This 2011, it is expected that spending on direct mail will increase. In fact, the retail sector is the primary driving force that will bring this about. In the retail industry, direct mail has played an important role in channeling more customers in.
According to the data in the “Media Usage Forecast” of Target Marketing, approximately more than 69% of marketers are planning of utilizing direct mail to acquire more customers for the current year. The “Traffic Generation Solutions for the Retail Market” report of PODi reviewed various strategies that were applied and highlighted those ideas that actually worked along with the results that were achieved.
One of the strategies that actually worked was to integrate three key components in marketing – print, social media and online marketing. This will help promotions go viral. An example of such strategy was implemented by Chick-fil-A, which is among the largest privately-owned restaurant chains in the U.S. it has nearly 1,500 restaurants located in 38 states all over the country and in Washington DC.
The local franchise owner of the said restaurant chain in Covington, LA, was figuring out a marketing solution that would usher in more customers to their store and to establish a customer database. They utilized a plastic postcard which has 2 perforated cards, which featured campaign offers. These postcards were mailed to the consumers in Covington area. The recipients of the cards were given instructions to their own personalized URL which would activate 2 offers. They would then go to the store to redeem the said offers.
Once customers visit their personalized URLs, they would be taken to the Chick-fil-A campaign microsite. Customers would then validate their contact information and select an offer that they want to activate. They would then be able to share the offer on various social networks, email or SMS and those who would share the offer are entered in a sweepstakes. The outcome of the campaign was really positive.
The following data was the result of the campaign.
279.8% visit rate – more than 5,000 plastic postcards were sent out, because of social sharing, 14,124 visited the campaign site
120.6% response rate – more than 6,000 individuals gave their contact information. A 3rd party list was used, which ensured all data that was captured was new. This led to a much higher number of leads.
24.8% coupon redemption rate – around 1,300 coupon redemptions were reported by store owners. Those redemptions from the viral sharing were almost the same as that which came from the mail.
The full report of the said campaign was only made available to PODi members. For more info, please visit http://www.podi.org/membership
