Online + DM equals big results

02.10.2007

A recent Royal Mail survey has revealed some useful mathematical intelligence for marketers working the two levers of direct mail and online marketing. The sum is greater than the individual parts. Martin Pang, UK MD of Vialuna explains why combining offline and online can increase consumer spend by 25 per cent.

So given that marketers should be combining the two channels for best effect, what is the best way of doing this? The survey gives us a steer on this too - the majority, 60 per cent, prefer to receive direct mail first followed by email with 80 per cent agreeing that an email is the best way to convey a key message

Of course, the ideal combination for an individual business can only be established by extensive testing but many marketers are uncertain how to approach the complexities of combining offline and online campaigns.

The key is gathering data. It’s only by building a detailed profile of your customers that you can successfully communicate with them and here’s where traditional direct marketing and the latest in online marketing can combine to great effect.

We all receive personalised direct mail, so why not personalise the online experience too? By driving people online using personalised URLs (PURLS) printed on the mail piece you can create an online brand experience that can be tailored to each individual. You can then capture data directly about that particular individual and track what they have viewed.

All the results show that consumers love this type of approach which is the opposite of intrusive and creates a real sense of responding to the prospect’s requirements.

The principles for building up information on customers or prospects remain constant no matter what technology you are using:

Start with what information you may already have about them, but not have realised, e.g., for your existing customer base, you can see what internal information you hold about them. This can come from various internal departments such as customer service, product information, finance. For your prospect database you may have collected information about how you originally got their details and the product/service they have expressed an interest in.

You should then think about what information you need to plug the gaps and what type of campaigns you want to run in the future. This should help your overall data strategy.
You can either look to buy in data to supplement what you have already, such as industry sector codes, number of employees, specific profile contacts, or you can run campaigns yourselves specifically to capture information.

For instance email address acquisition is quite a wide spread issue for many businesses. Postal addresses are widely available, but email addresses are harder to come by. One technique would be to run an offline to online campaign, for example sending a direct mail piece with a strong call to action that took respondents to an online data capture form. Think carefully about how you persuade people to volunteer their personal details and as long as you offer something of value to people you can expect a pretty good response rate.

Also make sure you gain consent to use the information you have captured.

In the long run you should see the benefits of being more targeted. Less wastage, higher response rates, cross-selling and also a better affinity with your brand. All you have to do is speak to people about what they want to hear about.

Source: DM Weekly