| Last week I went back to school. I was invited to be a guest lecturer at an advanced undergraduate advertising class at the University of St. Thomas. The students, all seniors, were involved in a class project to prepare an integrated marketing plan to a small Minnesota company selling organic cookies, cereals and snacks to adults and kids. The company developed a niche kid product line called FIT KIDS™ and the class was divided into teams to come up with the perfect marketing plan for Fit Kids. (My editor pointed out my inconsistency in how I am using the brand name, but that’s how they do it on their website.)
The strategies of direct marketing, database marketing and CRM (Customer Relationship Marketing) were not being strongly considered by this class primarily because they had little exposure to the topics. For 90 minutes I tried to infuse a new paradigm and in the process of researching this company, I became the student.
Wanting to learn more about the company and specifically FIT KIDS™, I did a Google search for Fit Kids and came up empty. Then I searched for the company and found it. Keep in mind that I’m searching as a consumer looking for information. I found the company website but it must have dropped me on a retail buyer’s page. As a consumer, I really did not care about meeting their sales team and Chief Cookie Officer, aka President. Later I found the real home page that was boringly corporate and anything but fun and engaging – but at least was focused on consumers.
The website has a FIT KIDS™ tab that someone had designed to look like it was for kids. The problem is no kid is ever going there. They did have a button at the bottom for special offers and I opened it, but there were no special offers. However, there was a form to fill out asking for my e-mail address, name and contact information. The copy said I would get periodic e-newsletters and special offers. I signed up and submitted my personal information despite the absence of a stated privacy policy, but I figured I might be the only one to ever sign up.
After signing up, a message appeared thanking me for giving them my e-mail address and I would receive something soon. About five minutes later I received an e-mail from the company, not from Fit Kids, because the e-newsletter is from the company, not Fit Kids – even though I signed up on the Fit Kids page. The e-mail thanked me for signing up and sometime soon I would receive an e-newsletter and special offers. If I wanted to unsubscribe, I could do it right now.
Fast-forward to the lecture: I asked the students if they had visited the website and all had. That was good. I asked them to rank it on a 1-10 scale and they gave it a 4, which I thought was generous. However, none of them had actually followed the process through and actually signed-up giving me the opportunity to focus on the LEFT BRAIN side of Creative Analytics. My learning point was that every touchpoint and channel has to be completely explored, leading to this week’s AH-ha!
The Marketing Implications
SEIZE THE MOMENT! Returning an administrative e-mail with NO RELEVANT CONTENT AND ASKING ME TO WAIT is one of the weakest strategies I have encountered on the web. They had me. I was at their site. I signed up. And they didn’t do anything. I wasn’t looking for a “thank you.” I wanted something and I got nothing. Why they didn’t give me an e-newsletter and special offer coupon to hook me is unknown. Whatever the reason, they missed a golden opportunity and that’s this week’s Ah-ha!.
Sadly, this is not an isolated case. I went back to the office after the lecture to find an e-mail from my life insurance agent announcing his company’s new e-newsletter. This is the first real electronic communication I have gotten from him or his company since the web was invented so to say they are behind the technology curve would be an understatement. So where was the e-newsletter? Was there a link? Nothing. They wasted my time. They forgot to SEIZE THE MOMENT.
The final blow was that there was a place to reply, which instead of the usual e-mail reply was a form full of products I could check for more information and a little text box for comments. I included a comment and submitted it. Two minutes later I got a message back saying it was undeliverable.
This week, do a quality control test on your websites. Make sure they are structured to SEIZE THE MOMENT and that they work. And, as we learned last week in preparing to launch a new client web based initiative, it is critical to make absolutely sure that every browser can display it. What looks fine on Firefox may be a disaster on Safari, Opera, IE 7, and IE 6 may present an even different view.
Whoever said Internet marketing is easy has a thing or two yet to learn.
Have a fantastic week.
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