Showing posts with label direct marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label direct marketing. Show all posts
MR COMPLETE: DIGITAL AND OFFLINE MARKETING WORKING IN HARMONY
This is a great little campaign that was run by Royal Mail in the UK. It should serve as a reminder to us all that a choice doesn't have to be made between online and offline tactics. When you combine these two approaches, a very powerful campaign can be created.
Anyway, I shall leave it to Mr Complete to explain exactly how this can be achieved....
HOW COMMUNICATIONS HAS MOVED ON FROM THE ERA OF 'MAD MEN' ADVERTISING
If you were relaxing on Sunday evening in front of the television, you might have been sitting down to watch Prime’s new show, ‘Mad Men’, which is all about the 1960s advertising industry.
In the UK, men’s style bible Arena Magazine covered the launch of the program with an article on advertising – talking to the relevant movers and shakers in the UK’s ad industry.
Unsurprisingly, there was no interview with a high-flyer at Saatchi, no appraisal of TVCs; in fact there wasn’t a dickey bird on traditional methods or agencies. Why is this is not a surprise? Because they were talking to the men who had been creating effective marketing campaigns, promotions that had been noticed for all the right reasons, and almost all of it was online and involved direct marketing.
As the economic downturn puts pressure on company budgets and managers become more keen to know whether they are receiving a decent return on their marketing investment, it is imperative that advertising agencies are able to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.
With greater ad avoidance there it is ever more important that companies send out relevant information to their consumers. Putting out a TVC has its advantages, but there are a hell of a lot of negative aspects as well – is it reaching the right people? Is it effective? How many people skipped past it or didn’t watch it at all? The simple answer is that you can’t be sure for definite because it can’t be measured. This could equate to an awful lot of dollars slipping down the drain.
And herein lays the problem with most traditional methods. It’s not that they can’t be good, but in the current climate, companies need to get the most from their marketing investment. They need effective, measured and accountable communications with their consumers.
PR and direct marketing (and when I say direct marketing I don’t mean mail drops and leaflets in your post box) can cover off these issues. It all begins with knowing your customers and how they’re likely to react. Good DM agencies will have analysts who measure all the data that they can get from client databases to allow them to start tracking trends and developing a thorough understanding of consumer behaviour. This understanding can then be turned into a strategy that will cut through to provide the most effective method of talking to key markets. The end result is that only the most relevant audiences are sent a piece of communication. From this you’ll know, for instance, how many people have received your piece of communication and how many people responded through the necessary channels. In fact, you’ll know exactly who responded and therefore gain even more valuable data to further inform your marketing decisions.
DM opens up a whole new world of communications, with the ability to do personalized pieces and trigger based programmes (so that people receive information at the most convenient time to them). Companies can also interact live with the brand or measure how long someone spent on a website and at which point they clicked off.
While technology opens up plenty of opportunity for ad avoidance it also opens up a greater opportunity for greater communications that will be relevant to that person and therefore more effective. The way society communicates is changing and so the way companies advertise will have to as well. The Mad Men of the 60’s don’t stand a chance.
If you would like to know more about direct marketing, you can contact Nick Bell, new Account Manager at leading Auckland-based DM agency, Twenty, at nick@twenty.co.nz.
I am very aware of the fact that, as PR people, it is vital that we understand and keep track of what is going on in the rest of the communications industry (mainstream advertising, direct marketing, journalism etc). After all, we often have to work alongside people from these other professions, to achieve what a client is after. For this reason, I would be more than happy to post any information or advice that people in these areas feel may be useful to us public relations consultants. Just drop me a line at jennifer@intermediary.co.nz if you would like to share something with us. Hopefuly this will lead to our individual professions understanding each other a little better, resulting in much better outcomes for our clients.
PROVING THE VALUE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
In these times of economic uncertainty, more and more business owners are, understandably, keen to see proof of whether they are getting a return on their investment into marketing, advertising and public relations. If businesses do not see a clear ROI, then it is quite likely that they will slash their budgets and reserve their cash for tactics that they can see working.
Some direct marketing agencies, such as the Auckland-based Twenty Limited, analyse results and report back to the client as a matter of course. The advertising industry has also long recognised the importance of evaluating return on investment.
However, more often than not, public relations consultancies do not push for evaluation of results, particulary in New Zealand. It is something that is talked about a lot at PRiNZ events but not something that many individuals appear to be acting upon. Maybe this is because PR professionals see themselves more as 'creative brains' than people occupied with statistics and numbers...? Maybe PR consultants are still caught up in that outdated assumption that media coverage proves that public relations is working.
Obviously, PR consultants do need to be able to show how much media exposure was achieved during a campaign. However, they also need to demonstrate the degree to which this exposure influenced perceptions and attitudes and what action, if any, the target audience took.
It is also vital that clients are educated on what results to expect from public relations. PR consultants need to ensure that their clients understand that the success of a PR campaign is not always directly linked to how many column inches they achieve. Of course, if consultants can convince their clients of the benefits of linking PR objectives to business objectives, then companies will also see results that go far beyond the odd article in newspapers and magazines.
At the recent PRiNZ conference, most members sitting on the Young Practitioners Panel were of the opinion that the future of PR lies in technology. I do not disagree with this. However, I also think that, as the months go by, especially if the current economic downturn stays with us for longer than expected, PR consultants will have to be more accountable and will have to present real, tangible results that prove that PR is succeeding at the job that it set out to do.
If PR consultants want a seat at the executive table, the first step is to start talking in a language that CEOs understand. Ultimately, this means providing data and information that shows that PR is impacting a company's bottom line.
Have a read of this blog named 'Proving the Value of Public Relations' and written by Don Bartholomew, senior vice president at MWW Group, in the United States, if you want to learn more about where the PR industry is heading, in terms of accountability and demonstrating ROI.
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