Big Bang

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Big Bang The evolution of a direct creative
strategy

• Pam Linwood, PDM
• Linwood Direct Communications

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Its An evolutionary process

• Today
• A proven creative strategy
• Guide to determining where to start
• Makes sense to management and clients
• Some important creative stuff
• Samples
• What makes B-to-B creative unique

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What is direct marketing?

• Accountable and measurable
• Asks for a response
• Re-defines failure
• Forces a customer focus (vs. a product focus)
• Its all direct
• Formats, mediums, bs. expectations
• Why? Businesses demand itand so do customers

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Big Bang Strategy

• The Audience
• The Offer
• The Creative/Format
• How do you weight each ones importance
• 40 40 20 (Ed Mayer)
• 60 30 10 (Ray Jutkins)
• 40 20 15/15 10 (Ron Jacobs)

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What Matters

• A chain of events evolutionary
• What has the most impact first

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Whats the campaign Objective

• Build awareness
• Company
• Category
• Brand
• Create interest
• Generate leads
• How many?
• Measurement criteria

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The Audience

• What has the most impact?
• Existing customers retention vs. acquisition
• Lapsed customers
• New customers
• House file or cold list
• Profile to find more, like your best
• Requires knowing who your best customers are
• Decision-makers / influencers / info-gatherers
• Roles not as clear as they used to be
• Companies are tougher to target multiple hits

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The Hierarchy of a customer

• Where is your audience?
• Build relationship

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Touch points

• A single mailing?
• Most campaigns require 2 to 3 touches before they
  will respond to your message
• 10 4 1 (mailings, telemarketing calls, sales
  call)
• Touch in multiple ways
• E-mail phone calls trade shows postcards
• Single step or multi-step
• Lead generator and fulfillment

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Audience motivations - The big five

• Fear
• Avoid with insurance, financial, self-improvement
  and fund-raising
• Greed
• Discounts greed
• Guilt
• Exclusivity
• Popularity

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Mayers motivators

1. To make money
2. To save money
3. To save time
4. To avoid effort
5. To get more comfort
6. To achieve greater cleanliness
7. To attain fuller health
8. To escape physical pain
9. To gain praise
10. To be popular
11. To attract the opposite sex
12. To conserve possessions
13. To increase enjoyment
14. To gratify curiosity

1. To protect family
2. To be in style
3. To have or hold beautiful possessions
4. To satisfy appetite
5. To emulate others
6. To avoid trouble
7. To avoid criticism
8. To be individual
9. To protect reputation
10. To take advantage of opportunities
11. To have safety in buying something else
12. To make work easier

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FINDING THE BIG BENEFIT

• FAB Analysis
• Feature
• Advantage
• Benefit
• List features
• Leverage with advantages
• Position with benefits

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FAB Example
Feature Facts Advantage Im (personify) Benefit So you can
Laptop computer weighs 3.2 lbs. Easy to travel with. Your back wont ache at the end of a day of travel.

• Turn negatives into positives
• Youll feel great when you get to your meeting.
• Organize by relevance to audience types

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Exercise fab analysis
FAB Analysis isnt just a creative exercise.
Feature Storage case Advantage Keeps out damaging dust Benefit Preserves your investment
1. _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________
2. _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________
3. _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________
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Emotion Logic

• Uncover problems
• Lead with the logic, close with the emotion.
• Bus. benefits are logical (workplace benefits)
• Personal benefits are emotional (recognition)

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7 key offer components

• What you are willing to give in return for a
  response
• 1 Product/Service
• 2 Price
• 3 Unit of sale/credit/payment options
• 4 Incentives
• 5 Time limits
• 6 Response options
• 7 Guarantees

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How to build an offer

• Two ways
• Relevant to product/service
• Relevant to audience and their interests

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ultimate offer fILTERs

• Will this make sense to my customers/prospects?
• Does the offer enhance the selling proposition?
• 3 key offer attributes
• Make it believable
• Get the reader involved
• Think creatively

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Consider formats

• Classic packages are the top performer

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Formats

• Newsletters build
• credibility
• position as
• the resource
• no more than
• 40 sales

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Formats

• Self-mailers postcards

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Formats

• Email
• only minor
• differences,
• specific to format

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Timing

• Specific to product or company
• Seasonality
• When and how you contact customers, prospects is
  key

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Whats unique in B-to-b

• This buyer wants to buy
• Always on lookout for info to advance themselves
• More targeted needs, not wants
• Will read lots of copy wants information
• Stronger base of knowledge and are careful about
  what they buy must be able to justify purchases

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B-to-b audience

• Sophisticated audience
• High interest and understanding of your product
• More research required
• Superficial copy over-simplification wont work
• Buyers are more serious act less on impulse
• Hard facts, comparisons, demonstrations, trials,
  test results

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Multiples of B-to-B

• Multi-steps
• Mailing
• Permission emails
• Demonstration / trade show
• Sales meeting
• Multi-touches
• Whatever it takes / what the budget can buy
• Spend more on highest-propensity prospects

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other multiples

• Multi-audience versions
• Multiple targets to touch, with unique
  positioning
• Versioning builds relationships resonates
• Historically, look for synergies/cost-savings
• But the fewer the versions the more
  product-focused
• Multiple buying influences
• Team effort vs. individual decision
• Not an impulse buy

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Suits are still people

• Copy does not need to be dry, hack, boring
• Cloak emotion in logic most business people
  take pride in logic, but respond on emotion

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Testingwith a big bang

• Look for ways to test
• In what order?
• What has the most impact first
• 40 20 15 15 10
• An evolutionary process
• In direct marketing, there are no failures.
• Just learning experiences.

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Simple Test Matrix Client An online tax
company 8 cells of 2500 ea. (10,000 total
qty) 3 variables age, offer, format/sequence Tes
ts 1 Age Group (which offer worked best within
an age group) 2 Offer (which offer pulled best
overall) 3 Format/Seq. (which format seq.
performed best over or by any
sub-category)
Text Matrix Age 18-25 Age 18-25 Age 26-35 Age 26-35 Control
Text Matrix Mail (only) Mail and Email Mail (only) Mail and Email Email (only)
Offer A Discount 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 40,000
Offer B Info / Tips 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 40,000
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Selling your campaign

• Use the Big Bang Strategy
• ROI
• Logical flow

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Big Bang Strategy

• What has the most impact first

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Thank you

• Questions?
• Contact
• Pam Linwood
• Linwood Direct Communications
• 816-753-2363
• pam_at_linwooddirect.com