In an era of personalization, smart marketers within the printing industry are deploying direct mail to showcase their own one-to-one marketing and production capabilities. A prime example of this phenomenon is Print Three (P3) president Andrew Hrywnak, who has set out to teach corporate clients how to incorporate relevance within their one-to-one communications. “This is something that is important today, and marketing people are listening because they need to achieve a better return on their marketing spend,” he explains. Hrywnak is no stranger to this strategy. Last year, P3 won a Gold Frankie Award for its highly successful Lunch & Learn direct mail campaign targeting clients and prospects within the real estate industry. This cross-country campaign repeatedly “packed the room” with successful realtors and real estate executives (and leaders within other vertical market sectors), who were willing to dedicate their lunch hour to learn about getting better response from their marketing and promotions nationally and locally. The series of winning post cards that provoked such high intensity interest were designed by P3’s long-term partner Eden Advertising & Interactive of Concord Ontario. Business focus Also headquartered in Concord, P3 is a Canadian digital print franchise with 60 Smart Document Centres across the country. From St. John’s Newfoundland to Nanaimo BC, the Canadian document processor deals exclusively in the B2B sector, serving clients that range from Fortune 500 companies to small, independently owned businesses.
But P3 is more than just a standard professional quality digital printing shop. It helps clients develop and refine databases, obtain and work with lists, develop programming, and construct cross-media campaigns. The company has a production facility that does any and all required offset work for clients. “What’s unique about us is that we can cover a wide range of needs for customers from coast to coast in Canada. It’s basically a one stop shop,” Hrywnak stresses. Supports integrated marketing and communications The company’s typical clients are VPs of marketing and sales who haven’t utilized one-to-one methods extensively. P3 is a full-fledged document processing centre that partners with its corporate clientele— helping to implement supplementary marketing strategies that will deliver the ROI clients want to achieve. Riding the wave of last year’s campaign, Hrywnak approached Esther Willinger, president of Eden Advertising, to design a one-to-one, integrated mail piece that would both demonstrate Print Three’s document processing quality and go the extra mile to “wow” clients and prospects with a demonstration of effective personalization. “This one-to-one marketing piece is, first of all, an example of what Print Three can do for its clients but it also demonstrated how effective a one-to-one marketing piece can be,” Willinger emphasizes.
“One to one has been around now for many years but most people take it to the level of: ‘We can personalize it and write their name, make it stand out, write it in different colours so people can see it’s directed at them, and maybe change the image based on what industry it’s in,’” she adds. In this instance, the goal was to augment this traditional technique with images that can’t help but speak directly to marketers. The agency president elaborates: “We’ve taken it to a whole different level where now, when somebody looks at the piece, it’s designed in a way that’s so uniquely personalized that the person thinks not only ‘This is personalized for me’ but also ‘Somebody must have taken the time to design it for me.’”
Because P3’s targets are marketers that deal with an onslaught of niche markets themselves, Andrew and Esther needed to create a generic piece that would demonstrate P3’s savvy with one-to-one targeting. Thus, in November 2008, the duo sent a series of four, personalized 8.5” x 5.5” postcards in invitation style envelopes to a national list of approximately 30,000 people. The list, which was a mix of internal and external names, was composed of 40 percent prospects, and 60 percent existing clients. Hrywnak explains, “The intent is that we will be able to arrange a ‘lunch and learn’ seminar on the benefits of P3’s trackable one-to-one marketing.” These direct mail initiatives help the P3 franchisees market their businesses.
Willinger explains, “Each store has its own database of businesses within its area that it wants to target.” The pieces are currently mailed out monthly, in four waves. By accessing P3’s online portal, each P3 Smart Document Centre can determine the appropriate postcard for every target on its prospect and client list. Thereafter, images for all of the Centres are printed at one time and mailings are sent out nationally from head office. One of the postcards displays an elevator “up” button, lit up with the recipient’s first name personalized directly under the arrow. The text reads “Speak to your customers this directly and there’s only one way to go.” Another mailer displays an image of a crystal clear resort swimming pool. The recipient sees “Dive in, First Name” spelled out at the bottom of the pool in dark blue pool tiles. The header reads: “Make your direct response this inviting.” A third mailer displays the person’s first name under a highway sign that reads “Exit here.” Finally, there is a postcard with an image of a “walk” sign on the street, personalized again to the recipient. The targets’ names must be seamlessly integrated because, as Willinger explains, “if they don’t need it right now, you don’t want them to throw it in the garbage—you want them to hold onto it because it just has that level of personalization that they would want to keep.” On the back of each postcard, the recipient finds a personalized letter that is theme related to the front image. This text speaks of the response effect of one-to-one marketing. It also directs the recipient to a URL to sign up for a free lunch and learn seminar.
On the back of the elevator piece, the individual is offered a personalized calendar showcasing more cool, variable print technology in exchange for seminar attendance. When the target signs up online, a thank you page immediately pops up. With the contact information personalized to each individual P3 location, follow up reminder calls and e-mails are made by the stores themselves to people who have registered for the sessions, and other calls are made to encourage late registration for non-responders. Lunch and learn The campaign is currently still underway. To date, it has generated a high end response rate of six percent. Obviously, its win of a second Gold Frankie for message clarity speaks to the potency of the postcards. “What we’re finding is that every lunch and learn meeting we’re going to—when we’re able to present this concept—95 percent of the clientele is saying ‘We’re interested in this, we’d like to give this a try,’” Hrywnak reveals. Willinger agrees. “This world is almost over advertised. It’s becoming harder and harder to get noticed,” she notes, adding, “A campaign like this shows not only how unique we as an agency can be in this market but more importantly, it demonstrates to clients, ‘I can get a better return on my investment.’” Later this year, the upcoming series of mailers will include a personalized URL for clients to visit, along with more advanced image targeting.