Whether or not you attended this year’s Marketing Innovation & Discovery Summit, we thought it would be worthwhile to share one of our own integrated marketing stories; a case study of QuantumDigital’s efforts to drive attendance for the event.
As with any campaign, there are successes and improvements that could be made. Our hope is that you consider our successes and lessons learned when planning your next campaign.
Whether you are an invitation recipient or a valued reader of The Direct Marketing Voice, we’d love your comments regarding which campaign tactic(s) grabbed your attention.
.
OBJECTIVES:
QuantumDigital’s Marketing Innovation & Discovery Summit is an invitation-only, intimate gathering of executive leaders from top agencies and world-recognized retail brands. The purpose of the event is to educate, inform, and share ideas that will help agencies grow business amidst a rapidly evolving direct marketing landscape. Read More »
Posté par Luis Paez le April 28, 2010 – 2:13 pm
There’s an interesting consensus as society settles into
understanding what a personalized experience means. It means we’re creating a “world” (i.e. consumer experience) that’s tailored to you.
In the online ad space, one marketing agency, Q Interactive , conducted a study regarding online ads that were served up based on behavioral data:
Women’s Channel, an agency that researches online trends among females, reported that 65 percent of its participants were intrigued by the system of behavioral marketing. They were especially interested in how the ads seemed to “know” what they wanted. A sizeable number of them — 88 percent — said that they wanted more tailored ads served online. (imediaconnection.com)
This study is relevant to offline marketing in that it focuses on the question of “how did you like the experience” – when it comes to personalizing an experience for a recipient / web user. The women who were part of this survey found, on the whole, that advertising that is tailored to them as an individual, creates a better experience. It implies that the marketer has done the legwork necessary to intelligently recommend a product, instead of past approaches of simply yelling out a feature or benefit to anyone within earshot (or on a mailing list… or on a webpage…).
To some extent the personalization and relevance that some websites have (think facebook’s recommendations or personalized homepages like alltop) have shown us how useful this technology can be – and now offline technology like PURLs and demographic selects will translate a similar experience through the mail. True this is but one study, but I think if you focus on the ad experience, we’ll find it to be a better world when even your dinner menu arrives personalized.
Eric Cosway talks about various techniques in using personalized direct mail to drive customers to a company’s online presence, including Facebook and Twitter, to engage them in an ongoing dialogue and track the results.
Eric Cosway, CMO of QuantumDigital, talks about this year’s DMA conference and optimizing direct mail.
Posté par Luis Paez le August 19, 2009 – 1:06 pm
I have to say, this is a clever idea. As a campaign to promote the ad agency Rapp, and their new name/image, Rapp sent out this interesting piece which consisted of a “box” which contained a button. That button, once you pushed it down, rubber stamped the recipient’s name onto the top of the letter. Oh, wait, I didn’t tell you… The “box” unfolds into a letter, which expresses their desire for their clients to be “personally involved” with the image. The reason that I am writing a blog post about this, is that it’s clever, but I think it could have been more clever in the right context. This campaign made no mention of the topic of personalization and variable data… but it should have.
Imagine how effective this campaign would have been if the goal was to explain the idea of personalization (and variable data) and how “it doesn’t have to be this hard”. It probably cost a bundle per piece especially with creating rubber stamps with all the recipients’ names on them, but could get across the notion that if a company is not tailoring their letters, direct mail, or any one -to-one printed collateral – as well as emails – that they really haven’t opened their eyes as to how easy it is to implement this type of communication. Looking at QuantumDigital’s platform, we make basic “address field” personalization available to all customers as part of our normal cost of doing business, but more advanced technology (right now you have to call in to request this) would create a personalized mailing which recognizes a recipients’ lifestyle, ethnic group – or maybe just their name in different places on the piece – has been setup for clients in the past.
So in essence, this is a great piece and concept, but has it’s limits because of the high cost per piece and the limited novelty factor. But if you’re in love with rubber stamps with every mailing, I’m not going to stop you 
