You’ve got mail

New technologies mean renewed possibilities in print. B2B marketers who don’t seize these opportunities are missing a trick, says Lucy Fisher. 

The marketing mail market is estimated to be worth around £16 billion. That fact is in itself a fairly unequivocal indicator of the power of print. And, ironically, it is in large part because of the rush to digital and the resulting inbox overload that direct mail is now enjoying something of an – albeit anecdotal – resurgence in popularity.

Royal Mail claims that return on investment for mail campaigns has increased in recent years to more than £3 for every £1 spent. It set up MarketReach last year, a pseudo-marketing agency, to provide ‘the expertise and skills needed to add a real element to marketing campaigns that are becoming increasingly digital.’  As Alex Walsh, head of postal affairs at the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) points out, “People don’t get too many letters these days. I’ve even seen hand written letters be used. It’s all about getting past the secretary barrier.”

1. Video mailers

Martin Simcock, founder and director of Vidioh, has set up a company dedicated to video mailers. “A lot of our clients are B2B,” he says. “It’s about high-value engagement. And 90 per cent of people have still never seen this from a DM point-of-view. In DM there’s been nothing new for a long time.”

Foreign currency exchange broker HiFX is one of Vidioh’s clients. The HiFX marketing team decided to leverage a video mailer to complement sales activity in order to standout and to try to move key relationships on to meeting stage. “HiFX is looking at creating long-term custom. It wouldn’t be so appropriate if you were looking to generate a one-off purchase, but doing finance through currency exchange can be a relationship that lasts a decade or so,” says Simcock.

Vidioh offers a range of screen sizes, from a small 2.4 inch screen up to a seven inch screen. “It tends to depend on the available budget, but there is definitely bigger impact with the bigger screen,” admits Simcock. He adds that, for a 2.8 inch screen the cost is about £15 per card for 1000, printed and video loaded. “You need to look at the cost of acquisition of a lead. It’s not suitable for mass mailing,” he admits.

But video mailers aren’t for everyone. Chris Sykes, managing director of Volume, views them as expensive and faddish. “I think a tiny LED screen that plays something is not sufficiently interactive. I don’t really see the point,” he says.

Antony Miller, ex-Royal Mail marketing director and the man responsible for starting up MarketReach, is also excited about the possibilities inherent in the physical element of direct mail. He is looking at setting up a new venture that will capitalise on the missed opportunities when it comes to physical marketing materials, which in our increasingly digital world, he says, can be something of a rarity. Miller believes the internet is great for imparting information, but you can’t replicate the emotional impact a physical object can have. “Human beings are cognitively lazy. If we can get past reading the messaging by just looking at something, we will,” he jokes.

2. 3D printing

However, one new technology Sykes is excited about is 3D printing. “We’re having discussions with clients at the moment,” he says. “It enables you to send something through the post that you wouldn’t normally be able to. We could send a 3D mackerel if we wanted to. And I see companies disguising mail so that it looks like it’s been ordered from Amazon, so that PAs don’t open it.” Sykes adds that clients are more receptive to DM than they were two or three years ago and the cost of 3D printing will inevitably go down in time, making it more accessible.

He believes marketers need to stop obsessing about cost when it comes to direct mail, but focus instead on impact and relevance. And he says one of the best things about 3D printing is the cost of creating one object is little different to the cost of creating many, which means that as a technology it could make economic sense in the world of on-demand communications. “In theory you can keep doing one at a time,” he says. And he explains that 3D printers create objects out of resin as opposed to ink and stem from the aeroplane industry, where they are used to make parts, “To most people the objects appear plastic. They can be as little as 3mm, but at the high end it manufactures aeroplane parts.”

3. Customer magazines

Anna Fenten, marketing director at Sodexo Prestige, says she believes DM is ‘coming back’ but marketers have to be mindful of the fact that, particularly in a B2B environment, the decision-making process can extend over a year or two. For this reason, rather than sending out brochures, Sodexo has decided to create customer magazines. “We have to be targeted and we have to know our customers and prospects,” says Fenten, who describes the magazine as a ‘glossy, interesting read’. Now on issue three, it’s designed so clients ‘know who they are dealing with’ – via a selection of case studies, behind the scenes stories, competitions and interesting facts and figures. Fenten says that anecdotally there have already been business leads received on the back of the magazine. In contrast, she says that a brochure can seem ‘boring’ or ‘far-fetched’.

Another approach Sodexo Prestige is trialling at the moment is sending targeted marketing materials to home addresses as opposed to offices. For instance, Sodexo has a contract for The Open Championship, one of the world’s four golfing majors, and has taken the decision to target affluent Scottish homes, with a single income of over £95k. Kerry Hill, marketing coordinator for The Open Championship Hospitality, says the idea is that “as the executives receive the piece at home, they may be more likely to pick it up and take more time to read it”. The copy refers to entertaining clients, hopefully making it clear that this is a business as well as a leisure proposition.

4. Marketing automation

The integration of direct mail with marketing automation techniques represents a potentially powerful blend of the traditional and the more modern approaches to marketing. “We think marketers should use print more as it can be so powerful,” says Adam Sharp, managing director of marketing automation specialist CleverTouch. “Too often people confuse marketing automation with over-elaborate email systems or web tracking. I use the rock, paper, scissors analogy. You really want to mix up your mediums.”

Sharp says that ‘the big new market’ is what he’s calling ‘social segmentation’. He says this involves tracking conversations in the social space and encouraging prospects, where and when appropriate, to join an automation platform. His company is launching CrowdVu, a service designed to do just that. “It’s like a new lense for the social space,” he explains. “It’s possible to identify conversations, target people straight away and put them on a welcome campaign.” Sharp says that his company already has about 30 B2B clients signed up and says that in B2B “it’s all about profiles, segments and targeted groups”.

Stuart Wheldon, VP of international account services at Eloqua says that he is seeing companies use DM for targeted campaigns when they want to send their top prospects something attractive. He admits Eloqua is not an expert in direct mail, hence the decision to create an open, third-party platform where other print vendors can integrate their offerings into the Eloqua system. “We used to have a personalised DM system but we found when we launched the app cloud that it offered a better experience if we let other people be experts,” he explains.

5. Availability of social data

One thing that’s key before you go to the expense of creating and sending out clever mail packs, is that your data is clean and up-to-date. This can be particularly challenging in a B2B context. Matthew Grant, marketing manager at The Data Partnership warns there is a lot of data decay in B2B and says data cleansing has been a growth area for his company in recent months. “B2B companies feel they’re reaching saturation point on their email lists. You have to be sure of your mailing files.” Mike Lordan, chief of operations at the DMA adds, “With direct mail, you’ve got to test and ensure it’ll work. Direct mail has always been about taking small segments. It’s always been about testing.”

So although the growth of social networks may well herald the dawn of an era of far richer data on customers and prospects, for most this is not yet the case. The use of multiple personalities online and the difficulties in ensuring data accuracy persist, especially in these newer environments. Filtering and mining social data is undoutedly a challenge many marketers must face.

Connect Group MD Antony Green, who works with clients such as Goodyear Dunlop and Jaguar says it’s important to invest time in researching the data thoroughly. “Use telemarketing to qualify the data. It’s about low volume but fairly high individual value, aiming to create something engaging, creative, with keepability in DM,” he says.

Direct mail only works if it’s combined with follow-up, telemarketing or email, says Green, who uses by way of example one mailer his agency devised with Tarmac and that was sent to a select group of engineers in local authorities. It included a kite, as the theme was taking control of the elements. He says, “Eighteen per cent made an appointment – a pretty good conversion rate. It’s about the impact of the creative and the quality of the data. And the role of the mail piece is to serve as a reference point for a phone call.”

Chris Wilson, managing director at Earnest adds, “Whatever your database size, really you need to choose only 10 per cent. Be picky and selective. It’s generally not appropriate to do mass mailing. That’s just expensive email. Why send 10,000 pieces if you’ve only got five salespeople to do follow-up calls?”

“A lot of this stuff is working because it’s not the norm anymore,” he adds. “And like all things, if everyone starts doing it, it will have to start to work harder.” He points out, DM costs more than email but it’s about effectiveness, not efficiency.

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