From a book review in Fortune magazine 12/26/11

There are two versions of every plan, the big picture version and the detail version. Assuming the big picture version is realistic and carefully thought out, the detail version should come together nicely.

Try as I might, I can almost never get through a presentation of the big picture without someone interrupting to ask about a detail. Our creative director, Mike, who isn’t known for beating around the bush, says this is like asking a construction foreman about the color of the bathroom wallpaper in a house that doesn’t have a foundation yet.

People like details. They’re as important in advertising and direct marketing as they are in selling a house. They’re just not all that important to the people who are building the house. If the foundation, structure and utilities are right, you can have any color wallpaper you want.

So let the builders work.

We’ve gone through some of this in previous posts, but, just in case you missed them, here’s a summary.

All plans begin with Background. There are different terms for this but they all mean Background. Somewhere in the Background, there’s a simple rationale for why you’re involved in this effort in the first place.

Backgrounds are deceptively easy in that anyone intelligent and knowledgeable can write them. But they’re hard work. Think of spilling a 5 pound bag of sugar on the kitchen floor. Anyone can clean it up, but it’s hard work. Backgrounds are deceptive in another way, too, because, although they’re part of the big picture, they’re full of relevant detail.

Out of the Background comes the Objective, ONE Objective. Then comes the hard part: Strategy.

The next hardest part is simply a matter of discipline on fourcounts : staying on budget, staying real – guided by the Background, staying on target according to the Objective, linking every element of the execution to the Strategy. Finally, comes the hardest part of all: handing the big picture version of the plan, your baby, over to the detail people (even if you’re your own detail team).

Some details will be irrelevant to the plan and that’s fine as long as they don’t conflict with the already existing brand strategy. Other details will deviate from the core components of the big picture. Squash them.

Test, fine tune, roll out. Get and keep customers. Make money.

Also, a lot of our clients never did grasp the concept. One of them, which shall remain nameless – my lips are sealed – created an odd hybrid they called “Strategic Objective”.

Strategy Is The Big Deal.

Strategy is part of a plan, part three of a typical marketing plan. The first two parts are Background and Objective. Only when those two are in place can you begin to develop the Strategy.

A gigantic barrier to developing a strategy is that there’s a part four, Tactics. People confuse Strategy and Tactics; their subconscious does it to them because Tactics are easy. Since strategy is hard, most people run to tactical and subtactical issues like budget, creative, color, font, slogan.

Look up “Strategy” in Merriam-Webster.

If you look strategy up in the dictionary, you’ll find something like this: the science or art of planning and conducting a war or a military campaign; a carefully devised plan of action to achieve a goal, or the art of developing or carrying out such a plan.

At NYU we started with a simpler approach: Generals do strategy; everyone else does tactics, based on the Generals’ strategy. And there’s a trickledown effect: your boss’s strategy becomes your objective and so on down the line. In an organization, the whole Strategy and Tactics thing is like a pyramid scheme. Strategy starts at the top among a few experts (in theory). People who execute the strategy develop their own mini-strategies.

It starts with understanding the objective. What, exactly, do we want to achieve? Exactly means numbers, dollars, timelines:

“Sell 250,000 widgets at an average price of $29.99 in 2012.”
“Recover 25% (500) of lapsed customers (2,000) by Q3, 2012.”
“Increase average order size 10% by Q2, 2012.”
“Move 50% of business to our website by the end of 2013.”

The objective has to be realistic. If you sold only 2,500 widgets last year with a marketing budget of $50,000, you’re not going to sell 250,000 in 2012 without a serious increase in budget.

You can have dozens of objectives – it keeps people happy – but there Is always only one real objective and one corresponding strategic statement.

At NYU we used the example of the Trojan Horse. To make a long story short, the horse was a tactic. The objective was to capture the city of Troy. The strategy was to get someone inside to open the city’s gates without the Trojans knowing about it. The Greeks undoubtedly considered a dozen or more tactics and eventually settled on the horse. After that, all the tactics fell into place.

In other words, strategy is the legendary Big Idea. And it is usually an obvious idea – once someone says it.

In marketing, especially direct marketing, there are a great many sub-strategies: testing, target audience, creative, list, offer, databasing, upsells, etc.

When we ran Ford of Canada’s first-ever direct marketing program, we spent a lot of time gathering information (Background) and we developed an Objective based on unit sales of mid-range vehicles. Then what?

We quickly realized that we’d have to build a database of car owners (provincial registrations were – and still are – unavailable in Canada). And that was our strategy: Build the proprietary database then stroke it. The ensuing program sold an awful lot of cars, generating bottom line revenue the company would not otherwise have earned of 14 times the marketing cost. It won a lot of Gold RSVP Awards from the Canadian Marketing Association.

We’d have had no hope without the core strategy, which was obvious once we came up with it.

What is your strategy for 2012?

You bought the GE vacuum cleaner then you sent the hang tag with the on-page coupon and GE sent you a Tensor lamp for free. You had a month to take advantage of the offer which makes for a strong “call to action”.

Back in 1969, the Tensor Lamp was new and cool so it had some cachet.

Things haven’t changed much in 42 years.

Gifts with purchase still work. A very common one these days is a designer makeup bag with cosmetics purchase in a department store, especially Macy’s.

The gift has to be (perceived to be) valuable enough for people who are undecided to make their decision.

Ginsu knives were successful because of that technique. They kept showing infomercials demonstrating these amazing knives will cut through a tin can, a radiator hose and still be sharp enough to slice a tomato – paper thin! When you bought the set, your free gift was sometimes a set of steak knives absolutely FREE!

So in this challenging new era of discounting and markdowns, it might be a good idea to think creatively about gifts of perceived-high-value to give away with a purchase. A handsome canvas tote bag with office supplies to mimic the cosmetic companies, for example.

What can you give your customers that will entice them to buy the big product or service you’re selling? Please share your good ideas here in “comments”. Thank you.

As I walked around the store, I picked up a couple of brochures. They were beautifully made, with a glossy finish and cardstock. I couldn’t help but wonder…why were they sitting on a counter? Why don’t they mail them to their top customers?

One of the brochures I picked up was for Chanel; it featured their J12 Chromatic watches. The cost to make a brochure of this caliber is not cheap. The high gloss, heavy paperweight, with folds inside AND a sleeve… not a cheap project at all.

Another one I picked up was for King Jewelers. It was a book really, with 70 pages of Harry Winston, Chopard, Judtih Ripka, and Jaeger-LeCoultre gracing the pages.

Printing brochures and catalogs like this is expensive. The way I see it, they’re missing an opportunity to send them to their best customers.

I would think that if you were a high-end jeweler, you would have a database of customers that have purchased from you, right? Why not take at least 100 brochures (since you’ve printed them anyway) and send them to your top spenders now, before the holidays.

Direct Marketing is still the most targeted way to get to your prospects, especially with luxury products.

There’s obviously a reason why these high-end jewelers continue to print these brochures. Yes, almost everything is available online, but it doesn’t always give the same effect that a printed brochure or catalog does. The great thing about having something printed is that customers can touch it, feel it, and turn through the pages. They’re more engaged.

A lot of people see Direct Marketing as dead. I don’t believe that is true. Nor do I think that it’s going anywhere. The trick is, knowing how to do Direct Marketing the right way, that will help drive results.

What are your thoughts?

Hi! I am an intern at Lois Geller Marketing Group and it is my second week here. Lois asked me to do a guest post on her blog so I sought the advice of our Creative Director, His most regal majesty- Mike. He suggested that since I have little experience and only a small (but rapidly growing) knowledge base, I might consider writing about something that I know.
So here goes….

I signed up as a “Guess List” member along with a group of other shoppers who agreed to receive texts about special offers and new products.

Today, I got a text and what a mess!

It was too long; way too long to hold anyone’s attention. The main point was on page two. Page Two! Texting operates on an entirely different level than direct mail copy which is fine if it’s long, even very long. How do I know this? Well, there’s common sense, of course, but I’m a near-addicted texter. Just ask my friends.

So I decided to tell you about Mobile Marketing: My Experience.
Messages to-on-the-go mobile devices can wield a lot of marketing power, assuming they’re messages that people want to read. Most texters are like me, average Joes with smart phones, tablets, navigation systems, e-readers, and MP3s. We’re not known for long attention spans and We wrt lk ths (we write like this).

So, using common sense, I developed The Intern’s Short List of four points for effective commercial text messages:
1) Texts under 160 characters. For one thing, 160 is the max set by phone companies. And readers like messages that are that quick, at-a-glance easy and right-to-the-point. Plus, we don’t want to pay for several pages of texts just to get to your promotion! We’re big fans of direct marketing … and we’re looking forward to location based real-time marketing.

2) Wandering off topic is annoying. It’s OK to be inspired by an approaching holiday or current event, but a lot of marketing texters seem to get carried away. Readers can get uninterested and even disoriented trying to follow their thoughts.

3) Texts should look interesting, don’t you think? Consider the differences between these two versions of the same message:
a) Come in tonight for an exclusive release party at eight.
b) Come in TONIGHT for an *exclusive* release party @ 8!!!
You know that b) is texter-style, right?

4) And I do wish they wouldn’t harass us! Prospects are wary of deals because it seems that every other offer is not real. Unless we specifically ask for more, I suggest that texts be limited to perhaps four or five a month. We like to see message inboxes filled with texts from buddies — not businesses!
So please comment and tell me about your mobile marketing ideas. I beg you!

Your friend,
Lemar Scott: The Intern

When we were in New York, I taught the main Direct Marketing course at New York University for 10 years and loved nothing more than interacting with the students, a lot of whom eventually interned at our agency.

Now that we’re in Hollywood, FL I haven’t had many opportunities to work with students, but we do have two great interns. One of them is a marketing student at Johnson & Wales University in North Miami and she and her professor invited me to her class to speak and help create a Direct Marketing project.

We came up with the JWU Challenge: develop the creative for a startup online company that sells jewelry – and it’s not just jewelry. Each piece symbolizes something significant.

The objective is to drive ready-to-buy traffic to the website. The students also have to make a promotional YouTube video that will showcase the jewelry and emphasize its symbolic meanings.

The students will receive a significant percentage of any sales they make.

They’ll present their ideas in 10 weeks and I will join the professor as judges. Can’t wait to see what creative ideas the kids come up with!

We want to see:

How many people they drive to the website to leave their email addresses for special offers and our newsletter?

Which people come to the site to visit, and what are they looking at most?

My Dad was a jewelry manufacturer in New York for many years on West 36th Street. I somehow think he’s looking down and enjoying this challenge…!

Practice, practice, practice.

How do you get to be a Social Media expert? Same answer. And I haven’t practiced nearly enough. Nonetheless, more than a few companies and associations have asked me to speak to them about Social Media. I suppose that’s a good sign – they’re becoming aware of the issue.

Direct Marketing and Branding have always been my major topics and a few years ago I began including thoughts about Social Media in speeches but I’m still no expert.

I’m not even sure who is. We’re all learning and practicing and just when we think we’re close, someone throws a monkey wrench into the works, like Facebook’s new privacy challenges.

Whenever I mention any social medium – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. – odds are that dozens of people in the audience will know a lot more about it than I do. But I still practice. I’ve been practicing yoga for years and although I’m probably better at tweeting than at downward-facing dog ruminating on the topic remains a stretch.

Of one thing I am certain: if we don’t keep learning about the strategies that work and those that don’t, we’re just stunting our growth.

The real joy of the Social Media arena is that it is dynamic and the halls are filled with people who can teach me new things every day. But if you ask me to speak at your association, don’t invite me as an expert but as someone who is enjoying the practice!

P.S. About 30 years ago, National Lampoon magazine sent a writer tricked out as a tourist to Central Park West (8th Avenue) in New York, a few blocks from Carnegie Hall. The “tourist” asked hundreds of passersby “Excuse me, how do I get to Carnegie Hall” and two thirds of the people answered “practice, practice, practice.”

This was the topic of my speech at the FDMA last week.

When AJ Morales called and asked if I’d speak—I said “No”!

Why? Because, every time I do we get every supplier in our area calling for business. We’re a small group, and spending that time and preparing the speech—usually makes new friends for my agency and that’s good—but it eats up a lot of time.

AJ Morales called back a few weeks later and said I’d help members if I taught them the right way to engage people and get business.

So I relented and did!

Then he changed the venue from the Westin hotel to Johnson & Wales University. I told him attendance would drop like a rock (because people including me)—don’t know where it is.

He said 80 people would show up or he’d eat his hat. I told him I’d bring the hat. Here’s AJ eating his new Yankees hat.

And the group was great! The bonus was there were many students from the University who are taking the Direct Marketing course there. The great professor,
Mr. Mark Neckes is shown here with me.

Hope his students intern with us this summer!

This was my leave-behind from the speech,
the ten steps to getting new business:

1. Make everything “right” for your customers.

3. It will make you memorable, because the customer is expecting “push-back” from you.

Good Luck

When I was a kid, my Mom bought me a diary with a small brass key. I wrote in it every day until my sister peeked into it and that was the end of my diary writing, especially when she found out I had a crush on her boyfriend. He was a dork.

I’d forgotten all that until people in the business started insisting that I do a blog. “It’ll make people like you … ” “You can show how smart you are…” yada yada.

So, I set up joyofdirectmarketing.com to write about our clients’ direct marketing efforts, as well as my speeches and books. Then my assistant at the time said that no one does direct marketing any more (as in direct mail – boy was she wrong). That threw a wrench into things for a while.

Then someone else here at the office wondered about the objective of the blog and if I was going to build continuity, progress constantly and develop content. Hmmm. This was becoming too much like work, not at all like my diary days when it was fun.

Then my friend, Amy Africa blogged that somehow my blog is stiff and not like me at all. No trolls and such. You can read about it here: Amy Africa’s QLOG

People responded to Amy (as they always do) with ideas for improving content, type fonts, email capture, colors, adding a photo of me and everyone said to lose the calendar. (God knows where that came from anyway).
So, I figured I should check out some other blogs.

Amy’s good friend, Debra Ellis, has an interesting one here: Wilson Ellis Consulting Blog (I adore her from Twitter.)

I attend #blogchat on Twitter most Sunday nights about 8pm, and Mack Collier runs this information-packed session (you need to be on tweetdeck though), and I like his blog: Mack Collier’s Blog

I now read Dianna Huff’s b-to-b blog all the time: Dianna Huff’s Blog

And for fun, I follow the Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk – a city person marrying a farmer who has somehow got me engaged in her whole life, like a soap opera. Take a look at it: Penelope Trunk’s Blog

My friend Dwain told me about the blog: Small Dead Animals. Take a look at it here, and you’ll be hooked: SmallDeadAnimals.com

As I’m checking them all out, I’m wondering more and more why I need a blog, what it’s good for. I still have no idea.

If you get a chance, let me know what you think! Thank you.