Tony Attwood's Blog

If you have a postal mailing job you need doing, during August Hamilton House will undertake it with a 30% discount on the labour, envelopes, and (in most cases) addresses.

But you don’t have to have the mailings posted until September – or October if you wish.

To clarify the address situation – if we can supply the addresses from our normal database of business or school postal addresses we will give the discount.  We will of course talk it through with you so you know exactly whether you can get the discount or not.

But with envelopes and labour – we have a standard prices, and if we can do the job in August, we’ll apply the discount.

However as noted above you don’t have to have the mailing posted until September.  As long as we can do the job in August we can hold it in our warehouse and post it out when you want – at any time until the end of October.  All you have to do is pay the invoice for the work done, by the day it is due, and pay the postage in advance of the mailing date.

If you would like to know more, do call 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

I have often written to say that with B2B and B2C email marketing it is often necessary to build your own list.

This can be done, but it takes a little time, and generally involves gathering the email addresses of customers as they buy, while doing some telephone research on potential customers.   (If you would like to talk about either or both approach let me know – we often get involved in this sort of research work and can put together valuable lists of customer and potential customer email addresses).

But, as I say, such work takes a little time, and can cost a little money.

Which is why the notion of being able to buy in an email list of potential customers is so attractive.

Now we all know that each campaign consists of three elements: the creative material that you send out, the offer and the mailing list, and in any test we need to know which of these three elements we are looking at.

I’m in the fortunate position of being able to utilise creative copy which I know works, because it has been tested elsewhere before.  And I know the offer that we have works (an offer of a free report on how to do email marketing) again because we have tested it before.  I offer this report free simply to get the email addresses of interested people.

Past experience shows that with a semi-decent list such an advert can bring in a 5% response rate – occasionally even more.

In this case however we got a response rate of 0.01%.

The list in question was purchased on disk.  It contained 50,000 email addresses and cost us £250.  And now we know it brings in a result of 0.01% when offering a free item.

We did this experiment as part of our eternal research project into how direct marketing works and to keep an eye on what our competitors are offering, and inevitably in such a explorations, we will waste a bit of money and get some bad results.

So it was not too disastrous a situation for us – we expect this to happen sometimes.

But it could be a big problem for a company that has not been involved with email marketing before, for such a firm would not know if the problem was caused by the email list, email itself, the product or the copy.  Experience suggests that most firms tend to blame email, and then stop using it.

I’ve proved to my own satisfaction over and over again that email marketing can work, but the copy, the list and the offer all have to be right.

Getting all three right is what we do through our Velocity programme, and through individual projects.  If you are interested please do call 01536 399 000 or see www.velocity.ac

You can stay in touch with all our writings on direct marketing via Twitter @HHMailings

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

Research recently published by Marketscan confirms the view that I have been suggesting for some time – that direct mail is on the way back after its decline a couple of years ago.

60% of respondents to their survey said they are using direct mail in isolation or as part of an integrated campaign.

More of a surprise is that 57% of respondents using telemarketing either on its own are as part of an integrated programme.  I find that a surprise unless the majority of those involved are using telephone work as part of the research (getting the right person’s name, email address etc).

Email was only used by 33% of respondents.

I would suspect the latter low figure comes from two problems: one being the fact that in most areas it is now necessary to go out and reserach one’s own lists – the email lists that can be bought off the shelf are really quite poor.  (We are just doing an experiment with one such list and I’ll report our findings shortly).

The other is that writing good email copy is not common sense or intuitive.  It can be done, but it is not that easy.

If you would like to talk about the mix, the lists, the creative or the price of a cup of tea in Trafalgar Square do give me a call.  I always like a chat.

Tony Attwood

01536 399 000

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An email list of your customers and potential customers is one of the most valuable things you can have.  In almost every case companies with such a list generate far more sales at far lower cost per sale, than those without such a list.

And yet most companies don’t have such a list – or if they do have it, they don’t keep it up to date, and don’t use it.

The reason why many firms don’t have such a list is that they are not sure how to put one together.  The reason why they don’t use the list when they have it is because a) they think it is not complete and b) they don’t have the technology to send out the emails.

So, I am going to try and answer both points in this, and my next email.

First, how to put such a list together:

There are five ways of doing it.

1: Go to your existing customers and potential customers and tell them that there is a free newsletter available from you.  Tell them what the newsletter contains (in some detail – not just generalities), extol the benefits, remind them that it is free, and confirm the basics (that they can leave at any time, and that their email address will never be given to any one else.

2: Make the sign up easy.  I mean really easy.  If you want to see an example of a dead easy sign-up go to www.schools.co.uk/subscribe.html and you’ll see approach that we have set up.

3: Write to potential customers and offer them something free – such as a report or article that will be of great interest to them.  But point out that to get it they have to email you.  Then add each of these people to your email list of subscribers.

4: Go through your customer and enquirers list and extract all the email addresses that you can from that.  Ask all your new customers to give you their email address as part of the order process so you can get back to them quickly if there is any problem with the order.  If orders come through a central ordering department ask for the email of the originator, in case there is a question about the detail of the product.

5: Advertise the newsletter on your web site – on virtually every page.

You might feel that one or two of these approaches are not appropriate for you – fair enough – but I really don’t know any companies for whom none  of the approaches is any good.

Companies that are part of our Velocity programme can have the building of such a mailing list as part of the work we do for them each month.  There’s details on www.velocity.ac – but you can of course do it yourself.

Coming up next: how to run the newsletter.  But if you would like to talk to me, do give me a call on 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

One of the things that many firms ought to do but don’t do (in my opinion) is check what the competition is doing in terms of their advertising.

At the very least I feel all companies should visit their rivals’ web sites, look at prices, look at the layout, check ease of use, and then (if possible) sign up for any newsletters etc, using an email address that doesn’t immediately identify the requester as you.  (Indeed I would suggest you set up a couple of email addresses specifically for this purpose.  You might also want to find an alternative address for receiving postal mail from competitors – either your home address, or that of a friend or relative).

Having gained such information there is then the question of what you do with this analysis: do you copy the competitor or do you do something quite different?

My view is that latter – do something different, although I often hear people say the opposite – especially when the rival is a bigger company than yours.

Unfortunately I have never seen this technique of trying to look bigger than you are by looking like a big competitor, actually work.  All that seems to happen is that people recognise you look like a rival, and continue to work with a rival.

Having a different approach to your marketing however can really bring in customers who are looking for an alternative.  The chances are, if the competition is bigger than you, they won’t think of moving to you unless you offer something different – so you might as well show your difference through the marketing.

This difference can be expressed through your means of marketing (if the rivals announce their products, push the benefits. If they use benefit marketing, move over to price or “interesting questions” and so on).

Likewise if they have a vibrant newsletter, don’t try and copy that – but if they don’t have one, or if they have one but nothing much happens on it, set up your own.   If their web site is strong on pictures but low on technical information, background,support etc, go down that route.

So it is always a good idea to call and ask for a brochure, and see how quickly it arrives, and what the quality is.  You might be up against a multi-national – but if they are just trading on their name and reputation but are very slow at sending out brochures etc, that might be your way in.

Checking on what the competition is doing is part of what we do for our Velocity clients, and we’re always happy to talk such approaches through, and indeed do a little research for you before you sign up.   There’s details of Velocity on www.velocity.ac – or call 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

Some firms are telling me that their sales through the post and email are poor.  Others are reporting that things are working well.

So what makes the difference?

One particular point (and one I have mentioned a few times of late) is that direct mail is increasingly playing a part here.  Some products will sell through email, but for some this is the time to go back to postal mail.  The cost is higher of course but the results can clearly overcome the costs and make a profit.  (And as I always point out, one can always test small numbers to prove the point).

Many other points have come out of our discussions on why some things are selling at the moment and others not.  Of course as a writer I would always say “it is the copy” – but even I would admit it is also the essence of the product and the offer.

Here’s one example: take the question of the “unique selling point”.  Everyone knows that one is needed, and most firms claim to have one.  But as we have looked into the results of some companies that are not doing so well at present, one big reason seems to be that the USP is not unique at all.

Consider a USP that relates to the quality of the service that the company gives, getting the job done quickly, efficiently and politely on time every time.  That’s good, there is no denying that, and past customers will recognise this and remember it.

But it is not unique and as such it is not a USP.  It is a reputation – and we have found that it is very hard at the moment to sell on reputation.

The fact is that in each product area there are always companies that share a reputation for quality, reliability and so forth.  Having such a reputation is good – but it cannot be used with success as a USP.

Which leads on to this point: to sell well you need to be supplying what the customer wants.  Your reputation can help, and a USP is certainly good, but giving the customer what he/she wants at this moment is essential too.

Now that may sound so utterly obvious that you are tempted to delete this file at once on the grounds that I have finally slipped over the edge, but please give me another second.

I appreciate the argument that “my product is what it is.  I can’t change it.”  Yet in a way I think this can be done – through changing what the product is seen as.

In short, the product can be just the product (it is a chair, it is an accounting system, it is a computer…) or it can be seen as something more than this.

Imagine you are selling a product that does a good job and is well liked, but is in a very crowded market.  You can claim your product does the business – that’s its benefit.  But everyone else claims that too.   What to do?

Our suggestion is that instead of focussing just on the benefits of the product, you also focus on the feature that makes your product different.

Now that seems like a reversal of everything that is ever written in any marketing book, where it always says, “sell benefits not features”.  But there are times (especially in highly competitive markets) where pointing out your product’s unique features, and linking this with the benefits, can work a treat.

So the benefit is still that this is a sturdy piece of furniture, or a great accountancy program, but now you are also telling the customer that the key is your use of one particular factor, or approach, or glue, or insight or anything else.  In fact you cite the PRODUCT X that makes your product or service different.

(Now at this point some people tell me that they don’t have product X, but I have invariably found that we can find one – if we look hard enough).

It is a difficult issue to talk through without examples, and I cannot (for confidentiality reasons) give you details of how we have used this approach with other products.  But if you would like to call me to talk about your product I will try and give you an example of how it might work for you.

The fact is that some firms are getting really good results with our marketing services, and these are often ones that have changed their approach recently – especially where they have difficulty in not having a unique selling point that is truly unique.

If you would like to explore this further, please do give my colleagues or I a call on 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood