Royal Mail’s new initiative, MarketReach, aims to make running an integrated or stand alone DM campaign as simple as possible. Gemma Huckle reports
In June, Royal Mail launched MarketReach to provide companies with a full suite of mail solutions to help grow their businesses.
Royal Mail said it was looking to increase its share of the marketing mail market by positioning itself as a ‘media owner’, rather than an industry advisory body. The organisation has brought more than 20 partners onboard to ensure MarketReach offers a broad range of products and services.
Designed to show marketers how adding mail to their marketing mix can address and solve their business problems, the scheme provides planning, creative solutions, print, distribution and measurement. Responding to pressure on combining digital with DM, its partnership with tech companies Incentivated, Fortune Favours the Brave and Digital Space, means MarketReach is able to advise on the use of tools such as SMS, QR code activation and digital watermarks.
Inspire, launch, sustain
The campaign targeted decision makers across the top 3000 advertisers and agencies, and was launched in three phases that ultimately aimed to inspire, launch and sustain the campaign.
The first component was word-of-mouth activity to inspire people to think about the real things that are important to them. It focused on blending online and offline interaction to get influencers to reclaim the word ‘post’ for the real world.
The second stage of the campaign encompassed raising awareness of the initiative among senior marketing decision makers by inviting them to the MarketReach launch event in July at the V&A in London.
Real mail
The launch was supported with a multichannel PR programme centred on directly engaging with the media to explain the rationale for MarketReach and the concept for the ‘real’ theme – helping businesses add a ‘real’ element to digitally-led campaigns so their customers have something to touch and keep.
Mail played an integral part of the marketing campaign, and was initially employed to generate interest in the MarketReach launch event. An interactive mailer was sent after the event – this included a digital watermark, created by MarketReach partner Digital Space, which, when scanned with a smartphone or tablet, linked directly to a video of one of the speakers.
In addition to the mailer, a digital advertising campaign ran across key websites, including The Guardian, Marketing Week, Marketing, Brand Republic and Campaign, to coincide with the full launch of MarketReach’s website at the end of July.
The final phase of the campaign aimed to maintain the awareness created by the launch and build interest in MarketReach.
Antony Miller, marketing director of MarketReach, commented, “Royal Mail launched MarketReach to provide advertisers and agencies with the expertise and skills needed to add a real element to campaigns, which are increasingly digital.
“We knew that it was important to develop an impactful marketing campaign to drive interest in Royal Mail’s MarketReach initiative, as well as engage with advertisers and agencies about the importance of adding a real element to their campaigns.
“We are delighted with the feedback we have received from advertisers and agencies about the launch campaign and look forward to helping them with the solutions to make their activities as successful as possible.”
