Last week I had a visit from one of Royal Mail's New Business Managers to discuss Direct Mailing options Royal Mail has to offer small businesses. We are always interested in trying out different marketing methods and this meeting would go deeper into the option "home-movers".
The Royal Mail person had experience in helping to organise a marketing campaign for small to medium businesses targeting those who are about to move home or had just moved. Since Ashford Borough with its new excellent High Speed Link to London (and the Eurostar to mainland Europe) it is getting more and more attractive for commuters looking for a more rural (and cheaper than London) life. A great source of new prospects for us, but how to find them in time?
Moving home is rather stressful, specially the way here in England you seem to buy a house - for us Dutch people still a very strange and unbelievable illogical and even weird way: until the actual exchange date the deal could go pear-shaped and accepted offers don't seem to mean anything at all. And everyone is in a chain of selling/buying homes where if only one shackle breaks all the other deals are off too - with no compensation for the "innocent".
Until the actual exchange no-one is even certain the home of their dream will be theirs and therefore no one ever plans many new items for the new home in advance.
Which means we - as retailer in wooden floors - should not contact possible new prospects in the area until after they truly moved in (in a chain everyone seems to move on the same day or weekend because the next new owner is queuing up) and the dust of the stressful move has settled. For us from a different country where you would have at least one week to prepare your new home (including new floor covering) for the arrival of the contents of your old home a strange concept to get used to.
The direct mail marketing campaign we wanted to discuss would therefore focus on an informative way to new arrivals in the area about their existing floor covering, very often "inherited" from the previous owner. Being informative has always been and always will be a large part of our marketing strategy, direct mail marketing using home-movers data from the Royal Mail would be a new tactic for us.
During the conversation with the New Business Manager we discussed how we market our business normally, the internet and email marketing are still the main tactics. We do have one "paper" ad in a local "Village Directory" that is publish monthly, contains ads from local businesses and local news. It's distributed in many villages around Ashford town, and in our experience is the only paper ad that works for us.
In the latest Village Directory a editorial about our recently publish book "Wooden Floor Installation Manual" shows on the same page as our ad. When I showed this to our guest he skimmed the editorial and immediately remarked:
"Well, your branding is missing."
(The editorial has a headline: "Planning to Install a Wooden Floor", not a "headstone" and no logo of our business, the simple contact details can be found at the bottom of the article, just above our ad - again without a typical "branding" headstone.)
He completely missed the message in the article, the offer to help solve a problem. Fortunately the readers of the Village Directory care more about the message than about the missing banding "headstone".
This morning, enjoying my first cup of coffee of the day, I continued reading my copy of the Age of Conversation 3 - It's time to get busy - and was reminded of the above misguided remark when I came to the excellent contribution of Efrain Mendicuti (page 59) "Branding is not about your ad campaign".
Mr Royal Mail New Business Manager seems to think it is, headstone included. Pity.
(In the end Royal Mail also does not seem to understand that a new marketing campaign, especially when using a new method - new for us - the first test should be small. A minimum of 5000 addresses of home-movers is not small, not in our book. So, back to the drawing table - new tactic already found and in the process of being implemented coming month, as a small test.)
Talking about branding and "headstones" - how about Google's latest "logo" display!
The text in the extra button below the "logo" is IMHO absolutely priceless!
They are welcome to it, and well done to put a smile on many faces. I lost count of all the tweets yesterday and today pointing me towards this remarkable piece of creativity.
For our business I'm more than happy our brand gets across as being the most informative business, helping to solve problems in regards of wooden floors - before, during and after the installation of it.
Honestly think this does not need a headstone or logo. Just the right message.
Fantastic article Karin!
I wonder if the Royal Mail New Business Manager ever spent any of his or her OWN money on advertising his or her OWN business. (I'm guessing not!)
Reminds me of the marketing design agency I paid to design me a fancy brochure, back in the mid 90's. They told me it didn't need much writing, "the design is more important" they said.
Unfortunately back then I didn't know any better and paid £6000 for 500 brochures - which included an extra charge to have them laminated (because they'll feel better quality which is important... of course the agency also, incidentally could charge more!)
The day they 'unveiled' my shiny new full colour laminated brochures they told me "they're a license to print money, all you need to do is post them out to win new clients."
So I did... and got zero response.
A few years later I even heard the design agency went bust!
Seems neither they nor the Royal Mail person ever heard of direct response advertising. Shame then they're going in and 'advising' small business owners on what to do.
Posted by: Ed | May 22, 2010 at 05:27 PM
Hi Ed
That remark from the "manager" brought everything I've learned and implemented with decent success over the last few years in "disrespect". You, Paul Gorman, Richard Calderwood and others I consider my generous teachers are IMHO much more in "the know" on what "branding" is, and it is indeed much, much more than just a fancy logo or as your story relates a shinny brochure.
During the discussing at one point I got really fed up and told him: you know what, you take care of the data and I'll take care of the marketing - each its own expertise. Well, in the end it turns out he's not taking care of anything for us.
You know how one thing can lead to another, when one door closes another one opens? The refusal from Royal Mail on the small test triggered new ideas of what a combined effort could create. Then knowing who has what experience, contacts and the logistics and then feeding a half-baked idea to them is now on its way to become real - to the advantage of more local businesses struggling or even banging their head against Royal Mail's refusal to cater for small tests for small businesses.
Take care and thanks for dropping by
Karin H
Posted by: Karin H. | May 23, 2010 at 11:17 AM