theIdeaStudio (Customer Crossroads)

Fugging, Sugging and now Pugging! Politics in the age of e-mail marketing

Marketing researchers are not supposed to FUG or SUG. That's fundraising under the guise of research, and sales under the guise of research. It's all in our code of conduct and stuff. [Of course, now that any bunny can send out a survey, these codes get violated a lot.]

In the last few years, I've noticed an enormous amount of something I'm calling PUGGING. That would be politicking under the guise of research. I regularly get mailers from the government and political parties (even when an election isn't on), asking simplistic questions that all have positive answers. I bet you've seen a few of these yourself. Questions like this: Do you believe people should be able to find a doctors when they are sick? Do you want to support vital research that could save lives? Should children have enough food to eat? Would you like to save on taxes? Are you concerned about the environment? Is the Pope Catholic?

A fine example of this showed up in my e-mail today. They thought I might want to share this good new policy with a dozen or so friends of mine. If you know a dozen or so people you'd like to share this good news with, you can sign them up here. http://survey.conservative.ca/e/homebuyers/

These are fine examples of the art of direct marketing, but they aren't surveys.

I was looking carefully at the web address, and wondered just how many 'surveys' of this type they have going?

If you are ever tempted to engage in this kind of marketing, you need to understand one thing. People may confuse your brand for a political party. I'm just saying... something to consider.

This just in: fast emerging trends in a weird environment

Spam scams emerge on Facebook

I got my first spam scam e-mail generated by Facebook today. These have always come via spam e-mail in the past, but this one came as a Facebook message, thereby cutting through some of my e-mail filters. And because it carried a trust-mark (Facebook message addressed to me) I read it. Here's a sample:

I came across your profile on Prosper page. Just wish to share an investment online with you that you may be keen.
It's an investment with good returns at 10% per 30days. It's web-based and available worldwide.
With only USD1,000 investment, your TOTAL returns will be 220% with USD100 credited every 30days.

This scam arrived via the Prosper Facebook app. Prosper, you will recall, is one of the peer-to-peer lending operations.

My take: this kind of thing has the potential to remove a lot of the appeal of Facebook for legitimate financial firms of any description. It's not a question of real risk to the brand so much as an issue of lying-down-with-dogs and feeling dirty by being in the same vicinity. Another tragedy of the commons. Not a good thing for Facebook or anyone else for that matter. 

See our previous articles on Prosper and peer-to-peer lending:
More than Scrabulous: Credit unions, P2P lending now on Facebook, July 15, 2008
Another entrant in the peer to peer lending show, Oct. 21, 2007
Update on Zopa and Prosper, online un-banks, Aug. 17, 2006
Financial Services Innovation Watch: The E-Bay Model Comes to Banking, March 30, 2005

Financial brands damaged by credit crisis

Speaking of lying down with dogs: that's pretty much the situation for financial brands right now, according to a number of firms that track brand equity. Read all about the ugly situation in Marketing Daily in After Bailout, Financial Brands Twist in the Wind, by Sarah Mahoney.

According to Robert Passikoff of consultancy BrandKeys, quoted in the article: "This has fundamentally shifted consumer perceptions of financial service companies." He goes on to suggest that it will take five to 10 years to restore confidence.

I think Mr. Passikoff is a little high on that number, as we seem to have shorter memories. However, the whole thing puts one in mind of the airline crash scenario played out on a Mad Men episode.

What is most important right now to keep in mind is that this mess is not over. Not nearly over. The ripple effects will continue to emerge for months if not years. The story will be in newspapers through to the end of the U.S. election, and beyond, it will be featured in magazine cover stories, and the book writing bonanza hasn't even started. 

RBC introduces SMS payments

Finextra reported today that Royal Bank is launching SMS payments capability, which would let people send money via cellphone. I see this having a lot more appeal for the under 25 crowd than e-mail payments, since they generally don't see e-mail as all that reliable.

The marketing of politics

Politics seems to be all about marketing. So much so, that you can now become a politician without having to get elected, as T. Boone Pickens seems to be doing. In his most recent newsletter he's inviting everyone to watch the presidential debate, and then log in to his chat afterward to discuss how the candidates performed on the issue of energy self-sufficiency.

After the debate is over, I want us to have an online chat about what we heard and what we DIDN’T hear the two candidates say about the foreign policy aspects of sending 700 Billion US Dollars to foreign counties every year to pay for the oil we are buying from them.

If Pickens' approach here works, we can expect to see a lot more of it. Very clever marketing.

Unsubscribe - or what readers do in their spare time

I've been spending a few minutes unsubscribing this morning. It's a necessary side-effect of my work -- to keep on top of trends, I subscribe to lots of things to see what they are all about. [This is actually a very good method indeed, if you are looking for trend-watching tips.]

But the nasty side-effect is you continue to get reams of meaningless newsletter cruft.

Let's skip to the point here: your e-mail newsletters are hitting people who are wading through a pile largely composed of cruft, from their point of view. Or worse than cruft. If you want readers, make it visually appealing, make it useful, make it relevant. [Don't think I don't sense the irony here.]

The unsubscribe survey

An unsubscribe survey is a good idea. Most seem to limit their question to "why don't you like us anymore". I wonder how useful that question really is. Is it helpful to know that 30% thought you were "sending too much mail", and 27% thought it was "no longer relevant"?  What do you learn from 18% "other"?

There's likely enough goodwill to answer one or even two short questions. It's probably worth spending some time making those questions really useful. And even change them from time to time. It's free data, if you can make it useful, your ROI is pretty high.

A good second question might be...

Here's my best idea this morning, before I've finished my first cuppa, on a good second question: An open ended question that enquires about the brand relationship in general, or propensity to consider the brand again. Something along the lines of, "Can you give us some general feedback please?", "How can we best serve you?" or "What were you hoping to get from this subscription?"

I invite you to build on this. How can we make the unsub questionnaire better? What do you really want to know that people might be willing to say quickly?

Removing barriers to engagement - why easy web addresses are essential

Hilton Honors wants me to join their loyalty program. They sent me a nice letter and a plastic membership card.

This has been sitting in a pile of stuff in my office for a while. The letter is dated June 9, which suggests potentially 3.5 months. However, in the interests of staying in touch with everything that relates to experience, I thought I should check it out.

Here is where most of your customer communications are going to start. Not with big excitement, for the most part, although I bet they were trying for this. I did have a passing notion that there might be some cool free stuff involved. There was certainly status appeal -- I was being granted Gold VIP status without earning it. Woo hoo!

The letter said to visit HiltonHHonors.com/vip to register. That's exactly the format I was given. It took me about four tries to get in. Misspelling due to the HH accounted for two errors, being unsure about whether I needed a www accounted for a couple more.

The less committed would surely have given up at this point. Not because of a poor offer. Not because of a weak brand. Only because of a really bizarre web address, communicated poorly. Less than one line of text on the entire mailer.

Once in, I kept getting error messages because my company name contains an ampersand. Then I had a bunch of tough decisions to make about whether I really preferred a single king or two doubles, and do I want to be close to the elevator or not. Three pages of blank-filling-in just to register. I wondered to myself, why bother, really. Would I ever get anything through this program ... and yet, the gold status called me onward.

The bottom line

Yup, all those meetings you went to? The innovation offsites? The agency briefing, the review sessions, the drafts, the months of work, the measurement, the metrics, the business case. All of that can go down the drain in a heartbeat due to minor usability problems.

We live in a complex world. Marketers need to keep it simple to succeed.

Some inspiration for the alternative New Year

I often think that September is really the start of the psychological New Year. All those years of back to school.... The summer break that re-energizes. [This is clearly temperate climate, northern hemisphere thinking, so global readers are invited to translate into suitable metaphors!]

I was thinking of this today when I got this quote from Franca Leeson, one of the Mindcamp organizers. The quote is from Oliver Schroer, a violinist and composer who wrote this not long before he died of leukemia. It speaks to creativity in a different way, by talking about accepting all the ideas, even the things that look like mistakes.

"A few years ago, I reached a point in my music making that I called Total Music. For me that meant, when I played, particularly in improvs and such, there were no more mistakes because I could use everything ... in my own playing, I was not rejecting anything that came up. It was all valid, because it could all be contextualized to make sense, to be meaningful and useful and musical. Well, maybe I have reached a point in my life where it is Total Life. As in, all of what I am going through can be used; none of it need be rejected. This is a very freeing perspective. It means you can stop editing your life and the bits you don't want, because you realize you have been given these things, and strange as it may seem, they are actually gifts ... Use it all, I say. And don't wait, either." -- Oliver Schroer

Wishing you a happy psychological New Year.