Conversion culture

April 9, 2013 Leave a Comment

It’s not enough to just generate leads for your product or service. Without a strong conversion focus the best lead is like expensive grass seed that goes unwatered.

We have a host of clients whose marketing pain points are really business problems, too: distribution channel concerns, plateaued growth, lack of customer data. These conundrums present like an evasive spring flu—feverish, enervating and costly.

Only unlike a stubborn case of cough-and-cold, the cost to organizations in lost revenue can easily be in the hundreds and thousands—or even millions—of dollars.

Typically, sales-driven organizations exhibit the same pesky symptoms because they have gone only so far with structuring their sales teams. What’s usually missing is a closed-loop approach that accounts for every lead, measures conversion, manages the sales decision process, and ensures that non-converted leads move to the Number One Prospect position in the next sales cycle.

If you don’t know your cost per lead and cost per sale, chances are your organization is sick. And you may not even realize it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the talented creative minds and hands of our colleagues at The Martin Agency, this quality-stock little tome is no cultural watershed (à la the Jonathan Livingston Seagull mania of the ’70s), but is nevertheless a sweet and clever homage to the somewhat beloved little Geico guy.  It’s a great example of what you can do when there has been a long-term branding investment culminating in a brand character universally recognized by every conceivable focus group.

Note to lessers: see above paragraph, especially “long-term branding investment” caveat. The I-want-a-cute-animal-symbol-too minded need not apply.

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Direct Choice Inc. is a full-service direct marketing agency that has worked with national and regional brands in a wide variety of vertical markets. In addition to this blog, you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

 

Filed under General Marketing Tagged with , , ,

Another year?

January 15, 2013 Leave a Comment

With 2013 begun, we’re looking at extraordinary ways to connect with consumers of all types. One of the most powerful tools is the concept of real stories vs. manufactured creative.  We live in the healthcare/pharma/retail space, and so this particular solution resonated strongly with us.

Ogilvie Germany recently launched an integrated campaign for organ donation awareness which takes real stories directly to consumers in an in-your-face manner. A viral video, Facebook page and other tactics illuminated the plight of those waiting long periods for replacement organs.

An actual patient who’s been on a wait list for seven years for a kidney was hooked up to his dialysis equipment on a busy train platform. A nearby screen revealed his situation to curious passersby.

 

 

No updates on this young man as of yet. But the campaign is powerful and has generated international attention. Its strength is that it takes a “stunt”—for indeed that is the genus of it—normally utilized for consumer package goods taste comparisons and consumer-based research, and injects it with a near-lethal dose of real-life human tragedy. In this era of consumer ADD, with everyone zonked out and linked in on their pads, pods and smartphones, it is increasingly challenging to intercept target audiences and then fully engage and capture their attention. Fomenting curiosity that leads to action is the holy grail.

For urbanites somewhat immune to everyday encounters with the homeless and in-progress street crime, it’s interesting to note that this urban encounter is so unusual, so intriguing, that it overcomes typical hardened commuter disengagement.

Is performance art the new commuter billboard?

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Direct Choice Inc. is a full-service direct marketing agency that has worked with national and regional brands in a wide variety of vertical markets. In addition to this blog, you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

 

Filed under General Marketing, Pharma Marketing Tagged with , ,

Healthcare Re-Branding: Not Your Same Old Health Insurance

July 31, 2012 Leave a Comment

All is not status quo in the healthcare marketing sector. Seemingly a coincidence, many of the insurance biggies and several Blues have introduced fresh, spanking new brand tweaks in the wake of the Supreme court’s recent Obamacare decision.  Prescient, anticipatory brand architecture redos appear to have been on advertising agendas coast to coast.

Aetna is a great example. The old “Aetna, glad I met ya” days are long gone. The logo alone is a tectonic shift in brand identification. In place of the old blue (of course) wordtype is a new approach in lowercase, which is, well, friendlier. Most revolutionary is the use of color. There is no guideline. No limit, virtually. Whatever color you want to use as a designer, to match the piece you’re crafting, you can use. This would appear to be saying, “This brand is all about you. Instead of our color—all about us—there are as many Aetnas as there are members. We can adapt to your flexible needs. We no longer need a capital ‘A’ in our name because it’s You with a capital ‘Y’ that concerns us most.”

Why—or Y—now? Why is Aetna, along with myriad others, moving like lemmings toward the kinder-gentler brand cliff?

Research indicates that many Americans—both individuals and small and large groups—are not feeling the warm and fuzzy toward the companies to which they pay increasingly higher and higher premiums and co-pays.  The most satisfied members, not shockingly, are those who are regular claim-filers who “get something” for their premium dollars. Those with the greatest brand resentment are the crowd who are relatively healthy and regularly envision what else they could be doing with those several hundred dollars a month per person. (A new hybrid, perhaps?)

The response by these brands is a proactive attempt to change and influence consumer attitudes and spending in what will become a healthcare provider Olympics. That is, a Darwinistic fight to the finish over the healthy among us. It has already started, with positioning designed to appeal to the lifestyle-focused, gym-going, supplement-taking, good-cholesterol-carrying, ideal-weight non-smokers of the populace.

Let the branding begin.

 

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Direct Choice Inc. is a full-service direct marketing agency that has worked with national and regional brands in a wide variety of vertical markets. In addition to this blog, you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

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