You dont need a ponytail or

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• You dont need a ponytail or
• black skivvy to work with agencies

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About today

• Customers
• Agencies
• Marketing
• Brands
• Ideas that Ive seen work
• New new things
• Any questions?

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Why are we in business?

• Not to make money
• To make and keep customers (profitably)
• Peter Drucker mid 50s
• You cant make profit without customers
• If you can, Id like to join your company

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The purpose of direct marketing

• To find out what your customers want and deliver
  it to them profitablyone customer at a time
• The Yin and Yang of marketing and business

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Who are your agency customers?

• Production Manager
• Account Manager
• Creative Director
• Managing Director
• Here are some sweeping generalisations to paint
  the picture like they do in agencies when
  imagining their audience

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The Production Manager
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The Production Manager
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The Production Manager
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The Production Manager
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The Production Manager
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The Production Manager

• Mostly male, getting old before his time
• Always busy everyone wants a piece
• Priorities are quality, budget and deadlines
• Needs to know about new developments, but doesnt
  always have time to find out
• Most likely has a trade background part of his
  point of difference in the agency
• Probably drinks and smokes too much

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The Account Manager
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The Account Manager

• Mostly female and always busy
• Rarely familiar with production process
• Wouldnt know theres a difference between offset
  and digital printing
• Not because of ignorance its just not part of
  any training process or tertiary study
• Priority is client, budget, deadlines and social
  life (agency life) and client
• Possibly visited a mailhouse or printer recently

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The Creative Director
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The Creative Director

• Not much knowledge about production process
  (unless its a TVC)
• Priorities are themselves, awards, lunch and
  occasionally results
• Have production and account managers to tell me
  the latest, but love being the first to do
  something in the industry
• Probably hasnt been inside a mail house or print
  shop for years, if at all.

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Who makes the decisions?

• Depends on the client and the size of the agency
• If client has the relationship, then the decision
  is already made
• If the agency has a Production Manager, then they
  usually make the decision, but can be influenced
  by an Account Manager
• If the agency doesnt have a Production Manager,
  the Account Manager makes the decision, usually
  based on who theyve used before or WOM

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Who makes the decisions?

• The size of the client/job also affects the
  decision
• The more involvement required by the Account
  Manager and client, the more influence of the
  Account Manager
• The Account Manager owns the client, the
  Production Manager owns the supplier. If an
  Account Manager wants to change a supplier, the
  Account Manager usually wins

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Who makes the decisions?

• Creative Directors rarely interested or have a
  relationship
• Managing Director only if a small agency

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What do they have in common?

• They all care passionately about one thing above
  everything else
• Themselves
• WIIFM?
• How can they look good to their clients and how
  can they make more money for the agency?

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How can you help them do this?

• You cant if they dont know who you are
• Straw poll last week
• Name me 3 mailhouses and 3 printers
• Most struggled
• Who is the best?
• No idea horses for courses
• What horse are you and what race are you running?

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How do you differentiate?

• I did some more research
• What does the industry say about itself?
• ADMA members only

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Mailhouses

• 38 currently on ADMA website
• 34 (13) dont have a website
• 66 (24) do have a website
• Only 3 (8) provide newsletters
• 2 provide white papers and presentations but the
  audience is data analysts and shareholders, not
  customers

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Printers, Paper and Envelopes

• 22 currently on ADMA website
• 36 (8) dont have a website
• 64 (14) do have a website
• Only 2 (9) provide newsletters
• Flash intro question?

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List Brokers

• 24 currently on ADMA website
• 8 (2) dont have a website
• 92 (22) do have a website
• 5 (21) provide newsletters

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Trade Press

• Very little advertising in Ad News, BT,
  Marketing Magazine, DM Magazine
• A handful of printed newsletters
• No seminars
• A presence at Pan Pac Exhibition
• How does your target market know what it is that
  makes you different?

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Theres no differentiation

• Were all individualsIm not
• There is almost no published added value
• Nobody has opinions or visions
• Parity market providing the same services
• Website information is mostly about equipment and
  processes
• When products or services are parity the market
  buys on price

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The old cobblers shoes cliche

• We work in the direct marketing industry
• We need to practice what we preach and let our
  work speak for itself
• It costs us less to produce and despatch mail
  than anyone else
• Why arent we doing it?
• Why arent we sending the sexiest demo mailings
  to agencies selling its benefits?

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The old cobblers shoes cliche

• Who has a marketing manager?
• A part time one?
• Or the responsibility for marketing?
• A marketing plan and budget?
• Who went to DRUPA?
• Whos going to the DMA in the US?
• Where are your clients going?

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Who are your competitors?

• Not other mailhouses or printers
• Irrelevance being seen as part of the process
  not part of the solution
• The biggest threat is the new new thing and the
  market share fight for a Production Managers
  time
• And there are heaps of new new things

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Who are your competitors?

• Mobile marketing companies
• Ring Tones - 30m and growing exponentially -
  charts
• E-mail results tracking, streaming video -
  broadband
• Digital voice
• TiVo and ReplayTV
• Ambush, whisper and ambient marketing

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Some thoughts on what to do
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Some thoughts on what to do

• 101 B2B
• Business-to-business OR Back-to-basics
• Create a database either rent a list or build
  one from your contact file
• Update details via phone, reps, etc
• Develop a contact management strategy
• Start communicating mail, e-mail, inserts
• Direct to website for more information and to
  opt-in for newsletters (e-mail printed)

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Some thoughts on what to do

• Contract an agency or copywriter do a contra
  deal
• Decide on your points of difference or what you
  are going to own
• What does your brand stand for?
• What will you be famous for?
• Deliver on your brand proposition
• Whos going to make direct mail a hero?

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Some thoughts on what to do

• How often have you asked your clients or
  prospects for advice?
• Invite a production manager or an agency to train
  your staff
• Offer a training session for agencies and/or
  their clients help them add value to their
  staff and client relationships

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Some thoughts on what to do

• Invite content from agencies, your clients and
  prospects for publications and website
• Establish a community eg footy tipping
• Learn the results of your clients campaigns
• E-mail houses have a collective knowledge to add
  value because they track every campaign are you
  gathering results to support your position?

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Some thoughts on what to do

• Publish white papers
• Run a competition for customers based on content
  from the white paper or your website programmed
  learning
• Collaborate with other suppliers to provide
  advice and solutions to agencies eg mailhouse,
  paper and printer event

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Some thoughts on what to do

• Leverage the internet to add value to services
• An sms or e-mail alert for clients to advise a
  job has been lodged with AP, or printed, or is on
  its way to the mailhouse?
• Import a speaker from overseas
• Conduct a webcast with a speaker from overseas
• Run an on-line poll and publish results

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Some thoughts on what to do

• Conduct and publish some research and test
  results
• Be careful how you use research what people say
  and what people do are often quite different
• Many marketers fall into the trap of using
  research as a drunk uses a lamp post
• For support rather than illumination

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Some thoughts on what to do

• If mail is the medium and more people like
  receiving mail, why arent there more outstanding
  samples?
• Why arent agencies kicking down your doors to
  get themselves a piece of the action?
• Why are clients constantly editing work and
  demanding shorter copy and less words or, how to
  use e-mail instead of mail to cut costs?

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Some thoughts on what to do

• Are you making money from essential mail or
  advertising mail?
• Wheres the growth going to be?
• Are you investing in tests? How are you helping
  your clients test?
• Test results are more powerful than research

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Some thoughts on what to do

• Who has a seminar, training session, breakfast or
  lunch presentation, planned for clients and staff
  following the MMUA conference?
• What value are you going to add to your clients,
  given you have been investing in learning over
  the last 2 days?
• Are you going to publish what youve learned?
• How many of your clients are waiting with baited
  breath to see what youre going to do differently
  for them as a result of the MMUA conference?
• Why not?

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Some thoughts on what to do

• In most cases people prefer printed media over
  digital media, unless the relationship is digital
  eg travel
• Good quality, relevant communications in print
  are so rare theyre now conspicuous and break
  through the clutter

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A recent sample
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Mail-Ezi
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Mail-Ezi
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Mail-Ezi
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Whats the new new thing?

• Intersection of variable data, digital printing,
  the internet and mailhouses
• Create and design personalised individual
  communications O/E, letter, brochure, postcard,
  e-mail, websites - using database
• Create and design personalised individual
  websites to capture responses from mailing
• Use the internet to access software and deliver
  file to mailhouse
• Digital printing and despatch by mailhouse
• Results tracked individually via website

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XMPie - Snackinar mailer
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Snackinar - welcome screen
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Snackinar - reservation screen
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Snackinar - confirmation webpage
Personalized image per snack selection
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Snackinar - confirmation postcard
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Snackinar - delegate snacks
The pre ordered snacks are waiting for each
delegate
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Snackinar - delegate snacks
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Snackinar - delegate snacks
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Personalized Web Site Registration Page
Initial Dimensional Mailing (Mailing Label, Tube
Poster/Invitation)
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What are you going to own?

• Who is going to own the DIY brochure for say, the
  travel industry?
• Customer views content on-line either with or
  without a travel agent
• Create and print a personalised holiday brochure
  and itinerary on a printer at the travel agent, a
  print shop, home or office
• E-mail it to family and colleagues
• No wastage on irrelevant brochure content
• It can be done nowits just a matter of time

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• Thank you for your time
• malcolm_at_madmail.com.au
• 9976 0900