Time warp

There's an interesting exchange going on at LinkedIn about one-to-one personalised marketing.

This is the line from one of the US contributors that rocked me back in my chair:

"About 4 yrs ago I worked at a DM agency and every campaign included a personalized VDP print DMailing, a minisite with a trackable specific URL, followed by an eblast and finally another call to action printed 4pg brochure drawing them back to the website to buy the products.

I am now starting my own business and without even giving it any thought this is exactly my marketing plan...of course scaled down."

And here I am in the UK looking at a grand total of 4 published case studies of work that looks like this - one of which, by the way, increased marketing ROI by more than 500%, and generated £1m in incremental profit, and won awards - and talking to lots of people who think it's a good idea but aren't doing it yet.

It's time to catch up, there's money to be made out there ...

picture: greenishseal

What is direct marketing?

I am a big fan of Wikipedia, and of the thinking and spirit behind its invention. I've seen claims that Wikipedia is just as 'accurate' as some of the big encyclopedias. In a world where many students now equate 'research' with 'google', it's a popular resource.

So I wondered what a 'googler' would find if they looked for a definition of direct marketing. I read the Wikipedia entry with dismay. I read the comments behind the page as well, and was relieved to find I wasn't the only person who thought it a million miles off the mark.

Who in the commercial world feels they have a responsibility to the world of collaborative 'free to air' knowledge sharing? It is a little scary - and embarrassing - to think that such a partial and misleading description of our world is still out there, waiting for one of us to put it right.

picture: Wikipedia

It's not about the medium, it's about the conversation

I may not - quite - be the last person to talk about Twitter. It has its fans, advocates and devotees. It is used by some fearsomely intelligent people, and it is being tested and cultivated by a growing number of marketers. New businesses are starting which advise clients on how to use it. And here I am, Luddite, suspicious and sceptical. I've been wrong about things like this before.

And yet, I do think that the excitement about Twitter is masking a basic misconception. Twitter at the moment is about social interaction and networks. Maybe it will come to rival or overtake text messaging, and maybe soon. Perhaps it is already starting to create new ways of sharing information and working together. But from a marketing perspective, please let's not set up yet another medium that operates in isolation from all the others. If Twitter is to be of any use to the marketer, then we have to look at it as part of the conversation, part of the mix. I'm a long way from convinced we've understood this yet with conventional media such as direct mail and email, never mind the Next Big Thing.

Who do you work for

It's such a common question that we hardly notice its meaning. 'Who do you work for?' We barely notice it even when we talk about someone - as I did yesterday - who 'works for me' or 'used to work for me'. Yes, mostly we take it to mean 'who do you report to?', or 'who pays your wages?'. Let's be clear though, its implications are quite different. The real answer may be that you are working _for_ yourself and your family, you are saving for a house or for retirement, you are making your contribution to society. In a few cases this might be entirely consistent with the answer you actually give when someone asks you the question. For many of us though, I suspect the answer we give is 'I work for Derek / Sheila / your boss or company's name here': and that just isn't true.

NLP people will tell you that our brain believes what we say out loud. Even if it's not true, even if that's not what we really think.

So when someone asks 'who you work for', think about your answer, and say out loud something that you want your brain to believe. And when you start to talk about an ex-colleague as 'someone who used to work for me', then maybe we could think of a fairer way of saying that too.

Managing complex data-driven marketing projects

Part of the reason for setting up my business Neon Nelly, is to promote the use and understanding of integrated cross-media direct marketing campaigns. They work better for clients, they make more sense to customers.

They are not difficult to manage, but they are different. So I've just published a template on the web to help manage data-driven direct marketing campaigns. There's a pdf version for download too. Happy to hear comments and suggestions for improvement, and very happy for you to pass on the details to others.

Rapid development

You probably know I'm on a mission to make a step-change in return on investment for direct marketers. Combining the power of data and design, and working in a new way to deliver fast, effective campaigns that just work.

The current issue of the journal from the Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM) includes a review of some of the techniques and tools I am using to support our service delivery (and if you're not a member, then the journal alone should persuade you to join).

So I thought, perhaps, my timing was about right for the launch of this new service.

Then I looked up a company called Blue North in Canada. There's a salient, passionately argued piece there on personalisation from one of their founders about the importance of these developments, and the different operational model it demands. It's dated 2003.

I think I'd better get a move on.

photo: chadh

Director as leader

Fascinating to watch the director Danny Boyle on television coverage of the BAFTAs last night. He was gloriously happy when his colleagues won awards. He was anxious and eager for them to speak well and say the right thing in their acceptance speeches. There was not a single moment where you could see him thinking about himself or about his own chances of an award. Then listen to the humility and humanity of his own accpetance speech.

One of his colleagues, the production designer I think, said of him that 'he pushes me forward, and he trusts'.

Sounds like a great leader.

photo: marioladeira