I’ve remarked briefly before about my changing business model for Iterative Listening. Part of the story lies in my realization that, for lots of reasons, I wasn’t interested in having “direct mail/emaill copywriting (business-to-consumer)” at the center, as it was in the original plan. One reason: I’m just not convinced that the “tried and true” of direct response will work with the various Gen Y-related demographics I’m most interested in..
It isn’t that Gen Y won’t respond to some direct mail/email solicitation. They have, they do, and they will continue to.
But their information filters work very, very different than older direct response demographics, and that makes some of the DR marketer’s traditional techniques highly problematic.
Think of it this way: any given marketing activity can engender three types of “response”: (i) positive response (leads, sales, other conversion goals); (ii) non-response (the most frequent, call it “send it to the trash” response; and (iii) negative response. This last is the most dangerous, and the kind that an awful lot of direct mailers simply seem to ignore.
I call it the “pissed-off percentage”. People in group (iii) don’t just trash your letter or email. They remember. They take umbrage at your wasting their time. They remember, and they spread the word. And the word is not good.
As long as the positive response is “big enough,” traditional direct mailers have always been happy. (And so are those who write copy for them, by the way, since copywriter fees/royalties are directly a function of the copywriters ability to “pull”.)
And it’s worked. I can point to dozens of copywriters whose own financial success (and their clients’ financial success) is directly related to their ability to pull. Focus on making group (i) as big as possible. Period.
Look closely at the demographics. These successful writers get their greatest successes with whom? How often are they aiming at Gen Y? Or even Gen X? How many of them are focusing on Boomers. Seniors? Super-seniors?
Or they’re writing B-to-B copy. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that B-to-B copy looks different than B-to-C copy, and pretty much always has. Business buyers — well, they just don’t have the time or the patience to deal with those things that work in many B-to-C markets: constant upselling, daily autoresponders, telemarketing. And their “piss off factor” is very high.
And Gen Y is the same way.
Take up-selling. Nothing wrong with it. Gotta do it. But do it “too much,” and the recipient stops reading you completely. They see the envelope from the Upselling Institute, and it goes immediately to the trash. They see UI is the sender, and one click removes the message from the inbox.
And if they keep seeing UI, and you make them scroll down to the unsubscribe button — well, they don’t see that as “easy”. They see that as someone wasting their multi-tasking time. And they’ve joined the pissed-off percentage.
And guess what? A lot of those Gen Yers on your mailing list? The ones who haven’t unsubscribed yet? You might think they’re still warm or semi-warm prospects. But they are colder than cold. They’re as cold as a bath of liquid nitrogen.
They’re illustrations of the Klingon/Sicilian proverb about revenge.
Okay, perhaps that’s stretching the point — since most of them simply aren’t going to be bothered to waste any more time with you.
But they are going to talk about you. Because they don’t like being “just a customer.”
By the time you identify how to transplant your upselling strategy and “discover” a new marketing channel like Facebook or Twitter, they’re already living their real internet lives somewhere else. Somewhere else where they’re spreading negative vibes about you.
You’ve violated the authenticity principle. You’ve entered the realm where the best that you can hope for is that they ignore you. And the worst — they spread the word about how your only interest is your revenue stream. They don’t mind you wanting to be rich. But they do mind you only wanting them for their money.
Whether they should have such a view of the marketplace is beside the point. The fact is, they have it. And they live it.
They’re not into “doing business” (at least not when they’re behaving as prospective buyers). They’re into relationships. And they’re not interested in relationships with people who see them only as prospects.
It’s basic marketing, really. Learn the psychology of your market first. Then choose from your box of tools. Not the other way around.
That hasn’t changed.
What has changed are the consequences if you don’t do it.
These prospects have choices beyond “yes” and “no.”
And they know it.
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