Know-How Exchange : Just for Fun

Nice question (and points) Kevin,

Here’s a strategy story about dossier marketing

The problem was getting the head of litigation in legal departments of Fortune 500 companies to give cases to an old line insurance defense law firm instead of going to the standard blue chip law firms.

The position was to re-position the existing blue chip firms as both expensive and less experienced in the courtroom. The insurance defense lawyers had 10 times more trial experience than the typical blue chip lawyers these clients were using currently and the rates were significantly lower.

The contact strategy was to gather small amounts of data from many short phone calls to create a complete dossier on the target individual. And then create an approach that would work with each individual.

Making it happen -- dossier marketing literally meant building a dossier on each target litigation head in a specific segment, for example, employment related litigation for leading oil & gas companies (there were six of the top ten leaders in the region) so there were only six targeted decision makers with several key influencers in each legal department. To convert just one of the six would be a success as the firm didn’t have any direct corporate clients. The dossier building involved both secondary research and direct phone contact. A series of short phone conversations (20-30 calls) designed to discover little bits of information with each call so as not to seem intrusive or the worst -- be identified as somebody not to talk with. The calls were to receptionists, legal secretaries, paralegals, other staff, other departments, outside vendors, anybody who could provide details on the inter workings of the department and the personal preferences and info on the heads of litigation.

With dossiers completed, very specific calls were made directly to the litigation heads. Each of the six situations was unique:

- one first result was an initial lengthy conversation with the litigation head about perceived ‘levels of satisfaction’ with existing panel of firms

- another result involved a great deal of help from the head of litigation's legal secretary, virtually carried out a conversation through her

- several first results produced a fancy lunch meeting with the President of the firm and the head of litigation of the prospective client

The overall result was a new client from the six targets. This approached was then used with several other tightly segmented targets with new client gain results.

It was my first experience with dossier marketing and although very time consuming, I’m a believer in this methodically for extremely small target marketing challenges.

P.S. – of course there is more to this story, but this summary ‘reduces to writing’ a dossier marketing strategic approach.

Hope this matches your question criteria Kevin.

- Steve

I have been thinking about the alleged "buzz" around consumers' resistantance to marketing tactics. Interruption marketing in particular.

"They" say consumers are becoming more and more resistant to marketing and blame alot of problems with pricing, economy, employment, cable bills, etc. on marketers. However, the irony lies in how perception is created in the mind of a consumer. Consumers want to know that you are out there trying to interrupt their favorite show in order to consider you legit! Yet, they compalin about the commercials!

So what do we do? Let out marketing secrets and tell people what we are doing? Or find a better way to create awareness? Seth Godin has been all over this topic for years, but nothing seems to be slowing down (and I haven't noticed a rise in new Ideas either). Except perhaps the current trend of creating humorous ads to get people talking.

Still, what is the answer? Make commercials and direct mail more fun and entertaining? OR start using more pro-active psychotactics and neuro-logic? Is there a place for "Nano-marketing (Copyright 2004, Jett Enterprises Inc.)? If so, let's define it.

Have a great weekend!