Insert Media Offer Cost-Effective Audience Reach

Insert media, direct mail's less glamorous relative, is also a proven way to reach new customers, and AccuList helps clients place offers in a range of printed insert options such as package inserts; publication "blow-in," "bind-in" and onsert programs; postcard decks; statement stuffers; and cooperative mailing programs. In the digital space, there also are webserts to qualified online buyers. Insert media programs may seem old-fashioned, but younger recipients actually embrace them. For example, Quad/Graphics research has found that 49% of millennials said they ignored Internet ads, and 48% said they ignored e-mail, but only 25% ignored retail inserts! Or on the flip side, 73% said they paid attention to retail inserts vs. 48% who paid attention to mobile text. Plus, insert media have a number of virtues that make them attractive to direct marketers: They leverage co-branding since offers "ride along" with material from an already trusted source; they avoid postage costs and save on printing expenses; and they offer a targeted audience. In choosing insert media, the first step is to consider your desired target audience and its match with the demographics and purchase history/interests of the host program. Next, as with any direct marketing effort, test and re-test, making sure there is a large enough universe for future rollout. You can test for both creative/offer and audience category, but if finding the right audience and host program is the goal and the budget is limited, it's probably better to test four different audience groups/programs rather than four creatives to the same audience/program. Of course, once a control is developed for rollout, continue to test against it. And be wary of potential audience duplication: Using different programs with the same owner, a package insert and a statement insert for example, might reach the same recipients at different times. Insert media today are usually part of an omnichannel strategy. That means inserts should provide more than one response option: business reply card, 800 number, URL, and mobile QR code. And it means tracking and analyzing results across channels. So make sure to provide a unique code on pieces to track response by program, offer, audience category, insert month/timing. etc. And if you use a mobile QR code, with links to an offer/purchase landing page or a reply/request page, be sure online pages are mobile-optimized! Because inserts are competing for attention with other offers, your creative needs to stand out in design and messaging, with a clear call to action. Plus, in scheduling insert media, remember that you are at the mercy of the host program's timings and availability. Plan with seasonality in mind and build in adequate lead times. For more, see https://www.acculist.com/insert-media-offer-cost-effective-marketing-options/

Personalization Is Key to 2019 Insurance Marketing

Personalization has become a mantra for all direct marketers, but it is especially relevant in insurance marketing. According to an Accenture 2018 study, 80% of insurance consumers are willing to share data to get more personalized offers, messages, pricing and recommendations from auto, home and life insurance providers. Although over 70% of insurance marketing campaigns claim to use some personalization, surveys show marketers are not doing enough to satisfy that customer demand. As a result, marketers can miss out on personalization's proven power to improve response and ROI, lower acquisition costs, and enhance cross-selling. While digital data often leads conversations, the importance of personalization in traditional direct mail, still an insurance workhorse, should not be ignored. After all, direct mail is considered more personal than digital by 69% of recipients, giving personalized content extra power. Direct mail also gets an average 9% response rate for house lists and 5% for prospects, per 2018 DMA/ANA data, compared with 1% or lower for other channels. Plus, for the digitally addicted, adding direct mail to digital bumps up conversion by 28%. A recent article on insurance marketing from agency Ballantine advised on top ways to maximize mail ROI, and, no surprise, personalization dominated—assuming clean, up-to-date mailing lists with important targeting parameters. First, marketers can use variable data printing and database parameters to personalize content and images to match the consumer's life stage, so, for example, auto policy creative targeting a young single first-time car buyer differs in messaging and images from the creative for an older couple with a minivan. Next, marketers can personalize rates by taking into account factors such as the age and gender of the targeted recipient. And they can tap personal interests by leveraging affinity relationships, such as a specific sports team or association affiliation, via targeted discounts. Personalization should then continue through the customer journey. Marketers can study the sales funnel to find when leads are most likely to drop out so that processes can be simplified, streamlined and further personalized to boost conversion. Simple examples include pre-filled forms and postage-paid return envelopes. Meanwhile, One Inc., an insurance software company, offers a helpful roadmap to digital personalization. As with direct mail, marketing begins with quality consumer data and analysis, taking a step beyond age, gender and location to parameters that identify unmet needs and customer value for targeting and prioritization—such as a recent move, a new home, a new baby or an upcoming policy expiration date. Next, marketers need to track lead and policyholder actions to decide on the specific digital behaviors that will trigger a personalized response, say following up an online request for information with a series of lead-nurture e-mails. Then, marketers can design and test small campaigns before expanding to more channels and audiences. Once strategies and processes have been developed and tested, an investment in marketing automation technology can follow, including AI algorithms using real-time data and behavior to tailor offers, customer service, cross-selling, lead scoring and more. For more on personalization in insurance acquisition and retention, see our full blog post at https://www.acculistusa.com/personalization-is-now-key-to-insurance-marketing-roi/

Why You Should De-dupe Your Data

Anna Kayfitz, CEO of StrategicDB Corp., recently offered AccuList USA this expert advice on why direct marketing success requires de-duping data: 

In today’s data-driven marketing, data is not only the most important asset that your company can have but can also make or break your campaign. Having clean data impacts not only marketing activities but also impacts your reputation, operations and decision-making. De-duping is one of the most important aspects of overall data hygiene. Duplicates can be found on many levels of data; they arise at the household level, individual e-mail level or company level. If you are not convinced that you need to de-dupe, consider the following five benefits. First, you can avoid different offers to the same customer. For example, you send two different direct mail creatives to the same household. As one of the records was a customer, you decided to provide a returning customer 15% off, while the other record was marked as a prospect and only got 10% off. Now the person opening both direct mails will be confused by having two different discounts, and the company also can face a PR nightmare. Second, you can cut unnecessary cost. For example, assume you are doing a direct mail creative which costs you $5 per mailing. Your list contains 10,000 recipients. The total cost of mailings therefore is $50,000. If you decided to de-dupe, you would find out that 10% of your mailing list was duplicated. Therefore, $5,000 was a waste of resources. It would have been much cheaper to de-dupe prior to deploying your campaign. Third, you will get better analytics for decision-making. Analytics is important not just from a perspective of understanding how your marketing and sales is performing but also from a decision-making perspective. By having duplicates in your CRM, you are going to be double-counting your list capabilities, miscalculating your true growth rates, and getting the wrong rate of responses. If you are looking to make a decision on future campaigns, basing it on duplicate data will will give you the wrong list count, wrong budget and possibly the wrong creative picked (especially if you are basing it on an A/B testing done previously). Next, de-duping helps prevent customer service confusion when clients call in, e-mail or come into the store. For example, Mary Smith is found twice in your CRM with the same phone number. She calls in to your customer support to inquire about her order status. Your customer service rep decides to pull up the customer account by phone number and finds two records. Now she has to put the customer on hold while she checks both accounts to try to locate the last purchase before she can even assist the customer. Not only is it wasting everyone’s time and making customer service inefficient, it also makes the customer have a bad customer service experience. Finally, the biggest impact that duplicates have on your business is a potential loss of sale. If you have duplicates, you do not have a true view of all prospect or customer activities. Therefore, you could be excluding prospects from a sales call because your lead scoring system indicated that they are not ready. However, if the data from both records was combined, you would have all signals indicating they are ready to be passed on to sales. With duplicates, by the time you figure it out, a customer may have already lost interest and gone with your competitor. De-duping should be part of your data-cleaning initiative, either prior to any major campaign or on a yearly basis. You can easily de-dupe your list by using a de-duping tool that will require less effort to identify duplicates and establish a master record than is required to deal with the consequences of duplicate data. For more help, see http://www.acculistusa.com/why-you-should-de-dupe-your-data/

Prepping Non-Political Ads for Social Election Impact

The 2016 presidential election is already grabbing headlines, ad space and social media attention, and it's only going to get more intense. This election cycle, non-political marketers not only have to be concerned about competition for consumer attention in broadcast media and direct mail, they will need to plan for a political blitz in social media, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Marketers need to start planning now for how to prevent their non-political messages from being drowned out, squeezed out, and priced out of the social media space. A recent Direct Marketing News magazine article by Perry Simpson, digital content coordinator, warns that cost-per-click (CPC) pricing--a popular way to sponsor and boost posts on Facebook and other social sites--is likely to increase significantly as politicians fight for attention. Simpson suggests three ways to prepare now for the social impact of the election frenzy. First, analyze your geographic performance, especially on a state level. Excluding battleground states, which are likely to see larger CPC spikes, is one option if those states are not key to performance. Next, test and hone messaging now to make sure your creative is as compelling as possible, since cost-per-click on networks like Facebook is affected by click-through rate (higher response lowers CPC). Finally, tighten up CPC bids before the election grabs the market. Lowering bids closer to your desired CPC will avoid outstripping target spend when bids start to climb because of political competition. For more detail, read http://www.dmnews.com/social-media/3-tips-for-non-political-marketing-during-the-presidential-elections/article/427133/

Small Tests to Yield Big Leaps in B2B Digital Leads

Boosting business-to-business digital leads doesn't have to overtax marketers' imaginations and budgets, reassures a recent hubspot.com blog post by Lisa Toner. She suggests five quick, low-cost experiments for boosting B2B leads and sales from social, e-mail and online traffic. First, she advises trying out an embedded one-field subscribe form at the end of blog posts, instead of a call-to-action button; it boosted hubspot's conversion 20%. Second, do A/B testing of content titles; the winning title for an ebook increased leads 776% in one hubspot test, she notes. Idea No. 3 is to experiment with targeted Facebook dark posts (News Feed-style ads published outside your News Feed); she cites one test of ads and targeting that yielded an ROI 35 times the small dollar commitment. Her post links to tutorials for those unfamiliar with dark posts. The fourth area to examine is reduction of form fields on landing pages; Toner cites the example of ImageScape, which reported a 120% improvement in conversion by cutting form fields from 11 to 4. To reduce fields without losing key user info, Toner points to "progressive profiling" software and provides links to explanatory articles. Finally, there is tried-and-true A/B creative testing, starting with something as fundamental as the color of call-to-action buttons. To see examples and links to relevant articles, go to http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/lead-generation-experiments 

Top Digital Marketers Share 5 Secrets to Conversion

The top 20% of digital marketers have conversion rates almost twice the average 2.6%, according to Adobe's 2014 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey. How do they do it? As reported by Direct Marketing News, Adobe identified five common traits of the elite digital practitioners. First, they do more testing, with over 70% of champion converters testing, compared to only 46% of the field. Second, they spend more; 60% of respondents in the top 20% said they devoted more than 5% of their budgets to optimization activities, versus just 39% of the rest surveyed. Third, they target content, with 83% in the top 20% using automation to make content decisions, for example. Fourth, they "democratize" marketing, meaning they are 88% more likely to involve other departments in testing efforts, and that approach helped lift conversion to 4.3% instead of the 2.6% average. Fifth, those with the best digital conversion rates make mobile a key part of their strategy, with more than four-fifths of top converters describing mobile as important to cross-channel marketing success, as opposed to two-thirds of the rest of the survey. Of course, the devil's in the details; for more, read the DM News report at http://www.dmnews.com/top-20-percent-is-twice-as-good-at-converting-as-the-rest/article/378105/

Predict Your Marketing Plan Fate (Sans Crystal Ball)

It's that scary time of year when many marketers finalize plans for 2015 success, and Halloween celebrates a very different kid of future insight via black magic, spirit guides, tarot cards and the like. Now Marketo brings together those two disparate seasonal themes with "What's in the Cards," an infographic of the three factors most predictive of a marketing plan's fate, based on interviews with 400 marketers. Planning Secret No. 1: "Write Your Marketing Destiny," meaning generate a documented plan of action, clearly stating strategy and tactics, with stakeholder buy-in and individual accountability. You'll be joining 66% of marketers interviewed, who use a shared planning document to dodge the most deadly marketing failures, including constantly changing directions and priorities, lack of coordination within the marketing team, and lack of coordination between marketing and other teams. No. 2: "Add a Mix of Techniques and Channels," ranging from e-mail, social and pay-per-click to offline events. Get the right mix by analyzing audience preferences and behavior and then, of course, testing and measuring. No. 3: "The Right Calendar Makes You a Mind-Reader." Two-thirds of marketers interviewed stressed the importance of a marketing calendar, ranging from high-tech online tracking to simple whiteboard. Top calendar requirements cited were easy movement of activities, tracking of tentative vs. confirmed activities, filtering by attributes (channel, product, audience, segment) and a view of the metrics per program. Share Marketo's infographic Halloween treat with marketing team members by going to http://blog.marketo.com/2014/10/infographic-whats-in-the-cards-decide-your-marketings-fate.html

Fundraising Envelope Changes Spur Response

"Testing isn't difficult or costly, but it is the lifeblood of your program," Bryan Terpstra, senior vice president of RobbinsKersten Direct, advised direct mail fundraisers in a recent report by The NonProfit Times. But where to start testing? How about with the first thing a recipient sees: the envelope. If the target audience doesn't even open the envelope, the great appeal inside is wasted. That's why moving from a standard #10 envelope to a larger package can really spur response, not only helping a solicitation stand out in the mail but enabling fundraisers to increase the size of text and graphics, inside and out, Terpstra notes. He provides the following example of how much difference an envelope change can make: When the Special Olympics increased its format from a 6-inch by 4-inch package to a 7.25-inch by 5.25-inch package, its response rate jumped nearly 10%. Of course, once that envelope is opened, there are letter and copy treatments, including changing the "gift array" or "ask ladder," to test as response boosters. For more direct mail testing suggestions, see the article at http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/envelope-change-boosted-fundraising-results-10/

How to Avoid Common and Costly E-mail Flubs

Some e-mail mistakes sneak up on even experienced marketers. Check out the recent MarketingProfs article by Amanda Kiviaho to see five of the most common e-mail pitfalls and tips for avoiding costly marketing tumbles. At the top of her list is tacking on the subject line as a marketing afterthought. The subject line is key to open rate and thus click-through, so make sure it is part of e-mail strategy from the get-go, is based on past performance metrics, and is constantly tested to optimize, Kiviaho advises. Next, though relevant content is supposedly a marketing mantra, e-mails still blast out without regard to recipient interest or value, resulting in a disengaged. even disappearing, audience. The lesson: Content needs to be tied to smart e-mail list segmentation--using past response metrics such as opens, clicks, purchases or sign-ups. Expecting creative changes to result in immediate lift also can lead e-mail marketers astray toward ineffective updates or premature abandonment of changes, Kiviaho warns. Use A/B testing before roll-out and then be patient in judging results; response to new creative can initially dip before outperforming a control over time. Another common error is focus on revenue generation to the point of counterproductive over-mailing; one antidote is a disciplined e-mail calendar that monitors frequency and response by segment. Finally, e-mail does not earn optimum performance as a stand-alone, Kiviaho cautions; e-mail plans should draw input across the organization and marketing channels. Read more at http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2014/26200/five-email-mistakes-even-the-experts-make

Using a Scientific Approach to Direct Marketing

Thanks to evolving technology, today's direct marketing can rely more on scientific discipline than risky, intuitive market reads. A recent article in Direct Marketing News highlighted a five-step scientific approach that you can apply to almost any marketing channel -- social media, e-mail, mobile, display ads and, of course, direct mail -- courtesy of Matt Dopkiss, CEO and founder of Dynamit, a data, design, and technology company. Here's Matt's "big bang theory meets big data." First, identify the hypothesis, or marketing question, that a campaign is seeking to answer (say, which offer gets to highest response). Make sure that the test hypothesis is specific, measurable and actionable. Second, use a control model for comparison of results. Compare the response of subscribers receiving a new e-mail version with a set of subscribers not receiving the e-mail, for example. Third, use statistics to verify your theory, collecting enough data to draw valid conclusions -- but not such a huge data set that noise overwhelms actionable results. Fourth, repeat tests to make sure results can be reproduced and are not due to timing or extraneous factors (such as weather, news events, etc.). Finally, be certain you are applying the right technical tools and methods (and trained staff) to extract actionable data. For more detail, go to http://www.dmnews.com/the-big-bang-theory-meets-big-data/article/369346/

B2B Online Success Is Still Built on the Basics

Distracted by the buzz of new tech toys and tactics, B2B marketers sometimes need to be reminded of the basics of online success. For a review of B2B online fundamentals, check out Lee Odden's recent TopRankBlog post. Here are just the first four of the 21 basic tactics that he lists, and note that they are not high-tech investments but offline efforts with online impact: client testimonials that speak to the target audience; case studies that show the brand's problem-solving breadth and depth; industry recognition to enhance credibility; media relations to get quoted, profiled and linked in the press and blogosphere. Other, more online-specific basics include quality website design and functionality, targeted online advertising, search engine visibility on competitive terms, and so on. To further aid online success, we'd also like to remind of the basic marketing disciplines -- targeting, testing, tracking, updating and optimizing. Analyze your customer and make sure an event presentation, news release or social post offers useful content in a format likely to be shared by the target audience, for example. And avoid wasting ad, design and search dollars by implementing targeted, measurable response testing. For Odden's complete article, see http://www.toprankblog.com/2014/07/21-b2b-online-marketing-tactics/

How to Use Preheader Text to Boost E-mail Opens

With a crowded e-mail inbox and a few seconds of e-mail attention span, snaring opens is a struggle -- even with a good subject line. What if you could reinforce the opening power of your subject line? A recent Target Marketing magazine article explains how to do that with preheader text. Preheader text is the grayed-out text that shows up after the subject line when checking e-mail in your Gmail inbox or on your mobile device. If you don't put in your own preheader text, you send a default message like "If you're having trouble viewing this e-mail…" -- which wastes space that could pack real marketing punch. The Target Marketing piece suggests how to use preheader text as a second chance to capture reader attention. You can use it to expand on the subject line, add call-to-action language or add an incentive offer, for example. And you can personalize the preheader for a more subtle friendliness than the personalized subject line, which offends some. One thing the preheader should not do is merely repeat or recast the subject line; that's a reader-annoying waste of marketing real estate. Plus, you're writing for the e-mail inbox, so keep the preheader short but impactful at 75 characters or less. Finally, since the preheader should be audience-targeted marketing copy, you should do A/B testing of variations. For more tips, check out the article at http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/8-uses-preheader-text-improve-email-open-rates/1

Tips for Welcome E-mails That Win Engagement

Welcome-to-our-list e-mails are key to subscriber engagement, yet some marketers either don't send them or don't take care to make them effective. With two to six times the open rate of other e-mails, that first welcome is a once-in-a-digital-relationship opportunity, so get it right! Courtesy of a recent article in Target Marketing magazine by Cyndie Shaffstall, here are some tips for improving welcome e-mails. Start by using a short subject line that reminds the recipient of the new relationship ("Welcome" is one obvious word choice). A simple text e-mail is more likely to dodge spam filters, while interactive html encourages engagement. But why choose? You can send a text and follow with an html. As far as content, write clear and direct copy, repeat the WIIFM message that inspired subscriber opt-in, and personalize as much as possible. Send that welcome message immediately before they forget they opted in; an auto-response makes it easy. Set expectations on frequency, format and content -- and deliver as promised. Increase engagement and retention with a reward (any gift promised or a surprise offer) and make it easy to redeem rewards. Boost social sharing with incentives, too. Remind new subscribers to save/archive the message if it contains important account data. Of course, you can then use A/B testing to craft the best possible "thanks for subscribing" e-mail. For more detail and examples, read the article at http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/blog/thanks-subscribing-10-tips-great-welcome-emails#

Single, Focused E-mail Call-to-Action Can Hike Clicks

One e-mail creative rule of thumb is that adding call-to-action buttons adds click-throughs, but recent e-mail testing by Whirlpool found that focusing on a single call-to-action (CTA) improved response. MarketingSherpa featured the Whirlpool results in a recent case study article. Whirlpool's e-mail control package had three buttons labeled "Learn more" at the bottom of the e-mail, each directing consumers to three different pages for information on different products. A fourth CTA button was located in the middle of the page: a gold "See Details" button directing to the rebate that the campaign was designed to promote. The test package paralleled the control but used only the one CTA gold button in the middle of the page, driving consumers to the rebate download landing page. "The theory was if you highlighted one call-to-action button that was the primary focus, you'd get more people to go to that landing page than the other creative, which sent people into completely different products," Thomas Mender, Senior Manager at Whirlpool, explained to MarketingSherpa. And the theory worked: The single, focused CTA creative achieved a 42% increase in clicks for Whirlpool. For more details of Whirlpool's e-mail testing, including subject lines and segmentation, go to http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/whirlpool-lift-clickthrough-testing-culture

A Well-Timed Text, E-mail Combo Reaps Response

A well-timed combination of text and e-mail pitches is a great way to maximize marketing impact, suggests a recent Direct Marketing News article by John Brogan, founder of Global IntelliSystems. He advises delivering time-sensitive messages first in a call-to-action text message (a buy-now stock tip or a retail discount notice, for example). A text is more likely to cut through the digital noise and trigger interest than an e-mail given the daily e-mail flood. Once attention is captured by a targeted text, marketers can follow up with an e-mail giving in-depth information on why and how to take action, with links to website or social pages. But timing is everything, so messaging needs to be calibrated to the recipient's time zone and preferred message-receipt timing based on data analysis and testing. Brogan gives the example of a brokerage client who, using data that highest open rates for its target market occurred 9:30 to 10.30 a.m., delivered first a 9:25 a.m. text message and then a 9:45 a.m. follow-up e-mail. Click-throughs and sales soared. Of course, a note of caution is in order: A frenzied flurry of text and e-mail jabs can actually knock out customers as excessive messaging reaps unsubscribes. For more tips on combining text and e-mail effectively, go to http://www.dmnews.com/the-value-of-timing-when-to-send-email-and-text-messages/article/334552/