Guest post: Why is there so much dunderhead DM?
Commonwealth Bank’s Mark Buckman used the ADMA forum to tell marketers they were getting their DM wrong. In this guest post, The Hub Agency’s Nigel Smith argues that he was right.
I recently read an article where Mark Buckman, Chief Marketing Officer at the Commonwealth Bank, had a pretty big dig at bad DM and the lack of love for data.
A man after my own heart. When will people realise the immense power of applying data driven marketing in a brand consistent way?
Just imagine business to business DM that teams up pre-qualified data with imaginative creative applied in a totally brand consistent manner to get over 50% success rate. And I’m not talking response, I am talking foot in the door, face to face conversations resulting from the mailing. It can be done.
Hmmm, even though I agree with much of what Nigel has said in regards to the principles of DM, I can still probably write an essay in response to this. I’ll try to keep it brief though.
I think it’s a little naive to focus the fault on the agencies here, because the good one’s do know what they’re doing. The problem often lies in data access, especially with multinational clients, who have everything housed on the other side of the world. It takes the client far too long to access the data as it is, so heaven’s above if we want to try something different – they’ll miss their lodgement dates!
And if I put a dollar in a jar every time I’d recommended testing to a client, and took one out when they’d agreed, I’d still have a pretty full jar.
I think where agencies, especially “fully-integrated” agencies, haven’t helped themselves is by stripping back on specialist resources in favour of generalists. In times such as these, when being able to measure ROI should be so important, these agencies should be pushing DM approaches as much as possible. But unfortunately, they just don’t have the skills to do so.
And don’t get me started on the challenges brought about by clients cutting agencies out of the loop when it comes to print production supplier contracts …
From the B2B side of the fence – I’ve always had a soft spot for lovely rich data though difficulties with data silos, multiple versions of the same info (so which is correct?) and general slap-happy-no-foresight-just-get-it-out-the-door approaches means you often miss out on the richness.
Working with tech companies it is amazing what insights advanced analytics gives you about your data – before the campaign – like who you’ll make leave because you sent a DM, who will buy anyway so don’t waste your budget and that wonderful subset that will only buy because of your DM. One company saved nearly have their budget and added $8m pa because they didn’t DM half their customers (turns out the DM was making them defect).
The tech client has setup a website that will let you try this kind of analytics on your last campaign for free. It emails you a report on potential cost savings, ROI improvements and response gains.
If OK with Tim I’ll post another comment with the link.
Sorry – ‘have’ was meant to be ‘half’
One company saved nearly –half — their budget and added $8m pa because they didn’t DM half their customers (turns out the DM was making them defect).
Please do, Annette!
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Thanks Tim. The website is http://www.campaigncheckup.com
Click on the checkup now button to add campaign details to get a report on campaign ROI and potential opportunity for improvement – or http://www.campaigncheckup.com/checkup-now to go directly to the form
I hate to say it, but I believe the issue is with the clients.
So many times working with the senior marketing team, it would turn out that the senior management of the companies have NFI about how to run a company let alone market it and therefore would hinder or obstruct the progress.
I am constantly amazed at how some very large companies manage to stay afloat actually.
Buckman is right. But knowing his skillset this is what he has been told over any great passion.
Simon is the closest to the money as CBA are held back by their EDS-managed DB.