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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 it's 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.
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