A lot of you liked my post on how I whacked Maxis for pretending to be customer service oriented. But what’s the real issue here?

I must admit it; I was rather cheesed of with Maxis to start with. And then they go and air that stupid ad claiming they put customer service first. Of course, I sharpened my pencil and gave them a piece of my mind lah.

Maybe I was slightly rash and less eloquent in that post. And since this is a blog about marketing communications; let’s see what really went wrong with Maxis in that perspective.

Screws come in many shapes and sizes. So who's screwing you?

Here’s what my favourite branding blog – Brand Strategy Insider – had to say about Brand Arrogance.

“Consumers don’t value brands; they value the idea the brand represents to them. This idea will always be worth more than the product, or the actual bricks and mortar of the business enterprise. When marketers behave arrogantly, the value of the idea people care about is instantly diminished. And once this happens, the road to redemption is long, difficult and expensive”

Simply put, you like a brand not because the logo is red or that the product is great. Consumers actually value the personality that the brand projects more than anything else.

It makes sense because telcos offer essentially similar products and services. But what made you choose Maxis or Digi or Celcom? Think about it.

It’s like making new friends. You only click with certain types of people; as you do with brands. But once a ‘friend’ crosses you, it becomes really hard to be good friends again. There is just something intrinsic about this process that science can’t explain.

Once you screw up with a customer (especially a loyal one), you usually have to work really hard to win him over again. And most times, the defected customer will never return.

There’s a classic Direct Marketing adage that goes like this:

It’s more profitable to retain a loyal customer,
than to attract new customers

For all the advertising and promotions brands conduct to conquest new customers, why not sincerely care for existing customers instead? Those who are already customers may even advocate the brand to their friends and family for free.

And we all know nothing beats the power of word-of-mouth communication.

Clearly Maxis does not see it that way. I guess we are nothing but Ringgit signs that make their cash registers go Ka-Ching!

Even Amazon – one of the world’s largest web retailers – is using an age-old direct marketing technique to sell on its homepage; the humble sales letter.

Most people think direct marketing is junk mail, especially the letter, who the hell would want to read a boring, wordy letter?

Then why would Amazon post-up a sales letter – the longest one I’ve seen online – right in the middle of its homepage?

Click to enlarge >>>

No, the people at Amazon have not gone nuts.

They just know that if you want to sell, then there is no other marketing discipline that works harder, more effectively and for a fraction of the cost than direct marketing.

In this case a piece of eloquently written letter signed by Jeff Bezos, carefully targeted to those who’ve previously bought books at Amazon (I think), promoting the new Kindle Fire.

I think this is a brilliant demonstration of how direct marketing – via a single sales letter – can still work online amidst far aesthetically superior interactive communication methods.

Right smack in the middle of the homepage... a letter!

A few of my observations:

• Note that a catchy, punchy or hard-sell headline is non-existent. Amazon must have really gone nuts, huh?
• The letter starts with a story about how they are cheaper, without sounding cheap; a story well told in these economically uncertain times
• Paragraphs after paragraphs of honest, friendly tone of voice supported by hard product features and facts
• The Founder and CEO’s signature reassures the reader that the claims in this letter are not empty promises
• The letter ends with a postscript or PS; which most ‘experts’ think is useless. It is proven that the PS is the most read element of a letter after the headline and first line of copy

So DM detractors of the world, if Amazon’s letter-based sales pitch is anything to go by, then direct marketing still rules.

The concept is mind-blowing. The art direction will make one cry. The copy could sell a bootleg DVD to a Unifi user. But if you disregard what should be the superstar of any piece of communication, then even the greatest creative could become B-grade.

This critical ad element is called a Call-to-Action; and you’re losing potential customers if you don’t have a strong one.

Believe it or not, consumers want to be told what to do. Dance boy, dance... ACTION!

The purpose of almost all marketing communications is to make people do something: call, SMS, walk-in, log-on, click or purchase. The thing is if you want someone to take a specific action, you actually have to ask them to take that specific action.

Yes, this belief is borne from my many years as a direct response copywriter. But here are recent researches on the matter to help illustrate why a strong call-to-act is important:

1. A research done by Marketing Sherpa to their e-newsletter readers show that a specific call-to-act increased response by over 8%.

Click-through Rates on different Call-to-acts:

“Click to Continue” = 8.35%
“Continue to Article” = 3.3%
“Read More” = -1.8%

2.  A research done by University of Connecticut asked 2 groups of people to mail back a stack of 30 post cards, 1 each for 30 days.

- The first group was given the request while under hypnosis
- The second group were just asked nicely

The result? The second group mailed back more postcards, which goes to prove that people will usually do as they are asked; as long as you ask nicely of course.

And this is true across all media; be it print, TV, web, social, radio, BTL, POS and what-have-you. Clear, powerful calls-to-action can make or break a campaign.

Ask and you shall be given. Now share this post with a zillion people, please? Don’t make me hypnotize you!

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