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It seems to me that the UK is desperate to talk itself into recession. Newspapers know that bad news sells newspapers and so the billboards shout at us that profits are down, the credit crunch is here, High Street spending is down, etc. The more the media talks about it, the more the public cringes and we enter a downward spiral. A classic example of the public picking up on bad news and exaggerating the situation was a stunt performed by former US talk show host Johnny Carson. To illustrate the ease with which we are panicked, he announced on his show that there was going to be a shortage of toilet paper rolls. Within a couple of days, supermarket shelves across the US were empty as people ran out in a panic to make sure they didn’t run short.
And here we are, doing it to ourselves as a nation. It is incredible but unfortunately it is what we do in this country. I think we are naturally pessimistic, and guess what, that gets me down!
UK businesses start to take a close look at their budgets and immediately assume they can’t make money by increasing sales, so they better start saving. By savings, I mean cuts.
CFOs are beginning to operate on a “safety first” basis now and will be issuing company-wide directives to other CFOs and managers to suggest where savings can be made. The first area to be affected is usually the budget that CFOs find most difficult to accept: the advertising and marketing budget. The cuts will continue through training and customer services until finally staffing levels are reduced and “downsizing” – a late 1980s expression that has reared its ugly head again, though man who invented the whole concept finally admitted that he got it all wrong.
This is not something this article can change. It has always happened before, it will happen now, and it will happen again. There’s such a high degree of inevitability about it that you wouldn’t get odds at bookmakers!
Yet it’s at times like these, when the media and professional naysayers are determined to have their day, that the people in charge of running the markets should try harder with whatever budgets they have left. It becomes doubly important to make advertising and marketing efforts count for something and to make sure that sales messages reach home and work to the benefit of the company.
Even now, when times are supposedly getting tougher, I’m still inundated daily with the same instantly-forgettable direct mail as when things were seemingly booming. While I agree that it is absolutely imperative to go out and get whatever business is out there, but surely the way forward is to move towards better targeting and more persuasive direct mail. The emphasis needs to be shifted from a system where shipping loads of dross generates a trickle of business to one where a considered move toward better targeting and choice of interactive advertising and marketing pieces will generate better response.
After searching the internet for specific figures on typical response rates for direct mail, I find that the published figures vary from site to site, but I can cite very specific examples from a particular company that supplies direct mail interactive pieces. Here are snippets from their impressive list of testimonials:
“We found Whitney Woods to be extremely responsive and easy to deal with. While working on one of our largest client accounts, we were asked to manage a direct mail campaign. Our client was so pleased with the success that he sent the following feedback “.
“Thanks guys, just to let you know that the feedback on cube mailing is extremely good. We had anticipated a 1% response on customers who sign up online. Our goal was to fight for 1.5 – 3% However, I think my faith in creative design is restored as we have current figures showing 9.6% offer acceptance with new accounts opened and being used on a regular basis.”
Gemma Garrad, Account Director, Be Creative, Brighton
“The pop-up box produced by Whitney Woods is truly a surprise. It has that factor that all companies struggle for when trying to find the hook that holds a name in someone’s memory. I know for a fact that customers old and new keep our boxes they are close at hand because of their uniqueness. Anything that stays on someone’s desk for more than a day is, in fact, a marketing tool to be proud of.”
Andrew Bown-Copley, Director, Eagle Design Studio, Rotherham
“Emerging solutions are always well received and generally produce a much higher response from the recipient than other marketing ads.”
David Antrobus, Managing Director, David Antrobus Marketing Ltd, Altrincham
“I found the staff at Whitney Woods to be professional, friendly and responsive and, most importantly, they met a very tight deadline. Their Pop-up bucket and Zippalope were used as the invitation for the launch of the new Ramada Ireland hotel group in Dublin and Belfast. The invitation worked very well and received a lot of positive feedback from the guests. Ramada International for the US was so impressed with the invitations that they showed them at a European conference in Germany.”
Stephen Broad, Account Director, Anderson Spratt Group, Belfast
“We were absolutely delighted with the customer reaction to the Cinderella-designed ‘Jumpinjax.’ Its main appeal was that we trusted the recipients to show the article to friends or co-workers, which immediately multiplied the number of people who saw the information about our show.The box office went crazy after the shipment and increased our sales by 20% compared to the previous year.
Tracey Shaw, Director of Sales and Marketing, Theater Royal, Brighton
These are just a few examples, but I think they perfectly illustrate how important it is in the current economic climate that your advertising and marketing budget is operating at its most successful level and for direct mail campaigns, I believe dimensional and interactive marketing is the way to go Whitney Woods, as a provider of a wide range of pop-up banner ads and interactive marketing products, is well positioned to help achieve response rate improvements.