Welcome to the Escape Blog

Over on The Escapee Blog, Chris Pearson from Channel Advantage laid down a bit of a challenge:

"I suggest ‘the Escape’ you show us your skills and list out 10 areas
the post office went wrong and maybe a few ideas to get them started."

We like a challenge so here goes (please bear in mind I don’t know about the regulations that surround Royal Mail so these may not be implementable in the real world). Also, I always like to look forward, not back, so won’t dwell on where they may have gone wrong.

1. Rural Deliveries: It seems that one of the bug bears of RM is that they have to deliver to the less profitable rural ares. Why not also introduce deliveries of different items, not just post. If this is not feasible, why not partner with a third party who could do this. Also, why not offer a collection service as well for Free? Groceries, dry cleaning, banking, etc.
2. Advertising: People love freebies and don’t mind if advertising is involved. Why not reduce the cost of some postage by introducing a second service (advertising class), against allowing advertising on the envelope. This would obviously only work with personal mail but there is still a market. You also know that all local post ends up going through a local sorting office - so the advertising could be localised.
3. Free Business Collections: £500 per year to collect my business post - no thanks, I’d rather send an email.
4. Scrap 2nd class post: It’s all second class these days and it confuses people.
5. Flexible Stamp Prices: You buy one first class stamp, it costs 32p. You buy 100, they cost 32p each. Why no discount?
6. Free Postage For the over 65’s: (not sure how you’d manage it though)
7. Two-Way Stamps: Two-part device for stamps to encourage a reply. Like a return ticket on a train.
8. Online Postage: On the same lines as Chris’s idea - there must be massive scope for an online community. They also have the idea vehicle to advertise - on the envelopes of the millions of bits of post every day. This could also include ISP services.
9. Online e-mail marketing services seems like a good extension to their current services offering - extendable to text messaging also.
10. Hire a better PR firm. They always seem to be taking a battering in the press - they need to sort it.

Probably could come up with some other better ones but it’s Good Friday and it’s me in my kitchen on my own (saddo). So much better in a team- At The Escape we love nothing like a good brain storm - it’s how we come up with our best ideas.

If you are a company, small or large, that are looking for some creative solutions - why not challenge us with your business. Some of the ideas may take you outside a comfort zone but these are challenging times for business. And long may it continue…

Other reading:

• Funky Business
• All Marketers Are Liars
• Tipping Point
• Purple Cow

Great post here from Hello World about how they differentiate their company.

This post contains language that may f******g offend you! (I was saying flipping!)

According to market research company GfK
Marketing Services, the Internet has not only established itself as a
significant channel across all consumer technology markets, but is also
growing at a faster rate than sales on the high street.

Source and full story:  Retail Bulletin

With my web design and usability hat on, it would make sense to make sure that your [on-line] shop is in order. The only difference being that you don’t want to put bread all the way at the back of the shop so people browse the other aisles - because they won’t on-line - get in, get out as quickly as possible.

In fact, you can’t help wonder that if Amazon ran Tescos, they would be saying… People who bought bread also bought butter and cheese….it’s here on the very next shelf!.

“There is no more authentic Word-of-Mouth messengers for your business than your customers and your employees. You just can’t buy the authenticity, the passion, the commitment, the willingness to volunteer their time sneezing your company’s message in their neighbourhood.”

WOMMA discuss the need for taking a look at your customer service - the fact that if you don;t make it a positive experience - it WILL be a negative one.

"It could also be the year where experts sit up and take notice of blogs, podcasts and other consumer-generated content."
With faster, and more accesible broadband speeds, BBC (along with Jupiter Analyst Ian Fogg) take a look at some developments that could play a big part for us all in 2006.

ASOS, the online retailer has been a
much loved company as far as the City is concerned, growing from
strength to strength over the last couple of years.
The recent fire
in Hemel Hempstead hit them hard and they have had to shut-up-shop
temporarily, not being able to fulfill any orders.
Ironically, the flip side is an unexpected flurry of PR and although they intend to discount stock to win back customers, I can’t help thinking this may actually benefit them in the long-run (if they can weather the storm).
It just goes to show that however well a business is going, sometimes
the unexpected happens and when it does is the true test of a great
business. Any, and all, opportunities need to be pounced on, there simply isn’t time to rue.

This morning, the BBC reports that the price of stamps is set to rise in April and that it is actually a compromise!

First class stamps would rise 2p to 32p and second class
stamps by 1p to 22p, with the possibility of them rising to 36p and 25p
respectively by 2010.

So, taking delivery costs into account only, if you take a mailing of 1000 (1st class) you would be talking £320. That is against an e-mail campaign that would cost you £35.00.

If you would like more info on how you could use this form of communication, and measure it, why not drop Craig a line for a chat.

From the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association:

"85% of respondents said word-of-mouth communication is credible, compared with 70% for advertising and PR. Only
personal experience with a company scored higher than word-of-mouth at 92%."

For more of this article from WOMMA, click here.

Make a note in your diaries for the following:

Contract Sorted Standard Mail

25th November 2005 - Africa, Asia, Australia, Caribbean, Far East, New Zealand, South and Central America

2nd November 2005 - Canada, Middle East and USA

Airmail and Contract Sorted Priority Mail

9th December 2005 - Africa, Asia, Australia, Caribbean, Far East (NOT Japan), Middle East, New Zealand, South and Central America

12th December 2005 - Canada, Eastern Europe, Japan and USA

14th December 2005 - Western Europe

For further information go to Christmas Post

Permission-based e-marketing is one of the best ways to communicate with your customers. As long as you have something worthwhile to tell them and, more importantly, they have asked to receive it.

"Tesco is blitzing the nation with 16-20 million e-mails per month" -  source BBC but are they getting it right?

One of the key aspects of direct-marketing using e-mail, in our opinion, is not to annoy the person who is being sent the e-mail.

There are four easy ways of doing this:

1. Make sure the person asked for the e-mail in the first place (opted-in). Many companies ask you to opt-out (tick here if you do not want to receive any further messages).
2. Make it very easy for the person to opt-out. (click here to un-subscribe). Tesco failed miserably here making me log into an account that is so old I couldn’t remember any of the details (it’s only recently that they have been emailing me), find the section where I have to ‘opt-out’ on a web site that kept crashing. (maybe I was just unlucky).
3. Send your e-mails on a regular (but not too regular) basis. They may want to hear from you but not every day.
4. Make the information relevant. You have the power to categorise your customers and the beautiful thing about e-mail is that it can be personal. You could send each of your customers one of a number of e-mails each month that are more relevant to THEM.

Our conclusion is that e-mail marketing is can be very powerful and caution, and a long-term strategy, need to be applied before actually starting to use this tool. It is a long-term form of marketing. If you need proof of what we are saying imagine this: Sending 1000 direct message for less than £50 that show you who opened your e-mail, how many times, and if they clicked on any links. Not only that, but people can add and change their details at any time. How much time and money could this save you?

We have a lot of experience at implementing these self-managing systems. Click here to get more details or to see a demonstration.