14/12/2007 by Tony Attwood.

One of the biggest problems that affects many companies in terms of marketing is actually pulling together all the ideas and making sure everything happens on time, as you want it.

Let me offer a couple of examples:

You know that you ought to be getting a significant direct mail campaign running in January, but somehow December has slipped by and it hasn’t been written, and hasn’t been printed. In the end you are forced to run last year’s promo again, which is ok, but not ideal. And worse it goes out a bit later than you meant.

Or you feel that you ought to be trying e-mail but are unsure what sort of text works, and don’t get around to arranging the broadcast.

And as for the thought of organising a test mailing with five different covering letters to see which one works best, and which person you ought to be mailing… there simply isn’t the resources to do it.

Hamilton House runs a service - VELOCITY - in which we act as your marketing department. We are highly pro-active, putting forward ideas, checking the results of test mailings, ensuring that materials get printed on time and so on. You are of course in complete control and nothing is done without your signing it off - but it does mean when you want information, when you want to organise a test mailing - or indeed anything - you just pick up the phone, we know all about your work, and we make it happen. At once.

VELOCITY has a monthly charge - how much it is depends on how complex your operation is, but £250 a month is quite common - far less than taking on a full-time professional in your office. There’s no long term contract - you can just stop if you don’t feel it is worth it.

If you’d like to discuss the process, please do call 01536 399 000 and ask for myself or Stephen - we’ll be pleased to talk it through with you. No obligation of course.

Tony Attwood

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05/12/2007 by Tony Attwood.

Here’s the good news – the research questionnaire run via this news group and the Hamilton House Mailings web sites shows that significant numbers of the companies that mailed schools in the autumn 2007 term got a response rate that met or exceeded their expectations.

The bad news is that an equally significant numbers of firms that mailed schools in the term were disappointed with the response rate they got.

Satisfaction levels were fairly consistent between media. With solo mailings 50% met or exceeded expectations, with email mailings 48% met or exceeded their expectations, while with shared mailings 31% met or exceeded expectations.

Solo mail was the most used process (57% of companies) among respondents to the questionnaire, followed by email (38%) and shared mail (21%). Solo mailings were the most likely to gain satisfaction.

In terms of what the mailings intended to do, most firms reaching schools attempted to sell directly to the teacher through the mailing (68% in solo mailings, 66% in shared mailings, 57% in email campaigns.)

There are two possible explanations for the satisfaction/disappointment figures. The first is that disappointing direct mail results can be caused by over-ambitious expectations – if you expect to get a 10% hit from a mailing and only get 4% you could be disappointed, but you may well have got a result that many people would be enthralled by.

Sadly this over-expectation does happen quite often – we regularly have people telling us that they can break even at 6%, and we’re telling them that this is unlikely to happen, and that they shouldn’t do the mailing. But many proceed anyway, often via a different company – and of course most are disappointed.

Secondly, the figures can also suggest that differences in the way in which material is presented to teachers has a major impact on response rates. We have had numerous situations in which mailers and e-mailers have presented us with text and design which we have advised them to change, and we’ve then managed to generate much higher sales levels than the client has previously achieved.

Such an approach can account for the fact that although many were disappointed, others felt their expectations had been exceeded. Indeed 14% of those who emailed schools were in this group. They didn’t just meet their expectations, they got a pleasingly higher response rate.

Even though these figures reflect disappointment on the part of many direct marketing firms, I think the percentages should be highly encouraging to anyone who has failed to get the results they wanted from a mailing. There are many more firms out there who are getting great results, and the solution must be to follow their methods and approaches.

Certainly in terms of the amount of mail reaching schools there is unlikely to be any let-up. Despite the disappointments for some, 86% of solo mailers, and 66% of emailers are planning to try again next term. However only 42% of shared mailers said they would be mailing again.

The survey was undertaken by Hamilton House Mailings plc in the last two weeks of November 2007 among subscribers to the Education Marketing news service and readers of the web sites www.hamilton-house.com and www.educationmarketing.org.uk Many thanks to everyone who took part.

© Hamilton House Mailings plc. For more information please call 01536 399 000.

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