insights.
Mar 29th
Quick response codes (QR Codes®) are making their ways onto new mediums and usages every day that increase interest, engagement, and sales.
Take concert ticket sales for instance. A concert merchandiser could run an ad in an entertainment guide, send postcards to patrons who have signed up to follow the band, and in addition they could be creative by posting “bills” on telephone poles like the one shown on the right for Jessica Lea Mayfield.
Using a QR Codes® to take music fans to an audio or video clip is brilliant engagement of the potential customer. Concert bookers can instantly increase pre-concert ticket sales through such a means of promotion. Any avid music lover walking by could scan the code and decide immediately if he or she would attend the event and place it on their smart phone calendar then and there on the spot.
I enjoyed viewing the You Tube video of Jessica Lea Mayfield singing that this QR Code® led me too. Seeing concert flyers is common when walking in any city but actually being able to familiarize yourself with the singer or band is not.
Tell Me More Before I Take a Pour
QR Codes® on the side of wine bottles are becoming both hip and useful. Vineyards can’t possibly get all the information they want to share on the label. So using a QR Codes® to take wine lovers to reviews, wine ratings, varietal information, or even a tour of the vineyard makes good sense.
Sacre Bleu utilized QR Codes® as an additional means of social media marketing. They added QR codes to their bottle labels that when scanned, direct the consumer to a mobile-friendly site filled with promotions, information about the brand, special offers and even tips for matching the wine to food.
Sacre Bleu did not have the budget to run ads in Wine Spectator or Food and Wine magazine. So after studying up on the influence of wine labels and marketing avenues, it learned that its highest buying consumers were millennials who said they didn’t read those magazines anyways. They used social media.
Sacre Bleu uses QR Codes® to direct millennials to its Facebook page for various offers.
“I Do” Plan to Attend Your Wedding Ceremony
Brides and grooms are leveraging QR codes® to keep their wedding invitations clean and show they are socially “hip.” With QR codes®, there’s no need to clutter the invitation with maps and additional details, which can instead be posted at a personalized URL (PURL) for attendees to find and save.
Graphic designers love it because it allows them the flexibility to create a white-space rich invite without trying to cram all the information into an undersized envelope. Brides like it because they can achieve the look and feel they want while giving details about wedding registry locations, wedding service location, and so much more on a landing page instead of the scrapbook worthy wedding invite.
Couples who register their wedding receptions on Foursquare and create Twitter hashtags for the event are using QR codes® for a range of tasks. These include sending guests to an R.S.V.P website and even automatically adding the ceremony to guests’ electronic calendars. Besides having the “cool” factor, it makes a bride’s life easier by not having to spend hours manually counting reply cards.
Weddings, wine bottles, and concert bills make good sense for QR applications. However, before you go too crazy with QR codes®, watch this slide show showing the 10 biggest what-not-to-dos when integrating quick response codes.
QR Codes® are a registered trademark of Denso Wave.
Feb 21st
While quantum physics deals with discrete, indivisible units of energy called quanta, marketing programs deal with concrete, divisible units of measurements called metrics. It’s a rabbit hole all folks in marketing need to know how to go down to pull out what they need.
No organization can continue to spend on a marketing effort without knowing what’s working and what’s not. Measuring marketing program successes or product launch failures give organizations the metrics to control marketing spend so they can continue to invest in what’s working and adjust what’s not.
Data-driven marketing improves efficiency and effectiveness of marketing expenditures across the spectrum of marketing activities from branding and awareness, lead generation to loyalty, and new product launch to Internet marketing. In 1990 Gary Lilien and Philip Kotler came up with the ROMI marketing model (return on marketing investment). The term became main stream in 2002 when Gary Powell wrote the book, The Return on Marketing Investment.
The formula for ROMI is:
[Incremental Revenue Attributable to Marketing ($) * Contribution Margin (%) - Marketing Spending ($)] /Marketing Spending ($)
Still confused about how to calculate ROMI? Microsoft Office now has a ROMI template to assist you in this calculation.
As marketing campaigns have become more technologically sophisticated and digitally measurable so have the metrics to prove or disprove them. Four new marketing metrics are being touted in the book, Data-Driven Marketing, which was voted the best marketing book in 2011 by the American Marketing Association.
To shine in the eyes of your CEO and CFO, integrate these metrics and formulas into your day-to-day marketing practices.
1. Profit – calculated by taking gross sales minus expenses (standard on a P&L statement)
2. Net Profit Value (NPV) — NPV is a way to decide whether or not to invest in a project by looking at the projected cash inflow and outflow. See the example below.
Suppose we’d like to make 10% profit on a three-year project that will initially cost $10,000.
a) In the first year, we expect to make $3,000
b) In the second year, we expect to make $4,300
c) In the third year, we expect to make $5,800
So the NPV is $3,100 because your company would make $13,100 off a $10,000 investment.
3. Internal Rate of Return (IRR) — Determines the value of cash returns with cash invested. Considers the application of compound interest factors. Here’s the formula:
The formula is n periodic cash flow Σ _______________ = investment amount t = 1 (1 + i) t where i = internal rate of return t = each time interval n = total time intervals Σ = summation
An example would be if you received $3,000 per year for 5 years on a $10,000 investment. The internal rate of return was about 15%.
4. Payback – Helps you determine the costs of the project, above what you would otherwise be expending if you hadn’t done the project at all. For a detailed guide of how determine the payback follow Money’s guide to determining project payback.
Tracking results is really nothing new, but the formulas have changed and perhaps gotten a bit more sophisticated. Instead of looking at tracking as a chore; change your thought process that these elements are key indicators of your success. Remember the quote from Bill Hewlett cofounder of Hewlett-Packard, “You cannot manage what you cannot measure, and what gets measured gets done.”
Now we can hedge our bets by nurturing our customers in thorough steps and tracking how far down the rabbit’s hole they go via QR Codes®, landing pages, PURLs, coupons cashed, tickets purchased, donations given, and on, and on, and on.
Don’t let the power of numbers and formulas scare you. It’s not quantum physics, it’s just good business.
Jan 31st
A gymnast who dismounts off the balance beam and sticks her landing—no bobbles, wobbles, or falls—usually earns a perfect score. In the world of marketing, the marketing officer who finishes his campaign effort with a well-constructed landing page that encourages customers to sign up and stick around, usually earns up to 40% more email captures than marketing officers who don’t point prospects to a landing page.
A landing page (also known as a squeeze page, jump page, PURL or a microsite) is relatively simple to build. Most companies should have at least one landing page for every product or service. A landing page should serve a purpose— to gain customer information so you can develop a relationship with him or her over time so they will trust you and buy your products. The cardinal rule is never send ad traffic to your home page where they might get lost and never return.
Building a landing page that gives the prospect clear value increases the likelihood of getting their contact information. But here’s the rub, you only get 56 seconds to persuade them to do this, according to data from Nielson. To optimize your chances of success, here’s a simple checklist to follow:
Building strong landing pages has enough curriculum online to be parlayed into a college degree. However, if you don’t have time to go back to night school, just watch The Art of Crafting Effective Landing Pages by Daniel Johnston.
In case you don’t have time to watch all of Dan Johnston’s presentation, let me point out the four worst things you can try to do with your landing pages.
1. Throw in the Kitchen Sink. Trying to cram as much as possible onto one page puts the burden on the respondent to sift through it. Stay focused on the one action you want them to take and why they should take it.
2. Rush to get their number. Landing pages that immediately ask a visitor to complete a form, fail. Build up to it, then ask for their email or number.
3. Optimize too much. Test which combination of headline, image, and offer button works best, but don’t waste a lot of time on minutia or microscopic tweaks.
4. Not honoring brand. Just because landing pages are quick and cheap to build doesn’t mean they should look cheap. Make sure the image your page presents is professional and matches your brand.
We hope this gives you plenty of ideas to run and execute in the New Year with your landing pages. Build many, attract many, measure always, and remember to stick your landing for the best direct marketing results.
Sep 8th
We’ve been talking a lot about QR Codes. It’s because they seem to be the latest and greatest marketing trend. However, few are slow to try it, even when intrigued. So, let’s dive in and explore exactly how they work, especially the personalized capabilities, because the ROI could end up being huge.
Missed some of our previous blog posts? Get caught up:
QR Codes (Quick Response codes) are barcodes used in advertising and marketing to allow smartphone users to get more information on products and services, just by taking a picture. QR Codes usually take the user to a web page that has more information and functions.
The Codes add a new dimension of interaction and are considered to be the least expensive new technology being used today. Why? Because they are the link between print and online communications. It’s how you can take a once generic message and make it incredibly personalized.
The barcodes can be designed with variable or personal data to drive the user to personalized landing pages, shopping cart functions, automated social networking and more.
Personalized QR Codes offer a highly interactive and personal way to interact with your target audience because they give the recipient the power to decide if they want to engage.
Use personalized QR Codes to help you reach mobile customers through:
Using a variable QR Code is just the beginning. Personalizing your site or landing page is next if you want to drive real direct marketing results. Let’s review some options you can use in your next campaign:
Personalized QR Code for "Kristina Smith." Scan the code with your mobile device to view the personalized, mobile-friendly landing page.
By applying segmentation, profiling and other targeting tools to your campaign, you can tailor the initial experience and the online event to improve engagement and the connection between you and the recipient. After all, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Editor’s Note: Not everyone has a smartphone or access to a QR Code scanner, and some just prefer to visit websites from a computer. Be sure to include the address of the PURL as well and build it to automatically detect each visitor’s device and route them to the mobile or non-mobile version of their personalized site.
May 25th
It’s not easy being friends with a marketer. Marketers like to watch television commercials, get mad if the mail is thrown away before they get to see it, and hijack their friends’ smart phones to see what new text-based marketing campaigns they have received.
Talented marketers are always on the lookout for the next creative idea and never want to be the last one to know about a new technique, strategy or tactic.
Currently, the marketing world is buzzing about QR Codes as a way to optimize the offline-to-online experience like never before. Ready for the next marketing craze? Although few have tried it, everyone is intrigued by the idea of personalizing QR Codes, allowing marketers to bridge users from an offline ad to a personalized online experience on their mobile device. So let’s look at the true potential of using Personalized QR Codes, and then lift up the hood and understand how personalized QR Codes work.
For years, foreign markets have been far ahead of the U.S. in using their mobile devices for more than making phone calls. For example, 86% of Japanese consumers scan mobile codes four or more times per month.1 That’s not the percentage of smart phone users who scan mobile bar codes, that’s 86 out of every 100 consumers.
With smart phone use rapidly advancing in the U.S., this country is catching up. In fact, recent research reported that QR Code scans grew 182% from Q4 2010 to Q1 2011, and 630% year-over-year.2 Other research indicates that 80% of U.S. consumers expressed interest in scanning mobile barcodes and 69% said they would scan to receive coupons and discounts.3
Marketing with personalized QR Codes is actually a mashup of three technologies: Personalized URLs (PURLs), mobile websites, and dynamic QR Code generation. Let’s look at them individually:
By combining these three technologies, Mail Print dynamically generates QR Codes containing each campaign member’s personalized URL address. The personalized QR Codes are then embedded in communications. When scanned, the campaign member’s mobile device reads the unique web address and delivers them to their customized, mobile-friendly site.
As the United States gets serious about the world of QR Codes, will our path to adopting this technology be different from other countries? We believe it will. As a country who has become comfortable using data to deliver the right messaging and offers, and based upon the interest shown by our Mail Print clients, we believe companies will advance quickly from using general QR Codes to personalized QR Codes.
Our challenge to all the marketers out there: are you going to dip your toe into the water with QR Codes, or are you going to catapult your company’s direct marketing success with personalized QR Codes?
Personalized QR Code for "Kristina Smith." Scan the code with your mobile device to view the personalized, mobile-friendly landing page.
Mail Print recently launched a personalized QR Code campaign to gain feedback from recipients of our magazine Connect. At right is a sample personalized QR Code, leading to a personalized mobile web page for a fictional Kristina Smith.
Of course, not everyone has a smartphone or access to a QR Code scanner, or prefers to visit websites on their mobile device. That’s why it’s important to also include the address of the PURL on your marketing, and build your PURL to automatically detect each visitor’s device (small screen or computer) and route them to the mobile or non-mobile version of their personalized site.
You can see the non-mobile version of the PURL on your computer by going to: http://www.MobilePurl.com/KristinaSmith
Personalized QR Codes and Personalized URL’s really go hand in hand to provide your audience with the easiest way for them to access your online content.
Apr 21st
The integration of social and direct marketing is creating larger-than-life results for marketers.
I recently came across a great illustration of how businesses are using direct marketing and social media together to achieve immediate results and ongoing “viral” benefits. I’d like to share this story in narrative form…
The owner of a local franchised restaurant decides to increase business by spending some money on advertising, and a friend suggests she should use an e-mail blast to promote her restaurant. She considers this—she is an avid Internet user and has had a Facebook account for awhile. But she knows how much she hates getting intrusive e-mails and how few of these she ever actually reads. Everyone else probably feels as bombarded with electronic media as she does. So she goes into her franchisors’ marketing storefront to research direct mail postcards.
She anticipates a ho-hum corporate marketing postcard that gives her no ability to tailor the postcard to her needs. Instead, she is delighted that the system provides multiple options and best practices. She is also surprised to see information on using multiple channels, including options for utilizing social networking along with direct mail postcards to not only increase restaurant traffic, but also establish a customer data base for future use.
After careful consideration, she selects a customizable campaign that allows her to create a targeted mailing list, postcard and personalized URL (PURL). Attractive postcards that direct users to a PURL are mailed to area families with a coupon offering a complimentary children’s dinner with the purchase of an adult dinner. List selection is easy with the demographic and psychographic targeting tools provided by the franchisor and it happens intuitively with a few of clicks of her mouse.
At the PURL users validate their information, answer a few questions, and are given the capability to effortlessly share the offer on Facebook. As an incentive, all recipients who share the offer with friends are automatically entered into a sweepstakes to win 10 free family dinners. After completing the process, users are able to print the coupon and bring it into the restaurant for redemption.
In this example, using PURLs to encourage social media sharing pushed response rates above the mail quantity (see sidebar at right). That is impressive and formerly unheard of in the direct marketing world.
Watch out for new features that combine direct mail, email, PURLs, QR Codes and social media to engage consumers with personalized images that can be initiated and created on-the-fly within Facebook and Twitter. Fostering the social media engagement with a personalized experience will create a profound change in the marketing industry. What a grand time to be affiliated with direct and interactive marketing!
Mar 14th
This article is a guest post from Daniel Dejan, a renowned graphic arts educator, author and consultant.
Want to know how to improve the relevancy and timing of your marketing communications? Ask your customers for their opinion, and then listen closely.
“Marketing communications” was much easier in the 1990s because the only choices to launch a sales and marketing strategy were television, radio, out-of-door, and print in its many forms. A few alternatives, which fell under the heading of “other,” were not recognized yet as conventional marketing communication, but rather as beta technology for the digital revolution. Making the right media decisions required lots of market research and often employed focus groups (if you could afford them) to determine which media to utilize, to what extent, and which messages would resonate with target markets. Measurement and return-on-investment (ROI) provided the ground rules, and green flags, for future endeavors.
Fast forward to 2011 and the vast options in media channels today. Which marketing tools and what messaging will help your company achieve the ultimate goal of winning the battle for top-of-mind recognition and brand loyalty among your target market?
Confusing and challenging, isn’t it? There is an elegant and efficacious solution: ASK the target market how they would solve the conundrum. According to a Peppers and Rogers white paper, Relationship Marketing 3.0, their 2009 survey indicated that tapping into and implementing the voice-of-the-customer is the most profound process to achieve both relevancy and timing—two of the most imperative and vital attributes to any current campaign. Using online surveys to engage customers when forging a new marketing campaign can guarantee the success of most branding, prospecting and loyalty efforts. Social networking, online advertising and targeted direct mail and email can easily get the survey into the hands of the right people.
Your customers will let you know exactly what they want from your company; whether your sales and marketing efforts are penetrating and successful, how they feel about your latest product or service, and if it does indeed fulfill a need or satisfy a want they have. After all, isn’t it the prospective customer we are trying to engage and convert into an actual customer?
By fulfilling the sales and marketing promise, we can establish, maintain and grow a loyal customer base that helps us in the quest towards brand loyalty and growth in sales. Integrating the voice-of-the-customer may be one of the most important elements of the success formula.
Just ask.
Daniel Dejan is the North American ETC print and creative manager for Sappi Fine Paper North America. A dedicated graphics arts educator and author with many years of national and international experience, Dejan has been invited to judge numerous graphic design and print competitions, written extensively for graphic arts trade publications and has served on the Board of several graphic arts associations and companies.
Learn how Prairie Band Casino used personalized online surveys to improve their customer loyalty program. Download the case study at www.mailprint.com/prairieband.
Mar 8th
Integrate online and offline direct marketing efforts with PURLs.
Ever since PURLs (or Personalized URLs) hit the scene, the integration of offline and online media has become a powerful way to improve direct marketing results. Now, direct mail and email can link to a URL that can be customized to the individual and can be tracked at the individual level.
After working with PURLs for many years, I’ve come to some conclusions. My insights may change as technology advances, but for now, here’s some insight into how PURLs can help you be a better marketer:
Measurability at the individual level can be a powerful tool for testing and improving ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment.)I’d also recommend checking out Seven PURL Mistakes You Might Be Making to find a summary of all the nutty mistakes I see people make when using PURLs. You should also check out our free report: Using PURLs to Produce Measurable Marketing Results.
Mar 1st
Don’t risk alienating your audience by using a PURL inappropriately.
Personalized URLs (PURLs) or personalized landing pages are definitely a game changer for direct and database marketing. With PURLs, all that great data you’ve collected about your prospects or customers can be used to construct a truly personalized online marketing experience with customized data, imagery, offers and the all-important pre-populated form.
The key to success with a PURL campaign is creating a great user experience. If there is a poor user experience, it really doesn’t matter if you have a personalized landing page or not. So, here is a short list of things to avoid when creating a campaign with PURLs:
In conclusion, I’ll add that I am often approached by companies who want to do a PURL for the wrong reasons. Meaning, they forgot to put themselves in the recipient’s shoes. Answering these questions, from the target audiences’ point of view, usually gains the clarity needed:
If you can’t answer these questions, you should reconsider your PURL campaign until you can.