Lessons from the Oldest Direct Response Channel – Begging

Direct marketing exists all around us. And, whether we like to admit or not, almost every interaction has a monetary component tied to it at some level. The waiter who gives great service? In an ideal world, he’s just good and gets rewarded through better than average tips. In the cynical world? He’s trying hard to please because he wants / expects tips. It’s part of the reward system which more often than not ends up involving money. Sometimes the reward takes longer and, sometimes it doesn’t start with a sale. The doctor you like? Even the most capitalistic who pass the decent person filter don’t wish for their patients to get sick more frequently. It’s the same with them as it might be with a wedding invitation specialist – they look to you for referrals at best. Be it pride at a job done or some innate understanding of the connection between good work and monetary rewards, good jobs often get rewarded with greater monetary success.

Going through life as a cynic about people’s motivations would make for a terrible way to live. Luckily, certain motivations are abundantly clear. Perhaps none are more clear than those of people who directly want your money – not the shop keepers or vendors in this case, but the homeless and other self-employed on the street. It’s not a fun thing to study, but it’s some of the most difficult direct response marketing. Living in one of the hubs of the street-employed, while working in performance marketing, it’s hard not to analyze the former and then apply the lens of the latter. Some of the behavior is just as disheartening as you might think, e.g., when the person with money is in need, they spend. When others are in need, they look for every reason not to. Overall, here’s what we’ve observed:

• Acts vs. Begging – This one is simple. Those who do something make more money. Those who have turned their request for money into an act do even better. There is a group of street performers at Central Park who routinely draw crowds of 50 people and have people pulling out $5 if not more. Theirs is a trick that lasts 15 seconds that they’ve built into an almost ten minute routine.

• Active vs. Passive – Direct response is an interruption based methodology. Those who jingle change or worse (for their livelihoods) sit silently with a sign and get passed up. People are happy having an excuse not to give, to find a way to tell themselves it’s okay to walk by. Direct marketing is about creating a sale when it wasn’t necessarily looking to happen. We as passersby might prefer the hands-off approach, but the people still successfully asking for money know that they can’t make money that way. All of which explains the success of the act, the pitch-man routine, where you get drawn in but not as directly accosted and then end up justifying money having seen a show.

• Seeing is Believing – Those who went to school in an urban environment become used to being asked for money, and they can tell you all sorts of stories that moved them. After doing it a few times, though, what you find is their being desensitized. The false positives have ruined the chances for the genuine person in need. You might think the reverse, given the success of the flogs, but in these cases it’s not a person helping the reader feel more comfortable about a product they don’t know. In the flogs too, they tap into aspects of authority and trust. But in the handout world, there aren’t the authority or trust anchors outside of true physical deformities. The others that do exist must override the innate mistrust. That Veteran’s ID? Could be fake. The military service outfit and paraphernalia? Available at any surplus store. Flogs work because it’s a person looking to convince themselves and to believe they found the answer. Here it’s someone not wanting to look foolish and erring on the side of callousness to protect themselves.

• Exploiting Bias – Think of biases a little bit like targeting. Giving is not equal opportunity or evenly distributed. That doesn’t come as a surprise to many, but after watching various ethnicities, there is a clear strategy involved. Target those most like you who should as a result feel more likely to give to you. We might like to think that anyone might give, but it just isn’t the case on average.

• Location Matters – Where bias is the advertising equivalent to targeting, location is the equivalent to traffic. If you want more conversions, you can do several things, one of which involves finding better sources of traffic. In the online world, it’s a little easier to map intent and predict likelihood of conversion. It is less predictable in the offline world. One of the surprises involves places of worship. They are not a great place for asking for money. Not surprisingly, if you are an act, doing it in a place with high density and high uniques works well. If you sit in a place with lesser traffic that consists mainly of the same people focused on getting from a to b, you will have a harder time.

• Social Proof – Ever wonder the power of the mobile IQ Quiz landing pages that have the people and their “scores” on the side? It helps you think that others are doing just what you are considering doing. Nothing helps loosen the purse strings more than knowing you aren’t alone. In many cases, giving money has little to do with the actual impact it makes on your financial situation. It is all about how you will feel after doing so. No one wants to be the lone sucker. They don’t want to be judged by others as having been duped. The power to getting money out of someone is to create a situation whereby they feel, if not good, at least, not negative. The best solution would be for street-employed to have another in the audience who gives, making others feel better about it. Those watching just want to know it’s okay to do something that they have been taught to do hesitantly, pull out their wallets.