By Liz Swanson

If forced to watch only one show for the rest of my life, without a doubt, I would choose “The Office.” I love Michael’s eternal quest for love; I love Angela’s obsession with her cats; I love Creed’s sketchiness. I wish I was a Pam, but alas am probably closer to a more intelligent version of a Kelly Kapoor. 

And then there’s Mr. Dwight Schrute. Paper sales maven. Beet farmer. Former Lackawanna County volunteer sheriff’s deputy. A jack-of-all-trades, if you will. Although it’s difficult to choose just one favorite Dwight moment, for the purposes of this direct marketing blog, I turn to Episode 109, “Double Date.” In this episode, Dwight brings in bagels for his coworkers so that they owe Dwight a favor in return. His plan is to cash in those debts by demanding that they help him get Jim fired. Dwight quickly loses the upper hand with Andy Bernard when Andy shines Dwight’s briefcase. The two continue to pay each other back for the niceties each bestows on the other. Hilarity ensues, and ultimately, Dwight’s plot does not pan out. 

Dwight, however, was onto something, something that can be powerful technique that direct marketers can leverage in their campaigns: the reciprocity principle. People respond to one another in similar ways–both positive and negative. In the example from “The Office,” Dwight expected others to do something nice for him (get Jim fired) because he did something nice for them (bought them bagels). 

A great example of this in the marketing world is the return labels you receive from charities. They give you those handy, dandy return labels; you feel obligated to donate to their charity.

Financial service marketers have offered their prospects free financial evaluations. After sending the evals, the financial services company will then ask for that recipient’s business.  I’ve also been in many webinars and conferences where a Kindle or an iPad are given away. Why? “We gave you a cool new gadget; you should give us your business.” And we also see this principle play out on Twitter. As Twitter etiquette dictates, you should follow back those that follow you.  

Find ways to use the reciprocity principle in your own direct marketing. What can you give to your prospects so that they feel obligated to give you business? It doesn’t have to be as fancy as a new iPad–it could be a free evaluation or consultation. Test offers, and discover what makes your audience respond.

Maybe a free bagel wasn’t enough for Dwight’s coworkers to help him get Jim fired, but his strategy was dead-on with direct marketing best practices. 

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Liz Swanson is a Marketing Services Specialist with Iron Mountain

I was just reading an interview with Tony Cox, founder of the multichannel food consultancy 5th Food Group, in Multichannel Merchant. Halfway through, I stopped and said, “Huh? Did I really read that?”

Cox had been asked whether he recommended mailing catalogs anymore or whether catalogs are playing a new role for direct merchants in an online world. He said,

“It’s simple economics—as costs for paper and postage continue to rise, and response rates stay flat or fall, the costs of acquiring customers via list rental is becoming prohibitively expensive.

“Case in point, if the proposed postal rate increase goes through in January, it will be another nail in the coffin for both the Postal Service and for smaller catalog companies.”

Did you see it? The implication was it is becoming prohibitively expensive to acquire customers via list rental by sending them unsolicited catalogs as a prospecting tool. Therefore — and Mr. Cox didn’t say this, but in context — the reader was left to assume that the alternative in today’s postal climate was electronic media.

Mr. Cox did mention catalogs reducing page counts, but there wasn’t a single mention of personalization.

Instead of just writing off print for prospecting, as was implied, why not just switch your prospecting to postcards? Pitch the catalog, then let people choose the products on which they would like information. Send them to a personalized URL, where they can select their product categories, then get them excited about watching for their personalized catalogs in the mail.

If you want to boost response rates, over-size the cards and laminate them. Are they more expensive than traditional postcards? Of course! But they’ll be cheaper to send than catalogs! Then when you do send catalogs, they’ll be slimmer and more cost-effective.

With today’s personalization technologies, creating personalized catalogs is easier than ever. Software vendors like Gluon have created online-based solutions optimized for creating publications that are absolutely terrific. Even small companies can use them. Especially when customers self-select their own categories, there is no excuse for not personalizing these days.

The bottom line is that there is no need to abdicate print. Catalogers just need to do it smarter!

It’s too bad that message didn’t make it into the interview.

“In a difficult economy like this marketing budgets are tight. The only projects that get funded are the ones that can prove strong ROI. That’s why you need a way to prove to clients that your solutions will deliver.”

This quote came from a November 18 press release from Caslon & Company promoting a PODi Webinar, “Promoting the Value of Your Solution.” The seminar is designed to promote Caslon & Company’s Value Calculators, a tool for determining ROI projections from 1:1 printing jobs, which I think is a terrific idea.

But the thing that struck me in reading this was the spate of discussions I’ve had recently in which it’s become clear that proving value for a 1:1 printing campaign is the all-important first step, but it’s not enough by itself. Even the most successful 1:1 applications — in which the results are measured and recorded — are often not repeated. This is something that has proven to be extremely frustrating even for the most proactive 1:1 printing / marketing solutions providers.

Recently, I’ve been posting this question in various areas of LinkedIn. Here are some of the interesting and insightful reasons that have been shared with me.

• Clients do not follow up and verify results.

(Which leads to the question: Are printers following up to find out why clients may not be repeating? If it’s a matter of too much time and effort, are these printers letting their customers mistakenly think that repeat applications take the same time commitment as the initial deployment—and if so . . . why?

• Despite the results, the projects just take too long and are too time-consuming. Marketers like the results but just don’t want to put that much work in again.
• The sales cycle is so long that, once a project is completed, the original marketing team or individual at the company who spearheaded the project has moved on and the printer’s salesperson must start from scratch.

And thanks to Peter Wann, industry consultant, for bringing up this very overlooked but critical disconnect in the process:

• Clients may track response rates, but they don’t track conversion rates. If the client isn’t tracking the conversion rate, the results may not be tracking back to the original campaign.

This insight is particularly thought-provoking and may be one of the dark underbellies of the 1:1 (personalized) printing sales process. As with all challenges facing this marketplace, the solutions won’t be simple or easy, but they start with acknowledgement of the problem, followed by frank and open discussion.

Have your insights or experience to share? Comment on this post or log into my profile on LinkedIn and click on the Answers link and share them!

According to an article I recently read by InfoTrends, 63% of customers prefer promotional pieces over purely transactional documents. For this reason, “incorporating promotional messaging in transaction documents can both boost the appeal of a transactional document and generate a higher read rate for the marketing message.”

When I read this, I had to stop and think about that again. Putting a promotional message on a transactional document can “generate a higher read rate for the marketing message.” On the surface, this makes sense. Use something people like more (promotional messages) to boost readership of something people like less (transactional documents).

But as usual, I had to re-think it in a contrarian way. You are hitching the more desirable (the marketing message) to the less desirable (the transactional document). In some ways, you could argue that, by doing so, it’s like putting flat tires on a sports car. Of course, you could argue the other way, too, and that’s what is being done here. Bills have nearly a 100% open rate. You can’t say that about most direct mail, even highly personalized direct mail. By attaching the marketing message to the transactional document, you are increasing the chance of eyeball exposure.

I guess what struck me was its over-simplicity. As analysts and consultants, we are prone to blithe and pithy statements that make great pull quotes. But we need to be careful not to over-simplify.

I mean, another way to put this is that, if you’re talking about transpromo credit card statements, for example, and if credit card statements irritate people (which they do), you’re hoping that your marketing message catches the coattails of something that people fundamentally don’t like and that irritates them. Those marketing messages better be cheap to add!

It’s just another way to look at it. I’ll be available for tomato throwing later