| ERA Interviews Members and Friends |
ERA Interviews… Jon Lambert
ERA: Jon, your company was founded in 1968 as a membership catalog operation in Nebraska, and has evolved into a leading global direct response marketing company. Since that time, what are the top two or three advancements you have seen that truly revolutionized the way this industry conducts business? Lambert: Probably the biggest development in ACTON’s business life has been the dramatic cost decrease in data processing capacity and storage. In the late 1960s, it was completely impractical to maintain customer data electronically; there just wasn’t enough storage space physically or computer speed to access it as fast as humans could. But in the 1980s, it became possible to collect a wide variety of data. Today, no one thinks about storage costs or the accompanying CPU power to efficiently process. This has made it possible to keep track of all kinds of information and access it in a meaningful way, whether it is giving customer past order information or doing extraordinarily sophisticated data modeling. Probably the second most important advancement has been electronic data transmission. There were a number of electronic transmission methods which started to come into fairly widespread use starting in the early 1980s. Then a decade later, ACTON was even a participant in a satellite network with several “drops” around the country and a couple in Asia. While dreadfully expensive by today’s standards, it was a wonderful alternative at the time. The ability to move video and massive amounts of text all over the globe for virtually nothing has certainly made electronic retailing a much easier business. ERA: ACTON is a global company, operating offices on four continents including North and South America, Japan and Europe. In your opinion, how is direct marketing conducted differently around the globe, as compared to in the U.S.? Lambert: There are probably more similarities than differences, and I’d say the most overwhelming similarity is the worldwide-held belief that “Our market is a completely unique market, unlike any other market in the world, and our customers are completely different.” But at the end of the day, people everywhere tend to like the same things, and promotional programs which are successful in one market generally tend to travel well. There are some very simple things to remember, including different holidays, different school schedules, and particularly, different religious holidays, but I feel almost everything else is the same. There are completely different rules on privacy, but more importantly, there is a different view of what constitutes privacy. In the U.S., things such as income and health care information are considered extraordinarily private, and, in fact, are protected by law. In many countries however, income and health related issues are public information, thus you have to be knowledgeable and sensitive to these differences. ERA: One of your company’s focuses is to provide mailing lists to the global direct marketing community. With such an influx of marketing to consumers nowadays, either via direct mail or electronically, how do you prove to your clients the effectiveness of this form of marketing? Lambert: The best marketers today are utilizing multiple channels of communication to reach their customer or prospects. While it is possible to segment many forms of traditional and electronic media, it is still difficult to exactly pinpoint specific prospects for many goods and services. The correct mailing list, derived from people who have made a very specific purchase, still can provide the lowest cost customer acquisition in volume. There are some tremendous opportunities electronically for low-cost customer acquisition; however, most marketers find there are only a limited number of buyers, so it is difficult to build a sustaining business model. Direct mail still offers the opportunity to control prospect order flow better than almost any other method. In my opinion, while TV or other electronic media can generate low-cost customers, there are almost always economic or timing restrictions, leaving the marketer at the mercy of the media provider. ERA: Are there new areas that your company is looking to incorporate into your services? In particular, as this industry continues to evolve, what type of new technologies or strategies might you employ for the benefit of your clients? Lambert: In the last year, there have been two interesting areas; one is brand new and the other is a rather old-fashioned way of doing business revisited. ACTON has been heavily involved in the Internet business since 1994, and last year, acquired an organization which has a very innovative way of utilizing online techniques to develop customers. A number of ACTON’s traditional mail-order-only customers have been able to take advantage of these services and generate new customers unreachable by mail, print or TV. The other service, to hand-personalize mailings, was very common in the 1960s and 1970s, but became impractical about 20 years ago. However, ACTON has been very successful in organizing this work recently in the developing world. English, Japanese and Chinese hand-addressing or even “painting” of names has boosted response rates for a number of ACTON clients. Marketers have been able to take advantage of the extraordinarily low production costs, but there still are challenges doing business in this part of the world. However, with a little advance scheduling, substantial cost savings are available, and the innovative techniques can really add life to existing programs. ERA: You recently joined ERA as a new member. What do you hope that this organization can provide to you and your business? Lambert: There are a number of young people at ACTON, and hopefully they will be able to take advantage of some of the educational opportunities the association offers. There are also a number of association members who have allowed ACTON to represent their mailing lists globally, and it seems like a good idea to support the organization. For more information on Jon or ACTON and its services, visit www.acton.com Information provided in the line of questioning and responses in this interview have not been substantiated by ERA, |
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