ROI Hits Main Street

In the past few days I have noticed 2 consumer goods companies, (TIDE and a washing machine manufacturer) that have focused their TV ad campaigns on the concept of ROI for their customers. Tide has a released a new cold water product, and the claim is that you can save $10 in energy costs for each 100 oz bottle that you use. Essentially, they are positioning themselves in such a way that if you buy their product, you will save money elsewhere, so essentially their product will be free to you. They don’t come right out and say it, but it is certainly implied, and by the way, I think it’s BRILLIANT!

Same goes for the washing machine manufacturer. Buy their new energy star appliance line, and over the course of the lifetime of the product, you will save more than the original investment you made. I suppose companies have been talking about money savings for decades, but somehow these ads seem very different – very specific, and very focused on a consumer recovering the original amount of the investment they made. There is, too, an obvious reference to the environmental impact of these decisions, but I have a whole other blog post cooking on that topic – so we’ll wait to go further with this.

So how does this apply to you? You call know that ROI is a hot topic among marketers (your customers) and you know that everyone seeks to achieve higher sales and profits whenever they spend money on advertising and marketing. This has been the challenge for printers since the advent of digital media. Your customers think it is cheaper and more effective to email their customers or friend them on facebook than to mail them something. And I say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. And that’s where concepts like personalized URLs and one to one marketing come into play. When you bring these ideas to your customers, no matter what business they are in and how small or large they are, you can talk to them about how YOUR ideas and services can help them increase their ROI. They may cost more, but the lift they see from campaigns using these concepts can be exponentially greater than a simple blast email. I can talk about this more specifically on an individual basis and help you come up with applications that apply to YOUR customers. Reach out!