Wendy Boyce
As the practice of marketing analytics is making a name for itself, businesses are starting to catch on that they’ve been capturing all this great customer information. These same businesses are now starting to realize they should consider using it!
If you have been using predictive analytics to target your marketing campaigns, you should be seeing improvement in response rate versus older campaigns where no predictive analytics were available. It is still common practice to send email campaigns or direct mail pieces to every contact in your list, hoping that mass distribution will lead to a higher volume of responses. What brands are starting to learn is that by doing some basic marketing analysis up front on their data, they can send more effective campaigns to the right individuals, at the right time, and through the right channel.
With the advances in analytics-driven direct marketing campaigns – your process may look something like this:
Your Distribution List: You’ve created a mail distribution list based on multiple criteria. The selection criteria were created through a predictive model in addition to some customer and prospect segmentation. You know you are sending to an audience that is most likely to respond to your marketing campaign. You’ve targeted the right folks, and hopefully have weeded out the likely non-responders or folks who will not likely evangelize your product or brand.
Your Campaign Assets: You have created a compelling marketing campaign that is customized to the segments within your targeted recipients. Perhaps there are multiple offers, or multiple variations of the mail piece based on your user segments. There may be components that are email-based, and you perhaps included some direct mail pieces – you are able to predict which recipients will respond best to which channels, because you’ve done the analytics up front.
Your Data Collection Strategy: Your marketing campaign provides the recipient with the means to connect back to you and provide you additional data so you can better understand and become more intimate with your customers. The data might include a simple log-in to complete an offer, or a simple form or survey to complete, providing you valuable insights with little effort on the respondent’s part.
Your Offer: Your direct marketing campaign offers an incentive to the recipient not only to make them want to participate and provide you with their information, but perhaps also to forward the campaign to family and friends to participate. An example of this might be a survey that offers up a coupon or an entry into a prize drawing.
Your Campaign Responses: You’ve successfully deployed a multichannel direct marketing campaign that was well thought out and built to maximize your ROI through segmentation and predictive analytics, and the most effective choice of channels. You’ve gathered up your responses. That’s not the end of the story…
For many businesses, this is where the marketing campaign ends. A percentage of recipients have responded and more customer insights have been gathered. The trick now, is knowing what exactly to do with those new insights.
Are you paying attention? Here’s the secret sauce…
Post-Campaign Analytics: The data you have captured as a result of this multichannel direct marketing campaign will be analyzed to understand the lift of the models built early on in the planning stages. They help you understand who responded and why. Post-campaign analytics can drive information into your sales enablement tools for better lead qualification nurturing and management, whether in a B2B environment or direct to your prospective customers.
If you are using a campaign management tool that can trigger new message streams, your analytics can drive the next communications your prospects will receive. Better qualified leads might receive a triggered call immediately after they’ve responded to your campaign, versus less qualified leads, who will still receive future contact, but perhaps with a lower cost touch point at a later date.
When planning a campaign, no matter what channels you use, let analytics be your guide… before, during and after the campaign. You’ll be sure to maximize your efforts and increase your return on investment every time.
Resources:
SIGMA Marketing Group: New Business Development Direct Marketing Campaign
About the Author:
Wendy Boyce is the Social Media & Marketing Manager at SIGMA Marketing Group, a marketing analytics firm. Connect with Wendy on , Facebook or .
Related Articles:
Sophisticated Data Modeling and Analytics Lead to Better Marketing Metrics
Digital Marketing Days: Old School vs. New School
Marketing Assessment: Messaging
