Experimentation is important – at least that is my view in terms of direct marketing.

This philosophy is not just something I pass on to our clients, when I suggest that they trial an idea rather than jumping straight in with it immediately.  It is also something that Hamilton House has done for many years.

Indeed most of the recommendations that we make to our clients are based on experiments that we have carried out over the years.

One particular experiment started in 2001 when I hit on the notion that it should be possible to build a brand image without going to all the expense of hiring brand consultants and buying in a lot of display advertising.

My thinking was that if one created a brand name, and wrote about it regularly in a series of sales letters, one could create the brand in the readers’ minds and thus do the branding job at a fraction of the price.

For this experiment I decided to invent a public house, and I gave it the rather eccentric name “The Toppled Bollard”.  (There is a reason for this, but you are going to have to call me to find out!)

Every two weeks thereafter I wrote a little story of around 300 words, and put that as the front item in each promotion.  It became, in fact, the sales letter.

What was interesting was the way in which the name The Toppled Bollard stuck in people’s minds in association with ourselves.  Indeed years after we stopped running the stories people who had never been customers of ours would refer to it.

The Toppled Bollard therefore always gave us a way into the conversation – when people phoned there was a warmth that came from them – even when they were highly dubious about direct mail.

A typical conversation would run…

Potential Customer: Of course I don’t read any of this junk mail, but I’m told that this might be the way forward for us.

Me: Well we do try and get non-readers to read our direct mail through our unusual approach.

Potential Customer: Oh yes, I like your Toppled Bollard stories.

Me: That’s interesting. You don’t read any direct mail, but you know the name of a mythical pub that I wrote about for a few years…

My point is that as a branding exercise it worked gloriously.  It created a concept that people always associated with us.  “Hamilton House?  Oh you’re the guys who write those stories about the pub…”  We became well known because of our advertising – the perfect example of branding.

Thus we’ve proven that branding through direct marketing (either by email or by direct mail or indeed on a blog) can work very well, and at a fraction of the cost of normal branding.

If you would like to talk about branding do give me a call on 01536 399 000. If you have any questions you can email tony@hamilton-house.com

And if you would like to read some of the Toppled Bollard stories I am gradually putting them up on www.blog.toppled.info There’s a mix of the original stories that launched the idea, and one or two more recent ones as well.