[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
persuading an established firm to offer an unproven business the
piggy back opportunity – use your charm; they can but say no.
More likely they will say ‘Oh, no one has asked us before’.
MAKING PIGGY BACK MAILING WORK
Determine any service or supply organizations that are likely to
have a similar target market to your own. Look for firms who are
likely to mutually benefit from an association with your products
or service. Call the firm – try their marketing department – they
may not recognize ‘piggy back’ – so try ‘affinity marketing’.
Negotiation will initially be about whether the product you are
offering matches their business. Some utilities are very commer-
cially minded and insist on a partnership deal. Contact is usually
through an Affinity Marketing Manager. Once these hurdles of the
match of products and service are overcome, discussion will
usually be about the extra insertion cost and mail charging if it
raises the cost of postage. An example of piggy back activity is
Rowenta kettles in a partnership deal with Thames Water.
The piggy back should contain a direct response mechanism –
the return of a coupon, a telephone number to call, a Web site to
visit. You need to build up a database in case your relationship
with your piggy back service provider fails. To that end, you will
need to set up fulfilment or a call centre or have a Web site opera-
tion ready to pick up e-mails. If the response is to a telephone
number or a Web site then those taking the calls or operating the
Web responses should be trained on what data to collect and how
to respond. See Chapter 5 for Web site activity and Chapter 12 for
call centres.
The actual production of the piggy back material is similar to
producing an insert – a direct response mechanism(see Chapter 6).
As with all inserts, you have a few seconds to make your impact
before your item ends up in the bin. The few words seen by the
customer need to be sufficiently compelling for them to give a
further look to absorb the whole message. It should be easy for
them to respond.
Piggy Back Mailing
■
105
Your staff should be trained to expect the response and know
how to handle it. It is the start of customer relations with a poten-
tial customer – the opportunity should not be thrown away. It is
important that your staff are complimentary about your piggy
back service provider and they should be able to give helpful
advice and a contact for further information should customers ask
about the piggy back service provider’s concept. Record such
requests for advice and feed them back to the piggy back service
provider as a benefit of your relationship with them.
DIY, suppliers, agencies
This is usually something you will need to organize yourself.
There is no harm in asking an agency whether they have any
clients who might be receptive to the idea of allowing you to piggy
back with them.
Tips
1. You need to sell the idea to the person responsible for piggy
back acceptance. It is worth having carried out a small
amount of research with their customers to see that the
match is acceptable – then quote that research in your
discussions.
2. Keep your piggy back small; it should not dominate the
package or the main item in any way. A6 is a recommended
size.
3. Do remember, not everyone is pleased to see a bill. Think
carefully about whether sending your piggy back out with a
bill is beneficial. Why not offer to pay the first 10 bills on
orders received?
4. Do not expect to send your gardening catalogue invitation
with another firm sending out gardening catalogues. A
plant/plant products supplier offering ‘all you need to
grow herbs’ might well go out with a cookery book club.
106
■
Direct Marketing
Accountability: setting and measuring key performance
indicators
Achievement may be a predetermined percentage response to the
piggy back, though this is probably only relevant when a brochure
is requested as an interim measurement of the success of the
message.
The value of orders placed is of greater interest when you are
carrying out a single piggy back with no follow up – which you
would no doubt hope would bring in more profit than the cost of
any piggy back marketing activity.
You may feel a benefit in sampling a few recipients to see if the
piggy back was well- or poorly timed, or whether any incentive
raised the customer interest. An offer to install gas central heating
free may be well received in high rise flats where the cost of
external making-good requires scaffolding.
A fulfilment house will record and collate all the coupon or
questionnaire information, by date if you require it. You can set
up a similar operation in-house. This is where you can measure
the response in terms of value of data collected as well as order
value.
If you are carrying out more than one piggy back mailing, use a
unique code on the particular response voucher to be quoted by
the customer when calling or picked up by the fulfilment service to
find out which particular piggy back was more or less successful
than any other. This may determine during which month it is best
to send out piggy back mailings – is the poorest response in bleak
January or in fact do New Year’s resolutions hold sway say for a
gas boiler maintenance contract? Test rather than assume when the
best time of year is to send.
Key performance indicator mechanisms
Use a unique code on the particular response voucher to be quoted
by the customer when calling or picked up by the fulfilment
service. Measure the cost of marketing activity versus target.
Measure the effect on profit. If a piggy back is less successful than
expected check on the date (month) sent out.
Measure the response at the point of fulfilment of a sales order
or brochure request in terms of numbers and value of any sales
orders placed. Collect names and addresses for a database.
Piggy Back Mailing
■
107
Measure subsequent marketing activity responses. Measure repeat
purchases of products or services – this establishes real success.
What costs will be involved in piggy back mailing?
Probably the cheapest form of direct marketing if you can come to
a delivery cost sharing agreement. See page 95 for costs break-
down.
Code of practice
The DMA Code of Practice is very helpful. It is available free –
download it from www.dma.org.uk. The code covers the use of
data – you need to check that the firm’s data allows your piggy
back offer to be included.
The Code covers offers and good practice relating to offers,
information that should accompany an offer, fulfilment, quality of
goods, gifts, premiums and awards, prepayments, post and pack-
aging charges and redress by customers. Special rules relate to
minors, credit offers and free offers. Customer service is also
covered including complaints, rights of customers to withdraw,
substitution of products and refunds.
Associated topics
Web sites – see Chapter 5.
Inserts – see Chapter 6.
Call centres – see Chapter 12.
Fulfilment – see Chapter 6.
9
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]