The 3 activities that generate the greatest success

05/11/2008 by Tony Attwood.

Here’s a simple analysis: the companies that I see that generate the greatest profit from schools all do three things:

They vary their advertising message all the time

They work across the five different direct marketing media

They undertake trial mailings to ensure that each full-scale promotion works to the maximum effect.

Varying the message and using the different media are both vital, because different teachers respond in different ways.  A teacher who responds to a solo mailing might not opt in to an email list.   A school that forwards emails sent to the general school address might not do the same with shared mailing leaflets, and so on.  

And the same variance can be found with different types of message.  

Combine the five approaches (shared, solo, school email, opt in email, and subscriber email) with the fact that advertising messages can be endlessly changed and re-written, and you’ll see just how the marketing can be developed in order to keep the orders coming in.

In an ideal scenario this endless rotation of media and message will be combined with a continual regime of testing - so at any one time you might be sending out a promotion to 300 schools as a direct mail shot to measure the response on that, while running a different promotion on an generic email campaign that was tested earlier.  A couple of weeks later it might be a shared mailing that is going out, along with a test email mailing using the Subscribers email list.

Of course this is not easy - which is why many companies don’t follow this rigorous approach.   It is necessary to be thinking and planning weeks and months ahead in order to get the trial mailings out on time.  It may seem a bit complex, but the savings and additional sales will always make it worthwhile.  

To help make this approach of testing and varying both the message and the media work, Hamilton House has a service through which we work with our clients running and monitoring these promotions, tracking and analysing the response rates, and coming up with ideas as to what should happen next both in terms of the message and the media.  

If you would like to talk about any of these three topics (that is varying the message, varying the media, and testing before full promotions) please just give myself or my colleagues a call on 01536 399 000

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings plc reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

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