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 What
would you do if your boss asked for ideas to support a nomadic marketing campaign? Hint: It wouldn’t be a good career move to show
up with products for hunters and gatherers.
A competitor that “hot houses” isn’t growing tomatoes, nor is a proposal for “permission marketing” an invitation to play
a promotional version of Mother, May I. At least not literally. And it’s not a good move to pick a logoed remote control for a
“multi-channel promotion.”
Staying on top of today’s many marketing strategies, and how to best use promotional products in those campaigns, can be as
overwhelming as trying to keep up with the comings and goings of the residents in a 3-foot high anthill. But before you bow out of
the marketing fast lane, thinking that only the hippest ad-spinners could possibly keep up, spend some time with this primer. Who
knows? You could soon be translating marketing trends into sales quicker than digital promotions generate real-time response.
High-Tech/High-Touch
Much of today’s marketing jargon and techniques grew out of technology. Let’s begin with a few of these high-tech/high-touch
methods:
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Opt-in E-mail – If you’ve visited an online retailer and clicked a box agreeing to receive e-mailed announcements,
you’ve participated in an opt-in campaign. This isn’t spam; it’s volunteered participation. But shouldn’t volunteers be
rewarded? Sounds like a good way to begin an online loyalty/frequency program.
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Online Relationship Management (ORM) – Initiating and maintaining customer relationships online is cheaper than traditional
relationship management. It can begin with a visit to a Web site, where the visitor signs up for a free e-mail newsletter. To
register, key relationship-building data – like demographic and psychographic details about the customer – is solicited.
Companies can use the data to build an ongoing rapport via e-mail, newsletters, birthday cards, etc. For instance, consider sending
an e-mail to customers on their birthdays, asking for their shirt size. Then mail them a logoed shirt.
Several online rewards programs have taken the concept of ORM and applied it to frequency/points programs or games/sweepstakes.
Popular sites such as Mypoints.com and cybergold.com produce hundreds of thousands of hits. The rather odd but effective
treeloot.com has led the top 10 list for sweeps/coupon sites, garnering over 1.5 million hits a month. Hidden money, prizes and user
nicknames encourage site participation, as well as viewing of advertisers’ banner ads. There’s no reason why these concepts
couldn’t be applied to an employee incentive campaign or training program, perhaps via an Intranet. Consumer promotions could take
the hint
as well.
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Real-time Response – “The Internet’s immediacy has shaped consumers’ expectations toward immediate feedback,” says
Steve Patti, president of The Media Farm Inc., a provider of licensed media premiums, online transaction support and concept
development for promotions. “Therefore, direct marketers must be prepared to offer real-time, immediate incentives in their
premiums, promotional and loyalty programs.”
A Web site can conduct an online survey to collect data and then, based on the resulting prospect profile, deliver a tailored thank-
you gift in seconds. Yes, seconds. There are now downloadable promotional products, such as game software and screensavers that
incorporate an advertiser’s logo. It’s a similar idea to those electronic coupons printed with your grocery receipt, generated
based on the products purchased by the consumer.
Other applications include giving premiums for touring a Web site. The level and type of gift can be geared to visitor participation
and tailored to her interests. Patti suggests, for example, a customer shopping for clothes online might place a shirt and pair of
slacks in her virtual shopping cart. This action triggers the database engine to display free related accessories to complement the
order and motivate her to purchase.
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Nomadic Marketing – Tim Smith, president and founder of Stencil Group, a consulting firm that uses marketing strategies to
help businesses succeed online, defines it as “the ability to create online communities instantly ... to service and support
specific industry events ... for a limited time, with an explicit agenda and for a very specific audience.” The Internet offers
the opportunity, via vehicles such as e-mail and Web conferencing, “to foster a sense of community among geographically dispersed,
but likeminded individuals.”
How do promotional products fit in? Well, they’re excellent tools for building participation and feedback. Once participants opt
in, a hard copy of club or conference materials can be mailed to the participant in an imprinted binder. Imprinted computer-related
gifts could be a nice touch as well.
May I, Please?
Many of these marketing tactics are based on a philosophy that consumers should be politely courted rather than barraged with
messages. Traditional marketing/advertising is based on an interruption model – commercials during TV shows, unsolicited offers in
the mailbox, billboards distracting drivers on the road. With more media outlets than ever, from cable TV to the Internet, ad
interruptions have become overwhelming and ineffective, according to Seth Godin, Yahoo!’s vice president of direct marketing.
Also the founder of Yoyodyne Entertainment, a Web marketing pioneer, Godin proposes a way to rise above the clutter. Explained in
his book Permission Marketing, the method asks consumers to “volunteer to be marketed to,” encouraging them to “participate in
a long-term, interactive marketing campaign in which they are rewarded in some way for paying attention to increasingly relevant
messages.”
He likens the process to courtship: “A permission marketer goes on a date. If it goes well, the two of them go on another date.
And then another. Until, after 10 or 12 dates, both sides can really communicate with each other about their needs and desires. And
finally, the permission marketer proposes marriage.”
But how do you get that first date? Incentives work. An initial “interrupting” e-mail, print ad or direct-mail piece with an
incentive component must start the process, prompting the target to accept marketing messages. Ideally, stepped incentives are then
used to keep the participant involved for a long period of time, allowing the marketer to court and educate the prospect until a
sale is made.
The Big Picture
One way to anticipate marketing trends is to look at the big picture. The trail often begins with a macro issue affecting the
marketplace or society as a whole. Here are a few examples:
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Customization – Individualism is a key factor in society and the marketplace, says American Demographics. Manufacturers and
retailers respond with customized products and offers.
Pizza Hut Inc. and online music destination CDNOW recently harnessed the power of individual preference by offering consumers an
interactive customizable music CD. The offer allowed pizza patrons to use an access code to choose songs for a custom CD at the
CDNOW site. Consumers could even name their compilation. That’s mass customization in action – the ability to tailor products or
services to customers’ desire in lot sizes as small as one.
Examples of other customized promotional offers? Detailed recipient data captured via interactive e-mail campaigns can provide
insight into what product will most effectively motivate each individual. Companies can then respond by tailoring the promotional
product, imprints, packaging and delivery to smaller segments. Current manufacturing and decorating technology can create
personalized promotional products in a more cost-effective manner.
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Nostalgia – Last year, Mr. Whipple of Please-don’t squeeze-the-Charmin fame came out of retirement. Why? Marketers are
tapping into the nostalgia felt by consumers as they wistfully recall their 20th Century experiences. And they think aging Baby
Boomers are buying brands they grew up with. Coca-Cola Co. brought back those cute little bottles, along with its “Enjoy”
tagline. Life cereal showcased a still darling, but now adult, Mikey.
Life’s Mikey campaign, which rolled out last February, was totally integrated with promotional packaging, free-standing inserts in
major Sunday newspapers, an on-pack collectible watch promotion and an interactive Web site complete with a trivia contest. Such
campaigns open the door for a range of imprinted collectible sales.
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Entertainmentization – Perhaps it’s the short attention span fostered by years of TV and video games, but hardly an ad or
promotion exists without large-scale entertainment components – think Disney movie tie-ins; recording-artists’ endorsements and
giftwithpurchase CDs; intriguing Nike commercials that have sequels on the Web. Nike’s TV-to-Web (whatevernike.com)
campaign exemplified the outlandish and even macabre lengths some marketers will go to. Who ever would have thought a TV ad campaign
would end online with a chainsaw and severed limbs?
You may have consumers who need a high level of entertainment in promotions to catch and keep their attention. A variety of
promotional products and program ideas offer you a way to compete.
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Hot Housing – Here’s something much more benign, yet very effective. Think of the Pareto principle – 80% of the result
will come from 20% of the effort. In sales terms, of course, it’s that 20% of your customers yield 80% of your sales. Business has
now backtracked, so to speak, on that concept with hot housing; a strategy to grow related business around an already existing core.
According to The Marketing Report, “The implications for marketers: Identify regions where your customers are clustered. State and
regional economic development agencies in those areas may be able to help you identify related businesses – and even better, give
you a heads-up on firms planning to relocate into the area or planning to expand existing
operations.”
Profile your top 20%, then select a similar prospect base. Hot-house those prospects by offering the same promotional incentives
that inspired action by the “golden 20.”
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Multi-Channel-Marketing – It may not be that easy to pin down prospects to hot house. People today are all over the place
– at the mall, on the Internet, in a home-based office, at the beach on vacation. For this reason, you need to “create subsets
of an offer” and “contextually relevant customer interactions,” says Vahn Katros, a retail specialist at Blue Martini
Software.
What’s he talking about? Multi-channel marketing, which follows a “meandering customer through a variety of times and places.”
Example: A prospect is targeted at home via direct mail, which includes a prompt to visit a Web site (perhaps the incentive is
discounts for online purchases). The next time the prospect’s online, he visits the advertiser and learns about local retail
outlets where he can pick up a thank-you gift.
Ready?
So there you have it – a few insights into the ever-evolving world of marketing. Are you ready? Promotional products can be
applied to all of the trends we’ve outlined. Just grab your laptop, call your counselor and show off the fact that you’re hip to
the scene.
Tonia Cook Kimbrough, CAS, is a contributing editor to Imprint.
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