The Direct Marketing Voice

Tag Archives: postcard

Direct Mail Strategy: Bed Bath & Beyond’s Missed Marketing Opportunities

Posté par Cynthia Fedor le January 18, 2011 – 10:32 pm

Every month I see a Bed Bath & Beyond direct mail postcard land in my mailbox. I’ll glance at it for a second, flipping the card from front to back, before tossing it in the trash. Like many direct mail recipients, I try to make a snap decision as to whether a particular piece of mail is important or relevant to me and my needs. And, in looking at the most recent Bed Bath & Beyond postcard delivered to me, all I could see was a cluster of marketing messages mixed with multiple calls to action.

As a marketer, I view that postcard as nothing more than a wasted opportunity and an inefficient use of marketing dollars. There is hope, however, for Bed Bath & Beyond or any company, to turn a direct mail mess into a clear, concise, relevant, and cost-effective marketing communications piece.

Deconstructing Bed Bath & Beyond Postcards

Upon review of their postcard, I noticed several missed opportunities to:

provide relevant content
track the performance of individual promotions
collect key data that could aid in refining future messages
or to generate additional revenue via co-marketing

Here’s a breakdown of some issues to overcome along with a few recommendations for improvement.

Problems: Message Overload, Cluttered Design, No Personalization, No Tracking

I was able to count up to five action requests and three other marketing messages. That’s eight things for the consumer to process—all on one postcard! Just about all of them lacked relevancy to me, a past customer, or a way to track performance.

Direct mail postcard tips

Message #1: Subscribe to email list or tell a friend to subscribe

The URL to the email registration page is not personalized or uniquely matched with the recipient’s physical mailing address. Once on the registration page, consumers are required to type in their mailing address in order to join the email subscription list. This is a negative because the more information required, the less likely consumers are to complete the form.

Recommendation: Use QR codes or PURLs along with unique key codes to lead recipients to a simple sign-up form. The data included in the PURLs or QR codes can be used to pre-populate form fields, reducing the actions required to subscribe. Additionally, by using these technologies, marketers will be able to measure traffic to the form from the postcard even if the consumer does not follow through with subscribing to the email list.

Message #2: Register for and/or purchase from the Bridal & Gift Registry

This call to action is randomly placed on the postcard and lacks any mechanism to track registrations or purchases made in response to the card.

Recommendation: Consider limiting the use of this call to action, including it only on mail pieces intended to drive bridal registrations and purchases. Use a PURL to drive traffic to more information online.

Message #3: Go online to opt-out from receiving future postcard mailings

It’s great that Bed Bath & Beyond is helping to reduce waste by following the DMA’s recommendation to provide a way for consumers to opt-out of future postcard mailings. However, the actual page online where one can opt out is cluttered and confusing.

Recommendation: Direct recipients to a simple landing page that makes it easy for them to complete an action.

Message #4: Go online or call to find locations nearest you

New technological advances in variable data printing allow marketers to include content on printed collateral that is unique to each recipient… like a map of the nearest store location.

Recommendation: Provide a unique QR code or SMS text marketing element on printed postcards enabling consumers to have driving directions to the nearest store location delivered to their mobile device. It’s trackable and convenient.

Message #5: Bring coupon into physical location to redeem one of two offers

This staple offer for Bed Bath & Beyond is, at this point, integrated into their business model. But, they’re missing an opportunity to potentially develop an auxiliary revenue stream by working with a supplier to feature a product on which the consumer can use their coupon. Additionally, a colorful image of a product could be useful in capturing the recipient’s attention and getting them interested in seeing what other products the store has to offer.

Recommendation: Feature a product or two on the postcard and include a QR code that enables the consumer to make a purchase instantly via their mobile phone.

Message #6: Gift cards available

In my opinion, this is a misplaced message that can confuse or frustrate consumers. Including the message so prominently on this postcard implies that the discount offer may be used to purchase gift cards. If consumers read the lengthy terms of the offer, they’ll discover that “the discount cannot be applied to gift cards…”

Recommendation: Don’t include this message on the card.

Message #7: Competitor’s coupons are accepted

This is a great message to feature. It’s just misplaced.

Recommendation: Reconsider the placement and font treatment.

Message #8: Price-match guarantee

This is also a great message to feature. Coupled with the above message, however, and displayed in a bold white font against a black background, the two messages become a big block of blah.

Recommendation: Reconsider the placement and font treatment.

Some may argue that nothing is wrong. Some may note that the retailer has been using postcards and discount promotions in this way for years; therefore, there is some evidence that it’s working. I’ll respond by saying, without any tracking capabilities other than scanning the card when consumers bring it into the physical store location, it’s impossible for Bed Bath & Beyond to truly understand the cost per acquisition or per promotion. To me, and many marketers out there, that’s evidence of marketing dollars going down the drain.

Watch this quick, 3-minute video to see how marketing agencies can blend digital technologies with direct mail and print to track campaign elements, collect valuable data and generate ROI metrics.

The Worst Direct Mail Postcard?

Posté par Luis Paez le December 3, 2009 – 12:39 pm

dans Direct Mail Marketing, Small Business Marketing

I am going to use a postcard that my wife received in the mail as an example that might be good to share with a wider audience. I typically want to support small hispanic-owned businesses, so in this case I’m going to hide easily identifyable information to protect their identity. There are two main reasons to use them as an example of “what not to do”: First, they make many of the common mistakes that small business marketers make when embarking on a direct mail campaign. Second, this postcard is in spanish – enabling most of you who don’t speak spanish to focus on the postcard design elements, indicia, & miscellaneous mistakes that can be made.

With that as a caveat, take a look at these images. I am showing the image side (non-address) first, because that’s the first image that I saw when I picked up the piece.

image-side

Image Quality – This image in the center of the screen is extremely confusing. The main image of a promotion postcard should get across very quickly what the problem/proposition/offer is, however this image suffers because of the low quality creation. The washed out image is so poor that I don’t think any modern printer could have possibly done this. My guess is that this piece was done in a local copy-mat using a run-of-the-mill black and white copier and colored copier paper. When and if this business ever prints their postcards in a professional facility, we may see the image be relevant to the overall message, but right now it just confuses a recipient and really hurts the eyes.

Call to Action Size & Position- The words that are underlined is the “call to action” (trust me). It offers a discount if one brings in the postcard on their next visit before the expiration date listed. A possible improvement is to highlight this call to action in a more dramatic way by enlarging the font and overlaying it on the image. Simple and low-cost tools like Microsoft Publisher allow anyone regardless of budget to do this.

Missing handwritten information – Many people like to bulk print a postcard – meaning print 2,000 postcards at once to save on printing costs, and then send out batches every few weeks by hand. This strategy is fine, but if you do this, remember to fill in the blanks. On this card, in the lower right hand corner, the expiration date is missing. Once again, a common mistake. To eliminate it, create a process checklist, or simply hard-code an expiration date and do smaller batches of postcard printing.

Paper type – Usually this isn’t a big deal with most professional printers out there. It’s really only the local copy shops that still enable businesses to make this mistake. I don’t know if you can tell by the photo, but the quality and color of this paper is similar to the type used by 2nd graders, and is extremely low quality. It’s an obvious attempt at color on a shoestring and in my opinion subtracts from the professionalism of this company’s brand. If you’re on a budget consider just going with plain white paper – there are heavier card stocks available that have a gloss to them. A creative graphic designer can come up with designs that would be effective even on pieces that are strictly black and white.

Color - Having said that it is possible to create a compelling piece in black and white, let me also emphasize that it’s much easier to use existing photos & images if you print the postcard in full color. Less need for amazing bursts of creativity

address-side

Return address placement - the USPS location stamp overlaps the return address. This could be easily fixed on future postcards. This is a good reason to send yourself a postcard or “seed yourself” so you can see what your recipients see, tweak your design, and improve your piece.

Addressing with printed labels - This postcard exemplifies why this might not be the best idea. When using a varied color paperstock, your white printer labels throw the design of the piece off a bit. It’s distracting from the message of the card. A better alternative is just to have the addresses printed on a piece at print time, so there’s no difference in the color/fonts/sizing of the address compared to the rest of the text on the card.

Mail sorting barcode sticker – The USPS loves to make it’s job easier with these barcode stickers but they make our marketing pieces suffer a bit also. The sticker covers the tagline in the lower left corner, so again, this would be a good opportunity to learn from a piece sent to yourself in the mail and redesign the card so that there are no text elements in that portion of the card.

Having outlined these various “problems” with the postcard, I fully acknowledge that direct mail veterans have received very good response rates for 1-color and oddly colored paper types, although I’ve only seen this succeed with letter+envelope campaigns. The only way to learn if it’s worth going down this path is to monitor the response you get from a full color, oversized postcard and compare it to a small 1 color postcard like the one above. Hopefully you can do this with similar recipients at a similar time of year and with different calls to action (phone/email/landing page) , so you can most accurately decide if that approach works for you. At the end of the day, you also have to appraise this measurement against how you are branding yourself against your competitors. If your competitors are using full color designs on distinctive paper, do you want to offer up a lower quality marketing piece for a prospect/customers’ consideration? That’s a question every business owner and marketing professional has to answer based on a more general marketing strategy.

Eric Cosway talks about MLS Integration, Social Postcards, and 1-to-1 Postcards – NAR 2009

Posté par Eric Cosway le November 15, 2009 – 2:10 pm

dans Integrated Marketing, Leadership & Innovation, Marketing Strategy, Real Estate Marketing

Eric Cosway, CMO & EVP of QuantumDigital, shares with us some of the new products and services QuantumDigital has launched for real estate brokers and agents; MLS Integration, Social Postcards, and 1-to-1 Postcards, at the NAR 2009 Convention in San Diego.

Are you kidding me? 50,000 an hour??

Posté par Eric Cosway le August 28, 2009 – 2:02 pm

dans Direct Mail Marketing, Production & Printing

Eric Cosway lets us know exactly how QuantumDigital can process 50,000 mail pieces an hour, track them, and generate metrics with a high degree of accuracy.

All Direct Marketing is Local

Posté par Freddie Baird le March 24, 2009 – 1:06 pm

dans Marketing Strategy

I got a postcard in my mailbox last week…nothing unusual about that. Since I’ve been in the direct marketing business for a little more than a decade, I tend to pay attention to anything my family gets in the mail. Actually, my wife Wendi typically manages that process and leaves the most interesting items next to my car keys so I can take them to the office.

This particular mail piece stood out more than the rest, though. It was very personal in tone and directed to me with a nice Texan “howdy neighbor” welcome. It began with an introduction from Josh Sowers (the sender) and a touching picture of him, his wife and baby boy. The postcard goes on to mention Josh’s lawn care business. You see, Josh, recently back from military service in Iraq, had settled in our community, started his business and is now looking for customers.

This simple postcard got me thinking about the wonderful benefits of direct marketing. When done right, it can be very personal, local and fit any budget. Josh’s emotional hook was directed at those of us in his community…the consumers most likely to identify with him and his business.

As our economy searches for a bottom, effective direct marketing can be used as a great equalizer between the small community-grown start-ups and established businesses and those giant “big box” operations with enormous advertising budgets and jingle-enhanced broadcast media buys. That ability to help folks like Josh compete on par with much larger companies has a distinct green component as well.

You see, using direct marketing to effectively promote and grow local, small business helps a once thriving segment of our economy regain vitality. Statistics show that companies with less than 500 employees account for the vast majority of businesses in the US and employ roughly 50 percent of our workforce. And, most importantly, they possess an inherent interest in safeguarding the environmental health of our communities.

As Ann Bartz, with the The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) said in a recent article on GreenBiz.com, “What a small business is able to do that a large business is not, is they have a much closer connection with the community. They are a lot more flexible in the steps they are able to take. They are able to make their own decisions about what types of lighting they want to put in or what types of relations they want to have with other businesses in the community.”

If it is true that all politics is local, as Tip O’Neill, longtime Speaker of the House used to say, then I think it also rings true that strong direct marketing is local, provides a personal connection and is inherently community-centric. (See Dude’s post on personal marketing versus mass media).

Not bad for a simple postcard!