Survey Power
October 2005 By Denny Hatch
|
Turning Involvement Devices into Dollars
Oct. 6, 2005: Vol. 1, Issue #37
In direct marketing, a survey is known as an "involvement device"--a technique that grabs a reader's attention.
If you can interrupt a person long enough to look at the first question of a survey--and give an answer--it's the first step toward a commitment. Like eating peanuts, it is nearly impossible to quit after the first question.
A survey represents an investment in time. Few people will go to the trouble of completing a survey and then throw it away. The vast majority of survey completers want their answers seen and will send them back to the organization.
In more than 20 years of studying direct mail and amassing a vast archive of samples, I have seen the technique of surveys used across many disciplines--magazine subscriptions, travel and all kinds of fundraising efforts.
Guidant, the manufacturer of high-end medical devices, did the direct marketers one better. It paid 80 cardiac surgeons $1,000 each to complete surveys about heart synchronization devices and wound up with an unexpected $2 million in sales. Not a bad return on an $80,000 investment.
If your company is not using this powerfully involving marketing technique, you might want to look into it.
The Seven Copy Drivers
General advertising is the business of creating awareness about a product or brand in the hope that people will remember it and buy it.
Oct. 6, 2005: Vol. 1, Issue #37
IN THE NEWS
As scrutiny of heart-device makers intensifies, one tactic that is coming into question involves companies making payments to doctors who use their products and fill out surveys about them.To get such payments, doctors must fill out a so-called postmarketing survey about new heart defibrillators and pacemakers. In one such survey, Guidant Corp. of Indianapolis has offered money to doctors to describe potential improvements the manufacturer could make in its heart products, said doctors who are on the company's advisory board.
--Thomas M. Burton
"Guidant Draws Fire for Doctor Survey Payments"
The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 27, 2005
The program did generate feedback. But internal Guidant documents and e-mail messages provided to The New York Times suggest that the initiative also had another apparent goal--increasing sales of the company's most sophisticated and expensive heart devices. Those devices are advanced pacemakers called cardiac resynchronization therapy devices, or C.R.T.s. They cost about $29,000 each.
--Barry Meier
"Implant Program for Heart Device Was a Sales Spur"
The New York Times, Sept. 27, 2005
In direct marketing, a survey is known as an "involvement device"--a technique that grabs a reader's attention.
If you can interrupt a person long enough to look at the first question of a survey--and give an answer--it's the first step toward a commitment. Like eating peanuts, it is nearly impossible to quit after the first question.
A survey represents an investment in time. Few people will go to the trouble of completing a survey and then throw it away. The vast majority of survey completers want their answers seen and will send them back to the organization.
In more than 20 years of studying direct mail and amassing a vast archive of samples, I have seen the technique of surveys used across many disciplines--magazine subscriptions, travel and all kinds of fundraising efforts.
Guidant, the manufacturer of high-end medical devices, did the direct marketers one better. It paid 80 cardiac surgeons $1,000 each to complete surveys about heart synchronization devices and wound up with an unexpected $2 million in sales. Not a bad return on an $80,000 investment.
If your company is not using this powerfully involving marketing technique, you might want to look into it.
The Seven Copy Drivers
General advertising is the business of creating awareness about a product or brand in the hope that people will remember it and buy it.
Companies Mentioned:
 |
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
