Category: Country Focus

Kieran Kilmartin (pictured) looks at how much life is left in the classic channel.

The term ‘direct marketing’ often conjures images of mass mailers and other outdated, impersonal attempts by brands to reach their target audience. Today, brands that engage in this form of traditional direct marketing outreach are being eclipsed by marketers who use more innovative and personalised approaches. Ever evolving technology has created a plethora of channels for customers to communicate with brands, and the rapid shift in communications mediums has caused marketers to wonder: “is direct marketing dead?”

Dead? No. Being turned on its head? Yes.

Direct marketing is at a turning point and, as technology continues to change the way brands and consumers connect, the term becomes more relevant. For example, one monumental shift brought on by new technology is the “always-on consumer”, who is more digitally connected than ever before. As evidenced by the fact that nearly half of adults in the UK complete tasks on other devices while watching TV, connected consumers’ multitasking has opened the door to new marketing opportunities. This near constant connection provides brands with not only more customer touchpoints to build awareness of a brand’s product and message, but also with an increased amount of customer data that reaches across multiple channels. With an abundance of customer data available to brands, marketers can be smarter in how they approach customers and create a more personalised interaction that is closer to the true definition of the phrase “direct marketing”.

Informed interactions and personal relationships

Now, more than ever, customers expect personalised relationships with brands. To maintain customer loyalty and foster new customer relationships, direct marketing must shift to line up to meet these expectations or risk alienating customers who are tired of being treated impersonally.

While direct marketing’s new form is more challenging to master, when properly executed the benefits far exceed those of traditional push marketing campaigns, because customers are more accurately targeted with communications that speak to their specific needs. The engine that is driving direct marketing success today is Big Data and brands that are leveraging it to make sense of all of the data from their channels to pull customers in are breathing new life into their direct marketing campaigns.

That being said, while Big Data can provide the information necessary to create more direct, personalised interactions that customers demand, brands aren’t necessarily taking advantage of the opportunity at hand. Recent research shows only seven percent of marketing departments are taking control of Big Data, with a majority of its usage still residing in IT, which presents a huge market opportunity. Given the small percentage of marketing departments that are truly leveraging their data at present, brands that are able to explore and analyse all of the data at their disposal and turn insight into action will gain a distinct competitive advantage. However, the same research showed that organisations are not oblivious to utilising their data, as 53 percent of companies surveyed were using Big Data for customer relationship management. It’s apparent that brands are starting to recognise the shift in customer expectations and the importance of connecting with customers, but they have been slow to use data throughout the entirety of their marketing organisations.

With this recognised shift in brands’ customer communications, how can brands take advantage of the customer knowledge provided by Big Data to improve their marketing programmes?

As a starting point, brands should let these five key data-driven processes lead their customer communications:

• Understand the customer as an individual – Their preferences, event triggers and lifecycle with the brand
• Connect with the customer via multiple touch-points – Knowing customers’ habits surrounding those channels and which they prefer is key
• Micro-segment customer data – Enormous amounts of customer data may seem overwhelming but it enables refined segmentation based on customer behaviours, in turn allowing brands to ensure the message is relevant to each individual
• Plan automated, integrated, multi-stage, cross-channel initiatives that are informed by the above and are reactive to response rates. Rather than marketing ‘push’, brands are able to engage in conversation, pulling customers to the brand due to their unique needs.
• Monitor and measure – Marketing campaigns have used systems such as A/B testing to test the effectiveness of a campaign for years, so why wouldn’t brands do the same under the new definition of direct marketing. Using control groups can determine the most effective campaigns, which enables companies to measure response rates and success and continually improve on how customer data is being used.

The phrase direct marketing still sparks traditional push marketing concepts in the minds of many but, in reality, direct marketing is only just coming of age. This new form of direct marketing is more direct than ever, as it allows for an individual connection between brand and consumer. As new technologies continue to emerge, such as near field communications and advanced recognition technology, direct marketing will continue to shift and change to be more real-time and customised. Brands that embrace this new form of marketing and take full advantage of the benefits of Big Data to better understand their customers will come out on top.

Kieran Kilmartin is VP International Marketing, Pitney Bowes Software.

David Cole (pictured) shares the results of research undertaken last month.  

If you’re looking to place ads, run promotions or centre campaigns around World Cup match viewing in the UK, these consumer insights may help you to maximise the effectiveness of your budget.
It is worth bearing in mind that 47% of adults are not planning to watch the World Cup at all and three-quarters of these plan to watch other channels instead. So, if your target market includes non-fans, advertising/promoting around the strongest competing programmes could both save you money and help you to avoid clutter.

But 71% of those who are planning to watch the games, intend to take advantage of offers from brands they don’t normally use to enhance their viewing experience and to use the profitable betting tips for each game– a great opportunity for companies to achieve high levels of sampling.

When online research company fast.MAP asked a demographically-balanced panel of 2,500 adults in January about their plans to buy extra snacks, drinks and foods to enjoy around World Cup matches, firstly, we discovered that English fans have a pretty realistic view of our team’s chances of winning.

• 83% expect our elimination before the semi-finals and only 5% expect us to win.
• 26% expect England to be eliminated at the group stage and after that, a third will watch fewer matches. Half expect elimination before the quarter finals and a quarter of these will then stop watching.
• Overall, a quarter of those intending to watch will stop viewing once England is eliminated, but 43% will watch whatever happens.

So marketers who share this pessimistic view of England’s chances and are planning UK TV campaigns might want to capitalise on those early matches, because 75% plan to buy extra crisps, snacks and drinks to eat while viewing.

And meat and beer brands might want to tight-target football fanatics for the best chance of increasing sales, because the keener the football fan the more likely he/she is to buy beer and barbeque meat for World Cup games. Male football addicts under-34 are the most likely to try promoted brands. Altogether, 15% are planning barbeques.

The over-55s are least likely to buy extra food and drink; only 13% plan to buy for use before and13% for during games.

And carry-out food establishments should prepare for a World Cup take-away bonanza, because 40% plan to eat takeaways and 49% pizza, while viewing games.

Similarly, crisp, snack and drinks retailers would be wise to keep the shelves stacked because 75% plan to buy these (especially the 18 to 24s, a quarter of whom intend to consume them before and 4% during the game. 57% across all demographics will consume beer.

For more at-a-glance insights click here  to view the fast.MAP World Cup Buying infographic.
David Cole is MD of online research company fast.MAP.

Jason Cromack (pictured) adds quintillions of data to an insightful direct marketing strategy and comes up with a happiness factor.

Happiness is a powerful force. The ascent of stockbroker Chris Gardner to become one of American’s leading and most renowned entrepreneurs has provided inspiration to many. His memoirs, entitled ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’, document the struggles of one man to juggle the obstacles of fatherhood and homelessness while launching a career in brokerage. His story, aside from providing the subject matter for a Will Smith Hollywood blockbuster, has come to symbolise the impact that a human’s surrounding can have on one’s life.

Whether it is the motivation to continue to strive for success or merely the deciding factor in which supermarket to visit, a person’s view of their world shapes so many choices. For marketers, the task is always to wrestle with these perceptions and use them to their advantage by ensuring that their message marries timing with relevancy. What’s more, there is no discipline where these two elements have a bigger role to play than in the world of direct marketing and, more specifically, direct mail.

For too long, direct marketing failed to really grasp this. The emphasis has been on volume and a broad scatter-gun approach to reap success, albeit with relatively small returns, and simultaneously creating a negative image of the whole practice both for marketers and the wider public. However, the explosion in consumer data that has taken place in the last couple of years promises to change all this. The rapid evolution of technology driven by consumer adoption and forward thinking brands such as Apple, means that 2.5 quintillion (a one followed by 18 zeros) bytes of data created every day and 90 per cent of the world’s total data have emerged in the last year alone.

This provides marketers with a real opportunity to develop deeper insights into human reaction and behaviour to create campaigns that tap into the emotional triggers and ensure a piece of activity resonates with them in some way. The challenge of leveraging a person’s emotional triggers with campaigns that feel personal is still a primary concern, but it is achievable. By putting data analytics at the heart of everything they do, brands are given the opportunity to elevate the relevancy of the creative and ultimately ensure that a campaign reaches the right person at the right time.

A good example of this is the direct marketing that prefaced the UK Government’s ‘Right to Buy’ scheme, which offered council house tenants the opportunity to buy their property outright. The campaign used data to identify eligible tenants and resulted in the creation of an eye-catching, house-shaped mailer. However, as with any direct marketing activity, the devil was in the detail.

By monitoring response levels, it was possible to identify the consumers that were most likely to buy their property to increase the efficiency of the campaign. It also unearthed a surprising level of simplicity in what was previously considered a complex decision that took into account a variety of factors. The decision to buy was driven simply by the tenant’s perception of the area, which was informed from the view within a few hundred yards of their front door. If they liked the area that they lived in, then the tenant was much more likely to respond to the campaign and ultimately buy the property. Not only did this insight ensure that any direct marketing activity could be better targeted to reach those most likely to buy their property, but it began to unearth a whole host of other insights that had a huge impact on the way direct marketing could be planned for maximum efficiency.

This was a Government example, but could well be used commercially; by charting the inhabitants’ overall perception of an area, a marketer can begin to rank the responsiveness of a prospective recipient to a piece of direct marketing. For example, the nicer an area the greater the likelihood that there will be an increased sense of a community, and the more likely that a new initiative could be shared through word-of-mouth. By delving deeper into the data, a marketer can begin to chart the probability that something will be shared, reducing the number of pieces of direct marketing accordingly while still reaching the same audience, tapping into mavens and influencers in the area who will spread the word for them. What is more, this efficiency only scratches the surface of the effect that a simple and basic human understanding can have. For example, profiling different areas by the inhabitants’ perception of it can provide a profile of the area that can be overlaid with financial and demographic information to build a richer picture of the UK on a broader level.

This goes to demonstrate the more efficient planning that can be put in place based on simple insights gathered from the data at hand. Perception can be a huge hindrance to any marketer, shaping biases and constructing barriers in the consumer’s receptiveness to a marketing message. However, for the savvy marketer, it presents a huge opportunity to communicate a brand’s objectives in the most efficient way possible to the most willing audience.

Jason Cromack is CEO of the GIG at DST.