Executive Summary

Compared to other channels, direct mail is still the best way by far to raise money and attract new donors.  But the situation is dynamic.

A recent study of 79 non-profits with 38 million donors ranked the relative effectiveness of fund raising by marketing channel, comparing dollars raised from direct mail, Internet, telemarketing and other channels.  Which medium do you think pulled in the most donations?

Hands down, it was direct mail.  The non-profits earned a greater return from direct mail than from all other channels combined.

Here are the results.  Donations per channel:

Direct mail                  78%

Online                          9%

Telemarketing              3%

All others                   10%

These figures come from relatively recent (2009) study by Target Analytics, using a large sample that encompassed 74 million gifts totaling over $2 billion.  The results should be taken seriously by direct marketers.

Of course no situation is static.  The researchers note that compared to their 2005 study, online giving in 2009 grew from 4% to 9% of the total.  Internet gifts were on average larger, too, than donations made in response to other media.  Average donation size per channel in the 2009 study were:

Online                       $79

Telemarketing           $45

Direct mail                 $40

Another key finding was that 87% of all new donors in 2009 were acquired via direct mail solicitations.  The proportion of new donors acquired online was growing, but accounted for only 12% of new donors in 2009.

The Lesson     Clearly, if you’re a fundraiser, direct mail is still your best tool, even though online giving is growing.  The best course to plot may be to use multiple channels in combination to maximize your returns.  Strategic use of email in combination with direct mail can also help you control postage costs in these times of rapidly rising postal rates.  We’ll discuss this in another post.

For more information contact:

Sherry Mitchell

919-695-5676

sherry@laserimagenc.com

Source:

printinthemix.com/fastfacts/show/346

 

Executive Summary

The growing popularity of smart phones and mobile commerce make QR codes a marketing necessity.

QR codes are those maze-like squares you’re seeing now on ads and product packaging.  QR codes instantly connect curious customers to custom microsites or other sources of product information, via their smart phones.

Here are five powerful trends compelling marketers to consider learning about and deploying QR codes in their campaigns.

• The number of times a day people access the Internet from their smart phones has doubled in the last year
• 20% of consumers use their phones to browse and research products
• 37% of American smart phone users have made purchases on their phones in the last six months
• In 2009 mobile commerce in the U.S. tripled to $1.2 billion.
• In 2009 eBay mobile commerce was $600 million
• In 2015 it is projected that $115 billion of goods and services will be purchased via mobile phones

Clearly, smart phones are becoming ubiquitous at a rapid clip and consumers are growing comfortable using them to shop.  Can marketers afford to not start using QR codes to “talk” to people on their mobile devices?

For more information contact:

Sherry Mitchell

919-695-5676

sherry@laserimagenc.com

Source: Joseph Marin, QR Codes: A Guide for Printers, A Printing Industries of America/Digital Printing Council White Paper 2010

Executive Summary

QR codes are a kind of bar code that links a smart phone to a website via a scanning app on the phone.  Adding a QR code to a printed piece gives your customers access to product information at the moment the customer wants it, and gives you a chance to gather valuable market intelligence.

 

Everyone’s curious about QR Codes, those little maze-like squares that are starting to show up on ads, signs and product packaging.

What are QR codes?  How do they work?  What do they do for the marketer and for customers?

What QR Codes Are

QR (Quick Response) codes are similar to the inventory and postal bar codes we’re familiar with, but with important added advantages.

Like the common bar code, a QR code is machine-readable text.  But QR codes:

1. carry much more information
2. can be branded
3. are trackable
4. are readable by smart phones, a device many of us carry most of the time

A “smart phone” is any phone with a camera and a browser to connect it to the internet.  If your phone has these features, all you need is an app to read QR codes.  Apps come pre-installed on most major phones, or can be downloaded for free.

 

How QR Codes Work

You use your phone to scan QR codes from any print medium your phone can photograph, whether an ad, package, catalog, sign, poster, business card, magnet or even a billboard.

Suppose you see a QR code on an ad or the packaging of a product that interests you, a code that is well-designed with the marketer’s logo, and accompanied by text explaining how to use it.  What happens when you scan it with your phone?

Most of the time you are immediately connected to a custom microsite optimized for mobile devices.  This microsite lets the marketer inform you with additional product information, at the very moment you’re interested in reading it.

The marketer could also provide you via the microsite a calendar of events, contact information, an email address, an SMS text message, a dealer locator, or other directional information. The marketer may also download coupons or discount offers to your phone, if you grant permission.

 

QR Codes Gather Market Intelligence

Equally important, as you’re doing this, the marketer is learning more about you as a customer, via the trackability feature of the code.

The marketer may learn the store or other location where you scanned the code, as well as the time of day and date you scanned it.  This information allows the marketer to evaluate the scope and effectiveness of the campaign, and to plan better campaigns for the future.

QR codes connect print to the Internet.  The flexible back and forth of information between marketer and customer via this connection is the key to QR codes’ value.  QR codes afford the marketer an unprecedented opportunity to tell the customer more, right when the customer is motivated to learn more, and at the same time capture valuable information about the customer’s behavior, so as to better communicate with him or her in the future.

For more information contact:

Sherry Mitchell

919-695-5676

sherry@laserimagenc.com

1. Be smart about your data

If used improperly, personalization may irritate or offend recipients.

Banking and brokerage customers might appreciate personalized portfolio reports offering additional investment advice, but only if the information arrives concealed in a sealed envelopes.

Mothers might appreciate a timely message about toys or diapers, but may not want their child’s name and age publicly displayed on the mailer.

Personalization isn’t about using everything that you know about your recipient. It’s about the appropriate use of information to increase relevance.

2. Test everything

Some personal data may be relevant to your offer, some may not. If you want to sell minivans to young families, it may not be worth it to switch out depictions of male and female drivers on your mailer according to the sex of your recipients. Just showing the product posed with a family could to the trick.

To make sure about such things, you have to test. Testing is easy, given the flexibility of digital printing and email. If your campaign involves sending out 6000 pieces, try varying one element in 500 of them to see if this affects response, and whether it is cost-justified. Make testing and control groups part of your thinking.

3. Employ multiple media

Studies show that campaigns do better when they deploy email, direct mail and websites in strategic combinations.

Neiman-Marcus, for example, gets most of its sales online. But those sales are prompted by print catalogs. When catalog volume declines, online sales go down.

A study by the US Postal Service demonstrated that websites supported by catalogs showed a revenue life of 163% compared to unsupported websites.

So think in combinations: mailings preceded by email announcements, or followed by email reminders. Mail and email that encourages people to visit websites or personal microsites. There is strength in numbers.

4. Invest in your database

This takes time and sometimes money, but it’s the best investment you can make. A database is like a living thing. It requires continuous nourishment in the form of updating, cleansing, adding variables and so on. As you gain new information through personalized marketing, it’s imperative that this knowledge be entered into your database to inform future programs. The great benefits of personalized marketing can only be maximized through such effort.

Sherry Mitchell
919-696-8791
sherry@laserimagenc.com

1. Focus on relevance

“Personalization” is meaningless if it isn’t relevant to the recipient.  The best practice is to first segment your list, then add personalization to the segmentation.

If you want to increase sales of sporting goods to established customers, first segment your list according to your customers’ activities: tennis, golf, cycling, running and so on.  Then send communications to each segment, with an offer related to their interests, and personalize the communication with other things you know about them, such as their name, how long they’ve engaged in their activity and so on.

Personalization increases responses beyond what good segmentation might produce, but it must be tied to relevant messages.

2. You don’t have to mail to your whole list.

Unless there’s good reason to mail to your entire list, consider approaching the subset that would most likely respond to a particular offer.

If you are a retailer interested in boosting year-end sales, you might want to communicate with customers who are in the top 25% spending bracket.  If you’re interested in broadening your customer base, you might approach the bottom 25%, with an offer designed to increase their involvement with you.

Thinking tactically like this controls your costs and increases your campaign ROI.  Keep in mind that unlike conventional printing, digital printing doesn’t require long press runs, so it’s feasible to communicate strategically with smaller groups.

3. Forget “cost per piece mailed”

This is a holdover from the old days of mass, generic mailings printed on conventional presses.  The idea was to manipulate piece design and press run length to minimize production costs in the hopes of profiting from the low returns such campaigns usually generate.

Think instead in terms that measure the return to your campaign. “Cost per lead,” “cost per response,” “revenue per sale,” or ROI are much better metrics.

4. Measure everything

Oddly, we find that few marketers do this.  Most have no idea what return they get from their magazine ad or radio spot.  They operate of faith, rather than statistics.

Good marketing decisions and continuous improvement require that you track everything: data costs, design costs, mailing costs.  Build in redemption codes and other mechanisms so you know who responded to your offer.  Then at the end of the campaign sit down and analyze costs and returns against your campaign goals.  Figure out your return and how you might do better on your next campaign.

Remember, by their nature direct marketing campaigns provide you all the data you need to do this.  So be sure to record it and think about it.

Sherry Mitchell
919-696-8791
sherry@laserimagenc.com