|
by George Wehmann,
Marketing Director, CEO
Direct Marketing Resources Group, Raleigh, NC.
Maybe
you've seen the United Parcel Service TV commercial where
a dot.com type company has just launched its Website. The
company's staff is gathered around a PC monitor, anxiously
waiting to see if they get any orders.
One order registers. The group
cheers. High 5's all around. Almost immediately, 8 or 9 more
orders appear on the monitor screen. More celebration. As
the cheering dies down, the monitor's order meter takes off
and runs to 300,000+ orders.
The cheering stops. The expressions
on faces turn from cheer to horror. The TV commercial's key
message is obvious: the company is prepared to fulfill only
a fraction of so many orders. UPS is in the order fulfillment
business.
Perhaps you've heard about the
"too much response" problem? Toys-R-Us experienced
this a few years ago when they were unable to fulfill hundred
of thousands of Christmas toy purchases submitted through
their website. Toys R US recently filed for bankruptcy.
Is there a connection? Hmm.
Getting too much response to direct
marketing campaigns is usually a symptomatic problem. It's
a symptom of a deeper root problem. Once symptomatic problems
happen, you're in big trouble. The key is making sure it doesn't
happen to you. That requires an understanding that problems
often come in two types: symptomatic and root.
Symptomatic problems are caused
by deeper, more fundamental root problems. Solving symptomatic
problems often solves only the symptoms, not the real problem.
Symptomatic solutions may solve symptoms, but root problems
can continue causing problems again, or causes new problems.
Solving root problems solves problems completely.
Getting too much - or too little
- response is only symptomatic. Too much response may seem
a nice problem to have, but it has put more businesses out
of business than lack of response. Once over-response occurs,
few solutions, if any, are available. Disaster recovery is
the only option.
The solution to symptomatic problems,
like over-response, is the root solution found in planning
and testing. (Even UPS offers viewers "planning services"
at the end of their commercial.) But there's a catch. For
planning and testing to be an effective root solution, they
must be applied. And resistance to applying marketing planning
and testing is probably the root cause of most, if not all,
marketing problems.
This root problem, then, is simple.
We already have a familiar name for it. "Resistance to
Change." It's the lack of willingness to apply a proven
process, and the lack of commitment to see the process through
to a successful completion.
Why don't more businesses use
marketing planning and testing? Good question. Why do some
people who want to lose weight try fad diets instead of the
proven, effective methods of exercise and proper dieting?
We already know that exercise and proper diet, if applied
effectively, are the root solutions to the problem of being
overweight. So lack of knowledge is not the root problem.
Rather, it's lack of willpower and commitment and the resistance
to change longstanding habits.
Resistance to change - even to
proven processes -- is often the chief obstacle to achieving
desired goals and objectives.
Of Course There's Time for Planning
The Internet is one of the most
immediate and fastest ways of sharing information the world
has ever known. As a by-product of this, the Marketing World
itself is being led to believe all activities, including Web
marketing planning and testing, must operate in nanosecond
timeframes.
The new "Web-marketing paradigm"
is there's no time to develop "old school" marketing
methods -- like paying genuine attention (rather than lip-service)
to customers and customer relationships, or proving something
works before betting the farm (usually someone else's) on
new Internet marketing methods.
The Internet has provided many
marketers an excuse for the statement "but there's no
time for planning." Everything must move at the speed
of the Net.
That's bunk. I compare it to telling
a two-year-old to "hurry up and become an adult."
Some things just take time. Nurturing and developing lasting
customer relationships must be earned, not acquired. If you
didn't get that from Seth Godin's book, Permission Marketing,
you need to re-read it.
Some day, I believe we'll look
back on the early days of the Internet and laugh at how we
all tried to make the Internet an Interruption Marketing tool
rather than a Permission Marketing tool. (Interruption Marketing
and Permission Marketing are Seth Godin's terms. The first
refers to disruptive marketing, such as a commercial that
interrupts a favorite TV show. The second term refers to the
kind of marketing Godin recommends, that of using the Web
and e-mail to gain permission to ask people for information
and for the chance to market to them.)
Resisting this kind of customer-centric,
Permission-centric marketing is at the root of why many businesses
continue to ignore effective planning and testing. And this
kind of marketing wasn't invented with the Internet. Go ask
anyone who's been in Direct Marketing for more than five years.
Many marketers decide to use Direct
Marketing because they've been disappointed by the results
of other forms of marketing. When these folks decide to use
Direct Marketing, they often don't understand the importance
or the methodology of proper planning and testing. They often
don't see the need for (or know how to go about developing)
a fundamental marketing plan.
Marketers new to Direct Marketing
prefer their old way of "just doing it," a way that
unfortunately often involves little-to-no planning or testing.
They belong to the "all you gotta do" school of
marketing. All you gotta do is run some space ads, all you
gotta do is design and print a brochure, all you gotta do
is run a few radio and TV spots and your business should market
itself.
These days, all you gotta do is
put up a website and do a few banner ads (remember our friends
in the UPS commercial). What happens to the group in the commercial
-- getting an overwhelming response -- is a very real possibility.
It's happening every day. In fact, it could be waiting to
happen to you. I believe all the folks in the UPS commercial
wound up in their unfortunate situation because they are card-carrying
members of the "all you gotta do" school of Marketing.
Marketers often object to the
higher cost of Planning and Testing. But imagine the cost
of not being able to deliver on too many orders as in the
UPS commercial. Imagine the cost to Toy-R-Us last year from
not being able to deliver on hundreds of thousands of Internet
orders. Direct Marketing Testing and Results Management is
where marketers finally "get it" -- that all marketing
decisions are made by customers marketplace, not by marketers.
George Wehmann is a consultant,
mentor, coach and trainer in Direct Marketing applied to a
variety of marketing and advertising media. His background
includes direct marketing positions with American Express
Card Division's Direct Marketing Group, Merrill Lynch Financial
Services Direct Marketing, American Management Associations
Seminar Marketing and IBM PC Company. Wehmann also works with
a variety of clients helping them build their business using
direct marketing strategies.
|
