MindFireInc Spotlight
Fast Fact
According to an online research analyst, email blasts sent to B-2-B prospects on Tuesday or Wednesday has the highest open rate. In the B-2-C market, a Friday blast has the greatest open rate.
The primary goal of cross media campaigns is to build value. One excellent way to create value is to conduct an in-depth campaign debrief after the campaign has launched. This process will allow you to develop a deeper understanding of your clients' needs as well as identify incremental opportunities.
The LookWhosClicking® solution from MindFireInc® provides extremely powerful insight into client campaigns. This information can be accessed by your clients through the dashboard. However, by conducting a recap, you can often identify information that has been overlooked. Campaign debriefs should include a review of several critical areas including URL activity, survey questions, and overall results. By creating a simple presentation it is possible to provide significantly greater value to your clients. This presentation can include simple screen captures of the campaign dashboard. Many providers will also include a copy of the direct mail piece, or outbound email. This professional presentation will be visible on your client’s shelf for months to come.
When reviewing URL activity, you should pay particular attention to a few key areas. First, look at the number of guest logins. If there is a high number of guest logins (those who did not have a pre-defined Personalized URL) this may be a point that warrants some conversation. Could this mean that the respondents are typing the URL incorrectly? Even better, has word of mouth spread so fast that people are responding that are not in the original list? Trying to understand what is happening will provide insight as to how to adjust the campaign for the next drop.
When reviewing activity it is also important to look at defection rate. This is the rate at which respondents leave the personalized URL experience. Do you see a high level of defection at the survey page? This may be an indicator that there are too many survey questions. Perhaps you need to reinforce the offer more overtly on this page. By reviewing these items with the client you will be able to position yourself as a consultant and drive incremental value. The campaign debrief is also the perfect environment to sell incremental campaigns that build on the information that has been gathered.
As a consultant, take the time to review the survey results. What information did the client hope to gain from the questions they asked? Did the campaign effectively gather the data they needed? Ask yourself how the information collected could be used to more effectively communicate with the prospects in the future. With some additional effort, this is also an area that you can provide much greater insight. By using the data output function of your control panel, you can export all of the information to Excel. It is then easy to sort the information. It can be very powerful to segment customers and look at how each segment may have answered the questions. For example, you may be able to look at how responders from the east coast answered the survey questions vs. how people from the west coast answered. By going this extra step, you are investing in the client relationship and becoming part of their team rather than just a vendor. By having greater insight into your client’s business you put yourself in the driver’s seat.
Finally, talk with your client about the overall results. A campaign that drives a great deal of leads that do not convert into revenue will be short lived. Make sure the work you have done does not go to waste. This is a perfect opportunity to open conversations between both the sales and marketing departments.
Tech Tip - Measuring Email Success
In today’s challenging economic market, more companies are turning to email marketing as a source to generate leads. Marketers are also increasingly interested in measuring results. When using email marketing there are two key ways to measure response.
Perhaps the best way to measure results is to use the MindFireInc® LookWhosClicking® system to create an email campaign with a Personalized URL response mechanism. This would be comprised of an outbound email with a link embedded that would drive back to a personalized URL.
It is also possible to measure results on a simple email blast. When developing an email blast, be sure to include some sort of graphical header in the body of the email. This graphic will be hosted on a MindFireInc server. When a recipient opens an email, their browser will then access the MindFireInc® server to pull down the image. When the image is requested for download, the system will indentify who opened the email.
This reporting can be accessed by selecting the email icon in the campaign blueprint. This will list each email blast you have sent. By clicking on the blast you want to review, you will be able to see the success rate of the campaign. It will provide both the undeliverable addresses as well as the number of respondents that opened the email.
Data Management - Data Modeling
The three most critical factors of success in any campaign are having a great offer, developing engaging creative, and securing an effective list. Many MindFireInc providers are purchasing lists for their clients. How do you know if you are buying an effective list?
One great way to indentify the type of list you should purchase is to create ideal customer criteria by modeling client data. In the past this type of process was left for only the largest of organizations with huge budgets. Today, it is much easier. Many national data compilers will help you create an effective data model for under $2500.
What is a data model? In simple terms a data model looks at the existing client base and determines what commonalities they have. Typically your client would provide a database of their existing customers. This may be from a CRM system, or even transactional information. This list would then be sent to a data compiler. Your data compiler would then take the list and append information from multiple external database files. This appended data can run the gamut from public government record information to self reported interest. The end result is a more robust picture of each customer. Once this incremental information is appended to the existing database an analysis of the information will look for statistically significant commonalities.
These "traits" are often surprising. You may find in the B2C world that your customers subscribe to particular magazines, or have a particular income. By adding incremental data to the original file you will be able to see if there are other criteria that you should be looking at.
Once this initial analysis is complete you will now know the most significant data points to select when purchasing a list. This process can vary greatly. It is not uncommon for a full data model to cost tens of thousands of dollars. However, new technology allows you to get much of the same information for a few thousand dollars. You may not have a PhD statistician to explain the details, but you will have the ability to purchase a great list.
When is it appropriate to invest in this type of modeling? The basic model makes sense whenever you will be doing business with a client over a long period of time, or will be doing a large drop. While the investment may cost something upfront, it will actually improve the ROI of the campaign. If you are able to improve response rates by even 1% you will likely offset the cost of the model on a single drop. From that point on the same model can be used subsequent drops.
Florida Panthers Score Increased Response Rate with Personalized URLs
The professional hockey season begins in mid-October and runs through mid-April. To the Florida Panthers Hockey Club, that translates to 41 home games and 789,250 seats to fill with hockey fans. While many of these seats are held by season ticket holders, there is still plenty of room for single game ticket buyers. Given the challenge to increase ticket sales for the 2008-09 season, the Panthers’ marketing team turned to Nordis Direct, a MindFireInc® partner, to help boost interest among potential game attendees.
Historically, the Panthers have used a multi-media approach – print, mail, radio, TV and Internet – to reach their existing and prospective fans, with considerable success. However, with current economic conditions putting added stress on ticket sales, a new multi-channel methodology, combining variable data direct marketing and personalized URLs, was added to the mix.
The primary campaign objective was to establish a dialogue with potential ticket buyers by promoting a multi-game package that included admission tickets, gas cards, food, free parking, and a $25 voucher towards a Panthers jersey, all for a value price. An added incentive designed to drive respondents to their personalized URL was an offer for a free Panthers hat, valued at $25. Secondary objectives included increasing market awareness, obtaining new fan and prospect data, and email addresses for future campaigns.
The campaign was targeted to a 50-50 list compiled from the Panthers’ database plus an external list based on select criteria (sports enthusiast, age, reside in tri-county area, children in HH, and HH income). A personalized direct mail piece consisting of a 5.5 x 11, 4-color postcard with eye-catching graphics was designed by the Panthers’ creative team, relevant to the target audience and offer. To maintain continuity with the direct mail piece, Nordis designed the personalized landing pages with corresponding graphics and messaging. A 15-second video embedded on the welcome page was included to generate excitement and emphasize the offer. The survey page solicited responses intended to provide the Panthers’ sales and marketing group with key information regarding potential ticket buyers’ sporting event preferences. Finally, to further personalize the visitors’ experience, the thank you page and automated trigger email messaging was personalized and versioned to reflect the respondents’ preferences ascertained by their survey responses.
The results exceeded expectations. By adding a personalized URL component to the campaign, the Panthers’ realized an increase over their typical direct mail response rates by nearly 4%. Not only did this campaign enable the Panthers’ to obtain valuable information about each respondent, it identified more than 300 new “hot prospects” readily available for conversion into ticket buyers.
