Category Archives: B2B Marketing

Online sales can reduce your revenue…

22 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by in Direct Marketing, Customer Service, Branding, Marketing, Digital, Marketing Automation, B2B Marketing, Digital marketing, Sales, social selling

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

A couple of years ago my agency created catalogues for an office supplies company – different catalogues for different areas of their business and different types of customers.

They had a catalogue for typical office stationery, another for bulk purchases of products delivered on pallets, and other specialty catalogues. They did some sophisticated testing, with the objective of moving clients to order via their website to reduce the dependence upon the call centre, as it took the majority of the orders. They also believed they’d make more money with online ordering.

The test results revealed some interesting insights. When the company migrated customers to online orders, they lost revenue. The average order size via the website was much less than the average order via the call centre. The reason is simple and one which any salesperson can explain.

down-decline-graph

Online sales reduced average sales value and revenue…

Once the customer was on the phone, the customer service person could upsell via questions and sell even more products than the customer might have bought if they simply went to the website. The customers who did use the website for orders, usually only bought a small number of items.

Another insight they discovered was that most customers had the catalogue with them when they called to order by phone. This gives the customer service person another way to engage with the customer, by referring to the catalogue pages and discussing them together.

Woman reading magazine at coffee shop

customers have the catalogue with them when they call…

The grim discovery was that the move to online ordering had the potential to damage the business and reduce sales. While website sales can possibly cost less to process, the average sale value was less than telephone sales.

The company had to work a delicate balance of telephone and website sales and eventually hit on a strategy of telephone follow-up to online sales. As online orders were received, the outbound telemarketers would call the customer and upsell based on the products in the online order.

This became a productive use of the call centre staff, giving them options for inbound and outbound selling. Customers appreciated the ‘service calls’ and nearly always increased their order value.

virtualStaff365_callCentres_img1

let me help you spend more money…

So don’t believe everything you hear about the marvels of digital disruption – it can damage your business rather than improve it.

The old adage continues to apply – just because you can doesn’t mean you should…

Nothing fails as badly (or regularly) as a marketing automation fail…

31 Friday May 2019

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales, social selling

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

As robots and “automation software” increasingly take over the tasks of humans, the number of customer service problems and technical glitches seem to be increasing. Yet ironically, in most cases, the simple reason for the failure is the lack of human involvement.

Here is the first of a couple of examples I’ll share with you:

Adobe is a very successful company and makes some great products, some of which I use. They were a client years ago and I also have friends who work there. On 14th May Adobe sent me an email with the subject line: “Gartner Magic Quadrant names Adobe a Leader in Multichannel Marketing Hubs“. Now as I’ve owned an email SaaS business, I thought I’d see what the Magic Quadrant had to say, though I wondered if I was supposed to be puffing on something when reading stuff by the Magic Quadrant?

The email is an image with the ridiculous headline: “Your customer has many sides. Engage them all.” There were no images of customers, just technology.

I laughed so much I just had to click on the link to see how many sides my customers now have – apart from the obvious backside. And as I’m already married I don’t want to engage any of them.

The link was for a report titled: “Connecting with People Across Their Every Dimension” so I was a tad confused given the subject line. The link took me to this page:

It’s not immediately obvious what to click on for the report. There is a “request a demo” button but that’s not the report button. Eventually I realised the headline “Gartner: Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs” was the link, so I clicked on it and it opened to this:

The page simply says: Access to this content has expired

So I went back to the email and tried again – same result.

I scrolled through the email to see how to contact Adobe. But like most marketing automation brands – they don’t want to provide customer service to customers or prospects. They force people to do everything themselves via (often useless) websites, rather than provide humans (or at worse, chat bots) to help. It’s the equivalent of going into a retail store and asking the salesperson if they have a product in stock, and getting told to go look out the back in the storeroom yourself.

The email fineprint tells me not to reply to the email, even though it was personally addressed to me (well to my subscription email name – Ted). I have to go to a damn website and search for the contact information:

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE. To obtain information on how to contact Adobe, visit the web at: http://www.adobe.com/company/contact.html

This is so wrong on so many service levels, not to mention the language: “To obtain information on how to contact Adobe” – I don’t want to obtain information on how to contact Adobe, I just want to contact Adobe.

Apart from the link not working and not being able to contact Adobe without opening up a website, the message itself indicates what’s wrong with many digital marketing businesses these days.

Like so many of these companies, Adobe obviously doesn’t employ copywriters or art directors – it employs graphic or industrial designers – people who know how to design, but not how to communicate. And they employ typists not copywriters.

Some of the obvious giveaways:

  • Centred headline across more than one line
  • Widow or orphan in the headline
  • Full stops in the headline (these tell you to stop reading)
  • Two full stops in the headline (stop reading or else)
  • Centred body copy – with widows
  • Breaking a publication title across two lines, with the final words hanging as widows
  • Reversing white out of black type in a sans serif font – significantly reduces readability and comprehension
  • Use of the jargon-monkey button on the keyboard – this message is full of it:

Let’s deconstruct:

“Today’s customer expects personalised content when it matters most” In simple terms, this is complete B.S. Today’s customers are no different to yesterday’s, last week’s or last century’s customers. They just want good service – if it involves personalised content so be it. But they are not “expecting personalised content” – most don’t want any more damn content. Marketers are the ones who want to create content – not consumers. Read more below.*

“And when you understand all the human complexities that drive customer decisions,” “understand the human complexities???” It’s not brain surgery – it’s marketing. Maybe this refers to a complex customer decision like “I think I’ll buy a cup of coffee” or “I will click here to download the report” – definitely need to understand the associated human complexities for such decisions. We’ll fail otherwise and never be able to “deliver experiences that speak to them, get them to click, and make a lasting impression.”

#changehands #fingersdownthroat

These types of messages are contributing to the reason the majority of people don’t trust online content as much as they trust printed content. It’s why the marketing industry is ranked near the bottom on the consumer trust barometers.

But wait – there’s more…

A week later on the 21st May, Adobe sent me this message:

The message has a report attached, a week after I had tried to download it. How long did it take the humans at Adobe to realise the link didn’t work? Didn’t a human test the link when it went live, so to speak?

This message also demonstrated the wrong people are creating the emails:

  • The Adobe team is singular not plural – so ‘we mistakenly linked you” cannot be. An individual created the email link, not a team of people.
  • Teams don’t send emails, individuals do – did a bunch of marketers sit around a send-button each waiting anxiously to push the button together as a team?
  • “We care about the quality and relevance of our communications and have taken measures to fix the issue.” No. No. No. Stop the passive language. There is no need to say “we…have taken measures” just say “the problem is fixed.”
  • Stop talking about yourself – there are numerous ways this message could have been written with more relevance so it delivered in Adobe’s words, “experiences that speak to them, get them to click, and make a lasting impression.”

BUT WAIT, there’s even more…

The report that I tried to download on the 14th is titled:
“Connecting with People Across Their Every Dimension.”

The report the Adobe team sent me on the 21st May is titled:
“Analysts Report Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs“.

So now I’m confused. The report I was sent reflects the subject line of the email. It talks about SaaS that delivers messages in many channels to customers. But it doesn’t talk about the many sides of the customer, as per the headline in the email message, or the title of the report I tried to download.

So is the subject line and the landing page correct, but the email message incorrect? Or is the report title in the email message correct, but the subject line and landing page incorrect? It’s enough to make a simple marketer reach for the Magic… I suspect you get my drift.

This is so typical of what happens when technologists pretend to be marketers. What is going on at Adobe? Where are the experienced marketers? Where are the people who care or are accountable?

If you would like to learn some facts about readership, comprehension and designing to communicate, read the brilliant book by Colin Wheildon – “Communicating or JUST MAKING PRETTY SHAPES.” If you contact me on inquiry@madmail.com.au I’ll send you a FREE PDF of the book – no downloading or teams involved.

Gotta go now – am going to download a definitive guide to downloading definitive guides…

You can read more here:

* https://themalcolmauldblog.com/2016/03/03/content-infobesity-is-clogging-digital-arteries/

* https://themalcolmauldblog.com/2015/07/29/leading-legendary-lamb-leg-linkfluencer-looks-like-losing-the-lot/

* https://themalcolmauldblog.com/2018/10/25/theres-a-reason-the-first-three-letters-of-content-marketing-are-con/

How digital marketers destroyed one of the most profitable media channels…

19 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales, Social Media, social selling

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

As many of you will know, one of the major weaknesses of digital marketers is their lack of knowledge of marketing history.

They naively assumed that just because a technology was new, all previous technology was useless, all existing media channels no longer worked, proven techniques suddenly failed, and human DNA changed forever. So they ignored everything that had worked pre-internet.

The nature of technology is to constantly evolve. Experienced marketers have lived through a constant stream of technical innovations – in television, radio, outdoor, mail, print, sponsorship and of course online. So for most, the digital channels just offered additional media options for marketing purposes.

One of the most profitable channels – for both the media owner and marketers – was the humble mailing list. Mailing lists existed for every consumer and B2B category. You could rent them or create your own and reach every person on the list. Many list owners rented their lists both for profit and to keep the list current.

But then the marketing toddlers in their digital nappies arrived. When they realised the power of direct marketing via email, they really went to town – spamming, abusing privacy, ignoring unsubscribe requests and generally operating without any ethics. They were so appallingly bad at the use of email lists, governments around the world were forced to take action to stop them.

In countries across the globe new laws banning spam, banning the sending of unsolicited emails, and protecting the privacy of consumers, were legislated. These were the direct result of digital marketers abusing their privilege – to communicate directly with consumers.

The backwash from these bans was devastating. Here’s why:

The new privacy and opt-in laws, spilled into the databases of mailing list owners, not just email list owners. These new laws meant once-compliant mailing list owners had to comply with laws designed for email list owners.

So, if you owned a list and it contained contacts from more than one country, you now had to comply with multiple privacy and spam laws. The cost of this compliance became prohibitive. When coupled with the reduction in subscribers to printed magazines, the cost versus revenue for list ownership and maintenance became unsustainable. The penalties for non-compliance were too high and not worth the risk of human error.

For the uninitiated, prior to these new laws, any marketer could rent a mailing list and send direct mail for business purposes. Let’s say for example, you wanted to reach IT professionals. You didn’t have to advertise and hope you reached them. You could rent a list and mail them anything from a letter to a white paper, even include an involvement device. Then you managed responses and followed-up the non-responses by phone.

Here’s one of the world’s most successful B2B campaigns from a pre-internet age. It paid for itself within 4 hours of delivery.

But that simple way of doing business has been severely damaged. Thanks to the spam and privacy laws, there are way fewer lists available to rent – particularly in niche markets.

Now B2B marketing for example, has become much more complicated and open to abuse. It is reflected in the growth of the fake influencers and fake thought leaders. Instead of renting a list or building one, marketers are being told they have to do social selling. As against anti-social selling? What sales process isn’t social?

Here, according to the digital marketing experts, is what you have to do today to reach a B2B prospect.

  1. Connect to as many executives as possible on LinkedIn or other social channels.
  2. Pay a third party, usually in a third-world country, to create a white paper, or ‘content’ for you to send to every contact you have, via the social channels.
  3. Don’t use proven sales techniques in your messaging, as selling is evil.
  4. Just hope the contact has nothing better to do but read your content and love it so much they contact you.
  5. To convince your connection your ‘content’ is worth consuming, call it “thought leadership” and call yourself “an influencer” – for no reason other than to big yourself up in your own eyes and hopefully fool some poor sucker that you know what you’re talking about.
  6. When your social selling fails to work, use the KPI of “thought leadership” and “content marketing” to fool your boss that things are OK. One way to do this is to send your boss all your content when you send it to your connections.

This process takes way longer and costs much more than simply mailing your prospects and customers with relevant information and reasons to respond (known as selling). But hey, it has digital buzzwords attached to it so it must be worth destroying a profitable media channel.

I’m not saying that contacting people on LinkedIn and gradually converting them to a customer doesn’t work. Though most social sellers don’t practice what they preach. Instead, they connect and start flogging their wares immediately, without any credibility, using puff-words like “awesome”, “killer”, “secrets”, and “mind-blowing” in their message.

Here’s an example of one I received this week from a person who asked to join my network, I didn’t invite him. It arrived courtesy of marketing automation: “…5 killer LinkedIn tactics we used to generate 50 appointments and 13 closed deals in 2 months” I have no idea why he thinks I’m a prospect, these killer tactics are the last thing I need to grow a business. The message has zero credibility.

Interestingly, many of the thought leaders on social selling have never used direct mail, so they have no credibility when claiming social selling is the solution. You can prove it too – do a split run test. You might be surprised at the results.

In my experience, using mail supported by the digital channels will get the best result – but I’m only speaking from experience. Given current marketers don’t care about marketing history aka “experience” the message will probably fall on deaf ears.

Blatant Plug…

If you live in Brisbane and want to know how to make your mail work in a digital world, here’s a blatant plug. Join Steve Harrison, the man Campaign magazine described as “The greatest Direct Mail creative of his generation“. He’s won more Cannes Lion awards for direct mail than anyone else. You’ll learn how to do award-winning, effective direct mail at this event on 11th March 2019:

www.creativemail.com.au

There’s a reason the first three letters of ‘content marketing’ are ‘con’…

25 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Marketers are a weird lot. We love to over-complicate things. We also have a strange penchant for renaming existing tactics and marketing techniques that have worked sometimes for more than 100 years, just because a new media channel has been invented.

Take social media. Please, take it. I mean, is there any media channel that isn’t social? By their very nature, media and the messages published/broadcast in them are social. After all, we don’t have anti-social media channels do we?

As you know dear reader, since the introduction of digital channels, the resurgence of the emperor’s new clothes is complete. Cyber-hustlers everywhere have claimed new things exist where they don’t. Fake thought leaders try to convince gullible marketers that human DNA has changed forever, particularly when it comes to consumption of marketing messages and buying stuff.

the resurgence of the emperor’s new clothes is complete

And of course there’s the great content con. Apparently until the internet, there was no such thing as content for marketing purposes. I ask you, what do the content zealots believe has been filling every advertisement, brochure, video, billboard, sales presentation, media release, article, etc since year dot, but content?

To clarify the content situation I have created two lists:

“Content marketing” before the internet

“Content marketing” after the internet

As you can see, apart from a handful of new channels, marketers are still creating exactly the same content they always have – they’re just distributing it in these new channels as well as the traditional ones.

So why rename what has always been done just because we have digital distribution of traditional analogue content?

The illiterates are creating the content

But there is a bigger problem at play. Prior to the internet, content was in the most part written by professional copywriters and journalists. Art directors designed how the words were displayed.

In todays content-filled world, every unqualified executive who can type creates content. They operate under the mantra of “I type therefore I am…a content marketer“. In fact, many marketers avoid using trained and experienced writers and do their best to get Josephine Junior, or a mate’s son to write their content, manage their social posts, create their online ads…

If you weren’t aware, the OECD Adult Literacy Study revealed at least 82.5% of the population struggles to read and write competently. Yet it’s these illiterates who are creating the marketing content.

The mind boggles as to how marketers justify their folly. It’s one reason why I created www.thecontentbrewery.com a couple of years ago – it’s an anti-content marketing, content marketing website.

So if you’re looking to create content…..

 

Here’s some more content about content marketing:

Why there’s really no reason to ever use the term “content marketing”…

The 3 essential questions for content marketing success

How the content paradox and your A.S.S. Time ruin content marketing performance

Shell’s content marketing turns 40 and still sells

Good manners will always trump marketing content

Why most shared content has almost no impact on your brand

Here’s how personalised magazines always over-engage readers for an outstanding CX…

13 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, BIG DATA, Branding, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Media, QR Codes, small data, social selling

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Please accept my apology for the jargon overload in the headline. Back in pre-history, around 2004, I helped a number of competing print companies launch their Variable Data Digital Printers via a series of seminars, trade shows and other marketing activity.

This disruptive technology delivered what many now call data-driven marketing. It was simply the use of relevant data to digitally print personalised publications and link readers to personalised landing pages. An undigi-believable omni-channel breakthrough. But let’s just pretend data-driven marketing is only five year’s old like most digital marketers believe it to be, so as not to confuse them.

One of the most successful promotions and product demonstrations we did, was to personalise the cover of a number of Marketing magazines for individual subscribers. We also personalised the accompanying advertisement to the subscriber inside the respective issues, as well as the landing page.

At the time, the Editor of Marketing magazine said the covers were the most talked about in the history of the publication. They had never had such a positive response. He said subscribers were ringing and writing to congratulate them. It was massive engagement to use today’s jargon.

Leap forward to 2018 and a few months ago I was asked by Kellie Northwood, the Publisher of VoPP magazine, to be the Guest Editor. I readily accepted and suggested the magazine be customised for those on the database. Kellie agreed.

Well VoPP has just hit the streets, and this customised version demonstrates the power of print when it comes to engaging susbcribers via personalisation.

Here’s the outer envelope:

Here’s the personalised magazine cover:

There is a customised message on the cover for each of the key subscriber groups, as well as a custom background colour. If you scan the QR Code it takes you to a PURL where you can complete a survey. There is a segmented group title printed below the code – mine is Agency/Retailer on this edition. And to add some polish there’s a spot fluoro ink printed on the QR code too. The story of how it was produced is in the magazine.

Here are examples from 2004/5:

Fuji Xerox – personalised message on the screen:

Personalised ad on back cover:

Personalised ad inside the front cover:

PURL – Personalised URL:

Direct Smile font printed via HP Indigo:

Personalised advertisement on back cover:

.Another issue:

Penfold Buscombe printed these versions with personal message written on the street sign and the image of the relevant capital city in the rear view mirror:

Customised versions by State printed using postcode data:

VoPP stands for Value of Paper and Print. If you’d like to get a FREE copy of VoPP Mag, visit the website to subscribe: http://valueofpaperandprint.com.au/subscribe/

I’m off to read this issue, there’s an interesting guest editor…

How to get executives to dine at upmarket restaurants for lunch…

22 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Sales, social selling

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Today’s Throwback Thursday features two campaigns promoting fine dining restaurants in the Sydney CBD. These campaigns would still work today, 21+ years after they originally ran…

Fine dining restaurants located in 5 star hotels, are quite different to your everyday cafes and restaurants located on the high street or in food lanes. They have their own peculiarities, one of which is their location inside a hotel without street-front exposure.

They’re also expensive. Most are frequented for one of four reasons:

  • the chef’s (food/wine) reputation
  • celebrating a special occasion
  • the company/employer is picking up the tab
  • money is no object for the customer

Here are two case studies promoting fine dining restaurants to business executives:

  • The Astral Restaurant located at The Star Casino in Darling Harbour
  • The Galileo Restaurant located in the Observatory Hotel in Kent Street near The Rocks

The Astral Resturant was located in a separate top floor of the casino as part of The Endevour Room, the casino’s private gaming room. The casino is just too far to walk from the CBD for lunch – but it had free parking. The agency drew a map of streets west of George street down to Darling Harbour, with boundaries north and south in the CBD.

A list of senior executive contact details within the map boundaries was then rented and the names/job titles were qualified by phone. The mailpack is the size of a typical dinner plate and used the plate imagery within.

The mailpack had three incentives to visit and dine at The Astral:

  • $75 dining voucher for The Astral
  • $50 gaming voucher for The Endeavour Room
  • 1 month free membership to The Endeavour Room

So recipients could go for lunch or dinner, then get to gamble in the private VIP high roller room. Of course they probably weren’t aware that an entree cost about $75 and the minimum bet was $50, but the incentive worked its head off.

Front of mailpack

Rear of mailpack

Mailpack opened…

Letter

Letter, brochure, vouchers

Vouchers and membership card

The mailing generated a response of more than 25% and all respondents were put on a database for future mail/email communication. (email was just starting in the business world)

The Galileo Restaurant is also located on the fringe of the CBD. The agency hired people to walk ten minutes from the restaurant towards the city centre and create a map of the catchment area. Staff walked the floors of each building and built a list of senior executives for each company in the catchment area. A list of senior executives in North Sydney was also rented to so a split-run test could be conducted.

The mailing is an A3 piece of parchment card stock, folded into thirds and sealed with a black tape. It unfolds into a food art poster. There is an invitation with an excellent incentive:

  • Free lunch for two people – three courses plus coffee
  • The recipient can bring a guest along and enjoy lunch together

There is a reservation card to hand in when the respondent arrives at the restaurant. It captures the recipient’s name and their guest’s details. This doubled the size of the database and gave the restaurant a reference point for a ofllow-up mailing. This also generated more than 24% response rate. Local executives responded more than North Sydney executives, which was expected.

Front of envelope

Rear of envelope

Envelope folds open into an A3 poster

Reservation form, letter and menu

More importantly the staff offered the lunch guests a backroom tour of the hotel. While showing the guests around the inner sanctum, the hotel staff asked for the contact details of the person who books accommodation and events at the guest’s company. So the hotel built three databases – restaurant, accommodation and events.

Both these mailings would work today – the only difference is the reply device would most likely be a personalised landing page (PURL) supported by a confirmation email and/or SMS.

All this talk of fine dining is making me hungry. Where are last night’s leftovers?

The definitive reason why definitive guides aren’t really definitive…

15 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, social selling, Thought Leadership

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Let me share a personal secret with you dear reader. I’ll whisper it to you:

“I collect definitive guides”

It’s true. I download each one that arrives in my inbox and save them into a folder. And that’s where they stay, because I rarely read them. They’re usually so subjective and full of fluff, it takes too long to find any worthwhile stuff.

I use a false name and an email address I reserve just for subscriptions. It helps to redirect the inevitable automated follow-up by a computer, and in very few cases, by a human.

Nobody ever calls though. Last year, after using the “Premium” LinkedIn service without getting any benefit, I didn’t renew my subscription. Nobody called to ask why, or to re-sell it to me. Seems LinkedIn believes people don’t need to deal with people in B2B marketing.

Strangely, while I had the subscription, each time I opened my account, I was made an offer to subscribe to the Premium service to which I was already subscribed. One has to question LinkedIn’s marketing automation.

But back to definitive guides.

The following is typical of the opening paragraphs in many of these guides.

“With new marketing channels and technologies popping up every day, marketers must adapt and evolve their analytics strategies, skills, and solutions to survive. As big data becomes increasingly critical for informed decision-making, marketers and their organizations will find themselves along a spectrum of analytical maturity.”

That’s a concern. Nobody I know wants to find themselves on a spectrum of analytical maturity. Most, like me, have no idea what it even means.

But, given that everyone in the industry agrees we live in constantly changing times, with new marketing channels and technologies popping up every day, how can any guide be definitive? By definition, it’s out of date the day it’s published.

If you claim the reason for publishing a definitive guide is constant change, then the guide is only as current as the most recent change? By the publisher’s own reasoning, the guide cannot be definitive, except at a very small moment in time, or to justify the publisher’s self-serving purpose.

Maybe the name of these guides should be changed to reflect the truth? Here’s a suggestion:

Title: An Indefinitive Guide To <insert marketing topic>

Subhead: A self-serving opinion about <insert marketing topic> designed to convince you to buy our marketing stuff. Best before <insert date>

This is an honest description and puts a timeframe to indicate the guide’s currency, given it will be out of date pretty quickly and by definition, no longer definitive.

Hmmm. There could be an opportunity here. Maybe I could publish the definitive guide to publishing indefinitive guides?

Where’s my definitive guide on how to write…

One of the world’s most successful B2B campaigns – but would it work today?

26 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Direct Marketing, Thought Leadership

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Today on Throwback Thursday, I thought I’d share one of the world’s most successful B2B direct mail campaigns from 21 years ago – and see if it would still stand the test of time.

It was created for The Observatory Hotel in Sydney, to promote the hotel’s conference facilities. It generated close to 85% response rate and 15 unsolicited letters of congratulations from executives who received the mailing. Wouldn’t you like your prospects to thank you for advertising to them?

The campaign paid for itself with qualified leads within four hours of being delivered. It also won marketing awards around the world.

Here are some of the elements:

The mailing was almost the size of a shirt box.

The perfect conference is just a coffee break away…

Inside the mailing there was a coffee plunger, fresh ground Italian coffee, a gold-leaf bone-china coffee mug, the world’s first ever virtual tour of a hotel – stored on a floppy disk. (ask you parents if you’re not familiar with a floppy disk).

Involvement devices…

There was also a letter and brochure with a very powerful offer – FREE lunch at the hotel. Never underestimate the power of a FREE lunch or drink to motivate response.

Here’s the floppy disk:

World’s first virtual tour of a hotel…

I suspect that if you ran it again today, you would get a very similar response. Certainly it would do way better than an email or online advertising campaign. And you wouldn’t need any social selling or alleged thought leadership to support it.

There are a number of reasons for its stunning success:

  • You cannot avoid the mailing, it’s the size of a shirt box
  • It has lots of involvement devices to grab the recipient’s attention
  • A world first – the first ever virtual tour of a hotel, delivered on a floppy disk
  • A strong and appealing offer – free lunch at the hotel
  • The message content respected the reader

Those who didn’t respond immediately, were followed-up by telephone and this added to the overall result. The mailing is fun because of the way it involves the recipient. Usually the recipient’s gatekeeper will participate when it is opened, so there is discussion around the mailing.

People like to receive 3D mailings, as there is implied value in them. Even more they like to receive them when they offer worthwhile incentives and involvement devices.

In today’s digital jargon, this is known as engaging with your customers.

The only change you would make to the mailing if you sent it today, would be to put the virtual tour on a customised website – using a PURL – so you could track the response by individual. The site could include video testimonials from happy clients. And it could demonstrate the conference facilities or destination in use – different themes, size of events and more.

So if you work in B2B, don’t ignore the most powerful channel for generating responses – direct mail. Who knows, like The Observatory Hotel, your prospects may even thank you for it?

Connect to me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld/

If everyone’s a ‘thought leader’ who’s doing all the work?

25 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital marketing, Marketing, Thought Leadership

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, ,

It used to be simple. Certain people were regarded as experts, because well, they were.

They’d tasted blood. Their years of hands-on experience included documented successes (and failures) – proof of their expertise. Their writings, speeches or interviews helped educate others via real life case studies, anecdotes, examples and advice. Their business achievements and industry wisdom were regarded as testimony to their expertise.

david-ogilvy-550x322

David Ogilvy – advertising expert

In the advertising world, my old boss David Ogilvy was one, along with Claude Hopkins, Leo Burnett and the like.

Most experts gained their wisdom through setbacks and failure – not just success. Hence the adage: always sail with mariners who have been shipwrecked, for they know where the reefs are.

But the digital marketing world has devalued expertise – now you just have to publish something online and you automatically call yourself a thought leader. Others don’t call you a thought leader – you anoint yourself. Expertise or experience are not criteria for being a thought leader.

After all, the term “thought leader” is much softer than “expert” – so it is easier to claim thought leadership without as much proof as one who claims to be an expert.

expert-11

Curiously there is no definition in any dictionary that I can find for “thought leader”. Wikopinion suggests the following – though it’s inaccurate as it claims thought leaders are recognised in their field, yet so many self-anointed thought leaders aren’t even known, let alone recognised:

“A thought leader is an individual or firm that is recognized as an authority in a specialized field and whose expertise is sought and often rewarded. The term was coined in 1994 by Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief of the Booz & Co magazine Strategy & Business, and used to designate interview subjects for that magazine who had business ideas which merited attention.”

The McKinsey Quarterly, founded in 1964 is regarded as one of the earliest thought leadership publications. Shell started using thought leadership in consumer markets in 1973. And many regarded the founders of companies such as Ogilvy & Mather, Lever Brothers or Apple for example, as experts – or thought leaders.

So who do we blame for the rise in the thought leadership industry – because it is an industry? The answer is simple – it’s the content marketers – those recently self-anointed experts (I mean thought leaders) who are creating the infobesity epidemic.

thought-leadership

There’s even a term “thought leadership marketing“. It refers to the process of trying to attract customers in the B2B markets, by publishing content that positions you as having expertise in a specific area – regardless of whether you do or not. Then when prospects are searching online, they may see your content and even read/view it and consequently get in touch.

troll

The real issue is that so much of the thought leadership content is “manufactured expertise” published purely for the purpose of lead generation. It’s designed for the seller not for the buyer. Any fool can publish “thought leadership” content – and sadly many fools do.

I call it the the Faux Knowledge Conundrum – content is published specifically for the purpose of lead generation – it’s designed to suit the seller not the buyer. The whole notion of expertise has been turned upside down.

Real experts provided their expertise for the benefit of the business segment in which they worked. Their expertise helped the buyer (and the market) – via seminars, books, articles and other education channels – some paid and some free.

Now people/companies use Faux Knowledge delivered under the guise of Content Marketing and positioned as Thought Leadership for the sole purpose of making money for themselves, rather than contributing to the body of expertise in the community in which they work.

So if everyone’s publishing content in the quest to be a thought leader, who’s doing all the work? Do you really believe the mantra that you don’t have to sell anything anymore – just churn out Faux Knowledge and the punters will kick down your door?

trading-up-the-chain-how-to-make-national-news-in-3-easy-steps-excerpt-from-trust-me-im-lying-confessions-of-a-media-manipulator-3-638

Yes the sales cycle has evolved – buyers can learn more about what they want to buy before contacting sellers. Hence the growth in content marketing – to try to be found online as buyers search.

But you only have to look at the quality of the content being published to realise how shallow the pool of expertise really is among alleged thought leaders. It’s hardly ankle-deep.

Thought_Leadership_Comic

Yet if you can optimise your content to be found by those seeking information about it, you can get away with your thought leader positioning. That is until you have to prove yourself.

And that’s the emerging flip-side to the growth in thought leadership. Supplier churn rates are rising in B2B markets. Ironically companies are firing the alleged thought leaders because of their lack of expertise. Then those companies go back to the market to find real experts to fix the problems created by the thought leaders.

The digital marketing industry is a typical example. I’ve even considered starting a brand called Cyber-Vacuumers – specialising in cleaning up the digital mess left by the thought leaders. According to my experienced colleagues, these days they are being hired to “fix and repair” more often than they are to start new projects. I even had a call for help last Saturday.

ACDC

One way I always assess digital service suppliers to ensure I won’t need a cyber-vacuumer, is to ask them to share their failures with me. Those who claim they have none are never contracted. They obviously haven’t tried hard enough or are telling digi-porkies.

I better get back to work. I love writing my blog, but I also want to make money. Hmm there’s an idea. Position myself as a thought leader on “how to be a thought leader” by writing thought leadership blogs on how to be a thought leader and promote them via thought leadership marketing – there has to be money in that. Who knows, I might even become an expert!

FeatImg_MarketersLeadership

I better tag this post under “thought leadership”…

 

You don’t become a brain surgeon by hanging around the casualty ward…

24 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales, Social Media, Thought Leadership

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

And you don’t become a CMO by hanging around the marketing department either. It’s like those people who claim to be copywriters just because they can use a keyboard.

To really stand out from the crowd and get ahead of your marketing peers, you need to invest in yourself.

Furnish your brain with knowledge from those who’ve already succeeded (and failed occasionally). Tap into the expertise of those who’ve tasted blood. Learn from the experts.

High achievers don’t use hope as a strategy when it comes to their success. And they don’t fall for the fake thought leadership and definitive guides published by marketing wannabes and cyber-hustlers.

Which brings me to this unique opportunity in Australia. International legend of marketing, Drayton Bird, is doing his final ever events in Sydney and Melbourne.

Every marketer on the planet would kill to achieve a fraction of Drayton’s success**. And it will be a long time before any other marketer comes close to earning the same genuine industry respect. If he was any younger he’d be called a unicorn!

So if you want better results from your marketing, or to improve your career, I suggest you take the opportunity to spend 3 hours at Drayton’s final gig-  Cocktails with Drayton.

You won’t get another chance to meet, chat and listen to Drayton in Australia ever again. In his 90 minute presentation he’ll share his best tips, ideas and marketing secrets, compiled during a career spanning four decades, including 20 years of online marketing.

He’s also giving away 3 of his books FREE, including the 338-page international best-seller “How to write sales letters and emails that sell“.

So to quote a well known Aussie “Do yourself a favour” and book your tickets today. They are only $125, or if you book 5 or more people, they’re just $100 each.

That’s a damn cheap investment to get priceless information to boost your career and your marketing results.

Book Melbourne here: 15th November (5.30 – 8.30pm) Rydges Melbourne

Book Sydney here: 21st November (5.30 – 8.30pm) Rydges North Sydney

More information at www.draytonslasthurrah.com

See you there…

**P.S. Here’s just a snippet of Drayton’s resume:

  • The Chartered Institute of Marketing named him one of 50 individuals who shaped today’s marketing.
  • Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida
  • Founding member of Superbrands
  • One of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing
  • One of the first three people in the Direct Marketing Association of India’s Hall of Fame
  • UK magazine ‘Campaign’ called him ‘the only universally acknowledged point of creativity in the direct marketing world‘
  • His book “Commonsense Direct & Digital Marketing” has been a global best-seller on the subject every year since 1982. It’s published in 17 languages and sold around the world.
  • Advertising legend David Ogilvy said “he knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world”

How’s yours compare?