Each direct marketing campaign depends on a series of factors for its success. Careful planning is vital to ensuring that response rates are high and sales conversions numerous to effectively improve return on investment (ROI). Among such factors are the season, even the time of the week when the direct mail piece arrives, how relevant its message is felt to be by the consumer at that time and how strong the actual offering really is.
To this day, however, statistics regarding conversion to sale motivators in direct mail are still hard to source, so CDMS decided to commission a survey to find out which factors made British consumers more likely to make a purchase as a result of direct mail. The findings are extremely clear: the ability to respond to the campaign online was rated the most important factor of all, making consumers 20% more likely than average to respond and purchase. Timing of the campaign to reach the recipient when in purchase consideration mode (17% more likely) came in second with personalisation of the campaign rated as 14% more likely than average. Continue reading “Vox Pop Speaks Out for Direct Mail with Web”
Targeted marketing communications used to be something of a pipe-dream for many businesses. Database analysis could establish an all round view of each customer, but the processes of translating this intelligence into targeted, personalised communications was either unwieldy or unaffordable. However, three things have come to pass over the last two years. Personalised colour printing has become affordable for all sizes of company, rather than just the large ones. The ability to create a tailored set of contents for each customer’s envelope has become very sophisticated and in addition to this, businesses have established the initial proof that personalised content on the website improves customer retention, satisfaction, cross-sales, and ultimately profitability. 
With a recession in full swing, cutbacks are being made. The latest Bellwether report from the IPA revealed the biggest fall in marketing budgets for nine years. However, in an economic downturn it is even more important to spend and use marketing budgets wisely. In the current climate it is easy to think the worst but marketing departments will still have money to spend.
Consumers have become less loyal and much more demanding of the businesses they purchase goods or services from. But it’s not just quality and convenience they want; consumers are ever more interested in the experience provided by organisations and the customer service they are receiving.
CRM investment is wasted if the intelligence it delivers fails to influence dispatched communications. How can businesses ensure that money spent on CRM analytics actually begins to benefit the messages that are delivered to customers and prospects?
Between the decision to implement an enterprise-wide software solution and it implementation and acceptance, lies perhaps the most treacherous ground in the corporate IT landscape…
I was sent an interested email the other day from a company called