It's 5:47am. I'm walking my dog, a dog that wants to investigate every newspaper lying in every driveway.
Each newspaper was wrapped with an advertisement from a large retailer. The ad tells the newspaper reader to eagerly anticipate a catalog that will be mailed to select customers in the near future.
This reminds me of all the e-mail campaigns you see, campaigns reminding the customer that an important catalog is going to be mailed in the near future.
Pundits sometimes like these e-mail campaigns, suggesting they provide an effective 1-2 punch in generating response. They call these "integrated multichannel marketing campaigns".
I'll grant you that these campaigns probably work.
But what does this say about you, the humble employee?
What, exactly, are you "selling"?
You are selling the customer the dream that better advertising is coming soon.
It may be in the best interest of the customer, and it probably is in the best interest of the brand, to execute these multi-step advertising campaigns.
But how do you, the employee, benefit from telling your co-workers and your customers that better advertising is coming soon?
E-mail will always be a second-class citizen in the minds of employees and customers when it is used to communicate that better advertising is coming soon. The employees executing these campaigns deserve better. These employees need to work on campaigns that are as close to selling directly to the customer as possible.
Food for thought - will the day every come when we send a direct mail effort, alerting consumers to watch their inbox for an incredible email?
ReplyDeleteAs long as e-mails generate $0.20 per e-mail, and catalog generate $5.00 per catalog ... no!
ReplyDeleteI would concur with you, Kevin. Especially since consumers have only one physical mailbox, where the printed catalogs arrive, and possess more than one (on average) email box ... boxes which are often closed without warning or checked irregularly.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking a lot today about the tactile benefits of "postal mail." We won't be seeing print catalogs diminishing in importance any time soon.
I honestly don't see those kinds of campaigns very often among the 100+ retailers that I track via RetailEmail.Blogspot. What I do see are emails that say, "Watch out for our fall catalog coming soon. In the meantime, here's a sneak peak" and there's a link to an electronic version of the catalog. That keeps the email sales-oriented and content actionable.
ReplyDeleteI suppose because I work with catalogers, I run into this more often.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment!