One of the real benefits of working in an agency environment is the constant exposure to new and different marketing challenges across a range of industries.  And while each industry is fundamentally different, the commonalities are what I am most drawn to.

Recently, I have spent time actively seeking those parallels…and given more thought to how I might use these insights to benefit our clients.

So think about this.  What do pet owners have in common with those who opt to have their oil changed on a regular basis?  How has the economy influenced these two apparently distinct consumer groups in common ways?  Sure enough, we see that spending during these tough times…on vehicle maintenance and on pet care…has been under pressure, though consumers are spending relatively less in so many other areas.

But the pressure is still there…and marketers have to drive repeat purchase activity and aggressively reinforce benefits, especially when it comes to premium products.  Based on our proprietary research in the pet arena, that means tapping into consumers’ emotions about giving pets the very best, given all of the emotional support that pets provide during these tough economic times.  In the oil change arena, the message is about the increased importance of maintaining your vehicle when cash flow is low…in an effort to avoid more costly repairs.

And I continue to believe that, when the economy tanks, the need to maintain relationships with customers is more critical than ever.  Rather than slowing down on messaging, marketers must acknowledge the situations that their customers face and showcase how continued engagement with their brand will help them weather the storm.

So once again, while the industries seem to be completely different, those who market to pet owners and oil change customers have more in common than at first blush.

While reading the recent stories about Captain Morgan’s guerrilla marketing effort with the NFL, I realized that we’re often tasked with similar objectives for developing social media campaigns. There are huge audiences out there actively communicating and brands want to be part of the conversation, but is inserting our message really the right approach?

A quick background for those of you who missed the news…recently, Captain Morgan created a promotion to provide donations to charity for NFL players who struck the Captain Morgan pose after completing a touchdown. Quite honestly, this was a brilliant concept, in perfect alignment with the brand, provided support to a good organization and was intended to make a significant brand impact in front of a lot of people. But the problem with this was that the NFL does not allow players to do any promoting on the field during a game.

Why is this territory protected? The NFL thrives on advertising and sponsorships; there are plenty of great places to put your messaging surrounding games–tv commercials, on the scoreboard, throughout the stadium, even flying overhead, so why not in the game? It’s pretty simple. When you bring marketing campaigns onto the field, you distract from the game, weaken the experience for the participants and the audience and, in the end lose focus of the real meaning of the event itself.

When brands that want to insert themselves into the conversation apply this approach to the social media space, you can expect similar results. Social media is about conversations. As marketers, when we see audiences actively communicating and we want to be part of it, but we can’t just barge in and strike a pose. So let’s take a lesson from sports marketing: The key to social marketing is to look for ways to surround the conversation and get invited in…rather than just standing there with your leg in the air.

According to a recent study, 66% of Americans do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests. Reading this statement made me wonder: Is that a true feeling, or perhaps was the question worded in the wrong manner? For years, studies have shown that when asked, consumers adamantly believe that advertising doesn’t affect their purchase decisions, but clearly we know that this isn’t true.  So rather than focusing on the negative perception of targeted ads, I wanted to point out some key benefits targeting provides to consumers.

1 – Less advertising
In the ideal world, advertisers truly only want to reach prospects who have interest in their products and services. Any other spending is wasted. Advertisers don’t want to be everywhere; they want to be where their prospects are. So if we can reach better prospects in fewer places, the amount of advertising consumers are exposed to is going to decline.

2 – More relevant advertising
Given my age and gender, I often fall into the “sports loving” demographic profile and, thus, frequently see ads related to sports. But to be honest, I don’t follow sports at all. When I see these types of ads, I usually ignore them, but if I see ads related to things I do like, I pay more attention. While it may be subtle, my consumer experience is better when appropriate ads are immersed in relevant content.

3 – Lower prices
This point may not seem so obvious, but if it’s true that “half of the money spent on advertising is wasted” (J. Wanamaker), more efficient advertising lowers a marketer’s overall costs, which in turn, down the line would result in shifts in pricing strategy. An interesting related side note about this consumer benefit can be found in the the same study, less than 50% of respondents were opposed to receiving discounts tailored to their interests. For those of you who are counting – that’s a 35% shift in attitude compared with tailored advertising.

Given these three points, how do you think consumers would respond to this question: Would you like to see fewer, more relevant ads for products that cost less? I believe you’d see a much different result. There are some very real concerns about consumer privacy that need to be addressed and will be critical to successful behavioral targeting…but there are also significant consumer benefits. So let’s make sure we’re not throwing out the baby with the bath water.

One of the benefits of Catalyst Direct being located in Rochester, NY is our access to leading universities, including Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). 

Specifically in regard to personalized print communications, RIT has the only formal program in Imaging Science in the nation and the first nationally recognized information technology degree, created in 1993.  This proximity and knowledge has helped us to become one of the leaders in the country in implementing variable date printing (VDP) solutions—which we do for a number of clients.

However, we sometimes take it for granted.

It’s funny, having been involve in variable data printing for more than 5 years, it seems like a normal thing to us. Yet, we are constantly amazed at new business prospects that don’t really have an understanding of VDP in principle or application.

Variable data printing takes the power and targeting of traditional direct marketing and energizes it by making it even more personal with specific content and images.  In its simplest form, it’s personalizing the salutation or name or swaps out images based on the target’s gender.  More robust VDP uses specific content where there may be amazing amounts of customized information for hundreds of markets, with text and images for groups or individuals based upon which segment of the market being addressed.

We use VDP to speak to customers of our clients not only by name, but based on where they live, their behavior, habits, past purchases, equipment used or vehicles types and more.  It’s a powerful tool that enables us to make content relevant—to take it beyond advertising to become information that they want to use because it’s personal to them. 

Want to learn more? Drop me a note or call me at 585-453-8309.

I recently spoke with Ginger Conlon in the 1to1 Blog about how consumer behavior is changing, especially in the way customers communicate and interact with brands. Consumers are much more empowered. Increasingly they interact with businesses when, where, and how they want. Today, one of business’s greatest challenges is to keep up. 

There are four four areas that businesses should improve in to keep pace with customers’ changing expectations:

Catalyst Direct and our client, Valvoline Instant Oil Change (VIOC), have been awarded the Silver award in the Analytics and Modeling Applications Category by the National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM). The Database Excellence Awards honor organizations that have demonstrated ingenuity and creativity in leveraging their marketing databases. Read the press release here.

I contributed to an article for last weeks’ DM News, titled “Adding Dimension to DM Success”. You can read the entire article here. For the right target, and the right product or service, nothing works like getting a “present” in the mail. We recommend a dimensional piece for a number of our clients, because the engagement level is so great. And most importantly, because they work. Here’s one we recently mailed for Weyerhaeuser. You can check it out in our portfolio

We rely on research and testing to optimize the user experiences we build for our clients.   Sometimes it’s big stuff, and sometimes it subtle stuff: What a difference a few pixels make (via CNET News) provides a great example of how granular these tests can be–and how much they can matter to the bottom line.

For years, I’ve talked about the importance of scannability in any online presentation. (My coworkers are definitely sick of hearing me talk about scannability AND exploration.)

I’ve written and edited my share of thousand-word articles, don’t get me wrong. But the more I watched Web traffic reports and usability testing, the more I evangelized scannability (and specifically, short bulleted lists).

Michael Agger has a piece in Slate that cleverly summarizes the arguments for and the importance of scannability. (Although in general I have negative feelings about overuse of the sentence fragment and … within a paragraph. So I take exception to that suggestion.)

He also makes an excellent point about reading speed and font. (Although, again, I prefer to stick with Arial because it scores best across both online and offline platforms.)

Anyway, it’s definitely worth a read: “Lazy Bastards: How we read online”

An interesting post from Steve Feinberg (Belly of the Beast Blog) about Why CMOs Keep Getting Fired.