Consumer Preferences, Avoid Brand Damage, Start the Conversation
Posted on Fri, Oct 07, 2011 @ 07:47 AM
By Bill McCarthy
When direct mail first started, marketers took the approach; “bomb the world” send it to anyone and everyone. Then several things happened: trash bins got fuller, marketer’s budgets skyrocketed and returns on investment did not meet expectations. Marketers struggled to figure out how to target the right population with their message.
Then email came on the marketing radar. Email costs are low and opportunity to bomb the world returned by sending messages to everyone until they subsequently opt-out of all future solicitations. However, marketers continue to get the same results with low open and click through rates. Again marketers are being forced to target their audience while balancing their need to cast a wide net on the consumer-base. Why should marketers pursue this discipline?
With the enactment of opt-in regulatory frameworks like the Canadian Anti-Spam Law, marketers not only are forced to start collecting consumer preferences, they are seeing real benefit and ROI from targeted preference-based communications. In today’s privacy savvy culture, consumers classify any untargeted or inappropriate message as spam, regardless of who it comes from whether it is from the local mom and pop shop or a Fortune 500 blue-chip brand. Today’s marketers must focus on response “lift” while not antagonizing prospects so that even previously loyal customers do not get annoyed with your brand.
To preserve direct mail, email and other future communication methods as a positive communication channel, marketers must target messages through consumer preference management.
Target messages, not bomb the world. Marketers must balance the innate need to bomb the world to "spread the message", avoid the lure of the easy incremental response. While the short-term return appears to justify the higher volume, the sender’s long-term brand image -- harder to measure but more crucial to the business -- is damaged. The brand is damaged because the messages regrettably often end up in the deleted or spam folders, or worse, opted out of by the consumer forever. In a social media rich world, consumers have many avenues to vent their frustrations about your company brand that have spider web effect that can spread with lightning speed.
Psychology 101, People will tell you what they want, if given the proper forum and believe their viewpoint is both heard and honored. Capture consumer preferences, to preserve customer loyalty and to satisfy a consumer’s need for a 1:1 relationship. Marketers must honor how and when consumers want to be communicated with and about what products/services. Tailored communications make happy consumers and happy consumers don’t click the opt-out link. Start the conversation.
From the recent DMA 2011 conference, from the session, The Future of Customer Dialog and Real-Time Marketing", these were just a couple key takeaways:
• According to Macy's, the key is getting customer preferences. Macy's believes that if you are respectful of customer choice, they will gladly share personal information
• Macy's was advised that if they could get every Macy's customer to shop "one more time," by respecting preferences, they could earn 5 billion dollars profit.
Listen to consumers. The Web enables interactivity; email’s aim should be to initiate and develop a conversation that builds a relationship that leads to a sale and repeat sales. Marketers need to build preference centers to start the conversation, let the customers set the level of what they are comfortable and willing to share their own changing needs. Marketers can then introduce suggestions on appropriate incentives and offers for the targeted consumer conversation. Capture consumer preferences, Marketers need to move from broadcasting to listening to develop a conversation.
