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Inventing New Marketing Strategies
by Brian Mulconrey

Aug 31, 2004 – While "Do-Not-Call Lists" break down telemarketing and person-to-person phone marketing effectiveness, there is another front opening up in the consumer's battle to escape "unsolicited sales messages."

According to a recent study by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a New York investment bank specializing in media, a growing number of consumers are willing to pay not to receive advertising messages. An article in The Economist notes – "The chunk of their media-consuming time that Americans devoted to media that is mostly financed by advertising, such as broadcast TV, consumer magazines and daily newspapers, shrank by seven percentage points between 1998 and 2003, to 56%. On current trends, says the bank, by 2008 consumers will spend an average of 46% of their time with media that they largely pay for, such as pay-TV, DVDs, the internet and video games. As the production costs of these forms of media are largely paid for through their sales price or subscriptions, they may contain little or no advertising."

So, what can we do about it? Well, a popular response has been to accelerate investments in traditional advertising and telemarketing techniques in the hope that trying harder will overcome these new barriers (spending on media rose 3.2% in 2003 to $176 billion). Investing in "inventing" new strategies may seem like a long shot, but the key is to combine new insights with successful techniques that are already in play to invent your own unique strategy. For example…

Barrier Removal Strategies – It can be amazing to observe the amount of money that some organizations spend to get a customer to make a purchase only to then drop the ball by putting their new customers through an arduous sales process. Life insurance companies are notorious in this regard. Many life companies lose 15% to 20% of new sales due to people who tire of their 4 to 8 week "new business underwriting processes." Eliminating or reducing these barriers in the sales process can be very high payoff. Even when prices need to be increased to pay for these efforts, the net effect can be a substantial increase in profitable new business.

Networking Strategies – The idea of securing "referrals" from satisfied customers is certainly not new. But, thanks to new technologies, it's becoming easier to recognize and reward customers by linking their pricing and discounts into referral activity. The cell phone and long distance companies are only the most obvious examples. This technique is becoming popular in a wide variety of product niches. A number of hybrid strategies are emerging for combining referral programs with traditional association marketing techniques. 

Channel Innovation Strategies – Distribution channel innovation doesn't mean "adding new channels". The idea here is to take existing channels and consider new ways to structure existing channel relationships. For example, one financial services firm developed a strategy involving the creation of a jointly owned company with over 50 customer credit unions. This joint venture company strengthened the firm's relationships with these credit union customers by putting both parties on the same side of the table in negotiations.

The key to strategy innovation is to start with a clear understanding of your existing marketing situation and then begin mentally "experimenting" with new ideas and techniques. These thought experiments frequently result in new and unexpected directions. (For More Information)▲