I was recently asked by a magazine editor about the differences between snail mail and email. Is one replacing the other? Is one better or more effective than the other to accomplish my company’s corporate marketing objectives?

At JMG we use both email and snail mail effectively in reaching prospects. So it is not an either-or situation. It really depends on our communications objective. There is no question that the primary challenge with both methods is cutting through massive clutter. If messaging is not unique, relevant and motivating, it won’t matter how its delivered…it will not be effective.

Email

Email requires careful upfront planning for effective use. The sender has to be sure they are using proper authentication tools that help inbound-email servers classify which of the messages they receive are authentic and which are not. If receiving networks cannot verify the source domains can be blacklisted. Consequently emails sent are not delivered. Then there are opt-in opt-out issues that must be addressed. On to the subject line. A good subject line (unique, relevant and motivating) is the most important driver of open rates. Once opened content is key.

For simple messaging, short copy can work. For more involved messages or newsletters, longer copy is involved. The more personal the relationship with the prospect, the more likely it is that longer copy will get read. Call to action. We typically want to drive a prospect to our website or a microsite on a given topic. That way we can track interest in our topic and do personal follow-ups with prospects who show interest in our message. Finally there’s integration. Email campaigns should be consistent and integrated with other digital efforts…Twitter, website, likepages, etc. to be most effective. Email is definitely not a one trick pony.

Snail Mail

Most of our snail mail efforts to prospects have one major objective: To reinforce our creativity as a company. So snail mail for the most part is limited to dimensional mailers that stand out and beg to be opened. Inside there is a something unique that reinforces the message we are trying to convey. For example, several years ago we pitched an aviation client who thought that the biggest challenge they had was the managing the complexity of the markets they served. So we sent them a dimensional mailer that contained two three dimensional airplane puzzles…one in pieces and one already built. The message on the top of the box said, “We understand that your business is made up of many different parts.”

When the box was opened, the recipient saw a bunch of loose parts in a tray.

Removing the parts they saw another message, “But we’re confident we can figure out how they all work together.”

When the tray was lifted from the box a fully assembled airplane was revealed.

This mailer proved to be a very intrusive and engaging approach which addressed the prospect’s biggest challenge.

Another technology we have used for our clients that has made snail mail more effective is the ability to personalize and customize messaging to prospects with variable data printing. This highly personalized approach allows for high quality brochures, mailers and postcards to have much more impact because each mail piece is not only personalized with the recipient’s name, but may also include copy that speaks to their special interests. Once again there should be a call-to-action to a website, a personalized URL or toll free number so tracking can be monitored.

In summary both methods have a reason to exist as part of any marketing program. The challenge is to carefully evaluate the big picture communications objective and then determine the best strategic and tactical elements to deploy based on available budgets. Obviously email is generally less expensive to implement since there is no print production or postage involved. But there could be a strong rationale to spend extra dollars on snail mail to impact high value targets. So, for best results always choose your mail-weapon carefully.

What’s worked best for you?

Twice a year, the Duke University Fuqua School of Business conducts a survey commissioned by the American Marketing Association.  They sample marketing leaders at Fortune 1000 and Forbes Top 200 companies; nearly three-quarters of participants are at the VP, CMO or higher level.  The February 2009 results were recently released and there was a clear contrast between the perceptions and plans of the B2B marketers and the B2C marketers. 

The B2B CMOs had a more positive outlook on the economy overall and their companies specifically.  Granted, even their outlook wasn’t particularly sunny, but it did show more significant gains from 2008 than the B2C results.  B2B marketers moved from 81% who felt less optimistic about the future in 2008 to 50% who felt less optimistic in 2009, while B2C marketers only moved from 71% to 67% on the same measure.

B2B marketers also reported plans to increase overall marketing spending by 3% in the next twelve months, with the largest percentage increases in Internet marketing activities and new product introductions.  B2C marketers plan to cut overall spending by as much as 4%, but do plan shifts of resources into the same focus areas as B2B marketers. 

B2B marketers also seem to recognize the value of good market intelligence at a time when each marketing dollar has to achieve the maximum possible ROI.  B2B firms reported increasing spending on market research and intelligence by nearly 4% this year, compared to B2C product marketers who are cutting their budgets by approximately that amount.

Across all segments there seems to be a stronger focus on developing and using consumer insights.  The professionals surveyed rated their firms’ performance in this area 35% higher than last year and have set goals even 20% higher for the next twelve months.  Clearly, top marketers are not discontinuing their efforts during the downturn; instead, they are channeling more of their resources towards making highly targeted appeals based on current research.  How does that compare to your strategy for 2009?  

To review the complete study results, check out the CMO Survey site that the Fuqua School of Business has developed.

Ever wonder what a full service marketing and advertising agency can really do for your company?

Take a look at our promotional video and find out how Jackson-Dawson in Greenville South Carolina can take your company to the next level and incorporate your brand into every possible medium.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact Jackson-Dawson.

To do our jobs properly, marketers need to predict future consumer behavior. But how?

The problem is this… as an industry, we’ve got a lousy track record of accurately predicting consumer behavior.

Even though we have all these research tools and methodologies (focus groups, mall intercepts, attitudinal questionnaires, Likert scales, multivariate cluster analyses, perceptual maps, conjoint analyses, demographic and psychographic profiles, semantic differentials, etc.—all of which we stole from behavioral scientists many years ago) we still seem to get it all wrong. We have the capacity to know a lot, but we don’t seem to learn what really predicts behavior. Are we guilty of bad science the same way surgeons were guilty of bad medicine by blood-letting bad humours out of the human body just a handful of generations ago?

I heard one researcher state the other day that marketers are good at measuring consumer opinions and attitudes but, unfortunately, consumer opinions and attitudes do not necessarily correlate with future behavior. Consumers are great at telling us what they think and feel about something. The problem is they can’t articulate what truly drives their behavior. Many times they simply don’t know—at least not know in the conscious, cognitive sense. What we are now realizing is that we cannot use attitudinal research to predict consumer behavior. It’s like using a microphone to record the color blue.

This phenomenon probably explains why over 80% of all new product/service launches fail—even when they’ve been thoroughly researched with target groups. It also may explain why customer satisfaction has only an 8% predictive value in determining future customer purchases. Our research findings are misleading us.

To get better at predicting consumer behavior, we’re going to have to change the way we do research. There’s been a flash of interest in a new science called “neuromarketing” that’s done a great job proving how bad our current research methodologies truly are. They’ve found conclusive evidence the gap between what customers say they’ll do and what customers will actually do. Books like Neuromarketing, Buy-ology and Habit give us evidence of this. Neuromarketing research methodologies are powerful: fMRI and electroencephalography (EEG) technologies. But they are unwieldy, expensive and totally impractical for daily marketing use. But, the good news about them, they may bridge us to new ways of doing research in the future.

The best way to predict consumer behavior right now is by simple observation—what I call the “Jane Goodall” method of consumer research. Paco Underhill in his book Why We Buy demonstrates that technique. Consumer observation is good at revealing current behavior in already defined consumer experiences, but cannot offer us understanding when it comes to predicting behavior in new environments and with new products.

Consumer research is at the beginning of a new chapter of development. And it will be interesting to watch it write itself. Hopefully, there are a few brave souls out there who are interested in taking research to the next level.

As each new year approaches, Nielsen analysts examine market trends and make projections about what will be popular (and unpopular) with the American consumer in the coming year.  Some of their predictions affect the marketing industry directly (e.g., ad spending and coupon redemption) while others could greatly affect clients’ businesses.  It’s worth five minutes of your time to see what it takes Nielsen months of research and analysis to develop.

http://www.nielsen.com/consumer_insight/ci_story1.html

In this rapidly changing age of Web 2.0 we all have experienced in some way, the amazing power of social media and its influence on consumer attitudes and behavior regarding the purchase and usage of products and services.

The most recent “case study” that has gotten a lot of attention is Johnson & Johnson’s advertising for its pain relief product, Motrin. Now, one would have thought that a big sophisticated marketer like J&J, and its subsidiary company McNeil Healthcare, would not be challenged by relating to their customer base. After all they’ve got to have tons of research about and experience with their customer base, right?

Yet, the animated ad for Motrin presents a mom who complains that wearing her baby (in a sling or carrier) is hurting her back, so she pops some Motrin. This ad was an attempt to connect with moms through the common experience (and pain) of carrying a new born child. But according to many Twittering moms the message takeaway was that moms wear their babies as fashion accessories, or because it “totally makes me look like an official mom.”

All along the TV spot seemed to be relating to their target market, until BOOM!

Motrin missed the mark…because the brand totally misread their consumer.

Now no marketer is perfect. We all make mistakes. But this experience begs the question about the quality of the brand’s consumer insight and the ability to properly interpret it to drive a relevant messaging strategy. Advertising pretesting could have/should have also been used to determine if the message/creative concept was relevant or…a lightning rod. Yes, pain is a problem…but carrying a baby in a sling is not a fashion accessory!

Since the advertising was pulled, J&J’s marketing VP has sent out apologies to bloggers and J&J has issued a formal apology on their official blog. But, will that be enough to satisfy their customer base or will they lose some profitable share points?

So my brief summary is this:

In today’s world, being in close touch and empathizing with the consumer base is more critical than ever because one misread or misstep can create an outrage that can really hurt a brand in a viral way.

Like one blogger said: Motrin: If you’re going to be hip and in the know, you need to actually be hip and in the know.

Finding a way to market a product or service as environmentally friendly seems to be a requirement of late.  It appears no category of products is off limits – a green appeal for an electric toothbrush is likely already under development.  There is growing evidence, however, that the actual impact of green appeals and green corporate behavior is less than originally thought.

Several recent studies have shown consumers reporting a greater willingness to purchase green products than their behaviors indicate, the exception being when a direct cost savings will be experienced by using a green product.  For example, in a 2008 NAHB study of homeowners, over half said they would be willing to pay $5,000 – $11,000 more upfront for green features on a house if those features would reduce their annual utilities.  However, interest was limited in green home features that had no efficiency advantage.

Similarly, consumers regularly report that a company’s environmental record is important to their purchase decision.  However, the Shelton Group’s 2008 Eco Pulse study found that only 7% of consumers could actually name a recent purchase where the manufacturer’s environmental record played a part in their purchase decision.  Being thought of as considering the environment in purchases may be important to consumers, but not important enough to drive a purchase decision on its own.

So do the green products that are actually selling owe their success to the environmental concern of the consumer or just the desire to save money over the life of the product?  How should this shape our marketing strategy decisions?  If 70% of American consumers feel that calling a product “green” is usually just a marketing tactic (Ipsos Reid, 2007), would the better strategy be a focus on a product’s efficiency message while leaving the environmental message to a sub point?

Is Madison Avenue Guilty of the Same Hubris as Wall Street?

The Fall of 2008. Generations from now will remember it as the fall of the financial markets and a crucial turning point in global economics. So many slick, opportunistic decisions made by very clever financiers over the past decade are coming back to bite us… decisions laced with so much greed… stimulated by so little control and oversight. Unbridled opportunism has caught up with Wall Street—and us.

Are we on the brink of the same type of meltdown in branding?

Just as in the financial markets, branding has become slick and sophisticated over the past decade. A casual walk down the business book aisle at Barnes & Noble will attest to that. Dozens upon dozens of branding books are packed tightly together competing for attention. Marketers rush to them looking for the next big idea in manipulating their brands to create ever-higher levels of customer addiction.

Have emotion-based brand connections become marketing’s subprime mortgages? Have customer relationship marketing (CRM) and “cult branding” schemes become a marketer’s equivalent of credit default swaps? Have we resorted to cheap brand value builders while ignoring the true value the customer receives from using our products?

I’ve criss-crossed the United States, Canada, Eastern Europe and the Middle East over the past few years talking to hundreds of business owners and marketing professionals. And I hear a consistent strain of thought: “How can I improve how I talk about my brand?” But, what I’m hearing very little of is, “How can I improve the core product and service my brand represents?”

What I mean by this… our profession seems more concerned with how well we’re communicating our brands than making our brands stand for better products/services that meet the needs/desires of consumers better. It’s an artificial inflation of brand value at the expense of product value.

Should we spend more energy coming up with better products than better tag lines? Should we be focusing more of our attention on true consumer problems than on clever online interactive tools? Should we invest more in product research and development than in researching brand equity scores?

Do I have an answer? Unfortunately, not entirely yet. But I’m working on it. Diligently. Even so, the question still begs to be asked. And a peer dialogue needs to result. So, thoughtful marketer, what are you seeing out there?

So here we are, sorting through thousands of marketing messages a day, rattling on about the future of advertising as we know it, exploring the role of experiential marketing, uncovering the biggest influencers of search engine rankings and debating the application of social media in traditional marketing. Yet, all around us, the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression threatens our economy.

Is our economy crumbling? Is capitalism in danger? Are the days of the free market system numbered? Should we even care about all of this, or will it all sort itself out?

And many of the questions aren’t about the overall economy, they are more personal. What about my retirement savings? Is there any way I will ever be able to sell my house? Are our bank deposits safe? Will I even be able to find gas for my vehicle tomorrow?

At the one time in the era of modern marketing where communication is desperately needed, the silence is deafening. At a time when people want to know how it happened, what to do and how to keep it from happening again, answers are absent. Confusion abounds . . . from Capitol Hill, to Wall Street, to Main Street. Sure there is the traditional political posturing and soundbites from both the right and the left, but no real explanations or answers.

Companies have crisis communications plans, but our economy obviously does not. The actual answers to the questions are not the most important thing. The most important, and disturbing thing, is the absence of any answers at all.

At a time when people want and need communication . . . where is it?

A little while back, I finally got down to Blue Ocean Strategy in my ever-renewing stack of new books. Any book based not in opinion but in research gets my attention. In this case W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne spent a decade formulating their ideas based on analysis of 150 strategic moves across a variety of industries and eras (comparable to a lite version of a Jim Collins project).

Kim and Mauborgne came to the conclusion that most current industries are already overcrowded with quality competitors who are fighting over a limited number of potential customers (i.e., Red Oceans). They contend that in order for companies to experience significant growth in the future they need to look for uncontested market space (i.e., a Blue Ocean) outside of what they may consider their current market.

The authors provide an excellent systematic approach for a Blue Ocean search, but the big idea behind the book doesn’t feel that new. Almost 50 years ago, father of modern marketing Theodore Levitt spelled out these same essential elements in his most famous article, “Marketing Myopia”.

Putting the example Levitt famously used into Blue Ocean terms, the problem with the railroad companies of the early 20^th century was their determination to continue competition in the Red Ocean of railroad transportation while neglecting to look for a Blue Ocean in the larger transportation market. The focus of Levitt’s article was more on the barriers that keep companies in Red Oceans, while Kim and Mauborgne focus on strategies for finding Blue Oceans, but they share the same premise.

My issue with the book does not discount Kim and Mauborgne’s work; they have provided some valuable tools strategists would do well to employ as we plan our companies’ futures – a type of corrective lenses for our collective marketing myopia.

However, I do wish they had given credit to their distinguished predecessor who first so eloquently conveyed these ideas. And I particularly take issue with those who extolled the book as “breakthrough” and “original” as this does a serious disservice to those unaware of the rich provenance of the subject, perpetuating the idea that areas of strategic thought have somehow been overlooked and new strategies are the only thing relevant in a 21^st century world moving at broadband speeds.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The principals of marketing strategy are not being written (or rewritten) in the 21^st century. Adaptations in strategic implementation are made as new mediums and tactics become available (i.e., Web 2.0), but this is nothing new. Just as Blue Ocean Strategy is nothing new, only an expansion on a well-established idea – which is always welcome, let’s just give our “founding fathers” their due.