My career in direct marketing began out of desperation. I needed a job in the worst way and took the only position I could find at the moment as receptionist and editorial assistant in a medical publishing company. There I began to notice the behaviour of our subscribers and how they responded to the direct mail campaigns sent out to increase readership of our very expensive, professional publications.
Promotions Director
Once I became the
"promotions director" (a fancy name for Direct Marketing
Manager" -- direct marketing was looked to be more like a used car
sales role) my fascination with subscriber behaviour captured me. Eventually, I
ended up in financial services in a big New York bank with a database of
six-million households.
Deregulation was changing the way banks needed to "communicate" with their customers -- to a dialogue rather than a monologue -- and all this cost money. So they sought the art and science of database marketing. They knew exploring, testing and establishing direct marketing principles was the key to their survival and future success.
Contribution Margin
For my first big direct mail campaign, we needed hard costs, so I asked one
of my managers the contribution margin of a particular financial
product. He told me with certainty, that it could not be established. I challenged
him not to return until he found it and suggested he camp with the financial guys until he found it out.
Two weeks later he sheepishly wandered into my office and told me that it cost about three times more to promote this particular product as had been done the previous year than they had ever made promoting it. No one had asked the question and since the promotion had been traditionally managed by the advertising agency, all their mysticism and glitzy (expensive) packages were never questioned.
What To Measure?
We've come a long way since those days, however many customer contact centres are still puzzled as to what is best to measure so they measure irrelevant things, hoping to satisfying their customers.
In my book, I have only one rule: Measure only what matters -- what actually changes behaviours of the customer or staff to the benefit of the organisation that are ACTUALLY
relevant to the vision, values and business drivers of the organisation. That
makes it really simple.Well that is NOT true. If it were simple, organisations would do this as a rule...but it seems to be seen as too difficult or irrelevant (who even considers vision and values in every day measures!)
In the article above, you will find some metrics that will take some work to establish and socialise within your organisation, but the results of your efforts will be amazing! Enjoy the journey!
