Category Archives: DataBase Marketing

Example: Messaging for the Apathetic

DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics

So I look at the mail yesterday and there’s a catalog from Bliss.  If you don’t know Bliss, they are an online / catalog / storefront multi-channel retailer.  The tagline on the book is “beauty by mail from new york’s hottest spa” – yes, no caps at all.  So you pretty much know this book is positioned for younger – or want to feel younger – gals.

The book had a wrap on the outside with a message for the Apathetic.  This is a great technique to use because you can do it “in-line” with the rest of the mailing, which saves a lot on postage.  The Engaged just get the catalog, the Apathetic get the catalog with this special wrap around and they all are processed inline and enter the mail stream together. 

It’s one of my favorite catalog tricks, check out the piece:

Bliss Catalog Wrap

Let’s do the copy thing:

You can see on the left spine the macro message of “we want you back” – again, no caps.  This is an acknowledgement of the state of the relationship – we’re not sure if you like us, but we still like you!  This is a classic Date message tactic, it sets the proper tone and pulls the customer into the conversation.

Then they just come out and say it:

We haven’t had an order from you in a while and – what can we say? – we miss you.  We feel lost without those 3 a.m. ‘beauty’ calls and the sweet, soft sound of your mouse clicks.

Yes, they’re great copywriters, but there’s a bigger point I think you should take away: you couldn’t possibly get away with copy like this if you had not set up the personality of Bliss in the first place.  They can speak like this because they have spoken like this to the customer in the past – all over the web site and throughout their catalogs and hopefully in customer service phone / e-mail.  Consistently.  Everywhere.  That’s a Brand in remote retailing, that’s how Brands are built.  Theatre of the Mind is the best weapon you have.  Copy.  Art.  Get it?  What about your web site?

This is probably the most common retail problem on the web today – web sites / businesses that completely lack any kind of personality.  Catalogs know how important this idea is in remote retailing and have been using it for a very long time.

So, in a totally shameless attempt to woo you, we’ll send you a Free full-sized bottle of our clog-dissolving cleansing milk (a $28 value) when you order $75 or more from this catalog or at blissworld.com.

The classic Dating offer, complete with a threshold ($75) as explained here.  They’re testing.  The importance of the words “full-sized bottle” you don’t know about but I do; about 4 weeks ago we received another “we want you back” effort that offered a trial size.  They’re essentially starting small with the offers and when we remain Apathetic, they up the offer. 

This approach drives down the cost of the average customer reactivation; the strategy is called The Discount Ladder.

(If that’s not a great excuse to arm yourself with our all-out flab attack kit (p. 49) or smooth yourself citrus with our lemon+sage set (p. 09), we don’t know what is.)

This is just very smart merchandising, it is persuasive because it directs you to a specific place rather than giving you a lot of choices – by the way, how many different offers do you make in a promotional e-mail?  The choice of products promoted here may have been customized (not sure of my wife’s buying history) or they may simply be very popular products with a high conversion rate to lapsed buyers on catalog covers.

I would bet the latter; that’s how I would play it because after all, she’s a lapsed buyer.  She’s stopped buying because she doesn’t want what she has bought before.  Do you make offers based on what customers have bought before?  Why is that?  Why not offer the products that convert people like the targets?

Unless you have specific evidence that “people who buy this also buy this” I’m pretty sure that outside of certain niches, you depress response by making “forced offers” to customers – especially lapsed ones – to buy a specific item or category just because they bought it in the past.  Think about it.  “Buy anything over $75” is a lot stronger offer than “Buy these specific things we are promoting”.

A lot to test there as well…

To take advantage of this special offer, just order something from us before March 1, 2008.  Our land of lotions and lip gloss just isn’t the same without you.  Bliss on, the entire bliss team

Par for the course here – a deadline and an “in personality” close.  Urgency and persuasion.  If you’re busy, you probably keep the book at least to check out p. 49 and p. 09…

P.S.  If you’ve been getting your Bliss fix somewhere other than our catalog or web site (it happens), don’t forget to keep up with our latest and greatest by signing up for Bliss beaut-e-mails at www.blissworld.com

Ah, the beaut-e of multi-channel done the right way.

They probably don’t have perfect visibility between the direct channel (web and catalog) and the retail channel (who does?) so they are acknowledging that, telling you it’s OK, and then offering you a service so you can “keep in touch” – the general theme of “we want you back”.  They don’t want you to feel bad if you find their retail distribution more convenient, and at the same time they’re trying to re-engage you electronically and generate value from this catalog drop even if you don’t buy. 

I guess the channel managers are team players.  By the way, this relationship started on the web site…and in my experience, you can extend the LifeCycle by switching customers to another channel.  But you don’t want to force it, you let it play out the way the customer wants it to.  Test and look to the behavior; they will tell you what is right on an individual or segment basis through their actions.

bliss-ful job on the catalog wrap gang!

P.S. Well, almost.  A search for “flab attack” (phrase from the promotional copy above) on the web site returns this result:

We’re sorry, but your search for flab attack returned no results.  Please try again with a different keyword, or double check the spelling. (You’re not alone – we only learned how to spell ‘fuchsia’ properly a week ago.)

Gotta love that personality thing though…

Questions on this?  What do you think of this promotion?

Messaging for the Apathetic

DataBase Marketing, Measuring Engagement, Web Analytics

Recall from the Messaging for Engagement post we generally have 3 states of customer in the database:

  • Engaged – highly positive on company, very willing to interact – Highest Potential Value
  • Apathetic – don’t really care one way or the other, will interact when prompted – Medium Potential Value
  • Detached – not really interested, don’t think they need product or service anymore – Lowest Potential Value

Combine this messaging approach with a classic behavioral analysis, (the longer it has been since someone purchased, clicked, opened, visited etc., the less likely they are to engage in that activity again) and you get different messaging for each group, what I call Kiss, Date, and Bribe. Click image to enlarge if you want…

Kiss Date Bribe

Please note “Months Since Last Contact” means the customer showing interest / taking action and contacting you in some way (purchase, click) not the fact that you have “contacted” them by blasting out e-mails. Behavioral analysis is about customer behavior, not yours.

We’ve already gone over an example of Kiss Messaging, so lets provide an example of Messaging for the Apathetic.

Recall the tactical background with Apathetics:

Apathetic – Date Messaging: We’re not real clear where we stand with you, so we’re going to be exploratory, test different ideas and see where the relationship stands.  Perhaps we can get you to be Engaged again? In terms of ROI, this group has the highest incremental potential. Example: this is where loyalty programs derive the most payback.

The most consistently successful (meaning profitable) messaging for this group generally looks at what their past behavior is and tries to drive it just a bit higher with a carrot / stick combo.

In commerce, if you were looking at a behavioral segment such as “No Purchase in 180 days” (month 6 on chart above), you find their average purchase price and then discount for purchasing over that average price threshold. So, for example, if a segment (or individual customer, if you can go that far) has an average purchase price of $80, you do a promotion like $10 off any Purchase over $100. This approach tends to preserve margin on the customer while driving new activity, thus setting up the customer to become re-Engaged on a longer-term basis.

Why re-Engaged? A new purchase moves them to the 1 month column in the chart above, so they have a much higher “natural” likelihood to purchase again. They are now Engaged again, and their messaging should change to Kiss, if you want to really leverage their state.

The values I have chosen above are not a “formula”, you have to test and optimize the thresholds and discounts for your business. For example, sometimes people don’t trade up to just over the threshold, they’ll respond to a $10 off purchase over $50 discount by generating an average purchase price of $125. Now you’re talking some severe latitude on your margins and you can try for incremental response with a higher discount or try to drive margin with a higher threshold.

The trick with Apathetics is this: unlike the Engaged, they probably need some incentive to act on.  But unlike the Detatched, they still have some Potential Value you would like to unlock – you don’t want to just all out bribe them because you’ll lose some of that Value.

After all, in an always-on sales environment like the web, some people are going to purchase anyway – without an incentive – no matter what segment they are in. For this 180 day case (chart above) a healthy portion of the 7% are “buy anyway” kind of folks. The more Recent the action, the more likely it is to repeat. That’s why you give ’em a threshold – to ensure you don’t give away more margin in discounts than you are making from the rest of the promotion.

Does this “threshold approach” depress response? Sure. But are you trying to drive response (gross demand) or profit? Those of you whose success is judged by ROAS don’t need to answer; profit doesn’t matter in your world. You’ve never used a control group.

If you were working on my business, I’d want you driving profit.

Geo-Demos that Work

Brand Management, DataBase Marketing

Great Local Marketing Campaign 

After my post on PRIZM Clusters, I got a decent amount of hate mail from people who did not completely read or misunderstood the post.  I don’t think geo-demographics are useless; I think they work quite well for the applications they were designed for and make sense – when there is something specifically geo-centric about the task at hand.  My problem is not with geo-centric models, it’s with Marketers using these models for purposes that don’t make sense.

Here’s a case where using geo-demos makes a ton of sense, and includes a fantastic customer-centric marketing execution for good measure, where the marketing plan is strategically and operationally integrated into the business model.

The company is Duncan Roofs.  Now, if you have ever thought about the way neighborhoods are formed, you understand that many of the homes in a particular area were originally built at the same time.  You also know that the households in a neighborhood generally share the same socio-economic status – disposable income and so forth. 

The first variable – age of house – has a direct correlation to needing a roof.  Since roof shingles generally have a life of 20 years, you get cycles of roof replacement in a neighborhood every 20 years, give or take.  In other words, it’s likely that if a roof needs replacing in the neighborhood, other roofs nearby need replacing.

The second variable – income in neighborhood – goes to acting on the need to replace the roof.  If the homes in the neighborhood are owner-occupied and there is disposable income, a roof in bad shape gets replaced.  There is too much downside with a bad roof to ignore, if you have the money to replace it and you own the house.

So what we have is location predicts not only the need to replace a roof, but also the likelihood to act on that need.  Rock simple, classic geo-demo stuff.  “Place” is a true driver in this model, not just some kind of tag-along data that’s nice to know but not strongly predictive.

Enter Duncan Roofs.  The day before they do a job, they have folks go through the neighborhood hanging an envelope on the door of each house with this package inside – a letter and a fridge magnet impregnated with cinnamon.  Smells real good!  But the copy in the letter is the killer part of the campaign (click to enlarge if you want):

geo-demos

Let’s tear apart why this copy and campaign work so well.

“Tomorrow morning we will be replacing the roof at (address in neighborhood).  Our crew will begin work at 7 AM.  They will be as quiet as possible, however by nature, our work is somewhat noisy.  Please accept this cinnamon Teddy Bear refrigerator magnet as our apology for any inconvenience we might cause you. 

Notice this letter does not open with a sales pitch, or “About Us” or any of that crap.  The open is about me; it provides timely and directly relevant information for me.

After I get past the “surprise and delight” of the cinnamon magnet, I get a piece of information that is directly useful to me.  Instead of “What the hell is that racket” in the morning my reaction will be “Oh, that’s the roofers that gave me the magnet.”   This information is highly targeted and directly relevant to me – and I might even chuckle about it when the noise starts.  It sets up a very positive image of the company in my mind; they are service-oriented and respectful.

We hope you will use Teddy to hold notes on your refrigerator and think of us when you or someone you know needs a new roof.

The first part of this sentence is probably there just in case you were clueless about what the magnet was for and how it could be used.  Appropriate in tone once again, the magnet is not emblazoned with their logo; that would spoil the “for me” part and make it less likely I would actually use it.  The magnet does have their name / phone number on the back, hidden from view during normal use.  More importantly, the second portion of this sentence directs your mind to ask a question: By the way, do I know anybody that needs a roof?  Hmm, just the other day Jerry was saying….

Perhaps you will have the opportunity to observe us at work.  If so, I trust you will be favorably impressed with our efficient and professional work habits. 

In other words, “Hey man, we’re tearing your neighbor’s roof off!!  Come check it out!”  They literally invite you to market their company to yourself by visiting the job site.  Now, you don’t know it yet, but Duncan has a business model that matches the brilliance of their marketing.  They literally put on a huge show like you have never seen before on a roof job – it’s highly orchestrated, almost ballet-like in precision.  Not just a few guys grunting with scrapers and hammers, they show up in 3 or 4 trucks with 20 – 30 guys and literally give you a new roof in one day.  They have to – the marketing is already kicking in, and they have a lot of jobs to do after this one!

Clearly, if you were “in the market” for a roof job, you would be compelled to go check them out, right?  After all, getting a new roof is not small change and can be extremely disruptive, not to mention quite likely to trash your plants and property if not done with some care.  If you are in the market for this kind of work, there is a lot of upside for you to literally “watch the demo”, if you know what I mean…

If you have any questions about our work, our foreman or myself will be happy to answer them.

There are folks swarming all over the place – all dressed in uniforms, all polite down to the last person.  All of them have permission to talk to you and of course refer you to the “foreman” – you were invited to talk with the foreman in the letter, right?  It’s a machine – people standing there watching and blown away by the speed of the job, and several “foreman” basically working the crowd for leads – in a respectful way.  They ask, “Do you have any questions?”  Execution, execution, execution.  Planned straight through; everybody knows what’s going on and what role they play in the marketing machine.

Definitely not a Meatball Sundae.

Give us a call for a free estimate.  You’ll be pleased with the professional service and unbelievably low prices.

More business model.  Of course you don’t have to show up to see the job, you can just call us.  I don’t know much about replacing roofs but I bet the way they do these jobs in a single day has something to do with their pricing.  In other words, they have such a pipeline coming from this marketing campaign that they “make it up on volume”, if you know what I mean.  Labor is obviously the highest cost is a roofing job, so something about the way they do these jobs and the “culture” they have developed (employee retention?) allows them to charge less than many other roofers.  Not to mention the customer benefits of getting this messy, noisy job done in one day…

Place your trust in a third generation business that has been serving this area since 1918 and stands behind our work for the life of the roof.”

This is all the “badge” stuff from your home page – you know, the Trust seals, BBB, guarantee, and so forth.  It’s a persuasive and very clean close with no backpedaling or asterisks.  Interesting that the phone number is not below the sig, I wonder if that is intentional to keep the close a bit softer.  The phone number is quite obvious up at the top of the page, so I don’t think they are losing anything here – but wonder if they A / B’d phone number location?

Given the quality of this idea and marketing execution, that would not surprise me a bit.  I imagine the roofing guys running Yellow Pages ads are absolutely getting skunked by this incredibly targeted and tightly executed campaign.  The campaign hits exactly where the demand is with surprise and delight and throws in a theatre act to boot.  Not to mention doing a job that normally can take a week or two in one day – that’s a hard core benefit to the consumer.

All this “Brand” carries though to their web site, where the Methodicals can find out the details of why they are the best choice.  I would kill the scroll box, of course.  The fact they don’t put a URL in the letter is kind of interesting; another potential test but I think there is probably a good reason – they don’t want to kill any momentum the letter generates by introducing potential distractions or raising new questions.  For potential customers who are web-oriented and would naturally just go looking for a web site, a Google search on “Duncan Roofs” brings the company up as the first 5 entries!  So they’re not really losing out by messing up the close with a URL – they want you to go see the show!

Duncan Roofs has reinvented one of the oldest business models around from top to bottom and execute perfectly.  The campaign is timely, relevant, customer-centric, word-of-mouth, and social all rolled into one.  Yep, those ideas work offline too.

Your thoughts on this campaign?