7 posts tagged “direct marketing”
As every creative will agree, most of our best ideas remain as just that – ideas.
Cracking work, bang on brand, exciting, pushing boundaries, disruptive, intelligent, fascinating, thought-provoking, action-inducing but never get anywhere past the ‘no’ brigade. It never ceases to amaze me how many hurdles you have to jump through to produce work, let alone good work.
And how the hell does anything truly great get through? I believe it really only comes out of agencies who aren’t afraid to push back. And how many of those are there in this current climate?
See what you think to this. I’d be really interested in your thoughts. Submitted to both Shelter then St Mungo’s, I’ve had rejections from both even though it’s the offer of free work that’s cheap as chips to produce.
Strategy
Winter is coming. Life on the streets gets tougher and more dangerous. Whether it’s the elements that get you or the unsavoury characters who come out after dark, it becomes ever more difficult to survive out there. The trouble is few everyday people see where some have to spend the night because they’re generally gone by the morning. So, unless people are made aware of the hardship that some have to deal with night after night, they pass by oblivious.
Creative
A simple printed A3 or A2 sheet designed to look like a Police sign dramatically demonstrates that someone could have died there the previous night. The call to action is to donate to Shelter and help give a home to those who really need it. These can be stuck up wherever homeless people sleep rough. Very cheap to produce (perhaps just the price of a colour photocopy), they would be a very cost effective way to cover any city by the charity’s volunteers.
I’m going to go through my portfolio of gems that never were and post a few more here. Am I mad? Am I frustrated? Not any more. I’m really genuinely happy these days. I just fancy airing good thinking that passed by unnoticed, for whatever reason. Then again, perhaps it is all crap after all!
This article was written by Chris Catchpole. Go check out his impressive direct marketing portfolio
The Slovenian Direct Marketing Association are inviting marketers to attend the conference day entitled “C2C Marketing: Momentary niche or overall future” in Ljubljana, Slovenia on the 18th. of February 2009.
The conference is part of the highly interesting Promarket combining three days of trade-show with three days of presentations. On Wednesday 17th. of February participants can enjoy presentations fitting the overall theme “Mentality shifts in Sales” and on Friday 19th. the theme is “Who is creating public relations - sales, marketing, PR or customers?”. A highly interesting concept, which - I am sure - will attract a lot of people to this beautiful city.
Marketing speakers include
- Chris Catchpole, a highly respected direct marketing creative, United Kingdom
- Sandi Češko, Studio Moderna Group, Slovenia
- Hrabren Suknajić, Google, United Kingdom
- Michael Leander Nielsen, Denmark
In the week starting October 27, I found these articles of interest at the DMI News website powered by Direct Marketing International
1. Majority of consumers will change brand to help environment survey says
New research has shown massive consumer support for environmental issues and green DM initiatives – and marketers are advised not to ignore the findings.
Ninety per cent of people believe everyone has a responsibility to play their part in reducing global warming; 92 per cent are prepared to devote time to achieving a greener lifestyle and all but 37 per cent are prepared to pay an extra £10 on each flight to offset their carbon footprint.
These are the surprisingly altruistic findings of a major study by online research company CCB fast.MAP, in which more than 2,200 consumers voiced their feelings about various environmental issues.
Article found at: DMI News
Read full article here
2. Data divas Rosemary Smith and Jenny Moseley explain changes in USA and UK telemarketing regulations
Almost simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic, changes have been made to the rules covering telemarketing. It seems that a combination of consumer pressure and government concern means the sector will be under the spotlight for the foreseeable future.
In the USA, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – which is charged with regulating telemarketing – has reacted to significant consumer complaint and announced that pre-recorded telesales messages now require signed opt-in, in writing, from the consumer. Unsolicited recorded calls have been banned in the UK since 2003 and the Information Commissioner has taken action under the PECR regulations (including rapping political parties on the knuckles for use of this technology).
Article found at: DMI News
Read full article here
3. Ian Hughes shares his recession survival tips
By the time you read this article, anything may have happened. Even though the lead time between me writing it and you reading it is only a matter of days, the world is evolving faster than any of us could imagine.
Airlines, banks and construction have all had a rough time (and that’s just the A-B-Cs).
Who would have thought that Fannie and Freddie would be nationalised? (Actually, I did predict it two months ago, but I was joking.) Who would have imagined that Lehman would go under or that Merrill would be bought? Who would have guessed that XL and Alitalia would disappear, or SAS, for that matter.
So, in such uncertain times, what ray of hope can we offer? Well, I did try to be positive in my column here last month, by focusing on the fact that, in a recession, there is a flight to DM, because those who can spend through a recession often win coming out the other side.
But what can we do, as business people, to ensure we survive? Well, survival is one of the things I have learned to do best, having crashed and burned during the last .com bust and having run a telecoms company during that bust.
So, here’s Ian’s handy guide to surviving a recession:
1) It’s all about value
People get worked up about value. They think it refers to price; it doesn’t, it refers to a perception of utility in the mind of the consumer. Something that has a poor utility value achieves a low price point. A lot of companies lose sight of the value they offer. I work in an information business where the value of our data is only as good as the use our customers have for it. That means, I am always thinking about what people will do with my information and how it will add value.
I always think about my customers. I’m not saying I am perfect, but asking the ‘why do customers buy this and what can we do to increase the value of that purchase?’ question is always a good technique
Article found at: DMI News
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In the summer of 2006, Mark Kern, Bill Petras, and Taewon Yun met with advisor Jeff Loomans to discuss how to grow the Red 5 family. They all knew that recruiting (people) in the game industry was crazy. Still, the three Red 5ers were determined to hire the best and brightest minds in the industry, while communicating just how cool it is to work at Red 5 Studios.
The result is mind-blowing and a lesson in how to focus relentlessly on the right target group with the right message.
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Story below can also be found with images at the Red 5 Studios homepage
Laying the Foundation The more the group thought about it, they knew that just more of the same wasn’t going to work. Form emails and phone calls were overdone, passé: the gogo boots of the recruiting industry. They needed something that would be uniquely Red 5, something that would immediately grab a prospective applicant’s imagination.
Mark remembered that Steve Jobs took a uniquely active role when he started running Pixar. Jobs personally called the top fifty animators in the world, and extended an invitation to come and work for his new company. It’s that kind of rapport that the team most wanted to replicate, but they still needed a way to cut through the hype of traditional recruiting campaigns. So it was decided that instead of recruiting openly, the company would focus on personally meeting one hundred of the top people in the game industry. Red 5 would extend a singular, unique invitation to each of those one hundred people, and let them know that they were part of an event that happens once in a lifetime.
The project began by drafting a list of Red 5’s dream team, people whose work the studio admired. After the list was compiled, Red 5 researched each individual: they wanted to learn more about the type of work they liked doing, the game titles they had worked on, and what kept them inspired once they clocked off for the day. There was a lot of online research, as the studio read blogs posts, played games, crawled through forum posts, even Amazon wish lists—all in order to get to know each person a little better.
Eventually, the list of a hundred names was complete. It was time to start work on the invitation, like the kind people get to attend the Academy Awards. But, you know, without the swag bag. Or Joan
Rivers.
It Takes a Village
With the list in hand, Red 5 started thinking about the best way to grab each recipient’s attention, to show them that they were being asked to be part of something unique, something exciting. Over the next few months, Red 5 interviewed countless studios until settling on Pool, a San Francisco-based design firm. Pool just got Red 5, and had some really fantastic ideas on how to turn Red 5’s work into a memorable campaign.
After testing a few versions, the idea quickly evolved from a mailing piece into a multimedia event. The packaging took on a more important role that would reveal a story as the recipient stripped away each layer. And once the recipient got to the center of the packaging, they’d find a brand new stamp-sized iPod Shuffle, which hadn’t yet been released in the US.
Custom-engraved with each recipient’s name and a unique code, each iPod was more than a special gift: it was the key to accessing the Red 5 website, where they could learn more about the company, as well as the job that Red 5 had cherry-picked them for.
While Pool continued work on the print design, Red 5 hired Airbag Industries to design a website that would match the ass-kickery of the invitation. The game geeks-cum-Photoshop freaks at Airbag had found a dream client in Red 5 Studios, and had a great time wrapping a compelling design around Red 5’s concept artwork and, well, storied staff bios.
Under the hood, Airbag created a souped-up Ruby on Rails content management
system that allowed Red 5 to manage all aspects of the site, from tracking new users to updating homepage copy. The CMS also presented a custom homepage to each prospective hire after they logged in, welcoming them to this one-of-a-kind opportunity. Users could also read individual team bios, see who else had joined the Red 5 family, and send website login codes to their friends so they could learn more
about the company and their unique job opportunities.
Of course, Red 5’s employees were intimately involved in every step of the process: they helped test the campaign, continued researching invitees, wrote personalized greetings, wrote website copy, and recorded the personalized audio greetings for each iPod. And throughout the entire process, the team worked day (and sometimes night) to meet major milestones.
After a few months of work, the campaign was finally ready to ship: the site was up and running, and the iPods were wrapped oh-so-beautifully. From a brainstorming session to a beautifully designed campaign that spanned on- and off-line media, the recruiting project was finally ready to be unleashed upon one hundred very lucky folks.
But it would all be for naught unless the packages actually got to the intended recipient. Kind of a key step, that.
Off the Grid
When it came to shipping, the best approach was to send the invitations to the recipients’ places of work, as those addresses were easiest to find with a little online search. But Red 5 was enticing folks away from competing companies, and didn’t want prying corporate mail rooms to intercept their carefully designed invitations. After months of work,having a mail clerk net himself a free iPod Shuffle wasn’t the most
appealing idea.
To add an extra layer of sneaky, the print invitation was specifically designed to fit inside plain FedEx boxes, which had a higher chance of slipping by the mail monitors. Furthermore, the shipping company could help ensure that the packages arrived to everyone nearly on the same day.
Whirlwind: Reaped
And it worked better than anyone could have predicted. The response rate was overwhelming. Red 5 had a nearly 100% response rate on their campaign; by comparison, most direct mail initiatives are considered “successful” if they hear back from two percent of their recipients. Furthermore, Red 5 got supremely viral: almost every person used the website to send invitations to their friends, spreading the word even more.
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Since the campaign, the Red 5 offices have been busier than ever: the team in Orange County has been meeting new friends and showing them around the corporate offices. And the campaign has gotten ridiculous amounts of buzz, with many saying that Red 5 really raised the bar to new levels in recruiting, while making an impact on the game industry itself.
Web 2.0 is paving the way for integrating direct and brand
marketing, enabling real-time dialog with customers and the
joint creation of content that increases and improves brand awareness
and perception, and generates sales and leads, according to a new report.
The “New Media Emergence in DM & Brand” report from the Direct Marketing Association
(DMA) investigates Web 2.0 - including blogs, virtual words, social
networks, user-generated content, RSS feeds, and Wikis - as the
platform that converges all marketing.
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Eugenia Steingold, Ph.D., DMA’s senior research manager, authored
the report, which examines how new media is being used for brand
building and direct marketing, and investigates the possibilities of
new media for integrating DM and brand.
Key findings include:
- Despite being relatively new, Web 2.0 is apparently recognized as a brand-building channel:
- 84% of respondents use it to raise brand awareness.
- 82% use Web 2.0 tools to increase brand preference.
- New media is used for direct marketing as much as it is for brand building:
- 83% use Web 2.0 to generate sales.
- 80% use it to generate leads.
- Most marketers realize the opportunities that new media create for integrating DM and brand:
- 85% of respondents use Web 2.0 to engage their customers and rate
it as a highly effective mechanism for customer engagement (average
rating is 5.3) - 84% of our respondents use Web 2.0 to create a community of loyal
customers, and they find it very effective for doing so (the average
rating is 5.0).
- 85% of respondents use Web 2.0 to engage their customers and rate
Other findings:
- 82% of respondents allocated a quarter or less of their marketing budget toward Web 2.0.
- 70% of those who report that they are experts in interactive marketing also allocate about a quarter of their budget to Web 2.0.
Once again DMA (Direct Marketing Association), FEDMA and ICEMD are collaborating to bring marketers one of the most outstanding summer schools for marketing professionals around. The event will take place in Madrid, Spain from June 2-5, 2008.
Faculty includes highly respected speakers from all over the world, including Neil Feinstein, professor Joost van Nispen, Richard Min from infonet Korea, Angel Moroto and - well - the author of this blog - Michael Leander Nielsen.
Members of Marketingboss are invited to join at a reduced rate. Contact me for more info.
We are currently finalizing the last details on the new Customaxi concept.
A new website will be launched by September 2007. The concept is to build an international
interactive direct marketing agency staffed by an international team of online and direct marketing professionals.
