| Too hot to handle |
| Monday, 14 February 2005 | |
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Incentive Today - The back-room boys (and girls) of marketing support services are vital to the Success of campaigns but they are often taken for granted. Sara Goodwins looks at the changing role of response management agencies and the value of they can add to promotions. Imagine a car manufacturer omitting wheels from his new creation. Or a premier division football team leaving their boots in the dressing room. Without the right support neither would be going anywhere. It’s the same with promotional campaigns. Support services are not glamorous. Their work is only noticed if something goes wrong. That’s why Thomas Cook B2B "insists on handling the entire process itself", according to its marketing manager, Katy Leferve. The professionalism of support services enhances the consumers’ experience of a brand. Without good support the impact that everyone has been working towards for months can be ruined.Most importantly support must be invisible. The brands client should think they are dealing directly with the brand. Stewart Oxley, sales director at handling and fulfilment specialists Diss Promotional Services, comments wryly: "Diss handles as many as 250 promotions per year and only a few of our clients will allow us to say that we work for them. It makes our own marketing very difficult" Support services are brand protectors, according to Jeremy Stern, managing director of independent verification service PromoVeritas. "The support sector, by ensuring that the customers get good service, is effectively protecting the promotional industry", he explains. New Technology High-tech mechanics have made promotions much more immediate, and marketers can now have real-time "conversations" with the consumer. Support house have to be able to handle SMS, email and web as standard. Stephen Bentley, Chief executive of Granby Marketing Services says: "In a campaign which uses a max of response methods, mail would account for about 50 per cent, web about 15 per cent and SMS about 35 per cent, although there are differences across different age groups and for different types of campaign". An estimated 85 per cent of the population now has a mobile phone with older age groups the fastest-growing sector. Volumes of text messages have increased by 200 per cent over the past two years to an average of 55m per day. The prizes that children in particular want on their mobile are games, MP3 songs, or more free air time. The ease of electronic communication has meant improvement in the level and accuracy of data collected. Marketers can now analyse data, not only by type or by size of pack but also, for example, by time of purchase. Sponge Group specialises in supporting mobile-based marketing campaigns, handling the latest solutions such as text messages, picture messages, games, m-coupons and ring-tones. Its clients services director, Douglas McDonald, says "Many on-pack promotions now choose SMS as the primary response route, sometimes running on a 25p premium-rate text cost, which defrays the cost of printing and in many cases the cost of the mobile element itself." Pamir Gelenbe, director of corporate development at mobile marketing solutions specialist Flytxt, says: "I predict that most UK brands will have a mobile site in 12 to 24 months and more and more promotions will be using mobile technology not only as a means of entry but also a means of delivery" Online redemption has become increasingly acceptable, but its popularity has caused problems from bulk applications. Research shows that promotional samples influences about 70 per cent of the people who receive them. Brands are there fore unhappy about clubs, which apply online to receive multiple free samples. Oxley at Diss says: "We defeat bulk applications by requesting the applicants type in the number they can see in a boxed graphic image. Each image only accepts a single application." Point of sale Terrestrial mail is still very important for promotions and much concern has been expressed publicly about decline in Royal Mail standards. Oxley comments: "From our viewpoint, supplying into the delivery chain, standards haven’t dropped. What has changed is that the Post Office has reduced the discount schemes so that our clients can’t save as much money as they used to." Multi -Resource Marketing (MRM), another leading fulfilment company, is also positive about the service provided by Royal Mail. At Granby, Bentley says: "The Post Office is introducing size-based pricing structures along side their weight-based ones. It’s very much more cost-effective for our clients if they stay within the boundaries for standard packaging - although some agencies complain that it’s restricts creativity." Orange As major sponsors of UK cinema, Orange wanted to benefit its customers by providing them with two cinema tickets for the price of one. Orange Wednesdays, a three-year programme was therefore devised as the core promotional element of Orange’s sponsorship programme. Orange customers request the offer by texting the keyword "film" to the number 241. Within seconds they receive a mobile voucher by SMS to their handset containing a unique code. Flytxt’s strategy service team, which manage the project on behalf of Orange, supplied each cinema in the country with an "Orange box" redemption unit. Flytxt also has a stock of spare boxes in case those in the field get damaged. Orange boxes have a LCD display and allow cinema staff to check in real time the unique codes on each mobile voucher to ensure its validity. The boxes use Orange’s own wireless network and are remotely updated each week with the cinema releases. Launched in March last year, the promotion has been operating almost flawlessly and has seen a huge number of redemptions. By specifying the film and time against which the voucher has been redeemed Flytxt provides Orange and the cinema industry with reports on mobile vouchers requested and redeemed as well as which cinemas and films are the most popular. Pamir Gelenbe, director of corporate development at Flytxt, says: "The technology used for Orange Wednesday is the most complex I’ve dealt with so far, but things move on so fast that in a year or two it will be routine" Many support service agencies also collate and despatch point-of-sale (POS) materials into kits. Prolog, which offers handling and fulfilment among its services, has just launched and detected logistics division to handle activities such as POS fulfilment and kit collations. Prolog’s sales director, Ian Dignum, say’s "POS materials greatly reflect on the brand so its essential to set realistic objectives for a campaign to ensure timely delivery." Melanie Kilbourne, sales and marketing manager at MRM, adds: "The store needs to be told exactly what is happening, where the shipper is going to be delivering, how the POS material needs to be assembled and when the promotion is valid so that it fits in with the routine changeover of store materials." Early delivery is not necessarily beneficial. Back at Diss, Oxley say: "Early delivery is usually alright at individual locations, although materials can get buried in little-used areas." Support services agencies have a lot of experience and, if they are involved early in a campaign, they can help plan the campaign better and probably make a cost saving as well. As Oxley says: "Many handlers offer advice free of charge knowing that it’ll make their life easier eventually." Only by becoming an integral part of the promotion can support services build up the trust to handle somebody else’s business. © Copyright Flytxt Ltd 2006. Unauthorized use of any content constitutes a material breach. |
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