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By Mavis Scanlon
If you're a cable marketer who doesn't need help selling new services such as high-definition TV or digital video recorders, skip this column. If, on the other hand, you eat up new ideas--and your system is on the Scientific-Atlanta platform--then read on and learn what your friendly set-top box vendor can do for you.
S-A, whose 26% increase in bookings in the June quarter was driven by demand for its high-definition set-tops and DVR products, is trying to fill what it sees as a marketing void at the local-system level--where staffs and budgets typically are stretched thin--with cooperative programs and affiliate kits that may help cable sell more advanced products. The kits are filled with product and training information, as well as suggestions for sales pitches.
"Not a whole lot of people would expect a hardware vendor to do this," says J.T. Taylor, S-A's director of product marketing.
When cable operators were only selling video to their customers and faced little competition, they didn't need a whole lot of help in the marketing realm, adds Taylor, who oversees S-A's co-op and affiliate marketing programs. "But now that they're marketing video, high-speed data and telephone, their marketing budgets are getting fragmented, and they need to keep their eye on a lot more."
S-A's affiliate marketing program, which is closely modeled on the affiliate programs of popular cable networks such as HBO and Showtime, is an outgrowth of its co-op program, through which S-A works closely with individual systems on training and developing sales pitches based on the system's needs. The co-funded co-op campaigns have a local flavor--S-A reps have traveled and talked to systems around the country to see which basic tactics work in a specific market.
"When you're in a system, you have to make your numbers, you're being asked to do a lot, your budgets are being thrashed," Taylor says. "So you don't have a lot of time to think about what's next. We're in a position to be able to do that."
After almost two years of working with local marketers in the co-op campaigns, S-A decided to compile a "best of" kit which, initially, consisted of product photos and specs. Earlier this year the vendor beefed up the kits. A new hi-def kit, for instance, includes direct mail pieces with the types of messages S-A thought would resonate with potential HD customers, along with an explanation of tactics specific systems used in co-op marketing programs.
As Warren Zeller, VP of account services at database marketing and market research firm Cohorts, points out, the current buyers of HD sets and services still make up a narrow audience. "What a marketer has to do is understand who that audience is and market right to that target." A vendor can help by providing dollars to be spent against the most likely target groups, he notes, referring to the co-op programs.
A limiting factor in HD's growth is the continuing confusion surrounding the product, the service and the content available, Zeller says. With its HD affiliate kits, S-A is doing its part to rectify that.
The kits include a demo that is available on S-A's ExploreHD.com website, along with a consumer guide to HD in pamphlet form. The demo explains in simple terms such things as the difference between digital and HD, and how to tell if a TV set truly is HD capable. Cable operators, in turn, can send customers to the ExploreHD.com site, or show the demo on their local origination channels.
Diana Smith, division marketing director at Time Warner Cable in South Carolina, worked with S-A on a telemarketing effort for a DVR launch last fall and relied on the vendor's product knowledge and marketing assistance when it launched HD DVR in January.
"We have frequently turned to S-A for creative materials to support our HD efforts in both the residential and retail arenas," she says. Most recently, she adds, the system utilized S-A's Summer Olympics materials to create a non-subscriber acquisition campaign.
Stranger things have happened than a vendor touting content to sell boxes. If it's working in South Carolina, then it, or some variation, is bound to work elsewhere.
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