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19th May 2021
How can you make your data work harder to improve your response rates?
It has been estimated that the average person is exposed to between 6,000 to 10,000 advertisements per day (1), which means, as a business, your marketing has to work very hard to get your message heard. So how can you attract and hold people’s attention?
Technology has revolutionised everything we do, helping us to work smarter by allowing us to learn more about our customers and collate more accurate data about our potential clients.
Using quality data in your marketing will improve its effectiveness. According to surveys by the Data and Marketing Association (DMA), a standard direct mail campaign achieves an average response rate of around 2%. However, mailing campaigns that use personalisation increases this greatly to 6%.
Obviously, an increased response rate is great, but it’s not just the response rate alone that determines the success of a campaign - but also its return on investment (ROI). And when you take into account the total campaign cost and income generated per response, this can give you an excellent ROI.
Compared to a standard direct mail campaign, narrowly targeting certain demographics with highly personalised elements and offers on your marketing literature makes the campaign more relevant and valuable to the customer, leading to a higher response. The smaller-volume mail campaign increases the ROI due to lower postage and printing costs.
Adding a person’s name and full colour in the direct mail can increase response by 135% (2). Adding a person’s name, full colour and more sophisticated database information can increase the response rate by up to 500% vs not doing any of these things (3). This personalisation, or variable data printing, works by pulling dynamically-generated headlines, addresses, personal names, offers, graphics, or images from a file and inserting them onto a static mail design or template.
This variable data is triggered by your data – you can set rules or parameters which determines what should be printed based on the information.
For example, you can add in a graphic of a map or local landmark based on a postcode, name the contact’s nearest store or office, or promote a special offer based on income or buying history.
Personalised data points can include:
• Customer name
• Address
• Gender
• Age
• Marital status
• Lifestage
• Purchase history
• Income
• Socio-ecomonic group
• Purchasing appetite
A combination of these elements printed on to a direct mail piece can capture attention, create a feeling of that your business knows and understands them - and overall generate a greater response.
Successful campaigns using variable data printing require trustworthy and up-to-date data. Bad data can not only kill a campaign, but it can also come with high costs.
The key to a successful personalised campaign is the quality of the data. If you are using in-house data, makes sure the information is correct and the information is up to date.
If you are purchasing data, make sure this is from a reputable supplier who is GDPR compliant and preferably a member of the DMA.
Always check bought in data for any overlap of your existing customer database.
Nearly every component of a direct mail piece can be personalised from headlines and the full body copy to images and offers. And personalisation isn’t just for the intro letters, it can be done on all types of marketing literature.
Great examples are ideas such as tailoring the image on a postcard based on your data – either location, purchase history or lifestage, or using your client’s favourite colour or pet in a brochure. The possibilities are endless.
At Longridge, we are print specialists with huge knowledge and experience in producing personalised Direct Mail. We can advise you on how get the most out of your direct mail campaigns by using data and how to get the best returns.
Talk to us today about we can help your business bring your brand to life.
Sources:
1. Estimated by the market research firm Yankelovich
2. Canon Solutions America
3. DMA
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