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Marry Direct Mail and Online with “Pre-Conversions”
By Robert "Dude" Spellings, Jr. | June 19, 2009
There has been alot of talk about combining online marketing and direct mail, but execution has been more difficult than expected. Combining the two marketing channels has been difficult because of the inherent technology differences in traditional direct mail versus newer and more technological online solutions.
Online marketing is very attractive because it is usually accompanied by really effective measurement tools that can tell you whether or not your campaign is actually working (ie: are people really opening my emails and clicking on the links?). The unrealized desire among marketers has been to figure out a way to capture the same kinds of metrics for direct mail as are available for email and online channels.
This is where the idea of “pre-conversions” comes in. What is a “pre-conversion”? Its just a term that I am using to convey the idea that some recipients of marketing messages might interested in your message but may not actually convert. Traditionally, this interest never has been captured and the potential sales are lost.
Let me explain by example. Lets say you receive a direct mail piece and it happens to be for something that you are very interested in. So you set the direct mail piece aside (because, like everyone, you are busy) and intend to get to it whenever you have time. The next time that you go through the stack on your desk, you see the direct mail piece and decide to call or whatever, but to your disappointment, you see that the offer has already expired, so instead of calling, you toss the postcard in the round file.
In the above example, you clearly had interest, but you didn’t convert. The concept of a “pre-convert” is that you want to capture the interest that recipients have and measure it, even if they don’t convert. To capture this interest, I suggest imposing an intervening step prior to conversion that does capture the recipient’s interest without making the user feel like they are committing to anything. For example, on your direct mail piece, require that the user “activate” the offer by simply going to a PURL. Users are more likely to do something simple like going to a webpage, than they are actually going through an entire purchase/conversion process. Once they “pre-convert” like this, you now know that they are interested and you can be sure to keep them on your radar. Without the pre-conversion step, you have no way of tracking this kind of interest.
This kind of engagement also helps make your direct mail effort better by eliminating some of the main pitfalls people run into with direct mail:
- Having an attractive offer – Believe it or not, many people send out direct mail without an attractive offer. Having a pre-conversion step built in to your direct mail piece will help reinforce why you are sending the direct mail campaign in the first place. Why would anyone convert if the offer isn’t very good? Forcing yourself to think about enticing the user to “pre-convert” will help eliminate this pitfall.
- Effective Tracking – its very difficult to effectively track direct mail, but using online tools to “pre-convert” customers helps solve this problem and can tell you all kinds of things about your direct mail efforts. You can even combine a/b split testing to refine your artwork, your offer, etc. The pre-conversion will help you create a better campaign.
There are many ways to combine online and traditional direct marketing. This is just one idea. As online marketing matures, there will be more ideas out there. If you have an idea that is working in your industry, please let everyone know by posting a comment or dropping us an email.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Very interesting – I like the idea of the “pre-conversion” and think it is something that should be considered for both online and direct marketing.