The election campaign is gathering momentum and the Tories have shown their campaign intent (following the poorly received airbrushed posters) by hiring M&C Saatchi to work alongside their main agency, Euro RSCG and going head to head with Labour’s Saatchi & Saatchi.

In the article “Time for some brutal simplicity in election fight” Gideon Spanier reaffirms this deliberate act of campaigning aggression from the Conservative party, with M&C stating that they want to “tear lumps out of the Prime Minister”.

This is standard campaign bravado, but the interesting question raised is how the election will be fought and won. Martin Sorrell highlights the importance of an integrated campaign as the key to Obama’s election success in the US, getting the same message across online, outdoor and on TV. Spanier highlights the relevant benefits of each, with outdoor/TV advertising as well as television appearances remaining a big influence.

For me, the interesting aspect will be how each party embrace the internet. Over the past four years, the rise of digital, multi-channel and social media give a new edge to the election battle, providing wider access to different voting demographics.

Used well, digital communications could unlock a bank of voters who may otherwise not see or hear key messages, but used badly, the internet and social platforms allow for immediate mocking and spoofing of campaign images and messages (as happened with Cameron’s “we can’t go on like this” campaign). Not only is this a fascinating area for the current election, but a successful digital strategy to a younger audience could also be achieving party support and advocacy for the future from those unable to vote in this election.

We’ll leave the campaigning to the experts, but at Alchemis we will be following the party activity closely over the coming months and commenting through our blog. Any outside views and opinions would be welcomed.

Anthony Miller wrote a great article on the Brand Republic website on the 18th March which addressed the research done by academics at Bangor University to determine if the brain acts differently to marketing messages delivered through direct mail in comparison to those shown on screen.

From what he’s written it appears that direct mail enhances a brand’s value for a number of reasons including:

• When a piece of DM was held and read by a participant, their reactions suggested that they were experiencing thought patterns similar to those the brain exhibits when processing memories and emotions.
• It appears easier for the brain to process messages from tangible direct mail compared to digital marketing material, and subsequently easier to remember.
• When asked to keep or discard items, the physical direct mail provoked activity in the right-middle cingulate, a region of the brain that is associated with decision-making connected to emotions and social issues. Therefore the research suggests that direct mail has links to emotion-based decision-making.

Did I mention that the research was funded by Royal Mail by the way? No? Well it is.

However, cynicism aside, I thought about our own experiences between the incoming new business enquiries we generate through a result of our direct mail and email campaigns.

For the most part, our direct mail follows a very simple formula. It tends to be very short (usually no more than a few sentences) with a prompt for action at the end. And, like Marmite, people tend to either love it or hate it. But either way, most of the people who we speak to when we follow up the campaigns by phone (that is our rasion d’etre after all) have one thing in common – and that is they remember it.

I weighed up the pros and cons of the campaigns we sent by post and email and this is how they stacked up:

Email costs next to nothing to send and you can be reasonably sure that, providing you have the correct address in the first place, it is going directly to the in-box of your intended recipient. On top of this, the functionality that exists with our email marketing system allow us to see specifically who has opened it, who has clicked on a link, who has forwarded it, who has deleted without opening, etc. This gives us extremely valuable insight and allows follow-up calls to be targeted to recipients that are most likely to have an interest, even if they didn’t respond directly to the email.

Direct mail by comparison is much more expensive. Paper costs, printing costs, postage costs, the time involved in folding and stuffing, environmentally less friendly and after all that you can never be 100% sure that your intended target received it. Maybe after all the thought, time and effort that went into sending it, some vindictive PA intercepted it and binned it (no doubt a Marmite-hater) before the MD of The Jolly Nice Potential Client To Have Agency got to see it. Or maybe the postman delivered it to the wrong building, which – given the amount of post we get delivered here which is clearly marked for various other addresses – is a very real possibility. Or perhaps Royal Mail were just on strike again.

However, despite the pitfalls in the postal system, a very significant proportion of new business that we win has started with a response to a mailer. And this trend hasn’t shown any real sign of decline, despite our increasing use of email marketing in tandem with direct mail.

Now, I’m no scientist so I don’t know what part of my brain is being activated between the time it takes me to open any direct mail addressed to me and the time it takes me to throw it in the recycle bin 15 feet away from my desk. What I do know that in that time I will have glanced at it for a few seconds and those few seconds need to get the sender’s message across effectively, thus saving it from the bin. So if this applies to me, I’m sure the same rules apply to the very busy people we send Alchemis mailers to. Once you’ve opened the letter, you can’t help seeing the whole page. And if there’s not much on that page aside from one reason why it may be of benefit to you to respond, you could easily end up “accidentally” reading it even if you don’t want to.

The sheer volume of e-marketing shots I receive on the other hand may not even get a few seconds of my time. If the subject line doesn’t instantly grab my interest it’s likely to be deleted unread. If the sender is a company rather than a person, chances are I’ll assume it’s spam of some sort.

So what does the future hold for both mediums?

As far as we’re concerned we’ll continue using both direct mail and e-marketing campaigns whilst they are producing a decent return on investment, but the primary focus will always be on picking up the phone to demonstrate first hand to prospects our amazing telephone marketing skills. After all, you’ve got to practice what you preach.

Sunday saw some much welcome sunshine for the Alchemis team to stretch their legs in The Sport Relief Mile whilst raising more than £2000 for charity.

Richard “Leggers” Legget certainly lived up to his name, completing six miles in a very impressive 39 minutes. I believe he was spurred on when he heard a rumour that his mates Charles and Camilla were handing out the medals at the finishing line and those with the fastest times won a year’s free subscription to Cheshire Life.

Another mention should go to Algie Salmon, who thought he’d done a Roger Bannister after completing his three mile run in a staggering 12 minutes before realising he’d only been round the course twice. Just as well there are no flies on him when it comes to his business development skills!

On a serious note, it was a great day out for a good cause and a special thanks should also go to the WAGS (and kids) who turned up to give their support and encouragement to the team… and to look after the bags.