I’ll try to be direct and brief upfront here and then provide some commentary for the few and the bored.
A formula that works is to get the right:
- List
- Vehicle
- Creative
- Content
- Timing
- Call to action
- Follow up (or nurture actions)
Commentary:
Goof any of those up and you diminish your investment considerably. In my advertising blog post, I addressed some of these issues so I will focus here on the list, vehicle, creative, timing and follow up.
Partner with the right media company to get access to the right lists and cull your database carefully. You’ll need to do both, and done right, it’s the best investment that you will make because it affects many aspects of your marketing plan. The investment is not just money and if you don’t make it, I guarantee you will regret it more and more as time goes on. This is your VP Marketing’s number one priority—don’t get distracted or lazy here.
Webinars are not good vehicles for executives. Stuff on my chair, with my admin, at my house or delivered to me by a colleague for my next airplane ride works for me. You can call me if you want to fail quickly (I am very nice about it—since I am a big inside-sales advocate). You fill up my mailbox to test whether I even open the envelope before throwing it away (postcards don’t even get back to my office). Send me a plant (one agency sends me a money tree every 2 years) and you are guaranteed to have me remember you for the two years it takes me to kill the poor thing in my office from under/over watering. Send a fedex to my admin. Send me a flash drive or something that I need and that I can use and I’ll be grateful. Bottom line = what is the work/lifestyle vehicle that is most useful for your audience?
The best creative that I’ve seen this year was a framed magazine cover of me on Inc. 500 with the caption ‘CMO of the year’. Obviously it wasn’t ‘real’ but it broke through and still sits on my file cabinet (I moved it off my desk after 2 weeks of admiring it egotistically and as a marketer). Bottom line = the vehicle and creative are inextricably intertwined and both need to BREAKTHOUGH.
We once ran a campaign where once folks got to the microsite, we called them while they were on it. Spooky was the negative feedback that we got. Timing by month, day and time (including follow-up) is the most overlooked element of most campaigns.
After I got the framed CMO of the Year piece, I got a letter saying that I hope you like the gesture and now I could get a signed baseball as a gift. I waited. Finally I got a very personalized vmail and another letter to get sports tickets. I finally called the guy to tell him he had the wrong list (we weren’t a cloud service provider) and to congratulate him on excellent direct marketing. He told me the whole thing cost him 10K to fill his pipeline for 18 months and was enjoying 30%+ response rates. His conclusion and experience was that the follow-up was the key factor in both quality and response rates. He also told me that he was a sales guy and hates marketing guys.
The bottom line is that the weakest link in the formula determines your response rate. Focus on the whole formula and improving the limiters.