The Direct Marketing Association recently published its findings with IntelliSurvey for response rates in traditional marketing efforts for 2005. (Tip of the hat to the good people at Church of the Customer.) The leading trade association for businesses and organizations interested in direct, interactive and database marketing, the DMA claims that these methods resulted in $1.85 trillion in US spending last year. Wow.

Here’s a breakdown of what they found out about average response rates:

Direct Mail: 2.77%
Dimensional Mail: 3.67%
Postcards: 2.19%
Catalogs: 3.67%
E-mail: 2.48%
Telephone: 8.55%
Package Inserts: 1.74%
Statement Stuffers: Less than 1%
Coupons: 4.29%
Banner/Rich Media Ads: 3.52%
Search Engine Marketing: 1.07%
Newspaper - Space Advertising: 0.5%
Magazine - Space Advertising: 0.17%
DRTV: 8.14%
Radio: 0.31%

It needs to be said that the sample size of some of the industries was not particularly huge and the numbers may be skewed either way as a result. So take them however you wish.

The folks over at DMA talk about how some of these numbers are “impressive.” Maybe for them. But when a marketing manager hands over his/her budget to you, are they going to be happy with numbers like the ones above? Well, I guess they’ve been doing it for years, so why change now?

I don’t have my calculator handy (plus I’m no good at math), but if people in the US spent $1.85 trillion as a result of the above methods, what was the original amount spent on developing them, printing and sending them out?

I, like many of my fellow BOFers, just returned from spending Christmas with my family. For me, that means Denver - high altitude, low humidity and completely unpredictable weather (it was 69 degrees on Christmas Eve). A highlight of the visit was my last night in town when we had dinner with some friends of my parents and their daughter Erin - who had been my best friend from the age of 3-5. We haven’t seen each other since. That’s right, over 20 years of not seeing each other, and there we were, hanging out, catching up, completely blown away by how little the person in front of us resembled the fuzzy memory we had tucked away.

Which got me thinking… it’s interesting how tightly we hold on to our original impressions of things. Logically, I knew that she had aged just as much as I had. Just like she knew that my brothers and I had aged… but still I was half expecting to see the same skinny five-year-old girl who cried with me when we saw ‘Annie.’ And just try telling her my little brother is 6′2″ and engaged! The fact is, we hold on to what we know, and accepting change can be a mind-boggling experience.

The connection? Think about when companies make the decision to rebrand or reposition themselves. Whether it’s a new name, a new logo, a new mission… (remember my post lamenting Kodak’s change in focus?)… asking your customers to accept an identity change can sometimes be asking a lot, particularly if they haven’t been along for the ride.

That’s why it’s so important to engage customers in the process of rebranding… and that’s what things like the insight process and transparency are all about. Show your customers how important they are by letting them come on the rebranding journey with you.

Erin and I were lucky - we were fascinated by the changes that had taken place in each other. But brand loyalty is a much more fragile relationship.  It has to be continually cultivated. Otherwise, when you knock on your customer’s door in your new incarnation, no longer looking like that skinny five-year-old they know and love, they won’t recognize you… and they just might close the door.

Way back in April (when we had about four readers), I wrote about a creative company in Massachusetts by the name of Brand Identity Guru. Just by chance one day, I stumbled on their website and clicked around and noticed something. On their homepage, you can click on a set of words that say, “Is your brand vital? Click here to play the Brand Game.” So I did. And what I saw blew me away. They completely ripped us off (see the FIRE section of the Brains on Fire website and TAKE THE TEST).

So I called up the owner of Brand Identity Guru, a one Scott White, and asked him what was up. He proceeded to tell me that, “There’s really no original ideas anymore, anyway” and that he would “look into changing it a little bit so it’s not exactly the same.” Wow. Thanks.

That was eight months ago. And none of my calls or emails have been returned since. What about legal action, you say? We were hoping it wouldn’t go that far. And they’re not exactly a threat to us. But there’s those things called principal and integrity. And, besides, Mr. White said that, “I’ve been through that before. It’d be a waste of your time and money.”

I checked this morning and it’s still there. I’m going to try and contact him again, but you are more than welcome to call (508-238-4347) or email him (swhilte@brandidentityguru.com) and tell him what you think as well.

This is beyond me, so I’ll leave it up to the blogosphere.

Back in September, I wrote about the identity Texas has created over several decades and the pride that goes along with it. Well, I’m back from the homeland (Dallas) where I visited family for Christmas. And even though I was born and raised in that state, I’m still amazed at the Texas pride that can engulf a person there - even a visting native.

Just riding along with my sister to get my yearly (which is not nearly enough) Tex-Mex fix, I couldn’t keep up with the number of billboards that tried to tie their particular product to Texas. There were ads for Texas special edition trucks. Texas beer. And Texas-sized thinking in general. These are things that I wasn’t used to seeing after being away for a year. And it was like a Lone Star bomb had exploded all over the metroplex.

As I stated before, a great identity creates great passion, both love and hate. And crafted the right way, other identities will try and associate themselves with it with that “me, too” messaging. When you have other companies saying, “We want to be the Google of this,” or “we have to become the BMW of that,” or even, “we need a ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ kind of message,” it’s a sure-fire way of knowing that you’re getting people’s attention and setting a new standard.

I’d like to open up the floor for discussion about the physical location of your business having an influence on whether or not you win new business. Why am I bringing this up? Because, even though we recently gained six new accounts, we lost two. And the reason we were given (we were told) was based solely on location.

My best guess would be that it’s just a personal preference. Now I realize that Greenville, South Carolina isn’t the center of the world. But this is where we choose to live. Now before you roll your eyes, come visit. It’s as easy to get to as anywhere else in the US and you’d probably be surprised by what you find here, including BMW’s only manufacturing plant in the US and Michelin’s HQ, to name a few.

But back to my question: Does location matter now that it’s 2006? We have clients from the West Coast to the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, yet this is a wall we still bump up against every now and again.

I’d almost rather hear potential clients say that they just don’t like us instead of, “I went with someone closer to me.” Heck, one of our new clients told us that back in March, and then called us this week to turn the work over to us.

So, should convenience win out over better thinking?

P.S. I’m doing some traveling myself and heading to Texas for Christmas. I’ll start up the blog machine next week.