The postal service in the UK is back on strike… again. Planned strikes are quickly followed by wildcat strikes, and back to planned. In the midst of all this, direct mail -still a massively effective lead generation channel in the UK- is not delivered, leads dwindle and sales tail off. Just when Christmas is around the corner, at the worse possible time. One thinks of blackmail, but I digress…
This poses an opportunity for eBusiness to shine and save the day. Digital investment has been creeping up for years but remains firmly behind most offline channels, despite digital’s greater measurability and mounting evidence pointing to the rapidly receding effectiveness of many traditional channels.
Digital proponents, myself included, have been claiming for years that the balance of spend had to shift dramatically towards online media, and to diversify from acquisition to a wider remit including usability, sales effectiveness and customer service. The ongoing postal woes will make that extra budget we’ve been whining for available to us, but with great budget comes great responsibility as Spiderman may say would he be inclined to work on the web rather than starring on it.
This is a great opportunity but also a great risk. Now is the time to stop talking and start delivering. The eyes of the marketing world are on us. It is our time to save Christmas. Will next Christmas be Santa’s, or will it be Jack Skellington’s?
