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The Malcolm Auld Blog

Monthly Archives: October 2013

Two marketers go wine tasting…

25 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Marketing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

marketing, wine

Happy Friday – hope you get to enjoy a tipple or two tonight. Cheers…

wine 13

wine 12

wine 11

wine 10

wine 9

wine 8

wine 7

wine 6

wine 5

wine 4

wine 3

wine 2

wine 1

wine 14

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You can fool some of the people some of the time…

22 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Digital, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Social Media

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

digital, direct marketing, email marketing, marketing, social media

The tragic bush fires currently burning in western Sydney and NSW reminded me of the first (and only) time I officially fought a bushfire – and its similarity with digital marketing.

bush fires

It was a long time ago, but one of my mates Bob, was a volunteer rural fire fighter living in the Blue Mountains. He’d invited me to a Sunday BBQ in Winter. His neighbour, the Deputy Fire Chief, joined us. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were enjoying a lazy lunch with a few drinks.

Then the phone rang.

There was a bush fire by the Hawkesbury River threatening some holiday homes. We had to cut short the lunch.  The Deputy Chief had a few too many drinks, so I offered to help, as I’d only had a couple.

The Deputy Chief gave me his overalls and helmet and off we went. The fire was in an area only accessible by boat, so we had to get to a wharf, load some pumps and wait til the crew arrived, before heading off in the dark in two sea-worthy craft.

Eventually we saw the flames which by now were up against two homes and their gas cylinders. We moored up and started to get the gear sorted so we could pump water straight from the river. This can have consequences if you suck up crap from the river into the pump, so the experts looked after the pumps.

I was given a specific tool for cutting bush and covering flames with dirt. It was a low-risk job, but had to be done to put out the fire and prevent spot fires flaring. I worked my way up the hill doing my best to extinguish flames while my face turned black and my casual shoes destroyed themselves in the ash on the ground. I was watching the technique of two other blokes who were working alongside me and obviously knew what they were doing.

When I finished atop a small ridge area the two blokes who were with me shouted out “what do you want us to do now boss?” I shouted back “what the hell are you talking about?” They said “we’re following you, you’re the Deputy Fire Chief“.

I then explained I had no idea what I was doing and was following them. They had assumed that because I was wearing the Deputy Chief’s kit, I was the Deputy Chief and had some semblance of knowledge about what to do. The blind leading the blind – if it wasn’t so dangerous it would have been funny.

bushfire_destruction_nsw

We did save the homes with only one gas bottle exploding. You don’t want to be near one of those when it happens. I made it home in the wee hours of Monday morning and took a week to get the soot out of my skin.

But what happened in the heat of the fire reflected what’s happening in the the digital marketing industry. Because I appeared to have the credentials the other fire-fighters assumed I knew what I was doing – much like the alleged digital marketing experts who fool people into believing they know all about marketing.

A colleague of mine is despairing about her client – one of the world’s largest computer brands. It has been convinced by alleged experts to stop its lead generation advertising and focus on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I’m sure that’s where the CEOs and CIOs are spending their business hours.

They are measuring time spent on a landing page, rather than responses. And they’re wondering why sales are down. They’ve been fooled into following fashion.

And it’s because in this industry, anyone can claim to be an expert and convince others they know something the others don’t.

Publish a ‘white paper’ – you’re a content marketing expert. Tweet every day – you’re a social media guru. Use new buzzwords regularly – you must be an influencer.

online scams

Today I received an appalling email offering insider email secrets for social media experts – WTF? It’s so wrong it’s sad. I deleted it, then changed my mind and opened it, just to see what it was about – a complete load of hogwash. But hey, someone published some content, so they’re now an expert for email in social media. I’m sure that’s filling a gap!

Maybe if these alleged experts spent their own money fighting the fires of business survival, they might learn what really works and what doesn’t in the world of marketing – both analogue and digital. And they’d stop trying to big-note themselves with faux expertise and focus on doing the right job for their brand, rather than the right job for their portfolio.

That old adage keeps ringing in my ear; you can fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time. Let’s hope there’s still time to stop the fools.

And if you have time to donate to the victims of the fires, this page has the links to the donation hotlines:

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/10/21/nsw-bushfires-how-you-can-help

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Two marketers check out old posters you’ll never see again…

18 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, Branding

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

advertising, branding, outdoor advertising, posters

Happy Friday – Click on the link for a PP presentation of old posters and ads that you probably won’t see run again.  Poster You Will Never See Again.

Here’s a sample:

weight image

Avagoodweegend!

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Newton’s Law of Internet Motion…

16 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in BIG DATA, Digital, Direct Marketing, Marketing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

BIG data, database marketing, small data

Data is the new black

Who’d have thought hey? Databases and data are now the sexiest thing in marketing. The essence of direct marketing, the customer database, is the new black. The geeks are running the marketing world.  They not only control the IT that manages websites and online systems, they also control the interpretation of the data created by same.

big data image

BIG DATA is the current buzzword on every marketer’s lips – not that many understand it, but it’s the latest buzzword so let’s flog it to death until the next digital fashion arrives. The reason BIG DATA is so popular is because we can now measure everything people do online – when they visit a website or blog, open an email, post a social comment, click on a link, upload an image, download an App and more.

Newton’s Law of Internet Motion

In honour of the famous physicist, I refer to BIG DATA as Newton’s Law of Internet Motion – for every online human action there is an equal and opposite data reaction.

Isaac Newton

Computers now track everything we do online thus creating massive volumes of data behind the scenes – much of it useless in the scheme of things. And because it’s a massive volume it is called BIG DATA – bloody ingenious this marketing language.

There is a cost associated with capturing and measuring online data and this has to be offset against the benefit, or opportunity cost, associated with the analysis. For example, if you run a travel agency, will you get a better return from the salary you pay an individual to manage social media and analytics, than from their selling travel to customers?

Much of what is tracked will not help improve sales or relationships – particularly comments on social posts. Sentiment analysis software tracks the comments we’ve always made to close friends and colleagues, but now publish for the world to see. It’s why sentiment analysis has made little impact on business results – it’s just tracking thoughts and comments that have always been stated, but now are published. The market hasn’t changed, just the way and to whom we comment.

Remarketing is also another tool that can reduce costs of sales. Yet it’s fraught with problems. A 60+ year old friend of mine was searching online for a gift for her niece’s baby. She found a pram and bought it. But here’s where remarketing entered the picture. The computers tracked her search behaviour, which was very intense during the time she was looking for the gift.

Consequently during the six weeks after she bought the pram, thanks to the wonders of remarketing, the majority of advertisements that appeared on websites she visited were for baby products. It was a complete waste of time for the marketers who paid for the ads and it got right up my friend’s nose as she had no need for breast pumps.

granny pushing bugghy

This is the weakness of using raw data without a layer of human intelligence to interpret it. But businesses cannot afford to pay humans to track every piece of data captured in BIG DATA, so there will continue to be problems and wasted resources.

Most companies haven’t even got their small data sorted, so worrying about BIG DATA is a complete waste of time and resources. I often ask my audiences of business executives “who has a functioning database of their customers (and prospects) that they can access easily to grow their business?” You can guess the answer – at best about 40% really have useful databases, but usually the number is about 10%.

And then when I ask “who regularly contacts their customers via email, mail or telephone?” the numbers are similarly low.

So unless you are one of the top 500 companies in your country with marketing money to burn and you are confident your small data is healthy and working for you, then don’t worry about spending on BIG DATA.

The only companies that can afford the BIG COSTS of BIG DATA are BIG COMPANIES.

The majority of businesses just need to worry about small data, because in most industries it’s the data that will get you the BIG RESULTS.

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World’s oldest profession uses smart positioning…

11 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in BIG DATA, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

BIG data, branding, content marketing, copywriting, customer service, positioning

I was scanning my local paper over breakfast yesterday. It’s that bastion of international journalism, The Manly Daily. I turned the page and came upon the classifieds. A couple of full colour ads stood out from the rest.

I must say, I’m always amazed at the size of the escort industry – if you use its share of voice of the classified ads as the reference point. There’s either a lot of married people spending time away from home, or a lot of singles who prefer to pay directly for services, rather than pay for the drinks, dinner, etc in the hope of services, so to speak. There’s certainly more ads for escorts than for tradies.

But I digress – slightly.

The ads reminded me of a wonderful presentation by UK marketer and publisher of The Directory, Patrick Collister. If you’ve ever used or looked into a public phone box in London, you’ll notice they are full of “calling cards” for prostitutes.

London phone booth

Patrick uses these in a marketing presentation describing positioning – that’s brand positioning, not physical positioning. As he explained, most of the calling cards promote the features of the ladies (and occasional gent) providing the service – they rarely promote benefits or position the individuals as any different from each other.

Here’s an example – be warned there is nudity in these images, so please don’t peer too closely if easily offended. Certainly the Brits aren’t – as the damn cards litter the sidewalk around every phone box.

Sexual ads in a public telephone box in Soho. London. UK

In most cases the ladies sell their features including appearance, physical attributes and the type of services they provide. But one card stood out for Patrick – and I found a version of it online thanks to Google. The card he referred to simply said “my name is Amanda and I love my job.” Here’s a similar one…

Londond prostitute I luv my work

Amanda understands benefits and the fact people buy emotionally. And she also understand the importance of positioning. In nearly every industry category, the products and services being sold are generic. The only thing that differentiates them is their brand and the positioning of same.

Amanda probably has all the physical attributes (generic features) of the other service providers. But she knows how to position her service differently from others in a way that makes the customer want to buy and probably not seek a discount.

Hypothetically speaking, whether it was a male or female offering their services and you had to choose between loads of ads full of features, or an ad that highlighted said benefit – my name is…and I love my job – which would you choose? My guess is for these services, you’d rather buy from someone who loves what they do for a living?

But back to the classifieds in The Manly Daily. There is a local service called “Desires“. I’ve checked a few back issues and they normally run this ad:

Desires 1 001

But yesterday they segmented the market and ran two ads – one offering Desires Cougars and the other offering Desires Kittens. I’m assuming they didn’t need BIG DATA or some other digi-magic to work this out. I’ll dare suggest they are doing it as a result of customer demand.

Desires 2

From what I can tell, the industry has long promoted itself on ethnic grounds eg Asian ladies, or physical specifications eg buxom blondes. But this appears to be one of the first full colour ads defining their services this way – and offering different locations with only a single phone call.

They obviously understand the benefits of positioning and segmentation to get a better response from their advertising. They probably charge according to the positioning as well. And they seem to be using customer language – which can be far more evocative. Kittens obviously positions the service differently in the mind of the customer to Cougars for example.

Or maybe these ads are just new to me so I assume they’re new to the world? I can only guess, as it’s one subject I won’t be personally researching.

Where’s today’s paper?

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The email postman always rings twice…

09 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in BIG DATA, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Direct Marketing, Email marketing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

BIG data, content marketing, copywriting, direct marketing, email marketing, marketing

Thank you for your feedback on my post about images in email. Here’s some more insight into how to make email really pay for you.

postman rings twice

Most marketers who send email messages waste their money. All they do is blast a message and at best check the open-rate. But the secret to email marketing success lies not in the first message. It’s in the recipient’s behaviour to the first message.

I own an email marketing service. And like all email services it provides tracking tools that capture who opens their email messages and what they click on within them. This is the data that really helps you make money, because it reveals behaviour.

Here’s what typically happens with email messages – you can probably relate. A customer opens a message because they believe it is relevant to them. Then they click on a link(s) – to download something, or for more information or to even buy.

Then life gets in the way and the customer leaves the message to get on with other things. This is when you apply (dare I digi-say it) some old-fashioned direct mail tricks.

Life gets in the way...

Life gets in the way…

Those who know how to use direct mail will tell you that if you hit or exceed your target response rate, you quickly re-mail the same mailing to the same list, apart from the responders. You will inevitably get at least 50% of the original response rate, but the mailing has cost less to produce.

Always knock twice

The same principles apply to email. You should always plan to send at least two email messages. The first message goes to all your list. The second message is a follow-up to those who have not just opened your email, but clicked on it as well.

postmanpostman

My travel agency always has a follow-up email ready for our fortnightly offers. The follow-up message only goes to those who by their behaviour (clicking on a link) have demonstrated interest in our offer.

Double your success

We average 22% to 35% initial open-rate on the first messages. But when we send a reminder message with content that is only relevant to the link on which they clicked, the open rates are more than double the original rate. And click-through rates can be higher.

For example we recently sent 3 offers to our house list and had an open rate of 24.3%. We then sent a reminder message to those who had clicked on a specific P&O offer. The message only contained information about the P&O offer.

The open rate shot up to 54.2%. The message also generated more sales because it reminded people of what they were originally interested in before life got in the way.

So don’t just send one message. The recipients will reveal the content they are really interested in by what they open and click on. Your customers are providing you with guidance to help them make a buying decision.

Click here for more information on what gets your message opened and what gets it deleted.

So take your direction from your customers – it’s a much easier way to make money. And you’ll probably find they appreciate your service too.

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The Juniorisation of marketing…

08 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, BIG DATA, Branding, Digital, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Social Media

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

advertising, agency, BIG data, digital, digital marketing, direct marketing, recruitment, social media

Thank you for your positive feedback on last Friday’s article. It has been suggested I do a headline test, so to those who have already read this blog over the last couple days, please excuse the repeat performance – I’ll let you know results if I learn anything. There will be a new post tomorrow.

As part of the research for updating one of my marketing books, I have been meeting and talking with senior people in the marketing industry – in marketing departments, agencies and recruitment companies.

A recurring theme in the conversations is the decline in senior direct marketing experience in agencies and marketing departments. The recent love affair with digital technology and digital channels means many have lost focus on the ­way of marketing that is essential in a digital world – direct marketing.

The last decade has been the easiest period in history to run DM agencies, data consultancies and digital agencies. Marketers poured buckets of money into them to build websites, create online videos, attempt viral campaigns, build social media sites, design Apps, manage SEM/SEO, produce content, set-up data analytics and more. Agencies didn’t have to try to grow their businesses – their clients did it for them.

Spend our money and make yourself rich...

Spend our money and make yourself rich…

As the saying goes; ‘good times breed bad habits’. And now we’re seeing the outcome of the lack of investment in professional development in these good times. Metaphorical muffin-tops sit astride senior roles, all because they know something about binary code, rather than marketing or management. And now they are struggling to grow their businesses because they don’t have the management expertise. So it’s not really their fault.

Yet companies keep hiring people based on their technical skills, not their business skills. As one recruiter said when referring to the digital blindness occurring with hiring for senior roles:

“It’s become the equivalent of choosing the bloke who made the cricket bats instead of Steve Waugh, to be the captain of the Aussie cricket team. He makes the tools for the players, he’s not a team leader.”

Nice bat, we'll make you team captain...

Nice bat, we’ll make you team captain…

He’s right. I don’t recall prior to the interweb, any advertising agency appointing finished artists or film editors to the role of MD or CEO.

So why appoint someone with a limited technical platform experience – digital – to run an agency, marketing department or online business? Let them put their skills to use where they are best suited. It’s why promoting sales people to be sales managers is often a mistake – they are hunters not farmers and the skills to do both jobs are vastly different.

And it’s one reason so much money has been wasted online – technology not marketing has become the focus. Instead of marketers reducing their budgets thanks to the analytics provided by the interweb, they continued to spend shareholder’s funds like there was no tomorrow.

Although according to the head of a leading industry association the number of major brands now reducing their social media spend is growing. But that’s not really surprising. There has also been an increase in the number of digital agencies closing.

The big issue facing agency CEOs is finding experienced leaders who really know how to grow businesses and staff, now that digital budgets are stagnating. There is an abundance of binary code skills and digital production people. But there are less of the skills required to lead a business.

I’ve been been developing digital marketing stuff since 1994, so have been hiring in the category for 20 years.  I’ve run 8 different digital agencies and online businesses of various sizes, as well as 2 data businesses, but couldn’t cut code to feed myself – I don’t need to know the technical specifics of the interweb to run the business.

I own an email marketing business, but have no idea how to write HTML.  And I’ve hired loads of people with technical and computer skills, but never for management roles – most don’t want them anyway. They aren’t qualified in people management, new business development, finance or business strategy. These aren’t their fields of expertise.

The Juniorisation of marketing

Adrianne Nixon, a marketing consultant, runs a business specifically designed to educate senior marketing and agency executives on how to work more successfully in the digital world. She has invited me to join her panel of experts. She calls the problem the “juniorisation” of marketing. As budgets get tighter and demands get greater, both agencies and marketing departments are giving more responsibility to junior staff – most of whom have no experience to do the job.

And because someone can use digi-speak, the senior people who don’t have technical skills, promote these alleged digi-experts to senior roles for which they are ill-equipped. It’s a vicious cycle that will have damaging ramifications sooner rather than later. I know one ‘head of digital’ for a DM agency, whose own ‘digital agency’ went broke leaving creditors everywhere. He fled the country before returning triumphant to convince the multi-national to hire him.

Google isn’t our demographic

Here’s an example from a meeting I was in with one of our largest car insurers. The brand agency was there, nervous because the client had pulled our agency in to fix the problem. The brand agency digi-bloke was very cool – he went by a single name (no surname).

We had created a promotion to capture renewal dates from young male drivers (the target market) and recommended the promotion name be the search term and URL, as nobody owned it.

Brand digi-bloke spoke as he flicked his luscious locks from his face “Google isn’t our demographic”. The marketing manager nearly blew coffee out her nostrils. She asked him to explain and he reclined in his chair and repeated “Google isn’t the right demographic for this promotion“. The marketer politely disagreed and the brand digi-bloke sat there brooding.

The new language of marketing management

Today’s CMO (and agency bosses) need to know far more about marketing than ever before. Most are skilled for running last century’s business models that focused on marketing communications ie mass media advertising. The world of direct marketing, using data, technology, the interweb and analytics to grow their business is new to them. Now they have to understand 3 languages and know how to communicate and engage with the various departments/suppliers:

  1. The language of marketing communications across all channels
  2. The language of data, databases, analytics and modelling to know how to use data and more importantly, what to ignore
  3. The language of IT, because with secure websites and data privacy, the IT department are essential to marketing

The only marketers with this expertise are those who have worked in direct marketing – they were the pioneers of online retailing. Traditional brand marketers are just learning these skills as they haven’t needed them before. But in most marketing departments and at most agencies it’s the traditionalists who are running the show. That’s not a criticism, just a statement of fact.

Hire people better than yourself

David Ogilvy once told me over dinner (and he published the statement often) that he always tried to hire people better than himself and let them do their job. He humbly claimed it to be one of the reasons he was successful, though I did suspect he was being charming – which is what he said all great ads contained, charm.

Always hire people who are better than you

Always hire people who are better than you

That’s one of a number of soft skills missing from business now – charm. Along with manners, they appear to have taken a back seat to technology fashion.

Which reminds me of an interview panel on which I sat for a client a few years ago. The young bloke we were interviewing for the e-marketing role put his mobile on the table, but didn’t switch it off. It sat there like a live grenade, waiting to explode.

And sure enough it did. Not only did it ring, causing all to jump in shock – but the fool answered it in the middle of being asked a question.

so your best skill is using a digital phone?

so your best skill is using a digital phone?

It exploded (sorry) any chance he had of getting the job, despite his attempt at a charming apology.

Am not sure where he is now – probably running a digital agency.

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Would you’ve hired Steve Waugh or the cricket bat maker?

04 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, BIG DATA, Branding, Digital, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Social Media

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

advertising, agency, BIG data, branding, data, database marketing, digital, direct marketing, marketing, social media

As part of the research for updating one of my marketing books, I have been meeting and talking with senior people in the marketing industry – in marketing departments, agencies and recruitment companies.

A recurring theme in the conversations is the decline in senior direct marketing experience in agencies and marketing departments. The recent love affair with digital technology and digital channels means many have lost focus on the ­way of marketing that is essential in a digital world – direct marketing.

The last decade has been the easiest period in history to run DM agencies, data consultancies and digital agencies. Marketers poured buckets of money into them to build websites, create online videos, attempt viral campaigns, build social media sites, design Apps, manage SEM/SEO, produce content, set-up data analytics and more. Agencies didn’t have to try to grow their businesses – their clients did it for them.

Spend our money and make yourself rich...

Spend our money and make yourself rich…

As the saying goes; ‘good times breed bad habits’. And now we’re seeing the outcome of the lack of investment in professional development in these good times. Metaphorical muffin-tops sit astride senior roles, all because they know something about binary code, rather than marketing or management. And now they are struggling to grow their businesses because they don’t have the management expertise. So it’s not really their fault.

Yet companies keep hiring people based on their technical skills, not their business skills. As one recruiter said when referring to the digital blindness occurring with hiring for senior roles:

“It’s become the equivalent of choosing the bloke who made the cricket bats instead of Steve Waugh, to be the captain of the Aussie cricket team. He makes the tools for the players, he’s not a team leader.”

Nice bat, we'll make you team captain...

Nice bat, we’ll make you team captain…

He’s right. I don’t recall prior to the interweb, any advertising agency appointing finished artists or film editors to the role of MD or CEO.

So why appoint someone with a limited technical platform experience – digital – to run an agency, marketing department or online business? Let them put their skills to use where they are best suited. It’s why promoting sales people to be sales managers is often a mistake – they are hunters not farmers and the skills to do both jobs are vastly different.

And it’s one reason so much money has been wasted online – technology not marketing has become the focus. Instead of marketers reducing their budgets thanks to the analytics provided by the interweb, they continued to spend shareholder’s funds like there was no tomorrow.

Although according to the head of a leading industry association the number of major brands now reducing their social media spend is growing. But that’s not really surprising. There has also been an increase in the number of digital agencies closing.

The big issue facing agency CEOs is finding experienced leaders who really know how to grow businesses and staff, now that digital budgets are stagnating. There is an abundance of binary code skills and digital production people. But there are less of the skills required to lead a business.

I’ve been been developing digital marketing stuff since 1994, so have been hiring in the category for 20 years.  I’ve run 8 different digital agencies and online businesses of various sizes, as well as 2 data businesses, but couldn’t cut code to feed myself – I don’t need to know the technical specifics of the interweb to run the business.

I own an email marketing business, but have no idea how to write HTML.  And I’ve hired loads of people with technical and computer skills, but never for management roles – most don’t want them anyway. They aren’t qualified in people management, new business development, finance or business strategy. These aren’t their fields of expertise.

The Juniorisation of marketing

Adrianne Nixon, a marketing consultant, runs a business specifically designed to educate senior marketing and agency executives on how to work more successfully in the digital world. She has invited me to join her panel of experts. She calls the problem the “juniorisation” of marketing. As budgets get tighter and demands get greater, both agencies and marketing departments are giving more responsibility to junior staff – most of whom have no experience to do the job.

And because someone can use digi-speak, the senior people who don’t have technical skills, promote these alleged digi-experts to senior roles for which they are ill-equipped. It’s a vicious cycle that will have damaging ramifications sooner rather than later. I know one ‘head of digital’ for a DM agency, whose own ‘digital agency’ went broke leaving creditors everywhere. He fled the country before returning triumphant to convince the multi-national to hire him.

Google isn’t our demographic

Here’s an example from a meeting I was in with one of our largest car insurers. The brand agency was there, nervous because the client had pulled our agency in to fix the problem. The brand agency digi-bloke was very cool – he went by a single name (no surname).

We had created a promotion to capture renewal dates from young male drivers (the target market) and recommended the promotion name be the search term and URL, as nobody owned it.

Brand digi-bloke spoke as he flicked his luscious locks from his face “Google isn’t our demographic”. The marketing manager nearly blew coffee out her nostrils. She asked him to explain and he reclined in his chair and repeated “Google isn’t the right demographic for this promotion“. The marketer politely disagreed and the brand digi-bloke sat there brooding.

The new language of marketing management

Today’s CMO (and agency bosses) need to know far more about marketing than ever before. Most are skilled for running last century’s business models that focused on marketing communications ie mass media advertising. The world of direct marketing, using data, technology, the interweb and analytics to grow their business is new to them. Now they have to understand 3 languages and know how to communicate and engage with the various departments/suppliers:

  1. The language of marketing communications across all channels
  2. The language of data, databases, analytics and modelling to know how to use data and more importantly, what to ignore
  3. The language of IT, because with secure websites and data privacy, the IT department are essential to marketing

The only marketers with this expertise are those who have worked in direct marketing – they were the pioneers of online retailing. Traditional brand marketers are just learning these skills as they haven’t needed them before. But in most marketing departments and at most agencies it’s the traditionalists who are running the show. That’s not a criticism, just a statement of fact.

Hire people better than yourself

David Ogilvy once told me over dinner (and he published the statement often) that he always tried to hire people better than himself and let them do their job. He humbly claimed it to be one of the reasons he was successful, though I did suspect he was being charming – which is what he said all great ads contained, charm.

Always hire people who are better than you

Always hire people who are better than you

That’s one of a number of soft skills missing from business now – charm. Along with manners, they appear to have taken a back seat to technology fashion.

Which reminds me of an interview panel on which I sat for a client a few years ago. The young bloke we were interviewing for the e-marketing role put his mobile on the table, but didn’t switch it off. It sat there like a live grenade, waiting to explode.

And sure enough it did. Not only did it ring, causing all to jump in shock – but the fool answered it in the middle of being asked a question.

so your best skill is using a digital phone?

so your best skill is using a digital phone?

It exploded (sorry) any chance he had of getting the job, despite his attempt at a charming apology.

Am not sure where he is now – probably running a digital agency.

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There’s a half-naked granny on my balcony…

03 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, Copywriting, Direct Marketing, Sales Promotion

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

advertising, direct marketing, long tail, marketing

Last weekend I did something I’ve never done before – held a garage sale. We are renovating next year, so decided to clear out our home and office, as I now work virtually and no longer need the 6 staplers and 3 hole-punches that I’ve kept in storage since we closed the office.

My bride is a big fan of Lee Mathews clothes – so much so, I want to meet Lee’s kids as I’m sure we’ve put them through private school. My bride decided to have her own clearance of said clothing range as part of the sale. We live on the northern beaches of Sydney and Lee is a well known local designer.

To promote the sales event (to quote current automotive jargon – it’s now a sales event, not just a sale) I used a combination of letterbox drop, classified ads in the local paper, email to contacts and street posters nailed to telegraph poles at 5am on the day.

Get your Lee Mathews here...

Get your Lee Mathews here…

We started our day at 4.15am thanks to a damn exotic screaming bird in the neighbour’s tree opposite. Though it was a blessing in disguise as we had so much stuff to organise. The professional garage sale trawlers started arriving at 6.45am. Apparently tradie’s tools are in hot demand, as they get stolen so much.

My street posters used a number of headlines – two included Lee Mathews as the first words. I put a number up in both directions on the main road leading to our home. Being the good marketer I asked people if they had seen our ad in the local paper or the street posters.

Most hadn’t seen the ad, but they had seen our street posters and of course our neighbours saw the letterbox leaflet, because they told us so. A number of women turned up for the Lee Mathews clothes and then rang girlfriends to let them know – nothing like a bit of real-time social media.

It turned into a community event, as some of the local kids set up a fresh lemonade and muffin stand out front. Neighbours dropped in for a chat and there was lots of negotiating as everything from kids games to surfboards, fridges, clothes, books and other stuff changed hands. Though I still have all the office furniture.

The day was long though, particularly as for some strange reason we invited friends to come for dinner that evening. So we had to close down the sales event, pack up the leftovers, remove the posters and then go shopping for dinner. I offered our guests a free stapler but they weren’t interested.

Early Sunday morning, in much pain from all the lifting and carrying the previous day, not to mention the wine over dinner, I was making breakfast. I heard some noise out the front and went to investigate. To my surprise there was a half-naked granny on the balcony trying on the remaining Lee Mathews dresses.

I apologised for spying her in her bra and she apologised back for interrupting our morning. Apparently she only just read the classified ad and was worried she’d missed the sales event! The long tail of classified advertising had prevailed.

So I made her coffee while she used our front window as a mirror, completely oblivious to the rest of the world. Barb’s her name and she is quite the character, as well as a grandmother of 10. I’m suspecting she was possibly a hippie in her day. She was in great physical shape and that’s all I’ll say on that.

Granny coffee mug

My bride helped her try on clothes and after almost an hour she walked away with a bargain, as these were the clothes that didn’t sell, so were going to charity.

As a single bloke I probably dreamed of waking up and finding strange half-clad women on my balcony. I never thought it would be a cool grandmother on her way to Sunday church.

Maybe we shouldn’t donate those clothes just yet? Where are those street posters?

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No images in your email are better than some images…

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital, Direct Marketing, Marketing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

advertising, branding, content marketing, digital, direct marketing, email marketing, marketing, social media

As some of you would know I’ve been working in what is now called the ‘digital marketing industry’ for 20 years. My first foray into the information superhighway was in 1994. And as all of you know, there are now more alleged experts in the various channels of digital marketing technology, than all experts combined from every other industry in the world since the dawn of time.

Yet despite this plethora of digi-expertise, many of the basic fundamentals are still being ignored – at great cost to shareholders and great frustration to marketers. One could say EPIC FAIL is standard practice.

Take the humble email message for instance. Email is a personal channel, yet digi-marketers treat it as a mass one. Just look at your typical newsletter. Websites invite subscribers to newsletters, but then send the subscribers something entirely different. Most often it’s a digital version of a retail press advertisement. Lots of offers and ‘buy now’ buttons. There’s rarely any news, like a traditional newsletter is supposed to contain.

Brand Guidelines get in the way of communication

Worse still is the role played by the Brand Guideline Drill Sergeants. Why should a personal message look like a brand ad? It should look like a personal message. I don’t know if too many people have not bought something because they thought the brand guidelines in the email message weren’t correct.

There are two reasons your email message needs to look personal:

  • One is because well-written personal messages work better than messages choc-full of brand images
  • And two is because technology dictates design

Don’t get me wrong, if you are an online product retailer then your email message should contain lots of product images with prices and ‘buy now’ buttons. But these aren’t newsletters.

The best way to write your newsletter content (as opposed to copy) is to write it as a personal message with links to more stuff. Then if necessary insert relevant images and caption your images. Add subheads in bold to attract the eye and encourage continued reading. Then add your corporate logos only after everything else is complete and preferably at the end of the message not at the top.

There’s a simple reason why your logo (or other images) should not dominate your masthead – and it’s to do with digital technology. Think about what you have to do to view an image in your email message. You have to right-click the image. And if your email message is dominated by images, or particularly if your masthead is a massive image that covers the top quarter of your message, the initial visual impression of your message by your customer is an ugly mess. It’s certainly not conducive to opening and reading.

Here’s an example of a message from Letterbox Deals, before the recipient chooses to right-click on the images.

Nothing appears until you right-click

Nothing appears until you right-click

And here’s what the message looks like if recipients bother to right-click:

The view after you right-click

The view after you right-click

BTW, this is not a shot at Letterbox Deals – it is a very successful business, but imagine how more successful they could be if they considered human nature. We humans are lazy by nature – we always prefer the path of least resistance and forcing us to right-click just to see brand guidelines is an insane way to design messages.

And of course there’s the issue of sp*m filters. Most automatically block a message if the image content of the message is more than 50% of the message. So you should minimise your number of images if you want your message to get through to your customers.

The best way to determine the most successful design is to run a continous test programme. Determine your control design – the one that works best for you – then constantly test new designs in a sample segment to try to beat the control. Your bottom line will thank you enormously.

I have an interest in a travel agency and our most successful email messages to sell travel (one of the most visually dominated categories in marketing) is a short email message that is all text. We highlight the offer in the headline, then the reason for writing, then explain the details and how to order. The logo goes beneath the signature file.

The headline is a large font heralding the offer. This means that any customer viewing the message through their preview screen, can immediately read the offer – there is no right-click required. We make it easy to read in a way that suits human nature.

Here’s the highly sophisticated layout – it always works better than messages full of images:

HEADLINE WITH BENEFIT

Reason for writing

Details of offer

How to order

Signature File

Logo

And I’ve always found the easier it is for a customer to make a decision to buy, the  more likely they will buy – digitally speaking of course!

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