Unless you have the resilience of a Jehovah's Witness door knocker, at some point you're going to want to know whether you're tilting at windmills or not.  It doesn't matter if you're marketing a product or trying to implement social change, at some point you have to be convinced that there's a real need for what you have to sell, or what you have to say.  Because it's that conviction that will help you deal with the inevitable rejection, and give you the strength to keep on at it.

So as mentioned in my previous post, I'm trying to help a friend navigate her way through social responsibility in New Zealand, and one of the first things I'm trying to get my head around, is why business in New Zealand isn't overly receptive to the corporate social responsibility (CSR) message.  The Tindall Foundation and a few others have had a pretty serious crack at getting corporate social responsibility onto the agenda and by their own admission haven't been able to get the traction they were hoping for.

All this in spite of the fact that philanthropy is one of the fastest growing sectors globally right now.

So do you think Kiwi businesses are less connected to their communities than their global counterparts?  Or is there some other barrier that's preventing this kind of engagement as part of normal business activities?

In 2007 I started working on an idea that I thought would change the world.  Make it into a better place and all that.  My unbridled enthusiasm was unfortunately not met in equal measure by the people I needed to help me, and after six months I begrudgingly put the project into the bottom drawer and went out and got a real job.

So when a new friend of mine started talking about her dreams and vision for a better world and an idea she thought might just be the key – I had a choice.  I could either deliver my pragmatic and slightly cynical view on things, or I could play the idealist and look at this as a second chance, an opportunity to recapture my own zeal.

I’ve chosen the latter, and for the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about the role digital, and specifically social media has in a world that desperately needs an increasingly greater commitment to social responsibility, both from its citizens and the business community.

In short, how do we educate people to be more generous?

I’m going to break down my thinking over a series of posts.  Comments very welcome.  Who knows, maybe we can change the world.

Taking a look through my daily email is an exercise in frustration at the best of times. Even after filtering out all the spam for Viagra, multi-level marketing scams, and direct messages from Twitter peeps telling me how to add 5,000 followers in 1 week, I’m still left with a raft of communication to wade through and filter for relevancy.

Not surprisingly, I deal with work issues first and following that, if there’s any time left in the day, I’ll take a look at my subscription email.  This is stuff that at some point in time, I’ve felt was worthy of my limited attention and that I’ve consciously invited into my inbox.

So, if you’re trying to sell me something, you’d call that a pretty warm lead.  You might want to take a little time to make sure you’re talking to me about something I’m actually interested in even.  Logically, that would probably result in the best ROI on each piece of communication sent – win/win for everyone.  Right?

Well, for many of these companies, logic doesn’t seem to apply.  Even after I’ve signed up for information on one product I’m still getting promotional messaging for another completely unrelated product, for which I’m not even remotely interested.  And they should know that already, because I told them!

Note to all email marketers – your audience does NOT want to receive an ongoing stream of undifferentiated messages targeted at the masses.  They expect you to know them – even just a little.

According to Forrester Research “The top reason for unsubscribing from marketing messages was irrelevance: An overwhelming 74% of consumers unsubscribe for this reason.”

Mike Weston from email marketing specialist Lyris recently posted a great article on the 8 building blocks of email relevance.  He talks about relevance existing in four dimensions: “The right message, to the right person, at the right time, in the right channel.”

So it’s not as easy as just acquiring an email address and permission to communicate.  You need to cover off a lot more bases or risk losing these potential customers through what can only be described as indifference to their specific, and stated needs.

Imagine your wife taking the time to tell you about the new perfume she really likes, only for you to deliver a power-tool for her birthday.  Even if she likes power tools, this is unlikely to go down particularly well for you.  If a customer volunteers information (any information) then it makes sense to use it.  If you fail to personalise communication based on the information you already have, they won’t bother handing over any more.  Ignore it for long enough, and they’ll start ignoring you.

Email marketing is a place where lazy direct marketers flourished for awhile.  Why? Because the cost of sending out a campaign was so much lower than the traditional fold and post version of direct marketing, they sank to playing a numbers game.  The cost of sending more and more stuff into the ether simply wasn’t a barrier.  Even working on ever decreasing return ratios it was getting the job done.

Perhaps tellingly, Nigerian scammers use the same technique to good effect – but it’s hardly an approach that’s going to build an enduring customer relationship.

It’s been said that direct marketing is experiencing a renaissance in the digital age.  That's not because we can mass market more efficiently.  It's because we can now personalise advertising to individuals cost effectively.

So before you hit the send button, make sure you’ve done everything in your power to be relevant to every single person about to receive your message.

If you haven’t – you’re wasting their time. 

Most successful businesses are built around repeat customers – not one-time purchasers.  To create repeat customers you have to make sure you are putting the right offer, in front of the right people, at the right time.

This has always been a fundamental marketing principle, but advances in technology have now made it a necessary survival skill.  Whether we’re talking about digitally revitalised direct marketing, or more sophisticated loyalty based programmes, we’re seeing more and more brands beginning to explore this space in an effort to bring their customers closer by offering increased value to the relationship.

At Ogilvy we’ve recently launched REDBOX our own integrated database marketing solution, which is currently running loyalty programmes for BP’s Wild Bean Café, Life Pharmacy, Placemakers and others.  These programmes are making a real difference to these businesses by providing us with invaluable insight into actual buying behaviour and alerting us to potential sales or marketing issues in close to real-time.

Dynamicbusiness.com featured this 7 step plan to creating customer loyalty on a post a couple of years back.  I thought it was a nice simple way of structuring a high-level approach to programme development.   Hope they don’t mind but I’ve re-worked it a little as follows: