Posts Tagged ‘direct mail’
Beadle and Crome miss the boat
11 January 2011 | 
Author 
Beadle and Crome sale
Every year Beadle and Crome, the interiors business in the Oxford Road, Reading, send me a Christmas card. This of course has little to do with Christmas and their good wishes to me and my family (they don’t know us from Adam and we’ve never bought anything from them) but is more focussed on telling me about their January sale.
I was amused to receive their 2010 Christmas card today, 11 January 2011. Inside was the flyer (pictured) telling me the sale started 15 days ago. I guess the bargains have all gone now then.
Additionally they tell me that if I go back in time and place an order before 2 January 2011 I can get an extra 5% discount.
Direct mail, is it so difficult to get it right?
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Posted in Consumer marketing, UK retail marketing | 
Tags: Beadle and Crome, Christmas, Christmas card, direct mail, interiors business, January sale, Oxford Road, Reading | 
2 Comments »
Does social media cut it for B2B sales & marketing?
The current hot stories about B2B marketing and sales eminating from the US are about Facebook and its use in the mix. This may well be valid but I guess these messages are also being propogated by people with a vested tech/social media interest.
Andy Maslen on his blog reports that his successes are primarily all techniques and approaches that could have been executed in the 18th century. In ranking order of business success Andy reports this list:
- Referrals/word-of-mouth
- Attending conferences
- Running workshops
- Having coffee/lunch with prospect
- Speculative meetings
- Writing books
- Writing article
- Giving speeches
- Telephoning client
- E-newsletter
- Sending emails
- Direct mail
- Search
- Blog
So if you read this blog and visit Andy Maslen’s Sunfish site, do let him know a blog got you there 
But in all seriousness, if your business is B2B and you want to develop sustainable relationships I would wholeheartedly recommend referrals/word-of-mouth, attending conferences, running workshops, having coffee/lunch with prospect and speculative meetings as ways to get those conversations started.
Posted in Marketing | Tags: Andy Maslen, B2B, B2B marketing, blog, books, conferences, direct mail, Facebook, meetings, referrals, relationships, Social media, speeches, Sunfish, Twitter, word of mouth, workshops | No Comments »
But BT, you know who I am!
BT Infinity
BT’s current strapline is “bringing it all together”. Good idea…so why don’t they do it ?
In this mornings post was a piece of direct mail from BT addressed to “The Householder”. Fabulous, but they know who we are; we’ve got two landlines and we’ve been customers at this address for over 10 years. In fact I’ve been a non-stop BT customer for 30 years.
Surely the company that is delivering the “fastest, most powerful broadband ever” can merge data for a mailshot? Perhaps the personal approach doesn’t pay dividends/deliver the ROI.
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Posted in Consumer marketing, Marketing | Tags: bringing it all together, broadband, BT, direct mail, mailshot, ROI, strapline | No Comments »
People that don’t respond to your direct marketing
Mike Welsh, CEO, Publicis Dialog, has written a nice piece about direct marketing and the importance of brand consistancy, tone and all those fine people that don’t respond immediately…have a read.
It made me think again about the importance of connecting strategy with tactical execution. There is no point in positioning a brand as ‘premium’ if the DM delivery is transactional and shallow. So when we are carrying out direct marketing/direct mail activity isn’t it important that we include intelligent KPIs beyond simple response rates?
Posted in Consumer marketing, Marketing | Tags: brand, direct mail, direct marketing, KPI, Mike Welsh, positioning, Publicis Dialog, strategy, tactics, transactional | 1 Comment »
Direct mail relevancy and accuracy
I’m not really sure who the winner is for wasted direct mail campaign effort this week. My favourites through the letter box this morning, and clear contenders, are:
Boden: A personalised letter with a £10 gift voucher to encourage me to use the catalogue they sent me a few weeks back. Sorry Boden, I haven’t received a catalogue from you, therefore your stream of restrictions and terms and conditions are of no relevance to me.
AA Insurance: A beautifully personalised letter inviting me to insure my car with the AA. The only real obvious blunder is that they are referring to a car that I sold nearly three years ago in August 2007.
I think my winner for the week is Boden.
Have you got any corking examples of poor, irrelevant or inaccurate direct mail? Please share.
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Posted in Consumer marketing, Marketing | Tags: AA, Boden, car insurance, catalogue, direct mail, gift vouchers | 10 Comments »
Saab: award winning direct marketing
Saab UK has just sent me an excellent piece of direct mail. The small lumpy envelope contained an ‘honorary employee’ badge on a lanyard.
The hook to the offer is the opportunity to buy a Saab at Saab employee prices. These presumably wonderful prices aren’t stated. To find out more I need to go to my local dealer, Saab Reading.
A simple, compelling and clear message. Well done to Saab and whoever their agency.
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