Understanding the Need for Speed

Our everyday lives revolve around the need for speed. We want everything done faster. Photo developing and dry cleaning in an hour. Microwave meals. FedEx®. We even use abbreviated names to save time. We fidget waiting the 10 seconds for our word processing application to open — wishing we had a faster computer.

In the business world, the need for speed also prevails. The concept has been around for decades: getting to market first. Manufacturers rush to develop, create, and distribute products before the competition. However, “speed to market” has taken on a whole new meaning with the rise of the Internet.

There’s no doubt that the Internet has changed the definition of fast. Both traditional brick-and-mortar companies and pure-plays have discovered that the definition of fast is now shaped by the Internet. Companies are created and disbanded in record time on the Internet. In some cases, being first with a great idea has paid off. Ebay’s ability to build a customer base of buyers and sellers has given it a competitive edge that late arriving competitors have not been able to duplicate.

Some Internet pure-plays have even been able to give longstanding companies a run for their money. Amazon.com has held its own and is expanding. America Online has been around since the mid-1980s.

To keep up with today’s need for speed, many companies — and even industries — are changing the way they do business. For instance, the insurance industry is responding to market conditions. To meet consumer demand, state insurance regulators are searching for ways to reduce the time it takes to approve new insurance products. Banks and security firms are making it to market first because of the lengthy approval process currently in place for insurance companies.

So, what are the benefits of being fast? Let’s start with what is to be gained by getting a product to market quickly.

Beat the competition.
When you’re first in the marketplace, you gain a competitive advantage
by building stronger brand recognition. For instance, SwifferTM was the first to introduce dry, disposable cleaning cloths and was able to build its brand before the competition came onto the market.

But, second may be better.
Sometimes you can be a close second and do better than whoever was first. You can learn from the competition — what’s working and what’s not — and make minor modifications that will make your product even better.

Customers are waiting - impatiently.
Another reason for speed is that your customers may be waiting for a product or service. And, you need to get it to them first. Once again, if you don’t put it in customers’ hands, the competition will.

Increase your cash flow.
You may also want to get a product or service to market quickly in order to optimize your capital investment and increase cash flow. You need to see a return on your investment before funds are depleted. Many Internet pure plays are learning this valuable lesson. Many Internet start-ups are closing their virtual doors because they didn’t successfully get their product to market before their cash flow ran out.

One last tip. The key to successfully focusing on speed to market is meeting a new demand. Make sure your product or service is something that people want. It won't really matter who is first to market — if nobody wants the product or service.

Creating an Integrated Marketing Message

Your customers are redefining the way they want to shop for products and services. They may research your company online and then call you to ask questions. They may visit your brick-and-mortar location, or receive a catalog, and then buy from you online.

The goal is to have all of your marketing efforts supporting each other and working together to promote your company and its products and services. Here are some tips to help you integrate your marketing message across many channels:

Put your Web address on EVERYTHING.
It may seem obvious, but include your Web address on every piece of promotional material that will be seen by your customers and prospects. Make sure its on your letterhead, business cards, direct mail packages, postcards, print ads, collateral brochures, TV spots, flyers, coupons, premium items…everything.

Use a consistent brand image.
Be consistent in your branding and company image, as well as in your branding of a particular product or service. Customers and prospects should be able to look at your Web site, direct mail, print ads, emails, banner ads, and TV spots and know that they all came from your company. This means that in addition to brand standards for offline marketing materials, you need branding guidelines for online materials that make sense for electronic media.

Make a graphic statement.
Along the same lines as brand image, your materials should all follow the same graphic standards. If your company has an approved color palette, follow that color scheme on everything you do. You may use specific fonts and photos or images in a consistent manner. That doesn’t mean everything needs to look exactly alike. For instance, a banner ad should look different than a print ad. It’s a different medium and may call for a different design. However,
viewers should be able to recognize that they are both promoting the same company.

Create a unified tone.
Your company’s business philosophy and mission should be consistently portrayed on all of your materials. Your company’s tone and voice should be the same on everything you do. It should seem like one person wrote all of your marketing materials. Customers will feel like they know you and will put their trust in you if they can hear a consistent, reassuring voice in everything you create.

Integrated marketing campaigns.
It is especially important that customers and prospects feel comfortable crossing over marketing channels within a specific campaign or promotion. If they jump from one medium to another and the message, graphics, and content suddenly change, you will lose them in the transfer. The transition across multiple channels of communication should be seamless for the customer or prospect.

• Send a direct mail package and follow up with an email message. Communicate the same key benefits and offer in the email as in the direct mail package.
• Run TV spots for a product or service sending prospects to your Web site. The landing page they reach needs to look, feel, and sound like the message they heard on TV with more information and a method to respond.
• Email customers and ask them to respond to an offer on your Web site or come into your brick-and-mortar location. The link you provide to a Web address needs to take them to a page that specifically relates to the email content. In addition, the store should contain promotional materials that reinforce the offer and sales staff need to be prepared to honor coupons or take special discounts.
• Offer flyers with coupons or special discounts for in-store customers to make a purchase online. These special offers could take customers to a specific Web page that welcomes them as a customer and encourages their ongoing business.

The importance of landing pages.
As you can tell from the examples above, if you are sending customers or prospects to your Web site, it pays to create a customized landing page or micro-site. If you dump them on your company’s home page, they may lose their momentum and be unsure where to go to find the information they want. It can be relatively quick and inexpensive to develop a unique landing page to capture responses to a promotion.

If you offer more information about a specific product or service, the details should be on that page. If you want respondents to sign up or make a purchase, it should be clear how to do so immediately. In addition, the landing page needs to look and sound like the medium that customers just came from. They need to know they are in the right place.

By integrating your online and offline marketing messages, you can increase the effectiveness of both methods. That means more responses and a greater return on your investment.

The Power of Selling Across Marketing Channels

If you think of your customers as online buyers versus traditional brick-and-mortar shoppers, it’s time to rethink your customer relationships. The distinction between these two groups of customers has become increasingly artificial.

Many of today’s customers research and shop both online and offline. They could be anywhere! Therein lies the power of integrating your offline and online direct marketing efforts to reach customers and prospects where they want to be reached. Crossing over marketing channels allows customers to research and shop on their own terms.

There are two ways to cross over:
1. Reach customers offline and bring them online.
2. Reach customers online and bring them offline.

Examples of going from OFFLINE to ONLINE:
• Direct mail to Web: Send a direct mail package or postcard that gives your audience the opportunity to go to a landing page, then visit your Web site for more information or to respond to your offer.
• Catalog to Web: Send a catalog that prominently displays your Web site. Customers can browse the catalog and then go online to order, using a “quick order” search box to enter item numbers.
• Direct mail followed by email: Send a direct mail package and follow up with an email providing the same offer and linking to a custom landing page.
• Shop traditional store and drive to Web: Send in-store customers online with coupons on their store receipt or flyers that promote special online savings.
• Broadcast to Web: Include a custom URL on TV or radio advertising to encourage viewers to get more relevant information about your product or service online.

How to drive from ONLINE to OFFLINE:
• Email to store or meeting: Send an email with special offers and relevant information to encourage customers to visit your brick-and-mortar location or meet with you to talk further.
• Web site to store or meeting: Make special offers on your Web site or place search advertising that encourages customers to visit your brick-and-mortar location or meet with you.

Consumers cross over many marketing channels to research and make purchases both online and offline. Integrating your online and offline direct marketing programs will help you reach customers and prospects—where and when they want to hear from you—with consistent, relevant marketing messages.

Offline Marketing Borrows from the Online World

Since its inception, the online world has taken its cues for conducting direct marketing programs from offline media. In the beginning, emails were written like direct mail letters. Banners looked like small print ads or billboards. Ad space was sold as though it were print advertising space. Even measurement and tracking tools mimicked offline methods.

But Internet marketing grew and changed its methods. In the last few years, an
interesting twist has taken place. The offline world has taken notice and is now
“borrowing” effective marketing practices from online media. Here are a few examples:

Banner Ads
We’re now seeing banner ads appearing in more traditional venues. Retail stores use banner type ads in stores to promote special offers and pricing. Library and in-store kiosks, as well as virtual concierges in hotel lobbies, use banner ads. Even TV stations are introducing banners at the bottom of the screen to promote upcoming programs without a commercial break.

Spam Blocking
Before online media, consumers were essentially required to take what they were given in terms of ad content. Our ability to ignore, delete, or even block online ads introduced a paradigm shift. Now with satellite radio and digital video recorders, consumers can filter and control the traditional advertising they see.

Interactivity
Online media’s most prized characteristic may be interactivity. Many offline media are trying to replicate this amazing feature. Satellite TV offers ads that viewers can select to download more details. Retail stores, such as bookstores and clothing shops, allow customers to browse for titles or apparel at interactive kiosks.

I believe that the line between online and offline marketing will continue blur. One day soon, we won't talk about online and offline — it will just be marketing. Until then, continue to borrow from the online world and make it your own.

The Power of Positive Marketing

Do you remember Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh stories? Eeyore was the “gloom and doom” or negative voice in most situations. He said things like, “We’re never going to make it.”

Negativity can be emotionally draining and often deters people from the task at hand. It’s harder to be persuaded or moved to action by a negative message. A positive message evokes enthusiasm and carries its own energy. Think of The Little Engine That Could saying, “I think I can. I think I can.”

Negative language stops communication. Positive language encourages an open dialogue. You may have noticed that when you are in a meeting and a coworker phrases something in a negative manner, it brings the flow of ideas to a halt. However, positive wording is more open ended and allows others to build on and expand ideas. Here are some examples of phrases you might hear around the office. Note how the negative wording ends a conversation abruptly while the more positive response opens up communication.

Negative: “That’s not how we do it.”
Positive: “Here’s what we do.”

Negative: “I don’t like that idea.”
Positive: “How about…” or “What if we…”

Negative: “That won’t work.”
Positive: “Here’s something that might work.”

An important aspect of your marketing materials is the copy. The language you use sets the tone for your direct marketing efforts and helps position your company and your brand image in the minds of customers and prospects. Positive language will enable you to control or frame your communications. Using upbeat, declarative language and power words creates an image in the minds of your readers.

Compare the impact of these negative sentences and their more positive counterparts.

Negative: Don’t delay. Supplies are limited.
Positive: Please hurry! Order now to reserve your limited-edition copy.

Negative: Don’t hesitate to call me.
Positive: Feel free to call me, I’m happy to talk with you.

Negative: You can’t live without our widget.
Positive: Make life easier with our amazing widget.

People are more likely to listen to an enthusiastic person or message. It’s easy for marketers to become complacent about what they do. Marketers become so familiar with their own products and services, they can forget what is exciting and great about them. Take some time and write down the exciting, unique, and beneficial aspects of your product or service from your customer’s perspective.

Think about the ways that your company improves customers’ lives. It may inspire you to look at your products or services in a new light.

Are You Putting Your Customers First?

What is your company’s most important asset? Your first thought may be your employees, products, or services. But, it’s actually your customers.

And your customers want you to put them first. In fact, a survey by Forrester Research found that “customer advocacy” — a consumer’s perception that a firm does what’s best for its customers, not just its own bottom line — is the strongest drive of customer loyalty.

By its very nature, direct marketing speaks to customers more personally than mass media advertising. The key to effective communications is relevance. Direct marketing typically uses highly sophisticated database marketing strategies to gain better insight into customers and prospects. Marketers have the technology and data to get to know their customers on a one-on-one basis.

But amazing software applications and customer insight are only the beginning. It takes marketing skill and finesse to use this customer and prospect information to create communications that engage readers and persuade them to respond.

Now more than ever, we need to take a customer-centric approach to marketing. The product-centric and campaign-centric models of the past are losing ground with customers.

With a well-organized database, you can slice and dice your data to create virtually any type of segmentation. You could pull demographic information to vary your message based on small age bands. For instance, many companies are finding that everyone over 55 is not alike. If you target a senior market, you may find that younger seniors respond to different messages and approaches than older seniors. You might promote easy-to-use, interactive online tools to younger seniors and mail paper worksheets and brochures with dedicated call center information to older seniors.

Even moms are not the same these days. A mother of toddlers could be in her early 20’s or early 40’s. There are working moms and stay-at-home moms — and virtually every combination in between. There are moms who lead the trends and moms who follow. You may want to segment moms based on age, age of children, buying habits, buying lifecycle, or other variables.

Shifting away from focusing on the products and services you offer to focusing on how customers interact with you can help you build and grow customer relationships.

Most marketers concentrate on two key target areas: gaining new customers and growing existing ones. It is a well-known fact that it is more cost-effective to keep existing customers than to attract new ones.

That’s why it’s important to nurture your customer relationships. Using customer-centric communications will help you do that. By providing relevant information at the right time to the right customers, you will build more loyal relationships.

Customer-centric direct marketing can help you:
• Increase program ROI and get more results while mailing less
• Increase message relevance, accuracy, and time to market
• Increase lead generation response rates and resulting sales
• Increase client loyalty and grow existing business

It’s time to pay more attention to the customer experience, and adjust your marketing practices to send fewer, more relevant messages that reflect the overall relationship your company has with its customers.

Tips for Using Teasers on Envelopes

One of the main goals of the envelope and the teaser is to get the envelope opened. A teaser should give a benefit and talk directly to the prospect without giving away too much.

Here are some more tips on how to use teasers:

Keep it short. You only have about three seconds to get your reader’s attention. So, be as brief as possible while still getting your message across.

Answer the question, “What will it do for me?” People want to know what you are offering them. What is the benefit from their perspective?

Be honest. Never mislead or oversell with a teaser. Your envelope contents should always deliver as much or more than you promise.

Pay off early. Whatever idea you set up on your envelope, it should pay off at the beginning of your letter. If your outer says “Free Gift,” make that the first item of business inside the package.

Experiment with windows. Windows can be used to isolate important things about the mailing. For instance, a free bonus, deadline date, dollar amount, or “pay to the order of” line.
This information can be printed on the letter or brochure and show through a window for an extra tease.

Try using key words. Some key words that almost always work well in teasers include personal, free, and new. "Private information," a variation on "personal," also works
since "personal" has been somewhat abused.

Think about teaser placement. There’s a theory that to the left of the address panel is the best placement for teaser copy. The left eye is controlled by the right hemisphere of the brain, and the right side of the brain is responsible for emotion. It’s also a good idea to stay above the bottom line of the mailing address because the teaser can interfere with the USPS optical character reading equipment used for mail sorting.

While these are some guidelines for using teaser based on years of testing, basically, it's up to you. If you use a teaser, make sure it adds to the likelihood that the outer envelope will get opened. Tease the reader into wanting more. And, test. Try your package with and without a teaser and experiment with different teasers to see what works best for you.