The Challenge
Midwest Direct, a provider of direct marketing services, recently expanded its product offering to include digital marketing techniques that when blended with personalized print communications maximize the effectiveness of direct marketing campaigns.
The company was attending a national conference of a large franchisor of graphic communications services and wanted to introduce its expanded services to the franchise owners. Midwest Direct decided that it would use itself as a test subject to show how combining digital marketing with a traditional direct mail campaign can increase response rates.
The Solution
Midwest Direct created an integrated digital marketing and direct mail campaign to promote its expanded services and targeted franchise owners. The campaign consisted of emails, personalized URLs, a digitally printed and personalized mailed report that utilized data the recipient provided, and a follow-up mailing of a generic report consisting of aggregated data from the campaign.
The secondary purpose of the campaign was to illustrate how data could be collected and used from such an integrated direct marketing campaign.
The Results
The campaign was split into two parts: the pre-show campaign and the post-show campaign.
The pre-show campaign consisted of an email sent to all show attendees that asked a simple question: “Do you want to add to your bottom line?” Recipients could either click “yes” or “no” with unique personalized landing pages (pURLs) created for both selections.
Those that responded to the first email were sent an email reminding them to pick up their customized report at the show, and those that did not respond were sent a reminder email asking the original yes / no question. The landing page for “yes” answers asked the recipient several questions, the answers to which were utilized in creating the direct mail piece for the campaign.
314 valid emails were sent. 151, or 48%, opened the first email and 60 more opened the second email, for a total of 67%. 29% of those that opened the email answered the yes / no question and viewed a landing page, which was 19% of total emails sent. The bottom line: 11% of all emails sent interacted with the campaign; an incredible response rate!
Midwest Direct collected the data from the email and landing page interactions and used it to create a customized and personalized report for those attending the show. We sent a follow-up email to those who participated to remind them to stop by our booth at the show and pick up their personalized report.
Post-show, Midwest Direct mailed a copy of the campaign results report to 782 franchise owners with a cover letter explaining the campaign and the new direct marketing services the company offered. The response rate for the second part of the campaign was 1.7%, more than 20% higher than the average response rate for direct mail (between 1.1% and 1.4%).
The end result of our integrated digital marketing and direct mail campaign created an overall response rate of 4.5%. This is 260% higher than the response rate for direct mail alone and 14,900% higher than the response rate for email alone.*
Midwest Direct offers a complete suite of direct marketing services to create and deliver your messages and communications. For more information on how Midwest Direct can help you reach, inspire, influence and motivate your customers, contact your sales or customer service representative, send an email to sales@mw-direct.com, or visit mw-direct.com.
* (Conversion rates for direct mail average between 1.1% and 1.4%; conversion rates for email averages around 0.03%.)
