So where do we get the data we need to personalize our communications with our customers?   Well, there are a lot of places we can get data.  Some of it is great and helps us to better serve our customers, and other data leads to wasteful spending and spam.  The real question is how do we get GOOD data?  How do we get data that helps us understand our customers and their needs?

     In the previous part of this series, we discussed using data we already have.  We (should) have data about every customer.  Aside from name, address and email, we should also know about their buying habits.  What do they order? How often do they order?  Within what time frame do they need their order filled?  The basic customer data that is collected will differ with every business.  A national Donut franchise will have very different data than a local law firm.  How you compile and use that data will also differ. 

     For the purposes of this article, let’s assume we are starting at square one.  We are looking to acquire customers and data regarding potential customers.  How do we do it?  There is no single way, or even a best way, but there are ways.  Here is one suggestion.  For this scenario, let’s assume that you have no data and are starting a data capturing campaign.  (In future posts we will look at alternate approaches, but for now we are casting a wide net).

     STEP 1:  GET A LIST– First look at a set of very basic demographic data into which your customers, or potential customers, fit.  Of course, you did your market research and have this information available, right?  The target audience for almost every business will differ.  Characteristics like geography, age, gender and countless others will help you pinpoint the right audience, deliver the right message and obtain the best data  for your specific campaign.  Doing your research, and knowing who you plan to target is a key to success.  We will assume you have done your homework and know the data about the demographic you want to target.  With this information, you or your marking services provider can obtain a list of prospects that meets those needs.  There are many, many list brokers out there, and some are better than others.  Some due diligence here will serve you well.  Once you have purchased the list, you will use it to create and send your message, whether by printed material, email or if you want to be even more effective, a combination of both. 

     STEP 2:  CREATE A COMPELLING, PERSONALIZED MESSAGE – Now that you have your data in the form of  a thorough list of your target audience, you will want to personalize your offering to them.  Remember, every person in your audience is unique.  Treat them that way.  Whether you are using ink on paper, email or both to communicate with your audience, personalized message get read more often and are thus, more effective.   Use their name in your message.  Use variable graphics and variable data to personalize the message to each recipient.  Add a personal URL or a QR Code to bring people to their own page on your website.  Your goal here is to engage your potential customer.  Simply stated, personalization has been shown to improve your ROI. 

     STEP 3:  HAVE AN APPEALING CALL TO ACTION – Now that you targeted your audience and delivered to them a timely and relevant personalized message, you want to get them to do something.  Perhaps you would like them to supply an email address, register for a webinar or complete a survey, but you definitely want them to opt-in to future communications from you.  To achieve this you must grab your reader’s attention immediately and let them know the benefits of what you are offering.  Use strong headings like:  John, the information in this message can help your company wallop the competition.  Or:  Don’t miss your chance to be among the first to receive an industry-changing information.  While the call to action must be compelling, it must also be true or you will lose your credibility. 

     STEP 4:  CAPTURE AND USE THE DATA – Make it easy for the reader to provide the data.  And make it easy for you to maintain and use that data.  There is a lot of software that can automate this.  Many hosting companies will provide this service to you as part of your hosting package.  However, data security and privacy are important to keep your customer’s trust and to comply with an ever growing body of law (check back here next week for a post on that very subject). Still, after the effort to obtain the data, you want to use it to better know your customers and of course, use in subsequent campaigns.  Analyzing your data is another great way to use the information you captured.  Was your research correct?  Were your respondents who you thought they would be?  While the data you just obtained is a great start for ongoing marketing campaigns, it also can help you target even more customers interested in your products and services.  However, that is a subject for another post.

     None of this has to be rocket science, but it does require time and attention.  And the more complex the campaign, the more time and effort it will take to execute properly.  If you too are busy running a company or department, you can have the bulk of this work done by a marketing service provider.  They can help with everything from obtaining to analyzing your current customer data, procuring a targeted prospect list, crafting and designing your personalized messages and call to action and analyzing the new data for even more effective future campaigns.   

THE TAKE_AWAY:

STEP 1:  GET A CURRENT, TARGETED LIST

STEP 2:  CREATE A COMPELLING, PERSONALIZED MESSAGE

STEP 3:  HAVE AN APPEALING CALL TO ACTION

STEP 4:  CAPTURE, ANALYZE AND USE THE DATA    

     If you have any thoughts about this topic, please share them  Your input is alway welcome. Let’s share experiences.  All of us together are smarter than any one of us alone. 

Until Next Time, John

OFFSET PRINTING:

Offset printing, or traditional litho printing, utilizes a process whereby ink is put onto a roller so that a printing plate can pick up the ink and create an image on a blanket. The stock (paper) rolls onto the blanket and the image appears on the paper. For full color printing, this process often utilizes four primary colors to build all of the other colors that we see. These colors are cyan, magenta, yellow and black. That is why you will sometimes see four-color process printing referred to as CMYK. You can also use spot colors if your job requires an exact color match (leave a comment of you want to know more about spot colors).  Logos and other corporate identity collateral tend to use spot colors as it can be seen as a differentiator. 

Offset printing is generally used for longer, static runs. By longer runs, I refer to a greater number of sheets, or pages, that need to be printed. By static, I mean that every imprint is the same.  There are many types of offset presses.  They range from small one-color presses that can handle a sheet size of 8½ x 11 to much larger web presses that can print everything from the daily newspaper to millions of copies of books. There are also a variety of specialty presses that can print envelopes, raised printing and more. When you have a print job, make sure your print service provider has the right equipment to run your job as economically and efficiently as possible.

Take-away 1: offset is a good option if you need a lot of the same document.

DIGITAL PRINTING:

Digital printing, the sector of the printing industry that is currently experiencing the most growth, was introduced in the late 80s. At that time, the only digital printing available was black and white. Today, in addition to black and white digital, there are many other options.  These include toner-based digital color, ink based digital color, and a process that we are all familiar with, inkjet technology. However, unlike the inkjet printer you might use at home, production inkjet presses can produce hundreds of pages per minute with some capable of doing thousands.

The key aspect of digital printing, as opposed to offset printing, is that in digital printing each sheet can be customized. Digital printing is more economical for shorter runs (fewer copies) because there are no plates, there is much less waste and the color is (generally) accurate on the first sheet off the press. Also, the document comes off the press dry, so turn-around times are much shorter.  Before you start sending those nasty emails, I am placing DI Presses in the offset category because they can only produce static throughput. 

As a way to save on logistic costs, many companies are now producing marketing collateral in smaller lots so that there is no inventory to track and store and no risk of obsolescence. Additional cost savings can be realized when a web-to-print solution is used, saving administrative time, proofing time and allowing many small orders to be aggregated into large orders, lowering the overall cost. Again, this is the result of digital printing’s ability to handle short run work with high quality results.

But short run work is only a small part of what digital printing can do to help your company effectively communicate (although there are a lot of printers who don’t seem to understand this). If we have customer or prospect data we can use it to create individualized, personalized, relevant printed marketing collateral that is different for each of your recipients. So while you may be selling the same product, say a pair of jeans, the copy and the images that you want to use to sell to a 22 year old female in New York City will be very different than those you want to sell to a 50 year old male in Douglas, Utah.

Digital printing allows you to take advantage of variable data printing. While I cringe saying this, in its most basic form variable data printing is analogous to a mail merge program you might use on your home computer.  Again, before the nasty emails start raining down on me, I must point out that true variable data printing is far more complex and requires experienced programming.  The mail merge reference is merely an analogy with which lots of us are familiar. The ability to print personalized, high speed, high quality, full-color collateral means digital printing can create mass marketing pieces that are unique for each recipient. This type of personalization has been shown to significantly raise response rates. And when used as part of a cross-media campaign, the same creative work can be re-purposed to be used in personalized landing pages (PURLS) and email.

TransPromo, which I might have mentioned a few times, is a sophisticated variable data print application.  This can be a color digital image on a white piece of paper or it can be an imprint on a preprinted shell.  And that is a good segue… 

Take-away 2: Digital print is good for short run and personalized variable data projects.

HYBRID PRINTING:

Hybrid printing is a combination of the best qualities of both offset and digital printing. Hybrid printing takes the cost effectiveness of offset printing for large four-color runs and combines that with the increased response rates personalization and customization make possible by adding a digital black and white or even full color, imprint. While inkjet is starting to close the gap, black and white digital printing is less expensive than color digital printing. Therefore, if you are able to create a four-color process shell, you can then utilize black and white digital print to create personalized pieces in a more cost-effective manner.

This application is great for form letters, gift appeals, personalized offers and coupons with bar codes.  This is a great application for personal URLs and even QR Codes.  This allows tracking and measuring of the results of your marketing campaign, a must for real success. 

Color gets attention, but digital color can be expensive. Offset is static, not personalized or unique to the recipient, and does not get the higher response rates marketers need. Hybrid printing solves this dilemma by using color from the offset process and the personalization from the black digital process. You get the benefit of both processes and the cost effectiveness of both processes.

Digital imprinting on offset shells is also a good way to leverage data for TransPromo solutions.  Use offset to print a large quantity of static shells with a company logo or other brand information that requires color.  You can then use your data to imprint the statement data onto the color shells.  It is a solution that has worked for decades.  Still, in my own opinion, TransPromo is even more effective with full color digital. With pricing on color digital dropping faster than President Obama’s approval ratings, your company would be wise to consider a move to full color TransPromo.  With co-marketing, any cost increase from the move to color can be offset by sharing some of the white space on your outbound documents.  If you would like more information on this, please let me know by email or just leave a comment. 

Take-away #3: Hybrid printing is good when you have a lot of full color pieces to produce, but the personalization can be done in all black.

WHICH IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

The answer to the question which process is right for you will depend on what you are trying to accomplish. Talk to your vendor and explain your goals. A good vendor will take the time to listen and help you plan the most effective and economical campaign possible.

Questions, comments, disagreements.  I would love to hear what you think.  Please leave a comment.

Mailbox or Pre-Recycle Bin?

Why I do this I have no idea.  Unless it is my birthday (which is rare), I am inevitably disappointed with the daily haul.  In fact, I could ALMOST skip getting the mail and never miss it.  Note that I said ALMOST.  There are a few things that I need from in that little box which is why I fire up the old GMC and roll the 9 yards to the mailbox.    I catch my breath and examine the day’s delivery.

1.  A couple of catalogs from some retailers from whom I bought a gift years ago and have never bought anything since, and I do not intend to.  Those go right into the recycling bin;

2.  A couple of direct mail postcards.  If there is cool personalization (not just my name or even a PURL – been there, done that) or an obvious offer too good to pass up , I might look for a few seconds.  If the offer is good enough, and easy enough,  I might even take action.   But if I see “Resident” or “Our Friends” as the addressee, it’s going right into the bin, unopened, unexamined and a total waste to the sender who probably paid a decent amount to design, print and mail the piece.  Sorry.

3.  A package of coupons, presumably from local service providers, addressed to “Current Resident” (very warm).  I never even open the envelope any more.  I don’t have to.  I can tell you what’s inside because I used to open them looking for a great deal, but found that it was the same junk every time.  Worse, much of it did not even apply to me.  It goes, unopened, into the bin.

4.  An Explanation of Benefits from my health insurance company.  That I keep to look at later.  I want to make sure that there is not some claim wrongly denied, so I will review that thoroughly.

5.  A few bills (my homeowner’s insurance, a car payment and a few of the store-brand credit card statements my wife insists on getting at every location she shops.  Those I keep and look at.  Closely.  I will spend more time reviewing one those transactional documents than I spend on the half-dozen pieces of unsolicited mail. I NEED these bills (that why I said “ALMOST” earlier).  I have to pay them on time or have to pay late fees, interest and penalties which up until recently, the small print in my card holder agreement said could have included the forced donation of a kidney or one of my children.  The CARD Act (written about at White Space University) puts a halt to forced organ harvesting.  With the exception of section six thousand eighty two, Sub-Chapter Y, paragraph h(6) which allows for the organ to be harvested so long as that term is prominently listed in a 14 point serif font within the first 26 pages of your 87 page card-holder’s agreement.  You did read your card holder’s agreement, didn’t you?.   Here’s one one if you are looking to cure insomnia.

I do not just say all of this because I am in the statement business.  OK, that’s not entirely true.  If I were a school teacher or an astronaut, I probably would not have written a post about tossing mail and reading statements.  But I digress.

The point is that I throw away the vast majority of my mail without even looking at it.  And I bet you do the same!  In fact, I am almost sure of it.  That is why TransPromo messaging works so well.  It puts the right message in the hands of the right person on a document they will review closely and carefully.

Putting your messages where they will be read seems like a pretty good idea.   How many ways could your business benefit from having almost every recipient see your targeted, personalized message?   I know.  It’s a lot.  Let White Space MARKETING help you