Build a Better ROI for
Your Marketing
These days, when our lives are stored on our mobile phones, when our inboxes are clogged with email, and when we are more likely to stay in touch with friends and family on social media than by phone, how can you stay connected with your customers and ensure that your message gets seen? Multi-channel marketing.
By connecting with consumers across multiple channels (such as print, email, and mobile), you provide continued exposure that deepens brand awareness, engenders consumer trust, and increases opportunities to make a sale. The key is to optimize the message for each channel and maximize the benefits of each.
According to an InfoTrends survey of more than 1,000 businesses1, the more channels used in a marketing campaign, the more effective the message. The study (which focused on personalized
campaigns), found that print-only campaigns achieved a 6.0% response rate on average, while
campaigns using multiple channels (personalized print, email, personalized URLs, and mobile) achieved an 8.7% response rate. The conversion rate jumped from 16.2% for print-only campaigns to 19.0% for the multi-channel campaigns.
Multi-channel marketing works!
Multi-channel marketing often uses electronic channels, but for maximum effectiveness, the mix should include print. This is because print breaks through the ubiquity of online messaging and provides a tangible message that is more trusted by consumers than email.
MULTI-CHANNEL INCLUDES PRINT
BUILD A BETTER ROI FOR YOUR MARKETING
1 “Understanding Vertical Markets: Enterprise Communications Requirements” (InfoTrends, December 2012)
Campaign
Response Rate
Conversion Rate
Print Only
6.0%
16.2%
Print and Email
7.6%
18.3%
Print and PURLs
7.6%
15.3%
Print, Email and PURLs
8.2%
16.5%
Print, Email, PURLs and Mobile
8.7%
19%
HOW DOES YOUR CURRENT CAMPAIGN LOOK?
According to the USPS Household Diary Study, 81% of American households say they either read or scan the advertising mail sent to their homes. (One would be hard pressed to say that
about email!) More than half (54%) say they
“usually” read their marketing and advertising mail, while 27% scan the mail they receive. Not only does direct mail get read, but its re-sponse rates heavily outweigh those for email. According to the Direct Marketing Association’s 2012 “Response Rate Report,” response rates for direct mail average 3.4% for letter-sized direct mail to a house list compared to .12% for email.
Print also offers tremendous value in terms of overall campaign costs. For any marketing campaign, ROI includes the cost of generating and maintaining your list. Email and mobile phone numbers have very high list churn. It’s not unusual for 33% of an email list to bounce in less than one year. Gathering, updating, and maintaining email and mobile phone lists is time-consuming and costly. By contrast, business and home addresses remain far more stable.
Perhaps this is why, in today’s world of “e,” traditional print remains strong. In its “Marketing Budgets” (2013) report, Econsultancy found that 20% of respondents plan to increase their traditional offline marketing budgets in 2013. This is up from 16% last year.
Regardless of channel used, marketers should be maximizing the benefits of each channel. How should print be used in the context of other channels? Here are five things to consider.
1. TANGIBILITY. Print communicates differently than online media. Take advantage the unique characteristics of print, such as the available variety of substrate textures and colors, the appeal of unusual die-cuts and folds, and the rigidity and structure of 3D packages, boxes, and shaped mailers for creating packs or kits.
Print is effective for all types of direct mail and marketing collateral, but it has particular value for complex sales and higher dollar products where its unique characteristics can communicate concepts, ideas, and imagery in ways that online media cannot.
TOP FIVE DRIVERS OF PRINT
E
ven in today’s world of online and mobile communications, investment in direct mail continues to rise. According to the “2012 Response Rate Report” (Direct Marketing2. PRINT REFLECTS CREDIBILITY AND TRUST. Anyone can blast email using inexpensive website and email marketing software. It takes more financial stability to send a printed piece (especially
campaigns in which print is integrated with other media), particularly multi-color documents that
are coated, finished, and mailed.
In channel preference studies, consumers consistently report that they prefer direct mail over email when receiving information on new products and services. Epsilon’s “Consumer Channel Preference Study” (2013) for example, found that for general health, food, and personal care, consumers’ preference for direct mail over email was 4:1. For more sensitive categories, such as financial and insurance products, their preference was 5:1.
Print inspires trust, and marketers can take advantage of that.
3. PRINT OFFERS LONGEVITY. You have about 48 hours following an email campaign before response rates drop precipitously. By contrast, it’s not unusual for responses to print campaigns to dribble in weeks or even months after the mail has dropped. Email and mobile shine for very timely communications (“Two-day sale!”), while print’s value is both for its timeliness and its ability to keep the response window open for longer periods of time. Print is ideal for purchase decisions that have a longer decision cycle.
4. HIGHER INVESTMENT = HIGHER RESPONSE RATES. Print requires more investment, but it
pays off in better returns. According to the 2012 DMA Response Rate Report, direct mail response rates average 3.4% for letter-sized direct mail to a house list and 1.3% to the general public or a prospect list. This compares with email response rates at 0.12% and 0.03% respectively. Of all of the channels covered in the DMA’s research, direct mail has the lowest cost per lead or order of media distributed to lists.
5. PRINT DRIVES MOBILE AND SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT. Did you know that print remains one of the primary drivers of mobile and social engagement? According to an April 2013 report sponsored by IAB, InMobi, and Viggle2, 57% of media-savvy respondents have used their phones to redeem a coupon, code, or voucher by mobile. QR Codes, SMS (text messaging), and short codes printed on direct mail, marketing collateral, posters, and point of sale, are highly effective drivers of mobile engagement.
Print drives results, but getting the most out of your investment means using best practices. Here are three ideas that can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of your marketing effectiveness and your bottom line.
1. WORK WITH A CLEAN LIST. If you will be putting your material in the mail, data matters. Are you keeping your mailing list up to date? According to the United States Postal Service, approximately one-third of mailing lists are undeliverable because someone has moved or the address is incomplete or doesn’t exist. Lists can also contain duplicates and incorrect or outdated names.
Take advantage of NCOA and CASS. Take advantage of services such as NCOA (National Change
of Address), which searches for address changes and automatically updates your list; and CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System), which corrects correct incomplete or incorrect ZIP Codes and
other carrier route information. You should be running your mailing list through NCOA and CASS software every six months.
Remove duplicates. It’s easy for customer service representatives to mistakenly insert duplicate
records into a database. If there are spelling errors or differences in how names are recorded (Jane
Walker and Jane Walker Smith might very well be the same person), this can cause duplicates to
pile up. This increases your print and mailing costs and sends the wrong message to recipients. You should be culling your list for duplicates at least once per year.
Update for name changes. You also want to take into consideration name changes and preferred
nicknames. You don’t want to be sending your mail piece to someone’s maiden name if they have recently gotten married or mailing to Eudora Felty if she hates the name Eudora and goes by Ruth. Take the time to send contact update requests to keep your list clean and current.
GETTING THE MOST OUT OF PRINT
I enjoy getting postal mail from brands about new products
59%
I enjoy checking the mailbox for postal mail
62%
I pay more attention to information I receive by postal mail than it was
received by email
51%
Information in the mail is more trustworthy than information online
27%
ATTITUDES TOWARD POSTAL MAIL
2. TARGET YOUR MAILINGS. The people on your mailing list are individuals. They won’t all respond to the same marketing message or want the same products and services. By targeting and even personalizing your message, you can better match offers to the different preferences and needs of your target audience to improve response rates.
3. USE MULTIPLE MARKETING TOUCHES. Even if prospects are interested in your product, they will often not respond to the first marketing message they receive. Especially for higher value products, multiple contacts are often necessary to move prospects through the sales funnel and convert them to a sale. You might start with a direct mail piece, then follow up with a postcard two weeks later. Follow up again with email if you have it. Better yet, do all three.
Marketing is a complex endeavor that takes skill, persistence, and an understanding of consumers’ wants and needs. Print is a critical tool as part of this effort. When used well, it can have powerful results, especially when used as part of a broader multi-touch, multi-channel campaign.
About Heidi Tolliver-Walker
Heidi Tolliver-Walker has been a commercial and digital printing industry analyst, feature writer, columnist, editor, and author for nearly 20 years. She is known for her meticulous research and no-nonsense perspective. Her Marketer’s Primer series is well respected for its comprehensive, authoritative, and always up-to-date approach to critical industry topics. For more on her research, visit Digital Printing Reports at www.digitalprintingreports.com.
About Darwill