All Industries Can Profit from Better Response Rates

Recently, I was contacted by DirectSmile, which sells software that allows printers to create fonts out of anything—snowflakes, falling leaves, footprints in the sand—and use them in 1:1 campaigns. What they sent was a matrix of available case studies so I could choose one to cover this month. But as I read through, what struck me wasn’t any one example. It was the incredible variety of applications and industries in which this approach was being used. To me, that was the story more than any of the examples individually.

Let’s take a look at the list:
The Cedar Rapids Gazette wanted to engage new readers and extend subscriptions. The initial response rate to its personalized mailing yielded a 10 percent sign-up rate. After the three-month trial subscription rate expired, the newspaper retained 100 percent of those new readers.

Frecklebox Children’s Books offers personalized gifts and products for children. Daily order volume has reached 20-80 books per day, and in an eight-month period, Frecklebox sold more than 4,500 units. They averaged 1.8 books per order, with some orders as large as 50 units. At the time the case study was written (mid-2009), Frecklebox was on track to sell more than 20,000 units that year.

Replay Photos is an online store that works with colleges across the nation. In two months, the company sold more than $135,000 in personalized images and sales of school imagery. By February 2009, the company had already surpassed the number of coupons redeemed from the prior year. At the time, the site was ramping up to serve more than 80 schools by the end of 2009.

OTC Systems, Inc. has developed personalized campaigns for big names such as General Motors and Ford. They consistently achieve response rates of 20-23 percent, sometimes hitting 35 percent, with the highest response rate being 50 percent. OTC has calculated that about 15 percent of the response rate is attributable to the personalized images.

CLARiGo Marketing has been working with DirectSmile for several years, crediting it with helping to double attendance at student open houses for its college and university clients. One of its campaign used a personalized, dynamic mailing card in the shape of a pizza box. When the student opened the card, personalized type flashed her name written in pepperoni. The college saw a 7 percent increase in attendance and had the best ever turnout at an open house.

HMF Printing is a full-service direct mail, fulfillment, warehousing and digital printing company. Its first campaign was a Christmas card. In addition to the volume of positive feedback, it saw a 7-10 percent increase in calls from the campaign.

A subsidiary of Vista, Phresh Marketing has been a DirectSmile customer for two and a half years. One of its campaigns received a 90 percent response rate, with 30 percent of those responses closing on deals. Phresh Marketing loves DirectSmile so much that 70 percent of their campaigns use image personalization.

When I look at this list? What are the takeaway points I see?

Range of applications: First what impressed me was the range of types of applications for which 1:1 printing is being used here: newspaper subscriptions, personalized gifts, yearbooks, automotive, sports ticket holder retention, college and university open houses, trade show attendance, self-promotion.

Some of these applications may appear not to fit the 1:1 mold. In fact, what’s striking is the number whose ROI is really determined not by the initial sale but by lifetime customer value.