They see a vast array of information, compiled and distilled by market researchers and dispensed by list managers into databases and worth its weight in marketing gold. It’s a feast, but they wonder how long they will have a seat at the table. But while online options are taking up more share, there’s plenty of life left in ink on paper.
A company like Pitney Bowes has a lot at stake when it comes to printed mail. But the US-based mailing technology manufacturer is not averse to getting into the online game. Its Volly system, which launches in the US this year, aims to gives consumers the best of both worlds. It uses Pitney Bowes extensive knowledge of mailing to let customers receive, sort and pay essential mail electronically. In the words of one media analyst, Volly targets “consumers looking to park all of their document clutter in the internet cloud”.
While Pitney Bowes has been talking up this new tool, another US company has been operating in the sector for some time. Zumbox launched around two years ago and has won over a number of major customers, including Swiss Post.
In April, it announced it had secured a deal with New Zealand Post to allow the Kiwi postal authority to create electronic facsimiles of paper mail and deliver them online to users based on street addresses.
Zumbox chief executive John Payne says: “The way Zumbox works is it is a closed system that operates on the internet in a highly secure environment.”
Consumers are given secure login details to access the online portal through a web browser, and Payne said this high level of security set it apart from email. “Email is an open system. For instance, if you get an email from Bank of America, there is only a 42% chance it is actually from the Bank of America.”
Payne reckons “it is inevitable there will be a move from print to digital” but says print service providers can still get a piece of the action. Transactional print specialists like Salmat or Sema would have the most to lose from the expansion of this type of technology. But Payne points out that in the US, Zumbox works with DST Output, a US and UK-based company that operates in similar markets to Salmat but whose mail volume per year “is roughly the same as Australia Post”, says Payne.
Transpromo trends
These are just two examples of the cross-media trend in mailing. Another growth area is transpromo – where transactional mail such as a bank statement provides advertising real estate for promotional marketing messages. Salmat Business Force has showcased printed essential mail as a resilient marketing tool (see box). At Salmat, electronic delivery and payment is impacting positively on printed transpromo – particularly in terms of its functionality, says Simon Hart, group product manager, business process outsourcing.
“Electronic channels allow more dynamic marketing to take place, including variable HTML emails with links to websites and personalised URLs (PURLs). Our new eFLOW platform also allows clients to integrate electronic transpromo with their social-media strategies – with the capability to link to applications like Facebook and Twitter.
“For transpromo work, transactional data is analysed by us and used to drive marketing content. Acquisition data is generally supplied by our clients, or procured at their request from a list supplier they have identified.”
But there’s more to printed mail’s potency than transpromo. Non-transactional promotional mail is vital to direct marketing campaigns, especially when personalised, says Australia Post consultant Alistair Wright. “This is in part because the mailbox is actually a relatively uncluttered channel, particularly when we compare it to the congested nature of many an email inbox.”
Single Source from Roy Morgan Research – the tool most Australian ad agencies use to determine the best use of media spend – indicates that more than 87% of people read direct mail (DM), compared with an opening rate of 23.7% for email, according to the latest Email Marketing Metrics report from Vision 6.
But here’s where it gets exciting. Many of the most-talked about campaigns in the market today have married the best features of print channels and combined them with new capabilities offered by non-print channels, says Wright.
Luring customers
Take the award-winning Optus campaign to launch its HTC Touch Dual. The challenge was to get decision-makers in SME businesses to choose a Windows-compatible mobile for their office. Optus knew the web would be a great place to tell the story, but first it would have to draw prospective customers to its site.
The telco chose DM to deliver the audience. A quick review of the facts shows why this made sense. Single Source has found that online shoppers are 13% more likely to have read addressed mail in the past week. And while the kinds of people who actively buy online are also active readers of the DM they receive, even people who have only used the web for product information or to research a purchase are still 9% more likely to have read addressed mail.
Australia Post has launched products to help customers make the most of segmented campaigns. For example, its eLetter product uses a digitally printed one-piece ‘letter’ format that integrates with personalised URL.
Melbourne’s Digital Logic originated as a digital/offset house, but directors Paul McGarity and Chris Proc, who have a combined 47 years of trade experience, looked beyond print to multi-channel campaigns.
As a Xerox Premier Partner, the company deployed XMPie and headed onto new turf. XMPie’s uStore software creates a web-to-print platform, incorporating order procurement, cross-media (email and SMS/MMS personalised video), and list management, while XMPie’s PersonalEffectPrint is a server-based variable-data print (VDP) solution.
Digital Logic now works with agencies and direct clients, in finance, retail, automotive and telco. It develops cross-media and VDP briefs and solutions, including test marketing (see box overleaf).
“We work with agencies or with the internal creative at our clients, offering a one-stop shop,” says Digital Logic’s Alan Quin. “We do print production (on two Xerox iGens at its Moorabbin centre), mail house processing – it can be the whole thing or a la carte.”
The types of personalised DM it creates can range from a small email broadcast or an integrated multi-channel campaign. It embraces the web through PURLs, mobile SMS and email, and, of course, digital print, but emphasises the pros and cons of various media. Print reinforces brands but can lack the immediacy of electronic. Wrongly used, SMS can be intrusive and email can be ignored. Together, the trio of channels creates synergies. The blend is different for each client, but the positive impact is the same. McGarity says the company has measured a 400% leap in response rates for multimedia over static print campaigns.
Mailing mega merger
Direct Mail & Marketing (DMM) is a 26-year-old Melbourne-based mailing house that generates campaigns involving up to 500,000 impressions for gaming and charities. It runs a mix of print and electronic messaging, with all but the largest electronic projects originated in-house. Chief operating officer Steve Strang says doing it in-house enhances DMM’s reliability, and has been well worth investing in a six-staff IT department.
DMM is set to further boost its acumen as a mail house force thanks to its merger with Melbourne mail processor Datasend. This was announced in December and took effect last month, creating a $30m-turnover firm under the DMM banner.
The pride of DMM’s fleet is a Direct Online Imaging System (DOLIS) reelfed press, the only one in the southern hemisphere. It combines four-colour process with two Xeikon monochrome units, enabling one-pass, offset-quality VDP, with inline finishing. Supplementing the DOLIS are two Xerox PC5000s, and four Nuvera 144 black-and-whites. Strang is waiting to see greater quality from colour inkjet before considering it, and views it as a transpromo technology. “Agencies [in DM accounts] just won’t accept the quality as it is now.”
The IT team handles SMS, email and PURLs through XMPie and bulk MMS/SMS platform MobiPost. As there is no ready handshake between print and non-print components the former has to be high-res, the latter has to be low-res; the former is a flat PDF, the latter is dynamic and web-specific) there are limits to repurposing content, says Strang.
He sees DMM’s non-print messaging actually stimulating print volumes as new marketing opportunities are discovered, and VDP becomes more prominent. Three years ago, his colour Xerox machines averaged 50,000 impressions, but this year, in the traditionally quiet month of January, they produced 600,000. And it’s not commodity stuff, but smart print, the kind that brings profits.
“Industries like gaming and charities are understanding better what can be done with variable print. They find they are getting much better results. You might only be talking one or two percent, but when 200,000 pieces are going out, it makes a major difference to the job,” says Strang.
DMM achieved an incredible 35% response rate when it used its talents for its own sake last year. It crated a pre-Christmas promotional campaign to promote its wares to gaming and charity clients. A printed greeting card was sent, with an email response mechanism that updated each client’s data in terms of contact points and their print, DM and fulfilment preferences. The campaign had an incentive: respondents would be entered into a draw to win an iPad.
When the responses came in, the data was analysed and the participants were emailed with the result of the winner. They were also told about the high response rate to the campaign, showing them what multimedia could do. Strang says: “For a $600 investment and 500 cards, a total of around $1,500, we landed various jobs, including a major one for $200,000.”
Out to trade
But if building up all that expertise in-house seems out of reach, there are other options. Cheque-Mates is a trade-only information distributor, whose channel partners are printers, print managers, call centres and other mail houses. It specialises in transactional, transpromo and VDP work but, as a B2B operation, has deliberately bypassed personalised multimedia involving PURLs, mainly because partner companies report difficulties filling that kind of work. Chief executive Rodney Frost says: “There are many mail houses out there having enough problems without having another layer of support to maintain.”
With marketing budgets almost frozen in 2009-10, the GFC pulled some 5% per capita of volume out of direct mail, estimates Frost. Conversely, he has identified an uptick of 15% towards non-print communications over the past year. “We now promote ourselves as a company that automates information distribution and flow, rather than as an outbound mailing fulfilment house. We’re changing from a manufacturing company to an IT services company.”
As a subsidiary of the Lamson Paragon group, Cheque-Mates taps into its parent’s continuous forms business for its monochrome base stocks, which it overprints using Xerox equipment.
With facilities at Sefton in Sydney and Springvale in Melbourne, Cheque-Mates runs a range of Xerox presses – a Docu-Color 8000, DocuColor 252, and Nuvera 288 and 120s for B&W work. B4 envelopes and carbonless are printed inkjet, but Frost says production colour inkjet, which is aimed at six-figure runs, is not an option for the 20,000 to 30,000 volumes typically generated by his pressroom.
Frost says: “Printed mail will always be there, and will always be relevant. The key is you have to deliver a relevant message to the recipient in the manner they want to receive it.”
Case study: Diners Club
• Diners Club International (DCI) is known for its extensive electronic media advertising. But it was looking at ways to use its under-utilised main print resource – its monthly statements – to deliver more targeted messages to cardholders and was interested in testing data-driven print.
• Salmat Business Force worked on the campaign with its partners, transactional and direct marketing mail consultancy Vectis and database marketing services provider Digital Alchemy.
• The aim was to test if a statement insert combined with a reinforcing colour message would raise response rates for redemptions under DCI’s rewards programme. Customers were invited to redeem rewards points for Myer vouchers and go in a draw to win a Myer shopping spree to the value of $3,000.
• Salmat modified the Diners Club International statement to include the colour message. The outcome was a doubling of the response rate from 0.29% to 0.6%, proving essential mail as a powerful marketing tool.
• This test mailshot won plaudits from Isobel Santos, DCI’s rewards marketing manager. “Ensuring that members engage with our rewards programme is a critical component to increasing member satisfaction.”
Case study Taco Bill
• Melbourne’s Digital Logic provided a solution for Mexican restaurant chain Taco Bill that featured a high-impact personalised postcard, mailed to each customer with a link to their own web page. A follow-up email was sent to non-responders with a link to the web page, a Taco Bill-branded site that welcomed each customer by name with more information, an offer to enter a draw for 12 months’ free dining, and a request to pass on the details to friends and relatives.
• The web page included a discount voucher to download and redeem at Taco Bill. It tracked customers as they visited their own web page in real time via Logitrack, a 24/7 internet-based tracking system exclusive to Digital Logic.
• The results? A total of 30.4% (1,976) of the target group visited their own web page to view and update their information and enter the draw for a year of free dining at Taco Bill. A total of 1,450 viral emails were forwarded on to friends and relatives of the club members. A total of 76% (1,508) of personalised web visitors went on to visit the discount voucher page.
• Taco Bill’s Stan Teschke was pleased. “The multi-channel solution and subsequent visits to the member-personalised site greatly exceeded our expectations.”
Comment below to have your say on this story.
If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.
Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter
