PR, Ads, Database Marketing – What’s Best When?

Integrated Marketing is the Key to Marketing Effectiveness

Left to Right: Tony Weisman, Trent Buterbaugh, Joe Cappo, Rick Murray

By Sue Masaracchia-Roberts

During PCC’s March member luncheon (which was also “Member Mania”), a panel of marketing experts was challenged to address how they would approach a real, live seven-figure Request for Proposal (RFP) due out later this year from the member-boating industry association NMMA.

MODERATOR

Joe Cappo, author, columnist, lecturer and former senior vice president of Crain Communications

PANELISTS

Rick Murray, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Diversified Services, Edelman

Tony Weisman, Chief Marketing Officer, Draft Worldwide

Trent Buterbaugh, Vice President and Account Director, DDB Advertising

PANELIST REMARKS

A former senior vice president of Crain Communications, columnist, lecturer and author of The Future of Advertising, Cappo best summarized the situation with his opening comment: “Marketing is not a game any more. Marketing and all its alternative forms must work together. There is no one answer to all marketing problems; different disciplines offer different concepts of how to solve these problems.” As an example, Cappo cited the fact that in 1974 the major televisions stations (ABC, CBS, NBC) captured 90 percent of all US households. Adding Fox to the mix and including the other three, in 2004, television reaches only 40 percent of all US households. Add to that, the fact that creative and marketing, in today’s industry, are different departments and media purchases are now more strategic than creative. It is harder also to target an audience and create programming for that audience when factoring in the additional choices people have between basic television, satellite, cable, videos, TiVo and other options available. Early in the industry, public relations was very tactical – very headline driven, according to Cappo. Now it is far more strategic, identifying the company and what they mean to the public. It is more than just their new ad campaign or slogan.

Direct marketing meant sending information on colored paper for eight cents a copy at a third class rate. Now there are infomercials, web TV, TiVo direct responses to programming, Internet-based marketing and “WINK TV – which has no commercials, but is supported by product placements. In WINK TV, viewers can even click on an icon and request demonstrations or coupons! It’s a different world when people can opt to pay $3 or $4 to watch a program sans commercials. This, according to Cappo, is the new wave and future of advertising.

Direct Mail Reaches Defined Audience Niches  

According to Draft’s Tony Weisman, in his assessment of NMMA, it is facing an increase in market share as an industry. Equipment sales are flat, not flourishing, but holding their own. Their focus should be on positioning. The biggest barrier is time. The goal is to focus on all points of entry to build a broad base of popular acceptance regarding boating. Users fall into two “buckets”: the high end users who purchase a lower volume and the lower end users who purchase higher volumes of nautical items. They all come from diverse lifestyles and appeal to those of all walks of life and economic levels. The barrier, according to Weisman, is exclusivity.

He indicated that that the focus should be on shifting to making boating inclusive – including all aspects of boating like sailing, fishing, canoeing and pontooning. The focus now needs to transition from the quantity of time devoted to boating, to the enhanced quality of life experienced through boating. It’s a means to an end. This needs to become the most important activity in life – what turns friends into lovers. Draft global marketing services focuses on direct and database marketing, as well as digital marketing. According to Weisman, “Any organization that invests in what they do is worthwhile.” He offered seven approaches to the project.

1. The Funnel. In the case the purchase in not an impulse buy, but a thought out high ticket buy. The key is to be aware of the approach to shopping that takes place for a high ticket item. How to create awareness? People tend to spend six months in obtaining an awareness of what’s available. Then they go shopping rather than spending a lot of time considering.

2. Identify the prospects, including demographics, finances, potential purchases, current purchases and looking for patterns. Purchasing is attitudinal and behavioral. The competition is for leisure dollars. Likely indicators are tests, surveys and behaviors.

3. Generate leads. Obtain leads, make them hot leads and treat them correctly. To create these leads and know more about prospects, use advertising, tours and media. When leads manifest themselves, no matter where they come from, ask standard questions tailored to support decisions, like how soon might you be thinking of making a purchase? It’s a hot lead if the purchase is to take place within the next three weeks. If the purchase is planned over the next three years, the prospect is just browsing/gaining awareness. At each point of contact, always ask the same questions.

4. Driving Traffic. Make the buying experiences accessible and fun. Feed them to the nearest dealers. Use decals, t-shirts, pins and other incentives, making them conversation starters by creating something for people to walk away with. Dealers help create traffic, also.

5. Demystify the process and experience. Get the message to more people more often and follow up on leads.

6. Make the experience feel accessible. Convey, “we are here for you” as the message. Peer-to-peer is the most successful way to build clientele. The fun part is naming the boat. Make that the first thing to talk about.

7. Testing and measuring. Trace back to purchases to validate payouts. To do this, marketers can use bar codes, mail-in offers and meetings with associations. Leads convert to interest and purchases. Consider Budget Parameters Rick Murray is executive vice president and general manager of diversified services for Edelman. He deals with national media and branding. According to Murray, “the fundamental challenge is the cost. The greatest impact is on business. It used to be that publicity created the greatest impact. Now they all do more or less of the same things.” He added, “Marketing people need to make their messages relevant to audiences and build relationships with their publics, delivering them through third parties to make them more credible, believable. This is critical to their success. Word of mouth – or viral marketing – is another way to gain this visibility. Look at the way Mel Gibson marketed The Passion of the Christ. There is amazing power in what we can do!”  

According to Murray, the downside is that it is difficult to measure how to take this into the entire mix. In terms of requests for proposals (RFPs), there is a question about what to pitch. RFPs are very time consuming and expensive to properly respond. There needs to be a good chance of winning to make them worthwhile.

For NMMA, expectations should be in terms of the client back-end and need to be aligned with budgets. The fragmentation of the media minimizes impact. Specialized approaches are more effective. The “top gun” influences others. Psychographics indicate those who are great escapers, homebodies, influence what shows people attend and what people are saying. Custom plans should be created for each audience.

Murray also indicated that news bureaus are overused. There is no guarantee as to who will report on the story on which show. It makes no sense, for example, to spend $100 million to gain 11 percentage points of market share. Parts of the plan should have elements relevant to each audience hot button. Give the audience a reason to go onto the water. Campaigns cannot focus on every market and be successful.

Positioning Identifies Prospects  

DDB’s Trent Buterbaugh discussed positioning and how clients should pursue new entries. Viral marketing is a good technique for creating good prospects. Buterbaugh added that research must be done upfront and should be segmented. Segmentation tiers drive testing. Start broad and determine the best areas in which to invest funds. The client needs to determine what they want to accomplish.

Partnerships are a valuable part of the program, according to Buterbaugh, who used as examples boating shows on television and publishers. If someone is interested in fishing, they need to be encouraged to trade up. The mission of the agency is to grow participation and make sure trade-ups are used to sell boats, to get people into the funnel and to qualify prospects.

In studying the market segmentation, those with greater prosperity tend to purchase more. To grow participation in the sport, use sailing, houseboats, skiing and yachts to sell a lifestyle. Sometimes, it is best to partner with other disciplines, however this partnership depends on the situation, which is scope and budget driven.

Buterbaugh suggests asking who will take the lead – public relations, direct contact, advertising or other means.

Who Drives The Process?  

During the Q&A, the inevitable topic arose. When it comes to integrated marketing, should one agency or discipline take the lead?  

Murray prefers working with specialty agents when they are advantageous to helping the client. It sometimes works to “create a hodgepodge alliance to pull everything together” depending on need. Weisman believes that these partnerships are a great way to work when the funding and situation allow it.

Budgeting often drives the decision.  

Cappo added that the core to integration is to reach a greatest number of people. Not all these elements, however, are needed at the same time to approach and sell to those likely to be most receptive to the messages.