Leveling the playing field

The great thing about the web and electronic marketing is that everyone can play. You do not have to be a multi-million dollar company with a marketing budget to match in order to stay in the game. In fact, I have always believed that small companies have a nimbleness that makes them more adept at marketing and when you combine that with the great opportunities of the web, as a small company you may have more success than the lumbering corporate wheel.

Another benefit of electronic marketing is the correction factor. When I first started ThePowerXChange (not my first company), every bit of marketing we did was print; either a print ad, a print brochure, or a printed direct-mail piece. My nightmare was the campaign-gone-wrong. I remember one mailing we did where I used a stock image that a handful of our customers found objectionable. We were shocked because we thought we had developed a well-planned and artistic piece. I knew though, that if there were ten people who felt compelled to actually write a letter (before the days of email), then there were likely hundreds who were just as offended, and who didn't write. Having just sent out about 50,000 of these, there was simply nothing we could do.

Thankfully, those days are gone. This is not to say that an ill-received campaign doesn't have any staying power simply because it's electronic, but we do have the ability to send out a retraction, change the campaign, improve the offer, or even kill the campaign entirely. In fact, the beauty is that we "can" do that. We can send out four electronic campaigns with essentially the same message -- buy one, get one free, save 50%, get half off, or save $50 -- testing as we go. If we find that one particular approach is returning better results, we can replace the other three with the same messaging.

Having said that, there's also the downfall. If I were to send that same ill-fated, direct-mail piece today, what at the time was less than a dozen outraged customers could easily turn into many thousands. Depending on how offensive the message is, it could be passed through the electronic network like a pregnancy rumor through a junior high. If it really goes badly, you could make headlines... OUCH!

Assuming that you have developed a winning campaign -- with careful consideration for the stock imagery -- between your web site, an email to your customers, a press release, a news release, a story on your blog, and perhaps a well-place banner ad or two, you could be racking up the orders in no time at all. If the campaign is going well, with just a few clicks of the mouse, you can extend the offer, expand the range, rent the list of a partner, or even collaborate with a friendly company to create a soft bundle -- and you could make that decision today and have it in place by tomorrow.

Big companies simply cannot respond this quickly. Oh, they have the opportunity alright, but by the time they've held 37 meetings with all the stakeholders about the feasibility, the content, the IT changes, the web-page modifications, and the budgets, you could have already sold and shipped another gross of whatchamacallits.

I like the balance. I don't have the budget, but I don't have the burden either.