THE BIG TENT
By Jim Carey, Core Strategies
As I walked through the DM Days show, a friend pointed out to me that he felt like the show was "schizophrenic."
Upstairs in the sessions, we were talking about e-commerce and CRM. Down in the Exhibit hall, it was about phone calls and getting ink on paper and into envelopes. It seemed like two shows in one building.
I'm Schizoid and So Am I
I write this on a flight to the West Coast to help some "dot commies." They have a lot of money, a fine web site, and they're pushing a lot of people to visit it. You've heard them on the radio.
When I talk to them, they tell me is their biggest problem is, "How do we get more out of our customers? How do we keep them coming back?" They have millions of dollars to spend, and they don't know what to do.
We would call that a relationship marketing problem and we know exactly what to do. The answer has a lot to do with what was going on downstairs at DM Days.
Increasingly, the dot commies are finding that the way to build an e-commerce business is to combine the best of online marketing, with the best of direct. They're saying that "bits" alone aren't enough to sustain a relationship; you need "atoms," too. Atoms like ink on paper.
Backward Compatibility
Amazingly, what we have been doing for decades is the killer app of the new economy. In Chicago, we have the backbone of relationship marketing already in place. We have been doing a form of interactive marketing and customer relationship management forever.
Because of that, we have the infrastructure - in terms of creative and marketing resources, printing, mailing, fulfillment, data processing, telemarketing - to get an e-commerce business to the marketplace fast. Our collective ability to deliver fast complete solutions is critical. In a marketplace that rewards the first mover, that's worth a lot.
Crossing the Chasm
David Lloyd George wrote that, "The most dangerous thing in the world is to try to jump a chasm in two jumps." I think this is one of those times where we have to fully commit ourselves to crossing the e-commerce chasm. But how do we reach out to the e-commies?
I think we need to do three things:
- Think about their businesses. They aren't nearly as sophisticated DM'ers as we're used to dealing with. But they're very smart, they know they must grow and they want to move very fast. They'll try almost anything intelligent that is explained to them in terms they understand. The good news is that the explanation is in terms of ROI, rather than in CPM. I ask what its worth to get $10 more from each customer. The answer is, "A lot."
- Think about total solutions. Dot commies often don't have the marketing infrastructure to manage the different aspects of the communications process. The marketers they do have are often brand advertisers or webmasters. We must provide solutions that are easy to buy, and easy to manage. That means we need to coordinate more among ourselves, and even sell solutions together.
- Change the way we talk about ourselves. Too often, we talk about tactics and features, instead of solutions. I have yet to meet a dot commie who cared about the type of inserter that you have, or how big your presses are. But if your message is, "Here's how I can help you make more money from your customer base," you will have an important audience with a big budget.
Being Offline in an Online World
When TV became popular, there were predictions that radio was finished. 800#'s were supposed to kill reply mail. Now, there are predictions that e-commerce will wipe out classic "offline" direct marketing.
The only way that will come true is if we don't understand that implications of online marketing, and don't build it into our thinking as rapidly as possible.
We are in the right place at the right time. Jimmy Durante said, "We were faced with insurmountable opportunities." We are, and it's great fun.
These are challenges worthy of our collective talents. Let's work on it together. Let's do it.