So you want my attention? Send me a telegram!

Do you even know what a telegram is? And have you ever received any? If so, when was that? Either way, you’re reading this for a reason and it might be that your advertising, marketing messages and usual social media messages are hitting a wall. It’s called the wall of no response; the wall of disinterest; the wall of noise. Why is that happening? The answer is simple: Because you never send me a telegram anymore.

The first telegram was sent in 1838 by Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse Code. A telegram was an electronic cable message sent by an operator and then delivered BY HAND to the recipient.

Telegrams largely went out of style in the mid-20th century once other forms of communication, like the private telephone, became commonly used. Telegrams connoted urgency. They stood out, got read, usually immediately, and the sender paid for that privilege. Imagine that happening today. What would you pay for that kind of access in a land of Tweets?

William Wrigley, Jr. of Wrigley gum fame figured it out. Wrigley was a brilliant marketer and he found his own “telegram”. According to Joseph and Suzy Fucini in their wonderful book “Entrepreneurs”, Wrigley realized his new product, chewing gum, needed a serious boost of demand so he sent through the mail 4 pieces to the 1.5 million homes then listed in America’s phone books. Remember this was 1915! Four years later he repeated this “direct to chewer” programme to 7 million recipients. Can you even think of another gum brand now? I think his method worked pretty well.

To be a Morse or a Wrigley, successful marketers need to do two things correctly:

1) Get attention usually via some unique access point;

2) Differentiate your product or service quickly. This could be through your messaging, product quality, or unique channel of distribution.

Now back to the telegram. According to Wikipedia, the average length of a telegram in the 1900’s was 11.95 words while more than half were ten words or less. In the UK prior to 1950, the average telegram was 14.6 words and 78.8 characters in length. Now does that sound remotely like Twitter today? It should. But there’s a big difference.

In our frenzied world of social media and communication overload, access is a commodity. Everybody has Twitter now, or could if they wanted it. And that is the challenge. We’re deluged with messaging and “news” both written and visual. But unique access is still a novelty and always will be. The trick is finding out how to access my attention. And, once in the door, literally, how will you maximize your brief moment to enrapture me, the target?

Amazingly Samuel Morse got urgent messages read and William Wrigley got enjoyable sticks of gum chewed. Surely the technical and logistical obstacles that had to be overcome to send a telegram or sticks of gum across the country in the early 1900’s were significant. But the results were striking. Only something so simple could be ingenious.

So stop for a moment and consider the herd mentality that is sweeping your own plans. 

Your competitor has the exact tools that you have at your marketing disposal. Success requires doing what others are not from both an access and differentiation standpoint. It could be simple. But it must also be ingenious.

In your industry or category, what is the equivalent of a telegram today? It’s time to send it. I guarantee it will be read.

Ronald C. Pruett, Jr., Managing Partner, The Boston Associates.

Edited by ‘Dele Dele-Olukoju, Marketing Communication strategist and publisher of the online Marketing Communication Digest. He writes from Lagos, Nigeria. @deleolukoju +234 807 481 2389.