The second in a series of three articles on contact
campaigns by Stu Heinecke.
I just told you how contact campaigns can cure the low response
rates many direct marketers are experiencing. In this installment,
we'll examine the critical elements necessary to launch a successful
contact campaign.
Understand the mission You won't
be using contact campaigns to reach a mass audience -- you can't
afford to waste this sort of firepower on low-priority prospects.
But if you pay attention to the basics, your contact campaign
will give your sales or telemarketing staff the ability to get
in touch with virtually anyone.
Get your list right Contact campaign
pieces are generally very expensive -- you can easily spend tens
to hundreds of dollars per unit. So be very selective about who
gets on the list and what their potential is. And don't forget
to include present customers who could be doing more business
with you.
Get noticed Your creative must
do two things: get you noticed and demonstrate the quality of
your thinking. So your concepts must be bold, captivating, well
thought-out and unexpected, while tieing neatly into your sales
message. When I use a personalized cartoon as a contact piece,
for example, I make sure the gag leads to a point of agreement
about a need the recipient faces, so I already have a strong lead-in
to my letter and a compelling reason to ask for an appointment
or referral. Contact pieces often warrant exotic production and
delivery methods as compared to direct mail pieces, including
elements of hand-work and overnight delivery. Steer clear of outright
gifts and boxed items. Some companies and most government agencies
have strict policies against accepting gifts, and unsolicited
boxed items may not make it through some of today's security-conscious
mailrooms.
Follow up Since you or your sales
or telemarketing reps are the response mechanism for your contact
campaign, it requires your diligent effort to ensure each recipient
is contacted once their campaign piece arrives. Your reps should
be trained and prepared with scripts so they don't waste the recipient's
time -- or the sales opportunity once contact has occurred.
Build in flexibility When you're
dealing with an important CEO, it is likely you'll do your bidding
through an assistant. Make that assistant your ally by including
them in the campaign. The only way to do that is to build in flexibility,
so you can produce additional contact pieces on demand. If your
campaign is alluring, you'll be fielding requests for extras from
other important executives in the target company, which means
you're achieving critical visibility. Make sure you are ready
to respond quickly and capitalize.
Define success Your contact campaign
is a lot like an introduction from an insider -- once you get
in, you'd better be prepared to sell on the merits of what you
have to offer. Face-to-face meetings and top-down referrals are
the gold standard for contact campaign response. And if you do
this right, you can expect those response rates to regularly approach
or exceed 80%.
Find out how one marketer used a lost wallet and 500 guitar cases
to lure thousands of visitors to Memphis, and how another achieved
a 100% response to an appointment-generation campaign in
Contact Campaign Gallery, the final installment of this series.
If you have a contact success story you'd like to share with the
readers, please contact the author immediately below.
