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Spoilt for choice
During the half-day module titled “21st-Century Marketing”, scheduled for 2nd
October, a bevy of marketers will confront the challenges and opportunities
presented by the ever-increasing selection of channels and media. Consultant
Henry Heavisides, who is chairing the session, previews some of the issues
T
he biggest challenge in recent years for your customer recruitment budget? (For the
marketing in catalogue businesses has moment let’s not even think about how to
been how to integrate the web. Initially split your overall marketing budget between
many cataloguers set up separate web teams; recruiting new customers and promoting to
these were usually small and operated in a existing customers.) Simple measures such as
bit of a vacuum away from the mainstream cost per new customer can give us an initial
marketing activity that was at the core of comparison among campaigns, but you really
the business. This separation wasn’t helped need to dig deeper than this. What kind of
by the use of new and different terminology customers are you recruiting, and what value
and methods of measurement. Increasingly, do they bring to the business? If you make a
however, the internet has moved very much to profit on your first order from a new customer,
the centre of most catalogue businesses. this is arguably less important than if you are
Even so, it’s not always easy to compare recruiting customers from whom you expect
results of offline and online marketing to get a profitable return in future orders over,
activities, which makes allocations of say, the next two or three years.
budgets between them quite difficult. This is Customers recruited from different sources
compounded by increasing cannibalisation typically have very different profiles and will
among the multiple marketing activities. For respond to future marketing activities in different
instance, a prospective customer who is sent a ways. This is especially true in a multichannel
mailing may respond online, without using any environment. Don’t expect a customer coming
Henry Heavisides
promotional codes, making it difficult to track from pay-per-click to respond to future direct
where the order originated. mail campaigns in a way that one recruited from
As a rule, customers see the brand as a two-stage list rental campaign will. On the
one entity rather than as separate shops, other hand, although a pay-per-click customer
catalogues and websites, so they expect may spend only half as much with your brand
marketing communications to reflect this. In an as a customer recruited via list rental, he may
ideal world there is a seamless mix of paper also have cost you a fraction of the amount
mailings, advertising, PR, online activities to recruit.
and in-store promotions. How can this best Then again, online customers tend to
be achieved? To have separate marketing be more difficult to retain, as they can so
teams operating in isolation from each other easily access competitor sites and compare
is unlikely to be an optimum solution. To have products, prices and the like. This then opens
a multidisciplined team covering all types of up a whole new debate: how to generate
marketing activities is ideal but can be very loyalty from online customers. Do you need
difficult, because of the very different types of to differentiate your brand, differentiate your
expertise required. products or service, sell at the lowest possible
For instance, there are a number of ways price or something else?
to recruit customers via traditional direct If only there were some definitive answers
marketing: prospecting catalogue mailings to these questions. By asking challenging
to rented lists, two-stage mailings, direct questions and brainstorming for answers,
response advertising, recommend-a-friend you should be able to come up with some
campaigns. Now add to the mix pay-per-click solutions. Remember, though, that there are
activity, natural search optimisation, email, no right or wrong answers. What works in one
viral campaigns... Clearly the job of recruiting business may not work in another. The only
customers is huge in scope. way to find out what works for you is to test
So how should you decide where to allocate new approaches.
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