Here is somewhere to go on the web to kick back and relax:- The Corona Beach

Note: make sure you enter your D of B in the American way, ie month before date, and then watch the screen as you enter the year

Marketing is often seen as a business’ glamorous side. Glossy brochures, flashy advertising and fancy product launches can seem like a lot of fun compared to telesales and bean counting. Building brand awareness and luring customers away from the competition is an important duty to perform. However, marketing also has a defensive role to play.

Along with customer services and sales teams, marketing has a duty to actively engage customers, keep them happy and retain their loyalty, particularly when times are tough.

Retention offers the best return

With the economy continuing to nosedive, in a recent survey of 100 European businesses 34% said that retention was their primary concern. A plucky 8% said that chasing new customers was still the first thing on their mind, which is a big drop from 40% last year.

Although not carved into stone or approved by the office of statistics, the consensus is that it costs five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. When you also add their lifetime value into the equation it doesn’t take Carol Vorderman to tell you that ensuring your customers feel loved is the smartest way of spending your marketing cash.

Active customers are happy customers

Studies show that during a recession you should market more rather than less. Although the temptation is to guillotine budgets and bunker down, if you maintain a presence and engage with customers during turbulent times you position yourself to prosper once the storm has passed.

Active customers are happy customers, and running campaigns that reinforce the sense that buying your products is the smart thing to do is the best way of provoking them into retail therapy. Whether it’s rewarding their loyalty with discounts, sending them a newsletter or just a simple thank you card, actively engaging customers lets them know that you care about them, and stops them looking elsewhere for affection.

Knowing what to say and when to say it

Retention marketing isn’t a strategy led blindly by the heart. You know when your customers want you to talk to them simply by watching your database.

If you track your customers’ buying behaviour you’ll be able to see the warning lights when something is wrong. Then it’s time to send out the surveys to find out what you can do to make things right.

Ask your customers when they plan to buy again. If not, why not? And what can you do to change their minds. A customer survey can be a marketing campaign in itself, so remember to find a way to reward those giving you honest feedback.

Retention reminds customers you’re there

When you consider that your existing customers contribute 80% to your revenue, engaging with them and keeping them happy should always be on your mind. And with digital media, it’s easier than ever to run one-to-one retention campaigns targeted to appeal to the preferences, hopes and desires of every customer.

So whilst times are tough, don’t sit in silence praying for easier times, but continue to remind your customers you’re still around and that you love them because it’s what they’ll want to hear.

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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

The desire to feel special is a natural human emotion, and people want to be treated as individuals, rather than merely another target on a mass marketing bombing campaign. The problem with a lot of marketing is that it fails to make people feel special, but simply dumps the same message as wide as possible to hit as many targets as it can.

Simply pouring money into unrefined email blasts and bulk mailings is a clumsy and expensive approach, because we now have the technology to engage prospects in a one-to-one marketing dialogue that’s more relevant and personalised for each individual.

With a recession looming, the competition for customers is only going to increase.

So, to engage people’s attention your marketing needs to appeal more closely to their interests than the rest. And the evidence shows that integrating direct mail with digital is the best tactic for getting more personal with prospects.

Direct mail makes the introduction

Despite what some internet fanboys (might) think, print isn’t dead and will be the touch point of choice with most prospects for many years to come. In fact, a Pitney Bowes survey found that 73% still prefer to receive product announcements in the mail compared to reading them on a screen.

With this in mind, direct mail is the best medium for introducing prospects to online promotions. It’s effectiveness in launching a one-to-one campaign extends beyond merely the name on the label, because the website address it sends people to is personalised too.

People love to see their name in print, and few can ignore the curiosity of visiting a website featuring their name in the URL.

Personalised URLs look after the conversation

It’s when prospects visit their own personalised URL that the conversation really begins.

Not only does each mini site greet them by name, but also features products and services carefully arranged to match their interests. This customised approach already helps improve your chances of generating leads.

However, where a PURL’s power really lies is in its ability to listen as well as talk. Every mouse click and interaction is recorded and added to the feast of information stored on your database, ripe for future targeted marketing activity.

Cost effective, quick and a high response

In a recent BDA campaign for Siemens we experienced first hand how effective an integrated, personalised campaign can be.

A letter was sent to prospects promoting Siemens’ ‘A Meeting of Open Minds’ breakfast seminar along with their own personalised URL. On each individually addressed website, prospects could interact with a ‘cost calculator’, to see what savings they could make, and then book their place on the seminar.

Recording the interests of prospects, by how they interacted with the site, was estimated to save two weeks of telemarketing and generate leads at half the cost of conventional marketing activity.

The personalised one-to-one approach was also so effective in attracting interest that Siemens had to run two additional seminars to cope with demand.

Personalised campaigns get you closer to your target

The tracking provided by personalised websites enables you to get progressively closer to every prospect. From initial acquisition through to retention, with each subsequent campaign you can fine tune your offer to appeal to the interests of each individual.

Numerous case studies have shown that integrating direct mail with digital campaigns is the way to go. Recent research by the Royal Mail found that over half of consumers prefer a combination of the two, and that integrated campaigns could increase customer spend by 25%.

The technology is now available to deliver one-to-one campaigns that are relevant, targeted and provide a much better response from consumers.

So are you going to continue bombing your prospects with mass untargeted messages? Or are you ready to get closer with personalised URLs?

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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

and if the rain won’t go away then while away the hours with CubeCraft.

All you need is a computer, a printer, and a sharp knife!

Some marketers are beginning to worry, because people are ignoring them. People have been bombarded with so much irrelevant marketing for so long that they’re switching off the moment they hear the hint of a sales message.

So how are marketers going to persuade people to listen to them again? They have to be able to offer messages that are relevant and valuable to barter for people’s attention. The one size fits all style of mass marketing is dying and has to evolve.

Many claim that personalised, one-to-one marketing is the answer, in which your offer is moulded to match the preferences of each customer. Some believe that one-to-one could be marketing’s holy grail: the ability to pitch messages that resonate with the hopes and desires of each individual.

Or is one-to-one merely hype being peddled by digital marketers hoping it can save their budget from the guillotine?

Making smarter use of your database

Using a database to segment your customers is nothing new. However, with the dark clouds of recession gathering, pressure to make more effective use of customer data, and provide a better return on shrinking budgets, is building.

More marketers are realising that carpet bombing the same message to your whole database is dated, clumsy and costly. The smarter ones already know that you need to be able to deliver the right message to the right person in the right format.

Using your database to target messages at specific segments can improve your response rate, reduce the risk of losing customers and reward you with a much healthier ROI. Your database is your goldmine, and knowing how to drill and exploit it can determine what riches you’ll find.

We now have the technology to build it

The rise of digital means we now have the technology to partner the philosophy of one-to-one marketing, which marketers have been preaching for some time.

One-to-one’s philosophy is that of engaging consumers in a two way dialogue on their passions, interests and desires, rather than pelting them with one way messages. Consumers are now in more control of what content they want to receive and when. They’re no longer a captive audience happy to consume whatever information you choose to feed them.

If you’re not providing them with content that interests them then they can easily find it on websites and forums elsewhere. So marketing has to be relevant and offer valuable insight if you want it to be heard.

Digital provides the tools to be relevant

Digital provides the technology for dialogue: online surveys, interactive websites and email can all be used to learn more about your customers and fill your database with valuable nuggets of information.  What’s their budget? How many settings should your widget have? When will they next be shopping for an upgrade? Knowing about your customers’ interests, preferences and behaviours can then enable you gauge which offers to pitch and to whom.

Whether its email, a personalised web page (PURL) or good old direct mail, marketing activity can then be personalised and targeted at those who fit the profile of your ideal customer.

Amazon is the current poster child of one-to-one marketing. Users are given recommendations on books, CDs and anything else matching their buying behaviour. To the casual user Amazon is simply being helpful, but to the marketing mind Amazon’s website is database driven customer engagement at its best.

One-to-one marketing is simply smarter

On the web you’ll hear plenty of hype on the potential of one-to-one marketing to create lifelong loyalty and ‘turn customers into evangelists for your brand’. However, making smarter use of your database and harnessing digital to deliver personalised, relevant messages is just common sense.

The days of pouring money into hit and hope marketing are drawing to a close. The future is about being smart with your budget and delivering marketing that’s relevant, offers value and a personalised one-to-one dialogue with your customers.

Holy grail’s are allusive. But improving how you engage your customers with marketing that they’re happy to receive is a prize worthy of exploration.

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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.