I
could of course finish this article right now, because that is the answer. You
simply need to select the most appropriate tool, or in this case channel, for
whatever it is that you are trying to achieve or communicate. But that would be
a little like attending a Rolling Stones concert and watching them leave the
stage after performing only the first two verses of ‘Satisfaction’. So yes, dear
reader, I do believe that you are entitled to a slightly bigger bang for your buck.
So, let’s start the discussion by identifying two kinds of marketers. On the one
hand we have the Neo Marketers. They are the new marketers who believe that
marketing only began after the invention of the internet. In the other corner we
have what we can describe as ‘The Old Farts’ which group includes the writer
of this article who has been plying his trade for more years than he cares to
remember. (Actually that last statement is not true. It has nothing to do with
caring to remember, I just can’t remember.)
Now it’s highly likely that the Neo Marketers (who hereafter shall be abbreviated
to the NMs) subscribe to the view that was propagated some time ago by Gary
Hamel.
The Wall Street Journal
recently acknowledged him as the world’s most
influential thinker. Gary lifted a piece of wisdom from the Navaho Indians that
goes like this. ‘When the horse is dead, get off it.’ Nothing wrong with that as
long as you are sure that the horse is dead.
And that is where, at the risk of getting on to my hobby horse, the NMs might
be getting it wrong.
As an Old Fart (OF) I have absolutely nothing against the new stuff. In fact, I stand
in awe of what we are able to do these days. I’m a huge fan of adwords, affiliate
marketing, ALT tags, backlinks, behavioural targeting, CMS and CPCs and CTRs,
eye-tracking, link building, mobile marketing, opt-in and opt-out, referral links,
RSS, SEM, SOE, stickiness and yield management – to name just a few. As an OF,
I pride myself on actually knowing what some of these are. But I do believe that
much of the old stuff still has merit and when you combine it with the new stuff
it becomes even more powerful.
Let me give you a case study. Some time ago, the UK NLRI (National Lifeboat
Rescue Institute) came to the realisation that it was burying most of its donors …
and not at sea. They were simply aging. So here was the challenge. How do you
bring an institution like the NLRI to the attention of a much younger audience?
There is little doubt that the NMs would have proposed a digital solution. And
who am I to say that it would not have worked. But what the NLRI did do was to
send a three dimensional mail pack to just 12 individuals. Before you decide that
this was an insane strategy, just stay with me for a couple more minutes …
The 12 packs were designed around the known individuals based on what they
revealed about themselves in the social media space (e.g. one recipient was a
keen muso, so his pack featured a microphone and associated messaging). These
packs encouraged these influencers to start using their connections to promote
the work done by NLRI. The campaign resulted in over 1 million messages,
comments and responses. All this from just 12 mail packs. The secret here,
of course, as with all direct marketing, was to get the right message to the
right person. In this case they were 12 of the UK’s youngest and most
influential bloggers.
Sometimes of course digital does stand alone. For example, we are just starting
to understand, using some very clever analytical tools, how powerful the social
media space can be for lead generation. When I think of all the hours spent
developing predictive models, all we have to do now is to listen to what
consumers are saying. And even if they don’t tell us what they are about to
do, there are an awful lot of proxies that will outperform any predictive model.
I guess this is what you could call a dark horse. That does make those old
accepted response rates of 2 percent (and 5 percent if you were lucky) look
rather shabby. This does, of course, still beg the question as to what is the
most effective way to engage?
So, now allow me to get back onto my high horse. All of this misses the point that
sometimes it’s just a very good idea to use traditional direct media like direct mail
and telemarketing …
In a country like South Africa not everyone has access to e-mail and the web. We
also know that in certain sectors of the community printed manner carries huge
credibility. In one set of campaigns for new retail account activation we were
able to achieve a consistent 9 percent response from direct mail and less than
0,5 percent from e-mail using the same profiling and scoring.
At the other end of the demographic spectrum we recently used three
dimensional mail packs to sell massively expensive TV sets to high net
worth individuals. These TV sets cost nearly R400 000 each. From an ROI
point of the view the campaign was extremely successful.
If you can push the right people to invite an outbound call, you should be able to
achieve conversion rates of up to 50 percent.
From experience we know that mail is still one of the most effective ways to
recruit donors for charities. And guess which channel is currently working best
of all in this space. The answer to that question is Face to Face Fundraising. Yes,
actually just talking to people in the real world. That’s about as far away from
digital as it is possible to get.
Here’s another fact that many people do not know, Google spends 75 percent of
its ad budget on direct mail.
I would hate to be a marketing manager in today’s world that presents such a
plethora of media options. What I do know is that the story of the Emperors
Clothes still contains more than a grain of truth. (If you didn’t have the
opportunity, as I did as a child, to read this story in book I suggest you go
Google it.) It’s a story, by Hans Christian Andersen, about two weavers who
promise the Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those unfit for
their positions, stupid and incompetent. When the Emperor paraded before
his subjects it took a child to shout out, ‘But he isn’t wearing anything at all!’
The moral of the story … it’s all too easy to get seduced by the latest new
thing and not to want to look stupid when everyone else around you is
using the same assumptions and making similar choices – albeit that
they might be false.
I hope I have made it clear that I am the last person to look a gift horse in the
mouth. I love all the new stuff that is so wholeheartedly espoused by the NMs. I
can do things today that I couldn’t even dream of say 10 years ago. My concern
is that whilst, I as an OF, respect the world that the NMs inhabit, I am not so sure
that the respect is reciprocated. Hence the old saying ‘You can take a horse to
water but you can’t make it drink!’
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we still have much to give and much
to learn from each other.
So, hopefully after reading this piece you are all chomping at the bit to get stuck
in to the use of channel appropriate marketing. And don’t forget that you heard
this message from the horse’s mouth.
Nex Media •
Vol 2 Issue 3
51
