insights.
Jul 13th
An effective catalog has been proven to increase sales, both online and offline, by countless sources. Throw in variable data, variable imagery, on-demand printing and image generation, and an easy ordering interface, and you have a sales and marketing dream come true.
Jason Kort, Director of Marketing for Redemption Plus
I recently had the chance to talk with Jason Kort, Director of Marketing for Redemption Plus, a leading distributor of incentive and redemption merchandise. You may know them as the inventor of the “World’s Largest Whoopie Cushion.” Redemption Plus is no doubt a very fun business focused on delivering all the wonderful toys, games and prizes used by family entertainment and educational franchises nationwide.
Jason recently led the implementation of print automation and variable data technology that is improving the catalog that is essential to their business. Here’s a portion of that interview:
JK: There were really three areas that were driving me crazy:
JK: Variable data and print automation were new to us, so figuring out exactly what we needed and what we wanted to do was the biggest challenge.
JK: This is really like an IT project. Make sure you thoroughly define what you need and scope it out like an IT project.
JK: I’d love to narrow it to one, but I can only get to three:
Easy and relevant are the words that come to mind when describing this new tool Redemption Plus has created. Kudos to Jason and his team! To read more about Redemption Plus and their dream-come-true print-on-demand catalog, read the case study.
Here are some visuals of the new and improved Redemption Plus catalog.
Click on the thumbnail images to view larger, with variable information circled.
On the catalog cover, customer information and the date are personalized.
Inside the catalog, products are customized based on current items in the database. Pricing is specific to the end-users’ mark-up requirements.
Sales rep information and photograph is automatically included.
Apr 20th
Duplicate prospect and customer data is a nightmare for IT and Database Marketing departments, but a requirement for some direct marketing systems. The solution? Integrated systems that use live data feeds.
There is no doubt that an enterprise data warehouse has helped countless organizations consolidate their information into one central database allowing for better analysis and use of the data. This has certainly been the case for improving targeting and segmenting of direct marketing efforts. It has also been a boon to being able to use varying messaging, imagery, offers, and even formats to improve relevancy to the targeted audiences.
Increased availability of data has lead to the usage of 10s, 100s or 1000s of variables within an individual campaign. It has also lead to a new level of complexity for automating a successful ongoing campaign that uses these variables.
Good direct marketing service providers, whether it be print, email, text messaging or direct mail, can work magic with the data… after all the data is brought into their system via a data pipe or XML stream. This often causes IT departments and data analysts to cry “Foul! You just created redundant data from what was supposed to be a single data warehouse.”
So what’s the next step in email and print automation to make sure that redundant data sources are not created? Creating a live feed that continually calls to and from your data warehouse.
We have a client who utilizes a proprietary segmentation model, as well as geographic overlays, and purchase history to determine the targeting of direct mail and email campaigns. After combining this with localized ordering, they have a wonderfully targeted, relevant communications strategy that works like magic. And best of all, their data and segmentation resides with them.
Building a continual data retrieval system is not the easiest way to feed data for automated marketing communications, but is the best way to maintain the integrity of your data warehouse.
Apr 1st
Interested in continually improving your direct marketing results? Avoid a common database and direct marketing pitfall by devoting the time needed to document your strategies and techniques.
In the past two weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with a couple of fellow direct marketers. One is a prospective client, considering the use of variable data printing for the first time. The other is a long-time friend who needs help getting a better ROI on his direct mail and email campaigns. Both have worked in online, database or direct marketing for many years, and both have large enough budgets to really drive revenue.
Ironically, both have the same, simple problem: somewhere along the way, the “doing more with less” mantra meant the elimination of documentation. So now one has a great strategic plan (and it is documented), but failed to log all of the results over time. The other had a great testing plan, but didn’t document it, and six months later can’t remember the details regarding the target audiences.
Some of you may think this could never happen to you. I challenge you to think back to a time when your plan (and I know it was the most stellar, innovative, revenue-producing plan ever written) was modified beyond recognition by the time it got through your boss, your boss’s boss, the client, legal, compliance and the ten other stakeholders. Did you change the plan to reflect all the final decisions?
As direct and database marketing become more intricate and complex, it is impossible to remember all the detailed changes that take place over the course of the strategic planning process. If you don’t know what you did or how it worked, where does this leave you? Back at the beginning. Database and direct marketing is an iterative, building process. So no matter how frazzled, busy and stretched your marketing department becomes, don’t shortcut the documentation process and make a ginormous mistake. You’ll thank yourself for knowing exactly what you did, why you did it, and the resulting outcomes.
Ginormous as defined by Merriam Webster’s online dictionary:
Pronunciation: \jī-ˈnȯr-məs\
Function: adjective
Etymology: gigantic + enormous
Date: circa 1948
extremely large : humongous
Mar 11th
Successful personalized marketing mixes right brain logic and left brain creative.
Highly-personalized marketing with relevant messaging, images and offers dramatically increases response rates… everyone agrees on this now, right? I mean, we’ve all read the case studies and white papers that prove it.
So why isn’t everyone doing it? For one, creating a highly-personalized marketing piece requires a creative staff brave enough to reach into the cold, sterile world of databases, segmentation and matrices, and then blend the two together. This is a serious feat of right brain/left brain, inspiration/intel, balance that can be difficult to achieve. But, as the research shows, double-digit response rates are attainable….
So I cornered several of our clients that create and produce highly-personalized marketing campaigns, and asked them for the top things they’d tell creatives about creating relevant, database-driven communications.
Here are their top five suggestions, ready for you to share with your design and marketing creatives:
Get a sample of your marketing database, and review all the options available to you. A good database could include information about their purchase history, preferences, and demographics; all info you can use to make your piece more relevant. Even simple databases can be segmented to create versioned messages and images; try region, number of employees and industry.
When adding variable fields to your designs, it’s important to know just how long – or short – the text may be that pulls in for each field. Ask your database team for a report of the longest and shortest entries for each variable field, and then proof your designs with these extremes included.
Splashing your recipient’s name across your creative can definitely capture their attention, and can be done very creatively and effectively. But some of the most effective personalized communications include hundreds or thousands of variables. If you have a strong database, some internal expertise, and a good partner, it’s time to test an intensely-variable piece.
Sooner, rather than later, call the Variable Data Printer, email service provider or direct mail marketer of your choice : ), and grill them on the process your creative will go through to be produced. Chances are, there are choices you’ll make that could negatively or positively affect the resulting pieces. Special Note: Make sure to ask them the best file formats for their workflow!
As you can tell, there’s a reason personalized marketing isn’t used by all of your competitors: it’s hard. But, it’s a lot easier once you’ve done it a few times. So start by working a couple of variables into piece before advancing to that dynamic, 1,000-variable piece you’ve been dreaming of. Starting simple will also ensure your process and hardware is correct and will prevent a server meltdown (ask me about that story sometime).
Haven’t read one of those reports about personalized marketing improving response rates? Let me recommend this case study or this white paper. Want to know more or add something to the list? Use the handy comment tool below.
Photo credits: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dierkschaefer/ / CC BY 2.0
Feb 22nd
Using the recipient’s name is an easy way to make your direct mail and email marketing relevant to the recipient, but I am often asked, “How do I use my data to create a more personalized direct marketing experience?”
The answer lies in using your data. I know many people have a hard time making the connection between “using data” and how that translates into variable direct marketing, so let’s look at some examples:
1) Getting people to interact with your web site is great, but making them search for information that you should already know… not cool. (And not personalized or relevant.)
In the personalized email below, you’ll see all the variable information highlighted, including the location, price, discounted savings, show logos, dates and even a Personalized URL The recipient doesn’t have to go to a web site and then search for the information that applies to them.
By the way the video that plays at the Personalized URL, is a variable video. The only video that plays is the one for the location of the recipient. They don’t have to select or weed through the videos of shows that aren’t coming to their area. Check it out at: www.BroadwayForASong.com/KristinaSmith.
2) Write copy for each audience as if you were speaking directly to a recipient within that audience. The example below is tailored to families. It speaks specifically to the amenities that a family will value, not to singles or seniors, and it certainly doesn’t try to address all the audiences at the same time.
3) Location, location, location. When proximity is important, tell them just how close they are.
4) All customers are not created equal, so why would you offer them all the same thing?
5) If nothing else, always use their name. It’s easy to get creative with imagery, but don’t forget basic copywriting techniques, like using their name within the text.
6) And finally, just for fun, the piece below contains over 75 variables to make the direct mail piece relevant to the recipient. Can you find them all? I’ll give you a hint… there is variable copy within variable copy.
Using variable data in mail, email and personalized web pages becomes much easier when you understand how to apply what you already know to create relevant marketing materials. The significant improvement in response and purchase rates makes it well worth the effort.
Feb 8th
The use of variable data printing for personalized offers, bar codes, imagery and messaging has proven to drive significant traffic to casinos.
It’s no secret that my company, Mail Print, works in the casino marketing space providing variable data printing, variable data email and PURLs. Whether you love the gaming industry or hate it, you have to admire some of the forward-thinking ways they employ direct marketing, and specifically the use of their rich customer databases to deploy personalized offers and messages.
Our casino marketing clients consistently receive 10-30% response rates on their direct mail and email programs. Here are just some of the ways they do it:
So what’s next for casino marketers? Test, test, test and test some more. You can’t get too comfortable with what is working today in casino marketing and neglect figuring out what will work in the future.
Double-digit response rates start with a strong customer database. To emulate a successful casino marketer, gather info about your customers with each transaction or interchange, and then use it to create targeted and personalized marketing communications.
Test something new! There’s no reason a B2B or B2C marketer can’t steal a tactic from the casino marketing playbook, such as a personalized direct mail piece, pull-tab, scratch off, or Personalized URL.
Feb 3rd
“Rock” your direct marketing results by mining your database and consistently applying the learning through predictive modeling.
My favorite iPhone app is Pandora Internet Radio. Not only am I captivated by the depth of the music offered, but being a data geek, I am fascinated by Pandora’s ability to dissect a song into 400 attributes to deliver me song after song that match my unique music tastes.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Pandora, it is based on the Music Genome Project, which basically breaks songs into data points that are stored in a database. When I create a station based on a particular song or artist, it searches the database to find and play similar songs. Sounds good, right? Well it gets better. Then I refine my station by eliminating songs through a “Thumbs Down,” or encouraging the repeat playing of a song with a “Thumbs Up.” I get music I love, Pandora gets ad revenue, and the artists get revenue when I buy songs, which I do on a regular basis.
So this got me thinking. This is basically database marketing in action. You use and apply data to deliver relevant, personalized content. When people respond and purchase, you just got the “Thumbs up.” No response = “Thumbs Down.” When you apply the Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down learning over time through a predictive response model, you become a very wise, and profitable, direct marketer.
Both Pandora and direct marketing deliver what ultimately counts: happy customers and profitable revenue, but they certainly aren’t the only ones who have figured this out. Amazon.com, iTunes and hoards of other retailers have already discovered the magic of predictive analytics. What other companies do you know that use data to generate relevant content, recommendations and sales?