(update: even 5 year olds are getting into the act. Friday I was at Best Buy and overheard the following, “But Daddy, it’s Black Friday… Pleeeeeeeease get it for me before the price goes up!”)
Friends and readers: I hope you all had a happy and safe Thanksgiving. I also hope you had a great Black Friday and a killer Cyber Monday despite our current economic circumstances.
I seem to remember not too long ago when Black Friday was just a retail industry term for the one day of the year that could change a company’s P&L from red to black. Somehow the term has crept into our national lexicon and collective psyche. As I went through my e-mails on Thanksgiving morning, I had at couple of dozen sale-oriented e-mails pitching Black Friday sales. Some referenced Black Friday right in the subject line, just so I would know that somethingmore than special would be offered that day. I even got a Black Friday offer from a car dealership.
It certainly seems to me that the media turned this day into the biggest shopping event of the year — just like Presidents Day, Valentine’s Day and other major shopping days. Thanks to the Internet, we also have its sister event, Cyber Monday. Now we have even more competition, as shopping events become clashes worthy of sibling rivalry (or an opportunity for marketing channels to be in sync).
I chose to write this on Friday morning, Nov. 28, after Thanksgiving dinner, feeling mostly recovered from the sleep-inducing agent in my turkey. Others in my family were getting ready to shop, too. My wife was going to hit the mall extra early to beat the traffic, hopefully the crowds too, while scoring the best gifts at a discount. She’ll likely turn Black Friday into an all-day marathon, going in to many stores and spending as much time as possible perusing each rack, end cap and item until she has fully scratched the internal itch that will not let her miss one perfect fit for someone on her shopping list.
As for me, if I never set foot in a mall or retail store again, I’ll be happy. And even when I do go retail, I go with a goal in mind — find it, buy it and get out before some overzealous clerk sprays me with cologne!
Instead, I’ll spend time in the other marketing channels. I’ll shop catalog and Internet, and if I have questions, I’ll pick up a phone and call a toll-free number to clarify. The only exception I may make is for an item-return. To return an item, I may actually drop it off at a retail store, rather than send it back via the mail. I find this easier somehow.
And NO, this isn’t a sexist thing — as in man vs. woman. It’s purely about preference. Some people desire the tactile experience of seeing, feeling and touching. Some don’t. In my younger days, I actually enjoyed the mall shopping experience, but now I don’t. Simple as that.
Points to consider
So why am I telling you this? There’s a moral to my story and it’s quite simple. Know your customers and their shopping patterns. Satisfy their needs in any channel they choose. Also know that shopping preferences change over time. Today’s retail customer may be tomorrow’s Internet shopper and vice versa.
Speak to you next week.
Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing Inc., a full-service catalog and direct marketing agency. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at www.linkedin.com/in/jimwgilbert , or you can e-mail him at jimdirect@aol.com.
Dear Readers. I wish you all a happy healthy Thanksgiving. Be safe, have fun and enjoy your turkey.
As I prepare to take a holiday break, I wanted to let you know how thankful and grateful I am for you and your readership this past year.
And to my readers who are looking to Black Friday and Cyber Monday to make or break your fiscal years, I wish you much luck and customers! My family and I will be doing our parts to stimulate the economy this year. Thanks for hanging tough!
Note to my readers: This article from Paul Miller’s blog does a great job of putting discount holiday shopping into perspective. As an aside, I’ve known Paul for many years and for the last 3.5 he’s been my editor at Catalog Success (now All About ROI) magazine. Paul’s position as Editor in Chief recently got budgeted out of existence. Check out his blog here.
Who knows where we’ll be a year from now, but at least for this season of store and online retail bargains, the killer sales are already going on. Although there will still be big store sales this Friday and probably even bigger ones online next Monday, the big retailers already began to duke it out for the lowest prices earlier this month.
As an article on the front page of Tuesday’s New York Times noted about the biggest store retailer (Wal-Mart) and online merchant (Amazon.com), the gloves have already come off. And as the Times article points out, Wal-Mart has used the media to pick apart Amazon.com’s discounting efforts, trying to ensure the public that its prices will always be the lowest. Meanwhile, Amazon.com has taken more of a high road, noting that bargains can come from all over, not just Wal-Mart.
These two “shopping holidays” haven’t been around all that long. Although Wikipedia tells us that the term “Black Friday” dates all the way back to 1966, it also notes that it didn’t take on a true shopping connotation until 2000. Cyber Monday didn’t hit its stride until just four years ago.
Now, however, with cash-strapped consumers perhaps looking to get back in the shopping game this holiday season, they’re hungrier than ever for a good bargain. Retailers, e-commerce merchants and catalog sellers are equally eager to offer the bargains to show some sort of sales gains this season to make up for the miserable time they’ve had throughout the Great Recession.
Then, you have to factor in the tragedy that took place at a Valley Stream, Long Island, Wal-Mart store just 12 months ago when bargain-hungry shoppers trampled over a defenseless Wal-Mart employee as the store opened at the stroke of 5:00am on Black Friday, fighting their way to the store’s sale items. Wal-Mart announced just last week that although its stores will open at 5am again this Friday, it would keep its stores open a full 24 hours thereafter to try to prevent more The Who’s 1979 Cincinnati concert-like stampedes from occurring again.
What this all adds up to is the likelihood of these two shopping holidays expanding beyond just the two days. This year will offer just a taste of it. Next year could see a considerable expansion of sales days at this time of year.
It’s a trend not unlike the so-called “fifth quarter” of retail business that evolved over the past 20-plus years as the holiday shopping season took on greater and greater importance to retailers, catalog marketers and later, online sellers. What started as a surge of sales immediately following Dec. 25 kept expanding week by week over the years, leading all the way back to this very week we’re now in.
If you can date yourself all the way back to the recession of the early ’80s, you might recall the last extended period of time in American retail when cut-throat discounting reached such levels. As the economy picked up in the mid-’80s, discounting eased up, full-priced retailing edged back and service levels improved. Perhaps that could occur as soon as next year at this time, but I’m guessing that the current state of binge discounting will prevail.
For those of you naysayers who believe that social media is a fad, a toy, or something that cannot drive business robustness, engagement and ROI, I have one word for you…
“Unfriend”
As of yesterday unfriend is the word of the year for 2009. What’s my take? Social media is changing our lives, the way we communicate (social media took over the top spot from email communications by the way), and the way we shop (customers now find us via social channels).
The November issue of All About ROI (formerly Catalog Success) Magazine is on the newsstands (if they even exist anymore). This months cover story is 50 Best Tips of 2009 to drive direct marketing ROI.
Two of the tips, #4 and #15 are from me. Irregardless of that fact, the other 48 tips for direct and multichannel marketers cover everything from channel integration to search to social media and are right on the money.
The Gilbert Direct Marketing Blog is celebrating it’s one year anniversary and my company is celebrating it’s tenth year in business.
So here is a contest for you….
Guess how many blog page views I have had in the last year to win.
Winner gets a free one hour review and recommendation of either your linkedin profile, or your own social media sites. Closest the the exact number of page views wins. Post your answer to the comments below to win. Contest ends 11/30/09.
Note: Click here to see the other contest entries. Post your answer there not here please
Dear friends and readers. Exactly one year ago today the Gilbert Direct Marketing blog was born. Frankly I never expected it to take off the way it did. I want to offer you my readers my sincerest thank you for turning this blog into one of the top rated (99th percentile, based on Grader by Hubspot) direct and social media blogs.
Your comments, both public and private have kept me going.
So here is a contest for you….
Guess how many blog page views I have had in the last year to win.
Winner gets a free one hour review and recommendation of either your linkedin profile, or your own social media sites. Closest the the exact number of page views wins. Post your answer to the comments below to win. Contest ends 11/30/09.
Thanks again, and I am looking forward to another year of posting!
Just when I thought it was safe to believe in the U.S. Postal Service, I find out this lovely tidbit of information: Despite Postmaster General John Potter’s grand statement (or was it a grandstanding statement) that there’d be no postal rate increase in 2010, there’s a giant loophole.
No matter what Potter said in his memo, the USPS can still increase postal rates. Just to be sure, I asked Don Landis, vice president of postal affairs at Arandell Corp., a noted catalog printer/mailer. According to Landis, “It’s possible some mailers could see an increase in their postage come May 2010. The USPS could make regulation changes that would force mail into a more expensive category. We’ll know in January or February.”
How You Can Make a Difference
While I applauded Potter and the USPS for taking a stand for the direct marketing industry in this column two weeks ago, I hope I didn’t speak too soon. I still remain cautiously optimistic, but I also must do my part to help sway the decision. We must hold the postmaster general and the Postal Regulatory Commission to his/its commitment.
Thus, I urge you to write a letter to the postmaster general using the contact information provided below. Here’s the letter I wrote. Feel free to copy, paste and use it, or create your own. The key is to make your voice heard!
Dear Mr. Postmaster General,
You’ve started a trend here. Between the postal summer sale and now this offer to keep postal rates stable in 2010, catalog and direct mailers believe that you may actually be interested in working to our benefit. We look forward to the next postal sale, and hope that the USPS opens it up to smaller mailers to take advantage of. We truly hope that you’ll continue to stop thinking like a bureaucracy and encourage more mail volume with innovative special offers and such.
But direct marketers are also wary because the USPS holds a great deal of power and leverage over us. The last substantial postal rate increase nearly put us under with rate increases of 20 percent-plus. What was the USPS thinking? That move single-handedly drove more and more mailers into the online world. Doing the math, we believe the increase actually caused your revenues to go down due to less mail in the mailstream.
Remember this, Mr. Postmaster General: Every penny more it costs us to mail means we need to generate about 2 cents more per catalog mailed just to break even. In this economy, we need every opportunity we can get to mail our catalogs profitably. We’re struggling to stay alive and keep our workers employed and our customers satisfied.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Postmaster. Please continue this trend.
Sincerely,
The Direct Mail Industry
Reach the postmaster general at the following:
The Honorable John E. Potter
Postmaster General
U.S. Postal Service
475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW
Washington, D.C. 20260-0010
Email: pmgceo@usps.gov
A week ago the USPS Postmaster General sent out a memo stating there would be no postal increase for direct mailers in 2010. This coupled with the recent postal sale are a start that I applaud. It seem that the USPS for the first time may be interested in helping business mailers do business.
But we as direct marketers must keep the pressure on the USPS. We must make our voice heard and hold their feet to the fire to keep the direct and catalog marketing business moving. Therefore I wrote the letter below to the USPS. I urge you to send in your own letter, or use/modify my letter to suit your needs. The Postmaster General’s Contact information is below…
Dear Mr. Postmaster General, You’ve started a trend here. Between the postal summer sale and now this offer to keep postal rates stable in 2010, catalog and direct mailers believe that you may actually be interested in working to our benefit. We look forward to the next postal sale, and hope that the USPS opens it up to smaller mailers to take advantage of. We truly hope that you’ll continue to stop thinking like a bureaucracy and encourage more mail volume with innovative special offers and such.
But we’re also wary. Direct marketers are wary because the USPS holds a great deal of power and leverage over us. The last substantial postal rate increase nearly put us under with rate increases of 20 percent-plus. What was the USPS thinking? That move single-handedly drove more and more mailers into the online world. If we were to do the math, we believe the increase in postage actually caused your revenues to go down due to less mail in the mailstream.
Remember this Mr. Postmaster General: Every penny more it costs us to mail means we need to generate about two cents more per catalog and direct mail piece mailed just to breakeven. In this economy, we need every opportunity we can get to mail profitably. We’re struggling to stay alive and keep our workers employed and our customers satisfied.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Postmaster. Please continue this trend.
Sincerely, The Direct Mail Industry
As to you, my loyal readers, I encourage you to send your letters to the Postmaster General (or just copy mine and send it). Make your voice heard! Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Despite the economy, I still get a lot of mail these days.* And so does my father. The problem is, my father passed away six months ago. His mail now comes to my house, where he gets many great special offers, and a ton of fundraising mailers.
A few months ago, he even got a fundraising offer from the hospital where he passed. That’s the definition of irony, right? And while I miss my Dad terribly, as an accountant he was a frugal, count-your-pennies kind of person who would approved of this article.
Another kind of “do not mail” database:
Don’t mailers know they’re wasting money? Direct mail costs enough these days. So much so that it doesn’t make sense to mail someone who can be easily suppressed from a mailing list.
Introducing the Deceased Suppression File :
Are you aware that there’s something called a deceased file to suppress against? Most mailing houses and service bureaus can easily run your mailing list up against this file before you mail.
I was curious about how many direct and multichannel marketers actually add this to their merge/purge processes before mailings, so I asked Gary Sierzchulski, senior account executive at the service bureau Donnelley Marketing for his take:
“Our deceased file is compiled through information received from the Social Security Administration and is updated monthly. We see virtually all our clients use it on their housefiles once a year; some more often depending on their customers’ demographics. About half our clients use it within the merge itself against rental records.
“Because the deceased suppression is done at an individual level, we see that about a third of our clients still mail to households flagged as deceased, because other members of the household still purchase or the household is still active.”
When I asked Gary about the accuracy of the file, he stated that it’s about 90 percent accurate and added the following: “Every once in the while we get a call from someone who says they’re not dead. It’s due to the misinformation sent to us from the S.S. Administration. That’s why we now use another independent source to verify or provide us with additional names.”
“Donnelley Marketing also uses a proprietary source for additional hits or verification of the data, and we’ve noticed incremental gains in counts.”
What struck me here is that only half of Donnelley’s clients use it within the merge/purge process. Of course this depends on mailing frequency, but if you’re doing merges more than a month apart (depending on updating schedule), the additional cost of adding this suppression to the merge will be outweighed by the savings in printing and postage spent on people who have passed on. Make sense?
* The reason I added the asterisk above is simple: Now is a great time to mail. There’s less clutter in the mailbox, and less clutter means less competition for your offer. Over the next few weeks, I’ll delve into the economy and how it relates to some self-fulfilling prophecies surrounding the direct mail business.
Please note: your comments, criticisms, kudo’s always appreciated. And if you disagree, please call me out, start a duel if you want. Go ahead. Comment away…
While our economy is showing some signs of life, still most people I know are freaked out, totally stressed; and terrified of losing their jobs, homes and more.
It has been tough out there for direct and multichannel marketers.
But all isn’t bad. I swear!
There’s an amazing opportunity in all of this chaos to streamline your business, strip away the dead wood in your budgets and be a rock star in your company.
Here are 10 steps to help you get started:
1. It’s time to renegotiate everything. Start with your key area’s of business — printing, mailing, lists, creative, prepress (oops, I meant premedia).
2. Do a print review. Have your printer bid against other printers. I did this for a turnaround I worked on and was able to reduce printing costs by 20 percent. (Seems my predecessor was asleep at the wheel.)
3. Tweak your catalog’s trim size or basis weight. You may find some cost savings there.
4. Co-mail! This can reduce your postage costs.
5. Take advantage of destination-entry discounts. (Ask your printer about what this and co-mailing entail, and what you can save. Or e-mail me and I’ll explain.)
6. List brokers are offering discounts and test pricing for mail files. Ask and you shall receive.
7. Look for more list exchanges. These can be had for run charges, a fraction of the rental fee.
8. Use the co-op databases, such as I-Behavior, Abacus and NextAction. They’ll model your customers and rent you prospect names for less than list rentals.
9. Do your matchbacks. Make sure you’re analyzing your mailings the best and most accurate way possible.
10. Run NCOALink, merge/purge and other list hygiene products before each mailing. I had a client who had the same name on his database six times. Waste of money! You only need one instance of a name to mail it. Find yourself a great service bureau to steer you to savings.
In two weeks I’ll give you 10 more ways to save money and reach superstar status. In the meantime, if you need any clarifications on these or any other ways to save money, let me know and I’ll work your answer into my next column.
Hang in there!
Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing, a full-service catalog and direct marketing agency. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at www.linkedin.com/in/jimwgilbert or you can post a comment here or e-mail him at jimdirect@aol.com.
In the first part of a two-part series (read part two here) examining the value of convenient and cost-effective return policies for multichannel merchants, this week I provide tips on how to make company guarantees more effective, as well as looking at the benefit of determining why your customers are returning products.
Most consumers perceive the returns process to be a big hassle. Everyone who’s ever bought a product via mail order has at least one horror story about trying to return an item. But, I’ve also heard the opposite. In fact, I’ve heard people brag about how easy the return process is when they’ve had an exceptional experience. Personally, I’m always pleasantly surprised when something I return goes smoothly.
You must have a clear, concise return policy with exceptional customer service when handling returns if you want to compete today. And with the emergence of multichannel marketing, that return policy needs to be seamless throughout all your channels no matter where the purchase is made.
Guaranteed Success:
Take a close look at your guarantee. Can it be stated easily? If it’s too complicated, make it simpler. Make it so easy to understand that if you read it to children, they’d instantly get it.
Also ask yourself these two questions:
1. Do you state your guarantee and return policy clearly?
2. Is it easy to find?
Try this test: Ask someone not in your organization (because I know you’re aware of your own policies) to find them and report back to you. You may be surprised in what you hear.
If your customers feel your guarantee is solid, they perceive less risk when ordering. By reducing the risk, you make it easier for customers to say “yes” to your offering.
You’re Returning This Because?
Most companies’ enterprise software helps track why customers return products. If you don’t know your product return reasons, learn them. By understanding the reasons why your customers return your products, you can make some powerful changes.
For example, a company I worked with analyzed its returns and discovered that the manner in which the product shots in its catalog were photographed weren’t representative of what people received in the mail. By changing how it photographed its products, the company was able to decrease its return rate. The net result: more gross profit!
Click here for the final part of this two-part series, where I delve into how in-house quality control, product exchanges and catalog circulation can impact your organization’s return practices.
Back in the late ’80s I started a publishing company that worked with Realtors to help sell its properties. My goal was to get my publication into prospects’ hands before they bought a home from another real estate firm who wasn’t one of my advertisers. To accomplish this, I came up with a ridiculously high-tech method of reaching potential buyers: I “bulk-dropped” my publication in every supermarket, restaurant and bank that would let me.
And it worked. My company prospered. My clients sold houses. I spent a lot of time teaching my clients how to track their responses on such technological devices as “tick sheets,” where you place a tick mark on the sheet whenever a response came in.
For a time, this was fun. But bulk-drop distribution isn’t the best way to reach prospects. So I racked my 20-something-year-old brain for a better method, but came up empty.
By 1991, I’d had enough. Luckily, one of my former employers was interested in buying the company, so I sold it. “Good riddance,” I said, even though the new owner offered me a standing opportunity to come back to run things.
Come 1993, I had my first proper job in direct marketing and went to New York University for its direct marketing certificate curriculum. A visitor came into my class one night and started talking about this thing called the Internet and its marketing arm, the World Wide Web — with something called a graphical interface. It’s coming, he said, and we entered into this whole speculative, theoretical conversation about direct marketing in the future.
A year later, a girl I was dating showed me the Internet. I asked her, “Where’s the three w’s?” She directed me to Yahoo.com. From what I remember, Yahoo! was a mishmash of totally unrelated links. I was more interested in learning how to instant message people who wanted to do cyber-things that I won’t mention here and laughing with my date over this.
So why the trip down memory lane? Simple! I had every tool necessary to take my publishing company to levels beyond my wildest dreams literally at my fingertips. Some days I look back and think, “If I’d only gotten the concept of the Internet and its vast search capabilities, I could’ve married real estate listings, search and Web sites together.” And become a gazillionaire in the process. In 1993, I could’ve gone back to my former company and made this a reality. If only I’d understood the Internet’s potential!
What’s amazing to me is how the Internet and search have changed everything in such a short time.
I also wonder these days what exactly I’m missing right now, much like I missed in the past. Where’s the next big profit center going to be? The next multimillion dollar idea? Are you thinking? Me too!
Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing Inc., a full-service catalog and direct marketing agency. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at www.linkedin.com/in/jimwgilbert or you can post a comment here or e-mail him at jimdirect@aol.com.
My dad is a C.P.A. who worked for the same accounting firm for 35 years. He had a typical career path: He started at a low-level manager position, worked hard and eventually became partner.
These days, that’s anything but typical. The average employee stays at a company for about two years. Climbing the corporate ladder is now acceptably done by frequently switching jobs.
In essence, there’s no loyalty anymore between employees and their companies — and vice versa — which is a shame. Business continuity, team spirit and other vital relationship ingredients that can provide a positive effect on businesses are all but lost. But businesses are better served by nurturing long-term employees.
(Update: For part 2, click here, for part 3 of the series on linkedin click here)
Building Your Personal Rolodex
I recently read that the goal of business today is about adding new and influential contacts daily to your sphere of influence — i.e., building your networking Rolodex.
Stir in our current economy, with its impersonal, almost random, premature “because we can!” layoffs, and the need for business networking becomes more evident daily.
Which is why business networking Web sites, especially LinkedIn, are becoming the way of the future. LinkedIn is an amazing tool, and if you’re not currently a user, I suggest you join (it’s free). Right now, you can probably find 70 percent of the businesspeople you know using it. Over the next few weeks, I’ll delve into some of the basic and power user features of LinkedIn to help you prepare your network.
Where to Start (Even if You’re Already a User)
Consider this: There are people who are on LinkedIn (they’re listed), and then there those who are proactive in taking advantage of its many powerful features. Regardless of which type of user you may or may not be, I suggest you do four things immediately:
1. Contact everyone you’ve worked with in the past (who is already linked to you) — as well as present — and request to be endorsed.
2. Join as many LinkedIn groups as you can. You’re allowed to join up to 50.
3. And if you haven’t done so already, add “link” requests to all your contacts in all of your address books (and ones who you have worked with, ask them to endorse you).
4. Add your linked in URL to al of your outbound emails, both personal and business.
You also can link to me at www.linkedin.com/in/jimwgilbert. And if you aren’t a LinkedIn member already, by all means spend a few minutes to join.
Check back next week for tips on how to become a LinkedIn power user.
Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing, a full-service catalog and direct marketing agency. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at www.linkedin.com/in/jimwgilbert or you can post a comment here or e-mail him at jimdirect@aol.com.
I’ll keep this column brief (I know you want this week to end. I can’t wait for the advanced stages of tryptophan sleepiness to set in after the turkey is done). Want to add some revenue before the end of the year? Try the following:
1. Add an extra mailing in before the end of the year. Try it this way: After your last mailing is complete, mail one more catalog just to your hotline buyers, those who just responded from your last mailings of the year. If it’s too late to get your printer involved, grab some of your bounce back and office copy catalogs and mail them. Even if you send them out first class, you should still get great response. I’ve done this before and it works.
2. Speaking of bounce backs, add a special offer to your outgoing packages beyond the traditional bounce back book. This gives your customers a compelling reason to make another purchase before the holidays. It’s especially persuasive if you can target your offer to people who are on the receiving end of gifts.
3. Extend the life of an existing catalog by sending a postcard special offer to your best buyers with a last-minute incentive. Try something like this: “Last minute shoppers save (a percentage)” or “Last minute offer! Get a Specially Priced (product here).” Postcards are quick, inexpensive and can drive both catalog and Web traffic.
4. Don’t forget e-mail. Deliver offers right up to the last possible date you can ship product for Christmas.
If you have any additional ideas for last minute marketing tactics, please share them with us by clicking on the link below.
I wish you a safe, happy and healthy Thanksgiving. Thanks for reading! Speak to you next Tuesday.
OK, listen up readers: I really want your opinion on this.
I recently bought a new MacBook Pro from Apple’s Web site. But rather than get rid of my old Mac PowerBook, I decided to update it with the latest operating system. So during a routine check of the old Mac, I noticed there was only half the RAM in the machine than when I originally purchased it. Huh?
I bought the PowerBook four years ago, and my warranty has long since expired. But hey, where’s the RAM that was supposed to be in my Mac?
So expecting nothing, I called Apple and apprised them of the situation. Not unexpectedly, the customer service representative (CSR) told me that my warranty was up — “It’s been four years after all! But let me check something out anyway,” she said. So she put me on hold for about six or seven minutes, (although she did come back on the line a few times to politely let me know she was working on the issue), which was good.
To make a long story short, this incredible CSR then came back on the line and told me she’d spoken with another department, and she’d like me to talk to them. From that point, it unfolded pretty quickly. I spoke for about a minute with someone in the customer care department, and the next thing I knew, I was being told that a 512 megabyte RAM chip was being shipped out to me immediately.
Looking back, I wish I’d gotten the name of the CSR who originally helped me. Whatever she did was above and beyond the call of duty.
If I wasn’t already a Mac fan, I’d certainly be now! Hey Apple, you managed to cement my relationship with you in one call. Bravo!
The moral of the story? I’ve spent a great deal of time writing about customer service issues lately. From my time in this industry, I unfortunately can tell you many more customer service horror stories than positive ones like this. But this story was exceptional, so I had to share.
When evaluating customer service, ask yourself the following questions:
1. How many companies will do that for a customer? 2. Would yours? 3. Do you empower your CSRs to really help customers? To truly solve their problems? 4. Are your CSRs intelligent? Or do you hire the lowest paid people you can find? And if the latter, does that really work for you in the long run?
That’s all customers and prospects really want anyway — to be taken care of. We’re sick of indifferent people handling our problems. Forget road rage: Are your prospects and customers suffering from phone rage?
Comments? Did Apple go too far? I mean, how dare they give something to a customer that calls four years later. And off-warranty, to boot? The nerve having superior, well trained, customer focused representatives on the phone!
Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing Inc., a full-service catalog and direct marketing agency. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at www.linkedin.com/in/jimwgilbert, or you can post a comment here or e-mail him at jimdirect@aol.com.
Last year for Catalog Success Magazine, I wrote a scathing attack on downsizing after reading about Lillian Vernon letting go of 100 employees a mere five days before Christmas. And without any warning! And not just seasonal employees either!
Could there be a more despicable act?
Now with our economy on the brink, massive layoffs are being, uh, for lack of a better term, executed. Unemployment is at 6.5%, and experts and pundits alike are predicting that 1st quarter of 2009, will be even worse.
Therefore, I republish the article here because it’s point is even more valid today than last year. In fact, I know plenty of people who have just lost their jobs, and I find this to be a fitting tribute to those who fell (or more appropriately were pushed) onto their swords at the worst possible time of year.
Here goes…
Now, I’m not against making a profit, but as a direct marketer and direct marketing consultant, I always seek ways to reduce costs rather than cutting staff — a last resort to me — to meet profit goals. Was it really going to kill a multimillion-dollar enterprise’s profits to keep 100 employees, who probably busted their collective butts to help Vernon make its holiday sales numbers, just a few more weeks?
Somebody is waaay out of line here! I know today we live in a pressure-cooker environment, doing business at light speed. Holiday season in retail and mail order, from September on, is intense. But come on, give people a break here. Did Vernon’s management really need to do this?
Many people already find the holiday season stressful, while traditionally it’s supposed to be the “most wonderful time of the year;” a paradox of the times we live in. The last thing someone needs is the ax to fall on them during that time.
My solution to holiday downsizings…
There should be some sort of moratorium on firings the last two months of the year. Let’s extend that out into the third week of January just to be safe. Add that to our list of best practices.
Rant over! Anybody think I could possibly be off base? Let me know.
Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing Inc., a full-service catalog and direct marketing agency. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at www.linkedin.com/in/jimwgilbert or you can e-mail him at jimdirect@aol.com.
These days, I’m always networking. I’m on MySpace and Facebook, and have just started to play around with Twitter and other less known networking sites. Even Plaxo has gotten into the social and business networking game.
But I find LinkedIn to be the best networking tool to use by far. Most LinkedIn users already know how to link to other people in and out of their networks. I wrote about the beginner stuff about a year ago.
That said, there are LinkedIn users and then there are LinkedIn players.
Let’s talk more about how to go from being merely listed on LinkedIn to being a networking “player,” which has helped me get job inquiries, plus writing and consulting gigs.
Follow these steps to help grow your career:
1. Update your profile often. Every time you update your profile, that info gets sent to your connections. Also, update your “status” often, as this gets transmitted as well. You always want to be visible to other people in your network. Updates keep you in front of them.
2. Ask questions. Use the question function of LinkedIn, because it’s a great tool to get your name in front of other LinkedIn users. Some quick tips: Always try to ask thoughtful and relevant questions. Ask questions that’ll generate a lot of response, and give plenty of background info for why you’re asking the questions. When people respond to your questions, always send thank-you e-mails to them.
And, if appropriate, you may want to send them connection requests. When your questions close, go back and use the site’s rating system to pick the best answers. When you “best” people, they earn expertise. That shows up on their profiles and adds credibility, too.
3. Answer questions. Same as above. You can earn expert status, and your answers help other LinkedIn users solve their problems. And don’t forget to add a URL to your answer to help support your position.
4. Join groups. LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups. Once you join a group, announce to it who you are; what you do; and provide a link to your profile, blog or Web site. You also can post and answer discussions within groups. Get involved, and watch your network and sphere of influence grow.
Stay tuned for part 3 next week, where I’ll provide some cool power-user tips. I’ll also reveal how to build a “super-profile.”
So you want to be a power networker? In this economy, you need to cultivate as many positive connections as you can.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve discussed the networking site LinkedIn and how it can be an enormous benefit in helping you expand your sphere of influence.
This week, in the last of this series (for part 1, click here, and for part 2, click here), I detail how you can use your LinkedIn homepage to its fullest advantage; think of it as a résumé on steroids.
First, let me start by saying that your homepage is infinitely searchable, both by LinkedIn’s internal search engine (which has recently been upgraded to “super” strength) and the major search engines. Make sure all of your relevant previous positions, titles and duties/job descriptions are visible on your homepage if searched. Your “summary” also should contain searchable keywords. Same goes for your “interests” and education.
Next, add some Web site links to your homepage. You can link up to three outside Web sites. My homepage has links to my Web site and my personal blog. Don’t just accept the default titles for the headings, either. You can add specifics. For example, instead of using the default title, “my blog,” I’ve listed, “Gilbert Direct Marketing Blog,” an easy tweak from the “edit my profile” tab.
While on the subject of blogs, LinkedIn has added some great new features in the past few months. One gives you the ability to have a WordPress blog link directly to your homepage. Other new applications include:
the ability to add and share files within your network;
a tool to upload presentations to further promote your work (portfolio, whitepapers, etc.);
Amazon.com reading lists to recommend books to your network; and
the opportunity to let your network know your travel plans and meet up with people in the area at the same time via TripIt.com.
I’m having a great deal of fun and success using the WordPress blog application. In less than a month, I’ve had 2,000 hits on my blog thanks to LinkedIn. The blog took me minutes to set up and about 30 seconds to add to my LinkedIn homepage. Of course, you need some content; mine is specific to direct marketing.
From there, I started using the “questions” feature to ask for help promoting the blog. Many people visited the blog, left comments and offered great suggestions. I did the same thing in the groups I belong to. Now every time I add a new article, it automatically appears on LinkedIn. Also, when I publish a new article (about twice a week), I post a link to the “news” section for my groups. (FYI, my blog address is http://gilbertdirectmarketing.wordpress.com/; don’t forget to leave a comment.)
Lastly, underneath the search bar on the top right of each page is a “search for references” link. This is a great tool to use to get background info on people you work with. Want to know the real scoop about someone you’re about to hire or the new boss that just hired you? Use that tool, and make some discreet inquiries.
If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line at jimdirect@aol.com.
Make sure you check out my column next week, when I’ll provide coverage for Catalog Success of this week’s NCDM conference in Orlando, Fla.
Having attended many of the sessions and keynotes at the 2008 National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM) conference in Kissimmee, Fla., last week, I came away with three key points that proved to be the overriding themes of the three-day event. 1. Know me and be relevant. During the first day’s keynote speech, Tom Boyles, SVP of global customer managed relationships for the Walt Disney Co., posited that relevance isn’t enough anymore. Disney achieves true one-to-one communication by connecting and engaging its customers and prospects emotionally to its products.
To achieve this, Disney’s taken its databases and developed what it calls a “real-time automated decision engine,” which drives its campaigns and all contact between its customers (who are called “guests”) and its staff and brand.
Disney strives for, and achieves, a high level of personalization in its marketing messages and customers’ experiences by collecting data at basically any and all contact points. It then uses that data to create specialized to-dos, maps, DVDs, welcome mailers and other things relevant to past behavior in sync with the actual life stages of its guests.
Let me know you enjoyed this article, or feel free to add something I have missed. Go ahead, post a comment below…
2. Engagement is the new black. If there were a single concept to rise to the top this year, it would be the idea of engagement. As with Disney, all companies to some extent try to use their data to effectively engage their prospects and customers better.
Additionally, many companies now embrace blogs; viral campaigns; and other social media outlets such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook more than ever before. Some are succeeding, but it became clear that this emerging “technology” has some pitfalls — negative comments resulting in brand degradation to name one — along with benefits.
One thing is certain: While it’s possible to track ROI for social media through clicks, visits and even downstream orders, the measurement of engagement (and engagement itself) is something that hasn’t been mastered yet.
In essence, social media became a “player” this year. 3. Triggered campaigns offer the promise of one-to-one communication. In a case study session hosted by Bernice Grossman, principal consultant and founder of the database marketing consulting firm DMRS Group, three database marketing companies were given the challenge of how to send the “right response to the right person at the right time,” using modern campaign management “best-in-breed” solutions.
The companies — Alterian, smartFOCUS and Unica — showed, in real time while logged into their applications, the ease of use in developing triggered campaigns to both prospects and customers in a sort of “set it and forget it” manner. The triggered campaigns were based upon names on the file meeting certain criteria on a rolling basis (e.g., the last six months) in underperforming segments.
Each company in the “showdown” was given a dummy database that included contact and transactional information, along with gender and date of birth. From there the companies showed the audience how they used their solutions to create segmented, multiwave campaigns including birthday cards, offers and automated thank-you e-mails. The takeaway from this session was all about ease of use.
Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing, a full-service catalog and direct marketing agency. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at www.linkedin.com/in/jimwgilbert or you can post a comment here or e-mail him at jimdirect@aol.com You can also follow Jim on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gilbertdirect.
I may add a few posts between now and the new year so use that RSS feed function. Otherwise, I’ll speak to you next year. And thanks for your support. In the last 5 weeks I’ve been publishing this blog, you have made it a success beyond my wildest dreams.
UPDATE: So I’m reading my emails this morning and I get an email that I thought said, “have a merry Xmas and a PREPOSTEROUS new year” . This was before my coffee kicked in, but it’s growing on me.
This just in: According to 2 independent sources, Forestry and Saturn Research, the word “bailout” has overtaken “free” as the most used marketing term.
According to Saturn Research, “The term FREE, for many years reigned supreme as the most important response compelling tool a marketer could use. But no longer! Now that the word “bailout has entered our national lexicon it has been used to the point of beating out it’s competition on an order of 2:1 this holiday season.”
This author has to agree. I’ve seen bailout offers for carpet companies and others. In fact, yesterday I saw a dry cleaners with a bailout offer!
Of course Forestry and Saturn also offered the following… “Happy Holidays from Jim Gilbert and Gilbert Direct!!!”
Last night I had a dream… I had a vision of many customers. Not just any customers, but the most coveted buyers of them all…mail order buyers!
And behold, they bought often and recently, and liked to purchase many products at a time. They loved these products so much that they would never consider returning them. They liked to purchase in a specific category – they were niche buyers. A plentiful niche that was easily identifiable, a specific targeted market – the lowest hanging fruit from the tree!
And I remember in my dream that I felt warm and secure knowing that these were soon to be my customers. It was time to start my dream business and be richer than anyone can imagine. All I needed was the right products for these perfect customers.
But then something happened. My dream became a nightmare! For I had no products to offer my customers.
In my dream, I wracked my brain trying to find product ideas. I contacted various sources looking for products, but to no avail. Nothing! I asked friends and business associates alike, “do you have any products that would fit my market?” Again nothing! I couldn’t come up with one single product that this beautiful niche of customers would want.
And I woke up in a cold sweat, thankful that this was just a dream, and in real life this could never happen.
The truth is, we don’t wake up in the morning with ideas for new customer niches. We don’t wake up saying “I think found a great list of buyers, now what can i offer them?”
But sometimes we do wake up with ideas for new products.
And sometimes these new product ideas become businesses. This is the classic entrepreneur beginning: a dream turns into a business because someone thought up a great product idea and had the moxie to take it to market. Your classic “started around the kitchen table” story!
In the past, I’ve stated that a marketing-based approach to direct marketing, mail order and e-retailing cares less for the specific product, than it does finding the right market (customers!) for those products. To me, that IS about putting customers first.
The following is a quote I give to my direct marketing class on the first night of the semester. It’s by Peter Drucker, one of the great management gurus of our time:
“There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. Companies are not in business to make things, but to make customers.”
My personal version goes something like this (with a direct marketing context):
The goals of every direct marketing organization are to generate new customers at the lowest possible cost per acquisition and take care of these customers to maximize customer lifetime value via repeat purchases.
The goals of every direct marketing organization need to be exclusively focused around the above.
But that’s not always the case in today’s modern business world. Many business owners and managers know their customers, but, more specifically, they know what their customers want. The emphasis is less on understanding customers better, and more on their own intuition of what customers want. This attitude of “I know my customers and what they want“, makes too many assumptions. Assumptions that don’t fit with today’s modern business practices – especially when you consider the wealth of information you can find out about your customers just by talking to them. With the adoption of social media in the last few years, and the explosion of web 2.o, there is no excuse for not being customer-centric. Right?
But of course any time you have a company with more than one employee, you have politics, posturing, agenda’s and egos – which means that following the above principals can get muddied by other issues.
I see product-centric and politically charged organizations every day of the week stepping on their own toes and chasing their own tails! I’ve also seen some companies with some great products fail for these very same reasons.
Which is why I want to set a different tone for this blog and proffer the thought that the modern entrepreneurial business should be marketing-focused and, by extension, customer-driven.
So to all catalog/multichannel/e-retail/mail order business owners out there, let me ask you this : Are you product driven? Or customer/marketing focused? What kind of research do you do to better understand your customers? How do you develop new products? Let’s get into this in future postings. As always, please feel free to fire off a comment by using the form below, and I’ll respond.
I look forward to a lively discussion on this topic. What a great way to close out 2008 and welcome in 2009!
From: The Florida Direct Marketing Association | December 31, 2008
The FDMA is pleased to announce its January 15th event:
Business Networking in the 21st Century
Come join us for lunch January 15th for an informative session on how to build your personal brand using web 2.0 online techniques with Jim Gilbert, CEO of Gilbert Direct Marketing. In a world where the average tenure in a position is just over 2 years, it’s been said that building your personal rolodex is just as important to your career as excelling at your job. During this must-attend luncheon, you will learn how to use Linkedin and other networking sites to your fullest advantage.
Location: Westin Hotel Fort Lauderdale (I-95 & Cypress Creek exit)
Time: 11:30am – 1:30pm (Networking and Registration from 11:30am – 12:00 pm)
Members $37, Non-Members $47. Admission includes plated lunch.
For additional details clink on “Register” below to read what specific take-away strategies you will learn.
Thank you for your support since I started my blog. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that so many people would start to follow my writings on direct and catalog marketing.
I look forward to an amazing 2009.
I’ll be away for the next week (until the 9th), so I won’t be posting for a little over a week. When I get back I will be posting two articles that will be published this week in the catalog and ecommerce trades.
Note to readers. This is the first post in 2009. Happy New Year! As promised, there will be another 3 posts in the coming week.
As I mentioned in my most recent column — a recap of the National Center for Database Marketing conference last month — it’s not good enough to merely serve your customers anymore. You must cement them emotionally to your brand, your products and your customer service.
With social media strongly in play (whether you like it or not), you don’t get to choose what’s said about your brand. Control of your brand image has been passed, torch-style, from the marketing department to your customers.
Your customers are becoming more and more voracious in their pursuit of information that’s not simply put forth by brands, but spread by their peers as brand advocates. Actually, it’s more like brand advocates and brand detractors. Your customers, much like plus/minus statistics in a hockey game, keep score — a plus point for a positive customer experience, a minus for a negative one.
Why the social media explosion? It’s simple: When you add the current overload of marketing messaging sent and received in a given day, coupled with a growing distrust of said messaging and a more jaded customer base, the result is an environment primed and ready for customer-induced growth.
The plus/minus as it relates to your marketing efforts. Your present and future direct marketing efforts only get you part of the way there. Customers and prospects alike search for information on your company to help with their buying decisions. The people who interact with your brand and the way they interact are the deciding factors in your success and/or failure. You don’t have to look into a crystal ball to envision a future where companies have less and less impact on buying decisions.
In the concept of the outward-facing, customer-focused business, there are two business models in the multichannel world:
1. Merchants: The first type is brand/product-centric. These are merchants who’ve built their companies from the ground up with an intuitive feel for what their customers want and need. Culturally, these companies are focused on merchandising, product development and brand building. They have a sort of “if you build it they will come” feel internally.
2. Marketers: The other type is the sales and marketing culture. Here, the focus is less on product/branding and more on the process of direct marketing. Marketers are more numbers-focused, and the feel you get when you visit is that it’s about list building and what gets sold to that list.
If I had to guess which of these cultures will better adapt to Web 2.0, I’d have to say the marketing culture. But the truth is, it’s anyone’s guess.
Check back next week for part two, where I’ll look at the role social media occupies for catalog/multichannel marketers, as well as how it can be a good thing to hear the negative things customers have to say about you.
HERE’s PART 2:
Adapt or Die!
Clearly, the way to adapt to changes in the marketplace is to get out in front of the wave. It’s not too late, so don’t fret if you’re not. As a direct marketing consultant, I’m in the same boat. With a background steeped in the more traditional direct marketing principles, I need to be more on the cutting edge, too. In the last year, I’ve become enamored with social media as a marketing tool and its potential to engage.
What Are You Waiting For?
I conducted an informal survey over the past few days on how catalog/multichannel marketers have integrated social media into their overall marketing mixes. Here’s what I found:
Half of the catalog/multichannel companies I surveyed had MySpace pages and/or Facebook groups.
Only one was tweeting away on Twitter.
I didn’t see much blogging or message board adoption.
Usage of Flickr and YouTube didn’t even register a hit.
These results dovetail with a recent poll we ran on CatalogSuccess.com. For the poll results, click here.
Compared to another group I looked at, pure-play Internet retailers (let’s call this the control group), catalogers’ social marketing adoption was minimal.
So why is that? The biggest concern I hear from catalog/multichannel marketers is negative publicity around their brands, which brings us back full circle to our control issues and the whole concept of customer centricity.
Learning Opportunity
Ask yourself the following questions about what kind of role social media plays in your business:
Are you afraid of negative publicity? If you are, why? Do you not want to find out what your customers are talking about? Or what you can do to fix or improve your company? If you bury your head in the sand, the ruthless truth is your customers will bury you. Like the proverbial Chinese alphabet character for “danger” having the same meaning as “opportunity,” now is your chance to become truly customer-centric — to finally understand by listening to the Internet chatter about your company.
If you’re using social marketing within your business, is it just a tactic? Are you using it strategically to understand your customers? I’d guess the big question here is this: Does the data/information the marketing team obtains from its social outlets trickle up to the C-level executives?
Maybe the new paradigm shift should be, “If you listen, they will come!”
Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll begin to share what I’ve learned about social media. I’ll talk about Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn (mostly for B-to-B), Facebook (groups vs. pages), YouTube, Flickr, blogs, message boards, on-page ratings and reviews, and more — the strategies and tactics you need to know to build a customer-centric multichannel company.
And I want this to be a dialogue, because I’m not a social marketing expert by any means. It’s very much a trial and error process, and I hope to learn from you, too!
NCDM 2008 RECAP: Know me and be relevant is just a starting point!
From its earliest days, relevance has been the goal for most direct and database marketers.Today however, relevance is not nearly enough.Today, we are closer than ever in actually realizing the power of 1:1 level relevant communications.Some might argue that the capability for 1:1 has been around for some time and that many companies are already successfully practicing it, but to some extent I have to disagree.
When you do the breakdown, it comes down to four competencies; the technology, the vehicles, the smarts and the “missing link”.
We have the technology!
On one hand we have plenty of data processing capability to produce direct marketing campaigns with 1:1 granularity.The complexity with which we can massage data is readily available, becoming simpler to use (even for a non technical person) and relatively inexpensive.
We have the vehicles!
We have also made major inroads in being able to turn that data into actionable campaigns through triggered mailings, print on demand (POD), variable data printing, Personal URL’s (PURLS) and landing pages to name a few.
We have the smarts!
In my career, I have met thousands of super-smart direct marketers.Strategists, number crunchers, creative’s alike, all with the singular focus of driving ROI for their companies.
But is this enough?
The question is this: Does the ability to crunch the numbers and personalize a marketing vehicle really qualify as relevant?This whole concept of relevance is flawed to begin with.We assume that since we have the data, the smarts, and the methods for connecting the data to a vehicle that we are doing 1:1 marketing.
For example, just because we have date of birth in the database, and a great birthday offer to give away, is it relevant?Is past purchase behavior relevant?Sure, maybe to 1%, 2% or maybe even 10% of our database it is?Let’s even go so far as to say that the perfectly executed birthday offer can get as high as 20% response.But wait, doesn’t that means that 80% to 99% of our most relevant marketing is still being seen as irrelevant?
So what does all this mean for database marketing, and how does that tie into NCDM?
I have to say that as a direct marketer, from the first day I heard the sacred words “relevant” and “1:1 communication”, I’ve always been a little suspect.To presume that we know exactly what our customers want, need and desire may be even a trifle arrogant, don’t you think?
To further muddy the waters, the level of message overload our society receives, combined with all of this semi-relevant communication, has in part created a suspicious, jaded consumer who is quick to dismiss any marketing vehicle it deems as disingenuous.
And therein lies the challenge:a new context is needed for consumers to feel good about the offers they are receiving again.
So from that context, I believe that we are entering the age of implementing true 1:1 relevancy.And this is where NCDM comes into the picture.
At NCDM 2008, the missing link was discovered!
As I attended session after session at NCDM, the concept that popped up, the central thesis this year was engagement.Truly it was this year’s buzzword.During his keynote address, Tom Boyles, SVP of CRM for Disney, put forth the notion that you can use your database to create an emotional link between what you sell and your customers.
In a keynote that was equal parts inspiration and case study, Boyles spoke of how Disney’s “customer focused journey” uses data and personalization to engage their customers (called guests) by capturing data at any point and time in all channels, including: online, agents, room and check in.From the data they collect they can provide detailed recommendations on parks and attractions (more on that later).In order to accomplish this they use analytic models, and “automated decision engines” to ensure a seamless customer experience that connects on their guests terms.This has been their number one challenge; how to understand and connect the customer experience on all channels, and do so in a genuine way.
Their view of their guests is that no one or department in their organization owns the customer, but it is the customer who owns the moment using what they call their “real time engagement model”.
According to Disney’s Boyles, each step/contact with each guest is seen as a hurdle to get past in order to optimize their consumer promise.
On a tactical level, some but not all of the programs they implement are a free DVD available from their website that converts in the 10% range and offers custom park maps and experience based personal to-do items.They also send out a completely personalized welcome mailer 24 hours after an online visit or call center interaction, with the mailer being customized to the guest’s life stage and past history with appropriate messaging and photos.
Beyond marketing campaigns, extending the 1:1 experience:
Other user experience benefits Disney offers their guests, and this one really hits home if you are a seasoned traveler, is the Disney Express.Disney Express among other things Boyles described has the ability to drop off ones luggage at an airport, and find it in their room waiting for them at the resort hotel when they arrive.This also holds true in reverse, that guests can leave their luggage in their room and find it (magically!) at the airport baggage claim when they arrive home.
In conclusion, Boyles recapped that at the end of the day Disney strives and meets it’s 1:1 goals of connecting on an emotional level, data accuracy, real time, through all channels and having a true relationship with their customer.
To me, that’s as close to relevant, 1:1 communication that I have seen.
Last week, I offered a request to my readers to post their comments regarding their adoption of social media. Based upon the results of a recent poll we conducted at CatalogSuccess.com (click here), many of you aren’t jumping on the bandwagon, as compared with pure-play e-retailers and other Internet marketers.
While I’m a bit disappointed about this — both the lack of adoption of social media and response to my column — I believe there’s a huge opportunity at hand to take our multichannel industry to the next level.
So let me ask you this: What’s your level of social media adoption? Blogs? Message boards? Video? Sites like Facebook? Let’s get a dialogue going on this.
I understand things are a mess out there business-wise, but we need to start operating on the following premise: If you listen, they will come.
For now, I hope to inspire you with a story from another industry.
Recently, I had the opportunity to do business with a truly customer-centric organization. Every year I take a cruise in January. Within one week of my return, I received a 58-question (yes, that’s not a typo, I did say 58-question) survey from the travel company that puts on the cruise.
Now to set the background a bit, this isn’t just any cruise. It’s a specialty music cruise called Jam Cruise (www.jamcruise.com). Think Mardi Gras or Woodstock on a luxury Italian cruise liner, with live bands playing night and day.
The survey sets the stage for the following year’s cruise. It asks questions about the bands, the ports, the service, the food and all of the extras they provide, to determine both what they can do better and what their customers would like to see happen in the future.
In addition, the company has a message board it constantly monitors. Since the day the cruise ended, the message board has been lit up like a Christmas tree. Posts on the board range from super positive to super negative (the negatives were mostly about the food, which was “off” this year, and the process of getting on the ship, which didn’t go as planned). As to the negative comments, I was very pleased to see that the Jam Cruise staff made its presence felt and offered apologies and explanations.
Like I’ve said before, if you want to use social media as a marketing tool, be prepared to handle both the positive and the negative. In fact, how you handle negative feedback will help get you customers for life.
Your Key Takeaway
Your customers are the ones who should drive your business. Social media means you have to work harder at serving your customers, but the rewards are greater customer loyalty and lifetime value.
Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing, a full-service catalog and direct marketing agency. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at www.linkedin.com/in/jimwgilbert or you can post a comment here or e-mail him at jimdirect@aol.com. You can also follow Jim on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gilbertdirect.
I’m currently in the midst of doing some more research on the social medium and its applications in the catalog/multichannel industry. If your company is using social media and wants to be profiled in a future column, e-mail me at jimdirect@aol.com.
In the meantime, if you’re looking to grow your housefile, there are a number of ways to generate new catalog requests and orders beyond the traditional list rental model. I’ve successfully used the following three services many times in the recent past.
These companies are especially helpful to retailers operating in niche markets where there aren’t enough names to mail from rented lists.
You can use these sites to research lists not openly available on the rental market, and to get your catalog listed to generate catalog requests and orders.
Catalogs.com (www.catalogs.com) offers in-depth descriptions of the catalogs it promotes, along with links to the catalogers’ Web sites, allowing for further research on a particular product, price, etc. This helps you gauge whether a catalog’s list may be a good fit for your business. Getting your catalog listed on this site will help you add new customers within your allowable cost per acquisition.
ShopAtHome (www.shopathome.com) is a catalog of catalogs that’s been put out for years by the Belcaro Group. It has both prominent and more obscure catalogs listed in its pages. Its Web site serves as a good research tool, too. Getting your company listed is a great way to increase business.
Grey House Publishing (www.greyhouse.com/marketing.htm) offers both online and offline research. Its ”Directory of Mail Order Catalogs” is one of the largest catalog resources available.
It’s no secret by now that Postmaster General John Potter told Congress that in order for the USPS to survive, it needs to switch to a five-day-a-week delivery schedule.
Does anyone else think this is a disaster waiting to happen? And does anyone out there actually believe that five days will be enough for this bloated bureaucracy to survive? What’s next, mail one day a week? Mail on alternate Tuesdays? Leap year mail, anyone?
C’mon USPS, what kind of joke are you perpetuating on our industry? We’ve already had to endure ridiculous rate increases way too often.
I wonder if it even gets the fact that it’s helped fuel the growth of the Internet, search, e-mail, etc., as it’s forced catalogers to use other channels to compensate for their higher mail costs per acquisition? Or how many of you have been forced to cut vital circulation? Every penny more in postage you have to pay affects your break-even point by roughly 2 cents.
Profitable lists become marginal; marginal lists become, well, y’know. What other industry’s costs go up 20 percent-plus at a time? How many billions of dollars of revenue did that drive out of the channel?
Does the USPS realize it’s driven direct marketers out of business?
Did it ever do any math on how many pure-play e-marketers stayed pure-play because of its idiocy? How many billions of dollars never even entered the mail channel because of that?
And then there are the people — many of them pure-play Internet marketers — who think the mail channel itself is dead. I’ve been doing some market research lately and you’d be surprised with some of my findings. (If you have a LinkedIn account, click here and here for answers to my research questions.)
It seems that back in the day, pure-play brand marketers used to look down on catalogers as direct mail people, their redheaded stepchild (apologies to any redheaded stepchildren out there). Now in a stunning turnaround of events, pure-play Internet marketers see us in the same manner, like we’re dinosaurs andtheir redheaded stepchildren.
All of this doesn’t bode well for the future of our industry. And don’t even get me started on the subject of “do-not-mail” legislation.
Well, that’s enough rant for one day. I have to send a letter to a friend and just bought a stamp for $5.50 (laugh now, but soon you’ll be paying that to send out your utility payment).
Frankly, I don’t have the answer to this problem. Maybe some of you out there do. Post your comments below, and let’s get a discussion going on this.
In today’s social media age, it’s not enough to just build a brand and assume it’ll flourish. More than ever, companies need customers to be emotionally cemented to their brands via superior products and exceptional customer service.
For the past three years, I’ve been a customer of Cloud 9 Adventures, a company that exemplifies the spirit of customer centricity. Specifically, I’m a frequent passenger aboard Jam Cruise.
Imagine Mardi Gras on an ultra-luxurious Italian cruise liner, with live music from more than 20 jazz, funk, rock and jam bands playing nearly 24 hours a day. Mix in theme nights with costumes, karaoke contests where all-star musicians back up the contestants, excursions like all-terrain vehicle rides through the jungles of Belize, and workshops that go “behind the music,” and you get the idea.
Now imagine that the customers, many of whom are repeat cruisers who call themselves “repeat offenders,” for the most part drive the experience.
After each cruise, a large survey goes out to the passengers. This year’s contained 58 questions and arrived in my e-mail inbox one week after the cruise. Despite its length, the response rate is regularly 30 percent, according to Annabel Lukins Stelling, the marketing director for Jam Cruise. More importantly, customers answer each question with great detail because they know their answers are going to make the next cruise even better.
Additionally, the company’s staff maintains a strong presence on Jam Cruise’s message boards, Facebook and MySpace pages. The message boards have a very strong community feel and remain highly active throughout the year. By continually monitoring these social sites and communicating back when appropriate, much is learned about jam cruisers and what they like and dislike.
Which is why Jam Cruise, six years later, always sells out. In fact, many people prebook a year in advance and love to spread the word to bring new people on the ship.
But, like any other business, Jam Cruise isn’t perfect. This year, a major computer snafu caused the passenger embarkation process to go awry. Some people waited in excess of six hours to get on the ship.
Almost within minutes of the ship’s arrival back at port, the message boards lit up like a Christmas tree with complaints.
One of the risks of social media is the impact negative comments could have on business. As more people seek out peer reviews via social media, Internet chatter can make or break a business.
To its credit, the Jam Cruise staff posted a number of explanations and apologies for the embarkation problems, along with assurances that the problem was found, addressed and won’t happen again. Those apologies and assertions made a difference, and the message boards settled down.
The Jam Cruise staff plans to send a second survey and additional communications in the near future to allay peoples’ fears about future issues, according to Lukins Stelling.
The moral of the story: Social media can be an enormous benefit to a company — or a major detractor. Listening to your customers is crucial and can provide many rewards, as well as help with customer service and product-related issues.
Jim Gilbert is president and CEO of Gilbert Direct Marketing Inc., a Boca Raton, Fla.-based catalog and direct marketing agency. Reach Jim at jimdirect@aol.com.
I recently had a conversation with another catalog consultant about a client proposal we’re jointly working on. The conversation worked its way to a discussion on the basic fundamentals of direct marketing. In essence, what’s the most basic fundamental of direct marketing that we need to present and our clients need to follow?
It came down to this: the 40/40/20 rule.
This rule states that in order to be successful in direct marketing, you must do the following:
Concentrate 40 percent of your efforts on lists. That means list analysis and planning, selection, RFM, and, most importantly for catalogers, circulation.
Concentrate an additional 40 percent on your offer. For catalogers, that means merchandising. That requires expert attention to detail, including but not limited to product selection, pricing, presentation and analysis. By analysis, I’m referring to square-inch analysis, the most powerful tool you can use to manage your catalog merchandising — aka “squinch.” Understanding the wants and needs of your customers is part of this function, as are the offers you make to them to stimulate response.
Tie it all together by spending 20 percent of your efforts on creative execution. Literally, creative execution is only one thing: the bringing together of your list and offer/merchandising efforts in such a way that it speaks “buy now” to your customers.
As a consultant, I almost always see this in reverse.
If I had to quantify what I see in clients as they apply the above core competencies, it would be these three:
50 percent merchandising, with less emphasis on analysis and more on product development and presentation;
30 percent on creative. The creative (i.e., the catalog) is the brand’s calling card;
and 20 percent on lists.
In the catalog business, lists and all that circ stuff are just as important (some would even say more) than offer and creative.
It’s easy to see how that could happen. Most catalogers are merchants first. They had a product idea and brought that to market. How they bring it to market is all about building brand image. It’s as simple as that.
I usually get called in when there are some business issues that need addressing. Often I’m told that there’s a problem with their catalogs. To this I say, “The catalog (or direct mail piece) isn’t the problem; you’re trying to solve a marketing problem (translation: circ and merchandising analysis) with a creative (design, look, feel, brand) solution.“
At that point, I review the client’s version of the 40/40/20 rule and then the “textbook” version. There’s plenty of evidence for the proper application of the rule in the direct marketing textbooks. Absent this principle, I’ve seen some horribly ugly catalogs that are cash cows, while beautiful catalogs sink like stones.
You don’t have to operate any stores to always “mind the store.” For us in the catalog/direct/multichannel world, that means finding time in our 24/7, 365-days-a-year world to step back and ask ourselves a few questions. It’s not an easy task to pull back from our everyday happenings, especially in this insane and fear driven economy, but it’s still mission critical to stop and ask:
1. Are we the company our customers want us to be?
2. Are we the company our competition envies?
3. Are we looking around every corner to see what’s coming next?
4. And for that matter, how can we adapt to meet the needs of the next “trend” so we can effectively contribute to our customers’ wants and needs and therefore our own EBITDA?
Now more than ever, fear is driving the business process. To break it down, business owners/C-levels/boards of directors, terrified of the current economy, are making decisions based on fear.
To make matters worse, their employees, both scared of losing their jobs and of looking bad in their superiors’ eyes, are implementing these fear-based decisions.
The truth is, what I just described is pretty much business as usual!
Even before the economy started to tank, most of the people I’d talk with on a daily basis already were floating through their business tasks with elevated levels of terror. Mix in the current economy and the fear rate goes up exponentially.
Bad decisions executed by terrified employees. Sounds like a disaster in the making, which many could argue is exactly how we wound up in the situation we’re in: watching our economy unravel while our politicians fiddle away (that’s a conversation for another day).
At the risk of sounding self-serving, the need for a good consultant, an objective third party, is needed now more than ever.
OK, let me say something here that many of you already know. In my four-plus years of writing for Catalog Success, in print and on the Web, as well as eMarketing & Commerce Magazine, not once have I ever written an article even slightly or indirectly pitching my services (or consulting services in general).
That doesn’t mean I’m going to start now. Rather, I’d like to remind you of the benefits of working with one. And mind you, I’m not pitching you for my services. I’m dedicating this week’s column to reminding you of the merits of working with a good consultant in these tough times. That could be any other good consultant, not just me.
That said, here are eight things a consultant can do for you right now with a set of fresh eyes to balance out the fear-based decision making:
Review all of your numbers, from response data to budgets to lifetime value analysis and more.
Review all of your vendor pricing in search of efficiencies.
Look for opportunities in your circulation plan, targeting dead weight.
Review your merchandising plans and prepare square-inch analysis, among other tactics.
Seek out other marketing opportunities you may not be taking advantage of (e.g., social media/Web 2.0, community, on-site reviews).
Find advertising media you’re not using and recommend structure testing, such as package inserts, print ads, supermarket take-ones, billing statements and so forth.
Provide ongoing support to keep you focused and on track.
Review your creative efforts and make recommendations for improvement.
And Now a Word From Our Sponsor
The IT director of a former client used to tell me there’s no such thing as a consultant and all of us are actually insultants. Next week, in part two of this series, I’ll discuss some insider tips on the three types of consultants and how to choose the best for your organization.
I got lots of feedback to my column on the USPS and its brainstorm about going to a five-day workweek. (see all comments and original article here)
And most of them were pro-mailer, agreeing that the USPS needs to wake up.
However, I did get a few responses from environmentalists offering up some vicious attacks on our industry. I took the most readable — including this great illustration of how uninformed the masses are when it comes to our industry — and posted my response to it on my blog. For your review, I’m posting the comment and my response here.
Comment from Mel:
“I agree that the USPS needs to revamp the way it does things, but if it can reduce our costs by going down to 5 days a week, then I am fine with that.
“As for direct marketers, sorry but that is fine by me if they are put out of business. Maybe they could learn to earn an honest living instead of annoying me and all of the others that can’t stand them.
“Oh wait, there is a law against them! And talking about going GREEN … if direct marketing were abolished, how many trees would we save? How much would our carbon footprint be reduced? Looks like a win-win to me.”
My Response
“Thank you Mel for your comment. I’m not sure what law you are talking about. Maybe you’re referring to CAN-SPAM (that’s for e-mail) or the Do Not Call law, which applies to telemarketing. To my knowledge, there’s no law against direct mail. In fact, and maybe to your amazement, less direct mail, or a USPS five-day work week, would not reduce any costs as you state. Costs would actually go up, not down.
“Direct mail powers the U.S. Postal Service. Without it, the next time you mail a letter, utility payment or Xmas present to your nephew Billy, you would need to take out a small loan.
“OK, I exaggerate to illustrate my point, but the truth is many direct marketers look to deliver offers that are relevant to the people receiving them.
“If you want to learn more about the actual impact direct mail has on our economy and our society, I suggest you take two minutes and read the Facts About Direct Mail section on the Direct Marketing Association’s Catalog Preference Web site. You may be very shocked to learn how wrong you are!
“The honest truth is, we DON’T want to mail you anything if you are not going to buy from us. It wastes our money, our time, and it just makes you mad enough to write comments like this.
“You should also know that many direct mail companies are more green than you think. They use recycled paper when they can and soy-based inks. They buy their paper from paper mills with a commitment to forestry re-plantation.
“More and more, mailers and catalog companies are doing what they can to go green. But is this enough? In a word, NO! We’re getting there though.
“Here are some suggestions for you:
1. Recycle any direct mail you’re not interested in.
2. Contact catalog companies who send you their catalogs and ask to be removed from their future mailings.
3. DON’T buy anything from a catalog, otherwise (and here is the relevancy issue) you will be tagged as a “mail order buyer” and will receive other catalogs of products which have an affinity to your last mail order purchase. In fact, don’t buy anything mail order, or respond online to any offer!
5. Use the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service to manage or stop direct mail offers:http://www.dmachoice.org/.
“We’re happy not to mail offers to you if you don’t want them (it saves us a bunch of money). Just let us know as described above, and we won’t send you any more mail.
“Oh, and one more thing, and I apologize in advance if this sounds a bit snarky: The less postal mail out there, the more e-mails and spam you’ll get clogging your inbox, and some more telemarketing calls as well.
In addition to being an exceptional tool for personal business networking, LinkedIn is also a great place to market your business. Here are five tips to help your business network grow through LinkedIn:
1. Use the Q&A function. The Q&A function of LinkedIn is a powerful revenue-generating tool. Try using the advanced answers search to find questions specific to your company’s expertise. Don’t pitch your company’s products or services here, just give the best — or most altruistic — answer you can. The Q&A is definitely a give-to-get medium: Give freely and you’ll get back in spades.
2. Become an expert. When a question is asked on LinkedIn, it remains open for answers for seven days. After the question closes, the asker can rate the best answer to that question. The best answerers for a given question are awarded expert status on LinkedIn. From that point on, whenever an expert answers a question, that expert gets an expert badge. People’s expert status follows them around wherever they go on the site. Since you’re representing your company, this creates expertise for it as well.
3. Join groups. You can join as many as 50 LinkedIn groups. When you join, introduce yourself and your services. Much like Q&A, this is a give-to-get medium.
4. Start a group. Starting a group is super easy — just a couple of clicks and you’re done. Start a group around your company’s core competencies. For example, if you’re a printer, set up a group for people to ask questions about printing. If you’re a search engine marketing company, set up a SEM for beginners group.
5. Promote your blog. Many of you already have corporate blogs and have produced whitepapers and corporate presentations. Promote your blog in the news section of the groups you belong to. Promote whitepapers and presentations in the groups as well via the discussion function. This adds value and enhances your image.
People always tell me they see me all over LinkedIn. I try to gain as much notoriety as possible within the LinkedIn Q&A and group functions. As a consultant, this has brought me new customers. It takes some attention and time, but when done right, it can be a wonderful source of leads and business
Many years ago, after I was downsized from my job and I started consulting, my kids gave me a T-shirt that read, “I’m not unemployed … I’m a consultant!”
Ain’t that the truth!
With that bit of humor I start part two of my column about finding the right direct marketing consultant for your business. (For part 1, click here.) Many budding consultants get their starts after downsizing. And in this economy, many consultancies are springing up as more and more good marketing people are let go from their jobs.
I’m not saying that hiring someone who was recently downsized is a bad thing. In fact, I strongly believe that in some cases you can benefit more from a consultant who has recent client-side experience than you can from a seasoned consulting vet. Think about it this way: New-to-consulting practitioners can be more about implementation than older consultants who are more adept at the theoretical side of things.
The counterpoint to that is seasoned consultants are used to looking at the big picture and, in many cases, have experience with a broad range of companies.
You also should know that many consultants experience feast or famine business cycles — too many or too few clients. And yours truly is no exception. Since I started my consulting practice in 1999, I’ve been hired three times by clients to work on a full-time basis. All but once I’ve managed to keep up some sort of client roster when I’ve worked on the client side. Companies are fickle (especially here in Florida), particularly toward marketing personnel.
A continual diet of client-side implementation and consulting keeps me from getting out of the loop and gives me an edge.
So how do you pick the right consultant for your business? It’s a lot like choosing an employee: Do your due diligence as best as you can, and then roll the dice. You can look at the basics, such as who they worked for in the past, but as usual, I deliver you some food for thought beyond the basics.
That said, here are some more tips for you to consider:
1. If a consultant is too agreeable, he or she may be in it only for the money. Find a consultant who disagrees with you a lot. Most of the time, consultants are brought in to fix problems that exist within an organization that can’t be fixed internally. It’s a pair of fresh eyes to look things over. Consultants are like plumbers — the good ones are trained to instantly spot where the “clogs in the pipes are,” and then to fix it efficiently. You wouldn’t tell a plumber how to unclog your pipes, would you? You have to assume that you’re going to hear a lot of things you don’t want to hear and/or disagree with. Otherwise, why would you need a consultant to begin with?
2. Find a consultant who’s willing to walk away if you don’t listen. Here’s a true story: I worked with a catalog company whose general manager refused to understand the way catalog marketing worked. This employee came from retail and insisted on running the company like a brand. He pumped a lot of money into the catalog, doubled the unit cost in the mail and then when his mailings weren’t profitable, tried to repeat the same mistake in his heaviest selling season.
After repeatedly explaining the reasons for what happened, I finally gave up and said the following:
“Mr. X, what’s your favorite sport?”
“Football, why?”
“Because you’re running your business like you’re on a football field, playing with a hockey stick and puck! And if you keep doing it your way, you’re going to be out of business in six months.”
At that point, the client turned red, and steam started to come out of his ears. Within the next few weeks we mutually terminated my consulting contract. The kicker: Less than nine months later the business went belly-up.
3. References are ludicrous. Let’s put something to bed right now. The whole concept of asking for references is about patting yourself on the back. I don’t know of one consultant or, for that matter, ANYONE who knowingly would give a prospect a BAD reference. The only value in getting references is that when something goes wrong, you can at least feel justified that you did your due diligence.
4. If you want references, look them up on LinkedIn. There’s a “search reference” function that can help you find past employers, clients, among others. Also, see if they have a lot of recommendations on their profile pages.
For those naysayers who say direct mail should be legislated out of existence, read the FACTS here. (here is a hint, it’s about jobs, and revenue to the economy!)
Whether we like it or not, we’re all in this recessionary economy together.
If you’re still lucky enough to be employed, listen carefully to my message, as simplistic as it may seem: It’s time to put aside the natural rivalry, competitiveness, intraorganizational politics and just plain silliness that is everyday business life if you want to stay employed, and moreover, to keep your business from going under.
It’s time to really look at the way the silos within your company are formed. Take them apart, and relearn how to run your business.
Yes, I know I’m preaching. Sorry. But you can always stop reading here (but don’t).
I assure you that on this day, in this economy, businesses need to adapt or die! We’re all terribly scared about the future of our careers and how it will affect our families. The more we — and when I say we, I mean employees and business owners — succumb to our fears, the more difficult it is to work together. We second-guess ourselves. We second-guess others, and most importantly, we spend a lot of time playing armchair quarterback to the decisions that are being made.
It’s no wonder companies are going under daily. If you look carefully, you’ll see mismanagement as the big culprit. Greed. Power. Ego. We can’t run businesses this way at this time in history.
It’s officially time for kumbaya! From this point forward, you and your colleagues must work together to fight to keep your company alive.
Beyond newfound camaraderie, two keys to doing this are obviously increasing sales and reducing costs. If you look, I’m sure you can find many places where your company’s inefficient.
As an employee, you already know they’re there, but fear keeps you silent, doesn’t it?
Recently, while consulting for a company, I set up an internal group, more like a renegade operation, and named it “Operation: Unturned Stone.” The goal of this operation was to turn over every stone in the organization in search of opportunities to either reduce costs or increase sales. This required getting people together from each department in the company. And not the heads of that division either, but key managers who aren’t usually empowered to make a difference like this.
We put them together in a room, told them NO topic was off-limits, even pet projects their CEO might be working on, and told them to build a report on what can be done better.
The last part of Operation Unturned Stone is critical: C-level management must make the commitment to listen and take action. Also critical is that each member of the presenting group can feel 100 percent comfortable that there will be no consequences for what they recommend. Additionally, upper management at all companies need to address the paranoia level. Peoples’ nerves are frayed as they wait for more bad news or the axe to fall.
The time is now for reassurance, comfort and team building. This can be accomplished relatively quickly. Along with reassurance, get your employees together. Suggest outside-of-the-office events. Create events as well. No, I’m not talking about corporate retreats. How about an ice skating night? A company picnic for no reason? Give out free movie passes; something along those lines.
In short, it’s your responsibility to do what it takes from any level to ensure that your staff sticks together in these troubling times. Now is not the time for every man/woman for him/herself!
We will get through this difficult time and thrive again.
At the bottom of this email are contact in the Florida House for you to make your opinion on Do Not Mail legislation heard. The House Vote is on Tuesday!!!
My take:
Without preamble it would be a devastating blow to Florida’s economy, it’s many direct marketing business’s and the USPS if the Do Not Mail bill were passed. Catalog and other direct mail companies would close, jobs would be lost and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Think about this from the manufacturer on down, less to manufacture, less need for transportation to merchants. Less packages shipped. The list goes on.
Couple that with the fact that this bill is highly visible to our entire country and you risk setting a spiraling precedent that will change the landscape of mail order companies nationwide.
Lawmakers in Florida, and national should encourage their constituents to use the services that are already available. This is not something that needs legislation.
The following organizations already have mail suppression lists. As a direct marketer I encourage you to get on it if you do not want to receive direct mail
As a mailer, please use these organizations suprression files. You don’t want to mail people who won’t respond to your offer anyway right?
Furthermore, the environmental lobby is wrong. Here are some facts from the Direct Marketing Association that you probably already know, but I wanted to refresh your memory on
Facts About Direct Mail
Some people come to the DMAchoice mail preference service planning on completely stopping all the direct mail they receive, because they think that doing so will help save paper and the environment. But before you do this, here are some numbers you may find interesting.
Direct mail is a green way to shop. If Americans replaced two trips to the mall each year with shopping by catalog, we’d reduce our number of miles driven by 3.3 billion—a 3 billion pound reduction in carbon dioxide and a savings of $650 million on gas alone.
Mail represents only 2.4% of America’s municipal waste stream.
The production of household advertising mail consumes only 0.19% of the energy used in the United States.
Mail is made from a renewable resource. The vast majority of paper produced in America today comes from trees grown for that specific purpose. The forest industry ensures that the number of trees each year is increasing, so trees are not a depleting resource. In fact, forest land in the United States has increased by 5.3 million acres in the past three decades.
Direct mail is critical to the economic well-being of communities, businesses and charities throughout the United States. Last year it represented more than $686 billion in sales, supporting jobs at more than 300,000 small businesses across the country.
The following is a list of contacts you can reach out to….
Committee contacts follow. Try the district office first and then the Capitol.
Trudi Williams Chair
850 488-2047 – Capitol
239 433-6775 – District
Trudi.williams@myfloridahouse.gov
Ralph Poppell Vice Chair
850 488-3006 – Capitol
321 383-5151 – District
Ralph.poppell@myfloridahouse.gov
Mary Brandenburg Minority Ranking Member and bill sponsor
850 488-0260 – Capitol
561 540-1157 – District
Mary.brandenburg@myfloridahouse.gov
Leonard Bembry
850 488-7870 – Capitol
850 973-5630 – District
Leonard.bembry@myfloridahouse.gov
Debbie Boyd
850 488-9835 – Capitol
386 454-5407 – District
Debbie.boyd@myfloridahouse.gov
Dwight Bullard
850 488-5430 – Capitol
305 234-2208 – District
Dwight.bullard@myfloridahouse.gov
Rachel Burgin
850 488-9910 – Capitol
813 740-7655 – District
Rachel.burgin@myfloridahouse.gov
Steve Crisafulli
850 488-4669 – Capitol
321 449-5111 – District
Steve.crisafulli@myfloridahouse.gov
Faye Culp
850 488-2770 – Capitol
813 272-2920 – District
Faye.culp@myfloridahouse.gov
Brad Drake
850 488-4726 – Capitol
850 892-8431 – District
Brad.drake@myfloridahouse.gov
Greg Evers
850 488-8188 – Capitol
850 983-5550 – District
Greg.evers@myfloridahouse.gov
Rich Glorioso
850 488-0807 – Capitol
813 757-9110 – District
Rich.glorioso@myfloridahouse.gov
Mia Jones
850 488-6893 – Capitol
904 924-1615 – District
Mia.jones@myfloridahouse.gov
Debbie Mayfield
850 488-0952 – Capitol
772 778-5077 – District
Debbie.mayfield@myfloridahouse.gov
Mark Pafford
850 488-0175 – Capitol
561 682-0156 – District
Mark.pafford@myfloridahouse.gov
Jimmy Patronis
850 488-9696 – Capitol
850 914-6300 – District
Jimmy.patronis@myfloridahouse.gov
Ron “Doc” Renuart
850 488-0001 – Capitol
904 270-2550 – District
Ronald.renuart@myfloridahouse.gov
Ron Schultz
850 488-0805 – Capitol
352 860-5160 – District
Ron.schultz@myfloridahouse.gov
The Do Not Call bill in front of the FL House is off the schedule for now. Thanks. Please keep the pressure up on FL lawmakers.
Meanwhile, one of the non-government groups that offers opt out for direct mail, www.mailmovesamerica.org, has this information on their website. I hope this clears up any misconceptions about the direct mail business you may have. (for Florida specific info click here for a fact sheet)
Do Not Mail proposals would cost American jobs. More than 3.5 million Americans have jobs that are directly or indirectly supported by advertising mail. Banning advertising mail would be a bad idea in good economic times, but it is a terrible idea during the economic crises currently facing the United States.
Do Not Mail proposals would damage the economy further. In 2008, advertising mail contributed more than $702 billion in increased sales to the economy.
Do Not Mail proposals would hurt small businesses. More than 300,000 American small businesses rely on advertising mail to reach potential customers. For small mom and pop shops, florists, mechanics, landscapers and corner coffee shops, advertising mail is often the only affordable and effective means of advertising available.
Do Not Mail proposals would hurt your postal service. According to U.S. Postal Service estimates, a federal Do Not Mail statute could cost the postal service between $4 billion and $10 billion annually. To make up for that lost revenue, the Postal Service would need to dramatically raise postal rates, cut jobs or cut back on services.
• Do Not Mail proposals would not save trees. Nearly all paper used for advertising mail is generated from sustainably managed forests where trees are planted, harvested and re-planted solely for the use of paper and wood products. Thanks to these forestry practices, there are more forests in the United States today than there were 50 years ago.
Do Not Mail proposals are unnecessary. There are plenty of free options already available to Americans wishing to reduce their advertising mail.
A few weeks ago, I discussed some powerful resources for finding obscure mailing lists that may not be on the traditional list rental market. This week, let’s take these resources a step further.
With response rates down and expenses up, now is a great time for you to look at alternative ways to acquire customers and even lower your customer acquisition costs. Again, the resources are:
One other method I didn’t mention last week is through magazines that target your particular niche. You’d be surprised at how many other companies there are out there with products that have an affinity to yours and that would be open to a marketing partnership.
Here are some examples of the types of programs you can set up with other catalogers:
1. List exchanges. The most obvious way is to exchange housefile names (both offline and online). This will eliminate most of the cost of renting those names. To keep things running smoothly, once you work out your arrangement with the other list owner, you can have your list broker work this like a regular list order. Your broker will charge you a nominal fee for this, called an exchange rate.
2. Package inserts. Trading off space in outbound package inserts can be an excellent source of both leads and orders. Just like paid-package insert programs, set up tracking codes and test creative and offers. For offers, try testing a catalog request vs. a direct sale of a hybrid of each. As for finding companies to trade with, use the above-mentioned sources. Or, your list broker can help you make contact with the list owners of some of the lists you rent (ones that don’t already have a package insert program running).
3. Endorsed deals. Endorsements allow you to provide your customers with items that are complimentary to your products, thus creating goodwill. Endorsement programs can be as simple as sending out an e-mail or postcard to your customers with a recommendation, or as complex as elaborate syndication programs with revenue sharing. How you structure your deal is dependent on what you and the other marketing team can dream up.
Some other ideas include a store within a store, trading pages within your respective catalogs, or selling other marketers’ products on your Web site and vice versa. The sky’s the limit here. Other Considerations Do your due diligence on the company you’re considering partnering with. Carefully review its Web site, product offerings, customer service, etc. Make sure your potential partner company’s quality is of the same level as yours.
Also, structure these types of partnerships as any other test. Use the smallest possible circulation/sample to test the waters before rolling out.
I had a client once who thought he had a slam-dunk co-marketing program. The other company offered his company a free test of 50,000 names. After much back and forth, I convinced his company to mail only 5,000 names. Good thing. The test bombed! And by mailing one-tenth as many names in the test, his company lost far less than it could have. Two words: Be careful!
Blogging has been a super powerful tool for me as part of my overall networking strategy. I do plenty of in person networking (as a board member of FDMA). But I much prefer the new fangled way. So here, take these steps. And Shhh, don’t tell anybody about this, ok?
1. Link your blog to your Linkedin (LI) profile page (very easy to do with WordPress)
2. Join as many Linkedin groups as you can (50 is max). Try to join groups that compliment your skills. For instance: I am a direct marketing consultant. I belong to many direct marketing groups. But, graphic designers can also recommend my services, so i belong to a graphic design group. Get the picture?
3. Use the LI “news” feature in groups to add your blog posts as news.
4. Use the discussions to add value to groups you belong to and always add your blog’s url.
5. When I started my blog, I used the Q&A function of (LI) to ask people to check out my blog and tell me what they thing.
6. Also in LI Q&A, answer questions that you have a good feel for (and always add your blog URL.
7. Back to your LI profile page. you have 3 links you can add. I have my blog, my Twitter feed and my Magazine column with links. 8. Regarding blog content, I write and post articles that add value to my intended audience. (people who could use my direct marketing agency/consulting services). Don’t post garbage or fluff.
8A. Make sure your blog has RSS and it is in a prominent position on all pages. People will subscribe your your blog.
9. Tweet your articles when you post them. use the Status feature of LI to update people on your articles.
9A. Send your posts out to your facebook connections. And join facebook groups and push out there too.
10. I also am a member of Plaxo (good for pushing articles to your connections), Biznik (can post articles there too, but without links back to your blog which pisses me off to no end)
11. Lastly, and someone else can address this. Use feeds to get your blog out there like Technorati, Delicious, etc.
Wow, I gave away the farm here. Final thought. Blogging and promoting your blog is a “give-to-get” thing. The more you give away your expertise, the more you get back.
If you’re not already familiar with it, Twitter is an interesting microblogging application that allows you to send small messages — called “tweets” — to people’s cell phones and Twitter homepages. These messages are limited to 140 characters, the maximum length of an SMS text message.
I’ve been using Twitter for a short time now and have built up more than 100 followers. Many followers subscribe to my Twitter feed unsolicited.
Here are some basic Twitter tips for either building a personal following or marketing your business:
Build a personal following:
1. Speak in your own voice. Add in your own personality and flavor. Offer insights, but keep them relevant and topical.
2. Tweet articles of interest. I do a lot of writing, so I’m always tweeting links to my articles. If you or your company has a blog, by all means post links to it.
3. If you see an article that you think will be useful to your followers, post that, too. Many people post random thoughts. I’m not a fan of this. Keep it on topic and true to your mission.
4. Forward other peoples’ tweets — also known as retweeting. If you receive a tweet that warrants forwarding, do it. Add “RT” (for retweet) before the text.
5. Add your Twitter URL (mine is http://www.twitter.com/gilbertdirect) to your e-mail signature. This will remind people to look there for updates from you.
6. If you use LinkedIn, use its Blog Link application. This enables you to connect your LinkedIn account with your Twitter feed. Another social networking site, Plaxo, also enables you to connect with your Twitter feed.
Market your business:
1. Call out and provide specials to your customers. Make sure these are real-time specials or offers. However, try to not be too pushy. Fit the offers and specials into the context of your customer conversation, and don’t overpromote.
2. Link to your blog. Same concept as personal tweeting above. Stay on topic.
3. Tweet news and information about your company and products. New products, company news, press releases, corporate milestones, testimonials and “meet-the-employee” articles are great examples of things to tweet. Anything you think will get people both familiar and, more importantly,emotionally involved with your brand.
4. Ask questions. Twitter, like any social network, is all about conversation. Make sure you have someone who can spend time working with your followers to answer their questions. Engage your followers to provide information about how to make your company even better. And, harnessed correctly, Twitter can be an exceptional customer service tool as well.
5. Encourage your employees to create Twitter accounts as well. This will create more than one voice for your company. Have them add their Twitter addresses to their e-mail signatures.
6. Add Twitter badges to your Web site. This enables customers and prospects to easily follow in on the fun.
Note from Jim: This week I bring you a guest column from fellow consultant and friend Bob Klapprodt. I’ve always found Bob’s analysis and circulation strategies to be right on the number. Enjoy!
For years, catalogers have used dollars-per-book as their main statistic for measuring catalog performance. As a tool for measuring gross or net demand, it’s held up well, allowing catalogers to compare list segments and the overall results of different catalogs.
But as every businessman knows, generating demand is only part of the puzzle.
Going a step further, calculating cost per acquisition (CPA) by incorporating catalog costs helps you understand the relationship between sales demand and the costs required to stimulate that demand. Many of the most successful catalogs use CPA as a regular way of doing business.
CPA can do a better job of evaluating the true performance of customer results vs. prospecting results, which have a different cost structure. You can even better evaluate the use of co-op databases, which have different results and different costs. You’d expect customers to achieve a positive CPA (or “profit”) and prospects to generate a negative or true CPA.
The formula for calculating CPA is as follows: net demand – cost of goods – mailing costs / number of orders = CPA
You now have a very useful tool for differentiating performance across list segments where the mailing costs can be significantly different. This will allow you to construct a much more effective circulation plan than just using dollars per book.
Unfortunately, while a useful tool, a CPA statistic doesn’t measure everything on the cost side of the equation. You need to look at the marketing contribution to develop a measurement standard that accurately reflects the full P&L impact of the results of your circulation strategy. Marketing contribution is defined as net demand minus costs of goods minus mailing costs minus variable fulfillment costs.
By adding the costs to take and ship an order, you create a statistic which accurately reflects the true profitability of any circulation plan and all of its components. The full name of this measurement is marketing contribution to overhead and profits. When calculated correctly, you can set contribution targets for each mailing and have instant performance indicators to be compared to your financial plan. By adding this statistic to your performance spreadsheets, you can track and review the P&L monthly, weekly or even daily. This provides much needed reaction time to adjust future plans, and in a whole new set of ways.
When you realize that marketing contribution per order (MCO) can be improved by virtually anything that goes on in a catalog business, you take the marketing department to a whole new level. Along with finding that right list, you can make a substantial improvement by being proactive on the cost side. While you’re always interested in the cost of printing, the price of paper, the negotiation of list rental charges and other mailing costs, you’re now much more aware of the impact of costs involving shipping materials and delivery costs.
By using MCO as a prime measurement factor, you can turn an entire organization into a profit-conscious, cost-efficient machine. Increases in sales and decreases in costs are immediately apparent and measurable. You can even do what-if scenarios to determine the financial impact of things like using new technology or reorganizing the fulfillment center to improve efficiency. Measurement and control is the essence of cataloging. It’s even more important in today’s business climate. It’s vital that you use the right measurement statistics.
Bob Klapprodt is the CEO of Bob Klapprodt Direct, a catalog and direct marketing consulting firm. He can be reached at bobrpk@embarqmail.com.
Note from Jim: This is the second and final in a series of articles from fellow consultant Bob Klapprodt. I’ll be back with another column next week.
Why do catalogs fail? The answer is deceptively simple, while the remedy is not.
Most catalogs fail because they walk away from the basics; they ignore the elementary economic analyses necessary to properly measure and control the business.
The Other Guy’s Model
In the vast majority of American businesses, fixed costs are high and variable costs are low. For example, in the retail arena, companies can increase sales simply by staying open longer. The variable cost may be merely the salary of a clerk for an extra hour.
By monitoring the top line, you can fairly accurately estimate the impact on the bottom line. To increase profitability, all you need is enough incremental margin to cover low incremental costs.
Our Model
For catalogs, just the opposite is true: Fixed costs are low and variable costs are high. In the most traditional cases, the way to incremental sales is through mailing more catalogs. Mailing includes increased printing and postage costs, the two highest budget lines of a catalog operation.
I normally provide my clients a model P&L that shows fixed costs should run around 7 percent of net sales, while mailing costs should be in the 30 percent range. Very few consumer catalogs can fit into this idealized model.
The result is that many catalogs lose sight of this and end up overmailing. Incremental margin is far outstripped by incremental costs — and this can happen in a hurry. The bottom line goes from black to red, and the catalog is in trouble.
The beauty of direct marketing is that when a catalog is growing, you can monitor the pieces of your growth and add circulation to list segments that are performing above average. Your P&L is in the black, and life is good.
Why, then, is it so difficult to cut circ when times are bad? Why is it so difficult to monitor the impact of incremental costs that are necessary to gain incremental sales? The answer is, It’s not if you stick to the basic economic fundamentals. Go find the marketing analyst sitting in the far corner of your office; he/she has the answer. If you don’t have one of these analysts, you’re probably already in trouble and don’t know it … yet.
When times are bad, the normal response is to cut overhead. This is exactly the wrong response. Constantly monitor results at the micro level, understand when incremental costs exceed incremental margin, then react by re-evaluating your circ. Cut it when you have to. Leave your overhead alone unless you’re going out of business.
It’s All in the Analysis
The first thing I do when taking on a new client is I go back through two to three years of history and look for instances when incremental costs are too high to support the incremental margin. I’m constantly amazed by the number of times this happens. This is a very sensitive analysis; it doesn’t take much to turn the numbers red.
If you understand response curves and know how to accurately forecast your results, you don’t have to wait for a mailing response to be complete before you undertake this analysis. I’m a spreadsheet geek, so I build this measurement into all my analyses and can tell early on when things are headed south — and by how much.
How to Measure, What to Measure
If you’re a catalog owner, do the analysis. Do it every week. Constantly measure your incremental sales, and compare them to your incremental costs. And don’t forget the cost of taking and shipping an order; this can make a big difference in the results. Your bottom line will thank you.
What does it take to manage a multi-channel catalog and thrive in this economy? Come join us on April 16 as our frank 5 person panel of experts teaches you from the inside out. Each expert has been hand chosen due to their expertise in specific area’s of catalog management. After each panelist makes their presentation, you will be able to get hands on and ask questions. Topics include:
• Knowing your customers! – Metrics, business intelligence, LTV, and repeat behavior.
• Printing – Optimizing size, page configuration, postal discounts, co-mailing.
• Creative- designing catalogs to sell. A case study in redesign.
• Operations – Insource, outsource, case studies call call center and fulfillment.
• Lists – a broker’s inside info that will help you challenge and get more from your broker.
Speakers,
Fatemeh Khatibloo, VP of Strategic Services Binger Catalog Marketing, Inc.
Kathy Duggan-Josephs, VP, Multichannel Marketing, RMI Direct
Tim Holody, COO, Seta Corporation (Palm Beach Jewelry Catalog)
Scott M. Kaczmarek, Sales Manager, Quad/Graphics, Inc.
Fred Neil, President, Spectrum Management Associates, Inc.
Moderator: Jim Gilbert, President, Gilbert Direct Marketing, Inc.
11:30 a.m. – 12:00 pm Registration Check-in and Networking
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Program and Lunch
1:30 pm – 2:15 pm Expanded Bonus Speaker Tracks
Register early to avoid additional $10 walk-up fee.
Interested in attending our Board meeting at 10:00am and learning more about getting further involved with the FDMA, please let us know at 786-357-3275.
WHEN
Thursday, April 16, 2009 11:30 AM – 2:15 PM
WHERE
Westin Hotel Fort Lauderdale
400 Corporate Drive
(I-95 and Cypress Creek exit)
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33334
Last week, word quickly spread that the USPS is looking to offer a “summer sale” on postage for large volume mailers of Standard Mail, pending Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) approval.
Friends and readers, if this is true, I’d have to say that for the first time in my career in direct marketing, the people running the USPS may be thinking like businesspeople and not as a bureaucracy.
Having gotten the following details from a mailing industry source closely involved in the negotiations with the USPS, here’s the major takeaway point: The idea is to reduce postage pricing for standard and letter mailers who increase their mail volume during the third calendar quarter of 2009 (July through September).
The idea for this “mail sale” came through Mailing Industry CEO Council meetings with Postmaster General Jack Potter. Last Friday, the postmaster general convened a smaller group of CEOs from the printing and paper industries to discuss the reactions of mailers surveyed about discounted pricing for incrementally increased volumes above an established baseline. The meeting was very productive, ending with a concept on how to stimulate mail volume during off-peak times.
To qualify for the reduced postage rate, a calculation would be performed to determine the change in a mailer’s applicable USPS volume in two specific time periods, and the variance in the number of pieces mailed between Period A and Period B would be the baseline for determining the minimum required mail volume to qualify for the discount.
Again, the program would apply to all standard mailers and letter mailers of any size — even those who may already have increased their volume.
The USPS is going to recommend a discount ranging somewhere between 20 percent and 30 percent for this program, but we won’t know the final percentage until the time of the filing. The proposed “test pricing” will be presented to the PRC within the next three weeks. The PRC then has 45 days to rule on the proposal. If it passes, the reduced rates are anticipated to be in effect July 1 through Sept. 30. It’s possible, however, that these dates will change before implementation.
There have also been discussions about possibly repeating this “mail sale” pricing in other off-peak times in the future, perhaps in early 2010.
Ok, I really have to take this with a grain of salt. Never has a SNL sketch hit so close to home. See it for yourself. (when I get a chance later i may even parse out what untruths and fears that the sketch was playing on. Got to admit I did laugh though… alot!
Note from Jim, This was sent to me from a catalog industry contact. Not sure about the company or the offer, but passing it on anyway as it seems interesting. Investigate wisely!
MIAMISBURG, Ohio – May 1, 2009 – NewPage Corporation, a leading producer of publication papers in North America, has launched the “Free Paper to Reach More” campaign that aims to help retail catalog companies reach more consumers. The campaign will award five catalog companies with a grand-prize of 100 tons of paper to reach approximately 500,000 new prospects for a typical cataloger.
NewPage developed the “Free Paper to Reach More” campaign in an effort to help catalogers expand their marketing efforts at a time when economic pressures are forcing many companies to reduce their outreach. “In today’s economic climate, catalogers face considerable challenges such as rising production costs, higher postage rates and reduced retail sales,” said Jim Sheibley, general manager for NewPage. “Subsequently, many are trimming prospecting efforts and downsizing current print runs and publications.”
NewPage is committed to fostering sustainability within the catalog industry. One of those commitments is the “Free Paper to Reach More” program that will help catalogers reach additional consumers, ultimately growing their business to be more financially viable long-term. Another commitment is to providing environmentally sound products that cater to the catalog segment. NewPage has the broadest line of chain-of-custody certified and recycled papers that fit catalog specifications while demonstrating the catalog company’s environmental responsibility to their consumers.
NewPage will be showcasing the campaign at the Annual Catalog Convention in New Orleans from May 4-7. Visit their booth (#901) or www.FreePaperFromNewPage.com for campaign details.
About NewPage Corporation
Headquartered in Miamisburg, Ohio, NewPage Corporation is the largest coated paper manufacturer in North America, based on production capacity, with $4.4 billion in net sales for the year ended December 31, 2008. The company’s product portfolio is the broadest in North America and includes coated freesheet, coated groundwood, supercalendered, newsprint and specialty papers. These papers are used for corporate collateral, commercial printing, magazines, catalogs, books, coupons, inserts, newspapers, packaging applications and direct mail advertising.
NewPage owns paper mills in Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Nova Scotia, Canada. These mills have a total annual production capacity of approximately 4.4 million tons of paper, including approximately 3.2 million tons of coated paper, approximately 1.0 million tons of uncoated paper and approximately 200,000 tons of specialty paper.
For more information, please visit our Web site at www.NewPageCorp.com.
It’s that time of year again, readers. Catalog conference time — or to be more precise, Annual Conference for Catalog and Multichannel Merchants (ACCM) time. This year it’s in New Orleans., and despite that love New Orleans and the music especially, once again I’m not going.
I had planned to go this year. I even set up some meetings. But then some other meetings took precedence. Truth is, however, I have mixed feelings every year about going.
What I love most about going to the ACCM and other direct marketing events is the camaraderie I feel with industry peers. To me, it’s a chance to reconnect with people I normally don’t get to see throughout the year.
Oddly enough, the people I’ll miss the most are the vendors I’ve worked with over the years. These are the people who’ve allowed me to do my job to the best of my abilities. I truly believe that the job of a direct marketer is just as much externally focused, if not more, as it is internally.
While I’m internally responsible for my objectives and my team, it’s the vendors I choose that can make or break how the results turn out. These folks have saved me more times than I care to recall. They’ve turned me into a hero by keeping my costs in line, met some ridiculously short deadlines at times, found solutions for me that I thought didn’t exist and even played catalog psychotherapist.
And they get very little credit for this. This is why I believe in the term “vendor-partners,” and this week, I salute them.
So to all the people in the printing, design, premedia, service bureau, co-op databases, list brokerages, etc., I’d like to use this forum to thank you for your service and your friendship. (You know who you are.)
As you’re standing on your feet all day at the conference, doing the dog-and-pony show, know that when the parties are over and your bones are aching, what you do makes us better at what we do!
On another note, the thing that I dislike about the big conferences in general is the fact that you’re bombarded with information in a super-short period if time. Some people can do “speed learning.” Personally, I can’t. I like my information and my instructions meted out in slower, smaller increments.
So if you’re not at the conference this year (or even if you are), feel free to continue reading my blog. Certainly this Website and Catalog Success magazine are great learning resources for you.
Note from Jim: Today’s column is dedicated to the memory of Stephen Gilbert CPA, 1917 – 2009. My father, friend, mentor, sounding board and business partner.
Over the years, I’ve written many times about the importance of financial acumen as a core competency for direct marketing success.
Many people seem to think direct marketing is about killer creative, or campaign management, or even great customer service. But to me, it always starts with the finances.
If I’m writing a circulation plan, it starts with the break-even analysis, right on down to the list and list segment level. Each segment of my housefile has a P&L and breakeven attached to it, then each drop, each season and each year. I do this in advance, even three to five years in advance, using historical numbers. And I do it before each mailing or other type of direct marketing campaign to measure the success or failure of every campaign I do. Remember, past performance predicts future behavior!
I’m also nuts about other financial analyses, such as lifetime value, squinch (square inch for measuring catalog space usage), cash flow, balance sheets, etc.
Now with social media all the rage, and multi channel marketing being the norm for mail order, catalog and electronic retailers, the need for financial measurement and knowledge is greater then ever.
To this day, I’m amazed at how many people I work with, smart people, still want to practice direct marketing by the seat of their pants. To me, marketing just doesn’t make much sense without financial understanding….
Too many direct marketing companies think they’re brands…
Too many direct marketers think they “know” what their customers want and, hence, perform no analysis…
Just pull the trigger and see what happens!
But, there was a time in my career — when I started my first business, a publishing company — that I had no interest in the numbers. My father, a certified public accountant, took care of that, leaving me to market, sell and manage the day-to-day operations. I made many mistakes working that way, which my dad was quick to point out. So I learned, and learned quickly, thanks to him.
Many times, the disconnect between marketing and finance has been immediately evident to me the first time I walked into a company. And many times over the years I’ve brought my dad in to work with clients and client-side companies I’ve worked with. He’d communicate the top line, help organize the finances and financial analyses, and I’d address the bottom up marketing planning. Together we helped some companies turn the corner and grow, and save a few from ruin.
Direct marketing is a numbers based business. Don’t do the math, and there are a myriad of ways you can find yourself in jeopardy. Does your company think that way? It could be critical to you and your company’s success.
What is strange is that as a kid I hated numbers — I was horrible at math — but I learned much from working with my father; a patient teacher. The principles I learned I apply every day, even passing them on to you.
I wasn’t really planning this week’s column as a tribute, but — and apologies to you for getting maybe a bit too personal — I believe it’s fitting.
We are entering a new age of direct marketing that is much more complicated. The internet has changed everything.
If you consider the impact of multichannel marketing and social media, coupled with the degree of difficulty and challenge each of these presents in terms of financial measurement, maybe this week’s column is actually right on the money!
(originally published by Catalog Success Magazine)
Being a C-level executive these days has to be the ultimate challenge. These execs face a ton of pressure to keep their companies above water during these turbulent times. Truly, I feel for them.
But, in many cases, my empathy for them goes only so far. Especially when C-levels exemplify what I call “ivory tower thinking.” This kind of isolation is what President Obama tried to compensate for by keeping his BlackBerry — the ability to stay in touch with people other than his high-level handlers and advisers.
In other words, there are many people within organizations beyond the CEOs’ top advisers that can offer advice and wisdom. Getting out of the tower is critical to the success or failure of any business right now.
With this in mind, I’d like to offer four pointers for any and every CEO and C-level exec:
Want to know what’s going on in your organization? If you don’t already, run, don’t walk, to your call center and spend time listening to order calls, customer service calls and other inquiries. (I’ll devote a series to this in the near future.) I guarantee you’ll be enlightened and find ways to improve your product(s) and service.
Talk to your call-center staff — especially the front-line reps. These people are the true unsung heroes in your companies, and they intimately know what’s right and wrong with your products and service.
Once your eyes have been opened by listening to your customers and reps, force everybody in the company to spend a day in the call center, too. Write it into law that every manager and above must spend one day in the call center every six months — or quarterly, and force your marketing staff to listen monthly. Make it mandatory for new hires.
Embrace social media. Through my own research, I’ve found that most marketers who’ve traditionally sold via catalog are behind their online-only counterparts on social media adoption. Why? Fear. If you think your call center is a great learning experience, try developing social media tools to monitor your reputation by listening to the social media chatter about your company. What you learn may be the ruthless truth about your company, products and service, and how they’re actually viewed by people who speak the truth.
Beware though, you may have to take specific actions based on what you learn. But then again, that’s the point of getting “out there.” Back in the ’80s I was a huge Tom Peters fan; he called this process, “management by wandering around.”
Recently the USPS was onsidering a postal sale to stimulate more mail traffic. It looks like we in the direct marketing industry are gettting closer to seeing this sale become a reality. The BOG (USPS Board of Governors) has approved this event and now it needs to go before the PRC (postal rate commission) for final approval. I applaud the Post Office for beginning to think like businesspeople and marketers and taking the initiative.
Your help is needed to make the summer sale a reality! See the below letters to use in order to make this sale go into effect.
Letter for participating mailers
The Honorable Dan Blair
Chairman
Postal Regulatory Commission
901 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20268-0001
Re: Docket No. R2009-3
Dear Chairman Blair,
I am writing to express my personal support and that of (NAME OF COMPANY) for the Postal Service’s proposed Summer Sale Program, Docket R2009-3. I urge the Postal Regulatory Commission to move expeditiously in endorsing the program as presented by the Postal Service.
The impact of the economic downturn on the Service’s current financial situation, which has been well documented at Congressional hearings and in the press, is a reflection of conditions throughout the mailing community. The Summer Sale proposed by the Postal Service provides a thoughtful and unique opportunity without an infusion of tax dollars to stimulate this important segment of our nation’s economy.
Our company plans to avail itself of this opportunity. We are currently in the process of determining the amount of additional volume we will be sending through the Postal Service and are in discussions with our suppliers and service providers regarding our plans as we prepare to order supplies and products to increase our mail volume. We do not have the luxury to wait if we want to take advantage of even part of the summer sale.
[NAME OF COMPANY] enthusiastically endorses the Summer Sale Program as proposed and urges the Commission to endorse the Summer Sale as submitted since many mailers have begun ordering supplies and product to take advantage of it. Please include this letter in the public record for Docket No. R2009-3.
Sincerely,
XX
Letter for vendors The Honorable Dan Blair
Chairman
Postal Regulatory Commission
901 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20268-0001
Re: Docket No. R2009-3
Dear Chairman Blair,
I am writing to express my personal support and that of (NAME OF COMPANY) for the Postal Service’s proposed Summer Sale Program, Docket R2009-3. I urge the Postal Regulatory Commission to move expeditiously in endorsing the program as presented by the Postal Service.
The impact of the economic downturn on the Service’s current financial situation, which has been well documented at Congressional hearings and in the press, is a reflection of conditions throughout the mailing community. The Summer Sale proposed by the Postal Service provides a thoughtful and unique opportunity without an infusion of tax dollars to stimulate this important segment of our nation’s economy.
Although our company is not a mailer, we assist mailers creating mail to be entered in the mail stream and, thus, anticipate a rebound in our business from our mailer partners who can take advantage of the summer sale. We also believe that the Commission’s expeditious endorsement of the Summer Sale will lay a foundation for similar opportunities next year and beyond in which we expect many more mailers to be in a better position to participate.
[NAME OF COMPANY] enthusiastically endorses the Summer Sale Program as proposed and urges the Commission to endorse the Summer Sale as submitted since many mailers have begun ordering supplies and product to take advantage of it. Please include this letter in the public record for Docket No. R2009-3.
Sincerely
XX
Letter for nonparticipating mailers:
The Honorable Dan Blair
Chairman
Postal Regulatory Commission
901 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20268-0001
Re: Docket No. R2009-3
Dear Chairman Blair,
I am writing to express my personal support and that of (NAME OF COMPANY) for the Postal Service’s proposed Summer Sale Program, Docket R2009-3. I urge the Postal Regulatory Commission to move expeditiously in endorsing the program as presented by the Postal Service.
The impact of the economic downturn on the Service’s current financial situation, which has been well documented at Congressional hearings and in the press, is a reflection of conditions throughout the mailing community. The Summer Sale proposed by the Postal Service provides a thoughtful and unique opportunity without an infusion of tax dollars to stimulate this important segment of our nation’s economy.
Although it does not appear at this time that our company can take advantage of the in the 2009 sale, we believe it will lay a foundation for similar opportunities next year and beyond in which we will be better positioned to participate.
[NAME OF COMPANY] enthusiastically endorses the Summer Sale Program as proposed and urges the Commission to endorse the Summer Sale as submitted since many mailers have begun ordering supplies and product to take advantage of it. Please include this letter in the public record for Docket No. R2009-3.
(Note from Jim – article originally written for Catalog Success Magazine)
It seems that Twitter is all the rage these days. The topic seems to polarize people: Some find it a useful and productive marketing tool, while others find it a waste of time and “much ado about nothing.” I fall more into the first group, in that I remain cautiously optimistic. I use Twitter to build my personal brand (www.twitter.com/gilbertdirect) and drive traffic to my blog.
In this multiple channel, integrated world, I see Twitter as a great tool to help you engage your prospects and customers and take them to the next level. Turn prospects into customers, customers into advocates. Above all else, ask for and receive the much needed feedback a 21st century company needs to thrive.
The following are nine quick tips on how to use Twitter to your benefit:
1. Call out and provide specials to your customers. Make sure these are real-time specials or offers, but try to not be too pushy. Fit the offers and specials into the context of your customer conversation; don’t overpromote.
2. Let people know when to expect their catalogs.
3. Drive prospects to catalog request and/or e-mail sign-up pages.
4. Link to and broadcast your blog posts. These are great ways to keep people informed.
5. Tweet news and information about your company and products. New products, company news, press releases, corporate milestones, testimonials and “meet-the-employee” articles are great examples of things to tweet. Anything you think will get people both familiar and, more importantly, emotionally involved with your brand is worth your while.
6. Ask questions. Twitter, like any social network, is all about conversation. Have someone who can spend time working with your followers to answer their questions. Engage your followers to provide information about how to make your company even better. If harnessed correctly, Twitter can be an exceptional customer service tool as well.
7. Encourage key employees to open Twitter accounts as well, creating more than one voice for your company. Have them add their Twitter addresses to their e-mail signatures.
8. Add Twitter badges to your Web site. This enables customers and prospects to easily join in on the fun.
9. Add Twitter links and badges to all of your outgoing promotions and collateral. Build Twitter into your branding.
We had over 90 attendees at the FDMA annual summit. Here is a sample of what we saw, Jeff Yaniga’s powerpoint presentation on Using Twitter For Business. Great stuff! Enjoy and have a great weekend.
Here is Karen Talavera’s presentation on Beyond Integration: Welcome to Marketing Fusion.
Here is Peter Leshaw’s Presentation on Understanding social media, social networking and social marketing
Jim’s note: Originally written for Catalog Success Magazine.
As a long-time “big and tall shopper,” I only shop from a handful of companies. Two of these happen to be Rochester Big and Tall and Casual Male XL. While owned by the same company, both have positioned themselves to different segments of the big and tall market. Rochester sells more upscale, pricier, higher-end merchandise, while Casual Male offers more affordable apparel. In my opinion, both have done an excellent job of differentiating themselves brandwise on their Web sites and in their stores with the products they offer.
With so little to choose from as a certified “big guy,” I buy from both and am on both of their e-mail lists. This week I received e-mails from both companies, and to my amazement — and a bit of horror — they were essentially the same message and offer. Both carried the same subject line (We want you back! SAVE 20% NOW on your order), showing up in my inbox on the same day within a few hours of each other. And when you open them, you get the same offer (although Casual Male’s offer allows you to “grab” a coupon).
I assume that other big and tall folks out there got the same offer as well. So doesn’t this work directly against their branding? Am I hypersensitive to this because I’m in the business? Does this matter to the average consumer? Take a look at the e-mails for yourself below, and let me know your thoughts.
This is a good one. A hysterical video on client vendor relationships and payments. I don’t know about you but I may be guilty of some of these tactics. Thanks to the videographers for calling us out.
Got a favorite client/vendor horror story? Post it in the comments section.
Note from Jim: Originally written for All About ROI, the newly branded and revamped Catalog Success Magazine.
As we near the end of the first decade of the new century (time flies right?), the direct marketing business is caught in a war that’s being played out on many fronts.
Let me put this in perspective for you: If you study history, you’ll see that at the turn of every new century comes great change. However, great change is often preceded by great turmoil. Whether it was the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century or the buildup to World War I and the Great Depression in the early 20th century, change, as they say, is gonna come.
The goal of my newly branded column — in this newly branded publication — is to help you drive as much high-quality return on investment (ROI) as possible. I’ll examine ways to do this in the ROI channels and mantra (retail/catalog, online integration) from our magazine’s tagline. I’ll also talk change on a continual basis so you can adapt and thrive.
The point is, we face several threats, many of which are actually opportunities in disguise. And the opportunities are considerable:
* Social Media: You must adopt social media as a tool for engaging your customers and prospects alike, both from a marketing and customer service perspective. New customers are just, if not more, as likely to seek out information from peer groups as they are from product research. This column will discuss strategies for blogging, message boards, video, Web site product reviews, Twitter, Facebook, and more going forward.
* Direct Mail (part 1) — Push Me, Pull You: The chatter I hear every day is that direct mail is dead. Mostly, this is perpetuated by pure-play Internet folks who believe marketing is all about “pull” rather than “push.” I recall in the not too distant past when direct marketers were looked upon by brand marketers as the redheaded stepchildren of the marketing community. Of course, the Internet leveled this playing field, and now all marketers need to be direct marketers to survive. Curiously, the next generation of marketers — weaned on the Internet — see us much the same way.
Funny how things turn. For without the principles of direct marketing, these same Internet marketers would’ve gone the way of the dinosaurs (oops, I meant sock puppets). For a direct marketer to drive consistent ROI, all marketing channels must work together. I’m a big fan of “why can’t we all just get along,” and will go to considerable lengths in this column to create synergy in all channels and with all people.
* Direct Mail (part 2) — Let’s Get Personal: Also part of the chatter I hear is that the death of direct mail has to do with the process itself. Technology exists today to use personalization to increase engagement and, in turn, response rates and ROI. But is it being used? Sadly, many companies aren’t adopting technology. I’ll delve further into personalization, segmentation, PURLS (personalized URLs) and landing pages in this column.
* Direct Mail (part 3) — Revenge of the Tree Huggers: More and more the direct mail industry is being attacked by environmentalists who believe direct mail destroys trees and the planet. Activists are trying to get “do-not-mail” bills passed on a daily basis. Most of these people have no clue about the actual impact of direct mail on the environment (or lack thereof as the case may be) and are just jumping on the bandwagon because it seems like the right thing to do (or they hate junk mail). Our goal as direct marketers, both offline and online, is to mail to relevant customers and prospects. I’ll address how to mail smarter in this column, and you can bet that I’ll loudly voice my opinion against anyone who says the wrong thing about our industry.
* And Then There’s the Economy: People are sitting on the sidelines and not buying. Spending habits, especially around credit purchases, are changing rapidly. I’ll discuss how this affects your business and how to market smarter in troubled economic times. Here’s a hint: People are still buying! Find them, and coddle them. Hint No. 2: Many companies have made fortunes in bad times. You can, too!
* And Lastly, Mobile: Are you prepared for the next channel to open and open big? Over the next few years, mobile will need to be harnessed if you plan on surviving.
Jim Gilbert and the FDMA are please to announce another great learning opportunity for you on June 18th.
The Second Half: Meet or beat your 2009 estimates and look like a superstar!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
While it feels like 2009 has only started, we’re actually halfway through the year. At this point the FDMA asks you:
• Are you on track to meet or beat your forecasts?
• What can you do to drive in more sales?
• What programs both online and offline can you test, and test quickly to increase sales?
• Are you drowning in a sea of online numbers and are not sure which are the most meaningful to track?
If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, this is the one FDMA session you do not want to miss. We have two great presentations lined up for you.
PRESENTATION 1 – Leave NO Stone unturned – 50 tips, tricks and ideas you can take to the bank. (12:30 – 1:30pm)
Presented by Jim Gilbert, Author, Direct Marketing Professor and Consultant.
In this presentation, Jim Gilbert will leverage his 20+ years experience in teaching direct marketing companies how to increase sales – by providing you with marketing program ideas that are simple and quick to execute.
Jim’s presentation will address consumer and B2B, online and offline, lead gen and direct sales strategies and tactics – in short – marketing programs you may have missed. He will engage you in “operation turned stone”, an opening for you to look for breakthrough opportunities in your company to “find” missing revenue.
You are guaranteed to takeaway between 5 and 10 action items to beat your forecasts with.
PRESENTATION 2 – Interactive Metrics – What You Really Need to Know (1:30 – 2:15pm)
Presented by Maria Harrison President/Owner of iClarity.
In this informative presentation, Maria Harrison will take you through the good, the bad and the ugly of interactive metrics. Interactive marketing is a double-edged sword when it comes to metrics.
Just because everything can be counted, doesn’t mean it’s important in making business decisions that will help you have a positive impact on your interactive marketing initiatives.
Ms. Harrison will show you how simplistic interactive metrics can really be, how to set benchmarks, and develop meaningful executive dashboards that will help you make the right decisions to improve your interactive marketing efforts. She will define some basic interactive metric terms and teach you how to immediately apply those metrics to your business.
11:30 a.m. – 12:00 pm Registration Check-in and Networking
12:00 pm – 12:30 pm Annoucements, Lunch, Netowrkign at Table
12:30 pm Presentation by Jim Gilbert
1:30 pm Presentation by Maria Harrison
2:15 pm Program ends.
Register early to avoid additional $10 walk-up fee. Register now at www.fdma.org
Interested in attending our Board meeting at 10:00am and learning more about getting further involved with the FDMA, please let us know at 786-357-3275.
WHEN
Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM
WHERE
Westin Hotel Fort Lauderdale
400 Corporate Drive
(I-95 and Cypress Creek exit)
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33334
It’s June here in South Florida — ah yes, that wonderful time of year for electrical storms, hurricanes, 100-degree temperatures and 90 percent-plus humidity. And it’s time for me to publish my annual guide for surviving a business disaster.
Much like a four-letter word, disasters happen in all forms just about anywhere — without warning, at any time. So prepare your company and yourself. Here’s a disaster-readiness checklist I suggest you look over carefully. If you think you’re on top of this, I recommend you compare your list to this one to ensure you have all bases covered.
1. Have a business survival disaster plan in place. Get your department heads involved as stakeholders. Let your employees know what happens if …
2. Publish a list of all emergency contact numbers for your key personnel and vendors. Include home and cell phone numbers, and home e-mail addresses as alternative ways of contact if main communication channels go down. And don’t forget IM and SKYPE addresses, as well as text messages, as alternative means to communicate during a disaster.
3. Designate someone in your company as chief disaster planning officer.
4. Back up your computers and computer systems regularly. Then back up your backups, and keep them off-site. Personally, I have two backup drives and all my files backed up on DVDs. Remember, there are two kinds of computer users: those who have lost data, and those who will lose it. I fall into the first category: Two weeks ago one of my backup drives failed with more than 750 gigabytes of data on it. Luckily, while I lost three-quarters of a terabyte of data, I had almost all of it backed up to DVDs. I’m one of the fortunate ones. I lost a little, not a lot.
5. Work with your call center to make sure it can operate if disaster strikes. If you use an external call center, inquire about its disaster plan.
6. If your call center is on-site, consider hiring a backup call-center staff to field calls in case of emergency (this one saved my client’s bacon a few years ago).
7. If you host your own Web site, have a plan in place if the lights go out. Find out what your ISP does if it loses its electricity.
8. If your business is in a disaster-prone area, buy a generator.
9. If your business isn’t in a disaster-prone area, contact any vendors that are. Disasters, either natural or man-made, can interrupt your workflow with printers, the post office and all other vendors.
10. Don’t mail into disaster-impacted areas, because they won’t respond.
11. If you’ve already mailed and a disaster occurs, adjust your projections downward.
Bottom line for all this, remember my motto (or is it the Boy Scout motto?) ALWAYS BE PREPARED!
DO YOU HAVE A DISASTER PLAN? FEEL FREE TO ADD TO THIS LIST BY POSTING A COMMENT BELOW…
OK, that’s it. I’m done! I’m mad enough again to take a stand! (you can too, see how below)
I’ve officially had enough, and I’m done sitting around letting it happen. This morning I paid $2.79/gallon for regular unleaded gas. That’s $1.10 more that I was paying for gas in December 08. It’s happening again. Why? Is there some shortage on oil?
Or is it just summer driving season, and the powers that be are out to make the most profits they can? According to sources, there is no actual reason, other than investment run ups that is driving up prices. If that’s true, we have a problem.
Today, I’m forgetting my column on marketing and imploring you to take a stand. If you don’t want to take a stand — if you haven’t had enough of being gouged at the pump — please stop reading right here. Come back next week, and we can discuss marketing. Right now I am deeply concerned that oil prices are going to drive the economy back to ground zero again.
I can assure you that if we don’t take a stand on this issue, very soon there may not be a direct marketing industry. Frankly folks, we live in an oil-based economy, and there’s little we can do about it. Right?
Wrong.
There’s a reason ExxonMobil is the most profitable company on the planet. And no, I’m not singling out that one company. And I’m not for government controlling commerce, or profits, or even getting involved and regulating business. But really, enough is enough. Hey ExxonMobil, why don’t you create some good will and PR for yourselves and give some profits back during what’s seen as a time of crisis?
So here’s my stand. I’m calling on you and myself to act now, before someone on TV starts priming us for $6 gas prices for next summer’s driving season. Here’s a list of things you can do to help take a stand.
1. Make your voice heard, and contact your government officials. Here’s a link so you don’t even have to look for it: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml . I don’t care about your party affiliation or if you even have one. If you’re for alternative energy, say so! If you’re for more oil exploration within our country, say so! If you think the government is conspiring with big oil, speak your mind.
2. Drive less!
3. Car pool if you can. OK, I hate this idea. I love the solitude of my drive to and from work. But the less gas we use, the larger the message we send to the oil industry.
4. Tell everybody you know to take a stand. It’s your right to make our country better!
Maybe you won’t want to read my column anymore. Maybe you don’t think this commentary belongs in a catalog marketing forum. To you I say, sorry and too bad. You think your costs are high now? Very shortly you’re going to see an explosion in all of your expenses, thanks to the fact that everything you do requires fuel and transportation.
I’m doing my part by writing this article and practicing numbers one through four above. I’m part of the solution. I’m not sitting back and just taking whatever is dished out and accepting it!
Jim Gilbert and the FDMA are pleased to announce another great learning opportunity for you on June 18th.
The Second Half: Meet or beat your 2009 estimates and look like a superstar!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
While it feels like 2009 has only started, we’re actually halfway through the year. At this point the FDMA asks you:
• Are you on track to meet or beat your forecasts?
• What can you do to drive in more sales?
• What programs both online and offline can you test, and test quickly to increase sales?
• Are you drowning in a sea of online numbers and are not sure which are the most meaningful to track?
If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, this is the one FDMA session you do not want to miss. We have two great presentations lined up for you.
PRESENTATION 1 – Leave NO Stone unturned – 50 tips, tricks and ideas you can take to the bank. (12:30 – 1:30pm)
Presented by Jim Gilbert, Author, Direct Marketing Professor and Consultant.
In this presentation, Jim Gilbert will leverage his 20+ years experience in teaching direct marketing companies how to increase sales – by providing you with marketing program ideas that are simple and quick to execute.
Jim’s presentation will address consumer and B2B, online and offline, lead gen and direct sales strategies and tactics – in short – marketing programs you may have missed. He will engage you in “operation turned stone”, an opening for you to look for breakthrough opportunities in your company to “find” missing revenue.
You are guaranteed to takeaway between 5 and 10 action items to beat your forecasts with.
PRESENTATION 2 – Interactive Metrics – What You Really Need to Know (1:30 – 2:15pm)
Presented by Maria Harrison President/Owner of iClarity.
In this informative presentation, Maria Harrison will take you through the good, the bad and the ugly of interactive metrics. Interactive marketing is a double-edged sword when it comes to metrics.
Just because everything can be counted, doesn’t mean it’s important in making business decisions that will help you have a positive impact on your interactive marketing initiatives.
Ms. Harrison will show you how simplistic interactive metrics can really be, how to set benchmarks, and develop meaningful executive dashboards that will help you make the right decisions to improve your interactive marketing efforts. She will define some basic interactive metric terms and teach you how to immediately apply those metrics to your business.
11:30 a.m. – 12:00 pm Registration Check-in and Networking
12:00 pm – 12:30 pm Annoucements, Lunch, Netowrkign at Table
12:30 pm Presentation by Jim Gilbert
1:30 pm Presentation by Maria Harrison
2:15 pm Program ends.
Register early to avoid additional $10 walk-up fee. Register now at www.fdma.org
Interested in attending our Board meeting at 10:00am and learning more about getting further involved with the FDMA, please let us know at 786-357-3275.
WHEN
Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM
WHERE
Westin Hotel Fort Lauderdale
400 Corporate Drive
(I-95 and Cypress Creek exit)
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33334
I’ve been getting a lot of comments to my last article on the evolution of our industry. There’s been some back and forth about going green and its impact on direct mail — the typical “direct mail kills the environment” issue.
Does direct mail really destroy the environment? I don’t think so. The Direct Marketing Association, on its DMAchoice Web site, has published the following information about direct mail being the “green” way to shop:
“Facts About Direct Mail:
Some people come to the DMAchoice mail preference service planning on completely stopping all the direct mail they receive, because they think that doing so will help save paper and the environment. But before you do this, here are some numbers you may find interesting.
Direct mail is a green way to shop. If Americans replaced two trips to the mall each year with shopping by catalog, we’d reduce our number of miles driven by 3.3 billion, a 3 billion-lb. reduction in carbon dioxide and a savings of $650 million on gas alone.
Mail represents only 2.4 percent of America’s municipal waste stream.
The production of household advertising mail consumes only 0.19 percent of the energy used in the U.S.
Mail is made from a renewable resource. The vast majority of paper produced in America today comes from trees grown for that specific purpose. The forest industry ensures that the number of trees each year is increasing, so trees are not a depleting resource. In fact, forest land in the United States has increased by 5.3 million acres in the past three decades.
Direct mail is critical to the economic well being of communities, businesses and charities throughout the U.S. Last year it represented more than $686 billion in sales, supporting jobs at more than 300,000 small businesses across the country.”
Makes sense, right?
That said, I do support the availability of mail preference services, such as DMAchoice and Catalog Choice. The goal of all direct mail, of course, is to be as relevant as possible. After all, every catalog or direct mail piece sent that goes in the garbage is a waste of your money; it lowers your response rates.
So, having a database to merge against is a good thing. Less wasted mail, right?
Not necessarily. Maybe this holds true for straight customer acquisition programs, but what about inquiry conversion and retention programs in your regular catalog circulation plan? Here we have a slippery slope, as I’d never, ever use a suppression file on my own customers and databased prospects. As far as I’m concerned, they all opted in.
As a mailer, I’m not going to leave that potential revenue on the table. End of discussion.
Let’s get vocal here. I’m deliberately putting an “oil and water don’t mix” issue out there. Feel free to agree, disagree or challenge me to a duel over my opinions (they ARE facts actually, LOL). Post your comments below.
I’m taking a much needed vacation this week. I’ll be back to my regular posting schedule next week. Mean time, there’s lots here to read. Enjoy, and thanks for taking the time to visit (or re-visit).
Oh, two more things. Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter (use the button top left), or sign up to have my articles sent to you via RSS (top left side of page above newsletter sign up button)
Last week, I gave a presentation to the Florida Direct Marketing Association titled “50 direct marketing tips, tricks and tactics to make you a superstar.” I’m going to share those tips with you over the course of the next few weeks.
Part of that presentation dealt with improving Web marketing. Right up front, I’m asking you to contribute to this article by posting your comments below. If I miss something, please add it, OK, lets make this a collaborative effort.
As a side note, I’ve spent a lot of time lately looking at multichannel and other marketers’ Web sites, and have seen tremendous opportunities for companies to capture not just orders, but prospects as well.
Many e-commerce Web sites are good at taking orders, but not so good at capturing prospects.
Thus the goal of this series, which I’m calling “You Lost Me There,” is to help you get more of the people who visit your Web site to raise their hands and request to continue the dialogue with you. You want these people in your database, as they’ve expressed some level of interest in your products.
That said, here are three tips to optimize online sales:
Why is your phone number not prominently displayed on your homepage and ALL pages of your site? Make it big. Make it stand out. And put it on pages in multiple places! Your prospects and customers don’t want to have to WORK to find you.
If you say you don’t want the phone number to be easy to find because you don’t have the phone staff to handle the calls, think again. Even pure-play Internet companies need to coddle their prospects and customers in this day and age; otherwise they’ll shop elsewhere. Contract with a call center, even if it’s just to take messages and pass them on. There are call centers that even allow you to pay as you go by buying blocks of time. Essentially, adding a call center doesn’t have to be as costly as you think.
For crying out loud, respond to customer e-mails. Same customer service issue, different methodology. If you want to drive people to interact with you via e-mail, make your e-mail contact info stand out. And respond in a reasonable amount of time. In the second week of my direct marketing class at Miami International University, I have my students conduct an experiment: Send an e-mail to a company and see how long it takes for it to respond. Guess what — fully one quarter of the e-mails don’t get responded to. Here’s a rule of thumb for you: Return every e-mail in less than four hours. Not only the same day — fourhours.
Every call and e-mail is an opportunity. Start a dialogue, and get customers ordering.
Bottom line: Consumers don’t have the time to spend on your site figuring out how to contact you with their simple questions. They don’t want to search your FAQs or dig around for contact info. They want answers immediately; otherwise, they don’t care how good your products are, because they won’t order. Don’t lose business over this.
Check back next week for part two of this series, when I’ll give you some more tips on how to increase ROI with your Web site. In the meantime, post your comments below.
Note from Jim: Occasionally when I find someone with an original voice out there in the blogosphere, I allow guest columns on my blog. Clive Maclean has one of those voices and puts direct marketing via the agency side into perspective for us. Enjoy.
Over the past decade, in pursuit of that elusive “Integrated Agency Capability,” most agency acquisitions have been characterized by larger traditional agencies buying hot specialty shops, in those categories that they perceived a need. Recently, the tables appear to be turning as an established digital agency plans to acquire a hot advertising shop.
On June, 17 Reuters reported, “Sapient to buy ad agency, eyes traditional dollars.” They went on to say that Sapient (a technology, consulting & interactive company) was buying the Nitro Group for about $50 million, in a bid to spread its reach into the traditional advertising space.
According to Gaston Legorburu, Sapient’s Worldwide Creative Officer, this is the first time a large digital shop has gone the other way and acquired an above-the-line agency. The reason given being access to relationships with big brands and their traditional advertising dollars. This deal is expected in increase Sapient’s ability to become a one stop shop with the ability to deliver campaigns that run across the full media spectrum.
I believe that there may be many more of these transactions to come. Digital media and communications are truly at the forefront of marketing communications today. We have a whole generation of “Digital Natives” who really know no other life than their digital one. Now not unusual to see brands/products being launched through digital media and in certain instances exclusively through digital media.
The balance of power is changing and some of the strongest client/agency strategic relationships now lie within the digital agency. I don’t know about you, but I came up through the direct marketing channel, and one thing that still haunts me to this day, is the statement I used to hear so often from my brand agency counterparts, “Can you bolt on any tactics or executions to this campaign?” My guess is that I will not be hearing this statement again in the foreseeable future.
What defines integration, how to best achieve it and how to optimize its effectiveness, continue to be moving targets. As technology develops, new media channels emerge and consumers evolve their media usage, client expectations from an agency for integrated marketing support changes.
Based on what I see, I am certain that digital, direct and database will continue to be the critical skills required within any integrated agency offering. Data and research playing a major role in assisting those agencies to find the key actionable insights required to deliver great, effective work.
In a recent meeting with Stan Rapp, he said that the old mass media era is being replaced by a new internet-dependent mass marketing era. In order to adapt and improve their bottom line, marketers need a new strategy that harnesses the power of the internet, direct marketing skills and data driven ROI. He calls it “iDirect”. If Stan is in fact right, and by the way he has demonstrated over the years that he often is then marketers will need a new type of integrated agency centered on those three disciplines.
Who knows, Sapient may be the agency to lead it?
About the guest author, Clive Maclean:
Clive is currently principle and founder of Clive Maclean Consulting. During his career he has founded no less than three separate agencies, all of which were subsequently sold to Grey, Leo Burnett and most recently FCB. One of them being the first specialist Interactive agency in Southern Africa, back in 1992.
In part 2 of this series, I’ll continue to recap a presentation I gave a few weeks ago to the Florida Direct Marketing Association titled “The Second Half: 50 Tips, Tricks and Tactics to Make You a Direct Marketing Superstar.” It’s my goal to continue to serve up tips so you too can be a superstar at driving more ROI for your company. (For part one, click here.)
This week, let’s look at the many ways you can lose prospects who visit your Web site without even knowing who they are. This “phantom demand” can be captured and added to your contact strategy, and these leads can be nurtured until they’re ready to buy. To capture them and begin a sales dialogue, however, you must get them to identify themselves, right?
So without further preamble (or pre-mumble as a former colleague of mine used to say), here are some more tips for you:
Catalog requests — say it loud; say it proud. Believe it or not, people still love to shop via catalog. Some people, myself included, still prefer the tactile feel of leafing through a catalog. And here’s a bonus for you: Catalog/multiple channel buyers spend more money per channel. In other words, the more channels they spend time in, the more engaged they are from an emotional perspective in your products and business. This yields buyers who in most cases will spend more per order and over their lifetimes. That said, why is your catalog request link not more prominently displayed? Make it big, and make it stand out so it’s easy to find.
Newsletters, special offers and other sign-up opportunities (yes, but something crucial is often missing here). This is a must-have on your Web site, and most of you already do it. BUT when I sign up to receive a newsletter, that’s when the inquiry conversion can start. Most of the time I get this boring, generic “thanks for signing up” e-mail confirmation — if I get anything at all. But more often than not, I get nothing — no thanks at all, which is totally shameful. Confirmation pages — better yet, confirmation e-mails — are the perfect place for special offers, coupons and forward-to-a-friend links. They’re also a great opportunity to call out specific products that you want to promote. And don’t forget to add a few testimonials. (I’ll discuss more about testimonials later in this series).
Serve up a whitepaper or other info. While not normally applicable to consumer business, whitepapers in B-to-B are a powerful tool for building credibility. If you’re a B-to-B seller, prominently offer free whitepapers on your site. Give customers value in return for their permission to continue the sales dialogue with you.
For consumer-based merchants, offer things like style guides or something else relevant to your prospects in order to have them pony up their names for future marketing efforts.
The goal is to get all the people who visit your Web site to raise their virtual hands in the air and allow you to continue to market to them until they buy.
Check back next week for part three of this series, when I’ll examine additional ways multiple channel companies can stop the Web-bleed and capture more prospects.
Have a comment? Want to add something? Post it below. Don’t be shy.
In part 3 of this series (Jim’s note: originally written for All About ROI Magazine, formerly Catalog Success), I’ll continue to recap a presentation I gave a few weeks ago to the Florida Direct Marketing Association titled “The Second Half: 50 Tips, Tricks and Tactics to Make You a Direct Marketing Superstar.”
In particular, this week I examine the value of the call center.
I’ve engaged in debates before with multichannel marketers who don’t believe they need a call center. I spoke briefly about this in part one of this series, but I believe it warrants mention again.
If you believe — and many of the purest of pure-play Internet marketers do — that you don’t need a call center, think again. I’ve seen this debate lost over and over again. People still want, and sometimes need, a human voice to help with their orders, especially if you offer products that are complicated and/or higher in cost.
It’s not that difficult to add a call center these days. And as I’ve said before, there are even call-center companies that allow you to buy blocks of time. Other call-center companies charge a flat fee per call or per sale.
Want to see your average order values, conversion rates and lifetime values go up? Bring a call center into the mix. Think about it this way: If your Web site converts 4 percent of visitors, even the worst of call centers will convert at least 10 percent of callers. That’s a 2.5:1 ratio, on the low end.
If you want to create your own internal call center because you think you can do it better, you may be right, but you might want to enlist the help of a good call-center/operations consultant to get set up correctly. The good news: These days there are many software as a service products that can get you set up quickly and efficiently.
So back to what I said in week one of this series — make it easy for people to contact you. Promote your phone number and you’ll see excellent results.
Next week I’ll discuss more ways multichannel companies can capture customers with some tips and techniques designed for your call center.
Have a comment? Want to add something? Disagree with me and want to start a duel? Post it below. Speak to you next week.
This is a brilliant video example of how B2B (and consumer) marketing fundamentals and selling has NOT changed over time. Kudos! Enjoy “the man in the chair”, and let me your thoughts?
(please note, for some reason the video takes a few seconds to load.)
Jim’s note: Originally written for All About ROI Magazine (formerly Catalog Success)
“Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!!!”
Quick, somebody tell me what movie that line came from?
In internet speak, “badges” are small icons with social media logos that can be put on your website to drive traffic to those same social media sites. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Places where you can extend your brand.
In the fourth part of my “you lost me there” series, I’ll discuss the value of brand interaction, a largely intangible but very valuable asset. (For part 1, click here; for part 2, click here; and for part 3, click here.)
By extending your brand, I mean having your customers and prospects spend more time interacting with your company. In turn, they become more engaged in your company “culture” and more likely to buy and recommend your products to others.
We measure success today not only by cost per acquisition and lifetime value (LTV), but also by time spent interacting with your brand. While not necessarily tangible, or even easily measurable, time spent with your brand in a positive way will gain you new customers and prospects in the future. Although many people are admittedly having a difficult time quantifying social media, in today’s marketplace it’s 100 percent necessary.
Think of it this way: The more time someone spends in your “store,” the more likely that person is to buy. Now include your store, website, blog, Facebook page and Twitter feed, and you have someone who’s more committed to your brand than other prospect/customer segments are. This bodes well for customer LTV, too.
I worry less about measuring social media than I do making sure that my clients’ brands are represented in all forms of social media, and even more about getting customers and prospects alike engaged.
So My Question to You Is This …
Where are your stinking badges? On many multichannel and direct merchant websites, I don’t see them. This is a significant opportunity for you. At the very least you should have a blog, Facebook page and Twitter account. You also should consider using video (e.g., testimonials, product demonstrations), LinkedIn, message boards, Plaxo, Ning and more. Your key employees should be blogging and tweeting. You also should look to adopt other web technologies like online chat.
We’re going to take a deep dive into adoption of social media over the next few weeks. If your company has a “model” website with all the social media bits in the right places, please contact me offline. I’m looking to present some case studies in the near future as well.
Session 1 – The Truth Behind Cherries, Chocolate & Paper. The more paper you use, the better for the climate.
Speaker: Wayne Dennis, Corporate Director of Sustainability, Mac Papers
Learn why paper and print are the best environmentally responsible choices for marketers. Find the right shade of “Green” for your marketing efforts, how to measure your environmental impact and the best ways to communicate it to your audience.
Session 2 – Advancements in Web to Print technology: What it means to you and your customers.
Speaker: Gary Ritkes, Managing Director of Sales/Marketing, SproutLoud
Discover how web to print technology is transforming traditional printing processes and empowering marketers. Find out how you can deliver one-to-one marketing messages on demand via direct mail, e-mail and the web – all from your desktop!
Event Location: Westin Fort Lauderdale Cypress Creek
Note from Jim: I’m encouraged by these direct marketing employment numbers. I thought you might like to see them, so I asked Bernhart Associates for permission to post for you.
Bernhart Survey: Recession Easing Its Grip on Direct Marketing Employment
Owatonna, MN, July 13, 2009- Hundreds of direct marketers, agencies and service providers are offering some new glimmers of hope for direct marketing job seekers, according to the latest Bernhart Associates employment update.
“It appears the direct marketing job market is scraping the bottom,” said Jerry Bernhart, Principal of Bernhart Associates Executive Search, LLC, a leading direct marketing recruiter who has been issuing quarterly direct marketing employment reports since 2001. “This is the first quarter in two years in which the hiring index is showing improvement, and planned layoffs are continuing their trend lower,” said Bernhart.
According to the survey, 20% of the respondents said they will be adding to staff during the current summer quarter, up from 16% in the spring. Layoffs declined for the third quarter in a row, with 8% planning to reduce staff compared with 13% last quarter and 20% at the start of 2009. The number of companies reporting hiring freezes held steady at 30%.
The hiring freeze figure was even higher for agencies, with 44% reporting that they’re holding the line on hiring.
Bernhart said responses to the hiring freeze question underscores the prevailing mood of uncertainty. “We always ask when they plan to lift their hiring freezes, and the vast majority said they expected those freezes to remain in place through the rest of 2009,” said Bernhart.
Bernhart noted that business-to-business direct marketers are faring better overall in the key employment indicators compared with their business-to-consumer counterparts.
For example, when asked if they plan to reduce staff 13% of business-to-consumer direct marketers said they expect further layoffs this summer compared with 9% amongbusiness-to-business respondents.
Despite the uptick in the survey’s overall results, Bernhart foresees no significant comeback in direct marketing hiring until at least 2010.
“You can’t stage a recovery with only one in five direct marketers planning to hire, and one-third of the others holding on to hiring freezes with no plans to lift them until at least the end of the year. In my conversations with senior level executives, there is no consistent level of optimism in the current economic environment for them to jump into the employment market. I’m also seeing that same caution in executive search. Companies are telling us they’re thinking about making staffing changes, but they are slow to pull the trigger.”
Despite the abundance of job seekers, the survey also shows that filling open direct marketing positions is not always an easy task. When asked if they were experiencing difficulty hiring new talent, 42% said it was either “very difficult” or “somewhat difficult” to fill certain positions.
When asked what specific positions will be in greatest demand this summer, Bernhart said the list of job categories named was across the board including analytics, sales, creative, technical and marketing. “There was lots of mention of analytics from agencies, service providers and marketers,” said Bernhart.
A record 402 companies responded to the random survey which was emailed the week of June 22.
According to the Direct Marketing Association, marketers – commercial and nonprofit - spent $176.9 billion on direct marketing in 2008, which accounted for 52.1 percent of all ad expenditures in the United States. Measured against total US sales, these advertising expenditures generated approximately $2.057 trillion in incremental sales. Last year, direct marketing accounted for approximately 10 percent of total US gross domestic product. Also, there are today 1.6 million direct marketing employees in the US. Their collective sales efforts directly support 9.3 million other jobs, accounting for a total of 10.9 million US jobs.
Results of past surveys can be found in the DMA’s Statistical Fact Book and on the website of Bernhart Associates Executive Search, LLC.
Companies interested in participating in the Bernhart Associates Quarterly Direct Marketing Employment Report should send an email to survey@bernhart.com with “Opt-In” in the subject line, or they can sign up directly on the Bernhart Associates website.
About Bernhart Associates:
Bernhart Associates Executive Search, LLC, is owned by Jerry Bernhart, a leading and nationally recognized direct marketing recruiter, writer and speaker focusing on senior level Multichannel Direct Marketing, CRM, ECommerce, Database Marketing, Business Development and Quantitative Analysis positions. Jerry has been a leading direct marketing recruiter since 1990, and specializes in direct marketing positions, online and offline, at all levels. The Bernhart Associates Employment Survey, now in its eighth year, has become the most widely followed employment report in direct marketing. In February, Bernhart Associates partnered with the Direct Marketing Association in providing exclusive analysis for the DMA’s 2009 Employment Outlook Report, a comprehensive study of trends in hiring and employee retention in direct marketing and available for sale at the DMA Bookstore. Viewed as a leading authority on issues related to direct marketing recruiting, Jerry is a frequent speaker at national direct marketing conferences and is often quoted by the direct marketing news media. Jerry has written dozens of articles for all leading online and offline direct marketing publications and conducts a widely followed employment survey for EM+C covering internet marketing and ecommerce.
So as I was looking through this powerpoint, I couldn’t help but see about a million mistakes I did in my last presentation. Thanks to Jeff Yaniga from My Compass Direct for turning me on to this!
Are you going to be the 400th member of the Linkedin direct marketing question & answer group? (just 2 weeks old and growing fast) http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/2080726/
Jim’s note: Kevin Hillstrom and I write weekly columns for All About ROI (formerly Catalog Success) Magazine. I really enjoyed his article (and perspective) this week about building social media databases. Definitely something to implement! Enjoy…
It’s really hard these days to find a marketing discussion that doesn’t include the phrase “social media.” But it’s also really hard to find a case study of someone who created a social media database and then measured return on investment based on the data in that database.
A social media database houses information about social media customer behavior. Take Twitter, for example: Every time a new user decides to follow your Twitter presence, you enter that user in your database. You enter the user name, date the user began to follow you and any biographical information about the user.
Every time a Twitter user has something to say about your brand — positive or negative — you enter the information into your social media database. Did the user retweet one of your articles? If so, capture the user name, date it happened and action (retweet). Did the user link to one of your web pages? Capture that information with the link.
Some people will criticize your brand. Record the user name, and categorize the nature of the criticism. Did the user say something positive? Record the user name, and categorize the compliment, recording the date this activity happened.
Record every outbound communication, too. If you speak with a Twitter user, record the fact that you had a conversation.
Eventually, you’ll have a robust database of every interaction you can identify. Actively search for instances where someone says something about your brand name, identifying hashtags that are related to your brand.
Now you’re in business! Mine your social media database, identifying users who start conversations. Where possible, link these users to your customer database so you can begin to correlate purchase activity and website visitation habits with positive or negative social media sentiments.
Some people would say that this is hard work, that they don’t have the resources to do this kind of work. I’d pick five individuals in my call center and have them enter this information into the social media database — each individual spends an hour or two each week entering data based on the parameters listed above.
Once the data is captured, it becomes much easier to measure ROI. For some, ROI is a function of sales and profit generated. For others, the acquisition of new customers becomes important. Or maybe success is measured by the amount of positive buzz or the mitigation of negative sentiment. A social media database allows you to measure all of these aspects of your social media activities.
Eventually, you’re going to have to prove that social media has a positive ROI, that it isn’t simply a way to connect with active and potential customers. Why not begin capturing the data today, so you can demonstrate a positive ROI in the future?
I recently had the opportunity to do some work with a company that had a pretty decent DRTV campaign running. I say decent because it had a good product and the DRTV campaign’s production values were excellent. But the product was complicated and lent itself to a complex offer that a two-minute spot couldn’t fully explain. The spot generated much interest and strong call volume, which would suggest that the campaign was a winner, right?
Until those calls hit the call center.
What do you get when you mix a complicated product offer with call-center staff that doesn’t have the training (or sales acumen) to convert? A company that’s bleeding potential customers in the call center. In essence, a lower than what should be call-to-order ratio, with a giant chasm between the prospect’s understanding of the offer and the customer service rep’s (CSR) ability to close the sale.
(For part 1 of this series, click here; part 2, here; part 3, here; and part 4, here.)
The Great Call-Center Disconnect:
Companies need to function under the guise that great — even sometimes so-so — direct marketing will make the telephone ring, but expertise in the call center will make the cash register sing! Ask yourself the following questions when evaluating your call center’s effectiveness:
How’s your call-to-order ratio?
Is there blood in your call center?
Can you convert more inquiries to sales?
Are your CSRs properly trained?
My Biggest Pet Peeve (and One for You to Ponder)
Ask yourself this question: With the millions of dollars companies spend on inventory, marketing, and general and administrative expenses, why are the people on the phones the least educated and, most importantly, lowest paid employees in the company? These are the people on the front lines of your business every day. Every penny of spend filters through either the call center or your website.
Forget sales conversion for a moment. What about contact capture?
What are you doing to ensure that every call that comes into your call center becomes an opportunity? Are your CSRs doing all they can to entice callers who aren’t ready to buy into giving out their information and blessing to continue the sales dialogue? Some examples include the following:
Are you offering callers who don’t buy some sort of company literature — brochures, catalogs via regular mail, PDFs via email?
How about an email newsletter opt-in? If they don’t buy, this is a perfect opt-in point.
Handling Missed Opportunities
There are many ways to capture consumers’ contact info in your call center. But be sure to also look at missed opportunities to convert more sales.
Are you downselling a less expensive product or a different, yet related, product?
How much time do you spend listening to your reps on the phone? I’m often shocked by how little time call-center management spends on listening. I’m less shocked that marketing and merchandising people don’t listen to calls. And when was the last time someone from the C-suite listened?
How much time do you spend training your reps?
I’ll continue this series next week with some simple, yet effective, call-center training techniques that’ll help you convert more sales.
PRESS RELEASE, For Immediate Release July 27, 2009
Contact: Jerry Bernhart 507-451-4270 Bernhart Associates Executive Search, LLC
Bernhart Associates Launches New Twitter Group for Direct Marketing Job Seekers
Owatonna, MN, July 27, 2009- Direct marketing job seekers will soon have a new on-line tool to help with their job search.
Veteran direct marketing recruiter Jerry Bernhart will be moderating a new first-of-its-kind chat session on Twitter focusing specifically on all aspects of jobs and hiring in direct marketing.
“There are online communities for just about every subject you can imagine,” said Jerry Bernhart, owner of Bernhart Associates Executive Search, LLC, who is also well known in direct marketing for his quarterly employment reports. “This is a natural extension of the use of social media to help those who are looking for their next career opportunity in direct marketing, including ecommerce and emarketing.”
Bernhart said the new forum will use Tweetchat, allowing messages to be posted and read by participants in a matter of seconds. “It’s kind of like texting but a whole lot faster and easier,” said Bernhart. “It also allows quick and easy sharing of links.”
“It will be an opportunity to ask questions, share ideas and get advice on
lots of topics, including job leads, resume preparation, interviewing tips, salaries, finding candidates, job offers, counteroffers, job descriptions, sources of hire, anything topic at all related to hiring and jobs at all levels in online or offline direct marketing,” said Bernhart.
Participants can choose their level of participation, jumping in and out of the discussion whenever there’s something of interest being discussed or to share their own expertise and experiences.
Employers are also invited to put up tweets on positions they are looking to fill.
The first direct marketing careers Tweetchat event will take place Sunday, August 2nd, at 8 pm Eastern time. Subsequent Tweetchats will be announced on the website of Bernhart Associates and through announcements on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
To participate, go to Tweetchat.com, sign-in with your Twitter account, and enter #DMCareers in the “Hashtag to follow” box. Bernhart explains that once you’re in the group there is no need to use the hashtag again because Tweetchat automatically applies it to each message, saving you the bother of typing it in each time you want to post. Bernhart adds that if you want to monitor the discussion but you won’t be home at the time, no worries. Tweetchat works on your mobile phone, too.
3 weeks, 540 members strong. Join us: http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/2080726/ We have members from all area’s of direct marketing ready to share their expertise with you. We also have international members.
Want to know more about search, blogs, direct mail, telemarketing, lists, social media, and all direct marketing disciplines, then join us.
If you are an expert in direct marketing, please join us too. And our members are using this group as a great networking tool!
OK, so I love the TV show Mad Men. Not since Darren Stevens on Bewitched has the ad industry been portrayed on TV (except for that horrible show on cable last year). Maybe I should write a script about the goings on, in the direct marketing industry. Maybe set it in a DM agency…. hmmm fun possibilities.
I usually don’t ramble in my posts, so here is the point. I am loving the way the TV show Mad Men, is using social media to increase their audience. Check out this article on how they are doing it, using Twitter, a webiste (madmenyourself.com) and other social media.
Mean time. On Madmenyourself.com, I made my cool 60’s avatar. Check it out…
Jim, your author as his 60's counterpart. Kinda hip for his time!
When used correctly, blogs can be an excellent tool for engaging prospects and customers — especially in today’s environment, when the companies we deal with are more machine than human. We call in and get interactive voice response rather than a live person. We read FAQs instead of speaking to customer service reps. It’s an isolated feeling.
So when I create a blog for a client, I do the following three things: Read more »
There’s an old adage that says, “The more you tell, the more you sell.” Let’s put a 21st century twist on this. Providing your prospects and customers with solid testimonials from present customers can be a powerful selling force for your business.
Get Psychological
From a psychological perspective, consumers much prefer to hear what their peers are saying. As we get deeper into the age of social media, peer recommendations are becoming the norm as part of a prospect’s evaluation process. No longer are you able to push out messages and have customers buy on impulse. Today’s consumers are extremely sophisticated. They seek out information from many sources beyond a company’s marketing materials before buying decisions are made.
Therefore, companies who provide their customer stories up front are giving themselves an edge over the competition.
You’d be surprised how easy it is to get testimonials from your customers. Here are four tips to help you get started with the process:
In most cases, all you have to do is ask. Have your customer service reps ask everybody they’re on the phone with when they hear a good story. (Believe me, they hear all sorts of stories. The question is: Do they filter up to you?) Have your reps say something like, “Wow, what a great story! Would it be OK to share that with our other customers?” Simple, right?
Scan your database and pick customers from your top RFM cell. Give them a call, send them a letter (of course thanking them for their patronage) and see what happens.
It’s a little trickier to get video and pictures from your customers. But it may be worth adding some sort of incentive for video or pictures. A contest is always a good draw.
Engage your customers on social media sites. Monitor what people are saying about you on your sites. Contact the ones who say great things. Of course, the ones who say not-so-nice things are customer service OPPORTUNITIES waiting to happen when you resolve their issues.
Where to Feature Your Testimonials?
On your blog, front and center.
Your homepage and all throughout your website.
In your emails and email newsletters.
How about in your fulfillment packages? People perceive the package they receive from you as a happy thing — a gift even. Psychologically, the payment is forgotten in most cases, leaving just the Christmas morning joy of opening the package. Stick a piece of collateral in there with some testimonials, and it reinforces the sale even further.
On your social media sites. Tweet them out. Post them to Facebook. Better yet, ask and your customers will post to Facebook themselves. Many times you’ll receive kudos on Facebook and Twitter you never expected.
I live in Florida, home of hurricanes, crazy drivers and the occasional tornado. Right now in the tropics Ana and Bill are threatening the leeward islands and threaten to hit the Dominican Republic (where I am currently on vacation) on Tuesday, before moving towards Florida and the Gulf.
Thus every year at about this time, I serve up my annual disaster planning guide.
Disasters happen in all forms just about anywhere — without warning, at any time. So prepare your company and yourself. Here’s a disaster-readiness checklist I suggest you look over carefully. If you think you’re on top of this, I recommend you compare your list to this one to ensure you have all bases covered.
Have a business survival disaster plan in place. Get your department heads involved as stakeholders. Let your employees know what to do in the event of any emergency.
Publish a list of all emergency contact numbers for your key personnel and vendors. Include home and cell phone numbers, as well as home email addresses as alternative ways of contact if main communication channels go down. And don’t forget instant messaging and Skype addresses as well as text messages as alternative means to communicate during a disaster.
Twitter and Facebook also can be effective tools for communicating with your employees, vendors and customers during times of crisis.
Designate someone in your company as chief disaster planning officer.
Back up your computers and computer systems regularly. Then back up your backups. Most importantly, keep them off-site. I have five backup drives and all my files backed up on DVDs. There are two kinds of computer users: those who have lost data, and those who will lose it. I fall into the first category: Two weeks ago one of my backup drives failed with more than 750 gigabytes of data on it. Luckily, while I lost three-quarters of a terabyte of data, I had almost all of it backed up on DVDs. I’m one of the fortunate ones in that I lost a little, not a lot.
Work with your call center so it can operate if a disaster strikes. If you use an external call center, inquire about its disaster plan.
If your call center is on-site, consider hiring a backup call-center staff to field calls in case of emergency (this one saved my client’s bacon a few years ago).
If you host your own website, have a plan in place if you were to lose all power. Find out what your ISP does if it loses its electricity.
If your business is in a disaster-prone area, buy a generator.
If your business isn’t in a disaster-prone area, contact any vendors that are. Disasters, either natural or man-made, can interrupt your workflow with printers, the Postal Service and all other vendors.
Don’t market into disaster-impacted areas, because they won’t respond. If you’ve already marketed in a disaster-impacted area, adjust your projections downward.
Bottom line for all this, remember my motto (or is it the Boy Scout motto?): ALWAYS BE PREPARED!
Do you have a disaster plan? Feel free to add to this list by posting a comment below.
I am always banging home the point that social media and web 2.0, especially video that goes viral can drive the success or failure of a product or service. Here is a perfect little example of a video that is currently making the social media rounds that takes aim at the AT&T Apple Partnership with the iPhone; directly lobbying to get away from the exclusive arrangement.
My 2 cents: I love my iPhone, and I hate AT&T. I got my iPhone 2 months ago. Compared to Verizon, I get about 2-3 dropped calls a day, whereas I got 2-3 dropped calls every 6 months with Verizon. With AT&T, I get “no service” all the time, while I barely had that problem with Verizon. Here is a video that needs to continue to go viral until Apple gets the point and drops their exclusivity with AT&T. Thanks again to Jeff Yaniga from My Compass Direct for the video. (note: video contains profanity)
In the last 20 years, I’ve primarily focused on improving one area of multichannel retail: What’s the key to improving a customer service rep’s (CSR) performance in the call center? Read more »
In part 1 of this series, I discussed the many ways to add value to your blog and cement your brand to your readers — essentially your customers and prospects. In part 2, I get a bit personal, offering some tips I’ve used to build my personal direct marketing blog and others.
As a direct marketing consultant, blogging has been a powerful tool for me as part of my overall networking strategy. While I do plenty of in-person networking, I much prefer the newfangled way of using my blog and social media to drive lead generation and ultimately customers my way.
So here, follow these steps. And shhh, don’t tell anybody about this, OK? Read more »
Join the Direct Marketing Questions & Answers group on Linkedin. We have had 800 member joins in the last month. Lots of back and forth and spirited communications. Join us if you want to participate. http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/2080726/
Note from Jim: Originally published in All About ROI Magazine (formerly Catalog Success) Filling my virtual shoes this week while I’m on vacation is Jerry Bernhart, president of Bernhart Associates Executive Search, and author of the Direct Marketing Employment Outlook Survey.
For those of you actively looking for employment, let me offer a few things you can do to help you get that extra edge. This may not all be new to you, but these key points are worth repeating.
1. Make sure your resume screams, “I can add value!” I still see way too many resumes that are long on titles and descriptions, but short on specific accomplishments and achievements. That always amazes me. Metrics are an integral part of the direct marketing process, yet many marketers’ resumes often neglect to include what really matters most — quantifiable results. If you don’t brag on your resume, no one else is going to do it for you.
Be very specific, quantify where possible and use some choice action verbs to describe what you achieved. Companies have already taken steps to slash costs, so think more about what you’ve done to contribute to revenue growth, such as acquiring and keeping new customers; new products; new market segments; how you’ve helped improve recency, frequency and monetary value; and so on. Don’t forget to make your resume keyword-friendly. Use terms that are specific to your job or career objectives, and use them often. Read more »
Over in the linkedin group I manage, (Direct Marketing Questions & Answers), we’ve been having a discussion on the zig vs. zag nature of direct marketing and social media.
In essence, the theory is this: with everybody zigging towards social media these days, does that leave a giant hole (translation: opportunity) for traditional direct marketing to be used to engage customers and prospects? It’s been a spirited discussion so far. And I firmly believe that traditional direct marketing (integrated with the web) presents such an opportunity in a zigzag market.
My personal bottom line is that social media marketing is just one of the tools in my kit bag, and should be used (tested and rolled out) as part of the direct marketing mix. So I use it all.
But no discussion of social media these days should be done without a basic understanding of it’s strategic vs. tactical use.
I see many companies using social media tactically, without thinking through the strategy. The truth is, anyone can post a video, start tweeting or blogging, etc., and many companies have jumped on this bandwagon as a tactic. However, much like direct mail or any other direct marketing discipline, the tactical use of social media can have little or no results at all, thus giving the marketer the erroneous impression that social media doesn’t work.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard someone say, we tried direct mail (or insert medium here) and it doesn’t work. Some of these people when further queried will admit to not following the rules… the first of which is define the strategy, the list, the offer, etc. And with some of these business owners if they are willing to learn how to do direct mail right, their next attempt will have better, if not profitable results.
There are many places in which to find the rules of direct mail, or traditional direct marketing. But when it comes to social media, the rules of engagement are a bit vague.
Beyond strategy – the common sense rules of engagement:
So I have been studying social media marketing for the last year. Practicing it strategically, and analyzing my results. And I have also been looking for a good quality set of rules to live by. Today thanks to Twitter I found some published by Intel for their employees and their contractors. These are a good place to start.
With more than 5.3 million people having already watched it, Dave Carroll’s “United Breaks Guitars” video has become an internet social media phenomenon. I first saw the video posted on Facebook by a friend.
For the last year I’ve been saying — screaming actually — that companies better have their acts together, otherwise they’re sitting ducks in this new age of customer centricity. If your customer service, products and brand image aren’t all buttoned up, you risk getting skewered on the internet, i.e., the people’s media.
The video I’m referring to is really amazing to see. Here’s the story behind it: United Airline’s baggage handlers break a passenger’s guitar, and the next thing you know 5.3 million people hear about it in a catchy, four-minute ditty on YouTube. Viralocity at its finest (and scariest).
The song has gone so mainstream that you can now buy it on iTunes. For just 99 cents, you too can help spread negative publicity about an airline. I hate to admit it, but I actually feel sorry for United. Well, to a point anyway.
As a marketer and consultant, I’ve seen every variation of apathetic customer service and crappy products sold by spin and hype alone. As a 30-year student of marketing and advertising — and, of course, firsthand experience — I’ve witnessed brands whose positionings were so far divergent from their actual customer experiences that you have to wonder what the C-level execs were thinking when they were sold hook, line and sinker on some overzealous, over-researched agencies’ campaigns. I can just hear it now: “Well, our market research says that if you … ”
But none of that scares me more than the internet and social media, and their power to kill your brand dead with a song, tweet, Facebook status update, blog post, thumbs down, etc.
You should be terrified, too. If you’re reading this column, let it be a call to action for you. Let my words galvanize you into looking into how your customers and prospects experience — I’ll say it again — your customer service, products and brand image. I know I sound preachy, but how would you like a song written and gone viral about your company?
I strongly urge you to get together with your key staff members to pick apart every one of your company’s touchpoints to ensure every contact in every touchpoint is handled in a pristine manner.
To close out my sermon for the week, I want to leave you with a personal recollection from my early days in direct marketing. In the ’80s I was selling direct marketing media, and to hone my craft I read a book called “How to Sell Anything to Anybody,” written by a car salesman named Joe Girard. Girard had this rule, the rule of 250, which basically stated that any person you come into contact with knew and could influence 250 other people — positively or negatively. That one rule both terrified and inspired me. Here it is expressed mathematically: 1:250.
Thanks to social media, Joe’s rule has expanded just a little, I’d say. Take the United Airlines case, for instance, and do the math. It’s 1:5,322,806.
Oh, and by the way, check out the sequel to “United Breaks Guitars” here. It takes square aim at United’s policies and people who refused to pay for the guitar to be fixed. It’s already climbing the charts.
I can’t wait to hear your comments on these facts about social media.
Do you want to include social media marketing in your business? We can help. We set up and even manage, blogs, message boards, Facebook pages and groups, twitter, video and more. We can write and post custom content for you as well. Contact us for more info.
Are you social, but looking for more ROI via traditional direct marketing? Contact us for more info.
Note from Jim. Here is a grim look at the realities of employment in the direct marketing industry – From a survey done by Bernhart Associates. In a nutshell, what this survey doesn’t state is simple…. If you are employed in this economy, do everything you can to stay employed. Work harder, longer, smarter, get “win’s” on the board and in general make your self indispensable!
Furthermore, do everything you can to build your network of contacts in case you should find yourself unemployed. Remember, building your personal rolodex is just as important as being exceptional at your job!
Bernhart Survey Reveals New Data On Direct Marketing Unemployment
If you’re a recently unemployed direct marketer, you’ll be interested in a new study that shows for the first time how long other jobless DM’ers have been looking for work and how direct marketing compares with the latest national figures on unemployment.
The innovative survey was conducted by Jerry Bernhart of Bernhart Associates Executive Search, LLC, a leading direct marketing executive recruiter who also issues widely followed quarterly employment updates.
“We wanted to get a sense for how long unemployed direct marketers have been looking for a job, and we also wanted to break that down by levels of compensation to determine how various salary levels compare,” said Bernhart. “Finally, we wanted to compare unemployment duration in direct marketing with the overall U.S. economy.” Read more »
In my last column, I cautioned readers about social media and the negative effect it can have on online reputation management. Here’s a quick recap: The key to a positive reputation is to look at every possible customer and prospect touchpoint and make sure it’s buttoned up tight. Every interaction, every touchpoint needs to be quality-driven, otherwise your brand is going to take a social media beating.
There’s just too much prime opportunity online — e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc. — for brands to get dinged when they screw up. In the few weeks I’ve been back from vacation, I’ve been thinking about this as I go about my day-to-day dealings with companies.
Twice in the last few weeks I’ve gotten dinged: once by a salesman and once by a so-called customer service rep (CSR). But helping to restore my faith in our industry, I also recently had a fantastic customer service experience as well.
But first the negative:
I have a TV that for the last year has had sound problems. The sound intermittently stops working. With the TV under warranty, I called CompUSA’s warranty company to remedy the problem. It sent someone out who couldn’t find the problem. After another unsuccessful attempt to fix the problem, I again called the warranty company to get a new TV. The CSR told me there was nothing she could do except send out a third company to look at my TV. I calmly explained to her the facts of the case. She calmly explained that there’s nothing she can do. So I asked for her supervisor. The supervisor gave me the same speech — same language, same dull, disinterested, flat demeanor. Like robots, only less interesting. By then I realized that the company is just going to run out the clock on the warranty instead of giving me a new TV. The moral of this story: Some companies teach their frontline people to hold the line, not help customers.
I recently paid a visit to my local Honda dealership to trade in my son’s car. This will be my third lease with this dealership. The salesman I normally use is busy, so he puts me in the capable hands of “Bill.” I tell Bill that I want the special that was advertised on the dealership’s website because it’s the lowest-priced car it sells. Let the games begin. I know how it works, but I never let car salespeople play. Bill makes three attempts to get me into a more expensive car by asking if I want this or want that on the car. I remind him for the third time that I only want the least expensive car the dealership sells of that model. You know, the one listed on its website. Bill responds to me with the following: “You want the lowest price in that model, OK, but don’t you want a car with air conditioning?” (F.Y.I., I live in Florida.) He says this with actual contempt. One minute later, he’s back waiting for another customer to annoy. The moral of this story: I’d have fired this salesman on the spot if it was my dealership. You cannot risk offending any customers, much less repeat customers.
And the positive:
One word: Apple! I had to call its customer service department multiple times in the last few weeks with questions before installing its latest operating system. Each time I was greeted by a helpful human who worked with me patiently in a relaxed manner to get my issue resolved. Apple even offered to send me (for free, no less) operating system disks. (Mine were lost, hence the call.) I swear, it was like talking to the Apple guy from the TV commercials. Great job, Apple! You “get” customer service.
I don’t know about you, but every time I have to call a company’s customer service department I get a bit nervous in advance. Most of the time I know I’m going to be treated poorly by poorly trained, poorly managed people who are totally indifferent to me and my plight.
This message is for all of the C-suite people who read my column: Go to your call center now! Listen to your CSRs’ interactions; then do something about them. People are talking about you whether you like it or not. Positive or negative — it’s your choice.
Note from Jim. Chris DeMartine from NextMark sent me this article for review. I liked it and decided to publish it for you. NextMark is the premier resource for the list industry with info on over 60,000 lists. It’s the go to site for list brokers, managers and data providers. All direct marketers should be in-the-know about the list industry and it’s guiding principles. The article below is an excellent primer on list scoring.
If you are interested in direct mail or telemarketing lists, my sister company, Axxes Data can put together a list recommendation for you. Let me know.
Jim
Good mailing list purchase decisions depend on a good data card database, and NextMark ensures the quality of its data card database through the Data Card Quality Report and other monitoring tools. While it is important not to confuse data card quality with list quality, counts are changing all the time and a neglected data card could be a warning sign of a neglected list. This blog entry is primarily for list managers who are looking for insights on how to keep their data cards up-to-date most efficiently using NextMark’s data card publishing tool.
How are data cards scored?
The scoring process is reviewed on a quarterly basis, and subsequently refined to address list specific criteria. Individual data card scores are calculated using a weighted average of thirteen attributes, with an emphasis on last update (the date when the card was last updated and/or confirmed by the list manager). The basic principle is to create a quality data card from the start, and to manage the update process efficiently. List managers may also contact NextMark to learn how these updates may be processed automatically on their own web site, and integrated on a search engine optimized (SEO) platform to be indexed by Google and the other search engines.
Seven secrets to scoring high on data card quality:
#1 Review your data card quality report: select either ‘Data Card Quality Spreadsheet’ or ‘Data Card Quality Print View’ from the ‘CHOOSE A REPORT’ menu on the Lists – Management tab. You must be signed in to NextMark under your list management organization to run this report.
#2 Use the ‘next update date’ field: by populating this field you get the benefit of receiving an e-mail reminder (to update the data card) seven days prior to the date you enter. The next update date must be greater than or equal to the current date in order to receive full credit for last update. If you decide that you do not want to update this field, then be sure to leave it blank and manage your edits based on the update frequency.
#3 Check the update frequency: it is important for list brokers to know how often the names on a mailing list are updated. If the next update date is not populated, then the data card quality score will be based on the update frequency and the last date and time when the data card was updated by the list manager. For example, a data card representing a list that updates monthly should be confirmed every 30 days. However, if the update frequency is semi-annually, then you would only need to update the data card twice per year. Of course, this assumes that there have been no pricing or other changes to the file during the update cycle.
#4 Populate all scored fields for postal list types: make sure that every one of the fields representing the thirteen attributes are populated with valid information. There are a few exceptions to this, for example: if a list is available for email addresses only, then you would not be required to select outputs; or if a list is available on exchange only, then you would not be required to enter a base rate.
#5 Audit your list type selections: the scoring process for an insert program is slightly different than it is for a postal mailing list. The same holds true for other types such as blow-in or statement stuffer programs. It is important to make these selections carefully to make sure that your data cards are scored by the most appropriate criteria.
#6 Create a high quality list description: although there is a minimum character length required for a high quality list description, the scoring process also considers your creative efforts as part of the grade. The html is also credited in a manner similar to the text length of your data card description. Therefore, you are able to focus your efforts on the quality of a list description and not solely its length. You may also create and edit custom tables in the description area to provide counts and/or other information about the list. These tables are also considered as part of the overall data card description score. It is also important to remember to populate the short description field, as you be unable to achieve a perfect grade without that.
#7 Select three relevant categories: you’ll need to select at least three categories on the data card that would be relevant to the broker or mailer who is renting the list. Excessive categorization is discouraged because it not only dilutes the uniqueness of a list, but also makes it difficult to determine the target audience for the list. However, you are not required to limit the number of categories, especially in cases where a list or database is enhanced with additional data for targeting specific demographics or psychographics.
Chris DeMartine is the Director of Business Development for NextMark. He can be reached at (603) 643 – 1307 x. 114, or cdemartine@nextmark.com
Note from Jim. This week marks my 3 year anniversary of my column for All About ROI (formerly Catalog Success) magazine. Here is the anniversary article. Hope you enjoy my favorites “best of” articles referenced.
Three years and 75,000 words later…
Friends and readers: With this column I hit a milestone, the three-year anniversary of my weekly column for All About ROI (formerly Catalog Success). At roughly 500 words per column, I’ve written nearly 75,000 words on various aspects of direct marketing in the last three years. Wow!
I want to thank you, my readers, for your attention and interest over the last three years. I also want to thank you for the many emails you’ve sent me behind the scenes. Your comments, kudos and even criticisms have helped this column grow (and me grow as a writer and consultant). I thank you as well for your comments on my weekly articles.
That said, I’m rededicating myself to continuing to provide you the information, news and unique opinions on all that’s happening in direct and retail marketing in the coming years.
But before moving forward, I wanted to take a look back at some of my more memorable columns of the past three years with some thoughts sprinkled here and there on how they relate to today’s environment.
My very first column was “Don’t Start a Catalog.” I wrote that catalog marketing isn’t for the faint of heart; it takes money, discipline and the willingness to lose money on acquiring customers only to be paid back in lifetime value sales, increased average orders and other factors. This still holds true today. This column presents the risks and rewards of operating a true multichannel company — with a catalog. I still believe today, even in these challenging times, that the rewards are there if you follow the rules of the business.
In January 2008, upon hearing that general merchandise cataloger Lillian Vernon had given the ax to workers a few days before Christmas, I wrote “Happy Holidays — You’re Fired!!!.” I usually don’t call out companies by name as a practice here, but this case was truly despicable to me. Evidently you thought so, too.
If you’re a fan of my column, you know that I’ve written about customer experience a bunch. In a January 2008 column, I detailed my experience from a recent cruise in “Create Superior Customer Experiences.” I take my cues from all industries (not just multichannel). This company knows how to throw a cruise party — and treat its customers right.
Lastly in my trip down memory lane, in my April 2008 column, “Congrats, You Too Can Become a Gazillionaire!,” I used past experience to pose the question: What’s the next big thing going to be in direct marketing?
Along the way I’ve written about circulation planning, customer service, increasing sales and average order sizes, managing call centers properly, and I even yelled at the folks in the C-suite more than a few times. For a full listing of all my columns, check out the All About ROIarchives.
Thanks again for reading. I know your time is limited, and I truly appreciate that you find time in your busy day to read my column. Check back next week for a look at how your company can best add low-cost video to its marketing mix.
Note from Jim: I originally was going to have this be the last installment of the “you lost me there” series, but I seem to have gotten sidetracked. At any rate, video is in my opinion the next big opportunity in social and direct marketing if harnessed correctly.
How to Easily and Cost Effectively Add Video to Your Marketing Arsenal
I recently conducted a testimonial contest for a client. I asked for all types of submissions, from written to video. Of course I was hoping for video, and boy was I rewarded. The contest winner’s video was slick, well-written, modestly well-acted and, with some tweaking and a call to action, could’ve actually been put on TV. All this came from a customer who was in love with my client’s services, had a video camera and some editing software (like Apple’s iMovie, which comes standard with all Macs), and a couple of cue cards.
Just by putting the video up on YouTube, the company’s blog, Facebook and tweeting it on twitter, it’s gotten almost 300 views. This client isn’t a large company, so while 300 views doesn’t seem like a lot, it still counts. Lots of clients and prospects have commented on the video, too.
This week, the contest-winning video is going to be promoted in the company’s email newsletter. Doing so should increase exposure and net the company some new clients.
So while this may not be a mainstream example of viral video going to millions of people like the “United Breaks Guitars” video, which had 5.5 million viewers, it is a great example of the creative use of video as part of a company’s marketing strategy.
What Can Video Do for You?
Video is a perfect social media marketing channel for engagement. Here are some tips on WHAT to shoot:
Beyond holding contests for testimonials, directly contact your best customers and ask them for video testimonials. If some of your best customers are located near your offices, then by all means go to the places of their choice and shoot some video testimonials.
I love the notion of behind-the-scenes content. Before social media, a prospect’s or customer’s interaction and experience with a given company were either on its website, though its call center or in a retail store. But for the most part, corporations remained pretty much anonymous. Social media presents an enormous opportunity to humanize companies and allow customers “behind the veil” to see their personalities and corporate cultures. Shooting behind-the-scenes videos helps build companies’ personalities. One multichannel retailer I know of posts videos of its photo shoots on YouTube and Facebook. It gets tons of feedback on Facebook about this. Other behind-the-scenes action works well, too, from interviews with staff to candid videos of people doing their jobs. Even seeing staff cutting up and mugging for the camera can add value if done right.
Does your product/service lend itself to demonstration? If so, video it and put in on your website. If you have a product that needs to be set up, heck, video is better than an instruction manual, right? What a great customer service opportunity using video.
I’ll continue my examination of how video can be successfully added to your marketing mix next week with part 2 of this multipart series. In particular, I’ll offer some more ideas for ways that video can be used at your company.
Request: If you’re an expert at video search optimization, contact me at jimdirect@aol.com. I have some questions that I’d like to include in part 2 of this series.
Note to readers: I asked Carol Worthington-Levy to submit a guest article to me because she has a unique voice. To me the first two paragraphs alone are worth the price of admission! Enjoy!
SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE TRENCHES. SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENTATION LEARNINGS FROM THE LENSER CLIENT SUMMIT
I had the pleasure of running a social media session at our LENSER client Summit last week. One of the primary reasons I wanted to run this social media session was because of all the garbage that’s out there about it. Not a week goes by when I don’t see some article about a ‘successful’ social media campaign – only to realize upon reading the article that their measurement of ‘success’ was that the thing actually launched.
On whose scale is that either measurable or successful? D’oh! It’s smoke and mirrors – our own industry’s media falling into the same tepid pool as the bigger media has, by expanding stories into big headlines that exaggerate, but don’t really state the truth. While I have respect for what our media is up against, I don’t respect their not culling through PR releases to find out what the real truth is before printing it.
Social Media is a mixed bag among our LENSER partners, because it’s feared that clients will waste inordinate amounts of time (time = money) on campaigns that don’t pay off. We don’t want this to turn into the ‘dot com boom syndrome’ (DCBS) where people start pouring money into it without measurement. When Dell, who made $61B in 2009, pours money into this, even a million dollars is like a baby flea on a St. Bernard’s back. When most clients pour hours and hours of labor into it, this makes social media financially dangerous territory if not carefully monitored.
The presentation included Glenda Ervin, of Lehman’s Hardware – one of the nation’s most successful small to midsized businesses. This company sells non-electric tools and products – everything from wood stoves to hand churning ice cream makers – and everything for the farm and the home. This is real ‘off the grid’ stuff, and they’re incredible at finding quality and providing amazing customer service. Lehman’s is on Facebook and Twitter, and of course this was a great story because it seems so ‘counter’ to what you would believe an ‘off the grid’ customer would be using.
However, these media connect customers and enthusiasts to other like minded individuals, and to the Lehman family who still owns and run Lehman’s. They use it to ask their customers about what they’d like to see in the catalog, what buying choices they should offer, and how their products are being used. As people email in answers, the testimonials also roll in! This is manna from heaven in the marketing world. Customers as evangelists sell more product than one could ever imagine.
Another of our presenters was Scott Wentzell, of Thos. Moser, a high end creator and purveyor of handmade solid wood furniture, based up in Maine. Thos. Moser uses Facebook and Twitter to connect a network together that includes fans of beautiful furniture, interior designers, customers and more – and the conversation keeps these people engaged and sharing their values – plus they can share links to presentations by and about the founder Tom and his son David who is the talented designer of all current lines. This connection capability is an extraordinary plus for social media – people want to know the founder and the family, just as they do with Lehman’s.
Our third presenter was Jennifer Levanduski of VWR Science education. Now this was very different indeed, as a large group of her customers are educators and scientists – and they aren’t networking in Twitter or Facebook. Their venues are dominated by the educators and scientists markets – including Physics blogs, forums for Physics teachers and more. These are old platforms that most of us have never even heard of – but in their industry, this is the place to go.
Additional bits in the session included some resources for measuring Twitter for response and outcome, tips on keeping entries in Facebook and Twitter interesting, and more.
The most valuable lessons of the session may well have been these:
Choose your platform based on where your people are going, not on where you just assume they go.
Choose a limited number of platforms. There are hundreds out there, but only one or two are right for you, and you can only maintain a few if you’re as short on time as most of us are. Don’t spread yourself too thin. It’s worse to stop one of them once you’ve started, than to never start it at all.
Limit how much time is spent – that means time budgeting and sticking with it. Social media can be huge sink hole of time.
Keep it interesting. If adding video really adds value – products in use or an expansion of culture, think about it. If you can share and access goodies that are out there already to support your brand and your culture, do it. And never, ever let the same thing show up again and again, or you’re bound to bore your customers and they’ll opt out.
Measure as much and as often as you can. There are measuring tools and you can set up your own tests with specific product to create opportunities to measure.
Write thoughtfully and efficiently. At Lehman’s, they write most of a week’s facebook entries and tweets over the course of about 2 to 3 hours on a Saturday morning. This is not rocket science folks – it’s sharing news and cultural goodies that your market wants to see and will share with others. And it’s certainly not going to keep their attention if you discuss inane stuff that doesn’t move them.
Carol Worthington-Levy
Partner, Creative Services, LENSER
Carol Worthington-Levy is an 8-time DMA Echo Award winner in three categories: direct mail, catalog and digital media (web and email). She’ll be teaching the DMA post-conference session on Creative Strategy, in San Diego this October. Sign up for the FREE monthly LENSER e-newsletter at http://www.lenser.com/enewsletter.html
This week I continue my primer on internet video and how it can benefit your company. Picking up where I left off, here are some more opportunities to use video on your website.
One of the reasons infomercials are so successful is their demonstration factor. People love to see things in action. If you have a product that lends itself to demonstration, put it online. For example, say you sell radio-controlled cars; show them in action. If yours is a multichannel clothing company, model your line via video. These are just two of countless examples. Think about your products and what you can shoot.
Video Options
With today’s high-quality video cameras that shoot in high definition at 1080i, you don’t need to spend a ton of money for quality video. You can go high definition for less than $1,000. Of course, depending on your capabilities and budgets, you may want to bring in professionals. You have many choices available to you at any budget.
The key is to have a solid strategy and script in place before any shoot takes place, even with your camcorder. As for postproduction and editing, again, you can choose to do it yourself or go to a professional editing company.
Video Promotions
Once your video’s shot and edited, create your own channel on YouTube, and promote your videos on your website, blog, Facebook page, Twitter and more. Create even more videos by asking your customers to video themselves using your products, and distribute those videos via the same channels. Better yet, as I said last week regarding testimonials, hold a video contest asking your customers to show themselves using your products. Remember, social media is about engagement.
The Search Engine Factor
Online video can also drive search engine results. Since I’m by no means a search expert, I reached out to Khrysti Nazzaro, director of optimized services at the search engine marketing firm MoreVisibility, for some advice. Here are her thoughts on online video:
Online video has many possible benefits for companies, she says. From informational content, demonstrations and testimonials to self-spoofs, general humor and link bait, adding video to your site can draw traffic and business. Videos can be powerful tools for ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs) if your site’s pages are well-optimized for them.
Consider creating a custom-designed YouTube channel, uploading your videos there with keyword-rich titles and descriptive content, and embedding them on relevant pages of your site. YouTube videos appear with great frequency in Google’s universal search results. Make sure your channel is well-branded and displays your domain prominently so those who find your video content via search can trace it back to your company’s site.
You can also submit a “Video Sitemap” via Google Webmaster Tools for video content that lives on your website. This will assist Google in identifying all of the URLs on your site that have videos, and thus increase your potential for getting more video content listed in universal search results.
To demonstrate clear keyword relevance for video content, include targeted keywords in tags, file and page tittles, and any available descriptive or on-page content. Transcripts of videos featured on the page may also help the content rank in the SERPs.
So, are you using video online? Let us know by posting your comments below. And don’t forget to include links to your videos. Speak to you next week.
BERNHART SURVEY: DIGITAL AND DIRECT MARKETING EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK SHOWS IMPROVEMENT FOR FOURTH QUARTER
30% Plan to Hire in Q4 While 45% Plan to Freeze Hiring
Owatonna, MN, October 13, 2009 –With the drumbeat of layoffs diminishing only faintly, the latest Bernhart Associates Quarterly Digital and Direct Marketing Employment Report shows digital and direct marketers are poised in the current fourth quarter (Q4) to add to payrolls for the third consecutive quarter.
“Clearly, it remains a difficult job market in the digital and direct marketing industry, but the overall trend is definitely moving in an encouraging, positive direction,” said Jerry Bernhart, Principal of Bernhart Associates Executive Search, LLC, a leading digital and direct marketing recruiter who has been issuing quarterly direct marketing employment reports since 2001.
With 352 companies responding to a survey that was in the field from September 28 through October 12, here are the key findings: Read more »
Note from Jim: The USPS may have finally learned the lesson that higher postal prices drive down direct mail volume – resulting in lowered not increased revenues.
To Postal Service Customers:
Many of you have expressed concerns regarding mailing costs for 2010. The tough economic climate has presented significant challenges to all of us and pessimistic speculation has suggested that postal prices could increase by as much as 10 percent.
As we begin a new fiscal year and as many of you, our business clients, are preparing your 2010 operating budgets, we want to end all speculation.
The Postal Service will not increase prices for market dominant products in calendar year 2010.
Simply stated, there will not be a price increase for market dominant products including First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, periodicals, and single-piece Parcel Post. There will be no exigent price increase for these products.
This is the right decision at the right time for the right reason. Promoting the value of mail and encouraging its continued use is essential for jobs, the economy, and the future of both the Postal Service and the mailing industry.
While increasing prices might have generated revenue for the Postal Service in the short term, the long term effect could drive additional mail out of the system.We want mailers to continue to invest in mail to grow their business, communicate with valued customers, and maintain a strong presence in the marketplace. Changes in pricing for our competitive products—Priority Mail, Express Mail, Parcel Select, and most international products—are under consideration. We expect to announce a decision in November.
We are committed to working with customers to find ways to grow the mail through innovative incentives like the Summer Sale and contract pricing. Mail is the most effective means of communication and advertising and we will continue to work together to increase the value of the mail. Mail is a smart investment for the future.
Over the years I’ve been super vocal about my dislike for the U.S. Postal Service and its less-than-forward-thinking bureaucracy. When it slammed direct marketers with a 20 percent postal increase back in 2007, I went (pun intended) postal on it in my Catalog Success Magazine Column.
Earlier this year after it announced its summer postage sale, I was optimistic. But once I looked at the fine print (i.e., how much you had to mail to qualify), I was critical then, too.
I try to be fair in the offering of my opinions.
Therefore, I have to applaud the USPS for its announcement last week that there would not be a postal rate increase in 2010 for dominant classes.
For those of you not aware yet, last week the Postmaster General sent out a memo announcing no 2010 rate increase, which has spread around the internet faster than a scandalous YouTube video goes viral. That memo can be reviewed here.
I know, I know: Postal rates are already ridiculously and restrictively high, but at least mailers can build their 2010 mail plans without having to cut circ from marginal lists and housefile segments.
But along with my kudos to our Postmaster and the USPS, I also want to put them on notice. Here goes:
Dear Mr. Postmaster General, You’ve started a trend here. Between the postal summer sale and now this offer to keep postal rates stable in 2010, catalog and direct mailers believe that you may actually be interested in working to our benefit. We look forward to the next postal sale, and hope that the USPS opens it up to smaller mailers to take advantage of. We truly hope that you’ll continue to stop thinking like a bureaucracy and encourage more mail volume with innovative special offers and such.
But we’re also wary. Direct marketers are wary because the USPS holds a great deal of power and leverage over us. The last substantial postal rate increase nearly put us under with rate increases of 20 percent-plus. What was the USPS thinking? That move single-handedly drove more and more mailers into the online world. If we were to do the math, we believe the increase in postage actually caused your revenues to go down due to less mail in the mailstream.
Remember this Mr. Postmaster General: Every penny more it costs us to mail means we need to generate about two cents more per catalog and direct mail piece mailed just to breakeven. In this economy, we need every opportunity we can get to mail profitably. We’re struggling to stay alive and keep our workers employed and our customers satisfied.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Postmaster. Please continue this trend.
Sincerely, The Direct Mail Industry
As to you, my loyal readers, I encourage you to send your letters to the Postmaster General (or just copy mine and send it). Make your voice heard! Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Note from Jim: I found another great voice in the social media world and asked her to guest for my blog. Jessica Kizorek did a great presentation for us on cost effective internet video last week at the Florida Direct Marketing Association. This is an extension of that presentation (and also a great follow up to my internet video series part 1, part 2) ….
Preparing to be in front of a camera soon? Follow these ten tips or risk looking like a loser on video.
1. Look Me in the Eye
With the advent of the webcam, people are way more interested in looking at themselves perform in the video preview window than actually making eye contact with the person watching the video. Look into the camera. Straight into the lens. Don’t wander with those eyes…you have to be 10 times as engaging through online video to keep people from wandering off your page. Stare them down. Lock them in like a bomber pilot locks in on his target.
2.Be in the Spot Light
If your face is going to be the centerpiece of the video, make sure that it’s got the most light on it. People’s eyes will wander towards the light, so if there’s a bright window with little kids riding tricycles behind you…that’s what people will be watching. Viewers are like horses. Put blinders on them and tell their brain what they should focus on. Illuminate the key elements of the frame, whether that’s your face, a product or a logo. Place a smaller light to the opposite side (and a little behind) so that you have dimension and pop out from the background.
3.Speak Up
Computer stereos are notoriously insufficient when it comes to pumping up the volume. Most people think that the visual element is the most important when it comes to video, and underestimate the power audio has in communicating the message. Video is 50% visual, and 50% auditory. Use an external microphone whenever possible, or get close to the camera if it’s a cheap-o. Speak up, or else people will get frustrated when you make them struggle to hear what’s going on. When they can’t hear, they say “@*#% It.”
4.Think in Threes
Try and narrow your message down to three key ideas. Three ideas that you’ll communicate if you forget everything else. This keeps it simple, and helps you remember what you were saying if you go blank. The more simple your schpeel, the more relaxed you’ll be. Especially if the video is an interview or back and forth exchange.
5. Get Busy with the Mirror
Once you’ve got your three points identified, stand in front of the mirror. You can do it naked or with clothes on. Look yourself in the eye and let loose. Practice delivering your talk until you’re confident and relaxed. You may know what you’re talking about, but you have to convince yourself of that. After a while you’ll stop worrying what you look like and what other people will think. The more you practice in the mirror, the greater chance you have of looking like a natural once the camera’s red light comes on. If not, you’ll spend your energy second guessing yourself and looking like a stiff.
6. Up Close and Personal
Get closer. Closer. A little closer… Don’t be afraid to get close to the camera. Internet video players are pretty small, so don’t want to get lost on the wall paper in the background.
7. Befriend the Camera Girl
If you’re doing a professional shoot, chances are the camera girl knows more than you do about looking good on video. Ask her advice, and let her set up the scene. Listen to her coaching and suggestions. Ask to see the set through her monitor or LCD screen so you know which parts of you are in the frame. If she asks you to repeat a line or change your shirt, do it. She has your best interests at heart, and wants just as much for you to look good on video.
8.Wear Video Friendly Fashion
Be careful what you wear on camera. Red sometimes bleeds on television. Black and white can create too much contrast and throw off exposure, making your face too dark or too bright if you’re using a webcam or camera without manual controls. Avoid stripes, crazy patterns and sparkles, as the can cause noise or pixilation when the video is compressed for the Internet. You may not notice that you’re shirt is wrinkled or dirty, but the camera will. So make sure your clothes are freshly laundered or else be filled with regret once you see the play back.
9. Don’t Sweat it
Nothing will make you more nervous than sweat beads forming on your upper lip. Make sure the room you’ll be shooting in is cool so you don’t start to worry about whether you’re armpit sweat will show on camera. Give yourself one less thing to think about. Heat will make you uncomfortable, and the camera lens will catch that.
10.Act Like You Own the Joint
This may be the wrong way to word it, but seriously. You don’t want to come across arrogant, bit get pumped before you sit down. Stroke your own ego a little. You’ve got what it takes. 250,000 people may see it on YouTube, but it’s only video.
About Jessica Kizorek
Jessica Kizorek is a keynote speaker, Internet video expert and the respected author of three books on the subject of video marketing and the Internet. Jessica Kizorek has made it her mission to keep marketers in the loop with her keynote speeches and seminars on the latest in online video, online branding, consumer marketing trends, plus how social media marketing can be a valuable channel within integrated marketing campaigns.
Jessica has produced video content on all seven continents and was nominated as one of CNN’s “Young People Who Rock” for her passion in documenting the impact of humanitarian efforts around the globe. Jessica Kizorek has been invited to deliver keynote speeches about online video, video marketing and Internet fundraising for many corporate meetings, trade associations, national conferences and non-profit groups.
Since graduating Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Colorado, Jessica Kizorek’s company (The Viral Pulse - www.TheViralPulse.com) has produced video and digital media for clients such as Bacardi, Hyatt Hotels and Moet Hennessy.
As an adjunct professor at the prestigious Miami Ad School, Jessica Kizorek has also been published as an expert in the online video marketing field by industry journals such as The American Association of Advertising Agencies, MediaPost and iMedia Connection.
Being a brand today means JOINING the conversation about their products, NOT STARTING THE CONVERSATION. This 2 minute video tells the story. Your feedback is always welcome.
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