Helping businesses get cut-through in a crowded marketing environment.
With more marketing channels available today than ever before, you’d think getting your message out to prospective buyers would be a breeze. Not so, says Struan Abernethy, CEO of REACH. He says there’s too much clutter in advertising and it’s only on the rise. “It’s tough to get in front of the right people, and then get them to care, to pay attention, let alone buy. Especially given the average consumer gets confronted with around 4,000 advertising messages each day.
“We joke at REACH about the digital ‘scrolling zombies’, too many brands, too many messages and these are becoming our modern-day consumers.” Academic studies show an increase in consumer apathy and encourage businesses to think hard about where to put their marketing messages. “We paid a lot of attention to this apathy and especially now, with more people spending more time at home. So we created a simple, yet smart solution.” Struan and his team recently launched REACHHOME, which takes a resurging media channel, the letterbox, and wraps it with digital messaging reinforcement, all while targeting the same households for their clients.
“The letterbox is starting to have its heyday again, because it speaks to apathy and the craving people have for ‘real’ touchable stuff in their lives. We’re seeing stats like 60 percent of those who read a mailer will purchase this week, and more than half will visit the website of a mailer they like.”
REACHHOME has increased the power of the letterbox strategy by providing a strong targeting approach based on data-led insights and analytics that ensures marketing material reaches the right households. “Getting a great offer into the home physically is about as powerful as it gets. I mean what other marketing channel can claim pride of place for a business on someone’s fridge or coffee table for an extended period?”
REACH works with many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which make up a large proportion of New Zealand businesses. “We really want to see more SMEs doing better marketing and not just following the tribes of the uninformed and confused, who think that every dollar needs to be a digital dollar because it’s just not working for them,” he says. “There are so many myths to be busted about letterbox marketing, because it’s been around so long, but from sustainable forestry and ‘green’ mailer options and our new REACHHOME package there is a lot to be gained from this channel.
“When SMEs invest in this space, we see them change their thinking by designing solutions that speak to how their audience behaves – which for most is moving between offline and online realms. Getting their brand ‘inside the home’ makes a lot of sense to them and optimising their marketing spend by talking to the people who really want to hear them.”
For more on how REACH can help your business with its in-home marketing strategy, visit reach.nz
This article was first published in the 22/23 December/January issue of NZ Marketing magazine.
