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Amid Virus Disruption, Direct Mail Has ‘Optichannel’ Advantages

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As the majority of American adults hunker down at home, with all but essential businesses closed or working remotely because of the COVID-19 crisis, AccuList reminds marketers of the unique advantages of targeted direct mail, which takes promotions right into homes, has the highest response rate of any channel, and has the ability via print technology to connect with digital, too.

Direct Mail Can Rise Above the Current Digital Noise

Direct-response agency SeQuel Response notes that since the majority of American have responded to state lockdowns and virus fears by increasing their online shopping, many direct marketers have flooded the digital zone with new e-commerce sites, digital advertising, social media promotions, and e-mail. With online channels increasingly overcrowded, direct mail offers an alternative way to reach consumers in their homes and an opportunity to rise above the noise. The agency provides some good tips for direct mail in the time of COVID: 1) Ensure creative elements and messaging align with consumer sentiments and promote social responsibility and even national pride for positive brand awareness; 2) reconsider mail frequency and timing if warranted for a particular product/service, but make sure not to lose touch with the audience; 3) solidify existing customer relations, with increased focus on retention and brand awareness to help survive on the other side of the crisis; 4) integrate direct mail with digital marketing, a proven way to boost campaign performance and reduce CPA, including print technology, such as QR, AR and VR; and, finally 5) plan for the post-crisis world, recognizing that a campaign takes six weeks from list development to creative production to mail drop, and make sure messaging and brand positioning can evolve post-crisis.

Leverage Mail Strengths With Modeling, Digital Alignment

Given the coronavirus disruption of buying processes, “optichannel” campaigning, meaning supporting a prospect’s or customer’s shopping and buying process using the channel that is best for them, becomes essential for ROI. Direct mail adds special advantages to an optichannel mix, especially when combined with modeling and digital integration, argues a recent Target Marketing magazine article. Among the article’s examples is Galileo Learning, which operates 75 children’s summer camps across parts of California and Illinois. The company used tight response-lift customer modeling to identify higher-response prospects on external lists and then used the resulting savings to create even better creative. As a result, response surpassed expectations by bringing in 155 new campers and $66,000 in new revenue. Another Target Marketing case study is especially relevant for nonprofit fundraisers trying to help the most vulnerable in the current COVID-19 crisis. It comes from Meals on Wheels in the Diablo region of California, whose mailed holiday donor appeal garnered $230,000 in donations and 43% new donors. The charity attributes the 75,000-piece mail campaign’s success to, first, defining more-responsive list segments for existing donors, lapsed donors and prospects via demographics and customer-look-alike modeling, and, second, adding targeted digital advertising (e-mail, social and online display). The added digital effort not only delivered a 600% increase in campaign impressions over the mail-only control, the donors acquired by the “optichannel” campaign gave an average of 169% more than mail-only donors.

Predictive Analytics Can Harness Data for Marketing ROI

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Beyond list brokerage, AccuList can support direct marketing clients with “predictive analytics,” meaning scientific analysis that leverages customer and donor data to predict future prospect and customer actions. It will scientifically “cherry-pick” names from overwhelming “big data” lists and other files. For example, AccuList’s experienced statisticians build customized Good Customer Match Models and Mail Match Models to optimize direct mail results for prospect lists, as well as one-on-one models for list owners to help acquire more new customers or donors. Plus, predictive models aid other marketing goals, such as retention, relationship management, reactivation, cross-sell, upsell and content marketing. Below are some key ways predictive analytics will harness data for better marketing ROI.

More Swift, Efficient and Effective Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is too often a sales and marketing collaboration, in which salespeople provide marketers with their criteria for a “good” lead and marketers score incoming responses, either automatically or manually, for contact or further nurturing. Predictive analytics will remove anecdotal/gut evaluation in favor of more accurate scoring based on data such as demographics/firmographics, actual behavior and sales value. It also speeds the scoring process, especially when combined with automation, so that “hot” leads get more immediate contact. And it allows for segmentation of scored leads so that they can be put on custom nurturing tracks more likely to promote conversion and sales.

Better List Segmentation for Prospecting, Retention and Messaging

With predictive analytics, list records can be segmented to achieve multiple goals. The most likely to respond can be prioritized in a direct mail campaign to increase cost-efficiency. Even more helpful for campaign ROI, predictive analytics can look at the lifetime value of current customers or donors and develop prospect matching so mailings capture higher-value new customers. Predictive analytics also can tailor content marketing and creative by analyzing which messages and images resonate with which customer segments, identified by demographics and behavior, in order to send the right creative to the right audience. Finally, analytics can develop house file segmentation for retention and reduced churn, looking at lapsed customers or donors to identify the data profiles, timing inflection points and warning signs that trigger outreach and nurturing campaigns.

Optimizing for Channel and Product/Services Offer

Data analysis and modeling can also be used to improve future marketing ROI in terms of channel preferences and even product/services development. By studying customer or donor response and behavior after acquisition, analytics can identify the most appropriate promotion and response channels, communication types, and preferred contact timing by target audience. Plus, a customer model can match demographics, psychographics and behavior with product and offer choices to tailor prospecting, as well as upsell or cross-sell opportunities, to boost future results.

Committing to a Good, Clean Customer Database

Reliable predictions require a database of clean, updated existing customer or donor records, with enough necessary demographics/firmographcs and transactional behavior for modeling. So, to prevent garbage-in-garbage-out results, AccuList also supports clients with list hygiene and management, including hygiene matching for DO NOT MAIL, NCOA and more, data appending of variables from outside lists, merge-purge eliminating duplicates and faulty records, response tracking with match-back, and more advanced list screening options.

Digital Data Feed Publishers’ Subscription Growth

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AccuList helps business periodicals grow audience via direct marketing, and, as always, good customer and prospect data is at the root of marketing success. Consider a case study from The Economist, named one of the eight best business magazines of 2019 by The Balance reviewers. It isn’t only content that makes The Economist stand out. It’s a data-based audience-building strategy that has quadrupled subscription revenue over the last three years.

Customer Data and Predictive Analytics

Facing challenges in growing subscriber and advertising revenue, The Economist contracted with a customer data platform, Lytics, to shift from a print-focused to a digital subscription strategy based on customer data management, per a recent What’s New in Publishing (WNIP) post. For example, the publisher used data analytics to create content hubs, or individual pages that display digital content based on a reader’s interest for particular news topics. Tactics also included displaying offers based on the reader’s subscription status and predictive engagement score, meaning their likelihood to subscribe, derived from other readers with behaviors like theirs. And the online Economist gave readers featured content based not just on topic interest but also on behavioral scoring so readers got the type of content they wanted in the way they wanted to read it. Yet another example was a campaign for a free “Back to School Megatech” eBook, that produced a 9% click-through rate for targeted audiences.

Payoffs in Acquisition and Retention

In addition to a 4X bump in The Economist‘s subscriber revenue, the data-centric effort decreased cost per acquisition by 80%, tripled digital subscriptions, and increased time-on-site and engagement measures, per the WNIP case study post. The development of ongoing and adaptive customer profiles using machine learning went beyond simple demographics to allow for individually tailored and timed advertising and engagement strategies, such as predicting when a reader is more receptive to certain kinds of advertising or content. Retention strategies also were improved by predicting when subscribers were likely to stop visiting or subscribing.

Leveraging Data and Content for Growth

The Economist is not alone in embracing a digital subscription and data-management publishing model. The New York Times used similar strategies to boost digital subscriptions and revenues last year, even creating nytDEMO (DEMO stands for data, engineering, measurement, and optimization) as a collaboration among members of The Times data, product & design, technology, and advertising groups. The nytDEMO team offers brand marketers AI-based data tools such as “Project Feels” predicting emotional response to content and “Readerscope” identifying reader/interest audience segments. While other print and digital news operations were cutting back in 2018, The New York Times Co. used data-driven strategies to generate more than $709 million in digital revenue, with online subscription revenue up nearly 18% from 2017 and digital advertising up 8.6%. Out of its 4.3 million paid subscriptions for digital and print in 2018, more than 3.3 million people paid for its digital products, a 27% jump from 2017. Those results prompted executives to set a new target of more than 10 million subscriptions by 2025. And since NYT execs believe successful data marketing relies on quality content marketing, the revenue gains will be plowed back into content development via increased investment in newsroom and opinion operations.

 

Honoring Channel Preference Delivers Fundraising Wins

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Donor control of communications channels is important for efficient fundraising contends DonorVoice’s The Agitator in a recent blog post worth passing along to AccuList USA’s fundraiser and fundraising consultant clients.

Cutting Costs and Boosting Deliverability

Fundraisers fret over opt-out rates in their efforts to grow donor files. Yet failing to learn and honor channel preference not only leads to higher opt-out rates but to wasteful marketing as well. People who opt out of telemarketing or e-mail channels are unlikely to give through that channel, so the resulting file reduction is actually a savings, cutting spending that annoys rather than produces. Plus sending e-mails to people who routinely don’t open them lowers overall e-mail deliverability, reducing e-mails that might get through to those who do want them, for another real but hidden cost.

Increasing Opt-ins and Donor Value

Giving channel control to donors can produce more quality file growth. DonorVoice has done two different tests of what causes people to opt in, and both show that donor communications control is the single biggest factor in whether someone will want to learn more from a nonprofit. Plus, another recent study by DonorVoice and the DMA Nonprofit Federation found that allowing donors control of their communications makes them more likely to donate, and that donors who provide and receive a communications preference tend to be more valuable donors. For example, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare coded people who requested less mail and sent them half as many appeals as those who stated no preference.  Those donors who requested and received half as many contacts actually gave more than the group that didn’t express a preference, per the DonorVoice article.  Catholic Relief Services also found that donors who requested a specific mail preference gave 6 to 8 times more per year, notes the same blog post. By asking for communications preference and honoring it, fundraisers identify more quality donors and make them more likely to stay.

Direct Mail Channel Still Leads With Donors

Despite the growth of online giving, channel preferences continue to favor direct mail, which is one reason it is still alive and kicking as a fundraising tool.  In fact, 73% of consumers say they prefer mail for brand communications, and that includes nonprofits, and 62% like checking the mail, per Epsilon research. Plus, mail gives nonprofits an edge in getting their message across since “brain science” research shows that printed appeals leave a deeper impression and stimulate more emotional processing. Plus, direct mail donors have higher retention rates; 31% of first-time offline donors are retained compared with 25% of new online donors, according to Blackbaud. For more on the case for fundraising direct mail, see this DonorVoice blog post.

‘Doggie Daycare’ Market Fetches Millennial Demand

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Millennials are driving growth for AccuList USA’s clients in pet owner marketing, especially sales in the pet boarding and grooming arena, where spending hit an annual $6.16 billion in 2017 per the American Pet Products Association. For example, this summer the New York Post reported that growing demand from pet owners inspired the American Kennel Club to jump into the high-priced Manhattan real estate market: Its AKC Canine Retreat venture purchased five locations from Spot Canine Club as well as the Running Paws dog-jogging (not walking) service to re-brand under the AKC umbrella. Similarly, “doggie daycare” service Camp Bow Wow, founded in 2000, is busy adding franchises to its existing 144.

A New Generation of ‘Pet Parents’

The Millennial generation’s disposable income coupled with pet-centric attitudes are behind the trend, Camp Bow Wow’s Chief Barketer (also VP of marketing) Julie Turner recently explained to Direct Marketing News. As the Millennial age cohort marries and has children later in life than their parents, “they’re filling the gap with a dog,” she said, treating their dogs as “really a part of the family.” Millennials are not only frequent travelers who need pet boarding, they are working “pet parents” who choose daycare services so their canine companions can go to camp rather than stay home alone. They like to collect a “happy and tired dog” at the end of the day, she noted.

Mobile Marketing & Digital Strategies

Millennials are definitely mobile device addicts, so Camp Bow Wow upped its mobile strategy in 2014 when Turner came aboard, starting with a more mobile-responsive website “in line with other brands millennials support.” Camp Bow Wow introduced a mobile app that allows owners to find locations and make reservations, but its top use is watching live feeds of pets at play. “Pet parents want to talk about [the service] and show pictures of their dog at camp,” Turner explained, something Camp Bow Wow enables by texting photos of dogs having fun to their owners. The digital engagement and sense of community are not only key to retaining customers, digital strategies dominate acquisition via local search engine optimization, e-mail and texting programs, and social media advertising.  Camp Bow Wow actively works with social influencers to drive referrals, for example: “We have a very high net promoter score,” claimed Turner.

Event Promotions & Shelter Partnering

Camp Bow Wow reps also attend community events to promote the brand and acquire new customers. At events, the #GiveAFetch is a popular draw, dispensing tennis balls to happy pups from a what looks like a giant bubblegum machine. Plus, Camp Bow Wow ups its brand reputation by partnering with shelters and providing a temporary “foster home” environment for abandoned dogs to help with socialization.

Read the complete article on Camp Bow Wow’s marketing.

 

Print Catalogs Still a Key Multichannel Merchant Tool

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Despite the growth of e-commerce, printed catalogs retain their important marketing role for AccuList USA’s B2B and B2C catalog clients, and recent data from Multichannel Merchant‘s 2018 State of the Catalog survey highlights that trend.

Print Catalogs Boost Brands, Push Digital Traffic

A big majority of the merchants surveyed (84.2% ) by Multichannel Merchant (MCM) said they continue to use print catalogs as a channel to reach customers. Their commitment to the traditional print catalog comes from its value as a multipurpose marketing tool. For example, branding led the ranking of main print catalog goals, with an 8.86 out of 10 rating. Branding was followed by web and mobile traffic driver and customer retention (both ranked at 8.14), reactivation (7.57), and prospecting and store traffic spur (6.43).  Meanwhile, though measuring catalog effectiveness remains a matter of debate among merchants, a majority (57.1%) do have a formal measurement program, whether via matchbacks, tracking codes, response analysis or segmentation testing.

Frequency, Page Counts & Circulation Hold Steady

Although merchants continue to seek maximum ROI by testing page counts and formats, the majority surveyed by MCM (83.3%) maintained the same page counts in 2017, and 50% also reported the same circulation numbers. Looking ahead to 2018, 50% planned to increase page counts, but respondents split into thirds over increasing, decreasing or maintaining circulation size. As far as frequency, 83.3% said they would hold it steady for 2018.

Digital Catalogs Join Array of Print Formats

Most merchants surveyed (57.1%) rely on both a digital catalog and a standard 8.5X11 print catalog. But many also use a “slim jim” print format (14.3%) or, especially for B2B, annual “big books” (also 14.3%). Some retailers report they send out other types of direct mail pieces, such as small gatefolds or postcards with special offers. Digital page-flipper catalogs are also in use to reach customers between mailings and in areas not mailed (such as Europe). For more on the report, go to http://multichannelmerchant.com/marketing/state-catalog-alive-well/

P&C Insurance Embraces Direct Mail Response

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Direct mail by property and casualty insurance clients continues as a staple of AccuList USA’s list brokerage and data services business, and so we were pleased to see a Valentine’s Day love note to P&C direct mail from the marketing consultants at IWCO Direct.

P&C Insurance Industry Loves Direct Mail

The IWCO post notes that nearly 400 insurance companies mailed more than 5.7 billion pieces of mail in 2017, according to Comperemedia. The property and casualty insurance category accounted for 53% of that volume, with more than 3 billion pieces of direct mail mailed by 110 companies. Of those direct mail packages, 95% were Marketing Mail (formerly called Standard Mail), mainly for acquisition (89%).

Mailings Reflect Ongoing Promotional Trends

Comperemedia and Competiscan data highlighted trends revealed by those direct mail packages, too.  With 55% of policyholders likely to shop around for insurance as a policy comes up for renewal, smart insurance providers are taking a proactive approach and contacting policyholders in advance to remind them why they should remain with their current P&C insurance provider. Also to woo shoppers, both in acquisition and renewal, insurance promotions are direct about savings messages and competitor pricing comparisons. Finally, the industry’s continued embrace of direct mail does not ignore the digital revolution; in fact, direct mail packages are highlighting the industry’s growing self-service digital functionality for policyholders.

Basic Direct Mail Tactics That Up Response

Leveraging industry trends and success stories, IWCO lists three basic tactics proven to boost response for P&C acquisition and cross-sell mailings: 1) Comparison charts touting coverage benefits over those of top competitors, and an offer to match coverage pricing and benefits upon policy review if appropriate; 2) Promotional cards with a clear call-to-action via website, mobile app, and/or toll-free phone; and 3) An eye-catching personalized tagline. See https://www.iwco.com/blog/2018/02/14/pc-insurance-marketing-trends-valentines-day/

How Can Performing Arts Marketing Find the Best Targets?

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Since AccuList USA has successfully worked with performing arts and cultural organizations in audience development, supplying data and data services to help them acquire new patrons, ticket buyers and supporters, we were happy to see a recent npENGAGE.com post underscoring the key role of quality data targeting in performing arts marketing success.

Identify & Understand the Best Audience

Basically, performing arts marketers must acquire prospects with the potential to become long-term, high-value patrons; retain them; and maximize their dollar contributions. That challenge is not easy when studies show 72% of single-ticket buyers do not return, points out npENGAGE article author Chuck Turner, a senior analytics specialist at the Target Analytics agency for arts and cultural clients.  So a cost-effective marketing strategy will rely on data analytics both to target those with the highest relationship potential and to personalize messaging and offers for boosted ROI and loyalty.

Target to Increase Revenue & Donations

Analysis should look at the value of patrons in terms of the average of all revenue earned, including things such as gift shop and concession sales and tuition for classes offered, as well as ticket sales and subscriptions, Turner urges. That means targeting likely high-revenue prospects, plus, since it’s easier to increase revenue from existing patrons than to acquire new ones, targeting the right members of the audience pool for offers of add-ons and upgrades. For both groups, Turner suggests selecting those with higher average income, and thus higher capacity to spend. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average high-income person spends over $8,200 on entertainment each year, so if average program revenue per attendee is $34.33 (the average performing arts program revenue per attendee in 2013), there’s room to grab a bigger share! When it comes to increasing donations, external list data on both discretionary spending ability and nonprofit donation history can be used to target significant nonprofit donor prospects for acquisition, and that data can be appended to the existing audience database to better target for add-ons and upgrades. Turner points to Target Analytics findings that, on average, up to 40% of nonprofit audiences can be top prospects for significant contributory giving–if you communicate to prospects with a message that resonates with their mission-based interest.

Segment to Maximize Lifetime Value

With limited resources, performing arts marketers need to be more strategic and proactive in focusing on the most valuable segments. This means tracking lifetime value, defined as the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship discounted to its current value. Again, quality data can help target the right people–those with high lifetime value–with the right message. For both audience database and prospecting mailing lists, Turner stresses selecting targets based on charitable giving and income/discretionary spending ability. Conversely, knowing those unlikely to donate or spend helps minimize investment in unprofitable segments. For more, see https://npengage.com/nonprofit-fundraising/arts-fundraising-and-analytics/

2017 Marketing Budgets Set to Shift More Dollars to Acquisition

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Balancing marketing budget between acquisition and retention growth is a perennial conundrum. But if you take your cue from respondents to Target Marketing magazine’s annual “Media Usage Survey,” you’ll be more bullish on acquisition efforts this year. Half of the 725 respondents (42% B-to-B, 22% B-to-C and 36% claiming both business and consumer targets) said they would be boosting acquisition spending in 2017. That’s compared with only a third planning to add to retention dollars. Regardless of the choice of “finders vs. keepers,” optimism rules the year ahead; only 5% of respondents foresaw decreased acquisition or retention spending.

Direct Mail & E-mail Lead ROI Expectations

For the second year in a row, the survey found marketers giving direct mail and e-mail top marks for ROI in both acquisition and retention, which means more success stories from AccuList USA’s direct mail and e-mail list brokerage clients. In acquisition, 25% of marketers said e-mail is the method delivering best ROI and 15% cited direct mail, with third place going to search engine optimization. In retention, 46% gave e-mail top place for ROI and 14% chose direct mail, with 10% selecting social media engagement as best for retention ROI. Those 2017 percentage rankings by channel were pretty close to the 2016 survey results, but there were some shifts below the top ROI performers. For example, telemarketing was the top answer for more firms in 2017 than in 2016, especially as an acquisition vehicle (chosen by 8%), while webcasts and webinars, which were rated among the top five for acquisition and retention ROI in 2016, dropped below 5% this year.

More Channels in the Mix

If an expanded channel mix is part of your planning this year, join the crowd. Surveyed marketers embraced more channels for both acquisition and retention in 2017 than in 2016. Of note, some channels traditionally thought better suited to retention (such as e-mail and social media engagement) are now used by a majority of marketers to drive acquisition, with 87% planning to use e-mail and 69% opting for social media engagement. Although retention efforts can’t claim a marked channel preference, some channels are definitely more popular for acquisition than retention in 2017, notably online advertising, social media advertising and SEO, per the survey.

To see details of the survey, go to http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/finders-keepers-2017-acquisition-retention-trends/