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November 4, 2010What is Good Growth? #sme
November 8, 2010
Today’s post features something that arrived through my letter box the other day that I want to use to illustrate a point.
The image below is of a postcard-style direct mail piece that I received. Now, I don’t want to lambast the company involved but think it illustrates an important point that I’d like to make about how we communicate with our customers old and new.
Receiving the postcard, my first impressions was that I liked the way that they were reaching out to their existing customers to say ‘Hi’, that we like you and we’d love to see you again. Despite the fact that I am not a customer of this company and haven’t been since we moved to our current address (over 3 years ago) I thought that it must be addressed to an old resident and that their name needed to be cleaned from their database.
However, on flipping over the postcard I saw the following:
What struck me about this was that it wasn’t addressed to a previous resident and that it was a general piece of direct mail sent in the hope of driving new business. While I am not saying that direct mail doesn’t work, I think that we need to think carefully about how we communicate with our customers old or new and what messages we send when we do try and communicate with them.
This marketing piece raised some interesting questions about this company and their marketing for me, such as:
- Do they segment their customers?
- Do they talk to different customers in different ways? and
- If they don’t segment their customers, have they thought about the impression it makes on their customers old and new when they send out this type of marketing communication and offer?
The answers to these questions are obviously ‘No’ to each one but my next question was:
- What then does that imply in the minds of the customer?
Does it imply that, even if I am your customer, that you don’t care enough or are not willing to put in the effort to know and use my name and make it more targeted and personal? How does that make me feel? Is there any incentive therefore, beyond the offer, to be loyal?
This may seem like a bit of a rant, and it is a bit, but I think my point is an important one if we are to develop better relationships with our customers and that is: Don’t treat your existing customers like potentially new customers as that’s no way to build a relationship that is characterized by loyalty and recommendation.
Why do you think companies still send out these type of mixed messages and still expect customers to be loyal?
Answers on a postcard 😉 or in the comments below 🙂
Thanks to Kaitlin M for the main post image.
17 Comments
@TheRedRag Posted this up today http://bit.ly/aj9mGP you might find the case study interesting 😉
Is your marketing sending out mixed messages to your customers? http://bit.ly/aj18K3
RT @adrianswinscoe Is your marketing sending out mixed messages to your customers? http://bit.ly/aj18K3
Reading this post reminded me of how I felt when my current energy supplier phoned me to ask me whether I wanted to switch my energy supplier to them. I did feel like switching energy suppliers at that point – away from them.
I suspect that domino’s had decided to get Royal mail to leaflet drop everyone in your neighbourhood. Not pretty, or clever, but cheaper than the cost of the stamps.
The next question to ask – are these companies valuing loyalty?
Hi Heather,
Thanks for your comment and your story made me laugh. Isn’t it striking how many businesses forget or can’t see who their customers are?
Do you think it has something to do with silos in large corporates or departments not talking or working together?
Adrian
You’re right, whether it’s just bad marketing or, like here, potentially good marketing gone bad, the people responsible give themselves as too lazy to do a decent job.
Domino’s is a franchise operation so it would be interesting to hear if a good central idea was let down by central execution or the local franchisee.
I used to keep a file of bad marketing and poor copy but it got too big – these days I only hang on to the good stuff.
Hi Nick,
Interestingly I just sent a link to the article to someone I know who runs a number of these as franchise operations so I will wait to see what he comes back with. I’ll let you know the outcome.
In addition, I smiled about the idea of keeping a file of bad marketing stuff. I do the a similar thing but your point about the file getting to big is indicative of a malaise in marketing. Time for a change, no? And, what do you think we need to do to start that?
Adrian
It’s an interesting observation, and I love posts like this, because it makes me think that in the end it’s all an imprecise science. We’ve created an expectation that CRM is a precise science, and yet at best it balances on the point of a pin.
People move house, change their likes and dislikes, shop once somewhere and never again, like hot dogs one day and not the next. And yet we expect a company to know all about this based on perhaps, the one or two interactions that we may over a ‘lifetime’ have with them. I’m wondering just how a company should know all of this.
At the end of the day, how much do we really want a company to care about us? I want my wife and my kids to care about me, and me them. But am I that bothered if a company cares about me? Not really.
As for loyalty, that’s a whole different matter. And whilst we may want a company to be ‘loyal’ to me, it’s okay for me to be as disloyal as I want to them. I think sometimes we need to be careful how we bandy words such as ‘care’ or ‘loyalty’ about.
This also reminds me of a recent post by Seth Godin – Alienating the 2% [http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/11/alienating-the-2.html]. Businesses at best use a blunt sword mixed with a large amount of guesswork, which is at odds with our desire for them to know about me and my needs specifically. CRM has always and will always be an educated guess.
I’m also struck by the thought that if you had craved a pizza at the time, it could so easily have been a different blog post that you ended up writing.
Hi Guy,
Great perspective and addition to the post and I completely agree that CRM is a blend of art and science and that the big myth is that it is precise. No, it’s not precise and mistakes or errors will happen and companies that are striving to get better or build relationships with customers are more likely to be the ones making the mistakes as they push the boundaries……and create the 2% like you mentioned.
However, one of the main things that concerned me was the use of the ‘heart’ image, which does, in my mind, imply care. This was a point that I didn’t make very well in the post and is central to the whole mixed message idea. Sending hearts and not knowing my name just didn’t seem to fit together.
We do need to be careful about how we use ‘care’ and ‘loyalty’, what I wanted to do was not point the finger at the company per se but to use it to illustrate a point about the dangers that surround our marketing and what message we send out to our customers loyal or not and are they appropriate for the type of product/service, industry, level of connection, loyalty etc that we have with that customer.
STOP PRESS: In fact, whilst this is just a perspective piece it may be followed up by an ‘official’ follow up conversation piece with the company in question. Watch this space.
Finally, if I had been hungry at the time it could well have been a very different story 😉 Does that mean that it’s just a fickle industry or is it me? 🙂
Adrian
Hi Adrian
Enjoyed reading your post and the comments, which made me chuckle!
Indeed, I do think it could have been a difference story if you had craved a pizza, as Guy suggested. Like Heather, I would be tempted to switch energy suppliers because it seems a daft mistake to make with a current customer that could have been avoided. But then again, I’m on an energy supplier downer at present…..
What irritates me about Domino’s mailshot is that if you were such a ‘valued customer’ surely you’d have a name?! I received one of their generic leaflets through my door (at my new home) recently and may well order from them should I get a pizza craving:-) However, I don’t appreciate any non-personalised mailshot suggesting how valuable I am as a customer.
So I definitely agree, Adrian, that you/we shouldn’t “treat your existing customers like potentially new customers as that’s no way to build a relationship that is characterized by loyalty and recommendation.”
Equally, don’t treat potential customers like existing customers, for the very same reason!
Lynda
Hi Lynda,
Thank you for your comment and for providing a bit more evidence that this mailshot is not an isolated incident. And, I’m really pleased that we made you chuckle 🙂 Great to see and realise that this is not the end of the world and that we can laugh and learn from mistakes.
I guess my concern is……are we the vocal few? Does it matter what we think and write about? With the advent of social media I think it does. I think the bar is getting set higher and higher for companies. That can have two effects: 1. some will step up to the challenge, strive to get better, make a few mistakes, talk about it and learn from it and 2. others will step back as they see this new, emerging situation as complex, dangerous, more art than science and with too little control.
Is it too new and early to expect businesses to be in group 1 and should we give them a break? Or, should we not settle and be pushing them on to get better?
Personally, I think it’s a bit too ‘British’ to settle. What do you think?
Adrian
It is a conflicting strategy, if they were aiming to drive personal sales, the least they could do is address the person with their name. They could have gone off with getting their archived database, and started out with their loyal customers.
Hi Wesley,
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment. I couldn’t agree more that a name is important if you want to drive personal sales.
Thanks for dropping by and hope to see you here again.
All the best,
Adrian
Hi Adrian
I read today that yo are as strong as your weakest experience. This is a case in point. Some good worked wasted through bad work.
Cheers
Michael
Hi Michael,
That’s a great way to put it. A bit like the old quotes that are related to teams:
“You are only as strong as your weakest link” and
“You can only go as fast as your slowest member”
Thanks for that. I’ll remember that and will sure to be use it.
Adrian
Is your marketing sending out mixed messages to your customers? http://bit.ly/aj9mGP
Is your marketing sending out mixed messages to your customers? http://bit.ly/aj9mGP