You plan for offensive operations, while you prepare to play defense.  You'll find this concept in both warfare and sports, and it's applicable in business as well.

I much prefer playing offense, because that's where you score and generate revenues. A strong business offensive plan also limits the amount of places you'll need to prepare to play defense, freeing up more resources for--you guessed it--playing more offense.

What's an example of planning as opposed to preparations in a marketing context?

A great example can be found in the United States Postal Service and the annual postage increases.  If you're using direct mail as a marketing channel, you can be sure of two things:

1. Postage will go up, driven by higher USPS costs and the rapid decline in the volume of first class mail.
2. Automation requirements will become more rigid, which limit your ability to be creative in your mail formats.

One of the key cost components of your direct mail marketing efforts is always going to go up (which it has done for years) and is going to go up more rapidly than in the past because of the USPS's need to cover labor costs and, now, energy price increases.

The USPS is trying to counteract the labor cost increases on their side by providing a bigger carrot for mailers who automate their mail more effectively and using a bigger stick (higher prices) on those who don't.

In the past, we used to counteract higher postage rates by getting more creative in the the formats we'd mail. Moving to heavier packages, with larger non-standard sizes paradoxically would counter the postage rate increases.  Not anymore.

So, what's the difference in "planning" for the USPS's annual price action vs. "preparing" for the same?

In "plan" mode, you understand what you're likely to face in the future and are testing for it proactively today. For example, at a past employer,  we knew the USPS was changing the automation requirements to require a certain amount of flexibility in the mailings or face significantly higher postage.  We were using a very rigid piece that was going to lose its automation discount and the price increase would have tanked our ROI.  So, we immediately began testing a number of different formats that met the flexibility requirements for next year, so we'd know the impact on our marketing ROI and could further develop plans to overcome any degradation.

In "prepare" mode, you've got to be ready for anything and then respond in a reactive way. You could prepare by figuring out what the price increase might be.  Or what the automation requirements might be.  Or any other number of things.  Being ready for too many options would suck away marketing resources into planning and analysis and away from the key task of acquiring more customers.  Plus, once you reacted, you still wouldn't know the impact on your ROI.  Rolling out untested responses to competitive or environmental changes is the number one way to destroy your marketing ROI.

Plan = Proactive = Offense

Prepare = Reactive = Defense

Summary and key takeway
When you have the choice, play proactively and play offense.

I'm not saying you shouldn't prepare for the unexpected, whether it be competitive efforts, consumer preference or even the weather.  Instead, you should be aggressively planning to launch new channels, acquire more and better customers and developing new and better products.  Then, on the planning side, be prepared for the 20% of things that could cause major disruptions to your business.

What do you think about the proper Plan to Prepare ratio?  Have you ever had an example where you suddenly realized you were preparing too much and, hence playing defense when you should have been playing offense?

photo credit: selena marie

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I've recently received several direct response efforts that are unfortunately poor examples of our science and craft.  But they provide some important lessons that we should all take into account when preparing our next campaigns, whether they be acquisition, retention or winback efforts.

The two efforts I'm going to write about appear to suffer from at least one flaw that I try to address with clients and employees.  I call it "fingertips."

By that, I mean that the nuts and bolts and detail of the marketing effort or analysis need to flow from the written page or the computer monitor through your eyes, be processed by your brain and then exit via your fingertips to the email, instant message, Excel spreadsheet, etc.  It's not about forwarding the print production schedule you get from your printer or assigning the analysis of the media plan to your least-experienced employee because it's tedious.  Having "fingertips" means you know the detail because you've not only seen it, but processed it and then had it exit via your keyboard.

I didn't see the "fingertips" of the marketing managers in these efforts.  Al Pacino, in his famous rant at Kevin Spacey in the movie  Glengarry Glen Ross would have put it more bluntly.

"Where did you learn your trade?"
The problems I've identified by these marketers--Verizon and Vonage--are all very basic and things that, with a bit of training, would have been easy to avoid and would have saved those organizations tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Verizon and the FiOS data debacle

My first example, using Verizon, is that of a two-part mistake.  The first part is not understanding your data and the shortcomings of it.  The second is a merge/purge mixup.

I've been waiting for Verizon's FiOS triple play bundle to arrive in my neighborhood for over a year.  I wanted to consolidate my data, TV and phone service with one company and have heard nothing but rave reviews about FiOS from everyone I know who've made the switch.  So you can imagine my glee, when on November 20, 2007 I was door-hangared announcing the availability in my neighborhood.  I immediately called to place an order and arranged an installation date of December 7, 2007.

Everything went well, including the transfer of our home number from Vonage (more to come on this later) VOIP service to Verizon's product  At the end of the install, I had a 15/2 Internet connection, 2 standard definition TVs, 1 HD TV with DVR and my home phone number ported over from Vonage to Verizon.  All working flawlessly and installed by a thorough and very pleasant technician.

In early January, I paid a bill for my triple play service.

For some reason, on January 25th, I received a 9" x 12" matched mailing from a Thomas M. Crowder at Verizon offering me, a FiOS TV subscriber, the option of adding FiOS Internet and getting a month free of service.  Nice offer, except I've been happily using FiOS Internet service for over a month.  The mailing was a complete and utter waste of money and it should never have hit my home.

Verizon's databases are a mess.  (If you're in doubt, I suggest you spend a few minutes traversing their website.  It's clear to me that the FiOS business is at least three business units hammered together, and it's clear they're not talking to each other.)  But if the marketers responsible for this campaign at Verizon had good "fingertips", they would realize this and understand the risks to their campaigns.  Namely, that the wrong efforts would be going to the wrong people at the wrong time.

How could Verizon have avoided mailing me--and many, many others--an expensive promotion that will always yield 0% response to my segment?

1. When in doubt add more suppression files.  Had the people running this FiOS Internet campaign simply understood that it was likely that some FiOS TV customers were not showing up on their records as having the double-play product, they could have added FiOS TV only customers as a suppression.  I would have showed up as a suppress on any of these.  Of course, maybe the customer databases are really in bad shape.  Then, doing the following is an extra catch;
2. Suppress paying customers. If your marketing database is separate from your transactional records, grab a suppression from the transactional system and suppress people that have paid for the product.  While you're at it, look at the merge output and, if you notice discrepancies, get your IT folks and DBAs in pronto.

Alas, Verizon is not alone in their direct response campaign challenges.  Vonage has winback problems of their own.
Vonage and the print production processThis one is less of a really basic marketing sin (targeting the wrong people for the wrong product at the wrong time) as one of marketing process.

During the process of moving to Verizon, I ended up having to cancel my Vonage VOIP service.  The first thing that happened was on December 7th, Verizon ported my number from Vonage to them.  That means that since December 7th, Vonage knew I was no longer receiving phone calls using their service.

I actually called to cancel Vonage on December 12th and, after enduring a Vincent Ferrarri-like experience with the retention sales consultant, completed the transaction.

I received the predictable win-back efforts via email on December 20th and via direct mail on January 10th.

Yet on January 26th, I received a piece offering me (as a customer) free service if I recommended Vonage to a friend.  One of three things happened here:

1. This is a test they intentionally mailed me.  In which case, it's a case of somebody simply not paying attention to the segmentation.  (After all, why would a non-customer talk a friend into buying a product that I haven't used for almost 50 days, with the reward being a free month of a product that I can't use?).
2. Vonage's print production process is too long. If I assume a drop date of around January 16th, this tells me that Vonage had around 34-39 calendar days to produce the direct mail I received (a 5" x 9" window envelope, with a personalized tri-fold piece with tip-ons) after they knew I cancelled. That's much too long for that piece, even in volume.
3. The suppression file was incorrect.  It's possible, as with Verizon, that they didn't suppress the right names.  A simple add to all of Vonage's merge/purge processes of the LNP (local number portability) change requests as a suppression file might have cut me out of this wasteful mailing.

Summary and takeaways
Make sure you've got people that understand the details of how all your marketing efforts run.  Make sure they understand their craft and are not at the mercy of their agencies or vendors for information and understanding of how their campaigns work.

For example, if your marketing manager can't tell you how a merge/purge or name selection process works, including being able to justify every word in the merge instructions or can't explain the details of the production capabilities of your lettershop vendor, I guarantee you're promoting to the wrong people and/or taking too long to do so.

Other quick thoughts:

1. Over-suppress names in your merge process.  You can always add back those names if it turns out you were too tight.
2. Assume your product databases are out of sync and act accordingly when selecting names for promotion. Further, your transactional and marketing databases, if kept separate, will tell you two different stories.  Look for discrepancies between the two, which will not only give you opportunities to save money, but also find new leads to promote and even new product ideas.

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For the first time in a long time I took a few minutes to run through the Valpak co-op mailing I received last week.

After a few minutes of looking at the offers, I came up with a short list of things to consider if you're using Valpak (or other co-ops) as a marketing channel.  The short list is powered by my own past experience and might stimulate you to think of some other ideas.

Before I get started, here's a rundown of what I found inside.  There was a total of 43 inserts inside the envelope (which featured, bizarrely, a promotion for the television program CSI: NY on the OE and which distracted me from the 1:50,000 possibility that there might be a check for $100 inside).  I sorted the inserts into three categories:

1. National advertisers (19, 44% of the total).  These included Netflix, DirecTV, Verizon, Omaha Steaks and others.  Of those, 4 (27%) of the inserts did not use the standard 8 1/4" x 3 1/2" format and instead paid additional for a heavier and/or different stock insert.
2. Regional/franchise (8, 19% of the total).  Included here were ads for the local Gold's Gym, Kaiser Permanente and Molly Maids.  Of these, only 1 (12%) of the inserts deviated from the standard insert.
3. Local advertisers (15, 35% of the total). These ranged from local dentists to home improvement providers to Anthony's, a restaurant down the street--which included some coupons that might finally get me to take the family there!.  Only 1 insert (7%) strayed from the Valpak standard format.

Valpak ran one house insert, promoting an offer of $350 to target 10,000 homes for new advertisers, a CPM of $35.

We can immediately see some ideas, just from this basic sort.

The national advertisers, who have the biggest budgets for testing, are behaving differently than the smaller advertisers.  They are much more likely to use a heavier or different-sized insert than the local advertisers.  This is a great idea, as those ads, including ones from Dunkin' Donuts, Discover Financial Services and Netflix were more likely to fall out and be noticed.  As those ads were also larger, they had more room for promotional and offer copy and, in the case of Discover, provided a full credit card application.

Very smart and our key takeaway from the national advertisers: Don't be afraid to ask for and pay for extra weight and different formats.  In a cluttered environment such as a Valpak envelope, it's critical you stand out because you've only got seconds before the promotion is trashed.

I did see some flaws with the national advertisers.  While Omaha Steaks--a quality direct response marketing-led organization--provided a promotion with strong offer and call to action, Verizon provided a piece completely devoid of an offer. (See my Featured article on Monday to see more about Verizon).

While the local advertisers tended to use the standard Valpak format, I noticed that they were much more likely to have heavy use of offer- and benefit-laden copy.  Words such as "Free" and coupons (complete with dashed lines) featuring the savings amounts were very common.

On the other hand, the local advertisers creative tended to be weaker.  They were somewhat more cluttered and, in some cases, it was difficult to see the offer pop from the page.  This is possibly the case of the advertiser trying to save money on creative by either using a Valpak standard format or using a very inexpensive agency.  The takeway here is don't scrimp on the creative, once you've taken the plunge to buy the media provide a compelling offer.

When was the last time you looked through your co-op mailings or Sunday supplements?  Taking a few minutes to sort through them might help you uncover some interesting new ideas for those media or for others.

Summary and takeaways

1. Vary the stock and size of your promotion when in a competitive environment like a co-op mailing.  While it will cost you more, it's even more important that you stand out in these types of media due to the low open rates.  Check your competition and test what you've seen them do.
2. Don't scrimp on the creative.  Yes, it's a low-response medium, which means that you've got to watch the costs closely, but because of the short attention span it's critical that you don't hide your offer by making it difficult for the prospect to quickly see what you're offering.
3. Test two inserts.  None of the advertisers in this mailing had two pieces, but I've seen strong success by inserting two pieces.  Best of all--if you can manage it--is two inserts of unique size/shape/weight, at the front on either side.  You'll pay significantly more for this trick, but it almost always pays for itself, as you'll got noticed regardless of which side the prospect looks at first.

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A client recently asked me "who can tell me if my website is working well for me?"  My immediate response was "your customers and your browsers."  This, of course, triggered a conversation of how it was possible to talk to tens of thousands of (usually) anonymous visitors, collect their insights and then translate that to marketing improvements.

Prior to a large amount of advertising moving to the web, with the associated tracking and analytical capabilities, my response didn't make a lot of sense.  Unless you were the sole proprietor of a local general store or had massive resources to undertake a large amount of expensive primary research, it was really hard to figure out what exactly about your marketing was working for your customers and prospects.

Until the rise of web analytics, that is.

In my opinion, the best thing that's happened in the last several years for online marketers was when Google acquired Urchin software.  This event made it easy and free for marketers to analyze the results of their online marketing activities.  Sure, for large business or those with specialized needs, solutions such as Omniture might be better.  But the majority of businesses can do just fine with Google Analytics.

And now that Google Analytics was free, it became fairly simple to add another great product: Google Website Optimizer.  This product makes it easy even for a small company to undertake A/B or (provided the traffic is heavy enough) multivariate testing.

If you've found yourself in any meetings recently arguing the merits of "red vs. blue" or where to place a button on the website, ask your online marketing team if they're using Website Optimizer or any other systems, such as Optimost or Offermatica.

If not, get one of these installed now--life's too short to spend time arguing over the color of the sidebar, the placement of a button or the length of the copy on a website.  Especially when your customers will tell you exactly what makes them buy from you.  And when your internal back-and-forth will result in you making decisions that result in suboptimal ROI.

If you are using one of these optimization products and you're still having these meetings, then something else is wrong and you may not be using them correctly.

Trust me, your customers--when it comes to buying your products and services--are far smarter than you when it comes to landing page and website design.

I used to teach an internal class on direct response marketing and would show an example of three different online creatives, with the objective being to drive downloads of a software product.  When I asked a room full of 30+ people that probably contained over 400 years of marketing experience and probably 35 advanced degrees which creative delivered the best ROI, less than 25% picked the winning creative.  And even those folks couldn't tell me why they voted for that one.

Now imagine a multivariate test of a heavily-trafficked landing page, which results in several thousand "recipes."  Any chance your CEO picks the one that sells the best?  OK, maybe they hit it right once--blind dogs and acorns, after all.  But how about the nth time?  Not a chance.

So, let's say you're not using Website Optimizer or a similar product and maybe aren't too familiar with the products.  What to do now?

First, I suggest watching a quick (5 minutes or so) Google Website Optimizer overview.  Second, find an hour or so and watch this YouTube overview of the product, which goes into more detail about how to use the product for an A/B test.

Then, test something.  Run a simple A/B test of a couple of your landing pages.  Or maybe your registration pages.  It doesn't matter, as long as you get going.

Summary and takeaways

1. Don't guess--test.  If you don't empirically know why something works on your website, develop a hypothesis, design and test and know it.  Then, repeat.
2. Take advantage of free tools.  Like Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer is free.  The only thing you pay for is your time and--by stopping the endless meetings and arguments and associated meetings--that's even free.
3. Build an organized testing plan.  You still can't test everything, unless you've got unbelievable amounts of traffic.  So definitely do use that experienced team to help prioritize the testing agenda

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Today's example of online marketing waste, which probably went awry someplace in the 4% of process (see Focus on the Four in our featured article section), comes from Samsung in the form of a promotion for their new Blackjack II cellular phone, which is available to subscribers of AT&T's wireless network.

A couple of reasons why it's a good thing I received this promotion:

1. I'm an AT&T customer, meaning no worries about porting my number over or breaking contracts.
2. I used the Blackjack in the past, and Samsung knows that because I registered the phone and my email address with them.
3. I liked my Blackjack phone, although there's no way for Samsung to know this subjective piece of information.

Now, a couple of reasons why it's not a good thing I received this promotion.

1. I'm an AT&T customer, but am currently tied to a contract with my iPhone.
2. I used the Blackjack, but my usage of AT&T's services has gone up substantially since I switched to the iPhone.
3. I love my iPhone and AT&T probably can divine that by looking at my usage pattern with iPhone vs Blackjack.
4. AT&T and Samsung could have avoided reaching out to me by just thinking for a minute or two.

Something's clearly not in sync between Samsung and AT&T Wireless. The Samsung promotion leads to a very nice landing page and the "buy now" link took me right to a page where I could see the offer to upgrade to the Blackjack II. A simple login to my AT&T account, however, reveals the problems that I'm not eligible for an upgrade, etc. etc.

So what would I suggest Samsung do differently in the future?

• Segment. I'm sure Samsung did do a whole series of tests with different headlines, offers, creative and the usual to different target audiences. However, it looks as if they forgot to consider who absolutely wouldn't buy the product. My usage and purchase history of handsets for use with AT&T makes it pretty clear that while I'm possibly in the market for the next generation iPhone, I'm not going to go to the Blackjack, at least not now.
• Share data with your partner. Clearly, AT&T and affiliates sell a lot of Samsung product. I'm sure they've got a close relationship and one that should be able to--once you get your lawyers comfortable that you're on the up-and-up--allow them to merge the email address at a third party. And, at the very least, drop the email addresses of individuals that are not likely to respond, leaving only a small portion of names in as a test to confirm the hypothesis.

Your takeaway: As one of your up front questions when developing campaigns, ask yourself the simple question "who absolutely won't buy my product" and make sure you avoid marketing to them. And then to a clean test to confirm your hypothesis. Then either bank the improved ROI or (my preference) invest it into more big, needle-moving tests.

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