Fear Factor: Clients Are too Cautious, Say DM Creatives

Posted on by Chief Marketer Staff

In direct marketing, looks aren’t everything. A pretty package isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on if it doesn’t get results.

And while much of direct marketing creative is now online, that tenet still holds true for both physical and virtual campaigns. “Direct mail is hard, dirty work compared to a lot of other marketing,” says Carol Worthington Levy, partner, creative services, Lenser. “It takes a high concentration level. There is extreme responsibility around direct mail that just doesn’t exist in other areas, like space advertising, that aren’t pushed to be as responsive.”

“Those shops that produce results get rewarded with more business and those that don’t make the ROI grade are sent packing,” adds Grant Johnson, founder and creative director of Johnson Direct. “And today, there’s a disturbing trend of removing the marketer from the agency selection process and handing off the duties to a ‘procurement’ department, meaning the process gets more price-driven and less cost-driven.”

Chief Marketer recently held a virtual roundtable with Levy, Johnson and Nancy Harhut, chief creative officer of Wilde Agency, to discuss the challenges facing direct marketing creatives in today’s tough economic climate.

Has the economy changed how direct marketing creatives work with marketers?

LEVY: Companies are being extremely conservative. In past recessions, people went to creatives looking for a breakthrough. But [now] clients are tiptoeing around and they’re afraid to do anything new. There’s an ebb and flow. I’ve found in an economy like this, clients don’t trust us to make decisions. Entrepreneurs, for example, might feel that an outsider can’t give them the best information. And of course, that’s not true. They need to look at and consider an agency’s track record. [In larger firms,] management can squeeze people and make them fearful. Say the marketer does a test and finds that the control for the last three years was the loser, and then they get into trouble. It’s an environment that does not breed success in direct marketing.

HARHUT: While there’s nothing wrong with the tried and true, it’s starting to make everything look like everything else. And then we’ve got shrinking budgets, so there a mentality of, “We’ll use e-mail because it’s cheaper,” even though it hasn’t proven to be a great acquisition channel. Yesterday I had a client ask me about the cost differential between a buckslip and a brochure. Forget about trying both of them. And there’s less and less testing, not only because of smaller and smaller budgets but also because there are smaller marcom departments. So they don’t have the manpower to route two different packages through the organization.

What are some of the most common DM creative mistakes?

HARHUT: Failing to put yourself in the target’s mindset. I think that’s major. You really need to know what your prospect’s mindset will be when they encounter your mail piece or e-mail. And there’s still a lack of confidence in data. Clients still have data silos and that makes it very difficult for us as creatives to deliver customized messages. Even now in 2010, I continue to run into clients who will say, “Oh, I can’t really tell you that the last thing the customer bought was X, so we don’t want to reference it in the letter. I know I’ve got some information in this database, and some in that database, but we can’t make them talk to each other.”

JOHNSON: I see lack of testing first and foremost. And too many marketers are jumping into brand new creative, ignoring the importance of lists and offers/message positioning in their work before moving on to new creative approaches and designs. There’s also weak copy that doesn’t sell the offer. Still quite common is the thinking that being clever will outpull their current “boring” creative, even though that work is producing profitable results. They abandon what’s working, not because the market says they need to change, but rather because they are tired of the look and feel they currently have.

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What are the biggest challenges today when it comes to DM creative?

LEVY: Budget has been an issue, but oddly it hasn’t been an issue as much as people perceive it to be. That’s because creative itself is a pittance compared to the paper and the lists. People become so conscious of budget that they’ll try to keep [DM] in-house. And then they can’t figure out why their mailings fail. [Creating] really great marketing copy is a craft that requires years of experience and a real interest in making something happen.

JOHNSON: One of the biggest challenges is still one of the oldest: understanding that direct marketing creative is different from brand advertising, and is most effective, more often than not, when it’s — well — less creative. In direct mail a letter that looks like a letter still works best. In TV, the tried and tested infomercial format still reigns supreme. In space ads, longer copy and less design-inspired work pulls better, and with interactive media, your copy needs to find balance between call-to-action intense and credible. Direct marketing creative is still about understanding your niches and producing creative that resonates with each of them. The mass media mindset still prevails way too often in direct marketing today.

HARHUT: The fear thing is there. Agencies and clients are under increasing pressure to perform. You don’t want the CEO saying you should have known that “package B” wasn’t going to work. You’ve got to get it right and you’ve got to get it right the first time. You don’t have a long period of time to test your way into the right thing, because you don’t know if you’re going to be here next month.

Does new media present particular direct marketing challenges?

HARHUT: There’s the challenge of how we monetize the new platforms, and how e-mail will render from one platform to another. And as creatives, how do we inject emotion, urgency and benefits and proof points into 140 characters or less. It’s hard.

JOHNSON: We had a client who decided to shift the entire spend to social media channels. When we asked how he was going to measure success, he wasn’t sure and said he had hoped that an increase in sales would be proof enough to persuade management it was working. From experience, management may buy this, but typically they want quantifiable evidence of such.

Are people forgetting the basics in the age of new media?

LEVY: I think that a lot of younger people have come in through new media, and that’s good because it’s part of a good multimedia program today. But there’s a lack of education now. Years ago, people would learn from others within their company. You would learn from the person above you, move up through the ranks, and then help train your replacement. The mentoring structure has completely broken down within companies. Many people now just don’t understand the value of testing and the fact that people who come in via direct mail have a greater lifetime value.

JOHNSON: Yes. I see that a one-size-fits-all approach is much more common than versioning your creative based upon known variables that are readily accessible through data analytics. Keep in mind that most successful direct marketing is more copy-driven than design-driven. This also applies to Facebook and Twitter direct marketing.

HARHUT: It’s not that people are forgetting the basics, but perhaps they’re just discovering them for the first time. It’s fun to see proven techniques emerge as new approaches. Texting about a discount isn’t all that different from sending a postcard about an offer.

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