Hop on over…

I’m moving this blog over to www.sandlines.net.

Back in the chair

Just after that first post, I took off to the obligatory Greek island for a couple of weeks kicking around different kinds of lines in different kinds of sand. Heavenly.

Greek island church

But my, how times have changed! I spent my time on a larger island where I’ve been before, just four years ago, and the character has completely changed: everywhere you look there are Fur shops. Yes, fur. As in dead animal pelt. On an island where, when it gets really cold, you just maybe need to put a sweatshirt on.

Why? The Russians are here. In droves. And it’s really shifted the economic balance of the tourist trade. Their tourist behaviour is very different to their western European counterparts: they rarely seem to leave their hotels, but when they do they spend big. So the local economy has adapted… and how.

Of course, this has had a knock on effect elsewhere: the tavernas seemed very quiet for this time of year, as did some of the more out-of-the-way villages.

And, as a Brit at the hotel, I didn’t feel quite as VIP as I had previously… but frankly I can’t blame them for that: my spending habits were curtailed by the exchange rate being 20% worse (for me) than a year ago.

So where does this fit in Sandlines? Well, I’m not about to start fur-trading, but it does speak to the business of identifying changes in your customer patterns and responding quickly to them. The fur shops seemed to be doing very well… the ‘English Pubs’ less so.

Sandlines?

I’m going to show my age. Back in the day we (marketers) used to talk about ‘above-the-line’ and ‘below-the-line’ as a proxy for advertising versus direct marketing (and never the ‘twain shall meet).

Digital media has changed all that – we need to redraw the line.

We spent ages arguing about whether online was direct marketing or advertising before we realised it could do both – as, today, can print, tv, radio and so on thanks to web addresses, call centres and text responses.

So let’s not obsess about that line any more.

Let’s think instead about the line between acquisition and retention.

I think this is a much more meaningful line, and the crossover point is the moment of ‘conversion’ – i.e. whatever you’re paying your CPA network for (a sale, registration…)

Does this matter? Well, yes. I think it does.

Agencies in the UK (with only a few exceptions) are so focused on getting people across the line that they typically don’t get engaged with what happens next.

Understandable, I guess, as that’s where the big ad spends tend to be. And yet, for marketers who pay attention to this stuff, the other side of the line is where the real value comes in.

The other side of the line is where you continue the conversation your audience have invited you to have with them (they’ve given you permission to talk to them).

It’s where you start driving relevance through dynamic content management on your website and using engagement marketing techniques like individualised RSS, email, mobile marketing or loyalty cards.

The penalty for staying acquisition side is a lifetime of playing the AdWords lottery every time you want to sell something.