“You there in the back row, pay attention. You are at the magic crossroads”.

I just got an email from not one, but two of my old clients, making a big mistake.

It read:

Tell Us What You Think

At American Express, we want to know what you think of our service – and what we can do to make it better.

We noticed you recently contacted our Customer Service Centre with an enquiry. We hope we were able to help you and that you were satisfied with the service you experienced. But could we have done more?

To help us do more, we would like to invite you to complete a short survey. It will only take a few moments and we will use your comments to improve our service to you. We will not use your responses for marketing purposes.

Thank you in advance for your participation. We look forward to hearing from you.

The survey was run by Synovate and the message ignored the facts. I did not make an enquiry. My P.A. cancelled the card.

The magic crossroads in marketing – any kind of marketing – is the point at which you use your knowledge about someone to talk to them in a relevant way.

Relevance matters far more than “creativity”. If you ignore the facts, you pay the price.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

About the Author

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