Direct Mail marketers have no shortage of data at their disposal, but their challenge is organizing and manipulating that data to have the greatest impact on Direct Mail. And data provides the strongest return on investment when it powers personalization.
Here are four ways marketing organizations can leverage their wealth of data to enhance Direct Mail personalization, create more enjoyable customer experiences and increase engagement:
Standardize & IntegrateMany Direct Marketing organizations are using data that is coming from various sources lacking standardization.
It’s the norm within many Direct Mail structures for individual teams and departments to operate within their own silo, using their own form of standards and processes. When teams aren’t integrated, the same goes for their data sources. And that leads to data operations spending the majority of their time organizing and standardizing data to meet the needs of a generic mail piece.
Lost in all of this is the opportunity to analyze and discover trends and data consistencies that can be applied to effective, relevant offers and creative.
When data is stored in one centralized source and standardized across all marketing teams, time spent on data hygiene can instead go towards data analysis that enhances 1:1 personalization. And when data is readily accessible and applicable, Direct Mail can be produced faster, allowing organizations to be more responsive and relevant with their messaging.
Testing is an extremely important element of Direct Mail success, but it’s a time-consuming effort when conducted through legacy operating models. That doesn’t mean Direct Mail teams should shy away from it. They just have to take a measured approach.
When Direct Mail teams review past campaign metrics to identify benchmarks for success, they can intelligently tinker and tweak variables to drive improved campaign engagement. Armed with revised go-to campaigns that deliver better engagement and revenue, marketers can engage in more advanced, granular testing that leads to greater personalization and transformative results.
This testing strategy suits traditional Direct Mail operating models where bandwidth is at a premium and the mandate to improve personalization and efficiency is a constant presence.
Keep it focused. Don’t go overboard developing audience segments just because you can. Identify a strong set of high-performing segments/variables and test to further optimize the campaigns you are sending them.
Remember: The more data and complexity a Direct Mail campaign requires, the more time, steps and labor it takes to develop content to support sophisticated personalization and versioning. And the more time a campaign takes to reach a prospect, the less relevant the messaging when it arrives in-home.
There needs to be a balance between returns and resources. Scaling Direct Mail personalization is a requirement for marketers because consumers and prospects engage with personalized content at a higher rate than generic messages. The key is to approach and segment these important audiences in a targeted, focused way that incrementally boosts results while allocating only the resources needed.
Direct Mail organizations don’t have to invest in platform technology to leverage automation, but it's a valuable investment. Teams can automate response, re-engagement and other campaigns based on customer action triggers to save time for key efforts like strategizing larger acquisition mailings.
Using technology enhances the impact of automation and simplifies every aspect of Direct Mail programs, from strategy to execution.
When automating complex Direct Mail campaigns, enterprise marketing organizations are digitally transforming their Direct Marketing capabilities to increase campaign profitability and operational transparency. These teams get campaigns out the door faster and avoid many costs associated with legacy operating models. Automation lets them rely less on all those resources to execute Direct Mail while reducing deployment times through automatic data management, artificially intelligent quality control and progressive multivariate testing.
The less you do with big data, the smaller the opportunities become. With these four steps, marketers can not only get a handle on their big data, they can tap into its potential to create smarter Direct Mail that takes less time and resources to deliver greater ROI.
Would you like to optimize your Direct Marketing operations and performance by leveraging digital transformation? Submit a Request for Consultation and a KleerMail Solutions Specialist will reach out to see how we can help your organization.