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Tuesday, 29 September 2015 by Unknown

How to Fix Direct Marketing Biggest Problem

Photo credit: www.flickr.com/photos/mueredecine
What is the BIG question every consumer asks when faced with a seemingly out of the blue marketing phone call, SMS or email?
Answer: "Where did you get my details from?" you scream...
Of course, no matter how great the product/service or how perfectly timed the contact, you will always see a minority of people wholl complain about the marketing intrusion even though its 100% compliant (well it was yesterday!). So putting that small proportion of consumers who suffer from compliant marketing to one side....
However we can do something to help the vast majority of complainers and answer the single big question above by stopping the use of data sourced from anonymous third party marketing opt-in tickboxes. The standard opt-in tickbox wording tends to state carefully selected partners may contact you about relevant marketing offers. The biggest problem with the phrase carefully selected partners - is that it provides next to zero protection and traceability for consumers to establish how their details were passed on - surely they have a right to know?
Lets now imagine a new world where all data used for direct marketing was labelled with origin of place and date of opt-in. If we ask the BIG consumer question again:
Question: Where did you get my details from?
Answer: Looking at our records, I can see you opted into xxxx list/site on 1st May 2015
Hey presto! This sounds fair. The result of this additional key info to each data record has three benefits:
  1. Puts the consumer at ease that you are a bona-fide company who cares where their details originated
  2. Increases the chance of a positive experience and resulting transaction taking place
  3. Reduces the probability that complaints get escalated to the ICO, DMA, FRSB - or any number of other regulators, media outlets and government departments
So it could be time for the whole Direct Marketing industry to swallow hard and take a leap into a world of ethically sourced data AND being happy to prove it to consumers on demand.
To break the status quo and raise the best practice bar to ethical status, we need to:
  • Ban sales of generic anonymous third party marketing opt-in data which emanates from risky third party marketing statements
  • Stamp each data record used for marketing with place of origin and date of opt-in. This information must be freely available to consumers in print on email, paper or spoken word,
The BIG Question is...
Whos in?

Friday, 1 May 2015 by Unknown

Co-registration - Every Marketer's Guilty Pleasure?

Credit: flickr thepeachmartini
You mention co-reg and most marketers will fall into one of three categories:
  1. Er, whats this co-registration thingy about again?
  2. Tried it, didnt work for me
  3. I love it, but Im not going to brag about it
If you answered 1, 2 or 3 you need to keep reading...
It may not be sexy or what you always dreamed of in your formative years at Marketing School... but, damn, what wont win best looks in a marketing beauty contest does deliver stonking results!
Using the UK market as an example, what other channel can give you....
 ... opt-in email leads for 50p which convert at 30% to double opt-in (DOI)?
... telephone leads for £1 which convert to sale at 10-15% on calling?
(Contact me if you want case studies)
The uniqueness of co-reg bobbing amongst the sea of lead generation channels is what makes it unrivaled in terms of performance and misunderstanding in equal measures.

What makes it unique

  • Only lead gen channel purely priced on cost per lead (CPL)
  • Highest opt-in rate from impression - think 5% versus 0.5% on performance display ads or email marketing
  • Huge scale - 1 million UK leads in a month is doable
  • Lowest cost in generating leads compared with other channels
  • 1-click sign-up - hyper convenient for consumers to opt-in

Why is it misunderstood

  • Driven by native style advertising
  • Youre unlikely to stumble across a co-reg site - they have no SEO value as Google bot crawlers cant creep past the initial registration page so you must be driven there by push email, display, mobile marketing
  • Dual registration process means you need to appreciate how opt-in consent and privacy policies work
  • Predominance of competition style publisher sites
  • Huge variance in lead quality from best to worst from similar looking sites
  • Labour intensive to manage the data without the right know-how and lead management technology
  • Not taught at any level from degree to professional qualification
  • Co-reg ads are an ugly name! Sign-up ads are a better expression!

Whats new?

This is the reveal moment, because the new and improved sign-ups (aka co-reg) are actually starting to look more easy on the eye these days. Heres why?
  • Big brand content publishers integrating sign-ups into their advertising suite - from Dennis Publishing to the Daily Mail Group
  • Lead management platforms are increasingly tidying up the messy side of handling leads to deliver fuss-free automated campaigns
  • Lead scoring means you can slice and dice your audience into look-a-like customers rather than use generic lead capture
  • Geo-demographic targeting works because a bigger audience means zoning in on the right target with a profiled sign-up advert.
  • Improved retargeting by database building at super low cost
So whilst traditional co-registration will always remain a guilty pleasure, you may yet come to openly show your love for sign-ups instead.
Show your love now by liking or commenting below.