There was a time, before the internet, when every engineering and industrial magazine had reader enquiry cards, otherwise known affectionately as bingo cards. The idea was to make it easy for readers to request more information from advertisements and the magazine's editorial content that featured products or services they were interested in.
Every advertisement and relevant editorial piece had a reader enquiry number, hence the term bingo cards. All readers had to do was circle the numbers corresponding to the products, services or companies they wanted more information on, and then pop the card in the post. When the publishers received the reader enquiry cards they entered the details onto their system and regularly sent a computer printout of all enquiries received in a given period to each company.
It was never intended as a measure of success, in terms of reader enquiries being a measurement of how well read a magazine was or how it was better able to reach a company's target market more effectively than its competitors. Unfortunately though, directors, and particularly sales directors, saw it just that way, and it wasn't long before marketing departments within industry were being judged on how many sales leads they were able to generate from the marketing budgets they were allocated.
No matter how much marketing managers and directors argued that the number of sales leads generated were no measure of the effectiveness of a marketing campaign, all protestations fell on deaf ears. Over a relatively short period of time magazines and marketing departments themselves, were judged only by the number of sales leads they could generate.
In response marketing departments began to develop the only strategies that would satisfy their boards. All marketing and PR began to be shaped with a definitive call to action, like, 'get our latest catalogue with over 50,000 products for free', and dozens of other offers designed to reward readers for making enquiries, or give them a reason to make one.
Similarly, magazines were judged on how many sales leads they could generate too, and almost nothing else mattered. The number of press releases issued were ramped up simply because if they were published it meant even more sales leads coming in that would satisfy the board. Even exhibitions suffered. If sales teams didn't come back from an exhibition with a sufficient number of sales leads then the exhibitions weren't rebooked. The marketing budget could only go so far and it had to be spent on the best lead generating strategies.
It wasn't long before some publishers were restructuring their circulations with a priority on readers who habitually made more enquiries, not solely on their seniority, specifying power or the size of the company they worked for. I remember a time when working for a particular publishing company, an advertiser complained that every time they advertised, or had editorial published, the same individual always asked for more information—even to the same advertisement, time and time again! The problem was that the advertiser's sales team had been unable to contact this person, although the information sent to him had never been returned, so the postal address was obviously correct.
So curious was this that the publisher decided to investigate. It turned out that the company this reader claimed to work for didn't exist, so who was this person and why was he making so many enquiries? Every time he received a copy of a magazine, he immediately returned the reader enquiry cards with all the reader enquiry numbers circled. Surely he couldn't want all this information for any legitimate reason, so what on earth was going on?
The publishing company's circulation manager decided to visit the address they had on record—quite a remote address somewhere in Cornwall. The door was answered by a retired sailor who invited the circulation manager in and was quite happy to explain why he was making so many enquiries, after all, he wasn't doing anything wrong. In fact, he was a genuis!
All the brochures and catalogues he received, including the envelopes and letters that came with them, were put in a paper processing machine that turned them into briquettes. These briquettes were then used as fuel for a boiler that heated all his water for central heating, his bathroom and his kitchen use! It's a lovely story, and it's true, but it's not really good for business. That's what happens though when non-marketing board members dictate to marketing people and publishers what the benchmarks are for what they consider to be measurable objectives.
The example given is obviously an extreme one but, commonly, talented sales people were being tied up following sales leads from individuals within manufacturing and processing industries who had only enquired to update their libraries of technical literature. Most of them had no specifying power and were not even involved in the decision making process! Some sales teams used to categorise these individuals as literature collectors!
And I'll get to the point now—are we going down the same route with social media? A social media campaign is extremely low cost. Senior management can see the results immediately, and they're happy. The post is immediate and within hours it's getting likes, comments, impressions and views. Who even needs the engineering press anymore? With a great web site and social media marketing that's all a company needs, right?
Wrong. And it's wrong for so many reasons. Look, I'm not criticising social media, it's a very powerful new tool in our marketing toolbox, but it's not a replacement for everything we've done before. The engineering press, particularly with the wide range of platforms they now offer, over and above their printed magazines, are still the high-voltage way of reaching potential new customers. Nothing else even comes close. Even the exhibitions that engineers value so highly have usually got a great publishing company behind them! Who do you think attracted all the visitors in the first place? All the great people you met at that exhibition, along with your co-exhibitors were influenced to exhibit and attend by the publisher of a great engineering magazine or magazines. Have you ever been to the Drives & Controls exhibition, MachineBuilding.Live or the Engineering Design Show? If you have you get the point. All the visitors read the engineering press. That's why they were there. Not because the exhibitors used social media marketing to invite them.
I guess the message to companies selling to British industry is a simple one. Work with a marketing company that understands engineering products and services. Work with a marketing company that understands the engineering press. Work with a marketing company that understands how British industry buys. And, work with a marketing company that will also recommend a healthy marketing mix including your web site content, email marketing, social media and everything else.
But if your marketing company is not working closely with the engineering press, in my opinion, they're crippling your marketing effectiveness. It isn't a choice about one or the other. It's about embracing all opportunities, and the engineering press should always be at the top of that list of those opportunities!