ways we can help you reach them.

  • Use Envelopes To Drive Response

    The DMNews told a story of how several companies have had success with envelope customization. Marketers are making use of recent developments in printing and production technology to enhance the outer envelope with customized messages, four-color printing and other embellishments.

    “The more information we can put on the outside of the envelope without it looking funky, the more apt recipients are to open it,” says Kelli Adkins, VP of integrated services at Prime, a commercial printer.

    The printer found in its own mailings that the second-best response mechanism is a No. 10 envelope printed “with enough pertinent information on it,” Adkins notes. Some of that information includes a general URL address that enables Prime to track how many people responded.

    A telecommunications company decided it wanted its mailing “to stand out.” It asked for a coated stock, closed-faced envelope with a six-word tagline and the customer’s first name printed in black on the front. More than 2 million pieces were dropped and the effort produced “a high lift” in response. The additional cost for printing the tagline “was minimal”.

    For many marketers the primary concern is keeping costs to a minimum, which is why more aren’t currently taking advantage of the prime real estate on the outside of the envelope, industry sources say.

    Four-color printing, which has come down in price, is another strategy mailers can use to create an envelope with impact. “With all of us trying to make our dollars work harder for us, the envelope is a good place to start your dialogue with your target audience”.

    Talk to us about how we can help you lift your response with the right hot spots.

  • Business to Business Data Management

    The Wellesley Hills Group published a study about trends in Lead Generation. They found leads generated by companies fall into one of three categories, 25% were ready to be contacted by a salesperson, 50% of the leads need more “nurturing”, and 25% were not really qualified to be leads.

    We want to help you with nurturing your sales leads. Before you can sell your service or product to an organization you will need to educate your customers about what problems you solve, provide some specific information, solidify your reputation, give some specific answers and perhaps tell about a case study.

    Direct mail is a great way to communicate some or all of this information because not only will you be guiding your prospects through a stepped process to get them ready for your sales staff, you are also putting something that can be touched and felt into their hands.

  • Waste, Signal of Economic Growth?

    The Harvard Business Review highlighted a story from Bloomberg about the number of US rail cars filled with waste as an indicator of economic growth.

    The stories stated that the number of cars jumped to 79,044 in April and May 2010, an increase of 45% from a year earlier, according to the Association of American Railroads. That’s the biggest such increase since at least 1994. The cargo consisted of iron and steel (42%), municipal waste and demolition products (32%), paper (11%), ashes (5%), nonferrous metals (4%), miscellaneous (4%), and chemical waste (1%).

    This is an unusual statistic and source of optimism about the economy, but something that has not gone up since 1994 got our attention.

  • A Data Rock Star?

    This term got some attention in a few blogs last month. What exactly is a data rock star? A steward who understands both the complex intricacies of data management as well as the larger business challenge. A data rock star can provide guidance on both the IT and business side on how to make the data work for the business.

    The author of “Data Quality From The Ground Up” suggested attributes and behaviors to further define and clarify a true data rock star.

    • Excellent communicator of business and IT concepts using common language
    • Ability to link information to business value
    • Seeks out and is receptive to advice and continuously provides the opportunity for others to provide it
    • Understands the link between clarifying expectations and how that will lead to success
    • Ability to engage and enthuse others, understands and considers body language, communication preferences, motivations and needs of others
    • Spots opportunities and takes advantage of them, especially in ways that others are unaware of
    • Pushes the boundaries in order to change things and does so in a way that others are unaware the boundary is being pushed
    • Exerts authority and uses it appropriately – all the while smiling and engaging others
    • Identifies key success measures from both business and IT perspective
    • Is well liked and respected – this will ensure access to resources, tools, other stakeholders, hidden information and will help pave the way through political and cultural roadblocks
    • Able to articulate solutions as practical and logical and tie them directly to group/organizational goals

    The elevation of data experts and their importance to marketing and the entire organization is another reminder to keep working on your own database. Is there anything that we can do to help you with your customer list?

  • Empathy Improves Response

    The Boston Globe reported that 62% of patients receiving intentionally fake treatment from friendly, empathetic doctors reported relief from their irritable bowel syndrome. This high number compared with 44% of a group that got the same fake treatment from impersonal, businesslike doctors.

    Science is confirming that people respond much better to friendliness that demonstrates an understanding of their needs.

    How can we help you translate this to your marketing? Do you want to append your customer list to get a better understanding of who they are? Can we help translate what you already know about your customers into new messages?