“Junk Mail” could well be defined as mail that’s not relevant. Well, there’s still too much junk mail abounding. So being relevant is of increasing relevance. It’s in our own best financial interests, in the best interests of our prospects and clients… and in the best interests of our environment.
To achieve relevance, we need to acquire and use information about suspects, prospects and customers. There are two basic ways we can acquire this information — from third-party sources… or directly from the consumer.
Let’s look at third-party sources first. Technologically, economically, it’s never been easier to use third-party information. While credit-focused files are being withdrawn or further limited in their use, the major consumer database purveyors are compiling, sharing and massaging more information.
Let us suppose, for example, that you’re in the investment management business. Your prospects are individuals with investible assets of between $100,000-$1,000,000. They tend to be age 55+. Easy so far. But your best prospects are those who want to retain control, who don’t want to do their own investment homework, and whose tolerance for risk is moderate. No major household database can give you these characteristics directly.
The best you can probably do to find those displaying the control-but-no-homework characteristics is overlay information from a database of common stock and mutual fund purchasers. Those going through full-service brokers would certainly correlate to prospects needing guidance and avoiding homework. You might overlay the type of stock purchased (if such information were available) to arrive at a risk-taking index. And then there is the possibility that with enough time and money one of the major consumer database purveyors could find a correlative of risk-taking in multiple demographic or lifestyle factors.
So you have information enough to do your qualifying up front. There are however, two problems associated with using third-party information as a means of qualifying prospects and of achieving relevance. The first problem applies particularly to the financial services and investment arenas. It is that consumers don’t necessarily distinguish between invasion of privacy which exploits sensitive financial data and proper use of data for the sake of relevance. The second problem is that even if the third-party information is behavioral rather than demographic, too many assumptions have to be made to get to individual relevance.
Expensive as it may be up front, getting information from prospects and customers themselves may be the best long-term solution for most marketers. How much money does L.L. Bean save every year by asking new buyers which types of catalogs they’d like to receive? Achieving relevance can be as simple as that.
Let’s look at the case — and by the way, the case is real but the names and numbers have been disguised — of the Brown Company and its service 1-800-MARZIPAN. Through mass advertising and marketing partnership promotions, they have 4 million gift buyers of marzipan and other foods on their database. Of these 4 million, 3 million are one-time buyers and another 700 thousand have bought twice. Now the company had been mailing 3 million catalogs to this database, but the catalog has not performed.
The mandate is to cut the mailing by one million. Certainly you would continue to mail to the 300 thousand who bought three or more times… and probably to the 700 thousand who bought twice. But where will the other million names come from?
Well you can model the 300,000 best buyers and try to find their clones among the 3 million one-time buyers. You can even try to find and overlay demographic and lifestyle information that will help you isolate the true marzipan advocate.
But how about testing a simple questionnaire in the form of a double-postcard that also serves as an acknowledgement to first-time buyers immediately after their purchase? Three questions might do it:
- 1. How many times a year do you purchase Marzipan as a gift?
2. Will you increase your purchases now that 1-800-MARZIPAN makes it so easy for you? ( ) Yes ( ) No.
3. Would you like to receive a Gourmet Dessert Gift Catalog from 1-800-MARZIPAN? ( ) Yes ( ) No.
Even without demographic information on this card, I’d have a lot more faith in a mailing to those responding than to a selection of buyers chosen by even the most sophisticated modeling. These buyers qualified themselves.
A lot of people are afraid to ask questions, particularly of prospects. In fact, there was an old axiom that the more questions you asked on a response form, the worse your response would be. There is a limit to the number of questions you can ask of course, but asking some questions may turn out to be a better response tactic than asking no questions.
At Business Week nearly twenty years ago we tested dropping the three or four reader qualification questions. The results were that response actually dropped — by almost 20% — when we did so. And these questions were not asked to gain relevance.
The benefits of asking questions go beyond getting relevant information. Customers want to be part of the marketing process from the beginning, and answering questions about their needs and preferences makes them a part of the process. Involvement — and the survey or quiz is a great involvement device (as the editors of Cosmopolitan know) — involvement invites response, now and later.
If we want to capture information for incorporation into a database, the consumer must fill out and return the questionnaire or survey. Response rates are often quite low and the economics of distributing the questionnaire must be weighed… but certainly the answers that come back can help improve the relevance of the marketer’s next communication, even to that small segment.
For example a mailing from Acura addressed present and prior owners of the car. The letter does some audience-targeting, and then gets on with the main business of the mailing — qualification. The second paragraph reads “Please take a moment to answer the brief survey attached. Your response will allow us to provide you with information that is most important to you about this new car.”
Now to the survey itself. The first question allows the owner to rank the most important factors in making a purchasing decision. When Acura sends more information, it can home in on each individual’s key factors.
The second and third questions ask about what makes and models of car the consumer might consider. Copy that compares Acura to Lexus, for example, is going to be so much more relevant than more general copy simply stating that Acura is better than other cars.
The fourth question asks about leasing. Again, those sure about leasing will get a different kind of follow-up package than those saying they will definitely not lease.
The fifth question is the “When” question… and too many of us don’t ask it. The urgency and frequency of communications should be very different to those who have checked off 0-3 months vs. 13 months or longer.
Switching from consumer to business-to-business marketing, a direct mail package from Airborne Express was highly successful for them for a number of years. It attracted attention with price, made an argument for equivalent service with FedEx, and justified why they charge so little. Focusing on the response form, they asked five questions — weekly volume, international usage, current carrier, number of employees in the company, and features of the service most important. Interestingly, answers to only one of these questions (and Airborne Express management wouldn’t tell me which one) are used for the fulfillment of the starter kit. That was a shame because the circular states unequivocally that Airborne knows exactly who its customers are. Perhaps… but the fulfillment materials surely won’t reflect that knowledge.
The interactive survey can be used in another way, too. If it’s interesting enough, you can offer to send results to participants. While this technique works better with longer surveys and in business-to-business situations, it has also been used for consumer applications. Amore Cat Foods used a 21-question survey highly successfully in its program to known purchasers of canned cat food.
Now let’s look at a survey used in the qualification process in a much different way. While you return this survey, its answers are not fed into the database, nor are they used to make the next step in communications more relevant. This was a mailing for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
The survey was used much more as an involvement device than in the Airborne or even the Acura mailings. It let the prospect think that he or she is contributing to the cause on a rational, logical basis (even though each of the questions is emotionally-charged). As much as any other element in the mailing, the questions focused the reader’s attention on critical issues and allow that reader to be proactive (“This is the way I feel… and therefore I’m making a contribution”).
Now we can take the survey one step further. The interactive questionnaire, while it provides marketers with useful information about the prospect or customer, may not be as effective a qualification device as the self-reflexive questionnaire. What do I mean by “self-reflexive”? This would be a questionnaire which has consumers spend more time thinking about themselves in relation to the benefits of the product/service than about the wording and politics of the answers. These questionnaires aren’t returned… in fact prospects don’t respond physically at all unless they pass the self-administered test. What they are saying to themselves is “Hey this is me, and I have to take the next step because it sounds like this product/service can benefit me.”
Remember the investment management example? Here’s how a self-reflexive questionnaire was used in the qualification process extremely effectively — to augment what was done with third party information. The objective of the package was to generate qualified leads — either appointments for a consultation or requests for more detailed information.
The brief letter talked about the prospect’s needs, an approach for meeting those needs, and how to learn more about the approach. The questionnaire, referred to as the “Personal Investor Quiz” was positioned in the last paragraph almost as a Freemium (that’s a premium the prospect doesn’t have to wait for).
The survey card began with “Could you profit from the disciplined one-on-one approach to investing offered by Chase Manhattan Investment Services? Before you decide, ask yourself the following questions:” The questions not only probed the psyches of the prospects and got them to think about their investing habits… but perhaps just as importantly brought out the differentiating benefits of Chase’s service. The seven questions included:
- “Are my investments guided by a professionally-developed plan that lets me feel I’m in control of my investments and my future?”
- “Could I benefit from access to some of the country’s top independent money managers, and help in selecting the ones that are right for me?”
- “Do I understand what rate of return I’ve achieved on my investments… and what risks I’ve taken to get there?”
- “Would I benefit from having more time devoted to the management of my investments?”
- “Will I have at least $50,000 available to invest within the next 12-24 months?”
In focus groups conducted prior to mailing, investors loved this last question. Based on the previous packages they reviewed, they thought the service was meant only for those with portfolios in excess of $1 million. So the dollar amount actually set their minds at ease.
One of the secrets of success of this package was that it allowed investors to take any step they wanted — either sending for detailed information, or asking for a consultation. Most opted for the former. In many lead generation situations, self-qualification works only if you know how much of a commitment to go for at any one time.
Because they don’t have to be returned, self-reflexive questionnaires can be used in media other than direct mail. They will work in print ads and statement stuffers and they’re a natural for the Internet. If the questions are simple enough, they may even be worth testing on radio or television. A highly-successful TV spot for an auto insurance company began with a self-quiz.
In conclusion, think about surveys, questionnaires and quizzes in your direct marketing strategies. They’re a way of generating information that can make future communications to individuals much more relevant. They’re a way of presenting information that can make your lead-generation efforts more involving and hence draw out more of your top prospects. They’re incredibly useful for finding potential prospects before they come into the marketplace. They’re compatible with the interactive age and the age of personal marketing in a way that information overlays can never be.
Lee Marc Stein heads his own direct marketing strategy and creative services firm. The consultancy contributes to its clients’ profitable growth through sound marketing and test plans, creative development and execution, database and media maximization, and customer nurturing programs. Lee works with all size companies in both consumer and business markets. Contact Lee at 631 724-3765, lmstein@optonline.net, or through http://www.leemarcstein.com/.
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