Staying Busy

You can feel when the agency is doing well.

Everyone has a glow of confidence and there is a definite smoothness in the work process. Everyone’s busy and the work is good.

We’ve been hiring over the past few months; writers, designers, account managers, even some just graduated trainees.
We took our “it’s the economy” hit last year. We got so freaking paranoid as business slowed down that we trimmed down, tightened up and re-evaluated every process and procedure. We got focused on what clients need, right now.
We must have done something right.
The agency came out of the gate strong in 2009 and whatever it is that we are doing right; we plan to keep doing it!

Speaking of Trainees
We have three new college grads starting next week.
They will go through six months of training and if they’re still here in 6 months will be promoted to Assistant Something or Other. Their first week, we don’t give them any work. It’s all about orientation by different departments and agency process training, which can be pretty intense. They walk around in a daze and tend to cling to each other. We have a pretty good training process in place. On average, it takes two to three months before it all comes together for them and they have what I call the AHA! moment. All of a sudden, they understand how the agency can go from a challenge to a brilliantly executed solution and what part they can play in that.

What’s good with having several trainees at once is that they learn to work as a team and support each other. Once several years ago, I had a trainee that just wasn’t getting it. She was a hard worker and very smart, but not firing on all cylinders. I called together three other trainees in the agency and told them that it was their responsibility to get her up to 100%. I also told them all of the terrible things that would happen to them if they failed.
Worked like a charm.

I love eCommerce
Ever since we built the PetFoodDirect.com site in the late 90’s, I’ve been fascinated with eCommerce.
We just soft launched an eCommerce site called www.SkinRenu.com . The site sells high quality skin products. We needed to keep the budget in control while we built the first phase of the site. So we went with a Yahoo Store Front that we customized. It looks pretty good and started pulling orders right away. But there’s still a lot to be done over the next six months.

A RPV session led to the concept of “Love what you see when you look in the mirror.” The brand vision is paid of well on the site. Next we start to build in all the response triggers. Things like special offers, promotions, and events. Once we get all the bugs out of it, we’ll begin testing Search Engine Marketing (SEM). You’ll see the site grow and change over the next year and I’ll keep you posted on what’s happening and what I’m learning.

And I’m open to your suggestions! Really.

Jon

Eyeball Candy Websites

We’re working on a lot of websites at the moment.

When I think of websites, I think of a seminar I went to given by Amy Africa, an authority on how people use the internet. Go take a look at her website and when you come back, I’ll make my point.
http://www.eightbyeight.com/

My point.
You probably think her website is butt-ugly. But I’m telling you, Amy Africa knows more about building websites that generate business then I will ever know (and I’m pretty good). She uses all the tricks she’s learned doing research on how people surf, purchase and interact with anything on the web. This is a website that generates response!

Using the Rosen Velocity Scale -- http://www.rgrosen.com/velocity.html ,
I would rate Ms. Africa’s site at an 8 or 9.
That’s because the site is totally focused on visitor interaction.
When I tell our interactive and web designers to go to Ms. Africa’s website; they all moan and cry about its lack of beauty and failure of design. They are missing the point.

The secret to a customer interactive site is Eyeball Candy!
Ms. Africa has eyeball candy piled up all over her site. Your eyes go from tidbit to tidbit. Offer to offer. She knows that the reds and blues and orange are the best colors for a website.
The secret to improving your website is not to copy the Africa look. Though I would say that you couldn’t go wrong if that’s what you did.
The trick is to incorporate eyeball candy technique into your site wherever possible.

One trick to create your eyeball candy is to make a list of every key fact, offer, benefit and feature you want the site to deliver on the home page. With this list you create individual pieces (eyeball candy) that show a visual, headline and a short punchy copy lead that draws to eye to it. Each one of these candies allows you to click deeper into the site to find out more. You might have three different eyeball candies that all click to the same inside page, each one leveraging a different feature/benefit.

Go take a look at this site:
www.PetFoodDirect.com

I designed this site 10 years ago. It’s an eyeball candy site. I think Amy Africa would be very pleased with it. The homepage consistently converts visitors into orders better than anything that has been tested against it. That’s because the homepage delivers everything it can to pay-off the anticipated needs of the visitor. It then draws the visitor into the site to capture the orders.
If I could redesign this site based on what I know today, I would do a better job of brand delivery, but the eyeball candy style would remain and continue to draw visitors in.

Eyeball candy design need not be ugly. Done correctly, it can be dramatic and award winning design. If your website is to be judged on clicks, sign-ups and/or orders…eyeball candy works!

Jon

Where's the Gee Wiz?

Direct marketing is not a sexy word.

Whenever I told someone that I was a direct marketer, the universal response was, “Oh, you mean direct mail.” It would drive me freaking crazy, because direct mail is only one channel of a
multi-channel/media discipline.
So I started referring to my work as direct advertising and right away, people had a better grasp of what I did.

Direct advertising is not a sexy word either, but it’s better.
Direct advertising is advertising that has clear accountability, as well as a good brand delivery. It consists of a mix of direct mail, web, TV, print, outdoor, etc.; you can even spray paint your ad on the sides of sheep, as long as you can read the results.
I'm going to focus on direct mail for this post. What a lot of people don’t realize, is how powerful direct mail is. And I’m not talking about all those postcards I receive and toss in the trash every day. We have client direct mail campaigns going right now that are doing so well that a tear of happiness runs down my cheek every time I read the reports. And on top of that they look great!

Direct mail is not a postcard.
You lose most of the advantages of direct mail by using a postcard. And the number one advantage is having all of the room you need to deliver a marketing message and ask the recipient to respond.

Good direct mail always has a well written letter.
The letter is a personal one-on-one communication that clearly explains what we are offering you, what it is, what it can do for you, how you get it. . The letter refers the reader to the support materials that are in the package like a brochure, fact sheet or reply device. Each additional piece in the direct mail package supports the brand message/offer and works with the letter to generate a response.

I refer to the letter communication as:
A logical progression of thought that leads to a specific outcome.

In addition to the letter comes the supporting material like a brochure and response card. This is where you can pay off the brand creative with a big “Gee Wiz” idea that brings in creative memory triggers and/or unique positioning. These “Gee Wiz” ideas can be carried over to the outside envelope where they break through the mail clutter (usually a bunch of postcards from your competition).
Sometimes at our agency you’ll hear someone in a creative meeting ask,
“Where’s the Gee Wiz?”

And if it’s not there, we start looking for it.

Jon

Accountability by Testing

You need early accountability to succeed.

As an agency founder with my feet firmly planted in direct marketing, I've never had a problem with being judged by the results of my work. The quicker I know that something I'm doing is not generating business for my client, the quicker I can get it fixed!
That means that not only do I need to find a way to measure the results of my advertising; I need to measure those results as early as possible.

Vision and energy...no clients
When I started Roska Direct, I had a vision and a lot of energy. What I didn't have was clients. I hauled my portfolio all around town, banging on doors and driving people crazy looking for my first big break. That break came from Marty Goodman, the national circulation manager at TV GUIDE. I honestly think that Marty gave me that first assignment just to get me off his back. The job was to create a direct mail package for new subscribers. I worked on that concept day and night for two weeks and when I presented my ideas to Marty, he liked what he saw and gave me the go ahead to finish it up for a test mailing.
I continued to work on the package day and night for another two weeks and when it was done, Marty included it in a group of test mailings.

And when the response results came back...my creative did so poorly that when it hit the ground, it left a crater. I remember walking into Marty's office after the results were in with my head down, knowing I had blown my big opportunity. Marty looked at me and said, "What's your problem? We all thought your idea was a good one, now we know it doesn't work." and he gave me another assignment!
Once again I worked day and night, applying what I had learned from the first test. When the results of the second test came in Marty told me that it had done much better, but did not beat the control. (The control is the direct mail package that generates the best results with a positive ROI) and he gave me a third assignment. The third assignment became a control position for TV GUIDE for the next four years.

Test early, test often
Marty Goodman taught me that testing early, testing often and learning from each test leads to advertising success. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to work with him.

Most advertisers don't test, they come up with what might be a very good idea, sometimes do research to validate the idea and then shoot the entire advertising budget on a campaign. They find out if the idea worked or didn't work after the ad budget has been spent. That's one of the big reasons why the average tenure of a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is around 2.4 years!

Good marketers approach their job like a general approaches a battle. The general tests different parts of the enemy's lines, looking for weak spots or opportunities. When that opportunity is identified, that is where he strikes!

Test, find the opportunities and focus your resources where they will generate the best ROI.
Jon

My Secret Sauce

When your advertising is accountable...you better be good.

I know the results of every campaign we have done because as a direct marketer I test and build in accountability to prove the success (or failure) of our advertising.
Over the years I've learned what the power of incorporating good branding into direct advertising can do. I've developed and tested the techniques that allow me to "fuse" brand and direct together to create a different type of advertising.

These techniques are my "secret sauce"

Here are the ingredients:

1. Reputation - What customers and prospects are saying about your product or service.


2. Promise - The tangible attributes that your product or service deliver.


3. Vision - What customers and prospects will be or become through interaction with your product or service.


4. Response Triggers - Words and visuals that get customers and prospects to take action.


5. Memory Triggers - Words and visuals that remain with the prospects who do not react to the response triggers.


6. Individuality - A unique communication experience for each customer or prospect.


7. Accountability - A risky ingredient, but well worth it to prove success.
   

When you combine these ingredients the right way, you create my secret sauce--advertising that delivers brand and generates response.

Jon

The Annual Roska Picnic

Our annual agency picnic is fast approaching!

That means all of the trash talk emails start flying around the agency as different agency teams try to recruit or just psych-out the competition. Ed B. and I love to play horseshoes and below is our trash talk email:

Equestrian Footwear Competition
That's right folks, it's that time again.
You have a shot at beating the unbeatable, of gaining some serious bragging rights by winning a game of horseshoes against the Jon R./Ed B. Equestrian Footwear team. We've won so many games over the years that we have lost count. The only team that even came close was the Ed R. team and we came back last year and beat them so bad that Ed R. needed a sock puppet to tell his therapist what happened to him.

Spectators and challengers are invited to watch Ed B. drink gallons of beer while throwing ringer after ringer. Don't miss Jon R. insulting the competition's Mother, children and dog as he caps their last throw. Come by, take your best shot, while Jon and Ed open a can of horseshoe whoop-ass on you.

Hear Ed and Jon not only insult you and everything you hold dear in life, but as a bonus you get to hear them insult each other with disparaging remarks sure to have you cheering.

So pick your partner, get some practice and say a prayer, light a candle or dance naked around a chicken, whatever works for you. See you there!
This trash talk is brought to you by the Jon R./Ed B. Equestrian Footwear World Champion Team.

Talk to your HR department before you send trash talk emails out.

Jon

Don't Forget the Memory Trigger

“Nobody bakes a cake as tasty as a Tasty Cake!”

A great advertising man, Charlie Coffey, who I had the honor of working with for several years, once told me, “If you can’t think of anything to say about a product, sing it.”

One of his best was the Tasty Cake jingle. Once you get that little tune stuck in your head, you were condemned to replay it over and over, for the next 24 hours. Now that’s a memory trigger.

Memory triggers are a key component to incorporating brand into a direct advertising campaign. They can come in many forms, visual, music, copy and they all relate to your product, service or brand.

Take a little quiz
Here’s a list of 10 memory triggers. You tell me what brand or product they represent –

1. Blue Box
2. Duck
3. Hot Air Balloon
4. Gecko
5. Repairman with nothing to do
6. LSMFT
7. Garden Gnome
8. Rabbit
9. Cowboy
10. Zoom Zoom

All of the above are memory triggers for large, broad market brands. Their advertising budgets give them the reach and frequency to ensure that most of you will be familiar with them, (#6 is worth bonus points if you get it right). The best memory triggers relate to things that we will see, hear or encounter in our everyday lives. It doesn’t matter how big the audience is; memory triggers can make an advertising campaign better.

Memory triggers help direct advertising work better
Many of you have a finite audience and using targeted direct advertising that delivers a memory trigger that ties back to your brand will do a better job.

We are working on a direct advertising campaign right now that uses famous statues in unusual poses as the memory trigger. The visuals are very creative, easy to remember and when people see a picture of the actual statue during their everyday work or play, they will relate it back to our client’s brand on a conscious or subconscious level.

Our objective is to generate an immediate response from a portion of the target market, while leaving strong brand memory triggers with the non-responders. This will maintain or improve response from the target market during future marketing efforts.

The RPV session leads to memory trigger development
As I’ve pointed out in previous posts, clearly defining your brand reputation, promise and vision gives you the positioning statements and power words you need to focus your creative thinking. It’s not unusual for a big idea to leap out of the process and deliver a great copy line or visual. Turn that into a memory trigger and you’re creating great advertising.

Here are the answers to the quiz

1. Blue Box – Tiffany & Co., if you’re ever lucky enough to get a gift from Tiffany’s, hang
onto the box. You’ll look like a big spender when you toss a $5 pair of earrings into it
and give it as a gift. In fact, that’s probably what the person who gave you the box did!
2. Duck – Aflac Insurance
3. Hot Air Balloon – RE/MAX Realtors
4. Gecko – GEICO, the lizard is good.
5. Repairman with nothing to do – the Maytag repairman
6. LSMFT – Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco – A famous campaign from the mid 40’s.
If you got this one, you’re old.
7. Garden Gnome -- Travelocity
8. Rabbit – you get two chances to get this one right. Kix cereal, “Silly rabbit, Kix are for kids”
or the Energizer Bunny.
9. Cowboy – Marlboro Man
10. Zoom Zoom – Mazda Automobiles

Jon