What Is Your Big Idea?

Have you ever experienced this question from a client, a prospect or even your boss just after you made a well thought through presentation with a stated objective and key strategy? It’s as if the person asking the question had not listened to anything you said.

I don’t know exactly why that question rankles me so much. The only possible reason I can think of comes not from the question itself, but from what it often says about the person asking the question. It’s as if the asker wants a magic bullet that no one in the history of the world has ever thought of until you came along.

As with virtually all of life’s challenges, there is no such thing as a big or original idea so much as a process to find the solution.

As with any strategy, direct marketing relies upon a set of discovery processes including research, testing and analytics. It is out of this discipline that big ideas emerge.

So the big idea really consists of buying off on the idea that direct marketing is a discipline and not a flash in the pan. The direct marketer’s scientific method approaches the market based on what he knows about this discovery process and what he must do to uncover the secrets of what the client’s target markets will respond to.

So my answer to the big idea question is that there is no “big idea,” but rather many good ideas expertly implemented that yield long-term success.

Ted Grigg
What Ted does best is increase response by beating controls, applying multiple channels to target markets, profiling customer databases and generally improving sales results using deep direct marketing principles. Regard Ted as your personal “think-tank” for your direct marketing planning and strategy development. After analyzing several hundred million dollars of direct response testing in all channels, he brings with him the knowledge accumulated from seeing what tends to work and what does not. Having worked on both the agency and client side of direct marketing, Ted understands the unique challenges faced by agencies and their clients. Agencies need to sell themselves and deliver sales results. And clients not only require results, but need ideas they can implement while focusing on tracking response using a relational database. If Ted brings nothing else to the table, by profiling customer databases and creating response propensity models, he quickly becomes the clients’ expert on their own customers. His formal training includes a BA from Abilene Christian University and two years of graduate work at Texas Tech University. For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, Ted developed a revolutionary direct mail format that beat most standing direct mail controls for this company. He also generated more profitable business for this firm by expanding compiled list circulation of less than 10% to more than 30% of total direct mail circulation within a year. (Insurance business generated by direct mail demonstrated higher persistency than customers coming from other media such as print and DRTV.) Ted’s plan and implementation of Medicare lead generation campaigns for over 60 regional and national HMO/PPO organizations combined multiple channels that surpassed some sales projections by as much as 60%. Additional industry experience over the last 30 years includes B2B or B2C for finance, securities, home security, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, government, technology, nonprofit, retail, transportation, communications, and multiple categories in the services industry. As the founder of Wyse Direct (a division for Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, OH), he successfully launched and branded a new technology product for Seiko-Mead by supporting a nationwide sales team with a predictable flow of qualified sales leads. While a VP of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, Ted acted as the direct marketing strategist who refocused the agency’s culture to attract new commercial and fundraising accounts. At the time, Grizzard was essentially a direct mail fund raising production operation. His leadership and team building effectiveness prepared Grizzard for the eventual Omnicom acquisition and Grizzard’s successful integration into Omnicom’s large group of advertising agencies. An independent DM consultant, Ted continues to write numerous articles and conduct webinars on direct marketing techniques. He also wrote The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan — A Step-by-Step Guide publishing it through Executive Enterprises in New York City. During his youth, Ted was raised in Lille, France with his missionary family attending French schools becoming fluent in reading and writing French. Away from the job, Ted is a computer geek, blogger and science fiction buff!
http://www.dmcgresults.com
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Notice: Direct Marketing is a Strategy, Not a Tactic