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Direct Mail Case Study Shows Unbelievable Response Rates

From Static to Viral- Direct Mail Marketing will never be the same.

The rising popularity of Social Networks has opened to marketers an entirely new arena to pursue. In a recent study by Nielson Group they found, Two-thirds of the world’s internet population visits a social network or blogging site and the sector now accounts for almost 10% of all internet usage time.1 As new dynamics in this industry are emerging, the basic questions as to how to effectively merge traditional marketing mediums with social networks has not been answered……until now that is.

Let’s look at the numbers:

You are sending a traditional direct mail advertisement to a database (10,000 records). This means the absolute maximum reach potential of your campaign will be those 10,000 customers who may or may not be interested in your campaign.
Maximum Reach: 10,000

Normal Response rates for Direct Mail Marketing are between 1-3%

Consider this… with the integration of social sharing into your direct mail marketing campaign you are not just gaining access to your current customer database, but you are now gaining access through your existing marketing strategy to an entire new segment of the market- your Customer’s Friend List. Whether their friends on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking site, integrating this simple step into your marketing mediums will expand your reach exponentially.

With the simple theory of multiplication, your reach has the potential to double, triple, and beyond by accessing your customer’s friends, who are engaged to respond.

New Maximum Reach: Exponential
Cost increase: $0

Social Networks add powerful benefits to traditional direct mail campaigns
1. Company Awareness Increases
2. Customer base is identified & expanded
3. Friend-to-Friend Sharing on social networks is more powerful than Company to Customer sharing.

With the release of Dukky’s Software, Direct Mail Marketing has been revolutionized and taken to the next level.

CAFE’ EXPRESS

Café Express is a Texas owned local restaurant chain with 17 locations spreading from Houston to Dallas. With a Direct Mail Marketing strategy, they were focused on growing awareness in the Dallas area, and promoting their breakfast menu. Having already gained success during lunchtime, they were looking to expand their breakfast customers. After some research, they discovered most people were not aware they served breakfast, which led them to their need for a successful direct mail campaign.

Campaign Goal: Grow Awareness & Promote Breakfast Traffic

With standard response rates of 1-2% being insufficient to the response they wanted, Café’ Express brought in Dukky to manage their entire campaign with desired results of 10-15%. Dukky developed all creative, target list, web infrastructure and managed printing and mail fulfillment.

Process: A special offer was mailed on a postcard size piece of direct mail with a detachable card displaying the Cafe Express offer. Each card was labeled with the homeowner’s name and with a PURL (Personalized URL) was mailed to 20,000 recipients in the surrounding area offering a free Breakfast upon activation of the card online through the owner’s PURL.

PURL Example: www.freeAMexpress.com/johnsmith

Poll: Customer’s were brought through a fast survey process in order to activate their offer, gathering Café Express’ highly valuable information for future marketing. Recipients were asked:

• How often do you eat out for breakfast?
• What items do you prefer to eat for breakfast?
• What do you look for when you eat out for breakfast?
• How often do you eat Café Express?

Overall Campaign Results: The campaign reached a total response rate of 23.64%, with almost 40% generated through Social Sharing. Most customers shared their offer on Facebook and Twitter, with the greatest amount of incoming customers coming from Shares on Twitter.

Results

Total Response: 4,728 23.64%

From Mail: 2,941 62.20%

From Social: 1,787 37.80%

Activations: 3,677 18.39%

From Mail: 2,282 62.06%

From Social: 1,395 37.94%

Networks Shared On: 650 %

Facebook: 510 78.46%

Twitter: 126 19.38%

Other: 14 2.96%

Redemptions: 1,500 7.50%

It’s all about Conversion

Dukky’s cutting edge software is leading the way in the industry to establish a new normal for conversion. The goal of every marketing campaign is ultimately to turn your advertising dollars into revenue. Until now, no other marketing mediums provided the means to track and engage customers in order to maximize a retailers customer base through sharing on social networks.

By simply adding Dukky’s PURLS to a traditional direct mail advertisements retailers can 1) Engage customers, 2) Encourage social interaction, 3) Promote Business Offers and Specials, 4) Gather highly valuable information, and 5) Track each step of the process.

How does it work?

A compelling offer equipped with a PURL will be sent to your customer driving them to a custom microsite for card activation. Through a quick, survey process, they will be guided to activate their card and receive the offer. They are then given the opportunity through Dukky’s “one click” broadcast to share the offer with friends on up to 233 social networks! Dukky’s platform captures valuable information during the process: a growing customized database of interested customers with accurate demographic information and intelligent feedback from your customers.

Reach maximization leads to increased conversion, which ultimately generates higher profits. Dukky’s software was designed with two things in mind: Conversion and Results.

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Backroads Uses PURLS to Create Winning Direct Mail Campaign

Last year, Backroads, an adventure travel company based in Berkeley, California, decided to revamp its direct mail strategy and make it more personalized. So, instead of sending generic postcards and catalogs to its previous customers, the company decided to send customized postcards that used PURLs to encourage them to rebook.

The company mailed out 40,000 postcards to people who had booked trips from the company before. Each postcard had a picture of the last destination that the customer visited with Backroads, plus 3 pictures of other destinations that their travel history indicated they might be interested in visiting in the future.

In a case study of the campaign on the Chief Marketer blog, Massimo Prioreschi, vice president of sales and marketing, explained why the PURLs were such an important part of the strategy:

“Basically, we were trying to elicit a bit of an emotional response from them based on their experiences. If they can remember what they’ve done in the past and we can rekindle those memories, then they have a greater chance of traveling with us again. The variable print portion and the PURLs are important for that.”

The results of the campaign were quite impressive: the initial mailing, in March, generated conversion and response rates better than 12%, according to the Chief Marketer blog. That’s twice what Backroads was accustomed to based on previous mailings!

Also, in another case study of the campaign on DM News , Prioeschi said that the company noticed “100% lift in response of clicks through to the PURL and browsing, and 50% increase in sales over generic postcard.”

Looking for an easy way to incorporate PURLS into your next campaign? At Dukky, our unique multi-channel toolkit can help you harness the power of PURLs in just a few clicks. Even better, our platform also allows you to further increase the reach of your campaign by making offers shareable through email and social media. Get the scoop on the solutions we offer here.

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Social Media Marketing Complements Direct Mail, But Doesn’t Replace It

Should you ditch your direct mailing program in favor of marketing via email or social media? Not so fast, says the Wall Street Journal, which recently did a story about the decline of direct mail and the potential consequences for businesses.

According to the article, small business owners have been slashing direct mailing campaigns in an attempt to save money, only to find that their online campaigns aren’t producing the same amount of business.

For example,the article profiled Alicia Settle, president of Pro Annum Inc., who dropped a $20,000 direct mail loyalty campaign in favor of marketing through email only to find that the business’ orders dropped a whopping 25% from the previous year. Her company was able to recover the lost business by sending out the postcards to customers over the summer. The direct mail campaign, which had seemed like an indulgence, was actually an important investment.

Instead of dropping direct mail altogether, the Wall Street Journal notes that savvy marketers are working smarter, creating more personalized campaigns that catch recipients’ attention and generate higher response rates.

In the article, Eric Anderson, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, said that the ideal direct mail campaign for 2010 is “something that’s more appealing than “junk” mail and potentially more noticeable than an email message.”

Targeted direct mail campaigns may still be indispensable for many businesses, but that doesn’t mean that you can ignore social media, either. For 2010, many companies are trying to integrate the two. From the Wall Street Journal:

Prof. Anderson says other business owners are trying to figure out how to integrate Web marketing—such as email campaigns, banner ads and social-networking sites—with direct mail. “The introduction of new media has forced [business owners] to go back and revisit the whole playbook on what’s the best way to communicate with customers,” Mr. Anderson says.

Dukky’s platform offers an easy and effective way to integrate traditional direct response with social media. Our platform lets you send personalized offers to recipients using personalized URLs, either by direct mail or email. These offers can then be shared via email and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

With just a few clicks, customers can share your discounts and promotions with family and friends, helping them spread like wildfire. Dukky lets you harness the power of personalization and social media, improving ROI so that you get more out of every dollar you spend.

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What Can We Do to Reduce the Carbon Footprint of Direct Mailing Campaigns?

This post was written by Greg Barber, an experienced eco-friendly printer, and is part of a series of green printing tips originally published on the Eco-libris blog. It is reprinted here with permission.

In the post, Greg talks about the dramatic impact personalization can have on response rates, and how the power of personalization can be used to create greener direct mail campaigns. Dukky’s personal, PURL-based campaigns are an effective way to achieve the increased response rates Greg discusses below.

Direct mailing is considered by many a very not sustainable marketing channel, as it can be very wasteful and have a significant carbon footprint, while at the same time it often generates poor results. Today, in a tip dedicated to the Hopenhagen campaign, Greg is offering another option that combines greater effectiveness and a reduced carbon footprint.

What can we do to reduce the carbon footprint of direct mailing campaigns?

I attended a sustainable meeting at NYU last week and came away with a few good Green tips on direct marketing – how to make it effective and minimize its footprint at the same time.

There is no secret here and it’s actually quite simple – if you look at your clients and really decide to target what it is they really want, you can create a direct mail program that will give you better results, be environmental, and save trees, paper, energy, water and money.

First step: Make your list of names targeted to these best clients, or the ones that can do you the most. Look at their history of their buying. What did they buy, and when did they buy, and how much did they spend? Make a new print campaign that targets those wants and desires.

It’s all about personalizing your marketing. Personalize by name, products, time frame, and do a mailing that might be 20% of your present mailing list, but targeted to their past history of buying.

Second step: Even though you already eliminate waste by sending this printing only to past customers, don’t forget to use 100% recycled paper that is 100% processed chlorine free for the materials you’re sending.

Third step: You can also an email to this targeted audience on a second run, that will not only help you to minimize your campaign’s footprint, but can also be an helpful tool to estimate the effectiveness of your campaign and even further personalize your database for future campaigns. Read more

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Cross Media Marketing is a Great Way to Get Customer Information

Editor’s Note: Today’s post was written by Ivana Taylor, and originally appeared on the QuestionPro blog. It is reprinted here with permission. Ivana is the CEO of Third Force, a strategic firm that helps small businesses get and keep their ideal customer. She’s the co-author of the book “Excel for Marketing Managers” and proprietor of DIYMarketers, a site for in-house marketers. Her blog is Strategy Stew.

Have you ever considered using direct mail as a way of gathering demographic and psychographic information? If not, then this is your opportunity to really get some bang for your marketing budget dollar.

With the advent of on-demand printing and publishing, we’ve been able to literally convert mass-marketing to a more personal one-to-one experience. All it takes is a list, a database and some creativity and for a relatively small budget, you will be on your way to:

1. Getting more information about your list (email address, buying preferences, job title)

2. Learning how to better communicate with your list (how would you like to be contacted?)

3. Drive list members to your website

4. Present them with a specific offer

5. Invite them to an event

6. Register for a conference or event, including break-out sessions, etc.

All of this can be yours by exploring “cross-media marketing.” Read more

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Is Direct Mail Making a Comeback?

Editor’s Note: This post was written by Damon Samuel and was originally posted on his blog, Broadcast Thoughts. It is reprinted here with permission. In the post, Damon explains how better targeting, among other factors, has helped improve direct mail response rates at the marketing agency he works for. At Dukky, we integrate social and viral sharing with direct response campaigns through the use of social PURLs, and use the information gathered to help improve targeting and response in future campaigns.

For years people have derided junk mail. It is the bastard step child of marketing. No one likes receiving junk mail. But the fact is, it works.

Now I’m the first to admit that response rates are poor. Last DMA stat I saw was 1.8%. But the fact remains, it can be highly profitable. And in a time where my mail box is the emptiest I can ever remember I believe Direct Mail is showing strong signs of life.

Here are a few reasons I think DM is gaining strength.

First has to do with a direct mail campaign we have done for a client. In interests of not violating confidentiality all I’ll say is the response rate this year is nearly double from 2 years ago and up 50% from last year. Revenues are also way up. Granted we had better targeting which drove a lot of the positive change.

Second, the offers and pieces I do receive are more valuable. With rising costs of doing campaigns the companies that continue to use direct mail are investing heavily in it. When I get a credit offer it always has very generous terms with extravagant perks. Or in the case of the Porsche Panamera launch piece, the creative cost a fortune. It was a well designed box shipped overnight with color samples and design documents and probably cost $20-$40 to mail all told. Of course a single response is worth thousands for them.

Third, companies are using analytics more effectively. See point 1, my client utilized better targeting. Example 2, my wife and I both received offers from a credit issuer on the same day. I usually round file my direct mail pieces unless I am specifically looking for that product. I opened both of these since they obviously had different creatives. The offer and message treatments were equal but I could tell you which creative would have been more likely to generate a response. Here’s a hint, it was the one with the value proposition clearly displayed at the top of the messaging.

Last, direct mail stands out in a world of email spam. I have 5 email accounts and can also receive communication through two social networking sites. I also have a blog that accepts comments. I am inundated with electronic communication. I also believe many companies over communicate via email when consumers opt in. I just don’t need 2 emails a week. In fact I typically opt out after a few weeks at that rate. Share of active attention is a premium. I can delete an email in seconds along with 30 others in the same click. It takes me 20 seconds to walk from the mail box to the garage while I am purposely sorting through my mail before I reach a trash can. The DM piece guarantees I will at least see its shell.

E-marketing is fantastic and is here to stay. Just don’t write off direct mail just yet. There is still plenty of evidence that when the right piece with the right offer hits the right consumer a company can make millions.

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