 |
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
ADVERTISING
- April 2001 by Dennis Altman The Sweetest Deal
in Advertising How much do you spend to attract a new customer? If you want a rough idea, take your annual ad/PR budget and divide it by the number of units you move in a year. Are you still standing? Fine. But if not, you should fix what’s broken. Here’s how: The name of the game you should play is Relationship Marketing (RM). RM is based on the simple truth that the cost of keeping a customer is way below the cost of getting a new one. So if you can promote enough loyalty among recent buyers to roll them over for repeat sales, you win. How do you accomplish that? The playbook varies for different product categories, so let’s take a hard one. Let’s say you’re the VP/Marketing for Ford light trucks. You start out in good shape. Your F-150 pickup is the best selling vehicle in America. Chevrolet is close, but your lead is firm. Dodge is a factor, but not a threat. Toyota is coming up on the outside but still has far to go. And you, of course, have the mighty Mo! The problem in big-ticket items like trucks is that once a sale is made, the customer enters a three-to-five year period before he buys again. That’s your window of opportunity. And everything is on your side. You know the customer. You have his name and address. And, you have three years to plant the right seeds in his mind. Your agenda is simple:
When I was a Ford group creative director with JWT/NY, we devised an interesting direct mail plan. It began with the usual “Welcome” mailer. We offered a quarterly magazine with stories about the product at work, and glimpses behind the scenes. Most issues contained nifty premiums, like coupons for free oil changes, advice about tying down loads, and news about after-market accessories by third-party vendors. All good stuff, but no home run. But here was our zinger: The plan called for a low- cost monthly mailing of a simple picture postcard. Each card featured a customer-furnished shot of a working Ford pickup, and a brief caption about its owner. One time, we’d have an Iowa farmer toting an enormous hog to the State Fair. The caption on the card would include names of driver and pig, as well as how “Hefty Henry” did in the competitive livestock event. Another would show a truck fitted with a huge plastic tank used to spray environmentally friendly weed-killer on rural road shoulders. A third might display a dream rig, with diesel power, duals, and a fancy fifth-wheel trailer. It was the all-season home of a couple that spent winters in Florida, autumns in Vermont and summers at Lake Tahoe. All real people, all real names, all real pictures. The idea was to engender a family feeling – a sense of “these are my people” – for Ford truck owners. There was a firm rule for all the captions – no selling, no promotion of any kind – just family. We did a few test mailings, and the results were not dynamite, but we could sense a warm spot developing. The people on the post cards began to get fan mail. The family feeling was alive and growing. I
can’t give you hard numbers on how well the plan
finally did, because I left JWT that year to join
D’Arcy. But I sure can tell you this: Ford F-150 was
number one then, and it still is. Dennis Altman is an advertising consultant and a UK Professor of Advertising and Public Relations |
|
|
Copyright 1996-2001, by Kentucky Business Online. All rights reserved. Editorial
content is copyright 2001, Lane Communications Group The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
