DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL? Straight talk

3I

’ve heard of Cancer Research UK and trust it.

4

Cancer Research UK is a very good cause.

5I

’d like to leave a legacy to Cancer Research UK.

6

This seems like an excellent offer.

7

There isn’t any catch.

8

This looks like it’s for someone like me.

9

The form seems easy to complete.

10

The solicitor will handle any complex paperwork.

11

I need to phone a local solicitor.

12

My solicitor is already on the list.

13

Any solicitor on the list can do this for me.

14

I’d better do something before the offer closes.

That’s 14 points, and you can probably think up a few more. As an aside,

it’s quite common for agencies to be given what we call “kitchen sink”

briefs like this. My advice: Don’t be tempted to try to get too much for your

money. (And don’t be offended if your agency comes back to ask what’s

the main point — be happy they’ve noticed.)

Find the navigation point

So if leading with all 14 points is out of the question, where do you start?

My answer is that this is when you have to steel yourself and

not think

about gaining attention. Likewise, you must avoid the temptation to focus

— for the time being — on the offer.

Instead, engage NEW AIDA thinking. Good salesmanship recognizes

that the communication is most likely to fail over a navigation issue. So to

set off on the right track to enable this insert to generate an above-average

response, I’d be looking for a navigation point.

At

such a juncture I always find it salutary to picture a friend of mine

who moved to Britain from Texas a while ago. His name’s Hal. I think

Americans are generally used to a higher standard of customer navigation

than us Brits. In an unfamiliar sales environment (it can be as simple as a

café where it’s not clear whether you go to the counter or take a seat and

STEP 1: NAVIGATION

27

wait to be served) Hal’s got a great turn of phrase: “Okay, but... waddawa

do here?”

When marketing provides no answer, he walks. I can just hear him mut-

tering the same thing at home, moments before he bins his mail, or at his

desk, as he wrestles with and then exits yet another uncooperative website

— when all he wanted was the navigation point.

Waddawa do here? In order for the Cancer Research UK insert to sell,

what the customer needs to do is phone a local solicitor. They must cross a

bridge from thought to action. It’s the communication crux.

And there it is, number 11 in my list: “I need to phone a local solicitor.” This

should be the starting point for thinking about the design of the message.

Let navigation lead design

So how does the Cancer Research UK insert shape up?

Take

a look at Figure 9. This is what the customer sees on opening the

first fold of the insert. Not a repeat of the offer. Not a claim about how

much they will save. Not a list of the supporting benefits.

Instead, what the customer sees first is what to do. Bingo! An entire dou-

ble-page spread is given over to listing all the local participating law firms,

with a simple call to action: Choose a solicitor, phone for an appointment.

I wouldn’t expect a customer to read this spread in any great detail. But

at a glance they’ll get the idea, knowing that they can come back to it later.

(I think, if anything, they are most likely to check if their present solicitor

is on the list.)

Uncertainty minimized, the way is clear. The customer can relax and

read more about the offer. The next fold opens out the insert in its entirety

— Figure 10 — and what I like about this is the continued emphasis on nav-

igation. Through a mix of position and typography, the eye is led to a fur-

ther explanation of what to do.

The layout of this Cancer Research UK insert is not “natural.” Nine

times out of ten in a leaflet such as this you would find the navigation point

on the back, or at the end in minuscule type (or missing completely).

Happily, navigation has been allowed to lead the design. Great.

DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?

28

STEP 1: NAVIGATION

29

Figure 10

The inside spread of the Cancer Research UK insert, with a strong

continued emphasis on navigation. Reproduced by kind permission of

Cancer Research UK.

Figure 9

The answer to “waddawa do?” The first fold of the Cancer Research

UK insert opens to deal immediately with navigation. This layout

achieved twice the response of the control against which it was tested.

Reproduced by kind permission of Cancer Research UK.

And navigation

leading

the design doesn’t mean navigation

dominating

the design. (The offer is on the outside, front and reverse — exactly where

it should be.) It is just that the communication sequence has been con-

structed to act in harmony with the recipient’s thought process.

When I spoke to the marketing team at Cancer Research UK, initially to

ask permission to use their insert for a magazine article, I wasn’t surprised

to hear the response rate: It was

double

that of the control against which it

was tested.

Check if your customer already

knows what to do

Yo

u’ve probably noticed Figure 11. It relates

to the consumption of services of a sort. For a

customer involved in this particular buying

process, navigation information can be kept

to a minimum. It also highlights the role that

a visual can play in achieving speedy

navigation.

Figure 11

Little explanation required! Navigating the “forearmed” customer

can be quite straightforward.

However, the point I want to emphasize here is that you will often be com-

municating with a customer who

already

has a pretty good idea of what to

do (or what to think about).

Take

the fundraising mailing shown in Figure 12: “Save the caper-

caillie.” This was sent to me by the RSPB, of which I have been a member

for many years. During this time I have received scores of similar appeal

mailings, and occasionally I have responded.

My experience profile (as a recipient) is probably quite similar to that of

other potential donors. This means that initial navigation can be dealt with

in a taken-as-read fashion. You could say

implied

, rather than

express

.

I already know why the RSPB exists and about the phenomenal con-

DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?

30

servation work it does. Like a million other members, I pay an annual sub-

scription, which I think of as a general donation. And — as I said — I’m

familiar with the society’s frequent one-off appeals.

So I don’t really need any upfront help with navigation in the “waddawa

do” sense. I know what the organization wants me to think about. I know

what it wants me to do.

In turn, the RSPB knows it can concentrate on making the communica-

tion of the central concept (“magnificent capercaillie nearing extinction”) as

powerful and emotive as possible. It can cut to the chase and lead with the

crisis. Since I know it’s an appeal, I don’t feel conned into reading it.

Obviously, if the mailing were targeted at new members or first-time

recipients, a bit more emphasis on navigation would almost certainly be

beneficial.

STEP 1: NAVIGATION

31

Figure 12

Navigation “implied” rather than “express.” RSPB members are famil-

iar with regular fundraising mailings, so emphasis can shift to mak-

ing the communication of the central concept as powerful and

emotive as possible. Reproduced by kind permission of the RSPB.

Don’t assume that ad seekers know what to do

Hold up a typical copy of

Yellow Pages

(if you can) and you’ve probably got

15,000 display ads in the palm of your hand. I doubt your customers read

Yellow Pages

for entertainment purposes. Almost certainly they’re ad

seekers.

What does NEW AIDA thinking prescribe? Surely your customer

knows what to do? Surely you can forget about navigation altogether?

My answer to this is no. Definitely not. Your customers might be ad

seekers, but that

doesn’t

mean they know what to do.

Consider this: As a teenager, for several years I worked part-time in a

local DIY store, where I learned among other things to cut large sheets of

glass to size. Bizarrely, it seemed, customers would see our ad and then

turn up expecting to buy glass.

We

Saturday lads used to joke among ourselves about this. You

wouldn’t believe the number of times a customer couldn’t even tell you the

dimensions of the window his son had broken that morning.

13

And if he

knew the size, he often forgot the thickness (which can be just as impor-

tant). Then had he checked his shed to see if he needed nails, and putty,

and undercoat, and exterior gloss? (Customer: “I need

nails

?”) This

predicament led to many lost sales. Customers often couldn’t be bothered

to come back into town equipped with the right information.

I’ve made it sound like it was the customer’s fault for not being able to

buy glass. But you know that’s an attitude stemming from poor salesman-

ship. The lesson is that even an active ad seeker benefits from a few words

of direction: The instructions should have been in the ad.

I’ve taken two examples from the Mortgage Brokers’ section of a recent

edition of

Yellow Pages

. They provide an interesting contrast and might

help you to assess your own communications.

In Figure 13 is an ad for a firm called Financial Tactics Ltd. I like this. It

leads with a dominant image and a headline that unravels the visual mes-

sage. (More about this in Step 4, Attention.) The web address reinforces

the accessible tone: Why call it financialtactics.co.uk when you can say ask-

foramortgage.co.uk? For the confident ad seeker, it’s a clear and engaging

piece of communication.

DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?

32

No

w look at the ad shown in Figure 14 overleaf. At first sight this is

heavy with words. But what immediately struck me is its emphasis on

navigation.

Put yourself in the shoes of a first-time customer and read the sub-

heads. It reminds you that this stuff should have been on the curriculum at

school. The novice homebuyer faces a maze of uncertainty — and here’s an

ad that guides them through it.

All credit to the Mortgage Advice Network. You could say it’s done a

navigation job for the whole category. But while it might be inadvertently

helping its competitors, I’m sure the bulk of extra leads that this perceptive

ad generates will flow its way.

STEP 1: NAVIGATION

33

Figure 13

For the confident ad seeker, Financial Tactics Ltd provides a simple

navigation message. © Reproduced by kind permission of Yell Ltd

and Financial Tactics Ltd. ® YELLOW PAGES is a registered trade-

mark of Yell Ltd.

DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?

34

Figure 14

This ad tackles head-on the navigation hurdles experienced by the

first-time customer. © Reproduced by kind permission of Yell Ltd and

Mortgage Advice Network. ® YELLOW PAGES is a registered trade-

mark of Yell Ltd.

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DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?

DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?

14

Figure 3

A recruitment flyer. It comes straight to the point in telling customers

what to do and what to think about. Reproduced by kind permission

of

Which?

.

True — technically we did command their attention (unless they opened

the mailing while distracted or daydreaming). But think about this: If you

can target with 100 percent certainty customers who buy a lot of your

product already (and it’s one of the most important items they sell to

their

customers), how hard is it going to be to get their attention?

No

t difficult, I’d say. Warburtons’ “vanmen” call on their customers

every day of the week. Their address list is enviably up to date. Reaching

the right hands is not the issue.

What

is

the issue (and I repeat) is this: When you’re designing your

communication, just for a short while suspend all thought of attention.

Start with what you want your customer to do. Confirmed time and again

by

results is my experience that marketing sells better if you make it your

priority to orientate your customer. First think navigation.

Navigation in advertising

It’s tempting to think of “advertising” as a big-budget television campaign.

In fact, television is the province of only a tiny minority of advertisers. The

STEP 1: NAVIGATION

15

Figure 4

The prominent “tear-off

reply card” message reemerges 12

years later. A mailing to Warburtons’

retail customers that, at 28 percent,

quadrupled its response target and

coincided with a sales increase of over

10 percent. © Reproduced by kind

permission of Warburtons Ltd.

vast majority of ads are made for the print medium. It has been estimated

that at least 1,000 press ads are produced for every television commercial

filmed.

4

And media expenditure for press is more than double that for

television.

5

So whatever your job or the scale of your business, you probably place

print ads of some sort — in trade journals,

Yellow Pages

, or perhaps in your

local newspaper. And navigation can play a key role in effective

advertising.

Of course, many ads (print or otherwise) are

direct-response

ads like

those for financial services shown in Figure 2. For me, they fall into exactly

the same category as direct mail. Unequivocally, you should show and tell

the reader what to do. Indeed, I’d argue that it is

even more

critical for a

direct-response advertisement: Compared to a mailing there’s far less

scope to use the format — the physical components — to help you commu-

nicate what to do. (I’ll talk in more detail about format in Step 2, Ease.)

Conventional advertising

It’s relatively easy to see the importance of navigation in relation to direct

marketing. Direct marketing very obviously traverses the whole of old

AIDA. By its very definition, it expects the customer to do something.

In ordinary advertising, however, the role of navigation might at first

seem more obscure. If your customer doesn’t actually have to do anything

other than register your message, where’s the need for navigation? Surely

the job of these ads is merely to get attention, create interest, and perhaps

build desire. When it’s time to shop in your category, your customer

already wants your brand. Simple.

Or not. How often have you discussed “great” ads with friends and yet

been

unable

to recall what they were for? During 2003 a television cam-

paign for a car manufacturer attracted much publicity. The ad featured

components from the car gently knocking together in a domino effect, an

idea reportedly inspired by the “Mousetrap” game. The brand of car, and

the point of the ad, were revealed at the end of an absorbing two minutes’

watching.

DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?

16

But today can you remember the brand? Can you remember what the

ad wanted you to know about the car? (Like why you should buy one?)

“Ah, but it doesn’t work like that... it’s subliminal... subconscious...

much more subtle” (say the experts).

The king is in the altogether (I say).

Where it isn’t appropriate to tell your customer what to do, begin

instead by telling them what to

think about

. It really amounts to the

same thing.

Even if an ad is just one small part of the longest-term, slowest-burning

campaign ever conceived, written, and produced, surely there is a point in

conditioning your customer’s mind to the message that’s coming their

wa

y? Yet in ads like the one I have described, it seems to me that naviga-

tion never even got started. And I reckon that one of the world’s most suc-

cessful communication organizations would agree with me.

Problem hair?

Some members of the creative fraternity deride what might be called the

rational Procter & Gamble approach to advertising. But at least P&G

begins its ads by telling you what to think about. And why leave it to

chance?

I don’t imagine P&G would ever expect you to sit through two minutes’

showmanship to find out why you’re paying attention. Why would you lis-

ten to someone trying to sell you something you might not want, when you

could be making a cup of tea or having a much-needed comfort break?

Most P&G ads inform you of your problem and the solution the company

offers within 8 seconds.

6

I repeat: Why leave it to chance? In Step 5 I’ll talk about the importance

of selling to customers who are

already interested

in buying from us. Isn’t it

common sense to give them a clue about whom and what we represent?

Showmanship is but a poor shadow of salesmanship.

STEP 1: NAVIGATION

17

Think tabloid

Do people drive you mad when they won’t come to the point? They have

some news but they won’t tell you upfront. While they hold stage as story-

teller, you’re screaming inside your head” “Just tell me where we’re going!”

(If they were an ad, you would have turned the page long ago.)

As someone who has trained myself to be impatient with communica-

tions, I love tabloid newspapers. They tell you what to think.

By this I don’t mean what

opinion

to have (though they may do that too),

but that they tell you what

you’re going to get. Right

upfront. Take a look at

Figure 5. There’s no procras-

tination, no “once upon a

time” pantomime.

Figure 5

The tabloid approach.

A typical front page telling cus-

tomers in less than a second

what they are being asked to

think about. Stars (who) flee

(what they did) palace (where)

fire (what happened). Repro-

duced by kind permission of

Ne

ws International.

Wi

th the tabloids it’s straight to the punchline every time. If

The Sun

had

been around the day the Cinderella story broke, it would have been:

“SHOE FITS: CINDERS QUEEN.” Boom.

Shoe fits: Cinders Queen. It’s all you need to know. And it’s not the lan-

guage that matters here (though short words do work better

7

), it’s the reverse

storytelling technique that is so effective. You get the last line of the romance

in the headline. That’s the key information you need so you can decide in sec-

onds whether this article is something you want to devote precious minutes to.

DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?

18

I remember having a conversation about headlines with an editor in the

Mirror Group. He said:

“When it comes to off-the-shelf sales, I effectively have to launch a

new product every single day. If the customer can’t see at a glance

what he’s getting, he’ll pick up my competitor.”

The corollary for advertisers? Identify yourself to your customer. Tell them

what you want them to think about. They’re almost certainly interested —

so help them with the navigation.

Crazytivity

Edward de Bono invented the word “crazytivity” to describe the act of

being different just for the sake of being different (and believing that it

equals “creativity”).

It’s not difficult to find ads like this. They make me think of a salesman

in fancy dress, who says to his customer: “OK, guess what I’m trying to sell

you today?” Give me a break.

In Figure 6 overleaf is an ad (disguised) that I found in a recent edition

of

Stuff

magazine. Try to guess what it’s for. I’ve made this more difficult

by

removing all references to the product.

“Impossible!” you cry. I agree. Upfront, there are few clues to be found.

(But it was the same with the real ad.)

At

a glance, the main image is actually not that inherently interesting or

impactful, and is certainly not informative. The headline is set in a typeface

that is rather difficult to read. Added to that, it’s written as a riddle that is

quite hard to understand, never mind begin to solve.

Even taken together, the headline and the image don’t exactly

explain one another. You’d be excused for thinking that it’s something

to do with computer games. At a glance, the body copy is too small to

read (so no quick clues available there) and is made more awkward by

being set in reverse (white on black), which the eye finds

uncomfortable.

8

STEP 1: NAVIGATION

19

DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?

20

Figure 6

The risk of not telling the customer what to think about. This is a dis-

guised ad, with the same characteristics as its real counterpart. At a

glance this ad provides almost no navigation clues.

The only direct reference to the subject of the original ad —

what the

advertiser wants you to think about

— is a well-camouflaged image, a dark

object on a black background about 3cm x 3cm in real size, placed down

in a corner where the eye won’t naturally go at a glance. Even the brand

name — one of the best in the business and sure to have given the reader a

helping hand — took some finding.

I have used the expression “at a glance” several times. This is to empha-

size what for me is the key navigation issue. The averagely busy reader of

Stuff

magazine has to deal with some 50 ads and 100-odd pages packed

with endless new gadgets. If you’re placing an ad, “at a glance” is about the

most you should plan for.

Your customer is whizzing past. Sure, they’re actively searching for

information in your product category (else

I

wouldn’t be calling them your

customer and

you’d

be wasting your time trying to speak with them) — but

if they can’t tell at a glance that this

is

your product category, why would

they stop to read your ad?

Pe

rhaps viewed in the splendid isolation and time-rich environment of

the boardroom, the ad was considered to be imaginative, intriguing, and

distinctive. That’s fine. But if the boardroom isn’t the same as when cus-

tomer meets marketing, it’s a dangerous place to take your artwork.

In a simple browsing test that I use to check out points like this, the real

version of this ad got a score of under 20 percent versus an ad for a simi-

lar product placed nearby in the same magazine.

9

I won’t pretend that this

method is scientific or comprehensive, but when five people understand

your competitor’s ad for every one that notices and understands your own,

I think alarm bells should begin to ring.

The lesson? If you decide on an obtuse approach to your customer, you

need to be extremely confident that your graphics and headline will stop

them in their tracks — and engage their minds.

If they don’t know what you want them to do (in this case, what to think

about), are they really going to expend valuable time trying to find out?

More likely they’ll pass you by

Read More