Let’s Get To Work!

I think the speed and all encompassing presence of the Internet has stymied direct marketers. Things that took time to test and measure, weeks and months, are now known concurrent with the next morning’s coffee. Direct marketers have always been cautious in their methods. That element was the ‘success’ element that allowed direct marketing to thrive.

Things have changed; many of the New Economy marketing execs are conducting themselves with the business sense of the ‘would be’ entrepreneurs of the last generation.

For those of you who have never started a business of your own, copywriting or better put, writing your own promotional literature is taken for granted. I’m not talking about the start-ups with Millions behind them as in Dot.Com; it is the kitchen table variety start-up of a generation ago that I’m thinking of.

People would (and I assume still do) create some form of direct mail piece, go to a quick print and then rent some compiled business or consumer list depending on the offer. This list had to be the cheapest of any found from a yellow page search. That single variable, business or consumer was the only one thought of. Most of these start-ups sadly failed.

The list was probably wrong, or at best too general for the offer. Concept and Creative were not even a thought. The expected response, which of course wasn’t going to happen was the oft quoted and totally fictional 1% response. When it all came together and bombed, the answer was either direct mail doesn’t work or the list was garbage (which it might have been, but it certainly was the least of the problems).

For sure it wasn’t the untested, self-created creative of the entrepreneur. Afterall, the deal was a sure-fire winner, ask Ralph Kramden.

Email and the whole online advertising environment has elements of this ‘kitchen table’ psychology embedded in it. The shame is, the Dot.Coms have the dollars to do the job correctly. There is so much technology involved in the setting up of the messages that the marketers are forgetting that testing and analysis are critical to any successful long-range program

Similar to the ‘would be’ entrepreneurs mentioned above, who mostly now work for their brother-in-laws, the current crop of Email and Interactive marketers are, in their haste to ‘make numbers’, forgetting the basics.

Test your creative, test your offer, test your pricing and test your target markets. Measure your results against what you are spending. Of course, this will become the yardstick for your ROI. This all sounds so basic I’m almost sorry to be writing it. However, more and more Newbie Marketers mention to me “…the industry average response” on Email, Email Sponsorships or banners. Never mind what item or service is being marketed or at what price. We’ve come full circle on the fictional 1% response.

This is the same group that takes the Interactive gospel from research firms named after planets. I can’t imagine how exciting it was to open a recent report and find out that Email Marketing is a growth market. The same set of  ‘researchers just discovered, about a year ago, how to spell direct marketing. This is all one person’s opinion (mine); perhaps I just have to wait for the learning curve to catch up. The real news is, direct marketing will succeed in cyberspace if you know how to use it and employ it.

We direct marketers have sat back as a group and not taken the lead in an obvious direct marketing channel – the Internet. The Dot.Coms need the help from the direct marketing community and must learn what many of our catalog, magazine and marketing execs have been doing every day of their business careers.

For those of us not involved, get involved, don’t be intimidated by a new vocabulary “the words may be different but the tune is the same”.

For the rest of us, let’s not go through all the bumps we’ve been through before. They can be avoided by direct marketers taking more of a leadership role in what is simply a new channel.