Doom, gloom, credit crunch, falling house prices, everyone is starting the summer feeling less positive than Golden Brown with the latest poll in their hands. DM is going to get its share, so how do we survive the general belt tightening?
Logic tells us that in times of recession, measurable marketing activity is squeezed less than the more ephemeral channels.
Not so in my experience, or at least not always so. When the men in the pin striped suits take out the red pen, marketing budgets are the first port of call, and it is unallocated spend that goes first, regardless of the merits of the intended project.
Therefore, this is the time to have a marketing plan. No one can afford to stop attracting any new business. This is the time to spend money wisely, and show a return. It is the time for commercially minded marketing people to fight their corner with logic and resolve.
Most businesses will be conservative at this point in the economic cycle. No risks, do what has worked before, and trim the corners wherever possible.
Recessions are not as common as they once were. Not real downturns, at any rate. You have to be 40+ to really remember the boom and bust of the seventies and eighties. Good management teams will assess their own situations and try to cut costs whilst planning a way out of depression.
DM has a chance to remind the world why it works. Forget all about the bad press, and focus on the positives of targeted, measurable campaigns with no frills. Those that get it right will lead the way out of this hole.
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With the launch of www.bview.co.uk, the cosy world of business directories is about to change, as predicted months ago in B2B101. The old book model still generates millions for the likes of Yell, but the future is online, and the holy grail is consumer interaction.If all we do is Google, there is little future for online directories, as there is no consumer preference, and therefore little revenue to be found for the directory owner. From the press release, bview wants consumers to rate and review businesses. It is an Egon Ronay guide for businesses, I suppose, where the power of the consumer sharing experiences will become of prime importance. I call it the holy grail, but it also a potential poisoned chalice. Bad reviews there for all the world to see. Other sites with message boards, such as golf sites, have always provided reviews, but few of them have the traffic. This development, if it can get the traction, as a good directory should, will build into a powerful tool that PR departments will have to watch, and use. This has already started to happen on social networking sites, where there are a host of both positive and negative examples. Imagine a directory getting 500k visitors a month, and getting a high percentage of consumer feedback? Imagine something like Yell, with ten times that traffic, doing the same. The Internet is all about interaction. The generations to come, comfortable with providing unbiast (hopefully) feedback, and prepared to listen to the opinions of other consumers, will have a huge affect on many businesses. If you are searching for a restaurant and the reviews are bad, it would take a brave man to go on spec. If you are looking for an estate agent, and the reviews are bad, there are 10 others in the High Street. It is a medium that could, and possibly should, be out of the control of most businesses. I wish bview well. They will need to be responsible in moderating any interaction, to remove malicious and unfounded comments, and provide businesses with the opportunity to put things right, if they want to. It will be a delicate balance between revenue generation from advertising and providing consumers with something they can trust. In my view, this is just the first step. In the good old USA, such directories are providing shop windows, allowing product catalogues, testimonials and a more personalised directory presence. Combine that sort of approach with reviews and live feedback, and you not only have a chance to attract millions of SME's to the web for the first time, but to put customer service back at the top of the agenda.
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We all should. The risks have been headline news this year, but the advantages of collecting data and investing in customer knowledge should be clear to everyone who claims a career in Marketing. So why do so few people take it seriously?When I worked for a roof tile manufacturer, our office roof leaked. When I worked for a business based on leads gleaned from planning applications, my office was in an extension that did not have planning permission. And during my time in the data industry it has not been unknown for the inhouse database to be in a bloody mess. This is Murphy's law. A builder always lives in a house where little is finished. Soliticot's never quite get around to making a will etc etc etc. Data is precious. The quality of cold data on the market and the cost of buying it means that every business should take the collection and maintenance of customer/prospect data very seriously...but how many do? Very few, in my experience. Lots of excuses are made. Cost is normally high on the list, but the reality is that most sales organisations are absolute rubbish at recording information. Despite all the fancy CRM systems, you have to rely on the people interacting with customers to record the data, and they rarely do it well. Every interaction with a customer or a prospect should result in improved data. Confirmation of contact details, at the very least, but potentially a requirement, a need, a desire. Direct marketing works best when it is well targeted at a warm contact. And yet the dots are hardly ever joined together. Despite all the fancy web sites everyone has invested in, how much data is collected? If you are giving something away on your site, why not require some sort of registration to build your own data, to follow up later? Taking this issue seriously works. I once built a 10,000 strong email list in a matter of months, based on strong information given to ensure registration. In a small business, that returned several thousand pounds on email marketing every couple of weeks, and the list remained strong. If you think I am exaggerating, ask your friends about their inhouse prospect database. How often it is used, how often it is added too. The answers will surprise you, if people are honest. And yet, with opt-in data just around the corner, few people are taking the issue seriously.
An EU survey suggests that 60% of consumers are worried about how and where their personal data is stored. Goodness me, can't imagine why. But if anyone ever took any notice of the man in the street, the world would be a very different place, wouldn't it?Consumers worry. We all worry. £50b to bail out the banks after a similar amount spent on Northern Rock. Old Golden Brown, that unelected despot, dithering whilst the economy burns. Big brother sucking up data, using it against us, and then leaving it in the bin for some cold-hearted criminal to steal your identity. If you read the Daily Mail, the daily scare stories leave you tossing fitfully at night, never sure whether to laugh or cry. The fact is, if you ask the man in the street whether he is worried about the way his personal data is stored around 66% of them will say yes. Of course they are. Does that make them change the way they protect their identities? Nope. I walked down my street on bin day this week, and on the top of the recycling bins I could clearly see enough personal correspondence to give a clever criminal a field day. Most people use birthdays or names as passwords. If a car thief can get into a car in seconds, how long do you think it would take an expert hacker to break into your accounts, given half a chance? Not long, I bet. It was ever thus. Security is always an issue, and surveys like this won't change much. But the brands that respond to those fears, and offer extra security, immunity against fraud, and such like, could take a march on their competitors.
So another survey says, and I can believe it. But is that a bad thing? Isn't that the point of email? Better an email deleted unread than an envelope in the recycling bin unopened?Direct marketing is never a precise art, but email is harmless. Yes, we all delete emails unread, but does it bother us? I know some people get stressed about spam, but it is just a click of the mouse and it is gone. No point in getting stressed about that. I would like to know how many envelopes go into the bin unopened every year, and how many telephone calls are slammed down. My pet hate at the moment is the recorded message calls. Intrusive, frustrating and pointless, in my opinion, but email is the softest refusal of all, and does not leave such a bad taste in the mouth. So, we should invest in the medium more. Iron out the wrinkles, improve the security and therefore the confidence of users, and cut out the obvious, genuine spam. Erectile disfunction is a serious issue, but personally I can cope without the assistance of Canadian pharmacies. Figures like 150b are shock and awe headlines, but this is one we should not be too concerned about. 100b were opened. We should be working together to improve data capture and availability, to allow better targetting. Then we can claim to be just a little bit greener too.
Multiverses, universes, we have them all in B2B marketing, but no one has the whole shebang, whatever they say. The business footprint in the UK is diverse and hard to keep track of, but should we worry about that? After all, who needs everything?As I have said before, there are a large number of B2B data suppliers flogging their wares. Most of them claim to be the best, and the use of terms such as universe, or multiverse, suggest the comprehensive nature of many databases. But the fact is that no one really knows how many businesses are out there, right now. Even databases you would expect to be quite similar are remarkably different. 40% in one recent example I came across. The Uber datasets are all trying really hard to suck up everything but they never quite do. The real difficulty lies at the bottom of the pond. The really small businesses, the new businesses. Directory owners pick some of this up, but by the time the data is refreshed a percentage of these will have already disappeared, like a desert flower blooming after a thunderstorm, then dying in the harsh glare of the sun. There is, therefore, a permanent black hole, and because of the costs of ongoing data verification, this manifests itself in a level of 'goneaways'. This has become acceptable, fit for purpose, mainly because these businesses at the bottom of the pond have a dubious value. Some will thrive and grow, and therefore become of interest, but others will stay small, low key, or wither on the vine, and the market is not too interested in those. So beware the universes. It is impossible to buy everything. But since relatively few people want everything, it's not that big a problem.
From old Golden Brown to our august financial institutions, a bit of communication and TLC is sorely overdue. Everyone is worried, poorer, hesitant and lacking in confidence, and quite a few of us are quite angry. So why isn't anyone talking to us?For me, the beauty of DM is the ability to get right to your target and communicate with them. PR is important as part of the mix, but in a situation like this, when bad news is going to get much more noise than the regurgitation of the good, why are so few parties and brands taking the direct approach? Take my bank for instance. They have not passed on rate cuts to savers, as yet, but the silence is deafening. Now is the time to remind customers what they get for their money. Take Golden Brown, as another instance. He is even more unpopular than Neville Chamberlain after the invasion of Norway. But he is hiding in his bunker, dithering and chuntering, not talking to the people. Differentiation is the key for all of them. How you handle a crisis sticks in the memory. And going direct is the best way to avoid accusations of spin.
Another report about email, this time claiming that 96% of everything sent in the last period was spam. An incredible figure. Despite all the activity at work and play, only 4% is kosher? Can you believe that?Obviously, it depends on the definition of spam. Even so, it makes you stop and think. The sheer volume of unsolicited, unregulated email is mind-boggling. Clearly, no one has control of this channel. Not even the Big Brother ISP's, who would not doubt love to take control. With BT getting castigated for plotting online activity amongst its customers, the whole idea of electronic marketing is in the spotlight. Who do we really trust?
Hugh Bessant
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Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 18 Nov 2009
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