The Tech's In The Mail - DIRECT MAIL + Marketing automation = triggered marketing workflows

Editor's Notes

• #3: This is me and this is how to get in touch! I’m the CEO of Boingnet. We’re a lightweight marketing automation platform based in Rockland. We help small marketing teams and agencies deliver great campaigns across web, email & direct mail channels. We believe marketing software should be affordable, easy & fast to implement. Our white label edition is designed for agencies to build their own revenue streams by running campaigns for their clients. If you’re interested in learning more, stop by our table today or check us out online.
• #4: 1.) Some context – why direct & digital are so separated 2.) Learn how to create automated workflows that nurture prospects and drive revenue with direct mail as a critical component 3.) See a couple of recent campaigns, their strategies and outcomes 4.) Hints & Tips that help drive success
• #5: This is a scene from one of my favorite westerns – “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” with Clint Eastwood As digital marketing has evolved over the past decade, some purveyors of digital marketing tools and platforms have decided that older marketing disciplines represent all that is bad. Newer forms of marketing have an elevated status, and appeal to a higher consciousness. Older forms of marketing only succeed by using bad, sales like tactics that attempt to scare or trick people into action. We in the Boston area have become thought leaders in creating this divide. Perhaps a residue from the blue bloods that used to dominate the city’s social ladder, or something that evolved from some of our elite institutions of higher education. I think it’s pretty funny. After all, we use marketing channels, regardless of their age or delivery mechanism, to try to make a buck. I like to call this phenomenon “Digital Derision”
• #6: Boston’s own Larry Kim from WordStream, in an effort to lump his business in with “The Good” working very hard to list PPC ads as “Inbound Vs. Interruption Marketing” Some of my favorites: Good: “Opt In”, “Authoring”, “Supporting”, “Thought Leadership”, “Community Building”, “Organic”, “Video” Bad: “Spam”, “Throwaway”, “TV, Radio, Print Ads”
• #7: Of course – we can’t discuss this great divide without referring to our friends from Cambridge. The HubSpot Blog is the single greatest source of “Digital Derision” of fellow marketers that has ever been created. These are quotes from a blog post that is the #2 organic search return for the keyword phrase “hubspot direct mail”
• #8: Marketing Automation, as defined by the Digital Derision crowd, is about having automation processes in place to nurture and nudge leads along a journey, when they reach out to express interest in you or the types of products you sell. There’s all kinds of data out there supporting the notion that marketing automation is growing rapidly. When you think about it, why not? Why not use software to handle repetitive, monotonous tasks? Why not use software to use the power of search, social and email to be there 24x7 when someone is looking for the things that you have to sell? It all makes sense. But yet, is it the be all/end all for marketers? According to a recent study, marketing automation increases sales productivity by 14.5% while decreasing marketing overhead by 12.2%
• #9: I can tell you, as the CEO of a Lightweight Marketing Automation platform, the answer is no. There are a lot of challenges that hold back marketing automation. As Shari Gilchrist stated this morning in her keynote – data quality is a huge problem . But also – what if not enough people are searching for your product? What if people aren’t aware of your promotion? What is an organic, community building, non interrupting marketer to do? Is it enough to sit back and just wait for prospects to find you? Many marketers say no way. Inbound is great. Everyone should do it. It’s just not enough.
• #10: When you need to go find leads, when you need to educate the market about your offers, when you need to generate sales, You need to incorporate outbound, and specifically, direct mail. As you can see, direct mail is 7x more effective in generating response from house files than digital channels combined.
• #11: So, there’s this great divide. I’ll stay away from name calling, ridicule and derision for the rest of the presentation. It’s counter-productive and just plain ignorant. Yes, the worlds of Inbound and Outbound are different. As is often the case, two different worlds can learn a lot from each other
• #12: I suspect many of the digital derisioners aren’t familiar with this song or the Abbey Road album, it’s a bit before their time. But we’re gonna do like the Beatles & show how these two worlds not only CAN but SHOULD be working together to generate better results. As it turns out, there’s a lot of reason for the Inbound and Outbound worlds to come together….
• #13: When attacking a problem – it makes sense to make simple pros & cons lists. As it turns out, many of the commonly perceived strengths and weaknesses of the two methods are extremely complimentary.
• #14: How are we going to bring these worlds together? How will we leverage the strengths of each and cover up for the weaknesses of the other? With Data driven PURLs. Using exact same variable data that direct marketers use in their campaigns. That data can be used to tie together the direct mail and digital worlds so that they complement each other. As we heard this morning in the keynote – connect your online & offline data, using PURLs as the bridge. When we do this, we use respective strengths of each channel. Cover up the other’s weaknesses.
• #15: As effective as marketing automation is, today’s personalized URL (or PURL) has entered a new era of effectiveness of its own. Old School marketers may remember PURLs for what they used to be: marketing URLs with people’s names in them that were supposed to magically raise response rates. But Marketing Automation Platforms like Boingnet have revolutionized the idea of what PURLs can do as a part of a broader strategy.
• #16: When the PURL is the focal point of the direct mail piece, all of a sudden the efficiency & cost effectiveness of the online world is combined with the personalized, lead generation machine of the direct world. The PURL is the trigger that kicks off personalized journey’s with automated response & nurturing. The PURL becomes the trigger that kicks off retargeting across PPC and social. The PURL becomes the trigger that kicks off incredibly detailed measurement & analysis. If you could combine the best of the Inbound & Outbound worlds, why wouldn’t you?
• #21: As Shari noted this morning, we are big fans of the idea that you should write for digital. We recommend thinking about the exterior of a mail piece as if it were an email subject line. What can I briefly say to get people to respond? Started with Key Messaging on the DM Envelope – broken down by Personas/segment: 1.) School Nurses 2.) Director of Technology 3.) Athletic Directors 4.) Athletic Trainers 5.) Headmaster/President 6.) Business Office
• #22: Open up the envelope – Bulleted, bolded, Persona specific value propositions, large obvious call to action to visit the PURL
• #23: Pre-filled forms – increase conversions on average by 17%. The form is front and center, and optimized for mobile – fully responsive. The messaging is clear, and the portion of the page devoted to the CTA is clear and unclutterd. We don’t want to try to say too much here. There’s plenty of room to tell the story as you scroll down, the persona specific messaging from the letter is built out and further illustrated. Use the below the fold landing page to expand upon content. Don’t try to say too much in the DM piece. If the lead is scrolling below the fold, you’ve got their attention. Otherwise, just focus on getting them to the CTA
• #24: 1st Goal – Get demo sign ups – got 230 scheduled, nearly 3x increase over 2015 campaign
• #25: 2nd Goal – learn about the Personas – School Nurses top the list, followed by athletic trainers. By using the Variable Data and segmentation work done on the data file for the DM portion AS THE BACKBONE of the digital portion, the PURL naturally breaks down the results by segment or persona. No additional work needed.
• #26: After filling out the Boingnet PURL form, leads automatically fall into a 5 step drip campaign in HubSpot. The messaging is variable based on the segment/persona. These messages are designed to nurture the leads prior to and/or following the software demo, and before the sales reps begin a closing process. 5 Step Email campaign 1.) Confirm the demo, meet the sales rep - Immediately 2.) Segment specific case study – Day 3 3.) Segment specific testimonials – Day 6 4.) Drive to the ROI calculator online – Day 10 5.) Message from the CEO – Day 14
• #27: The low hanging fruit here is with simple email retargeting Because each PURL is measured uniquely, behavioral retargeting is easily set up. We recommend that clients focus on non openers, and have found that 2-3 follow up email blasts to only the PURL non openers can have a massive impact on opens/conversions. Next in line is Google Adwords retargeting. The client should get their ad in front of all Non Openers (28,000) who type in a relevant search phrase. Easily export the PURL non openers and import into AdWords to create a Custom Audience
• #28: Live campaign – just launched at the beginning of May Multi touch – multi channel – email, post card, web, social Segmented Lead Nurturing based upon survey response The survey becomes the qualification tool
• #29: Purchased/Rented List – frowned on by some, used effectively by others Key – the list must be cleaned prior to send. +- 5% bounce rate will land email senders in spam traps. In this case 22% of the purchased addresses were invalid or improper/potential spam red flags
• #30: After confirming/updating contact info – the survey gets filled out. The answers to the surveys determine the path of the targets – are they qualified, not qualified, or do they need to speak with a human to figure out their qualification?
• #31: The survey answers kick off a drip campaign designed to either: 1.) Prep lead for a call from an agent 2.) Set up a call for a deeper dive into the specifics 3.) Describe why they didn’t qualify and begin education process for another product
• #32: This step is going to occur in the last week of May. The goal is to segment the list with the non opener data gathered by the PURL. By using behavior based segmentation, it’s easy to download a list that can be used in Facebooks custom audiences to specifically target Facebook users with ads. Facebook will create the audience by matching up the email address.
• #33: 1.) List Cleaning eliminated approx. 1300 invalid email addresses from purchased list. Kept domain out of spam trouble 2.) About 20% on eligible send list opened email. 50% opened multiple times. 8% opened more than 10 times. 3.) 390 have visited PURL so far 4.) 196 have filled out the survey 5.) 66 Fully Qualified Leads, 38 Maybe Qualified 6.) 13 Sales to date – Breakeven ROI at 5
• #34: We recommend using email retargeting. It’s incredibly inexpensive and effective to target non responders (only) with email blasts 2-3 times after an initial email or DM blast. This technique boosts opens and conversions by 25-50% overall, with minimal affect on unsubscribe rates.
• #36: Buy your own AdWords real estate. For every campaign. Or, just let your competitors steal your leads that you’ve just spent time & money generating. You can’t beat Google, so use it for what it does best. Set up a Google campaign that works in conjunction with your online or offline campaign Bid on the right keywords Link those keywords to variations of the landing page/microsite content.
• #37: The number one identified problem with marketing automation is poor data quality. Email lists in particular can be problematic. We saw an extreme example where 22% of the purchased list was set aside prior to an email send. Even house lists from CRM systems need periodic cleaning, as spam traps are set up to find senders that keep sending to expired email addresses. For very little money and time, keeping your list clean can save huge headaches.