Beermat Club:
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Ask the experts: Internet shake up
Q. Jez Frampton, managing director of Interbrand, the marketing consultancy, is a great believer in the internet's ability to shake up delivery services since he is also a non-executive director of Ocado, the online grocery business. He believes that eCourier should rather be positioning itself as a premium brand, complementing rather than competing against the multinational logistics businesses, such as FedEx and DHL, which specialise in overnight delivery
A. Jez Frampton, managing director of Interbrand, the marketing consultancy, is a great believer in the internet's ability to shake up delivery services since he is also a non-executive director of Ocado, the online grocery business.
He believes that eCourier should rather be positioning itself as a premium brand, complementing rather than competing against the multinational logistics businesses, such as FedEx and DHL, which specialise in overnight delivery.
The best way eCourier can spend its £130,000 marketing budget, according to Mr Frampton, is on stunts aimed at the personal assistants and post room workers, who make the decisions about which delivery firm gets their business.
"Their basic challenge is to interrupt a habit where the person calls the blokes they call when they need to get a package from A to B," he says.
"You are trying to charm the PAs and post room people out of the trees. You can either find a way of gathering them in one place, going to them individually or coming up with something clever to send to them."
The web is an ideal medium to attract these people's attention, Mr Frampton adds.
"A lot of PAs and post room people have access to the internet and, like the rest of us, they don't always use it for work. You can have some fun with the parcel tracking software and make some games for people to play."
The best way for eCourier to tap into the e-commerce market is to get on the books of fulfilment specialists such as Metapack and Geopost, according to James Roper, chief executive of IMRG, the online retail industry body.
These companies are often the first port of call for online retailers, such as Figleaves.com, when they are looking for the fast delivery offered by eCourier.
Most large online retailers use a single logistics business, which will do 80 per cent of the work well, 15 per cent averagely and 5 per cent terribly, Mr Roper adds.
The challenge for eCourier is to get noticed when the retailer's logistics supplier is struggling.
Mike Southon, serial entrepreneur and author of Sales on a Beermat, believes that eCourier has already built good foundations for its sales team, having already appointed a sales director to manage the process.
The next step he believes is to gather case studies from existing eCourier clients, writing them in the form of a story about how eCourier solved a problem, which can then be sent to prospective customers.
"If you want to double sales immediately go back to your existing customers and ask for referrals. People love to tell you about those people at another company who are having a terrible time with their couriers."
Article by Jonathan Moules
First published in the Financial Times: 17th March 2006