Variable Data Printing

PERSONALIZED DIRECT MAIL WITH PURLS DRAMATICALLY INCREASES CONVERSION RATES AND SAVES MONEY

A recent article highlighted a prominent Midwest university who successfully deployed direct mail with a PURL to appeal to honors students as part of an admissions campaign. An A/B split test was conducted to research the affect of utilizing variable data printing in a marketing campaign.

Variable data printing tailored the direct mail postcard to the individual student’s interest in major, gender and whether or not they had visited the campus. Images and text were aligned to reflect the individual’s data. The PURL directed the students to a personalized landing page. For the other students, the Midwest university sent a more general mailing.

The university reported a 32% increase in student enrollment in 2010 over the prior year. 91% of those who registered were recipients of the PURL campaign. The use of a more focused mailer resulted in a 29% savings in printing costs.

“It’s all about making it relevant versus having high volume.”

At the same time, a non-profit organization used a personalized postcard and PURL to appeal to donors as part of their annual giving campaign. It reported that their normal donation rate is 2% to 3%. This campaign returned a 14% donation rate. “This is a bit more expensive, but it drove more conversions.”

“The trend is toward more efficiency and figuring out a multichannel approach with a much more layered cadence of communications.”

As online marketing becomes more saturated, innovations in printing and production are driving more marketers to use traditional channels to drive multichannel efforts.

How are you using direct mail in your multichannel marketing mix?

Direct mail combined with variable printing can achieve successful results when integrated in a multichannel marketing campaign. Here are 6 steps to help you create a campaign and an example of a marketing campaign that uses multichannel marketing successfully.

After reading “The Next Generation of Direct Mail Is Here” by David Henkel published on DirectMag.com, I felt compelled to present these tips and an example of one type of an integrated multichannel marketing campaign.

STEP 1: Utilize Your CRM System or Purchase a Targeted Mailing List

Creating a marketing campaign always starts with having an accurate and up-to-date customer relationship management (CRM) database or a targeted mailing list. It’s important to note that you should segment your list into defined groups and from there create a marketing campaign with messages that speak to each segment. (For more information on how to prepare your CRM database for variable printing, please read this blog entry: Preparing Database Files for Variable Printing.)

STEP 2: Create Personalized Marketing Messages That Speak To Each Segment

Once you know who you are targeting for your mailing, it is important to create marketing messages that are personal to that segment. Some ways to segment your lists are by income levels, age, location, sex, previous purchases (for customers) or products/services of interest (for prospects), industry (for business-to-business), birthday, and much more. You can also personalize your campaign by using the person’s first name, utilizing different images, pictures or maps that are targeted to that segment, and carrying that theme throughout the campaign in the different marketing channels.

Personalize the front of the postcard using the person's name and select an image that is according to how you segment your database.

Use variable data to create a personalized experience from including the person's name, full address, a personal URL (PURL) and a compelling Call-to-Action that is specific to that segment.

STEP 3: Using The Power of Variable Printing, You Can Change The Images, Colors, and Messaging to Match The Targeted Segment

Variable printing can be very powerful. The better you know your customers and prospects, the easier it is to send out messages that speak directly to them and the more likely they are to respond to your offers. You can create campaigns that do just that by segmenting your lists, utilizing good imagery that matches your target and making an offer they are interested in.

3 types of postcards were created for this campaign. Each one utilized variable printing by changing the color, image, including the person

STEP 4: Integrate Your Direct Mail Campaign With Multichannel Marketing

After a sending the right message to the right audience at the right time, a percentage of them will respond to your Call-to-Action. In this case, the Call-to-Action was to enter for a chance to win something relevant to that segment. But, if your customers/prospects miss the postcard, an email is triggered to be sent a specific number of days after the postcard is received, adding another “touch” to your multichannel marketing campaign. This email also matches the same theme and messaging of the postcard. This type of multichannel marketing is relevant to your goals, whether it is to receive a higher response rate, more traffic to your site, a higher return-on-investment, increase your email list, among many more goals.

After receiving a personalized postcard and visiting a Personal URL (PURL), the goal was to enter the contest for a chance to win something relevant to this segment. Once an email address is entered in the contest, this personalized, variable email is sent. The email is personalized with the person

STEP 5: The Personal Landing Page: Make The Goal of The Page Clear and Concise

At this point of the marketing campaign, your prospect or customer has already received a few communications from your company which is great. Now they’ve arrived at the personalized landing page that matches the same theme of the earlier communications. Make your goals clear on this page and give your prospect or customer easy direction on what the next step is that you would like them to do. In this example, you’ll notice that the landing page is personalized with the person’s name at the top, speaking directly to them. The theme of the page matches all of the other communications they received earlier in the campaign, making it familiar to them as to what this is about. The goals of the personal landing page are clear and concise, as they are directed to either buy something or if they are not ready to buy, they can enter a contest. Having the option to enter a contest gives you a chance to learn more about the needs of this customer/prospect and another opportunity to create a follow-up offer that meets their needs upon receiving this information.

When giving away something for free, use this opportunity to gather more information about your prospect or client in an effort to better target and segment them for future promotions, making sure you are providing them with information, products and services relevant to their wants and needs.

 

 

STEP 6: MEASURE, MEASURE, MEASURE – Know Your Results to Determine The Effectiveness of Your Marketing Campaign

One of the most important (and often ignored) steps of any marketing campaign is measuring results. In order to do this effectively, the goals of the campaign must be clearly defined from the beginning. There are many different goals that can be measured. Here are some examples:

EXAMPLES OF GOALS FOR A MARKETING CAMPAIGN
• Lead Generation: How many leads were generated as a result?
• Sales: How many sales were generated from the campaign?
• Website: How much did website traffic increase?
• Email: How many people opened the email? What is the “click-thru-rate” (CTR) or in other words, how many people visited the Personal Landing Page (PURL)?

When the results are in, analyze them. Look at what was most effective and what wasn’t. Use this information to improve your future marketing campaigns and promotional offerings.

Source for Statistics: Visit the case study on Adobe.com @ Pantone Case Study by Adobe.