Ready – Aim – Fire!

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Are you sending the appropriate message to your audience?

In order to understand buyer behavior, you must know how different generations interact within the marketplace. Our current marketplace is composed of four different generations and in order to create a successful marketing campaign, your message must resonate with each of them on an individualized basis.

Each generation has different needs and wants.

Age cohorts are used to classify these generations. Age cohorts are defined as a segment of people from similar geographic locations born roughly around the same time.

Their life experiences can be defined by certain events in their lifetime such as the Great Depression, President Kennedy’s assassination, the Vietnam War, 9-11, etc.

Let’s take a look at four different generations, and define some of the major descriptive qualities of each:

1. Traditionalists (aka The Silent Generation)

·         Born between 1922 and 1946

·         Lived by the motto “Live to work.”

·         Called traditionalists because of their slow adaptation to new technologies and innovations.

·         Experienced the aftermaths of the Great Depression, they are not wasteful and are hard working.

·         To market effectively to traditionalists, you have to show the value of the product, and reward their loyalty to your product.

2.Baby Boomers

·         Born between 1946 and 1964

·         Tend to be workaholics, and are driven by success.

·         They sought stability, and wanted their children to have a better life than they did

·         More and more boomers are holding off retirement because of economic downturn.

·         Many embrace technology.

·         Boomers currently have the largest spending power, and account for 55% of
consumer product goods purchased.

·         Boomers prefer contact through email or phone calls and rarely use texting and social media

3.Generation X

·         Born between 1965 and 1976.

·         They are currently waiting for Baby Boomers to retire.

·         Were brought up in a time of huge layoffs, making them the first generation to be
skeptical of loyalty to companies

·         Divorce rates increased at this time, giving them different views on family makeup.

·         Generation X is more likely than any other generation to research a product or service before they buy it.

·         To gain their trust, offer a money-back guarantee.

·         Grew up with the introduction of new technologies, so they are true digital natives.

·         Overall, this generation is very distrustful of corporations and faceless entities.
This means you must make the experience more personal for them.

4.Millenials (aka Generation Y)

·         Born between 1977 and 1995.

·         This is the fastest growing generation.

·         Tend to “live in the moment” and are the most social of the groups.

·         This generation has embraced more technology than any other.

·         Are delaying adulthood by 3-5 years more than any other generation.

·         Have short attention spans due to being raised with the Internet.

·         Love to challenge the status quo, so they do not trust traditional advertising.

·         heir spending power is just beginning to grow.

Each of these generations is marked by different needs and values, so a word of advice. Know your audience before you pull that trigger!

AccuLink can help you build a successful personalized direct marketing campaign. Please let me know if I can help you.

 

Ed Glaser
Chief Marketing Officer
252.321.5805
ed.glaser@acculink.com
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Want to Increase Your Direct Marketing Response Rate?

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Response rates driven from relevant marketing campaigns are, on average, over 4 times that of responses to static, same-to-all messages. This is not my opinion; this statistic actually comes from the PODi’s digital print case study collection and the DMA’s 2012 Response Rate Report.

Depending on the segment, the increase in response rates due to personalized, relevant marketing ranged from a factor of 1.3 to 6.2.

These response rates do not magically occur when personalization is used. The critical factor is the offer, and how relevant it is to the recipient. If the recipient gets a marketing piece that offers them something they really want, just at the time when they want it, they will respond. Otherwise, they will not. It makes absolutely no difference how the piece was produced or what the price point is.

In our industry, the terms “personalization” and “relevance” are often used interchangeably.

While they have similar meanings, there are subtle but important differences that are necessary to understand. It might be easiest to think of personalization as a science and relevance as an art. Personalization often refers to variable data that includes the recipient’s name, appropriate images and a personalized response mechanism such as a pURL. While personalization results in what information goes where in a marketing campaign piece, relevance is the art of developing content that speaks to the recipient’s needs, at the right time, and delivers a compelling solution to their problem.

Here are three tips to make your direct marketing copy more relevant:

1. Put Critical Ideas at the Beginning. Most consumers skim their mail and only read the first few messages. Take advantage of established reading patterns when organizing content and put your most important information at the top. 
2. Have a Conversation with Your Prospect. The goal with any relevant direct marketing piece is to “speak” to your audience. Show that you understand their specific problem and provide the solution with a timely call to action.
3. Make the Call to Action Clear and Easy. Not only should the call to action be relevant, it should also be convenient to respond to. Don’t make your prospects jump through hoops or click too many times to follow through with an offer.

The most successful marketing campaigns are a product of personalization and relevance. Despite their subtle differences, both strategies used in tandem can turn a direct marketing campaign’s offer from interesting to irresistible.

Please let me know if I can help you develop a great marketing campaign using both personalization and relevancy.

 

Ed Glaser
Chief Marketing Officer
252.321.5805
ed.glaser@acculink.com 

Learn: www.intelimailer.com
Watch: http://youtu.be/He429Ylw3l8
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How Much Money Are You Leaving On The Table?

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Ever hear the term “one and done”. If you are a marketer and make a practice of conducting your campaigns this way, then it’s not a question of if you are leaving money on the table, it’s actually how much? Research shows that stopping at a single touch leaves anywhere from half of the potential opportunity to substantially more on the table.

Direct marketing, no matter how targeted, is a numbers game. If you only give yourself one shot at an audience, you’re more than likely headed for failure. Prospects rarely respond after the first “touch” – it normally takes time to build their interest and trust. What if that one particular day that you send out a direct marketing message they’re too busy to read it? What if that particular message didn’t resonate with them? What if they only respond to direct mail and you sent an email? What if their circumstances change in six months and suddenly they become a prime opportunity, but you gave up after your first touch, five months ago?

Experts point out that campaign results can increase by up to 8 times when following up a direct marketing campaign with additional touches. These additional touches can be a combination of phone calls, mail pieces, emails, and of course social media. You may be surprised to know that unless you are touching contacts within your target market at least 7 to 9 individual times you are probably not generating the kind of results that you could be. Don’t stop there. Data also shows that the initial contact cycle; the first time you touch the market with those 7 to 9 individual touches, will yield only 40%-50% of the total available opportunities. The remaining opportunities existing within the market can only be identified by continuing to touch those same contacts, with the same multi-media, multi-touch cycle strategy on a regular basis.

You should expect results from the second and subsequent touch cycles to generate anywhere from 120% to 210% of the initial response rate.

Please note, however, data also shows that response rates begin to decline after the fifth contact cycle.

In summary, using the “one and done” approach, common in so many marketing campaigns, historically generates just one percent of the potential opportunities that are possible with multi-media, multi-touch, multiple cycle campaigns against the same market. How much is too much? As long as the message is fresh but consistent and compelling, there may not be a too much.

Don’t be disheartened when some people don’t respond instantly, and don’t keep chopping and changing your messaging because you get bored. Remember, your audience may not even recall you until after the ninth touch!

If you would like some assistance in creating relevant and timely personalized campaigns that really work or if you are ready to start profiling customer data to identify the best prospects, give me a call. I can help.

Ed Glaser
Chief Marketing Officer
252.321.5805
ed.glaser@acculink.com

“As seen in October DMAW Advents”

 

 

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The Only Statistics You Can Count On

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I wish I had a nickel for every time I have been asked “what response rate can I expect from this type of product” or “do you have any statistics on someone else’s similar campaign”. Invariably when I am asked to quote on a direct marketing project I get asked these questions. In order to provide some kind of response to these questions, I maintain a few a case studies and I can always check The DMA’s or PODI/Caslon’s Response Rate Report or even the USPS’s Household Diary Study. But, the real question is should I?

I contend that it is impossible to predict with any degree of certainty how one campaign would perform versus another of the same type.

Why?

Even if the same direct marketing medium and offering are similar, that is where the similarity will end. Here are some of the key differences in all campaigns:

1) Differences in name recognition of the sender
2) Difference in copy, color, art/design
3) Difference in geography and demographics of the target audience
4) Timing of the offer
5) The number of touches and contact cycles employed

I’m sure that there are other differences, but these are significant enough to insure that one campaign result will not look like another.

So how should I answer the inevitable question regarding response rate or success?

The correct answer is that there is only one way to truly know how your campaign will perform.

That is to run your own campaign and analyze the results and then modify the campaign, using any of the above differences to try to improve the results. This is commonly known as testing.

If you ask any direct marketing pro what the secret of successful direct marketing is, their answer will invariably be “Test, Test, and Test”. This is another reason not to conduct “one and done campaigns”. They are rarely successful and even if you get lucky, they are probably not repeatable.

So while there are lots of statistics available and even a whole passel of case studies, I highly recommend that you use outside marketing expertise to help you create a winning campaign rather than predicting the outcome of your campaign before it runs.

If you would like more information, give me a call. Let me help you set up a marketing campaign that includes email notification when the delivery of the mail piece is imminent. These campaigns have real teeth and get much improved response rates.

Learn: www.intelimailer.com

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