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Do you think all direct marketing companies are proficient in one-to-one printing? Think again. Direct marketing firms come in all shapes and sizes, specializing in everything from e-mail, to teleservices, to promotional items and print. In fact, because these companies understand the need for one-to-one communication and are set up to track results, they could be some of your best clients.
A great example comes from Trekk Cross-Media, which recently developed a working relationship with Novo 1, based in Waukesha, Wis., which ranks among the Top 10 U.S. direct marketing firms. Novo 1 provides integrated contact marketing solutions, from customer profiling and data enhancement, to direct mail and inbound and outbound teleservices, and wanted to prospect high-value clients.
Novo 1 wanted to broaden its customer base of 400 business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and non-profit organizations, but the sales cycle in this marketplace is long, and once customers are already working with a direct marketing firm, it is difficult to get them to switch. Novo 1 needed to get past traditional gatekeepers. To do this, it turned to Trekk Cross-Media.
A Night at the Movies
Trekk Cross-Media developed a program using a full arsenal of gatekeeper-busting strategies, starting with a personalized DVD storage box and a set of three great "team" movies.
The first week, Trekk mailed the first of the three movies in a personalized gift box, along with an individualized DVD holder and four-color letter. One week later, it sent another movie with a personalized reminder of what great teams can accomplish. The third and final week of the campaign, another great teams movie was delivered. Each contact provided salespeople with an opportunity to emphasize to each high-value prospect how Novo 1 could complete their team.
Prospects were hand-selected by the Novo 1 sales team based on their own lead lists and desired vertical markets. Pieces were personalized to each recipient, incorporating a prospect's name, company name, and type of services each salesperson felt would best fit his or her prospect's needs. Each piece also included the sales representative's contact information and signature.
The cost was about $75 per unit, not including mailing. Novo 1 considered the cost to be reasonable, especially considering the value of the potential sale, which are contracts worth hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars over the lifetime of the customer. It also fell within the traditional cost range of lumpy mail, which is $50–$100 once the premium, concept development, design, and production costs are taken into consideration. Costs could be amortized over large volumes, but the number of pieces in these campaigns is generally low.
Reaping Benefits
In the first six months of the promotion, Novo 1 sent 272 promotions at a total cost of about $15,000. Salespeople were able to make contact with 68 percent of their desired leads. Face-to-face meetings were scheduled with 41 percent of these executives, giving Novo 1 salespeople the opportunity to present 45 proposals.
Novo 1 tightly tracked the revenues generated from this promotion, and after one year, the campaign yielded 15 new clients, and generated more than $4 million in annualized revenue. That is an ROI of more than 250:1. In addition, it helped salespeople develop relationships with 19 more active prospects for a potential $11 million annual revenue.
The unusual elements of this campaign raise a question, however. How much of the power of this campaign was due to the lumpy mail, and how much was due to personalization? If you ask Trekk Cross-Media, this is unknowable. According to Trekk, it only began doing these types of projects once it had the capability to do personalization, and even if you were to compare to similar non-personalized campaigns, the variation in premium, vertical market, message, and many other factors makes such comparisons irrelevant.
Today, such campaigns are easier than ever. The lion's share of the cost is in the premium itself—the DVDs—and since these low-volume projects are almost always produced digitally, it is a no-brainer to add personalization. How much of a role personalization plays is really a moot point. To be effective, any program requires that the product, the offer, the timeliness, and the message, including personalization, work in a symbiotic fashion. It is hard, if not impossible, to tear the pieces apart. Nor is it necessary to try.
Heidi Tolliver-Nigro is an industry writer, an analyst specializing in digital workflow and technologies. Her e-mail address is htollvr@aol.com.
author: By Heidi Tolliver Nigro