Monthly Archives: May 2016

The essential media channel most successful digital start-ups can’t do without…

31 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in Advertising, Branding, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Media, Sales Promotion

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Here’s a quick quiz for you digital marketing experts:

Question: What do all these online brands have in common?

Google, Uber, Kogan, Catch of the Day, Deals Direct, The Iconic, Hello Fresh, Helpling, styletread, carnextdoor, suppertime, Charles Tyrwhitt, Naked Wines, Virgin Wines, Marley Spoon and loads of other digital retailers…
(Hint: Direct marketers have an unfair advantage here)

Answer: they all rely on print as their most valuable media channel for acquiring new customers.

That’s right folks – print technology. You know, that ancient old-fashioned relic of a media channel, arrogantly ignored by so many naive digital marketers?

inserts

printed inserts are key to new customer acquisition

FYI a quick piece of digital advice – if you are an alleged digital marketing expert who advises clients to only use digital channels, or a digital marketer who only uses digital channels, you may need to rethink what you do. Because if you are not using the proven channels and only using the (often) unproven digital channels, you really should leave the industry. You’re giving it a bad name and costing marketers a sizeable fortune.

I’ve written previously about Google’s use of direct mail. You’ve probably received some of their mailings. So let me share the ParcelPush story with you.

Bjorn Behrendt is a successful German entrepreneur with a background in online direct marketing – also known as digital marketing. He launched styletread, an online shoe store, in Australia. He then sold it for loads of money. Now he’s launched another three digital start-ups in Australia to service digital retailers. And these start-ups are all print-based businesses.

Gotta love it when one of the fastest growing digital start-ups, which exists to service digital start-ups, is providing print services to those digital start-ups!

If you’ve worked in direct marketing, particularly online retail or mail order, you’ll probably already use printed inserts in fulfillment parcels to acquire customers. This channel is at least 50 years old.

But if you don’t have any DM experience this channel might be new to you. Bjorn discovered printed inserts when he owned styletread. Loads of other online retailers asked if they could put their inserts in styletread’s shoe boxes when they were delivered to customers – for a fee of course.

Long story short, Bjorn partnered with Australian Craig Morris and launched ParcelPush – a specialist business owning the rights to access online retailer’s fulfillment boxes/parcels. They pay to insert a branded envelope into them. Then they sell inserts into those envelopes to other online retailers. For example, in the Aussie Farmers Direct fulfillment box, they insert an envelope branded “Aussie Farmers Direct” and it is filled with third party offers and samples.

logo

This has become one of the cheapest channels for online retailers to acquire new customers. After all, they are making offers to people who have already bought a product online, so these prospects don’t need to be educated to shop online. It’s the same process as mail-order companies that used inserts to convert existing mail-order customers to buy other products by mail-order. What’s old is new again – again.

More importantly they are using tactile media – the media that affects all five senses – sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Digital media only affect sight, sound and touch, so are relatively limited in their customer engagement ability. (I had to get customer engagement into a marketing blog to demonstrate my digi-credibleness). As I’ve said before the physical nearly always outperforms the virtual.

Most digital marketers struggle to make digital channels profitable for customer acquisition. The digital channels are much better for retention and repeat business.

Here are some samples of the inserts – all shapes and sizes:

Parcel Push 2

Parcel Push

In addition, and as a result of the success of ParcelPush, they’ve also launched two other print-based businesses:

www.letterboxpush.com.au – this is a competitor to the Yellow Envelope and other distributors of catalogues and brochures into letterboxes.

www.printpush.com.au – this is an online print business. Who’d have thought we needed another printer? But the ParcelPush print volumes have made it possible to offer good value printing – and distribution.

So if you want to succeed with digital marketing, here’s some career advice. Find a grey-haired direct marketer and buy them a drink. Then sit back and listen. They’ve lived through and created more disruption in marketing than anyone else in history. And they continue to do so. You’ll be surprised how fast your career takes off.

But remember, just because digital marketing techniques are new to you, doesn’t mean they’re new to the world. Technology changes, but human’s emotional reasons for buying remain constant…

How would you treat a loyal customer of 26 years?

27 Friday May 2016

Posted by in B2B Marketing, BIG DATA, Branding, Customer Service, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, small data

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When I was a National Marketing Manager at TNT, I had to fly Ansett domestically because TNT owned the airline. Consequently I only flew Qantas internationally. But in 1990, I joined the Qantas Frequent Flyer programme. Last year was the 25th anniversary of my custom and last month, my 26th came and went quietly.

anniversary

I’ve flown with them every year since 1990 and spent six figures in airfares. Like many of you, I have been up and down the Qantas ladder of membership. At my peak, I was what’s known as a CIP and my membership status was something like Super Godzilla Platinum. For the uninitiated, a CIP is a Commercially Important Passenger. The CIP acronym is more valuable than VIP – it means you pay serious dollars for your seat, whereas VIPs may not pay at all for the privilege.

The reason I was a CIP, was because an over-indulgent ad agency paid me to travel the world’s busiest route – Sydney/Melbourne – on a weekly basis, sitting at the pointy end of the plane. Eventually I left that role and my travel action declined. I gradually dropped from Super Godzilla Platinum to Shiny Gold and eventually arrived at the humble Dull Silver level – though apparently it’s a Lifetime Membership. Woo Hoo.

During the time I slid down the Qantas eligibility pole for a free beer at the bar and a couple of party pies at the bain marie, I also became a Velocity member at Virgin.

pies

Lifetime Silver means no more free party pies or beer on tap…

So I ask you dear marketer, why have I not heard one word from Qantas? If you had a customer who had done business continuously with you for 26 years, wouldn’t you like to know why they’d reduced the amount of business they did with you? Wouldn’t you pick up the phone and ask?

Wouldn’t you like to know if you still get 100% of their flying wallet – to use some marketing jargon? Has your service been the problem? Does your customer now fly with your competitor?

cards

Have you left us for another?

I’m not sure how many customers you have who’ve spent continuously with you for 26 years, but I’m sure you don’t have too many. But if you did have such a customer, aren’t these the typical questions you would ask if they stopped doing business with you?

So why don’t Qantas marketers care about the people who pay their salaries? Is it because they make so much money flogging the personal data of members to FF partners, who in turn flog stuff back to said members? Is the airline business so lucrative and simple, they can afford to lose long term customers?

Is suspect the reason is simple – they rely on marketing automation. The computer tracks flight purchases and allocates ‘status’ based on transactions. And we all know how risky it is to hand over your customer service to computers. More often than not, marketing automation equates to marketing disaster.

Epic Marketing Fails Banner

There is no layer of human intelligence being applied to the BIG DATA at Qantas. Worse still they’re ignoring the small data that matters. Unless of course it’s a budgetary issue – but you’d have to be concerned if the margins in your business restrict you from calling your customers to talk with them?

I’m obviously not the most profitable customer for Qantas, but I have been a customer for more than two and a half decades. You’d think even the lamest marketer would acknowledge the fact? After all, the management could afford to pay a $90 million bonus to the staff last year? But hey, why feign interest in customers?

If you want further evidence, here’s what happened to a friend of mine. Her partner (also a friend of mine) died suddenly from DVT, following an international flight. While sorting out his estate, my grieving friend rang Qantas late on a Friday afternoon to ask what will happen to her partner’s FF points. (you need to plan this in your Will too, dear reader)

She was told to get back to them within 48 hours with the name of a relative to whom they could transfer the points. So after a discussion over the weekend, she rang Qantas on Monday, only to be told she had missed her 48 hour window! The points were to be forfeited.

Suffice to say, she gave them a piece of her mind and eventually coerced the customer service staff into allowing the points to be transferred, somewhat begrudgingly.

Gotta luv the Spirit of Oz.

So I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised about their attitude towards one customer of 26 years…