Why a mailing list is like a song by Joni Mitchell
Last week I took a woman out to lunch.
She represented a firm with a major education marketing budget and I was hopeful of persuading her to move a significant amount of marketing into direct mail and email. Unfortunately despite changing venues from the local pub to the more illustrious Corby Hilton the meeting did not go exactly according to plan.
“So what is it that makes your mailing lists so special?” demanded my guest no sooner had I settled down to review the expansive wine list. Up to that moment I had been rather looking forward to sampling one or two lesser known but singularly spectacular vintages of which the Hilton is justifiably proud.
For some reason (which I can now no longer recall) I decided at that moment that the change of lunch venue demanded a somewhat unorthodox selling approach. “I see our lists,” I said, “along the lines of a Joni Mitchell song.”
My guest looked surprisingly unimpressed. “Joni who?” she asked.
This was not the response I had anticipated. But it was too late to turn back. “She’s a Canadian folk singer,” I explained. “The ‘All Music Guide’ calls her the most important and influential female recording artist of the 20th century.”
“Never heard of her,” my guest stated emphatically.
I pressed on. “Her ability to take the simple structure of pop and write lyrics and melodies which tell a whole story in just eight lines is legendary. Every word is equal to a chapter from a fine novel. I see our mailing services like this. We take something obvious and simple like a list of primary schools or a secondary school shared mailing, and provide those extra twists and nuances which transpose the obvious into the sublime. When you listen to a Joni Mitchell song you know you will get something extra but you never know what it will be. The same is true with a Hamilton House mailing.”
“So you are telling me,” said my guest, nonchalantly ordering a glass of sparkling water and leaving the wine list languishing, “that to understand what makes your services different I should listen to the records of a female Canadian folk singer whom I’ve never heard of and who has (apparently) got nothing to do with direct marketing.”
Put like that, I knew I was struggling. I remained silent. “Tony,” she said, “You’re surreal.”
And I have to admit I felt like a bending clock,
Tony Attwood
PS: Although I do admit to a certain penchant for Salvador Dali et al, I can reassure you that many members of my sales team are by and large quite sane. Call 01536 399 000 to prove it. Call 01536 399 013 to debate bizarre Spaniards with long moustaches. Or come to that, Canadian folk singers.
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