Collaborate with Your Insert Media Broker
October 2006 By Christen Gruebel, Associate Editor, Inside Direct Mail
|
You can pick your brain. You can pick your insert media broker. But can you pick your insert media broker’s brain? The answer is a resounding “yes,” according to Lori Fursman, director of brokerage for Stanton Direct Marketing, an insert media brokerage and management firm. In fact, she encourages you to do so.
No insert media campaign can get past square one without a solid concept and a healthy exchange of ideas between you and your broker; it can make all the difference. Not only have insert media brokers, managers and the like seen more than their fair share of strategies, formats and creative, but even more than that, some were once in your shoes. Fursman explains that other’s experiences comprise a well of knowledge just waiting to be tapped. She uses her own agency as an example: “We have had many of our own successes and/or failures along the way that we use to try and assist the clients that we work with now,” she says.
Here are two tips from Fursman to help facilitate creative collaboration:
Get more opinions that you need. Fursman suggests that her clients bring their rough creative to the agency for comprehensive feedback. “Typically, if we’re brainstorming internally … we look at it individually, and each gives a few minutes [on] what our thoughts, suggestions, questions are.” She goes on to add that this group exchange of ideas is particularly effective because, “It’s amazing how they’ll differ sometimes. What I think is a bad idea, somebody else might think is a good idea.” It’s nice to bounce some of those things off of each other, she says. That way, you get as many opinions and as much knowledge as possible before you go out there.
Dissect the details. “I [once] saw an insert piece where the advertiser printed only on one side,” Fursman recounts. It’s perplexing, because you never know which side someone is going to see first, she adds. Pay attention to the fine points, big or small, because a simple mistake can make any campaign a costly venture. When looking at a client’s creative, Fursman says she’ll focus on things such as whether or not the coupon is easy to navigate as well as the call to action. “Sometimes people need to be told ‘buy today,’” she adds.
No insert media campaign can get past square one without a solid concept and a healthy exchange of ideas between you and your broker; it can make all the difference. Not only have insert media brokers, managers and the like seen more than their fair share of strategies, formats and creative, but even more than that, some were once in your shoes. Fursman explains that other’s experiences comprise a well of knowledge just waiting to be tapped. She uses her own agency as an example: “We have had many of our own successes and/or failures along the way that we use to try and assist the clients that we work with now,” she says.
Here are two tips from Fursman to help facilitate creative collaboration:
Get more opinions that you need. Fursman suggests that her clients bring their rough creative to the agency for comprehensive feedback. “Typically, if we’re brainstorming internally … we look at it individually, and each gives a few minutes [on] what our thoughts, suggestions, questions are.” She goes on to add that this group exchange of ideas is particularly effective because, “It’s amazing how they’ll differ sometimes. What I think is a bad idea, somebody else might think is a good idea.” It’s nice to bounce some of those things off of each other, she says. That way, you get as many opinions and as much knowledge as possible before you go out there.
Dissect the details. “I [once] saw an insert piece where the advertiser printed only on one side,” Fursman recounts. It’s perplexing, because you never know which side someone is going to see first, she adds. Pay attention to the fine points, big or small, because a simple mistake can make any campaign a costly venture. When looking at a client’s creative, Fursman says she’ll focus on things such as whether or not the coupon is easy to navigate as well as the call to action. “Sometimes people need to be told ‘buy today,’” she adds.
Companies Mentioned:
 |
|
