5 Reasons Print Still Rocks

 

Is print still relevant in today’s world of ubiquitous electronic media? Yes! Here are a few reasons not to overlook when you are planning your next marketing campaign.

1. Print adds a dimension to the media experience not possible with digital media.

Print is warm and inviting. You can create dazzling special effects that make readers want to touch and feel your message thanks to a new generation of papers, inks, varnishes and coatings. It’s a tangible dimension that electronic media can’t impart.

2. Print is universally accessible.

Printed documents don’t have batteries that run down, they can easily be read even in direct sunlight, and they can be read even in locations where wireless is not available, such as subway stations and airplanes.

3. Certain demographics don’t go online.

Some demographic groups, particularly older consumers, simply prefer print collateral over digital options. In some cases, print may be the only way they research their options. Don’t overlook the disposable income of this demographic group!

4. Consumers are multi-channel.

When looking to make a purchase, today’s media-savvy consumers seek multiple sources of information. Rarely will they use online only or print only. They seek out multiple media and compare and contrast responses. Print is a critical part of that mix.

5. Print is more trusted for high-dollar purchases.

Consumers love electronic media for its immediacy, but research shows that they seek print when it’s time to buy. Web technologies provide quick answers, but the responses are often contradictory. Print shows that you found your message to be important enough to commit it to paper and you stand behind what you’re saying.

Overlooking the role of print can prove fatal to a marketing campaign. If your objective is to inform, teach, persuade or entertain, print marketing is a must.

 

 

Jeff Lampert

Director of Marketing and Business Development

 

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes.  It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations.

Steve Jobs

 

Want to be a Best-in-Class Marketer?

Do you want to be a best-in-class marketer? In survey after survey, we find that it is well worth the effort. Regardless of how best-in-class marketers are defined, these companies consistently stand out in profitability and customer retention. 

According to one research study (“Analytics for the CMO: How Best-in-Class Marketers Use Customer Insights to Drive Revenue,” the Aberdeen Group), best-in-class marketers were found to receive 9.9% average YOY improvement in incremental sales lift resulting from marketing campaigns. This compares to 1.1% for “average” marketers and a 3.6% decline among marketing laggards. Best-in-class marketers were also found to receive 9.5% average YOY increase in customer retention rate vs. 2.1% among average firms and a 3.2% decline for laggards.

How do they do it? According to the study, they have intentional, strategic processes in place to track, measure, and report on all marketing campaign results, both print and online. These efforts include:

• Website visitor tracking (86% utilizing)
• Tracking, measuring, and reporting on all marketing campaign results (82% utilizing)
• Establishing processes to test effectiveness of campaign content (64% utilizing)

Best-in-class marketers also make a 60% average marketing contribution to the sales pipeline versus 10% for industry average firms and 3% for laggards.

What’s clear from this data is that best-in-class marketers understand the value of making planned, strategic investments in monitoring their campaigns and their results, then the importance of wrapping those results around to their next campaign to reap the benefits of what they have learned. The good news is, these are strategies that any marketer can put into place.

Need help setting up intentional processes for your marketing campaigns? Give us a call!

 

Jeff Lampert

Director of Marketing and Business Development

 

“When you compete with a person, you only have to be as good or better than the
person to win. If you compete with yourself, there is no limitation to how good
you can be.”
Chu Chin-Ning

 

 

Study: Consumers Still Love Physical Mail

What happens when you create a marketing promotion from a fictitious travel agency to test the effectiveness of standard envelopes, printed envelopes, self-mailers, wrappers, and email? RAPP Germany, a multichannel marketing agency, hired Neilsen to find out.

With all other factors equal, RAPP wanted to know, which techniques would be most successful? It found that envelopes have a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of the direct marketing piece, especially if they are personalized.

According to the study, while custom-manufactured envelopes had the highest open rate of all of the marketing techniques tested (85%), personalization was key to success. Recipients who received non-personalized mailings were three times more likely to throw the mail in the trash or delete it than recipients who received a personalized mailing.

Even when recipients were predisposed to the marketing message, recipients of personalized messaging were more likely to indicate that they intended to investigate the travel offer further online. Forty-four percent said they would investigate the travel offer further online compared to 37% of those who received static mailings.

Mailings received via personalized, printed envelope were also more likely to be passed along to friends and family. According to the survey, marketing messages mailed via personalized envelope were twice as likely to be passed along (14% vs. 8%) than personalized emails.

Want to increase your response rates? Personalize your message inside and out!

 

Source: “Consumers Value Physical Mail, Even In This Digital Era,” Print in the Mix (www.printinthemix.com)

Jeff Lampert
Director of Marketing and Business Development

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

Using Google Analytics to Track Your Progress

If it was your New Year’s resolution to improve the effectiveness of your marketing, how do you determine if it’s working? Since one of the benefits of 1:1 print marketing is the ability to drive traffic to your website, one of the ways to determine success is to use Google Analytics and similar tools to monitor your Web activity.

Online analytics tools are about more than the number of visitors to your site. They can tell you where these visitors are coming from, how long they stay, which sites or search engines are driving the most traffic, and more.

In addition to basic site traffic, let’s look at some of the metrics Google Analytics offers.

• Absolute unique visits. Number of individual visitors (as contrasted with people who might be visiting the site more than once).
• Page views / average page views. When people come to your site, how many pages do they click on before they leave?
• Time on site. Once people hit your site, how long do they stay? Are they taking the time to read the content? Or clicking out right away?
• Traffic sources. Where are your visitors coming from? Are they typing in your URL directly? Coming from referring sites? Search engines? If the latter, which ones? What keywords are they using?
• Page navigation. Did people land on each page directly? Or did they click through another page to get there? After viewing the content, did they click through to more pages? Or leave the site?

What can you learn from this type of information?

If you’re running a specific 1:1 printing campaign, for example, you can watch how effective it is for driving website traffic—how quickly traffic peaks and how high.

Once people land on your main URL, if they leave without clicking through to other pages, it might tell you that you need to improve the relevance of your index page or make the content more compelling.

If you know the keywords being used to drive the most traffic from search engines, you can use this information in your SEO (search engine optimization) efforts.

If you track which pages people are landing on or clicking through most often, you can add content or links to those pages to maximize your message.

You make a significant investment in 1:1 print marketing, so maximize every dollar you spend. Once you’ve driven people to your website, free metrics tools can help you sharpen your message and improve site relevance, navigation, and functionality. You will capture more site visitors, hold them, and ultimately drive more conversion to sales.

Jeff Lampert

Director of Marketing & Business Development

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." ("The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs," 2001)

Personalized Marketing: It’s Mainstream

Just look around you. Personalized marketing is everywhere. From personalized coupons at the checkout counter to personalized recommendations at Amazon.com. Now there is research to show just how prevalent personalized marketing has become.

In a study of 466 marketers (“Capturing the Cross-Media Direct Marketing Opportunity,” 2010), InfoTrends found that only 40% of marketers’ campaigns fit into the category of “one to many.” Forty percent fit into the category of segmented marketing (“one to few”). More than one in five (21.0%) fit into the category of full personalization (one to one), whether print or electronic media.

Think about that for a moment. One in five campaigns is fully personalized. What does that mean for you? It means that if you are sending static mail pieces, you’re competing with marketers who are speaking (potentially to the same customers and prospects) on a personalized level.

If your competitors are personalizing and you are not, who do you think is going to get the most mind share? Even if your competitors aren’t personalizing today, they might be tomorrow. You want to get there and establish a relationship with those customers or prospects before they do.

Personalization doesn’t have to be difficult. Even with a simple basic customer list, there are steps you can take:

1. Personalize by name.

Don’t just personalize the message. Use the recipient’s name creatively. Integrate it into the design in an interesting, eye-catching way.

2. Target by a single, simple variable.

Will it help to target the mailing by gender? How about by ZIP code? Would it help to add a map? (This works great for new businesses or new branches or locations.) These are data you already have. Use them!

3. Append the database.

Still think you don’t have any variables you can use? Do what’s called a database “append” in which you purchase simple variables like home ownership or household income for the names you already have. Appends are not expensive and can boost your marketing effectiveness exponentially.

Talk to us about how you can put it to use to create a more personal relationship with your customers. You probably already have more information than you think!

Jeff Lampert

Director of Marketing and Business Development

 

There is only one boss.  The customer.  And he can fire everybody in the company from the
chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.
Sam Walton

Good QR Code, Bad QR Code

 

QR Codes have been called the marketing tool that marketers love to hate. Why? Because so many seem to provide absolutely no value.

Perhaps you scan a QR Code and it doesn’t go anywhere at all. Perhaps you get an error or the page to which the code points doesn’t exist. Perhaps you see a QR Code on a product you are interested in, so you scan the code and end up at a manufacturer’s non-mobile website where you get lost in a maze of links so dense that you forget why you went there in the first place.

Does this mean that QR Codes are a waste of time? No. It means not enough thought was put into creating them.

When you are thinking about creating a QR Code, the first thing you should do is ask yourself, “What purpose do I want this code to serve? What do I want the person scanning it to get out of it?” If you don’t have a good answer, wait until you do.

A great example of QR Code use is Best Buy. When you enter a Best Buy store, all of the products have QR Codes. When scanned, the codes take you to products specs, customer reviews, and other information not available on the shelf talkers or product packaging that will help them make a purchase decision. The QR Code puts the information in the customer’s hands at the very time that they need it — as they are making the decision. That’s a QR Code used well.

Contrast that with a QR Code placed on a lawnmower that takes you to the manufacturer’s corporate site. Or a QR Code on a “house for sale” sign that takes you to the realtor’s entire inventory. Those are QR Codes used poorly. It’s not the QR Code that’s the problem. It’s the lack of thought behind it.

When creating QR Codes, think about the end use!

 

Jeff Lampert

Director of Marketing and Business Development

 

“If you don’t value your time, neither will others. Stop giving away your time and talents. Value what you know & start charging for it.”

Kim Garst

Reactivating Inactive Customers

Want more customers? Try reactivating customers who haven’t purchased from you in a while. These are people who have already shown an interest in your company and your products by purchasing from you in the past.  When looking to boost sales, they are a natural place to start.

There are two ways you can approach these customers.

First is to simply attempt to re-engage them with discounts, special offers, and surveys to find out whether they are still engaged with your brand at any level. If they are no longer purchasing from you, you want to find out why. You can use static re-engagement mailings, personalized re-engagement mailings, or personalized URLs for feedback and surveys.

Second is to use outside data resources to gain insight into inactive customer behavior and thereby increase your chances of re-engaging with them.

Let’s say you know that your inactive customer purchased from you 90 days ago, but before that, it was 240 days ago. You might also know the size, color, and item purchased. A list agency like Epsilon can often give you significant additional information on these customers. For example, it might tell you that this same customer purchased 35 days ago from a competitor, has purchased seven times in the past year with your competitors, spends an average of $150 with each order, and that his or her last purchase was 15 days ago.

That is tremendous insight that can help you understand how to re-engage with that customer again. In fact, Epsilon found that while response rates to rental lists averages 1.2%, response rates from house files averages 2.68%. It might take a little more work, but the return is far better.

So before looking outside for new customers, consider rekindling relationships with inactive customers. Use your existing data and additional third-party data to guide your messaging to re-engage those customers and get them purchasing from you over and over again.

 

Jeff Lampert

Director of Marketing and Business Development

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou