Marketing Sherpa just awarded Brain Carroll’s, Start With a Lead, the best B2B Lead generation blog for 2006. We, at Hi Rez Digital could not agree more. Brian’s blog offers a continual stream of insights which we routinely pass along to our clients.
Congrats Brian!
Jim Logan over at the Direct Response Works Blog, not only paints a lucid picture of why direct mail remains a valid tool for the B2B complex sale, but makes a compelling case that it remains the best tool.
He writes,”
Why direct mail? Direct mail continues to be the
best and most cost effective way to reach a target prospect. In our
context, we’re targeting executives in a complex sales environment.
SPAM ruined email forever, advertising is too expensive and a shot in the dark, and telemarketing doesn’t scale and is ineffective for this use.
Direct mail continues to work.
Jim does have one important caveat which we at Hi Rez Digital are very passionate about. Jim writes, “The key with getting your postcard delivered to the right person and
read is the same as with all direct mail efforts – you have to target
your prospect well and deliver a message they will respond to.
Targeting is the big one here. You have to know the person
you’re mailing to, understand what gets them excited, and push a button
that gnaws at them and begs them to take action.
At Hi Rez Digital we have empirical proof that targeting and personalization are the keys to direct mail success. If fact years of ROI analysis on our clients campaigns has allowed us to come up with the First Theorem of One to One Marketing.
The level of success one achieves in a marketing campaign is directly correlated to the level of personalization of that campaign.
By Drew Hendricks
Brian Carroll, a B2b Lead Generation Guru, just wrote a piece affirming something we at Hi Rez Digital have been maintaining for quite some time. Namely, Direct Mail is an important tool in the complex sales provided that is is highly targeted and part of an overall integrated marketing campaign.
Brain writes, ”
With the proliferation of e-mail and its resulting abuses, direct
mail has become almost a novel approach by comparison. Because it
performs so well in other arenas, many marketing practitioners believe
that direct mail will do the same for their B2B lead generation
programs.But when it comes to the complex sale, not only is direct mail
ineffective by itself, but it is also frequently used incorrectly and
even abused too. In reality, direct mail is simply being asked to do
more than it is capable of doing. Direct mail in the traditional sense
is not effective - especially if you are trying to reach executives -
unless you do the following things:
- Target narrowly vs. blast a large audience
- Use as a follow up contact instead of as an initial contact
Even though direct mail may not be as flexible, immediate, or
economical as e-mail, if done with a high level of personalization and
targeted to the appropriate players, it becomes almost an unexpected
form of communication that affords another meaningful way to engage
prospects.”
Take a look at the following list of five never to use advertising words and ask yourself how many times you have used them in the course of your marketing campaigns. Be honest. I bet you have used all five. Now ask yourself whether or not you are gettign the response you would like from your copy. It could be that the words you choose have the opposite effect they were intended to have.
Copied from Business Week off of MSN (here)
Brace yourself. Here are five of the advertising words you should never use:
Quality
This may be the most overused word in advertising, which is the primary reason why you should stay away from it. What exactly does “quality” mean? In a Lexus, it may mean hand-crafted finishes, supple seats, or a smooth ride. In a Hyundai, it’s more about the extended warranty than anything.
The point is this: every product worth buying is a quality product. It may be high-priced quality or it may be low-priced quality, but it’s quality either way. That means every company believes it can use the word “quality” in its advertising. Too many have, and as a result, now it has become just seven empty letters.
Value
Like quality, value has been ruined by overuse. Go back to the Lexus and the Hyundai examples — which car is the better value? It depends — on the buyer, on the purchase occasion, and on what features and benefits value is being judged. Both vehicles are good values depending on the purchase context.
Or take another industry, retail: Wal-Mart provides good value, but so does Tiffany. Value, like quality, is in the eye of the beholder, and every product or service has its own value equation. Saying “we provide the best value” is, therefore, virtually meaningless.
Service
Have you ever heard an ad promising lousy service? Of course not, which is the reason why claiming good service just falls on deaf ears. It’s funny, but the companies that make the claim of good service the most tend to be those that deliver it the least.
Of course, most organizations do have sincere intentions to provide outstanding service and commonly cite Nordstrom as the example to which they aspire. But Nordstrom is Nordstrom for a reason — the company’s entire culture and identity is built around the service concept. Nordstrom is the exception, most companies can’t get there from here, and simply promising great service won’t make it happen.
Caring
Do you really believe your company cares more about your customers than your competition does? It may feel good to say so, but the claim flies in the face of common sense. If your competitors didn’t care about their customers, they couldn’t stay in business.
It’s particularly easy for service companies to get caught up in the “caring” self-deceit because they don’t sell a tangible product. But to say “we care more” in an ad presumes that your competitors care less, which is ascribing motivations to them that can’t be proven. Consumers know this and are not only hesitant to believe your claim, they are likely to consider it bad form.
The above four words all fail for essentially the same reasons. Not only are they overused, they’re based on variables that will be different for everyone. There’s a quality/value/service/caring continuum in each person’s mind for every purchase occasion, and it is a continually moving target.
But the fifth word is different. The fifth word doesn’t work precisely because it’s not variable. The fifth word is binary.
Integrity
A company either has integrity or it doesn’t. It’s either honest or it isn’t. And most people give companies the benefit of the doubt in believing that they operate with integrity. When a company talks about integrity in its advertising it’s for one of two reasons, neither one of them good: They’re either trying to cover up some lack of integrity [which never works] or they’re implying they live by a higher standard than their competition. That’s impolite, to say the least. Every company needs to have integrity. No company needs to advertise it.
Do you want your customers and prospects to view your products and services as being high quality and of good value? Of course. Do you want them to appreciate your caring service and strong integrity? Absolutely. But every company wants those things. Those that win the hearts and minds of consumers don’t talk the talk, they walk the walk.
What you think about your company doesn’t matter. All that matters is what your customers and prospects think. The next time you’re tempted to use one of these five words in an ad, stop and ask if there’s a better way to get the message across. Using common words that have become empty cliches is a shortcut to nowhere. Just because you sell it doesn’t mean people will buy it.
Copyright 2006 BusinessWeek
