When I was a child my mother always used to tell me to mind my P’s and Q’s. Now I’m constantly telling my clients to mind their C’s and D’s—their Cues and Drivers.
“Cues and Drivers are the critical ingredients for success when developing direct marketing campaigns, particularly Drivers, the ultimate motivators to action,” says Sally Moren, director of strategy at Wilde Direct and the architect of Cues and Drivers as a marketing tool.
“Drivers are those messages or graphic elements that focus on pressure points such as ‘need,’ ‘avoidance,’ and ‘satisfaction,’” Moren explains. “It is these emotional triggers that prove to your audience that you have a solution that will provide a specific benefit for them. Getting to the Drivers leads to higher response, more sales, and a more lucrative ROI.”
Before you get to the Drivers and start seeing an increase in sales, thoughm you first need to get to the customer through Cues.
The heart of a Cue can be traced back to general advertising, which focuses on creating preferences. “Cues are the set of product attributes that create affinity in the mind of the recipient. Cues are the beginning of a response building formula, not the end. The job of an effective set of Cues within a direct program is to set the stage or lay the groundwork for the real response workhorse–the Drivers,” says Moren.
In general advertising, there is a great deal of message focus on we/us and brand Cues. They are the “special something” that makes your brand better than the competition. In fact, they are your brand, and by using them you can create a connection with a general audience. To this end, the Cues must always answer the question: Are you talking about me? Are you speaking to my wants and preferences?
While this is outstanding stuff for a general advertising campaign, unfortunately this is where the strategy for many direct campaigns end–and the poor results prove it. Too often direct marketers rely only on the Cues to elicit the response from the reader. To be more relevant and effective you have to delve a little deeper into the unique Drivers that will motivate the reader to take action. As Moren explains, “Cues can only be used to create brand preference; the prospect is still qualifying you at this point. You need to find the emotional trigger that will push him to say, I need this now, so I will take this action.”
As you can imagine, Cues frequently stay constant among different audiences, whereas Drivers almost always vary. Because most direct campaigns focus exclusively on Cues, their message becomes too generic for their audiences and is ignored.
The problem is that Cues are often fact based and differentiate you only by a few degrees. This is critical to understand, because while customers and prospects narrow their choices based on these facts, they take action and buy based on emotional triggers–the Drivers. Therefore direct advertising is all about creating action with Cues and Drivers.
“To be effective, you have to be willing to move your project from a general advertising campaign to one that is truly direct, and take the we/us discussion to a ‘you/you’ level,” Moren says. “Prove to the recipients that you understand what it is about your brand that is relevant to them. Remind them of the Cues that led them to consider your brand, but also speak to them about the emotional or intellectual pressure points–the Drivers– that will motivate them to take action now.”
The Drivers that create relevance in your message can be defined only through quality data analysis (modeling, purchase analysis, psychographic analysis) and market research. Whether you use primary research (focus groups, executive interviews) or secondary (competitive analysis, market studies) research, you need attitudinal and situational data to define your message. This will give a thorough understanding of your customers’ and prospects’ needs, wishes, desires, likes, and dislikes. You will be able to create a message that will resonate, with an audience of one, at both a factual and emotional level by minding both your C’s and D’s.
Focusing on the Cues and Drivers will do more for you than improve response rates. It also speeds up the creative process. When blending the art and science of Cues and Drivers, you will elevate the creative development process from subjective to objective. It will also allow your creative team to focus less on color palettes and instead put more emphasis on the relevance of the message for each target segment.
In short, once you understand the Cues and Drivers by audience segment, you’ll be able to develop programs that resonate with each audience and will motivate your customers and prospects to take action. You’ll be able to focus on the “science” of producing more responses and be able to develop control, test, and roll out strategies quickly and efficiently.
Edward M. Cunningham is vice president of Wilde Direct, a Holliston, MA-based direct marketing agency.
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