Back to the top Hit and Miss Marketing and Advertising is expensive Now you have the opportunity to seize control of marketing your business One to One Marketing Seminars Next round to be held on 26th March in Beverley £75 for 1 hour Includes follow up report & advice Places limited so please book early Ring 07947 779542 to book your place All our clients are unique so is our advice | | | | |
Heyday Age Concern launched Heyday in 2006. The £26 a year subscription scheme was based on a web site and a monthly magazine. Heyday targeted over 50's and promoted benefits on products and services. the scheme was clearly a rival for Saga. Heyday was wound up in early February 2009 after a damming report from The Charity Commissioners. The Commission ruled that there was not enough evidence of a need for Heyday and raised doubts that the activities of Heyday were not clearly charitable. Heyday was a classic case of dictating products and services rather than providing what the market actually wants. Heyday raised £700,000 and was sustained by £5m from Age Concern's reserves. The charity Age planned to recruit a membership of 2 million members in five years and to reach 300,000 by March 2007. In reality Age Concern had 44,000 subscriptions by March 2007. How did Heyday differ from successful Saga? It approached in a reverse way to Saga. Over 50's take Saga holidays and insurance because for the good deal they receive. They then go on to subscribe to the magazine. Heyday invited over 50's to sign up then offered the products, services and benefits. The other main difference is that Age Concern is a charity and Saga is a limited company. Source Marketing Week Back to the Top How easy is it for you to buy fine quality wines from family run vineyards? You will not find the wines Andrassy's sell on supermarket shelves. Andrassy fine Wines are a family run business and they buy from family run wineries in France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Portugal and New Zealand. www.andrassy.co.uk |
Royal Mail The direct mail industry is contracting due largely to the downturn in the fortunes of finance companies who were the biggest users (The Summit Feb 09). Royal Mail clearly has an interest in the fortunes of the direct mail industry. While under threat from rival companies, Royal Mail is constrained on pricing by regulator Postcom. The job of marketing Royal Mail products and services should be a difficult one but media director for Royal Mail Mark Thomson is upbeat about Royal Mail and the potential for growth and profit. He intends to achieve this by concentrating on innovation and business customers. Thomson has introduced ‘ The Matter Box’ as a means to make direct mail more effective. The Matter Box is filled with samples from one brand e.g. Sony. Test mailings of the new direct mail idea together with clever use of You Tube and blogs increased enquiries for the boxes from 1,000 to 65,000. Thomson predicts large brands will be fighting to use Royal Mail to produce Matter Boxes for them. Thomson also sees great potential from the use of the data Royal Mail owns. He said ' How valuable would ‘redirected through relocation mail’ be to a furniture company.' Source The Marketer Press Releases Finding a story newsworthy enough to interest the press is hard enough but as important for success is targeting the right publication. As with all marketing and advertising the trick is to target the publications your customers will be reading. The choices are: National press on and offline Local press Free newspapers Consumer magazines Trade and professional magazines Business to business magazines A press release has to catch the eye of the publications editor while at the same time attracting your customers if it is published. So what stories should you use for press releases? Here are a fewsuggestions: Received an award An interesting customer An anniversary (1,000 customer) Charity sponsorship and events Community involvement When you submit your press release include, contact details, your web site address and include a photograph to bring your story to life. Back to the top and finally.............. Kit Kat does nothing Kit Kat has a new website where it encourages people to take a break away from complex websites with loads of text and images. www.thefirstworldwidewebsitewherenothinghappens.com, simply says: ‘The first worldwide website where nothing happens’. And ‘have a break’. Users are told that if they see anything happening they should report it as a bug and they will get a prize. Campaign, 13 February 2009, p5 | 
