Let me tell you a short story about an embarrassing mistake I made.
I’m getting married this year and – in the interest of saving money because weddings are insane – I made invitations online and sent them out by email, WhatsApp and Facebook…
Some people took ages to RSVP. Getting them to respond in time was a nightmare. I was a bit annoyed at the lack of enthusiasm. Then I watched a video of Rory Sutherland at Ogilvy.
He said if you receive two invitations for two weddings on the same day, and one is an email and the other is a beautifully embossed physical invite, you’ll go to the second one. Because the inference (yep, paid vs. open bar…) is influenced by the cost of the communication. Oops.
It’s all in the delivery
Rory says that “messages that are costly to convey, we perceive in a different way.” And he’s right.
Like when Karly Blackburn sent her CV printed on a cake to the Nike HQ on their ‘Just Do It’ company celebration day. She got noticed and drummed up lots of PR. She didn’t get a job at Nike, but the buzz led to one elsewhere.
Digital has its place, of course. I made a wedding website with the directions and details and people genuinely used it. But I think the secret is the one-two punch. Give them the ol’ razzle dazzle, then follow up with the online detail.
When a physical and digital asset love each other very much…
‘Phygital’ campaigns are, in my opinion, the most powerful. They’re particularly useful when you’re trying to do any of these 3 things:
- Open doors with brand new targets (especially big businesses)
- Widening your net of contacts within large companies to get more business
- Retaining the business that really matters
At The Creative Consultancy, we’ve been championing the efficacy of phygital for quite a while. Testing and adjusting our methodology until we’ve worked out how to get the strongest results for clients.
I’m sure you’d rather not spend ages testing and adjusting your own methodology, so here are 3 learnings you can steal:
People are lazy and sceptical… so you have to be really compelling
You might think direct mail isn’t that useful because it’s hard to get people to take a follow up action. “No one scans QR codes anymore!”, I hear you cry.
You’re right, busy people don’t like having to do more stuff. And with QR code fraud (called quishing, apparently) on the rise, they’re also sceptical of scanning.
We found that with some of our mailers, particularly those sent to Director and C-Suite level, recipients simply did not scan the QR codes. So did we remove the codes? No – we stubbornly doubled down and made it more compelling.
Royal Mail wanted to tell 10 big retailers that they are the UK’s greenest carrier. We created a physical piece (delivered on-foot by postie) to senior-level contacts. But how do you get busy ESG Directors and COOs to scan the QR?
You go outside their stores with a camera and interview their shoppers talking about how important green deliveries are, and you host that video on the landing page. And your CTA on the mailer is “Find out what your shoppers really think about your brand”. It’s pretty irresistible. Which is why 60% of contacts scanned.
You can be anything you want… except boring
Have you ever walked around an expo and, while you’re merrily gathering tat in your tote bag, seen 15 nondescript blue stands in a row?
Most B2B campaigns blend in. They’re formulaic and safe. A misconception that B2B buyers are purely rational creatures means ads end up full of jargon and features, without enough focus on emotion.
71% of B2B ads have almost no chance of generating sales. It’s even worse across video, where 81% of the time the “creative and media dollars behind a campaign are wasted” as the ads fail to be noticeable or memorable.
Phygital campaigns work because they can be really fun, especially if your products are solely online and so the physical element is totally unexpected. (And people spend an average of 145 seconds with a piece of DM, so you know you can capture their attention for longer than an email.)
Take Hiscox’s award-winning “disastrous” B2B campaign. It ‘messes up’ the out of home and online ad formats in creative ways to get noticed. Like intentionally infringing Specsavers’ copyright, misprinting the billboard in the wrong size, or having the digital ad glitch. And they recently sent direct mailers out that looked like they’d been half destroyed by red wine. The disastrous campaign helped Hiscox achieve its highest-ever annual profit. Not bad.
Digital content is brilliant… but it doesn’t make waves alone
Logistics giant Maersk was looking to open doors with new retail targets in the UK. We started with social prospecting on LinkedIn; followed by with a piece of personalised meticulously researched content. All of which led to a hand-delivered 1:1 direct mailer for each target company.
But only when they had the physical piece did the targets start responding to the Maersk sales team. And they almost universally said “I looked at the article you sent us, and it was great, but I didn’t get around to replying”.
I’m glad they liked it. But if the direct mail hadn’t gone out, they may never have responded and we wouldn’t have moved the dial. Long-term digital content strategies are great, but they’re a slow burn. The mail piece expedited that process and quickly led to follow up meetings.
Is phygital the answer?
Promising you a marketing ‘silver bullet’ might be a bit rich. But phygital can be undeniably disarming and interesting and fun… and sometimes that’s all you need to make an impact.
The Creative Consultancy is a B2B agency that specialises in powerful phygital campaigns that get results. We love working with hungry challenger brands. If you’d like to know more, or want to help me plan my wedding, add me on LinkedIn.
