Do You Know the Key to a Successful Marketing Campaign?

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Jodi Kaplan

People have been arguing since the invention of advertising and direct mail over which is the most important: list, creative (design and copy), or offer (what the people who respond get).

It sometimes gets to be a bit like the proverb about the blind men and the elephant: if you’re a direct marketer you say it’s the list, copywriters insist it’s the words, sales people say it’s the offer, and designers are adamant that it’s the color and graphics that count.

At the risk of being denounced by designers and my fellow copywriters, the answer is the list. Without the right list the entire campaign collapses.

Here’s why:

A bad list will sink everything else.

A great list can boost an unappealing offer and poor creative, but award-winning copy and design won’t help you sell vodka to teetotalers.

The mailing will fail if the list is wrong (sending hamburger coupons to vegetarians), the offer is unappealing (free sewage!), or the creative is poor (it talks about you and what you want, rather than the customer: buy from me so I can go on vacation).”

Target the right audience (the list), make an appealing offer (the price, quality, and value), and use compelling words and design (the message, the testimonials, and the referrals, plus the colors, the format, and the images).

Photo: brenda starr

Is Direct Marketing Obsolete?

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Jodi Kaplan

Plenty of commentators and social media boosters seem to think direct mail is dead. “It’s dead tree marketing”; it’s kaput. But not everyone is convinced; even in the online world.

The proof? I got a mailing the other day offering me $50 worth of free AdWords (and waiving the $5 activation fee). Who sent it?

My web host (Hostgator) and Google. Think about that. Two companies whose revenue is strictly online. They didn’t send an email, they didn’t “tweet”, they put a self-mailer piece of dead tree paper in the mail.

Dell got a lot of attention recently when they announced they’d made $2,000,000 using Twitter. It’s true, they did. But what strategy did they use? They tweeted special deals, which were redeemable on their site with coupon codes (one of the oldest direct marketing techniques in the book).

It’s not the new technology, or the latest bright shiny toys that make your campaign successful. The technology is just a tool. What makes it work is just old-fashioned direct marketing: target the right people, talk to them the right way, make an appealing offer.

Photo: Alex Goody

Does Product Placement Work?

Posted on June 11, 2009 by Jodi Kaplan

Morning Joe (a morning news and talk show in the US) is now partnering with a fancy coffee company from Seattle. The brand is mentioned prominently before commercial breaks. The hosts hold large cups of coffee (with the logo) in their hands, and drink from them throughout the show. They even had the CEO come on and talk about how he noticed they drank his coffee and thought it would be a “good fit” and “leverage their brand equity” and a lot of other blather.

Does anyone outside of the TV show and the coffee company really care?

Will this blatant product placement sell more coffee? Does plastering banking logos or sportswear logos on a tennis player really drive anyone to switch banks? Has anyone bought a camera because the brand was on the front of a race car?

Or is it just annoying? I’m annoyed. Are you? Or do you not care one way or the other? Your thoughts?

Mykl Roventine

A Lesson in Penny-Pinching from the Pentagon

Posted on June 5, 2009 by Jodi Kaplan

Newsweek reported (April 19, 2009) that the Pentagon is using a new “weapon” in Iraq. A redesigned Humvee? An improved rifle? Nope. An iTouch.

What Can the iTouch Do for the Pentagon?

It’s certainly not the first gadget that comes to mind when you think of the army, but they’re using it to translate, store video (say of a tribal leader advising villagers to cooperate with the soldiers), and share data about suspected insurgents. Since it has an existing support structure and development tools, it’s not difficult to find programmers to produce specialized applications to display video from drones or use the iTouch as a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot.

Say Goodbye to $400 Hammers

Instead of following the well-worn path to $400 hammers and $5,000 toilets, someone decided to look past the military-industrial complex and use comparatively cheap, off-the-shelf tools.

You don’t need boatloads of money to be successful; you do need to think creatively. Leverage what you have. Use existing resources in different ways. The founders of Apple, Yahoo!, Blogger, etc. didn’t have VC funding. They had ideas, and the ability to execute them (dreaming is great, but without execution it goes nowhere).

Draw Outside the Lines

In a recession, it’s even more important to look at where you’re spending money and figuring out how to get better results from your efforts. Are you better off Twittering? Or putting an ad in a (gasp) magazine? Should you concentrate on brand awareness? Or monitor the Internet for mentions of your company name and brand (positive or negative)?

It’s not about the money. I once ran a very successful marketing campaign for $75; more on this Monday.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/totalaldo/503335275/ total aldo

A Customer Service Lesson from the Building Super

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Jodi Kaplan

I’m sitting home waiting for the super. If you look at the picture on the right you’ll see why.

Unlike the last super, this one is readily accessible. He answers the phone at all hours (even last night at 8 when this started as several small leaks). He arrives on time, and he fixes whatever is broken.

The last super never answered the phone. I always got a machine, and it took hours to get a reply. Sometimes it took days. I’m not directly paying the bill, but when there’s a leak, or the toilet won’t stop running, it’s good to know that someone cares about customer service.

Take a few minutes to think about your company’s service. Call in from home or your cell. Pretend to be a customer. See how you’re treated. Do you have to wait on hold for a long time? Are your questions answered? Are the answers helpful? What happens when you email a question or a problem? Does someone answer promptly? Do you get a canned response or a personal one?

Your customers will feel better (even in a disaster) if you show up, answer the phone, and try to help. If you solve their problems quickly and effectively, they’ll love you.