Being proponents of insightful (and tactical) personalization, we had been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to include a personalized marketing piece inside a magazine.

To help get the ball rolling on this concept, we coordinated the preparation of some suitable mock-ups that we provided to one of our associates, who promotes advertising for an agricultural publication (for which we provide mail preparation services). We were delighted when one of their advertisers decided that they were not only interested in doing a personalized postcard, but they also wanted it to be placed in a specific spot on top of their display ad within the magazine. What an awesome combination!

Then the fun began. The first step was to work with the client (the owner of the publication) to ensure that all of the greeting names were acceptable. We didn’t want anything like “Hey D.” or Hey ___” cropping up. The client did a splendid job in this area.

Next, we worked with the advertiser, taking their design and getting a custom die made for the postcard. We also helped prepare the bleed areas on the artwork, which would be necessary when the card went to print.

Once the final weights were checked, we ran the LCP (Letter Carrier Presort) postal sort and did the set up on the personalized postcard, which included a friendly greeting and a subtle reference to the community in which the recipient lived. We also included an unobtrusive code that our plant staff would use to match the personalized cards and the mailing addresses. Once the setup was done, the postcards were printed in LCP sort order to match the magazines.

For something this sophisticated, the assembly was done by hand. Each card was matched to the name and code on the magazine and the book was opened to the correct page, where the personalized die cut card was applied on top of the display ad using a glue dot.

How was the response? Well, we like to tell the story, below. But first, it’s important to note that there was a split, and the custom cards went to wheat producers only. Thus, not everyone receiving the magazine would have received a personalized card.

Anyway, one of the recipients called the advertiser to say he felt really special. He said, “I opened the magazine and there was my name. It said Hey Abe [not his real name]. That made me feel special. And, my neighbour, who gets the same magazine, didn’t get one of these cards and that made me feel even more special.”

For those that might be interested, here are some sample photos of the final piece (key areas of personalization underlined in red):

After having talked extensively about this kind of thing, we were incredibly pleased to have been a part of this groundbreaking promotion. From what we understand the response was good and it has caught the attention of a few other advertisers as well.

Now, we’re looking to do more innovative projects in which we can help advertisers connect in insightful ways with their customers and prospects. If you have a unique or interesting idea or project, please feel free to contact us. We’d love to help you bring it to fruition!

That being said, however, we recently made an interesting adjustment to our own website, which could be of great interest to anyone interested in the broader scope of direct marketing. In this article, we would like to share what we did, and consider how similar techniques could be used to support your marketing efforts.

On the home page of our site, we have a “slideshow” window, through which we rotate a series of slides in order to promote different services or parts of the website. Until very recently, these slides were entirely static. That is to say that they were simple, unchanging images that were simply fetched from the server.

One of these slides was specifically designed to promote this very blog. However, through some thinking and discussion, we determined that it would be extremely cool if we could somehow have the title of the most recent blog entry appear on that slide. As the primary designer and developer of the site, it fell to me to determine if there might actually be a way of doing this.

It turns out there was, and so we implemented the functionality. If you’re interested in seeing it in action, just hop on over to our home page. If you’re really interested and would like to know how I did it, I’ve written about the process in another article.

As interesting as this is, though, the point of this article is not just to demonstrate something that we did, but to point to it as an example of a potentially powerful marketing technique to use on your websites. By its very nature, dynamic content can include a very wide range of different values, derived from a number of sources. Depending on the nature of your website, and the extent of your data, there can be a variety of different ways that you could potentially use the concept of dynamic content to beef up your online marketing efforts.

One such method that we at Highland Marketing get really excited about is the powerful fusion of direct mail and the web, through concepts such as a web driver card.

Consider that any addressed direct mail campaign is fundamentally driven by data. Even if you only have basic name and address information, this can be a powerful tool for generating dynamic, personalized content, both in mailer itself and on the web!

Have you ever been to a website where the URL (web address) looks something like this?

http://www.yoursite.com/dmpromo.php?id=1357863

Notice the question mark? Everything after that is what we web geeks like to call the query string. It’s a method of passing unique information directly to a page, and once we have that information, we can do all sorts of cool and interesting things with it.

For example, in the URL above, the data we pass to the page is an ID number. If we have a database of individuals available online, we could very simply use the number to retrieve an entire array of information about a particular customer, including name and address data. Then we could use the individual’s name to tastefully personalize a landing page.

We could also use cookies to save this information for further retrieval as the user navigates deeper into the site, or comes back later. Oh, and before anyone gets all nervous, cookies are not a bad thing and cannot install viruses on your machine or the machines of your clients. They are simply a way for websites to store user-specific information on your computer, for subsequent retrieval at a later date. Check out this article for more information.

Anyhow, by passing user information to cookies, we could add further personalized messages as the user continues to navigate through the site. We could also fetch address data to auto complete relevant forms, such as those on the  contact page, or the checkout of an eCommerce store.

Of course, if your customer database contains more than just simple name and address data, you can take this dynamic content concept even further! Suppose that you had a slider window like ours one the front page of your site and customer purchase history on your database. You could then use the customer ID in the query string to retrieve that purchase history and then select display slides that are most relevant to the buying patterns of that particular customer!

This could take multiple forms too. It could be just a matter of presenting different products that your data suggests a user might be interested in. Alternatively, you could also present the same product in different ways. A business man and a high school student might both be interested in the same laptop computer, but their reasoning is likely to be completely different. If you can distinguish between them, then you can use dynamic content to help make your advertisements appeal specifically to this reasoning!

Loyal readers will note that we’ve discussed these types of possibilities before in an article titled “Personalization and Direct Targeting”. The particular scope of that post had to do mostly with direct mail, but by building a connection between mail and a website, these same concepts could easily be ported the the digital world, to help further marketing efforts and drive sales.

Whether online or in the mail, effective marketing is all about getting the right message to the right people at the right time! If we can do anything to help you with this key marketing function, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We hope that every direct marketing campaign that we work on will be enormously successful. To this end, we try to share tips and suggestions with clients whenever we can. What we plan to look at today is based on marketing fundamentals and actual results. It may appear self-serving in one sense, but we will be covering a key ingredient for success that is often overlooked, frequently resulting in poorer overall results.

I can’t count the number of times that I have seen the Blinds To Go commercial where Antoine keeps interrupting the speaker. Can’t say that it’s my favourite commercial, but I sure won’t forget it.

No business likes to spend more money then they have to, and I expect that Blinds To Go is no exception. So then, why are there so many repetitions of the same commercial? Well, I think we all know the answer. It’s so you will remember them the next time that you are in the market for blinds. Yes, I have gone to Blinds To Go when looking for blinds and, if you have one of their stores in your region, it’s likely that you have as well.

Repetition is critically important in any type of advertising, and direct marketing is no exception. Interestingly, when we work with seasoned marketers and advertising agencies on unaddressed campaigns, they will often mail the same (or similar) piece three times into the same target area. This is not simply to line the pockets of Canada Post, printers and mail service providers. It is to ensure that the message is received – and that it sticks.

We also see a lot of one-shot wonders, where a mailer sends out a single “vanilla” piece expecting that the phones will ring off the hook. I liken these mailings to the one-hit wonders in golf. This is where we tee up a new ball and swing blindly in hopes that we have crushed it 300 yards, only to pop it up or slice it into some nearby corn field.

Assuming that an advertising piece gets attention, generates interest, creates desire and has a call to action, it should generate responses after a few repetitions. There is no doubt that some extraordinary pieces with highly desired products or services and compelling offers may work with fewer or even perhaps a single drop, but as noted above, experience shows that repetition is a key factor in virtually all types of advertising.

So, if you’ve tried a single mail drop that didn’t seem to work, consider trying something different next time. Rather than doing a single drop of say 9,000 pieces, why not try 3 drops of 3,000 pieces to the same audience, at two or three week intervals. Provided your message combines the key ingredients noted above, you might be very surprised at the increased response rates.

We wish you great success with your fall direct marketing campaigns. If we can help in any way, we would welcome the opportunity to chat with you.

This kind of measurement is certainly important, but I think that sometimes our approach to ROI can be somewhat limited. When talking with people about direct marketing, one of the things that we hear far too often is this:

Direct mail? Yeah I tried that once. It didn’t really work.

There is an obvious issue with this statement, and it has to do primarily with frequency. Direct mail isn’t something that you can really try just once. In the vast majority of cases, it requires consistent repetition to really start delivering results and generating leads. But that’s a different discussion altogether.

What I find even more interesting in this statement is that the willingness to try direct marketing only once suggests a certain impatience with the whole process. Given this, I wonder if that same impatience comes to bear when measuring the campaign ROI? If it does, they may not be seeing the whole picture.

Allow me to illustrate what I mean with a real life example.

Last year, we did a relatively small internal mailing to a very specific target market, in an effort to promote our services. The mailer featured a unique Roundcard design, intentionally crafted to appeal to this specific market. It was also accompanied by some additional literature, and created a nice, attractive package.

After going out, the initial response to the mailing was somewhat lower than we had originally hoped. Of course, it’s always somewhat disheartening when this happens, but one of the calls that we did receive turned out to be very important, though we didn’t necessarily realize it at the time.

The individual who contacted us had received our piece and was interested in doing a mailing of their own. So, we worked together with them, helping them through a number of the critical stages for their project development. We ultimately saw the mailing through to a satisfactory conclusion, sent it out the door and were generally pleased with the results that the client achieved through the project.

We were certainly happy to have the new client, but the process didn’t strike us as all that extraordinary. It was just a matter of us doing what we do best.

As it turned out, though, this new client was actually one branch of a much larger organization (something we were actually unaware of). After the initial mailing went out, our name was passed up the chain of management, and sometime later we got another phone call from the larger organization requesting a meeting. As a direct result, we ended up being involved in several more projects for some of the organization’s other branches.

Moreover, through these other projects, we were introduced to one of the organization’s other vendors, who specialized in marketing within a particular niche. We worked closely with this vendor on one particular project, and very much enjoyed the relationship, which continued to grow and evolve, even once the initial projects had been completed. This has, in turn, resulted in further opportunities.

All that being said, we can now look back and actually trace a wide range of projects that have come our way as a direct result of that original promotion. Plus, we are confident that the relationships that we have established will continue to grow, resulting in more work down the road.

When we combine all of that together, the long term ROI of our initial mailing actually ends up looking a lot better than it may have initially appeared. It was just a matter of being patient and understanding that the highest levels of ROI can often take some time to fully manifest.

Of course, I recognize that some level of immediate ROI is desirable, as businesses want to at least break even over the short term and recover the money that they spent on marketing. If we’re not getting at least some level of initial return, it can be difficult to not feel discouraged, or tentative about launching into any further direct marketing efforts.

As I mentioned above, however, a lot of direct marketing takes both time and repetition to really establish a viable foothold. I cannot help but wonder if some marketers are not ultimately missing out on incredible opportunities because of their own impatience, and a failure to fully recognize the value and importance of long term ROI.

What about you? How do you track your ROI? Do you focus more on immediate results or do you continue to track it over the long term?

I would like to conclude with one more story that Dave often tells (with names and details removed, of course). As the story goes, there was a salesman/marketer working for a company who sold very expensive products to very large organizations. This salesman took it upon himself to mail out very high end marketing packages to about 250 prospects. Weeks and months went by without a single call, and his boss was starting to give him a bit of a hard time.

Then, after six months, one very large new client came calling as a direct result of the mailer, and the salesman’s company closed the single largest contract that they had ever landed. How’s that for long term ROI?

First, it occurred to me that there is a distinct difference between personalization and what I would call variable targeting. Personalization involves taking bits of user specific information and dropping them into either the copy or the graphics of the piece. This could be a first name, a company name or a unique customer number. The classic personalized letter is a perfect example of this.

Variable targeting is somewhat different. Instead of inserting specific recipient information within the piece itself, this technique uses that information to group people into manageable groups, based on a certain demographics. Unique and relevant content can then be used for each of the groups.

For instance, here are three different cards from our variable imaging demo.

The first is sent to Sam, whose birthday is in February. The second is sent to Amy, whose birthday is in June. The third is sent to Greg, whose birthday is in October. In each case, the birthstone of the specific month is displayed on the card, and referenced within the copy. So, when Sam, Amy and Greg get their cards, they will each see their own birthstone featured prominently.

Clearly, variable targeting is a powerful technique, allowing you to truly craft and hone your message for different types of recipients. It is interesting to note, however, that most of those recipients will never even notice that there is anything variable at all. To continue the example from our variable imaging demo, if a fourth card were generated for Nicole, whose birthday is also in February, that card would look like this:

Other than the personalization of the first name, this card looks identical to Sam’s card (with the same gemstone), because they are both part of the same group (born in February). So, other than the inclusion of their name within the copy, there is really nothing to indicate to the recipient that there is anything all that targeted about the card.

At first, this can seem disheartening. After all, if you’ve gone to all the trouble of implementing variable targeting techniques, don’t you want people to take notice? Don’t you want them to sit up and say: hey this is really cool!

Not at all.

This assertion comes from my second realization, which is that personalization should be obvious and variable targeting should be invisible.

I think that the first part is simply inevitable. When you use somebody’s name or company name in the salutation or body of a letter (or any other marketing materials), there’s a very good chance that they are going to take notice. This is a good thing, since it helps to build a connection, and shows the recipient that they are more than just a number or a faceless customer to you.

Variable targeting is much more subtle, however. Through variable text and graphics, you are crafting a message targeted directly to the recipient, based on specific information that you have about them. However, you don’t want the message to appear targeted. Consider something we wrote within some of the commentary within the variable copy demo:

You don’t want to alienate the customer by revealing everything you know about them. Rather, you want to use that information to craft copy which will get your customers to think: “Hey, I can relate to that.”Variable Copy Demo

The same is also true of variable imaging. Whatever techniques you are using to direct your message to your recipients, they should blend seamlessly with the rest of your piece. This will help your piece maintain a natural continuity and prevent it from becoming too overbearing for your customers.

Remember, the purpose of direct mail is to help make sales, solicit donations or generate leads. To do this, you first have to build a connection with your prospect or client. Personalization and variable targeting are great tools to help you achieve this, as long as they are well implemented, with a proper balance.

Generally speaking, I think that sticking to this one simple rule will help to maintain that balance: keep your personalization visible and your variable targeting invisible.

After all, issues like timing can be critically important. Clients and prospects need time to react. For example, decisions to purchase corporate seasonal greeting cards will usually have been made by mid-November, therefore, efforts to promote them in early December will usually be in vain. On the other side of the coin, if you promote an event, sale or service too early the piece may be misplaced or forgotten long before the event occurs or the service may be required. Consider how ineffective promoting tax preparation services might be in mid-June.

So, is there any value at all in pieces that arrive a little too late or a little too early (good marketing in the wrong place)? I think so, especially in the case of those that may arrive early. Why? Well, first off, all marketing can help to build brand recognition. Secondly, if response levels are lower than anticipated on a piece that went out early, there can still be opportunity for a follow-up mailing or promotion, and, in many cases, that is what might be needed to start the orders coming in. There is value in repetition!

We’ve discussed the importance of repetition before, too, in our post Please Don’t Shoot the Designer. As we noted there, all too often people perceive that some form of marketing is not working because they only tried it once. The same is also true of timing. Just because an ad or mailing piece doesn’t work at one time doesn’t mean that the same piece won’t work wonders at a different time.

After all, a strong middle C note is a beautiful sound, unless everyone else is playing the key of D. Then it just sounds discordant. But, it’s not because there is anything wrong with the note itself. It is simply played out of place.

Of course, looking back to high school, I must say that some of the sounds that emerged from the various instruments could never be referred to as actual notes. It seems that all high school musicians have an innate ability to create absurd sounds with instruments that exceed the wildest expectations of their designers and manufacturers. Again, we can say the same in marketing, where some dreadful ads break all the rules and fail miserably. Unfortunately, we’ve seen our fair share of these over the years.

Interestingly, though, some break all the rules and are very successful.

Granted, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, but I recall a Valentines Day ad for a major furniture store with the slogan “There’s nothin’ says lovin’ like a brand new oven” that made me cringe. So, was the ad a bad ad? I don’t see how it could have been, because I have never forgotten it. That was how the company chose to advertise and it seems to have worked for them.

Part of the effectiveness is that they created something memorable – even if the memory is not necessarily one that I enjoy. In doing so, they have managed to cement a certain level of brand awareness, which in and of itself is evidence of effective marketing.

At the end of the day, though, marketing is the sum total of all that we do, not just our advertising. To wrap things up, I would like to take a minute to go back to my initial concept and consider the effect of bad press, and how it can (potentially) be overcome. I think that both President Clinton and Tiger Woods are prime examples of this. Even though he was facing possible impeachment, President Clinton’s legacy has overshadowed his “troubled” times and it seems very likely that Tiger Wood’s incredible talent and charisma will outweigh his challenges of today.

So, it appears that over time, a tarnished image can be overcome by major accomplishments and unparalleled excellence. I am sure that the executives at Toyota are banking on this and remain hopeful that today’s problems (or bad notes) will be all but forgotten a few years down the road. Additionally, their positive actions can be become a contributing factor in actually turning bad press into good press.

In this vast landscape of marketing, then, there may be some notes (more like tweets, today) in the wrong places, some great ads and some dreadful ads. There is no doubt that we all want our advertising to be well received, but should we err, let us take heart in the understanding that even the right message at the wrong time is often better than no message at all.

In reality, if you build something that offers value and if people know about it, they will come to it or use it and it will likely be successful. However, if they do not know about it, how can success be realized?

This is very often the case with web sites, which can be passive unless some type of pro-active action is taken to inform people about the site. Then, if visitors really like your site, you might also enjoy additional exposure though viral marketing (friends telling friends).

In retail we often hear “location, location, location” as being the most important aspect of success. Why? Simply because in high traffic areas, people can usually just look at your storefront to see what you do. But, of course, the same cannot be said for many web sites or blogs for that matter, as people do not drive by them or walk by them in quite the same way. So, as has been the case for thousands of years, the key lies in promotion.

As we are in the direct marketing business, we have an inherent bias towards conventional, direct mail, and postcards are a great way to drive people to a web site. However, there are many other things you can do. You can also try banner ads, press releases, classified ads, seminars, contests, teleconferences, reciprocal links, TV, radio etc. or you can try these in various combinations. The key, though is that to generate interest, you usually must do something.

A friend of mine once said, ‘”Good ideas are a dime a dozen, but it takes good planning to make them work.” If you have a great web site without the traffic that you would like to see, maybe it’s the marketing component that is lacking from your overall plan. A modest investment in this area might just be the cure that you are looking for.

In closing, I do want to recognize the magic in the extraordinary movie Field of Dreams, and how the phrase “If you build it, they will come” fit the theme perfectly. But, in reality, I think it might best to rephrase this somewhat and say, “If you build it and it’s good, they will come – if you help them to find it.”

To be quite honest, this is something that we hear this from time to time, and sometimes it can be a tough mindset to overcome.

Readers directly involved in marketing will recognize that oh-so-problematic word “once” and begin formulating their counter argument that most advertising requires some repetition. Unless you’re giving away money, a single mailing piece or advertisement of any type usually does little to attract new customers. It takes time and repeated exposure for an advertising campaign to become truly effective.

Of course, it’s important to note that the quality of the piece itself plays a large role, regardless of the number of repetitions. Effectiveness can also vary depending on whether the advertisement is for an existing company introducing a new product or for a new company introducing its products or services. If brand recognition is already present through a known company, it is much easier.

So, how many times do you have to mail to be effective? Well, if you were opening a new store or office, unless your initial offer was spectacular (perhaps filled with loss leaders), I would think that you would need at least one initial mailing, combined with 1 to 2 follow-up mailings. I recall attending a seminar a few years back on newspaper advertising and they maintained that it could take 7 – 8 placements to start receiving calls. Given that the seminar was run by a local newspaper and that direct mail stands on its own (and is not buried somewhere on page 11), I honestly believe that you can get away with far fewer repetitions, as noted above.

Like the title suggests, I don’t think that you should shoot the designer or the postal service if a single mailing does not bring the results that you are looking for. However, design and creative do play a large role in the overall success. Who isn’t grabbed immediately by the Knorr Sidekicks commercial featuring sad little “Salty”, walking away from home as streams of salt tears pour out of his eyes?

Pure genius! I realize that this is a television commercial, but the image of Salty in the corner of a direct mail piece would have been very powerful as well.

So, there is no doubt that good creative is extremely important, but if you are introducing a new business venture or trying to make more people aware of an existing business, you are likely going to need a few mailings to be successful. Otherwise, you might as well keep your money in your pocket.

In closing, we would like to reiterate that you shouldn’t shoot your creative team if your direct mail doesn’t work with one drop. We can confidently say that direct mail does work, as is evidenced by the many repeat clients that we have (an interesting word, “repeat”). Lastly, we use direct mail ourselves to not only attract new business, but to showcase different types of mailers. This results a win-win situation that works well for us and our clients.

As always, if there are any questions regarding this post, please do no hesitate to give us a call!