Worth Knowing

How going from $65,000 to $2,000 in print revenue can be a good thing

We recently spoke with Walter Payne, president of ImageMark and a member of PODi, who showed us that decreasing print revenue can be a good thing. The key was developing a solution that met the customer’s needs and also established the service provider as a strategic partner.

ImageMark’s customer was an aftermarket automotive supplier customer that had 125 different flyers that they were spending $65,000 to reprint annually. By moving this collateral to a print-on-demand solution the service provider saved their customer thousands of dollars and now they only spend $2,000 annually on production. But most importantly for the service provider, this program enabled them to build their relationship and credibility with the customer. From this print-on-demand solution they have branched into other lucrative marketing programs for the customer.

An important insight shared by Walter is that Web to Print solutions are a key application to promote during a down economy. Here’s why…

Marketing departments are currently experiencing tremendous pressure to reduce costs while increasing results. Printers can address this need by offering a Web to Print solution which will reduce production costs by only printing documents as needed. This also reduces costs associated with inventory storage, waste due to out-of-date materials, and labor costs associated with manual pick and pack kitting. Web to Print solutions can also have the added benefit of controlling the company brand across all collateral while allowing individual dealers or channel members to customize materials for their specific needs.

Another reason to promote Web to Print solutions is that they are very “sticky,” meaning that once the program has been implemented the customer will find it difficult to move elsewhere. The service provider wins because these sticky solutions provide recurring revenue and the marketer wins because they have found a partner committed to providing high-value, on-going services.

To learn more about Web to Print solutions check out these resources which are free to PODi members:

·        Our online case study database at www.podi.org/casestudy. In the left-hand navigation select Application / Collateral Management/Personalized Sales Collateral. Some recent case studies to review are:

·        Invisalign Increases Sales and Brand Awareness with Personalized Marketing Collateral – Reduced production costs by $380,000

·        Disney Destinations Cuts Costs and Improves Results With Customized Sales Collateral – Cut printing and storage costs by 50%

·        Smith & Nephew Reduces Cost and Saves Time Using On-Demand Sales Collateral System – system has saved company hundreds of thousands of dollars and cut turnaround time

·        For help in selling these solutions review the Collateral Management Solution Presentation in the S3 Council.

How to recover from a campaign that falls short

What do you do when the direct marketing campaign you are delivering comes up short?  If you lived in the movie world you’d go to the MIB (Men In Black) set and pick up the flash light that erases memories and shine it in your client’s eyes. If you live in the real world you might be inclined to think you should be off looking for another client, but that’s not usually the case.  Here’s why.  Most of all, your client wants to be viewed as a success and while this campaign wasn’t a success your client selected you as their vendor and so your client is vested in your success as well. Blaming the vendor for a poor campaign doesn’t make your client look good.  What he or she needs is good analysis of what went wrong and solid recommendations of what to do going forward.  And who is in the best position to provide that info? You.

Setting the right expectations (good or bad) upfront is a critical part of the third component in the S3 selling process – expanding the relationship. Here are 3 things you can do.

1. Be proactive.  If you are managing or have access to the results as the campaign unfolds be the source of information for your client for what’s working and what’s not working. Evaluate the impact of some problem and try to deliver the bad news even before the client knows. Being proactive will win a lot of brownie points and they will be in sharing mode. Nobody wants to be surprised.

2. Every campaign should include a post mortem analysis.  It’s best if you lead the analysis and examine how each of the 4 key factors affected the campaign outcome. Offer to call a couple prospects on the list and get their response to the campaign. Finally, You should make recommendations on how to adjust the campaign going forward.

Factor	Questions to Ask
List	·         Was the target market identified correctly? ·         Are the names on our list really the buyer? ·         Is the list up to date? ·         Did they receive the piece?
Offer	·         Did we address the pain points? ·         Was the offer compelling?
Timing	·         Did we miss the buying window?
Creative	·         Did the creative communicate the key benefit of the product for the target audience? ·         Was the piece persuasive? ·         What was the call to action?

3. Testing. If you put your toe in the water and it’s really cold don’t jump in. One of the great benefits of digital printing is there are no huge set up costs, which makes it easier and more affordable to test. You want to manage your media dollars carefully.  You can do that by testing small lot sizes of 1,000 or 500 or even 200 pieces. You are not testing for response rates with the small lot sizes; rather you are testing for failure. If you send out 500 you should get at least 10 responses. If you don’t get any or only a couple you need to make adjustments before continuing. Direct marketing is not an exact science so testing and adjusting should be viewed as a normal part of any campaign.

In summary, be proactive in supplying your client with information and analysis about every campaign. Always include a post mortem analysis along with your projects and test before you spend all the media dollars.  Setting the proper expectations at the start of the campaign and following these steps you’ll be able to set the proper expectations with customers and recover from an occasional bad campaign.

Why Didn’t My Campaign Work? An Analysis

Recently one of our members reached out to us and asked for our help regarding a lead generation campaign that failed miserably. First of all, I want to say that we love getting these questions from our community and we are very surprised that our members do not reach out more often. We have a service called “Ask the Experts” for just these kinds of questions, and it is absolutely free to PODi members. So click on the link and ask away! We are here to help.

Now back to the question asked by our member about his unhappy campaign.

The campaign resulted in 0 leads and only 12 people even visited their personalized landing page out of a list of 10,000. Not a good ROI at all! So what went wrong?

The campaign was a postcard with a personalized landing page. It featured a good offer – a $20 gift card for coming to the landing page and filling out four simple questions. It had many of the components that should lead to success but still failed.

Upon reviewing the campaign, it became clear that it failed because the creator did not follow the basic rules of direct marketing. The company fell into the age old trap – if I put someone’s name in bold letters on a direct mail piece and drive them to personalized landing page, suddenly the response will go through the roof.

It has never been like that and never will be. All response in direct marketing is driven by this basic rule:

1. List - 30% of the response is driven by who you send your offer to
2. Offer - 30% is driven by the value of the offer to the recipient
3. Timing - 30% is determined by when you send it – is the customer in the buying window?
4. Creative – 10% depends on the creative elements utilized.

If we apply this rule to our campaign, here is how it fared.

List – The campaign was designed to generate leads for a service to retail chain stores. The postcard was sent to corporate locations and to people at the C-level of decision making for that service. Potentially a good list.

Offer – The gift card offer was good, but it was not highlighted or detailed on the direct mail piece. There was no real reason for anybody to go to the landing page. I was surprised that even 12 people visited. Worse still, the value proposition was so generic – save time and money – it could have been used for any industry, any service. In fact, the direct mail piece only mentioned the actual product/service once. Your client wants to know that YOU know their industry and their unique challenges.

In terms of other persuasive elements, the actual landing page had a great testimonial but it was in paragraph form which few people read. An excerpt of the testimonial should have been on the DM piece to build credibility for the company and then followed up with more detail on the landing page.

The landing page also devoted a huge amount of real estate to the company logo and to a picture of the quoted customer. Neither was what prospects wanted to see.

Timing – This was not a factor as this was a lead generation piece and none of the recipients had every expressed any interest in buying this service from the company.

Creative – The visuals centered on photography of the team who delivers the service. They look like very nice people, but their picture tells me nothing about what their company can actually do for me. Do they understand my business? Do they know the industry? Are they experienced? Do they have the connections to get me the best selection and value? What qualifies these nice looking people to work with me? (Strangely, there were no visuals of the actual product/service – nothing to connect the postcard to the issues being addressed.)

The target audience, C-level decision makers, care more about enhancing their company’s prestige and appearance to their customers, than who actually does the work to make it all happen. With a C-level audience, you need to pitch the solution to a problem they face, not show them the tools you will use.

Neither the imagery nor the copy did the product or the company justice in terms of building credibility.

In summary, always follow the rule of direct marketing and avoid using technology as a crutch. To help our members, we have some great tools in our Application Delivery Council. (Be sure to login first to get member access.)

Start with the Lead Generation Campaign Brief to help organize your thoughts and hone your message. Use the Design Templates for Postcards and Landing Pages to ensure that you include all the important content and don’t forget anything vital. And then deliver the best campaigns possible!

(You’ll also find templates and briefs for Nurture/Loyalty campaigns in the AppD Council.)

Again, we love to hear from you. Call us – we are here to help.