Giving an established brand a new look is not to be taken lightly. Fortunately, mail can be a great way to make the transition a bit smoother.

By Bruce Britt

As the new century dawned, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority was beset by image problems, not the least of which was its name. “It’s six long words that ends in ‘authority,’” says Michael Lejeune, the county agency’s creative director. “That’s about as cold, unfriendly and bureaucratic as you can get.” The organization’s old nickname, MTA, didn’t inspire much excitement either, he says.

A worse problem, however, was declining ridership. Though more than 1 million Angelenos board county buses every weekday (with another 300,000- plus taking the Metro Rail lines), only 10 percent of area commuters were taking public transportation. “We need people to choose public transportation, because getting more people out of their single driver habit is key to improving,” Lejeune says.

Sensing a connection between the drab image and limited ridership, officials at the transportation agency launched a full-on, multichannel rebranding campaign. This included a new emphasis on the popular name for the company, “Metro.” “All over the world, ‘metro’ means movement,” Lejeune says. “Think of the Paris Metro or the Washington Metro. The word is shorter, friendlier and feels right.” In addition, the agency repainted its buses and launched ads across multiple channels. A redesign of the old logo, which already incorporated the “Metro” term, completed the rebrand.

And to get out lengthier messages about the rebranding campaign, Metro turned to mail, sending out thousands of brochures and calendars to riders and employees to heighten awareness of its latest moves and, as Lejeune says, “to entice residents to try it.”

Though mail is traditionally associated with direct marketing, the Metro campaign is one of many recent efforts that illustrate how major marketers also are embracing mail to help them rebrand their companies. Since a rebrand can be potentially confusing for consumers and even employees, marketers ranging from big-box stores to restaurant chains to municipal agencies are relying on mail marketing for its ability to convey substantive messages about a rebrand quickly and easily.

Rerouting perceptions

In the case of Metro, Lejeune and his team sent out more than 160,000 brochures to residents within a half-mile of its Orange Line route. The four-color brochures contained information about the new Orange Line route and, in an appeal to eco-conscious Angelenos, about Metro’s new high-tech/low-emissions buses.

The agency also coordinated its mailings with other ad channels.
For instance, Metro last year began mailing calendars that promoted a campaign dubbed “Opposites,” originally launched in outdoor media. Featuring a stark black-and-white design scheme, the outdoor campaign showcases transportation problems and solutions. For example, one ad features a silhouette of a gas pump with the word “problem,” while an opposing image of the Metro logo bears the word “solution.”

Metro mailed about 4,000 “Opposites” calendars to 600 of its Employee Transportation Coordinators — volunteers at private companies who educate employees about transit options, promote ridesharing and work with Metro to get the latest on its programs and services.

Metro also created 10-second drive spots for local radio, ran twice-monthly insertions in more than 60 smaller papers around L.A. County and posted online banner ads on its site and high-traffic local sites.

So far, the campaign is working. Average weekday ridership on Metro Rail had jumped more than 40 percent by late 2008, and bus ridership on various Metro color-coded lines increased around 10 percent. Meanwhile, Lejeune and the Metro creative department have even captured prestigious awards for the rebrand. “The recognition has been very exciting for us,” Lejeune says. “It’s a validation that we’re doing good work.”

Of course, Metro isn’t the only organization or business benefiting from the integration of mail into its rebrand.

High steaks

Take Cincinnati restaurateur Jeff Ruby. Fueled by his own larger-than-life image, Ruby built a culinary empire on what is known as “The Jeff Ruby Experience” — a combination of award-winning steakhouse cuisine, VIP service and upscale ambience. It’s a formula that initially came together in his flagship venue, Jeff Ruby’s Precinct, which has attracted world- renowned entertainers, pro athletes and other luminaries for decades.

Problem was, as recently as a few years ago, many Midwestern food lovers were unaware that the five-star Ruby dining experience could also be enjoyed at more than just his namesake locations, including The Waterfront (a floating steak and lobster house with a Miami– South Beach vibe and raw bar) and Carlo & Johnny (situated in an old Cincinnati casino and Mafia hangout). Each restaurant has its own unique aesthetic, menu and patrons, but the company wanted to expand its brand equity to encompass the entire family of eateries.

“The challenge was coming up with a unifying theme while continuing to promote these restaurants individually so that they’re able to live on their own,” says Ben Stallard, who worked with the Ruby organization to guide the rebrand. “We asked ourselves whether Jeff Ruby Culinary Entertainment would be better served operating as a branded house or a house of brands.”

After some careful consideration, Stallard pitched a simple idea: bolster the umbrella brand under which all Ruby restaurants would fall. Thus, an upscale steakhouse like Carlo & Johnny would become Jeff Ruby’s Carlo & Johnny. “There was this huge piece of equity that the company owned in ‘The Jeff Ruby Experience,’ but people on the street would talk about it in pieces,” Stallard says. “What we did was put it all together, articulating that Ruby brings his dining experience to every property he owns. To communicate that message, we agreed on a hybrid solution: It would be best if Jeff Ruby’s became a branded house of brands.”

They also determined that direct mail was one of the ideal channels to use to get out word about the rebrand. As part of the seven-month initiative, Jeff Ruby Culinary Entertainment developed a list of people who had recently moved to the Cincinnati area and sent them cards hand signed by the general manager of a particular Ruby’s restaurant.

The cards were die cut into oval shapes featuring Jeff Ruby’s new logo on the front. Inside, recipients were treated to brilliant, four-color romance shots and food photographs. “The messaging was ‘Welcome to the neighborhood, come in, ask for me (the general manager) and let me introduce you to the Jeff Ruby Experience’,” Stallard says. “It proved very successful, with people new to the area appreciating the outreach.”

Further leveraging direct mail, Ruby pored over his private data, including his own mailing list, customer comment cards and promotions redemptions. The restaurateur then partnered with a national luxury-brands direct marketer that mails packets of gift certificates to patrons. Ruby’s specified that it wanted to focus on recipients who had not recently visited a Ruby’s restaurant. The standard postcardsized gift certificates, included in a packet of similar offers from other upscale brands, invited customers to visit a specific Jeff Ruby’s restaurant to take advantage of the special offer.

Though Stallard declined to specify just how many direct mailers were sent out (he would only say that they mailed “thousands” of cards and invitations), he notes that the combination of Ruby’s private customer data, the mailing list of recent Cincinnati residents and direct helped Jeff Ruby focus his marketing outreach plan. “Instead of using only mass media like TV and radio to reach our target group, we identified direct as one of the most effective ways to reach them,” Stallard says. “We were able to develop messaging much more specific to the wants, needs and mindsets of the people who drive our business. Direct is a tool that savvy organizations can use to be much more selective, focused and efficient.”

During a time when many U.S. consumers are cutting back due to the economy, Stallard says the Jeff Ruby rebrand has helped the chain weather the downturn. In late 2008, Ruby launched Bootsy’s, a Mediterranean fusion tapas restaurant operated in Cincinnati in partnership with the iconic R&B/funk entertainer Bootsy Collins. Ruby already operates two steakhouses in bordering Kentucky and Indiana, and now there’s talk of expanding beyond the region into St. Louis.

“The Jeff Ruby brand has a comprehensive base to work from when it expands,” Stallard says. “People won’t have to wonder each time ‘What does this place stand for?’ If it’s a Jeff Ruby restaurant, they’ll know what it stands for.”

When the Logo Has to Go

When companies rebrand, lots of forethought goes into overhauling the corporate coat of arms. Here, the brains behind the makeovers of the Metro and Jeff Ruby’s logos riff on their work.

Old logo: “Our old logo did not hold up well in certain necessary reproduction sizes. Also, it was too similar to another metropolitan transit authority’s logo, which was copyrighted, so change was needed.”

New logo: “This bold letterform is crafted in two parts, which our lead designer likened to two different roads that meet in the middle. The word ‘Metro’ is much larger, bolder and more easily read in all sizes. Also, the logo appears only in black and white. This is because we wanted to convey a strong, reliable, consistent presence through our logo.”
— Michael Lejeune, Creative Director, Metro (Los Angeles)

Old logo: “Precinct, Waterfront and Carlo & Johnny didn’t have the Jeff Ruby name attached, which was significant because ‘The Jeff Ruby Experience’ carries such positive equity. They were missing an opportunity by not obviously extending the identity across the entire platform.”

New logo: “We maintained each restaurant’s name and recognizable typographical look and feel by pulling the evolved font treatment into the oval shield. This associates each property with ‘The Jeff Ruby Experience,’ and gives each restaurant the flexibility to maintain those positive equities they’ve built on their own over time.”
— Ben Stallard, Independent consultant for Jeff Ruby Culinary Entertainment

Ryan Vero of OfficeMax explains how mail makes the retailer stand out.

By Chantal Tode

Office supply retailer OfficeMax has earned high praise in recent years for carving out well-fitting places for itself across a variety of media. While some of the kudos in recent months have been in response to its digital campaigns, the company also is gaining attention for its work in more traditional channels.

Direct mail initiatives continue to loom particularly large at OfficeMax. For instance, it still offers a variety of catalogs. Also, mail plays a central role in helping the retailer understand specific customer segments. Deliver® reached out to Ryan Vero, executive vice president and chief merchandising officer at OfficeMax, to talk about why mail remains a mainstay in the company’s media mix.

Deliver: Has the economy affected your direct mail marketing efforts?

Vero: Direct mail is one of the areas of marketing to which we have remained committed. That’s because even with the economic downturn, it’s a tremendously effective vehicle for us — and historically has been. Catalogs still are part of the mix, but more recently we’ve been doing a lot of non-catalog direct mailing both for prospecting purposes and to continue the dialog with our small- and large-business customers. Direct mail lets us send targeted communications to specific customer segments in a cost-effective way.

Deliver: What segments are you targeting these days?

Vero: We’re focusing our marketing communications more on our female customers. In general, women control the majority of purchasing for individual consumption, but more important for us, for business consumption, too. However, we noticed that this customer was not being taken care of in the office industry in general. Direct mail gives us the opportunity to send very targeted communications to this customer segment that specifically address her needs. So far, the response rates have been very good.

Deliver: What’s helping you better understand customer needs?

Vero: We’ve updated and refined our modeling efforts in the past year across various customer segments, and even subsegments within these larger groups. It’s helping us better identify the type of offers, communications and messages to send to a particular customer. Working with the customer data provided through our MaxPerks customer loyalty program, we can ascertain a lot about a customer and model them against other customers. This gives us insight into how effectively we have communicated with the customer in the past. We can determine what savings opportunities they’re not taking advantage of, or which ones we should show them. For example, a customer who purchases presentation materials also is likely to need to make copies for those presentations. If those customers aren’t making any copies with us, we can send a relevant direct mail offer with an incentive to try our copying services.

Deliver: Are you getting any surprising responses?

Vero: For years, we’ve been sending out an acquisition letter that comes from me personally. It’s amazing the number of times I get a note back from someone thanking me for sending them a letter and telling me something about their experience with OfficeMax. This is a terrific level of engagement with our customers, and it’s driven by direct mail. In fact, the response to this campaign has increased over time. It’s a reflection of how special it is to get a personalized letter these days.

Deliver: Any other efforts you’re particularly proud of?

Vero: A direct mail campaign we used to bid on the business of a large bank.
We sent top executives a metal suitcase filled with stacks of paper money. The top bill of each pile communicated some of OfficeMax’s services and solutions. Inside there also was an MP3 player loaded with videos we produced of our executives talking about how OfficeMax would serve the bank’s needs. It helped us break through the clutter and get our message in the hands of a number of senior executives at the bank with a targeted communication that spoke directly to them.

Deliver: What new trends do you think will change the way we market?

Vero: I find it inspiring that we’re getting very close to a cost-effective rate for variable data printing for high-volume mailers. There’s been a lot of talk about being able to do true one-to-one direct mail, but so far it’s been more theory than reality. Sure, you could do it from a technological standpoint and get better response rates, but the higher costs meant the return was a lot lower. However, as the costs have compressed and the technology has improved, I’m optimistic that we’re going to achieve true one-to-one marketing on a large-scale basis sooner rather than later.

New paper easier on the wallet and planet

Innovation

Marketers now have a new cost-effective, eco-friendly choice for coated stock. Xerox’s Digital C1S (coated 1 side) paper is ideal for single-sided printing, but also features a smooth, lighter surface gloss on the second side that gives it the advantage of a C2S (coated 2 side) paper at a C1S price. “It’s perfect for marketers who need to produce mailers featuring exceptional image quality with true color rendering,” says Maggie Ochs, manager, Paper and Supplies Business Unit, Xerox Corporation. Additionally, the paper has received Forest Stewardship Council certification (SW-COC-002570), which ensures responsible use of forest resources. — Bob Butz

Oversized windows entice recipients to find out what’s inside

Prospecting

Back in vogue are oversized-window envelopes that give recipients enough of a peek at the contents to convince them to open it.

The Wilderness Society — a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit — adopted the larger windows for its bimonthly donor recruitment package, which it mails 2 to 3 million of annually. It now places the traditional single envelope used for the prospecting piece inside another envelope with an oversized window. And donors have taken notice.

When the double-envelope approach was tested against the single envelope, the oversized-window piece produced a 35-percent higher response rate, according to Robin Hickman, the group’s director of membership services. She adds that a subsequent test also generated a higher response rate, proving that doubling your efforts really can pay off. — Paula Andruss

DMA report predicts $1B jump in direct mail spending

Spending

In defiance of predictions about its decline, spending on direct mail marketing is expected to increase by more than $1 billion in 2010, according to an annual study from the Direct Marketing Association.

The “Power of Direct” economic impact study released earlier this year reports that spending on direct mail will rise from the $44.4 billion doled out in 2009 to $45.5 billion next year.

The study also reports that noncatalog direct mail continues to boast impressive ROI. According to the report, non-catalog direct mail returned $15.22 for every dollar spent in 2009.

The report further points out that e-mail, once thought to be next big thing as a prospecting medium, drives fewer sales than most other channels. Commercial e-mail drove $26 billion in sales in 2009. Non-catalog direct mail, by comparison, drove $445.8 billion in sales in 2009. — Darrell Dawsey

Reaching decision makers means not adding to the clutter

Targeting

How do you get the attention of IT decision makers who are constantly bombarded by marketing messages? You send direct mail.

To promote its fiber-based network, tw telecom employed a promotion that began with a folded self-mailer featuring a repositionable note prompting recipients to query their name in a major online search engine.

On the results page, a customized pay-per-click ad took them to a URL where they viewed a personalized 90-second video on the benefits of tw telecom’s new network.

The approach generated an 8-percent meeting rate — double what the company typically sees from a promotion, according to Tiffany Duncan, senior manager of marketing communications.

“Most marketers assume IT managers only will respond to online communications,” Duncan says. “But pairing different mediums allowed us to cut through the clutter and interact with them on several different levels.” — Sandra Beckwith

Maybe what you really need is some out-of-the-box thinking about what you communicate.

What’s your brand stand for?

We’re guessing you probably work a lot on that one, don’t you? You and your marketing team spend hours crashing through strategy documents, pulling out nuggets of customer insights, determining differentiators in the industry and understanding what it is that makes your corporation unique.

And in the end, you have a vision of who and what your company is about. It’s that vision that helps establish relationships with customers, win over prospects and get your company noticed in this increasingly chaotic and fragmented world.

Then, after all of that strategic work, comes the execution part of the marketing plan and you decide to go digital. You send an e-mail — which looks just like any other e-mail in your best customer’s inbox.

Oh, we know, you finely tune the colors to match your brand (despite the fact you can’t calibrate how that color appears on any one monitor) or you include photography and graphics (which don’t download until the users request them) or you include the all-important link to your heavily branded Web site (although fewer than 10 percent click through).

So, maybe it’s not the optimum branding experience, but it’s cheap. Boy, is it cheap. And it’s efficient — you can reach hundreds of thousands, heck, even millions in a single blast — and really, you’re getting the word out there.

Then the economy picks up, but your sales don’t jump as much, and at the next marketing meeting, as you’re puzzling over the numbers, someone asks why your customers aren’t so loyal anymore. What’s happened to that great relationship your brand used to have with them? And there’s a lot of this and that around the table, mutterings about “empowered consumers” and “everything’s a commodity,” and the meeting rolls on. You shrug your shoulders and concentrate on the next campaign. There’s work to do.

We understand. It’s not an uncommon problem. It’s just that, well, you could stand for something. You could put something in your customers’ hands, something branded. Imagine that: those finely tuned colors, the carefully selected images, the perfectly worded summation of what your brand is all about sitting right there in the hands of the people you most want to reach. It’s right there at their fingertips.

And inside that package, something amazing — something they could never get digitally. A sample, a tchotchke for their desk, a magnet for the fridge, a baseball bat, a brick, a salami — who knows? Something that’s amazing and brilliant and relevant, just like your brand. A piece that says “Hey, I know you,” and reminds that customer why he or she came to you in the first place and what your brand is really all about.

You could do that. But that’s direct mail, and that’s old school. No point in doing that, right?

Figuring out which channel motivated a sale can help you predict future purchase patterns.

By Kevin Hillstrom

From postcards to paid search, most brands use 10 to 20 microchannels to reach customers. So determining which ones are working and which aren’t has become more critical — and difficult — for marketers than ever.

But there’s something that compounds the problem: the evolving buying habits of customers. Say a customer referenced your catalog or direct mail piece during his or her last online purchase. Does that mean these print pieces are needed to influence future buys? Or will that customer simply go online after the first purchase without being prompted?

Tracking exactly what motivated customers to purchase will help you predict what they will do next — and allow you to take action by more effectively allocating marketing dollars.

To help my clients predict purchase intent, I developed a process called Multichannel Forensics, which takes actual transactions sourced from client databases and evaluates how their customers are interacting with products, brands and various microchannels.

If customers who purchased after receiving a postcard mailing respond to print again, then I suggest allocating more marketing dollars to print. If customers are only responding online and ignoring print, then I’ll suggest allocating marketing dollars accordingly. If the customer uses both print and paid search, then I suggest maintaining a print budget.

However, there are some things to remember when thinking about print marketing in an increasingly digital age. It does drive a customer online to place an order. In fact, for many of my clients, 50 percent to 80 percent of all online orders come from customers who received print-based marketing in the past month or two.

But one of the most interesting things I’ve noticed is the interaction between print marketing and customer service. My projects continually show that the most valuable customers tend to be those who are responsive to print marketing and require human interaction to place their order. In other words, when print marketing causes a customer to pick up the phone and speak with a live voice, or causes a customer to participate in a live chat session online, you end up with a customer who has higher-than-average, long-term value.

And as they become more loyal, they generally become less receptive to all marketing messages — they buy because they trust the company, not because of the advertising offered to the customer by the company.

Kevin Hillstrom is president of MineThatData (minethatdata.com), a consultancy that helps multichannel CEOs understand the complex relationship between customers, advertising, products, brands and channels.

A highly targeted, baseball-themed-mailer helps communications giant Sprint score with C-level decision makers.

By Sandra Beckwith

Selling wireless services with baseball may seem a little odd, but Sprint’s business-to-business marketers know that its efforts to reach C-level enterprise decision makers often need to take a different approach.

So when the industry marketing team saw agency Euro RSCG’s idea for a unique dimensional mailing targeting C-level technology, information and operations leaders at larger client companies, they knew they had an idea that would help them score big.

The mailer, a rectangular box cushioning a wooden Louisville Slugger baseball bat, used a baseball theme to communicate the brand’s key marketing messages in early 2008, before the current “Now Network” campaign was introduced. The goal? To get a face-to-face meeting between an account representative and the recipient.

Headlines like “Dominate the playing field,” “Swing for the fences” and “Step up to the big leagues” helped the brand promote Nextel Direct Connect and location-based services solutions to recipients who were handpicked by the sales force.

“We didn’t use the typical purchased mailing list for this,” explains Chris Horner, Sprint group manager for industry marketing. “It was an expensive piece, so we had to be smart about whom we sent it to. We asked our account teams to provide names of high-level decision makers they thought were ready to hear about this.”

The mailer included a meeting invitation personalized with the senior account manager’s contact information and an incentive to schedule that meeting: Each executive would receive a voucher for a professional baseball jersey for his of her team of choice after the in-person session.

“It was one of the most successful mailings we’ve done of this type,” says Bronson Broockerd, Sprint general manager of direct, e-mail and mobile marketing. And while return on investment is hard to calculate with this type of solutions selling, Broockerd notes that the response rates are “extremely high.”

Now that’s a home run.

The Essentials

Agency: Euro RSCG (Chicago)
Client: Sprint (Overland Park, Kan.)
Target Audience: 1,300 customers and prospects at companies with more than 1,000 employees
Goal: Secure an in-person meeting between an account representative and a C-level decision maker
DM Vehicle: A baseball-themed dimensional mailer containing a wooden baseball bat
Response: So exceeded expectations that the company continues to use the dimensional “cut through the clutter” mailer approach

We reveal four marketing trends likely to get hotter in 2010 – and show you how they can work for brands of any size.

By Anne Stuart

With the direct marketing industry in the grip of a series of upheavals, from the digital revolution to the economic meltdown, figuring out what’s coming next is becoming progressively more difficult. Creating effective strategies based on these expectations is the toughest part of all.

And so, faced with one new challenge after another — from increasing costs for production and materials to rising environmental concerns among consumers — marketers have intensified their push to get ahead of the industry curve. This has led to a massive scramble to determine where the most significant industry trends for next year will emerge.

To help, Deliver® sat down with experts from around the country to attempt to divine what’s in store for direct in 2010. While a number of potential trends were discussed, there were four key areas — targeting, measurement, channel integration and prospecting among baby boomers — that kept coming up as likely hot spots for growth and innovation.

As a result, we decided to take a closer look at these four fields and what possibilities they hold for marketers in the coming year.

1. Targeting

If there’s a one-word formula for marketing success next year, it’s “precision,” industry leaders say. Traditionally, of course, the trend has been toward amassing as much information as possible about prospect and customer groups, then bombarding them with offers. But that approach is no longer viable.

According to a recent Winterberry Group report, the organizations struggling hardest are those that have depended most heavily on “batch blast”–style mailings — that is, using the mail as a saturation tool with little or no regard for rich personalization or the particular needs of the individual recipient.

Liz Miller, CMO Council vice president of programs and operations, sums up the trend: “We’re moving away from saying, ‘I want to connect with women who are 34 to 54’ to ‘I want to connect with that particular woman.’”

Such customized approaches are already possible, but to date, have typically included only recipients’ names and, in some cases, their locations. But, Miller says, continuing advancements in database management and variable data printing (VDP) have industry experts predicting more robust personalization techniques in 2010.

Backroads, an active- and adventure-travel company, is already learning the value of tightly focused personalization, especially for generating repeat business. The organization uses automated marketing engine technology from Nimblefish to mail thousands of postcards to past customers that contain not only personalized messages but also photos of regions recipients have traveled to in the past. “The message might say, ‘Barbara, remember Yellowstone in May 2002? Have another memorable trip — and here are three options,’” says Massimo Prioreschi, vice president of sales and marketing for the Berkeley, Calif., company.

Miller says these kinds of highly tailored mail pieces offer a good glimpse of the direction that targeting will continue to take in 2010. “That’s going beyond just putting one person’s name on a piece of paper,” she adds. “It’s saying, ‘We want to give you everything that’s relevant to you right now.’”

2. Measurement/Analysis

While the need to tally ROI has always been essential to marketers, they are more pressed to prove that their campaigns are impacting consumers and generating revenue.

Experts predict that, as measurement tools become more precise, how brands measure the return on their investment is likely to become more complicated. They will have to pay attention to a broader range of data, and companies will have to work even harder to make sure that other parts of the organization operate in conjunction with the marketing department.

The CMO Council’s Miller recommends organizations extend their ROI measurement to the entire marketing supply chain. “Don’t focus on the return at the expense of managing investment costs,” she says. “Map, track, measure and put a dollar amount on everything you do.”

She adds that marketers also will have to improve customer experience, mostly by learning to better mine data. Businesses like Harrah’s Entertainment — owners of 54 casino and hotel properties worldwide — know the value of the detailed data their programs generate. The company’s mail-driven loyalty program, for instance, has allowed its marketers to collect and analyze data on how often program participants visit their properties, how much members contribute to overall gaming revenue and what games of chance they prefer, among other things.

In-depth analysis of members’ behavior lets Harrah’s construct more effective messages, says David Norton, senior vice president and CMO for Harrah’s. “If we know a player has been to past slot tournaments, we’ll make sure he or she gets invited to the next one,” he adds. “If they’ve never come to a mid-week event, we exclude them from mailings about mid-week events because, obviously, they’re not going to respond.”

3. Integration

In 2010, improved integration of channels, such as e-mail, direct mail, billboards and TV, will become more of a focal point for even the most reluctant marketers. “That’s always been a goal, but the economy has made it imperative,” CMO Council’s Miller says.

And even though the past two years brought plenty of dire speculation about — and even premature eulogies for — the future of print marketing, the people who keep an eye on these things insist that traditional channels like direct mail will continue to earn their place at the marketing table in 2010.

“The favorite thing to say in 2008 was that, in 2009, print would be dead because everybody was going to e-mail,” Miller recalls. “That didn’t happen. Actually, both modes of communication took a hit during the past year.”

For that reason, most marketers have found that online channels demonstrate greater value as a complement to direct mail applications, reinforcing the value of integrated programs, according to the Winterberry Group.

Backroads’ Prioreschi says that postcard mailers his company sends also drive recipients to a personalized Web site with several highly targeted offers. “If someone went to Yellowstone, Alaska and Glacier National Park, we know there’s a definite pattern there indicating he or she is a mountain wilderness person,” he adds. Thus, the personalized site might include offers for upcoming trips to the Canadian Rockies or Himalayas, complete with slideshows and videos.

Prioreschi says integration is working well. During one campaign, sales were 50 percent higher among people who received a postcard and clicked through to a personalized site than those who just visited the site on their own.

4. Prospecting

Since World War II, the 18 to 25 age range has been the sweet spot of American marketing. “There was a good reason for that,” says Dr. Ken Dychtwald, founder and CEO of Age Wave, a San Francisco research and consulting firm that specializes in helping companies market to older customers. “Young people historically represented an area of growth because of their willingness to try new things. They were still forming their brand preferences. The idea was that if you captured their hearts at that stage, you had them for life.”

And, of course, the postwar baby boom filled the sweet spot with tens of millions of potential young targets for marketers. Although the baby boomers have since aged, marketing experts say that, in many ways, they still represent a marketing sweet spot for industry innovators. Consequently, many in the industry are predicting a renewed focus on baby boomers in the coming year.

“People should be swooning over the baby boomers as they move out of youth and into middle age,” Dychtwald says. “This is an age group that has traditionally been sidelined, but we’re going to see growth in sectors catering to them.

“Reinvention is normal for this generation,” Dychtwald continues.
“They change careers many more times than their moms and dads did.
They’re willing to try new things. So if you think you can rest on your laurels — if you think you’ve got them for life — you’re wrong. Today, everybody at every stage of life is open to marketing.”

In courting boomers, he says, marketers also are reacting to another growing trend in marketing: the end of brand loyalty and the return to brand experimentation. People are more willing to try new brands than ever — and those over 50 years old are particularly open to these new messages, Dychtwald says. “They’re more likely than any other group to read and respond to catalogs and direct mail pieces,” he adds, citing research from the Direct Marketing Association. “They enjoy reading a good catalog and leafing through their mail looking for deals. Good pitches attract their attention. It’s a mistake not to take direct marketing seriously for mature populations — and the time to start is right now.”

Of course, the same could also be said about any of the other trends marketers are expecting to get bigger in 2010.

The Xerox 1:1 Lab shows how highly personalized marketing messages are leaving imprints on consumers.

By Chantal Tode

Sure, plenty of direct marketers and print ad specialists will talk a good game about how personalization and other newer techniques can lift your bottom line.
But at Xerox, the experts have developed a mail-marketing program — known as the “1:1 Lab” — that’s designed to help them back up the boasts.

“We’ve told the story a lot about how response rates and return on investment improve with the use of full-color printing and relevant data,” says Shelley Sweeney, vice president and general manager of the service bureau and direct marketing sector for Xerox’s graphics communications business. “But we really needed to prove it to people in a way that gives a true A/B comparison.”

Most high-level corporate marketers understand that personalization works. However, many brands fail to take advantage of the power of mail personalization because they don’t or can’t gather the consumer information critical to such precise targeting, Sweeney says. “Customer data is by far the most important thing to a successful direct mail campaign, which is what we are trying to prove in the lab,” she adds. “Most marketers have the data, but it might be in three or four different places.”

Without a certain depth of information about customers, such as when they last made purchases, marketers will find it impossible to create truly relevant messages. In fact, Sweeney says, Xerox regularly turns away candidates for the 1:1 Lab because the marketing department can’t compile customer data from the disparate departments.

Despite its name, the 1:1 Lab isn’t a physical place, although it was indeed born in a high-tech Xerox printing facility in Canada some years ago. Since expanding beyond the Canadian marketplace, the effort has become a “virtual” program in which Xerox and its partners around the globe blend their expertise with the company’s latest technology to underscore how personalization increases a message’s relevance to mail recipients.

Under the program, Xerox fits select clients’ existing mail campaigns with a variety of variable data printing (VDP) solutions. The marketing offer and creative are largely the same as the original mailer, with the biggest difference being the increased personalization of the 1:1 version. The Xerox Graphic Communications customer and direct marketing provider then print and mail out the revamped pieces, at no cost to the client, to measure how well the new mailers do as compared to the less-personalized versions. The hope at Xerox, of course, is that successful tests of its mailers will encourage client marketers to use a customized direct mail approach (and Xerox’s expertise) in full-blown direct mail campaigns.

Xerox completes about 10 tests a year in the 1:1 Lab, including several with well-known national brands. Typically, Xerox picks test candidates with robust customer data that are willing to publish any results. Once it chooses a candidate, Xerox teams up with that marketer’s production partner and any other strategic partners involved with the campaign.

Getting results

So far, many of Xerox’s clients are citing increased response to the personalized mailers. For instance, one recent test involved a 529 college savings fund. Dissatisfied with contribution levels, the fund administrators worked with the 1:1 Lab to revise a critical direct mail piece. The new version included graphics that projected how much money the targeted fund participant could save up by the time his or her child was ready for college. Additional graphs showed how greater contributions could boost the growth of the target’s account. Recipients of the personalized mailer upped their contributions levels at a higher rate than those receiving the traditional letter with no graphs, according to Sweeney.

“It really is a way, with no effort on the part of the end client, to be able to prove how successful direct marketing can be when it is not just spray and pray,” Sweeney says.

Content is king

Of course, there are many other marketers who do collect a wealth of vital data, and theirs are the brands that benefit most from the Lab. Consider, for instance, Ford Motor Co. The carmaker was using basic personalization — such as customers’ first names and the vehicles that they owned — in a recent direct mail campaign to promote extended service contracts. However, when response rates topped out at about 2.5 percent, the company looked for other ways to maximize ROI on the mailers. “We were doing a mediocre job of giving customers a reason to respond,” admits Mark Bardusch, Ford’s national sales and marketing manager of extended service business.

Ford’s production provider for the campaign, Budco, recommended the 1:1 Lab.
As a first step to reworking the mailer, Bardusch and Budco marketers pulled together an abundance of customer data from various departments, including vehicle type, length of ownership, address, age, income and gender.

“By combining the different sets of data and looking really hard at how we could connect the data with the messaging, we were able to build messages that speak to the reasons why having an extended service contract is important to different customers,” says Jeff Sierra, vice president of marketing and product development for Budco. “For example, a woman with a family might receive a mailer with an image of a family and the car that she owns.”

For the 1:1 Lab test, Ford mailed more than 20,000 pieces to owners of Ford F-150 trucks whose factory warranties were near expiration. The mailer was done in two formats: a black-and-white letter with the Ford logo in color, and a full-color self-mailer. Each format then had two versions: one with basic personalization such as the recipient’s first name (such as Ford had been sending all along) and the other with more personalized messaging and greater VDP content.

The test ran from November 2008 to February 2009, as the U.S. car industry teetered on the brink of collapse and as automakers testified before Congress in an attempt to garner government aid. Despite these events, the personalized self-mailer with a wide variety of VDP content still achieved a 5.7-percent increase in response rates and a 35.7-percent increase in sales penetration as compared to the original mailer with much less personalization. “With mail, they can comfortably investigate the service contract that best fits their needs,” Bardusch says.

Based on the success of the test, Ford began this past September rolling out the VDP strategy across its entire direct mail program for extended service contracts. This will eventually result in more than 2 million pieces of relevant mail annually, Bardusch says. And the company will continue to test various formats for VDP content, including letters and self-mailers. “We always felt that if we learned more about customers and the customers could have a better understanding of us, we would do more business together,” Bardusch says. He adds that by personalizing each offer, Ford also was better able to communicate its product selection.

Xerox’s Sweeney says that the successes of campaigns such as Ford’s only do more to back up the contention by those at the 1:1 Lab that rich VDP efforts can translate into deeper customer relationships. “When a company starts looking at customer data from an overall point of view, it is able to start creating more relevant messaging and drive results from its direct mail,” she says.

Perception Isn’t Reality

Variable data printing (VDP) solutions like those offered through the Xerox 1:1 Lab go a long way toward increasing the relevance of a product or service to consumers — but marketers’ perception of the relevance of their messages may be a far cry from how consumers really view them.

How to shrink this gap?

“Remember that relevance is in the eye of the beholder,” says an independent study titled “Marketers: Stop the Abuse! Adopt Preference Management,” Forrester Research Inc., July 2009.

The study reports, “It’s baffling that 80 percent of marketers can claim that customer preference is a key factor in determining which message is sent to customers when only a handful even ask how often customers would like to hear from them.”

Findings in the report show:

• Only 33 percent capture customers’ preferred method of message delivery.
• A similar number (29 percent) capture the type of content that customers want to receive.
• Only 12 percent capture customers’ preferred frequency for receiving marketing e-mails.
• 8 percent capture preference for receiving direct mail and telemarketing calls.
• 30 percent of marketers who capture at least one type of preference data take no action based on that preference.

Clearly, it’s time more marketers stopped guessing at what their customers are thinking and started actually asking.

A Nonprofit Cancer Center is Attracting Support With a Loyalty Program That Recognizes Not Only Large Gifts, But Continuous Giving – Regardless Of Amount.

By Natalie Engler

When money is tight, even the worthiest causes feel the pinch. But The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center has found a way to boost donations even as other charities are seeing declines. M. D. Anderson has created a multilevel loyalty program that rewards members not only by their gift size, but by their longevity as a donor regardless of amount. And it’s proving to be the institution’s single largest source of unrestricted money.

A close-knit circle

To most people, loyalty marketing means frequent flyer miles or credit card incentives. But M. D. Anderson’s donor loyalty club relies on a more subtle and personalized approach to cultivating relationships with long-term members. Consequently, the donor loyalty club is winning over a growing number of members.

The club offers an assortment of membership tiers — from its Century Club to its President’s Associate Gold Level — which are defined by donors’ cumulative gift sizes over a 12-month period. Meanwhile, M. D. Anderson also offers its “Partner’s Circle,” which is open to members who’ve given to the institution consistently for five years or longer.

The Partner’s Circle sprang from the observation that people who gave a little bit of money continuously throughout their lifetime often ended up bequeathing the institution significant donations from their estates, says Cindy Lappetito, vice president and general manager at loyalty-marketing company Epsilon, which created M. D. Anderson’s direct marketing campaign and donor loyalty programs. “The Partner’s Circle gift program was a way to recognize those folks and reward them,” she explains.

Giving thanks

But the Partner’s Circle isn’t M. D. Anderson’s only expression of gratitude. Annual stewardship letters are mailed to donors each August. These letters serve to express appreciation for the donor’s commitment to M. D. Anderson and reference various ways in which the Annual Fund was utilized throughout the year. Recently, these stewardship pieces have also included useful refrigerator magnets, referral cards with the institution’s important phone numbers, a cancer-screening insert and a “Donor Bill of Rights.”

In November, M. D. Anderson also sends Thanksgiving greeting cards with artwork created by a pediatric cancer patient who participated in the M. D. Anderson Children’s Art Project.

Unusually, none of these mailings included a donation appeal. “We are careful not to ask people too many times for money,” says Michael Frick, associate vice president for development. “We never want them to think that short-term money is more important than our long-term relationship.”

All together, M. D. Anderson mails four appeals to approximately 100,000 active donors every year, in addition to sending about 2 million pieces aimed at acquiring new donors. These mailings are continually tested, tweaked and personalized, Lappetito says. “As we continue to add personalization and localization to our control package, it performs better,” she adds. For example, M. D. Anderson has found that a mail piece is more likely to generate a response when it mentions the city in which the recipient lives, contains a map with that location marked with a star and notes how many patients in the recipient’s area have been treated at M. D. Anderson.

Star power

M. D. Anderson also added a loyalty-building component to its donor acquisition package last year. The institution sent out a “Star Card” featuring a potential donor’s name, membership number and a design based on the Lone Star of Texas. The card doesn’t provide discounts or generate rewards points, but M. D. Anderson hopes it fosters a sense of belonging among recipients.

The Star Card mailings allowed M. D. Anderson to increase the number of new donors it acquired last year, despite a down economy, Lappetito says. And when Epsilon compared the response rate to a that of a control package without the Star Card, the company found that the mailing that contained the card generated a 19-percent greater response, with no change in average gift size. In addition, the mailing generated a cost-per-dollar-raised — which is the total cost of the mailer divided by total revenue — that was 8 percent lower than that of the control package.

The Star Card was not especially flashy or expensive. In fact, slick campaigns almost never work as well for M. D. Anderson as do low-gloss, high-touch mailings, Frick says. “Sometimes what looks like a gorgeous, unique and strong package [one that wins design awards] is terrible for fundraising,” he says.

“Something plain and relatively simple and inexpensive is far more effective.” Lappetito concurs. “Every year we test new direct mail packages, including four-color pieces in glossy envelopes. But they never work as well as the plain-but-personal approach.”

The personal touch

Indeed, when donors make their first contributions, M. D. Anderson mails them a personalized “welcome kit” that asks about the areas of research and patient care in which they are most interested. In addition, all subsequent mailings include donors’ names and addresses as well as variable data copy that creates relevant messaging for donors. Copy includes their Donor Loyalty Club levels and the areas in which they live.

Also key to the strategy is the tone of the mailings. Some conversations with donors make appeals to their emotions, others to their intellect — but they are always measured and informative. For instance, while a letter might tell the story of a patient who has recovered from cancer, it also will include specific details about some of M. D. Anderson’s latest research. “We will not use alarmist fundraising at all,” says Frick, explaining that such scare tactics are inconsistent with the goals of the institution. “Cancer is a serious topic, and we approach each letter as an educational opportunity.”

Not only does M. D. Anderson get to discuss its efforts with donors; it also gets a chance to learn more about its mail recipients. Frick says cultivating both opportunities has helped M. D. Anderson develop strong donor relationships: “It’s this combination of personalization, respect and recognition that fosters continued donor participation.”

Editor’s Note: Curious about what types of cancer are represented by the lipstick colors on the previous pages? See The Colors of Cancer (PDF).

What Other Nonprofits Can Learn from the M. D. Anderson Approach

Since it began its loyalty program, M. D. Anderson’s philanthropic direct mail revenue has increased by more than 500 percent. Here’s how other charities can profit from the marketing example set by M. D. Anderson:

One: Use direct mail to educate. Focus on a specific faculty member’s research, a physician’s patient treatment programs or a successful clinical trial to demonstrate commitment to remaining on the forefront of research.

Two: Eschew alarmist fundraising. Be serious and respectful. Never say someone will “die without your help.” Such messages capitalize on the recipient’s fear and guilt, and ultimately undermine donor loyalty.

Three: Focus on the long-term relationship. Express gratitude without asking for money so donors feel cared about and appreciated, while making them more likely to remain committed to the organization.

Four: Be transparent. Tell donors how their funds are being used. This demonstrates fiscal responsibility and reminds them they are part of something larger than themselves.

Five: Personalize and localize. Align direct mail packages with the recipient’s location and interests to get better results.

Six: Test rigorously and continuously. Test mailings and try new approaches every year for consistent improvement and strong results.

Six ways direct mail will thrive in the new year.

By Rod DeVar

Marketers are cost-conscious by nature. But last year’s economic meltdown forced them to look even harder for efficiencies, and it’s a mindset they’ll keep as the market recovers. But through it all, direct mail has been — and will continue to be — a viable, effective marketing tool. Here’s why:

It’s a strong acquisition tool. Marketers like paying lower prices to search for new customers online, but they’re often disappointed when these folks don’t stick around. That’s because targeting new acquisitions online is much less precise than sending a mail piece to prospects you know will likely be repeat purchasers.

Technology continues to improve. Variable data printing is letting marketers acknowledge customers as individuals. Not only will more marketers take advantage of it, those already using it will get smarter about their applications by using customer data to better track relationships and tailor content as wants and needs change. That’s important because increased personalization makes direct mail more relevant to the end user.

Newspapers are suffering. As newspaper circulation dwindles, it will spur a significant migration to the mail by those marketers (particularly retailers) that need to reach a high number of people in a very targeted geographic location.

Content marketing is on the rise. Transpromotion and custom publishing are delivering marketing messages in more personal and relevant ways, with information woven right in the content — a plus for both marketers and recipients. Custom publishing continues strong growth because consumers like the quality, and with transpromotion the senders of statements and bills can include marketing messages that connect with how the customer is using their services.

Clean lists are eco-friendly. As marketers continue to address list hygiene, they’ll be mailing more efficiently. Not only will that deliver a better return, it also is good for the planet because the number of wasteful pieces will decline.

Mail will be even easier to track. More marketers will begin using the Intelligent Mail® barcode, a new Postal Service™ barcode used to sort and track letters and flats. With it, they’ll be receiving more detailed information than ever on how and when their direct mail is being delivered, as well as how customers are responding.

Before you kick off your 2010 efforts, know this: The recession has created new norms for the marketing realm. Many tried-and-true formulas for evaluating media effectiveness and accountability won’t measure up to your heightened need to accomplish stronger results for less investment. But direct mail will continue to perform.

Rod DeVar is manager of direct mail at the United States Postal Service.®

W.L. Gore scaled new marketing heights by capturing customer data while driving sales and brand awareness

By Natalie Engler

Just before Christmas 2007, Sharon Cook, retail marketing manager at W.L. Gore & Associates in Newark, Del., sat in her home office watching her latest direct mail marketing campaign unfold in near real time.

As she looked on, outdoor adventure enthusiasts who had recently received postcards and e-mails clicked on personalized URLs (PURLs) and completed a survey about purchasing habits and travel plans.

“There was immediate gratification in seeing evidence that the campaign was working,” Cook recalls. “It gave me a clear window into the consumer activity.”

The campaign — titled “Take Me to Everest” — was designed to achieve three goals: to sell more Merrell-brand hiking shoes made with Gore’s waterproof GORE-TEX® fabric, to collect data for future marketing efforts and to build brand awareness.

“The idea originated because we had done direct mail in the past using a database to do a GPS location for someone’s address, and saying ‘Dear X, Come to the store closest to you,’” Cook explains. “Those mailings were successful for redemption and tracking.”

She’d heard that PURLs could make the connection between direct mail and the Web even stronger, and wanted to see if they could help her achieve her marketing goals and generate shoe sales during the busy holiday season.

As it turned out, the results surpassed her expectations. “Take Me to Everest” generated a 16-percent average increase in sales of GORE-TEX® footwear during the two-week campaign timeframe compared to the same period the previous year.

To develop the campaign, Cook enlisted Associates Graphic Services (AGS), a graphic communication company in Wilmington, Del. Because Gore sells its products directly to manufacturers, the company didn’t have direct relationships with end-user consumers. So Gore brought in a retail partner, Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS). EMS had a targeted database of outdoor-shoe consumers a perfect fit for the campaign.

Cook worked with Karen Keenan, director of marketing at AGS, to determine the best approach for the campaign, which ultimately included postcards and an e-blast, each with a PURL. The postcards, e-mail messages and PURLs all had a consistent graphical look and feel. Each piece featured a Merrell hiking shoe and a youthful climber (both male and female) standing before a majestic mountain rising out of the clouds. The campaign featured 30,000 postcards and 30,000 e-mail messages sent to EMS customers.

The visuals were customized based on the recipient’s gender: women received postcards and e-mails showing a female climber (“Catherine”) and a woman’s hiking shoe, while men received materials displaying a male climber (“Anthony”) and a man’s hiking shoe. The text included two different incentives. One was a free gift of an aluminum water bottle or pedometer with the purchase of any shoe containing GORE-TEX.® The second — which was much more effective — was a chance to enter an online sweepstakes to win a free trip for two to Everest Base Camp in Nepal.

The postcards and e-mails also contained PURLs with the recipient’s name followed by TakeMeToEverest.com (e.g., www.JohnASample.TakeMeToEverest.com). When customers clicked on the PURL, or typed it into their browsers, they were greeted with a welcome screen displaying their first names in large outlined letters in the sky over the mountains and the tagline “One small step could take you all the way to Nepal.” Additional text explained how they could enter a random drawing for a trip to Everest Base Camp.

After registering, visitors received a three-question, multiple-choice survey (“Do you own any of the following types of footwear that use GORE-TEX® fabric or technology?”, “Which of the following [activities] did you do in the last 12 months?” and “Thinking about the last trip you took for your own pleasure (not business), how would you best describe it?”). These questions were designed to both measure and build brand awareness and to test whether the category of casual-but-rugged shoes for adventure travel was worth the companies’ continued investment.

For additional personalization, the contest entry screen was pre-populated with the customer’s contact information. If anything had changed or was incorrect, the customers made corrections. “I loved that we could switch images based on gender and customize the site by using the consumers’ names,” Cook says. “That resonated well with customers. It was targeted without being intrusive.”

It can be difficult to reach people during the holiday season, a time of heavy retail marketing traffic, AGS’s Keenan notes. And yet, despite the competition for consumers’ attention, many customers found the chance for a trip to Everest Base Camp well worth the effort required to complete the short survey. In fact, the campaign received an 8.6-percent total response rate (5,160 visitors) with 73 percent (3,766 visitors) completing the survey and updating their profiles — giving EMS the added benefit of a cleaner database.

Keenan says that adding a PURL to the marketing mix makes it easier to measure the success of an individual campaign. With the PURLs, Cook was able to sit back and watch as a backend “dashboard” revealed moment-by-moment how the campaign was faring. Tucked away in her home office, Cook measured the number of people clicking through, reviewed their answers to the survey questions and even collected additional data, such as the number of people who came because they had received an e-mail vs. direct mail, what time people logged in, how long they stayed and what browser they were using, among other things.

Through the answers to the survey questions, Cook also learned of people’s preferred outdoor activities and their favorite types of vacations. She also could determine how many knew whether shoes they had previously purchased contained GORE-TEX® fabric. The results showed that more than half of the customers who responded were familiar with the GORE-TEX® brand and confirmed that travel-appropriate footwear continued to be a promising category. Thanks to these results, Gore’s wholesale brand partners, such as Merrell, are continuing to develop the adventure-travel shoes.

The dashboard also let Cook measure the campaign’s ROI in real time, helping her demonstrate a direct return on every dollar she spent. “The back end of a PURL campaign is a measurement powerhouse,” Keenan says. “You can track whatever you choose, including sales, cost per visit, cost per completed survey, cost per closed opportunity and gross profit.”

What made the “Take Me to Everest” marketing expedition such a success, according to Keenan, was the combination of a targeted database, good creative and a great call to action. The Nepal trip was an enticing incentive. And results of the “Take Me to Everest” contest were the best holiday gift Cook could have hoped for, she says.

The entire promotion cost only around $20,000. And for that investment, Gore was able not only to capture useful metrics directly from consumers, but also present a holiday gift to EMS and Merrell: important retail and wholesale customers. EMS saw increased traffic in its stores and got its database scrubbed. And Merrell saw a lift in sales of hiking shoes.

“The success of the campaign has given us credibility to try new things and present new opportunities to our customers,” Cook says.

And in so doing, Gore has proven that it’s a company that can take its partners to new heights.

Campaign Synopsis

Company Name: W.L. Gore & Assoc.
Marketing technology solution: Personalized URLs
Number of items mailed: 30,000 postcards and 30,000 e-mails
Target audience: Purchasers of outdoor footwear
Total cost: $20,000
Impact of solution: Generated a 16-percent average increase in sales of GORE-TEX® footwear made by Merrell compared to the same period the previous year.

Don’t use PURLs when:
1. You’re doing prospecting or lead generation
2. You don’t have a targeted database of customers
3. You don’t have a good incentive or call to action
4. Your survey has more than five questions
5. Your landing page is hard to navigate
6. Your survey questions are overly aggressive

A few pennies was all it took for COUNTRY to get customers thinking about life insurance.

By Vicki Powers

Life insurance isn’t a simple sale. Who really wants to think about their own mortality? And the information-gathering process is a lengthy one, which means the sales cycle can take months.

Once folks decide on a plan, they’re going to hold onto it for a long time. And that’s exactly what COUNTRY, an Illinois-based insurance and financial services firm, was counting on with its “Grow Your Retirement” campaign.

Financial representatives focused on cross-selling and up selling existing clients. Using a mailer that resembled a large seed packet, they targeted about 30,000 existing clients — aged 35 to 55 — who already bought auto and property insurance from COUNTRY.

A custom window revealed “growing money” artwork, and five shiny pennies hidden inside were offered as “starter seeds” for growing retirement savings. A carefully crafted message encouraged clients to schedule a meeting with a financial representative to learn more about planning their retirement.

The right audience and the right message, together with a creative spin, turned this mailer into a conversation starter — and netted compelling results to boot. It sold more than 2,100 new policies, exceeding the organization’s goal by 166 percent.

While other COUNTRY direct mail campaigns have garnered more responses, the “Grow” piece has been the most successful because it resulted in life policy sales.

“Few people want to talk about life insurance,” says Randy Lorimor, manager of advertising and marketing media at COUNTRY. “This piece, however, turned a serious topic into a light-hearted and eye-catching campaign with tremendous results.”

He adds that direct mail was the only option considered for the “Grow” campaign. “It was the most cost-effective method for us to reach our audience of existing clients,” Lorimar says. “We typically spend from $2 to $3 per piece on our direct mail campaigns. And while some marketers may think this is an outrageous amount, we make it up — and then some — in terms of ROI.”

The Essentials
Company: COUNTRY Financial (headquartered in Bloomington, Ill.)
Theme: “Grow Your Retirement.”
Target audience: 30,000 existing clients aged 35 to 55
Goal: To increase the sale of life insurance policies to existing auto and property policyholders
DM vehicle: A lumpy mailer that housed five “starter seed” pennies
Response rate: More than 2,100 new policies sold, exceeding the organization’s goal by 166 percent.

Mail isn’t the newest marketing tool, just one of the most effective

We admit it: Direct mail isn’t the latest technological breakthrough, it’s not getting reams of blogger coverage, it’s not on the list of “trends to watch.”

It’s just incredibly effective.

If this magazine has done nothing else in its five-year history, it has demonstrated again and again that direct mail is a highly reliable marketing tool. Whether you’re using a #10 envelope, a postcard or an intricately designed dimensional piece, mail gets attention and more important generates results you can measure.

But really, that’s just the beginning. Direct is also a powerful driver for results across the marketing spectrum. Got a Web site? Direct can drive more traffic and more sales. Got brick-and-mortar sites? Direct can push people to open the door and come inside. Hosting an event? Direct can bring customers to your booth. The list goes on and on.

Point is, direct mail is a highly effective tool all on its own (generating $15.60 per $1 spent, according to Direct Marketing Association research) but pair it with other marketing channels and it can deliver even more amazing results. One example: Studies consistently show that sending a printed catalog in the mail drives additional sales on a company’s Web site (research by Vovici EFM shows 96 percent of brands say their catalog drives online sales).

It’s a good thing, too, because navigating today’s marketing world is no easy feat. You need to be everywhere that your customers are when they’re making decisions — online, at home, in the office — providing information that gets your brand noticed and considered. That takes an extensive set of tools — online and offline — to ensure that your brand is there when they’re making a decision.

That’s why mail is so critical to the success of your brand. Not only can it permeate the barriers that so many other media face (Hey, even you, dear marketer, open your mailbox and take what’s inside into your house right away), but by integrating the other tools in your arsenal, it increases your ability to make the sale and drive additional revenue.

So, it may not be the subject of talk around the water cooler or the buzz on the Net. No worries. Truth is, direct mail remains as effective today as it has been for the past century, driving action, delivering sales and helping marketers get their messages heard.

So, listen to the buzz around all those new apps and technologies. Check out the “emerging media channels” and play around with the newest marketing tools. Just don’t bet your bottom line on them yet.

Mine, an experimental customized magazine, shows consumer interest for tailored content – and receiving print communications.

Interview by Lara Jensen

As magazine publishers experiment with new methods for delivering content, Time Inc., American Express Publishing Corp. and Lexus have given us a look at how the future of print might look.

Mine magazine — a customizable publication offered for a 10-week period earlier this year — let consumers influence the content and ads that would appear in each issue. And they even got to select a delivery method: print, online or smartphone. Surprisingly, most requested a printed copy.

Here, Wayne Powers, president of Time Inc. Media Group, discusses how customization and printed magazines are a powerful combination.

Deliver: How did Time come to create a customized magazine?

Powers: As Lexus planned the launch of the new 2010 RX, it joined forces with Time Inc. and American Express Publishing Corp. to create an integrated marketing campaign around the idea of driver-inspired design. The car comes with what Lexus calls “driver-inspired technology,” such as MP3-player connectivity operated through steering-wheel controls, and a remote-touch controller, similar to a mouse, for the pop-up navigation system.

In thinking about how we could bring our assets to market in a unique way on their behalf, we pinpointed several Time and American Express Publishing magazines that fit with Lexus’ targeted consumer from a demographic and psychographic point of view. From there, the idea evolved into looking at how we could take content from these various magazine brands and aggregate it in a way that the consumer would have some choice.

Deliver: Why was consumer choice important?

Powers: We wanted the end result to be aligned with the definition of the Lexus RX brand as user inspired. That’s why consumers were given the opportunity to choose five magazine brands from a list of eight — Time, Sports Illustrated, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Money, In Style, Golf and Travel + Leisure — that they were the most interested in and would like to receive content from. Our editors then chose which content from each publication appeared in Mine. Lexus was the sole advertiser, with four full-page ads in each 36-page issue.

Deliver: How did you promote the program?

Powers: Advertising in the participating magazines and their Web sites drove consumers to a site where they were able to choose their content and delivery method. Within the first four weeks, consumers had signed up for all of the 31,000 print subscriptions available, and from launch until the end of the program, more than 20,000 people signed up to receive a digital version of Mine.

Deliver: Why do you think so many wanted a printed magazine in the mail?

Powers: I think consumers felt connected to the actual magazines themselves. The photography and the content they were expecting to see are things they are accustomed to seeing in a printed product. But it was the customization that really drew attention because it let them sample magazines they don’t subscribe to but may be interested in.

Deliver: What was the benefit of a customized magazine for Lexus?

Powers: Lexus was able to customize the ads for each recipient based on his or her interests using data from the sign-up process. During the process, consumers were asked a few simple questions to find the magazines that best matched their interests. For example, an ad might show a car driving on a local road or highlight a destination of interest. It was hoped that this would make consumers feel connected to the ads. So far, the data is proving this to be true. Of the consumers who signed up to receive Mine, 16 percent opted in to receive additional information about the new Lexus RX.

Deliver: Is customization something publishers and advertisers are looking to as they consider the future of print?

Powers: There’s a lot of interest around customization right now. We had more than 300 million media impressions around Mine and we’re receiving inquiries from the media and advertisers around the concept all the time.

One of the questions that advertisers are asking is whether the use of customization for ads can evolve to the point where consumers are not only influencing the messaging, but also the actual product that appears in the ads. For example, one consumer might be defined as an SUV driver while another a sedan driver. The question is, how can we evolve the ads and the content of the ads to address each of these consumers?

The editorial content may evolve as well. For Mine, the editors involved with each publication chose the content. However, one recipient may be more interested in international news while another leans toward national news. Are there ways we can better align the content within these magazines to match the consumers’ interests? Right now, we’re doing some investigating around these ideas.

Deliver: How do you feel about the increasing amount of personalized and customized mail?

Powers: I think the traditional direct mail channel is a very challenging place. What we like about Mine is that the consumer actually chose to receive this, either through the mail or digitally. So while the messaging may be viewed as direct to consumer, it is more of an engaged relationship. The ads that appeared in Mine are there because of what we know about our subscribers. So it’s a great way to get that direct-to-consumer relationship without being in a mass distribution medium.

As catalogs continue to evolve, many marketers are finding success with a new hybrid model.

By Anne Stuart

The target customer for the mark™ brand lives online.

“She’s very mobile,” says Lily DeStefano, director of marketing for mark, the younger, trendier sister division of cosmetic giant Avon. “She communicates via e-mail, texting and social networking sites. She looks to her friends for advice, information and recommendations on products.”

Not surprisingly, then, the youth-oriented brand is promoted on a dedicated Web site (meetmark.com), mark related blogs and popular social networking sites. But the true cornerstone for marketing all those cosmetics, skin-care products, fragrances, accessories and apparel items is a magalog which essentially is a magazine-catalog mash up.

The magalog, also named mark, has been published monthly since the line’s launch in mid-2003. Each 32- to 40-page issue reaches 7 million readers — a circulation greater than that of some of America’s top national magazines.

At first blush, a print publication may seem a counterintuitive choice for marketing to a Gen Y audience. But DeStefano says the magalog is a critical vehicle for marketing mark because their marketing mix must reflect how the Gen Y audience consumes media across multiple platforms. Plus, the brand has no retail outlets and relies on direct sales — both online and through its national network of independent representatives. The magalog does more than just highlight products, DeStefano says. “It communicates what our brand DNA is all about.”

That’s exactly what a magalog should do, says magazine expert Samir Husni, director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi. “Like a magazine, a magalog reflects the customer’s lifestyle — or the lifestyle that the customer wants,” Husni says. But a successful magalog goes a step further. “The goal is to make you, the customer, feel like part of a community and to give you the tools to act on that feeling.”

Magalogs also give their sponsors a bigger stage to showcase their offerings, says Craig Huey, president of Torrance, Calif.–based Creative Direct Marketing Group Inc. “In sales, they say ‘The more you tell, the more you sell,’” says Huey, who has produced magalogs for a variety of clients. “That’s what a magalog allows you to do in a readable, enjoyable, non-threatening way. It’s like an infomercial in print.”

Cam Brown, founder and president of King Fish Media, a Salem, Mass.–based custom-media firm, has seen growing demand for magalogs because, unlike traditional catalogs, they include content that positions their sponsors as trusted authorities in those desired lifestyles.

“With a magalog, you tell the story behind the products using magazine-style techniques — bold content, strong photography and graphics,” says Brown, whose company has developed magalogs for several clients, including a series for online retailer Zappos.com. However, he adds, magalogs also differ from magazines in one key way: “At the end of the day, a magalog’s goal is to sell products.”

Because magalogs typically feature eye-catching, magazine-style covers, they tend to “pop” in the mailbox. That’s the case in corporate settings as well as in consumer homes. “There’s a filtering process within the mailrooms of larger companies, but based on responses, we know that a magalog will almost always get through,” Huey says.

Story telling

The magazine-catalog hybrid — sometimes called a catazine has been evolving for a while.

Book-club catalogs have long included editorial copy, such as excerpts, reviews and author profiles. In the 1980s and ’90s, some apparel catalogs went far beyond simple product descriptions, weaving in elaborate stories about how particular products were discovered, designed or developed. Magalogs are just the latest variation on that trend, blending traditional direct-sales copy with editorial content and magazine-like design.

“Part of the mark brand voice is about this editorial angle that allows us to share our knowledge and expertise with the customer,” DeStefano says.

For example, each issue of mark includes makeup artists and stylists discussing trends that are keyed to mark products. “Rather than just showing makeup shades, the magalog builds a story around a certain look, with experts telling the story,” DeStefano says.

DeStefano says mark is a valuable tool during the direct sales process because reps can walk prospects through the publication, pointing out not only individual items, but also the expert tips on combining to create their own look.

That approach, Husni says, reflects another reason for magalogs’ popularity: Many consumers — even hardcore Internet shoppers — still love hard copy catalogs.

“People love to do their shopping online, but they still like to have the catalog in their hands,” he adds.

Communicating culture

While mark uses its magalog primarily to give customers advice and ideas about using mark products, Zappos.com had multiple goals for its publication. First, the company wanted to create awareness about its ongoing expansion into new product categories.

“One of our challenges is that people still think of Zappos as an online shoe store,” says Aaron Magness, director of business development and brand marketing for Henderson, Nev.–based Zappos.

Zappos.com was, in fact, launched as an online footwear retailer in 1999, but today its $1 billion in annual gross merchandise sales comes from sales of clothing, handbags, accessories, eyeglasses and housewares, among other things.

In addition, Zappos.com wanted to both acquire new customers and reactivate lapsed ones. Within those broad audiences, Zappos.com decided to target four key segments of its predominantly female, upwardly mobile market.

Zappos.com has produced three editions of Zappos Life in the past year: one designed for “casual-lifestyle” customers, one aimed at “active-lifestyle” fitness buffs and one back-to-school issue intended for students. A fourth issue will target fashion-conscious shoppers. To date, the magalogs have featured the footwear that made Zappos.com famous, but they also show apparel, sunglasses, watches, handbags and backpacks.

For most issues, Zappos works with vendors representing some of its 1,200 brands to choose products that best fit that particular magalog’s theme. Then, with King Fish Media, the company develops content around those selections to carry the theme through the entire 32- to 40-page publication.

“A magalog should be something the recipient wants to read and interact with, rather than just flip through quickly to shop,” Magness says.

He also emphasizes the importance of keeping a magalog’s story cohesive, carefully paced and tightly targeted to its intended audience.

For instance, the casual-lifestyle issue is themed around relaxation, fun and friends. Its carnival-themed opening spread features models in jeans, sandals and cotton blouses, paired with content urging readers to “go back to the days when fun didn’t have to be penciled in between meetings and play dates.”

Zappos.com also uses its magalogs to introduce prospects and customers to its unique culture, based on 10 core values that urge employees to “create fun and a little weirdness.”

Each issue opens with an editor-like letter from Zappos.com chief executive officer Tony Hsieh, peppered with employee quotes describing and praising the company’s culture. “Everything we do is about building relationships with the customer, and the magalog is part of that,” Magness says.

Both mark’s DeStefano and Zappos’ Magness note that — like any full-color magazine — a magalog involves a substantial investment, which both companies think is worthwhile. “Each one has done its job in terms of driving customer acquisition or getting someone who has lapsed to purchase again,” Magness says.

Both companies have tracked sales of featured products directly to the magalogs. Zappos.com tracks which products recipients buy, how much they spend and whether they purchased only from a particular magalog’s featured category or crossed over into other areas.

And both companies plan to continue to use magalogs. “For an online retailer, a magalog might seem kind of yesterday,” Magness says. “But it’s a great way to engage with customers we haven’t been able to attract with other methods.”

DeStefano agrees. “It’s an amazing vehicle for engaging customers and sharing your products — and beyond that, what your brand stands for,” she says.

Quick Look

Brand Name: mark
Founded: 2003
Line of business: Direct seller of beauty products, apparel and accessories
Scope: 300-plus trend-driven makeup, skin care, fragrance and accessory products
Target: Women aged 18 to 34
Marketing mix: Magalogs, social networking sites, blogs, print ads, pop up retail, digital media

Company Name: Zappos.com Inc.
Founded: 1999
Line of business: Online retailer of shoes and clothing, among others
Scope: About 1,200 brands; more than 3.2 million individual products
Target: Upwardly mobile women who are experienced catalog shoppers
Marketing mix: Web site, television, catalogs, magalogs
Annual revenues: More than $1 billion in gross merchandise sales

Customers Want Custom Pubs

Consumers may be bombarded with marketing messages these days, but that doesn’t mean they’ve tuned out. In fact, consumers are more interested than ever in hearing from companies — provided that information comes in the form of a custom publication, such as a magalog or catazine.

A recent Custom Publishing Council poll shows consumers are increasingly attracted to these marketing methods because they include useful information:

68% say it helps them make better purchasing decisions when companies provide product information through custom publications.

78% don’t mind sponsors selling their products and services through custom publications — as long as the information is interesting.

74% say getting information from an interesting collection of articles is more appealing than getting information from ads.

59% read print custom publications, whereas only 36 percent look through electronic custom publications. The message seems clear: If you want to get consumers’ attention, send them your message in the form of interesting and useful information. Oh, and make sure it’s printed.

The new production print division of Ricoh gives customers backstage passes to check out its latest release.

By Christopher Caggiano

No matter how well established a particular brand is, it’s always tricky to expand into a new area of business. That’s what the folks at Ricoh discovered recently when they introduced a new line of high-end production print equipment.

The Ricoh brand has been around since 1936, and entered the U.S. market in 1962. The company enjoys considerable market share in the office-machinery and consumer-electronics arenas. But, according to Carl Joachim, vice president of marketing for Ricoh’s Production Printing Business Group, that didn’t mean all of that brand equity would automatically spill over. “Ricoh has been known as a significant player in office environment, black-and-white and multicolor equipment,” he says. “But one thing we haven’t been known for is production print systems for commercial printers, in-plants and other high-volume environments.”

Ricoh started its production print division in October 2006, with the goal of penetrating that upper end of the printing market. Last year, the company introduced the RICOH Pro C900, a system that provides high-volume, full-color printing, and lets companies bring in house a variety of color production print capabilities. The systems sell for more than $100,000, and typically involve a sales cycle of three to six months, so Ricoh was eager to start filling up its sales pipeline.

“This was our first full-color production product,” Joachim says. “So it was very important that this product see a successful launch to put us on the map.”

The trick was getting the attention of the person most likely to make this kind of purchasing decision — typically someone with C-level status. The pitch needed to make it past that all-important filter: the administrative assistant. Any marketing effort would need to be geared to creating sufficient interest — excitement, even — that the admin would feel compelled to pass it on.

Ricoh engaged Sterling Kilgore, a marketing-strategy company, to help it position the new system in the marketplace. Patricia Kilgore, founder and president of Sterling Kilgore, says Ricoh wanted to communicate a number of Pro C900 advantages with potential customers, including its ability to bring high-volume color printing in-house.

Ricoh set its sights on introducing the Pro C900 at Graph Expo 2008, an annual trade show for the printing industry that takes place in Chicago. The more people Ricoh could get to visit its trade show booth, the more opportunity salespeople would have to communicate the advantages of the Pro C900 system.

To generate pre-show interest and drive traffic to the booth, Sterling Kilgore turned to Tukaiz, a provider of imaging, print and interactive services, to help develop an integrated multimedia campaign called “Ricoh Rocks!” Sterling worked with Tukaiz to create visuals that employed vibrant colors to emphasize the Pro C900’s digital color-production system, and depicted silhouettes of hip, rocking figures playing guitars before an audience of wild fans. The copy employed vivid, hipster language, with promises that Ricoh would rock the recipient’s world at Graph Expo 2008.

Kilgore says the rocking theme played into the “wannabe” aspect of the campaign’s target audience, but it also showcased key points of the product itself. Ricoh felt it was introducing something special in the production print space, and the notion of “rocking” the recipient’s world seemed to fit with that idea.

The popularity of the guitar-player video games played right into that theme, and Ricoh was giving away one of the games — which at the time were very hard to get — each day of the conference. “Plus, at the show, attendees got to be on an actual stage and play, which added a great deal of energy to the whole thing,” Kilgore says.

The campaign commenced in June 2008 with a mailer created with image personalization provided by Tukaiz. “Tukaiz brought us the ability to include custom images to make the recipients feel special and to generate some excitement,” Kilgore says.

The initial mailer went out to 23,000 potential customers and offered recipients a “backstage pass” to receive an in-depth look at the Pro C900 at the trade show. The mailer also featured personalized URLs (PURLs) that drove recipients to a personalized landing page that provided a sneak peek at the Pro C900.

A second mailer urged recipients to “unleash” their “inner rock star” and sign up online to win a video game system with a popular rock-and-roll guitar video game. The mailer also invited recipients to “take a front row seat” and make an appointment with a Ricoh sales rep at the trade show booth for a “private performance” involving a demo of the new product.

The third and final piece was a dimensional mailer that included a die-cut piece in the shape of a 45-rpm vinyl record, as well as a “Ricoh Rocks” T-shirt. All mailers were customized with the recipients’ names. The dimensional piece went to 750 qualified prospects, including folks that the earlier mailers had identified as potential customers.

Why not just e-blast these folks with invites to the show? Kilgore says that the mail pieces had more initial impact, as well as staying power. “I really believe the intrigue started with the personalized printed mail piece,” she adds. “Here was something that had their name on it in such a unique way, they could hold it and think about it — leave it on their desk, perhaps.” She says that the printed piece started the engagement process much more effectively than an e-mail blast, which is very easy to delete and forget. “Once you are engaged, you are more likely to respond to an e-mail follow-up or a call to action,” Kilgore says. “But it all starts with the printed piece.”

Once the trade show arrived, Ricoh’s booth signage, posters and giveaway items also incorporated the “Ricoh Rocks” imagery. The booth featured a stage area, complete with proscenium arch, that displayed the Pro C900 center stage as the star of the show. The booth also sported the promised guitar-player video game setup with monitors so visitors could see themselves on stage. According to Kilgore, the setup generated excitement and interest at the show. “We had 60-year-old men dropping their briefcases and rocking out like they were playing some huge arena,” she says.

As for results, the mailers generated about 100 prescheduled appointments over the course of the four-day trade show. Ricoh sold five of the Pro C900 digital color-production systems right at the show (at more than $100,000 a pop), which it says represents the first time that the company has signed deals on a trade show floor in its 72-year history. “So, we started selling from square one, which isn’t something that we typically do,” says Scott Ginnett, manager of field and segment marketing for Ricoh’s Production Printing Business Group, who was in charge of the show’s logistics. “Then there was the waterfall effect of being able to create a pipeline.” The show also generated some 800 solid leads, a feat that Ginnett sees as largely attributable to the “Ricoh Rocks” campaign.

Ricoh has continued to use the “Ricoh Rocks” theme throughout the year, with other mailers and events. “We’re only just retiring it now,” Ginnett says. “But we’ve continued to build on the equity that we established with the show.”

The key to the success of the “Ricoh Rocks” campaign, according to Ginnett, lies in the progressive, multi-touch approach and the broad range of media that it employed. “The biggest thing was the ability to integrate all of these pieces together,” he says. “Between the direct mail component, the PURLS and then drawing them all into the live trade show environment, it really was seamless from start to finish.”

Get Past the Gatekeeper

Executives don’t always go through their own mail, which means you need a pitch that not only appeals to the exec, but also his or her admin.

Frank Defino Jr., vice president and managing director of Tukaiz, a provider of imaging, print and interactive services located outside Chicago, says the days of simply printing your piece on a particular stock or using a particular type of coding and expecting that to stand out are gone. “To a certain extent, all of that still works, but these days you have find something else that helps you stand out from the crowd,” he says.

Here are a few of Defino’s tips for gaining entry:

Get personal. Image personalization is still a novelty. It can be used to spark an immediate emotional connection and has been known to result in a 10- to 14-percent return on response.
Say what’s in it for them. Tell executives how you’re going to make their jobs easier, rather than talking about what you do. When planning, think about what’s in it for the recipient. When you ask that question, you’re much more able to create a piece that has relevance to the recipient.
Create urgency. The pitch must catch the admin’s attention. Create an offer that’s appealing to the point where, if the boss didn’t get it, you didn’t want to be the one who threw it out.
Keep it brief. Don’t oversell the virtues of the product or service. Be brief and give prospects a place where they can find additional information or even opt in to receive future communications.

Despite the ROI potential from data hygiene, many companies still haven’t cleaned up their act.

By Lara Jensen

Correcting mailing addresses isn’t nearly as sexy as uncovering which media combination drove customer purchases, or adjusting your mix and watching your revenue spike. But data management is still a hot topic for companies these days.

Marketers too often focus on how best to use the data rather than spending enough time wondering whether the data itself is clean. That’s a mistake, because good data hygiene can have a significant impact on your company’s ROI, minimizing waste and building trust with consumers by contact them at the correct address.

Here, Rod Ford, founder and chief executive officer of CognitiveDATA, a data-quality management company with headquarters in Little Rock, Ark., discusses a few of the misconceptions about data hygiene and why he thinks some of the newer technology in this space just might spark passion in the hears of even the most jaded marketer.

Deliver: It’s no secret catalogers are one of the most beleaguered direct mail segments around. Can data hygiene help the catalog industry?

Ford: Well, CognitiveDATA acquired catalog-marketing services company CMS Direct this past spring, so we certainly think so. Now that prices have come down, catalogs have become the fastest-growing segment of our customer base. This is because catalogs hold the greatest potential for ROI increases from implementing referential database technology. For example, a home-goods cataloger sending out its holiday edition can ensure that as many of these expensive promotional pieces as possible actually arrive in the homes of intended prospects. This is significant because, for a cataloger, the catalog is its primary method of driving traffic to its stores and to its Web site.

Deliver: Why aren’t companies today putting enough resources into data quality?

Ford:While companies routinely say data-quality is a priority, I rarely see an organization walking the talk. Instead, data hygiene is typically grossly under-budgeted from where it needs to be to do the job effectively. Many direct marketers spend less than 1 percent of their overall direct marketing budget on data quality, which means their staff can only afford the cheapest data-quality tools available and to use them less frequently than is optimal.

Deliver: Why do companies say that they value data quality but not fund it properly?

Ford: Many organizations live under the misconception that their data is already highly accurate. This is because they are passing this data through vintage tools a few times a year and not finding incorrect addresses or other problems with the data. The majority of mail in this country still runs through data-hygiene processes that were created in the 1970s and 1980s.

However, newer technology is available that uses transactional referential databases, which contain a highly accurate view of the consumers at any given address by creating data through an actual purchase transaction by that consumer at that address. These databases make it possible to provide current addresses for a majority of movers for which there isn’t any information because the mover didn’t fill out a National Change of Address card or because the card didn’t match that name and address on file.

Deliver: What should marketers be doing to improve data quality?

Ford: Several issues are forcing marketers to be more efficient in their mailings. The green movement and the push toward less wasted in the mail stream is one. Then there’s the fact that response rates are declined because, during the recession, the consumer has less discretionary income than in the past. Finally, direct mailers are facing rising costs in almost every area of mail production. These issues already were forcing marketers to take a closer look at data hygiene before the recession hit. What the macroeconomic environment has done is accelerate with adoption of data-hygiene technology, with volume mailers and catalogers among the biggest adopters so far.

Deliver: What are the implications of referential data-base technology for consumers?

Ford: Referential transaction databases are the next generation of data quality technology. It’s a robust knowledge base of consumers consisting of billions of individual purchase transactions aggregated from hundred of sources that report when a consumer makes a transaction. The transaction is date sensitive, which allows the thousands of transactions per individual to be accurately “linked” through time, thus allowing one to obtain a very accurate view of a consumer name at a given address at a point in time.

When a marketer uses the new data-hygiene technologies, it greatly increases the likelihood that the person whom the marketer has selected to receive a promotion actually receives it, and not someone else. Using existing technologies results in a 96-percent accuracy rate for most mailing lists. The remaining 4 percent of undeliverable mail is what consumers are saying they don’t like, from both an environmental technology, the accuracy rate jumps to 99.5 percent.

That increase in accuracy is significant from a marketer’s ROI perspective as well. If you take a campaign from a 96-percent deliverable rate to a 99.5-percent deliverable rate, the increase in response is significant. Virtually eliminating undeliverable mail is good news for the Postal Service as well, because the USPS® spends millions of dollars annually to discard undeliverable mail.

Deliver: How rapidly is referential database technology being adopted?

Ford: a few years ago, referential database technology was too expensive for many. The cash-strapped catalog industry, for example, shied away from this technology until recently, even though the savings it could provide would be significant. However, as adoption of the technology has grown, the price has come down, and now the price is in the same range as that of the old technology. This in turn is driving more rapid adoption of referential database technology. No one disagrees that the new technology provides benefits to direct mailers, so eventually you’ll see much greater adoption. This will change the direct mail space by significantly reducing undeliverable mail.

Deliver: Do you think that marketers will go back to ignoring data hygiene once the economy recovers?

Ford: Right now, direct mailers are learning important lessons about the impact of more accurate data. When you reduce the number of undeliverable pieces of mail in a campaign, this increases the overall response rate, for example. These lessons will transcend whatever is happening in the economy.

An Eye on Data Quality

More companies understand the value of data quality, according to the Information Age report “Driving Value from Data” (tinyurl.com/drivingvalue). Almost half of the 210 respondents reported that their organizations “five a high strategic priority to data quality,” and not once reported “no formal data quality efforts.”

One in 10 users of data said that their company’s data “is not wholly trusted because of quality and inconsistency issues” while 6 percent said the data is of little value.

27 percent of respondents cited regulatory compliance was the biggest driver of data-quality management initiatives. Only 10 percent said cost was the primary driver for such initiatives. 20 percent cited operational efficiency as the reason.

Improving marketing ranked low as a reason for data-quality initiatives:

Almost 40 percent of respondents said that marketing-related strategies are not common triggers for data projects. The top barriers to improving data quality included a lack of funding, which was cited by more than half the group, and the fact that few people are willing to won the issue, which was cited by 40 percent of respondents. A lack of management buy-in for data-quality projects was cited by 28 percent of respondents, and a poor understanding of the issue by 22 percent.