Episode 144 / Sam Dolan / Aunt Bessie's / Head of Marketing
Resurrecting Direct Mail To Capture Consumers’ Attention
In her role as Head of Marketing at Aunt Bessie’s, Sam Dolan is searching for new ways to capture consumers’ attention and combine campaigns and channels into a cohesive ecosystem of brand messaging. As such, her Shiny New Object is direct mail – a new way to refocus an “old school” channel to drive customer engagement and do something different.
While the idea of direct mailing campaigns can seem obsolete, it’s actually an effective way to communicate with consumers according to various studies that Sam has been looking into. In opening a piece of creative in the mail, consumers are less distracted than when they see an online ad and they are therefore more likely to take it in and act on it.
Moreover, the ROI for direct response advertising is quite high and it also drives better loyalty levels thanks to the fact that consumers will have more intent behind acting on the ads. Additionally, direct mail can be used in conjunction with other channels to create a new and more engaging way to communicate with consumers. QR codes in the mail, prompts to “Ask Alexa” to search for a product… there are lots of possibilities.
Sam’s approach to direct mail has come about as she’s working on brand planning and looking to develop something different. This links back to one of her favourite books, Adam Morgan’s The Pirate Inside – all about how to build a challenger brand and have a challenger mindset. In Sam’s view, the challenger mindset is essential regardless of what type of brand you look after, as no matter how established you are, there is always someone else following behind you. This is why you need to always try new things, test and be bold.
To find out more top marketing tips from Sam, as well as hear about her top purchases for work and her plans for using direct mail, listen to the podcast.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Tom Ollerton 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to the Shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative. And this is a weekly podcast where leaders of the industry talk about their vision for the future of marketing. And this week, I am on a call with Sam Dolan, who is head of marketing at Aunt Bessie's. Sam, thanks for coming on the show. For anyone who doesn't know who you are or what you do. Could you give them a bit of an overview?
Samantha Dolan 1:20
Course Yeah, thanks for having me, Tom. I'm really looking forward to this. So I'm Sam. as Tom said, I'm currently Head of Marketing at Aunt Bessie's, which is part of Birdseye but most of my career, I've spent at Arla Foods so working on fantastic brands such as Lurpak and Cravendale, I guess, that one of the highlights of my career would be the whole cats with thumbs advert, which, yes, that was me. So So yeah, that's me.
Tom Ollerton 1:44
Fantastic. So in that career, have you been a book reader? Do you read marketing books? Or do you just throw them on the bonfire at Christmas? say, What? What's your approach to learning? And how would you level up your own understanding of the industry?
Samantha Dolan 2:00
On the whole, I learned through conversations i'm not i'm not somebody that generally learns from you know, I'm due to starting a new job in a few weeks still within Birdseye. But if people just suddenly send slides and expect me to read them, I'm not going to learn from that. However, I am an avid book reader, both fiction and nonfiction. And I do read the odd marketing book. Not not tons. But but but I do. I do read them.
Tom Ollerton 2:25
What are your recommendations?
Samantha Dolan 2:27
I guess there's a few. But the one I would pick out that I go back to sort of time and time again is Adam Morgan's second book, The pirate inside. And the reason why I like it better than Eat the big fish is because it's, it doesn't go as far as role role playing in it, but he puts a lot more kind of behaviors around things. So it will talk about this is a book for people who want to leave the Navy and join the pirates. And it just, I think, especially for young marketers, it just helps you get in the kind of right mindset. And you know, behavior is everything. And attitude is everything. You know, on paper, you can have a brilliant plan, but we all know, it's down to the way you execute it and the passion you put into it and kind of the behaviors around it. So I, I've got one I know this is a audio podcast, and you can't see me, but I've got a very dog eared copy of it in front of me that I tend to recommend a flavor.
Tom Ollerton 3:19
So how have you implemented the pirate type of thinking in your role?
Samantha Dolan 3:25
Oh, I mean, I've worked on challenger brands, I've worked on brands who were were leaders. And I think without doubt, you need to have a challenge of mindset in either I think that that's number one, you know, whether you're whether you're brand leader, so on best is now in terms of roastin as we are the number one by quite some way, but actually sometimes that that's harder, and and to kind of keep stale and keep doing what you're doing is never an option, because you're leading and you know, leading needs the same attitude as challenging and that sounds really daft. I appreciate that. But it's so true. You know, you've got to keep agile, you've got to keep looking for the new ideas, the new things, just, you know, keep, they'll always be somebody there, who's kind of coming up behind you. So I think there's lots of really good tips in that book about mindset. And, you know, what a challenger brand would do versus what a leader would do, but there's no reason why the challenger can't do it.
Tom Ollerton 4:21
So what books have you spent your own money on that you have found Absolutely. Wonderful for your career, wherever you spend your hard earned cash that you use on a daily basis for
Samantha Dolan 4:36
books or things, things things. Sorry, that's what I thought, well, the first one is really, really daft and it's battery powered pencil sharpener. on top. I cannot live without this battery. And it's like when we get back to the office. It's a standard joke that all of a sudden I'll do either noise now. This is audio. You're listening
Tom Ollerton 5:00
Yeah. Did you guys drink some Why you didn't expense that why is indispensable
Samantha Dolan 5:07
for you? I am a pencil person and I'm a pencil person because I love to rock things out and start again. And you know, I'm a firm believer right in pencil you can just a pencil person I don't own a pen I don't there's not a pen in my pencil case, I don't think and, and I go through a lot of pencils and you know, the hard to sharpen with one of the manual jobs. So I got it in my personal life for pencil use at home and I'm now in my workflow.
Tom Ollerton 5:35
And what Tell me about your, your pencil approach, if you got like tons of colors, big ones or a job, like I
Samantha Dolan 5:42
got to have a rubber on the end, got to have a rubber on the end, like, quote, pencils. I tend to get, you know, like, quote, pencil, pencil. Yeah. Some of them are uplifting quotes, like I've got some that say you are brilliant on them. And then I've got some swearing pencils as well that I won't repeat what some of them say, but, but yeah, I always get as part of the we do this thing at work or when it's somebody's birthday, we all put a fiver in, there's always a pack of pencils in my gift.
Tom Ollerton 6:13
So I think that if there's any new business people out there that want to impress on luxury luxury pencils to some uplifting quotes,
Samantha Dolan 6:21
or quote unquote, the pinnacle of the pencil purchase was Paul Smith pencils about once. And you know what, Tom, the rubber was useless on themselves.
Tom Ollerton 6:31
Everyone says that about them. By My top tip for life, is that you should all when it comes to buying presents, you should always buy expensive versions of cheap things. So if you buy something like a 20 quid pencil, it's going to be totally amazing. It's like an ultimate bundle. But even if you only spent 20 quid versus like, I don't know, like a 20 quid shoe, which is pretty rubbish. Anyway, loving that. But this interview isn't about me it's about you. So we are get Oh yes, we're gonna move on to your your top marketing tip. What is that but a silver bullet advice that you always find yourself giving
Samantha Dolan 7:07
One thing I find myself talking to them marketers a lot about is relax and it's fine to be a jack of all trades. I think of marketers marketeers, we are probably the only department in the whole business that's on the journey from beginning to end, whether it's a piece of MPD whether it's a TV ad, whatever it is, you know, you will drag people in along the business supply chain production, media agencies, creative agencies, but but you're on that boss, in fact, you're driving that bus. But But that doesn't mean you have to be an expert in it all. You have to know it all, you know, agencies and all other areas of business exist for a reason and they're experts in it. And I think too often these days marketeers feel pressure to be experts in digital media, experts in TV buy in experts in packaging, experts in nutrition, relaxed to see that you don't need to be experts. There's people that have been paid money good money to do that. So I'm it's not always a popular opinion amongst my peers. But I'm quite proud to be a jack of all trades. And I'm quite proud of the fact that I've got the skills to draw these people in and learn from them and take their advice and roll with it.
Tom Ollerton 8:16
Or as the creative director I used to work with, Tim Bannatyne said know, a little about a lot. So that was quite a nice way of putting it as well. Absolutely. That's spot on.
Samantha Dolan 8:26
That is absolutely: know enough to have an opinion. That's absolutely spot on. But you don't, you know, you don't have to know the ins and outs of the media you're buying for your brand spanking new TV ad. It doesn't doesn't have to be that way.
Tom Ollerton 8:45
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We're gonna move on now to your shiny new object, which surprised me when you said it. You said direct mail which isn't shiny or new at all old school in fact, so I assume that there's a shiny new take on this or is this your shiny new object? Because you started using it in a different way. Anyway, explain what is direct mail to you. And why is it your shiny new object?
Samantha Dolan 9:46
First of all, my brother will be really proud of me because he works at Western. So be super proud that I'm giving direct mail or pick up that I'm not doing it for that reason, Tom. It's just we were going through brand planning at the minute and we started to think about it ecosystem rather than channels. And I'm not going to go, you know me quite well, I'm not going to go too deep on that. But we've started to think about all all media as an ecosystem and what's driving to what we've sort of split that ecosystem into bought, owned and earned old school, right. There's nothing new in that, but but start to think about kind of how the dots are all connecting. And one of the big things we owned was light is basically what I was trying to say. And actually, we started to think about different ways to reach people kind of with a targeted approach and and some way you could be very creative and direct mail was a conversation we started to have in the business. And it's a bit one of those like it, was it Mark Twain that said, like rumors of my death are exaggerated. Direct Mail feels a bit like that it feels like it's bubbling under the surface. And I'm in a bit of a bit of a resurgence. I think a lot of my peers would say it's expensive, I think I would argue it could be very effective, if done in the right way. I think there's a there's a few reasons that we've been talking about why it might be making a bit of a comeback. And I think if it's done right, it can be super targeted, you know, we've talked for years about mass personalization, or direct mail doesn't even have to be mass personalization, it can be absolutely personalized. And people like the postcode lottery have been doing it in a in a kind of quite, he's Robin some way for a while, but I think there's there's probably some learnings there.
Tom Ollerton 11:24
So tell me about what the postcode lottery have been doing.
Samantha Dolan 11:28
I think they take a postcode, right, and they, they bring together a community by saying, actually, you're a little bubble in that postcode, and we're gonna kind of give you the option to win some money. There's nothing too clever about that. But but it but it feels like it's for the people in that street, rather than, you know, Mass. I mean, back in the day we used I mean, we get them all the time that we get flyers from Aldi and Lidl and Domino's Pizza and they're not for you specifically, are they? Although I think they're the kind of guys that could start to make bespoke direct mail for you. You know, if you're a Domino's customer and you've took Domino's might be listening, I won't charge you for this idea. But if you're a Domino's customer and you've been ordering this, this and this, you know, could you suddenly be getting bespoke direct mail based on what you've ordered before? Or based on like, I'm making it up as I'm going along. But but you get you get the idea. And I think the other thing is, it's not necessarily open to the same legislation as things like emails and other things online. So you know, there's been lots of lots of challenges around GDPR, and all that kind of stuff. There's different legislation and, and much looser legislation around direct mail. So it feels like you could, you could do quite a lot more. And I think you can be super creative, you know, whether you can really, I think your chance of grabbing attention through the letterbox versus online is probably better. And I haven't got any stats or research that proves that. But But my gut feel is when my post comes through the door, if there's a standout piece of creative, that line is there and it piques my interest. There's there's not a lot of noise going on around me at that moment to distract me from it. Whereas if you're serving somebody, sorry, Tom, I know this is what you're into. But if somebody you know, if you're serving me a Facebook ad online, is there other stuff going on? That's distracting me. So I think it could be good in terms of grabbing attention. From an ROI point of view, I did some digging on this this morning. And Royal Mail reckon that the ROI is three pounds 22 on average, which is huge. And I'm guessing that's based on you know, the targeted approach and really getting it right. But but that's it, that's a huge, huge number. And levels you don't see across much secondary media at all. And I read some other research this morning that says direct mail can drive more loyal customers, because effectively it's a long form content in in physical form. Does that make sense? You know, I'm sure this day. Yeah. So you know, if consumers are armed with a bit more info via the direct mail that they show are more deliberate attend in their interest, whether they're by you know, join in some things, or some research that that suggests that as well. Now, I'm not suggesting for one minute you go out and spend 50% of your marketing budget on direct mail. But I do think it can work in conjunction with online. I think I think the two can can. And again, we've been thinking about this within this ecosystem model that, you know, can on can online, drive offline and can offline drive online. You know, there's no reason why there can't be something. I mean, blippar is something that is probably a bit old school now. But could that work in the form of a direct mail to drive people back online for an offer? Or do you see what I'm trying to say? I think the two can work in in perfect harmony. So that's my take on it. And I think I definitely think there's something in it.
Tom Ollerton 14:51
So how much of your budget you're gonna put into it?
Samantha Dolan 14:53
We have to know Yeah, that's that's that that's the current conversation. It'll be in learn. Because, you know, that's just us. Just what we'll do, but again, you know, I don't think I've actually included direct mail in my marketing plan for this gonna be 10 years, Tom, it's got to be 10 years. And it was much more relevant back in the day when I worked on doorstep milk for Xpress dairies. And we used to use direct mail a lot to target postcodes, where when we're delivering, which obviously makes sense. And we would put things like time delay vouchers in there, so 50 p off a pint now 50 p off in four weeks, 50 we have to try and sort of, you know, working on the dunnhumby principle that three is the magic number. And if you get somebody to buy three times, then it becomes a habit and they're in, we used to kind of target that way. Personally, I think probably vouchers is not the what you know, who wants a paper voucher these days, probably no one. But that's where the online offline thing can work. You know, you can push people around back online, you know, to take the offer up or to sign up or whatever it is, whatever is you want to do. You know, in the past, we've always used digital as the attention grabbing tool. But actually, I wonder whether direct mail is now the attention grabbing tool, and then you push them back online to actually, you know, as the call to action pushes them pushes them back online. So I think us personally will do some kind of test and learn probably within within a region, probably within the North somewhere like Yorkshire. And we will probably work with a retailer on it as well. Because again, we want people to go out and buy our product, we want people to go out and buy Yorkshire puddings. But there'll be different call to actions across different brands, I guess. But I just yeah, I think this was a good subject to talk about. I know I've gone off, I've gone off brief
Tom Ollerton 16:42
No not at all. But I think that the shiny new thing here is the fact that it's a channel that's been sort of forgotten about. And it's an I'm a big fan of the channel for b2b marketing. Say this or not. But when I worked with social one years ago, I sent Keith weed who was the CMO of global CMO of Unilever, at the time, I sent him a giant text box. And what I'd done was changed all of the infographics and all the lettering to say seven PG tips and said, Keith, we tweet or kW tweets. And there was a there was a weird social mug and USB stick with our case at Nissan and then about 20 different tea bags all with like a drawstring with a little social media factoid on the end. And he wrote to me, and he was like, you know, the most powerful man in advertising at the time possibly wrote to me, nothing innovation director about how you'd come and speak at our conference and eventually became a client. So you know that that's most probably about as targeted as you could be. But, but no one was talking to him on that on that channel, whereas he was getting a million LinkedIn messages a day on on email and all the rest of it. So I'm totally behind you on that. But I think that the thing that could really change there at Mayo is QR codes and voice tech, because obviously now QR codes, everyone's finally learned how to use them and do that. Oh, yeah, I've got one of those readers, of course, built into iOS, whatever. But also, you know, we're starting to teach stuff that is, is ads that get you to use Alexa. So ask Alexa about the perfect gravy. Yeah. And then there you go. I know you're you're you've you've bridged that gap that you're talking about. So I think that's the huge thing that's changed for me is, is how you, as you, as you say, your link, the the physical, and the digital. So I think is really exciting. And ultimately, yes, it's about the idea, right? I think too many ideas get called off it the kind of the channel point like, Oh, no, takes off. It's just stupid. No, no, it's a great idea on Tick tock, it's a great idea. But it's a great idea on direct mail. It's a great idea. great ideas are completely agnostic about the channel that they're on, in a sense, so. So yes, I'm really inspired by that idea.
Samantha Dolan 19:02
I think the technology piece unlocks the extra level as well of it's it's right for right now. It's not so so we all talk about it being right for you. So you know, Netflix are really good at looking at what you've watched and serving you something that you know, that's based on what you've watched before. But that's not based on your mood. And I think the next level of this online particularly is what's right for right now. And how direct level direct mail could take things to another level. I guess with that, you know, if they know that you always go to the match on a Saturday, you're going to be in a certain mood on a Saturday morning. And is there a way to to harness it's probably more relevant for online. But but i think that's that's certainly going to be a big thing as well. This kind of mood, what would you call it? I don't know, mood matching or mood. I don't know what you'd call it.
Tom Ollerton 19:50
But where would you? Where would you get that mood data from? Yeah. would you would you make that as an assumption based on that what you want.
Samantha Dolan 20:00
It will have to be social, wouldn't it have to be social, I did a piece of activity with Lurpak. Back in the day where we activated mood meter bear with what basically, we had this whole campaign running around comfort food. And it was literally images of shepherd's pie and jacket, potatoes with butter coming out of them. And we said, actually, how do you know when to serve them. And to be fair, the main media we used was outdoor digital, and it was mainly in central London. But we the agency set this this, this is right up your street on the agency set up this kind of, I don't know what you'd call it spider bot for us that that basically trailed the social media channels and judge the mood of the nation that week. And if we thought, you know, the weather, the weather was going to be rubbish. And I remember having a really awkward conversation about Nelson Mandela because he was ill. And we thought, Oh, God, Nelson Mandela is going to die if he was going to be really depressed. And it felt really shallow because then we were going, Oh, well, let's serve the shepherd's pie out. And it was hardly, but that that's the kind of conversation we were having. And I don't know whether I still think that was probably before its time, the ROI was terrible. Because you can imagine the media owners massively penalized as for ringing them on a Thursday and saying you need to switch this shepherd's pie out on in Kings Cross on Saturday. You know, it wasn't it wasn't the most effective. But things have probably moved on a lot since then. I know we're slits was swinging back to one line. But it's right now with a limited expertise in it. I would say it's probably got to be social would be your main tool for judging that. But I don't know you, you've probably got a view on that as well.
Tom Ollerton 21:31
What's sort of everyone's really livid in Grimsby on social then yes. And of direct response that is, yeah, cajoles them into into a happier state of mind. Well, look, it's definitely been the most creative discussions we've ever had on the show. Thanks, Sam. And we are at the end of time, unfortunately. But if someone wanted to get in touch with you about the killer, QR code, Alexa, direct response, contextual outdoor campaign, how would you want them to get in touch with me?
Samantha Dolan 22:00
Well, they'd need to send me a direct mail, but I'm not going to give them out my address. But you never know. Get in touch via LinkedIn. And we'll see.
Tom Ollerton 22:07
And what makes a really good LinkedIn outreach to you?
Samantha Dolan 22:11
Oh, my goodness, that's a really good question. Because I don't think I've seen I've seen when I've started out to offend everybody who's ever reached out to me on LinkedIn. Gosh, I don't know. Just Just Just be yourself. I'd say that's really weak. Tom, I'm sorry about that. But you know, don't use long words, and try and sell me something. just just just give it to me straight.
Tom Ollerton 22:31
Like that. So thank you so much. Thanks, Tom. Cheers.
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