Direct Mail
Direct
mail was predicted to take a backseat to the Internet in the late
90's. Typical postcard direct mail has fallen off in the last few
years; however targeted intelligent direct mail has risen from its
ashes.
An Internet
based company came to Select*Print to start a dynamic customer focused
direct mail campaign. The concept was simple. The Internet Company
solicited companies in different zip codes for ad space in a direct
mail campaign. Then they bought a mailing list of people moving to
the geographical area where the ad space had been purchased. The lists
were based on geographical location, members in the household, income,
and age bracket. When the people moving arrived in their new location
a direct mail package was waiting for them with coupons to local hardware
stores, retail outlets, insurance companies, and other local businesses.
Select*Print added a bar-code on each of the coupons so the companies
buying the ad space could track the results of the campaign.
Each
package that was mailed was different. The coupons were four up on
a page. If there were not enough companies in the area of the list
a default coupon for the Internet Company was substituted so each
page was full. Customers could receive from 1 to 4 pages of coupons,
plus an introductory cover letter. All of the different lists were
combined to provide the greatest postal discount.
The project
covered all 50 states. All the areas the direct mail went was saved
in a database. The Internet Company utilized this database to calculate
the percent success rate of the mailing campaign. The typical response
from any direct mail campaign is 4%. The targeted market was yielding
a response rate of 13%. As the campaign grew, so did the companies
buying ad space. By the end of the campaign over 120 companies had
participated in the program. Several companies opted to by color ad
inserts to be selectively inserted throughout the run of the program.
This
direct mail project yielded excellent results and provided the marketing
team with valuable information to decide for which areas to purchase
lists. The program started at 2,500 pieces per week and ended at 55,000
per week after 9 months. The key to the project was the use of bar-codes
to track the response rate. The bar-codes also tracked who was using
the coupons so a follow up mailing could be done in the future.
Implementation of this project took 6 weeks.
Click
the sample below:
