Aiming to be the best: a Toppled Bollard tale.
Last week I took a lady from a well-known national charity out to lunch. She was looking to undertake a mail shot to promote the charity’s commercial catalogue.
There was also talk of a promotion to encourage people to go on a sponsored bungee jump as a way of raising additional funds. I was looking forward to the possibility of some interesting new business for Hamilton House.
We settled down in the Toppled Bollard’s new Pig and Stoat bar, a rather jolly addition to my local hostelry with a history dating back several hundred years, and (I have always suspected) staff to match. But suddenly my guest asked, “What makes Hamilton House different?”
Unfortunately, I never do very well on general questions. The real answer (that we are efficient and effective, realistic in our promises and responsive to our customer’s needs, as well as being experts in getting teachers to buy what our clients want to sell them) sounds like rather tedious self-promotion. I needed a new angle.
“I see our work,” I said, “as akin to the work of Thomas Edison.” I can’t actually recall why I said this. It just seemed to come out.
My guest looked unimpressed. “The inventor of the light bulb?” she asked.
I tried to explain. “When Edison set up his laboratory, he planned to invent something every ten days. He just decided to do it, and then he did it. We work in the same way. We decided to become the leading marketing companies in relation to radical new approaches to selling direct, (writing promotional letters, emails and blogs, building the most effective lists and so on).
Then we did it.
“And he invented the phonograph,” my guest stated emphatically. Somehow I was struggling to relate my opening to my main theme and Edison didn’t seem like such a good idea after all.
“Indeed,” I said (for it is always best to agree with a potential customer.) “But it is not the specific inventions that have impressed me. It is much more the notion of deciding to do something – like invent – and then going ahead and doing it. We wanted to devise a new and more effective approach to direct marketing and we did it.”
My guest nonchalantly ordered a glass of sparkling water, rather wisely opting against the Chilli à la Corbiere which was listed as dish of the day (as indeed it had been for the last two weeks). Then she summarised the situation thus far. “You are saying that to understand what makes your services different I should compare you to the man who coined the phrase ‘1% inspiration, 99% perspiration’.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “you’d like to see the warehouse – when we’ve finished lunch.”
Tony Attwood
PS: Call 01536 399 000 to debate mailings, fulfilment, email, blogs, promotions and sales letters, whilst avoiding all talk of the first commercial development of a power distribution system, not to mention the development of the silent movie. On the other hand you can call me on 01536 399 013 to talk about football or the weather. It won’t increase your revenue, but passes the time of day.
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Background: Hamilton House started to revolutionise the concept of writing copy for direct marketing and email in the late 1990s. We developed the view that it was possible to push the boundaries of direct marketing further and further, and in so doing become more and more effective.
There are of course issues – one can’t just charge in with an email or letter like the one above – one needs to introduce the project more slowly. And different people need different approaches – but generally we found we were able to make it work over time with every group we targeted.
As such the Toppled Bollard stories represent the most radical approach we ever developed, and they have always worked brilliantly for us as a marketing tool.
If you would like to talk about how your response rate can be doubled by writing to clients in a very different way, please do call 01536 399 000.
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