Case Study: When “integrated” really means integrated!

First, let me credit the true source of this study. Thanks go out to Pat O’Neil of Applied Database Technologies. You can reach Pat at (360) 927-0722.

This is a case study where a retail outlet, with several locations, wanted to generate new leads. They wanted to increase foot traffic, and to create a solid database of email addresses.

The core test would pit two media against each other. The client thought that “paid search” would outperform direct mail postcards, because they felt paid search was so inexpensive compared to direct mail.

What we discovered is that direct mail postcards became the fuel that start the social chain reaction and increased landing-page response rates by 300 - 600%, depending on store location.

We produced a 45M piece direct mail project with QR codes and hyper-links printed on the mail piece that directed consumers to a video landing page. The page featured an e-mail capture function in exchange for a real-time digital coupon sent immediately to the responder’s hand-held, or desktop.

The responder also had the option to download the coupon and bring it with them to present at the point-of-sale in the store. The e-mail addresses populated a database that we created, along with the referring URL for tracking purposes.

Prior to the production of the direct mail postcard, the client hired another firm to produce paid search ads (Google AdWords) that also linked to the landing pages for three separate store locations. The on-line advertising hit a couple of weeks prior to the mail drop.

We got final edits of the postcard on Monday, November 21, printed and mailed them in 48 hours and they arrived in-home Saturday, November 26. Prior to the mail drop, we added some email addresses to the database from the paid search ads, but when the direct mail hit, things really started to take off.

For the 12 days prior to the postcards hitting the homes, we had 193 unique landing page visits, and for the 12 days after the in-home date, we’ve received 1,107 unique landing page visits, which is 85.0% of total landing page hits. We’re also getting a 16.6% downloaded coupon to landing page conversion rate. Because of the tracking that was set up, we determined the following:

• Customer received the mail piece on 11/26/2011
• They largely ignored QR codes & hyper-links printed on mail piece
• Went to do an on-line search on the business
• Found the landing page and signed up for the coupon

We are now receiving e-mail addresses in 3 ways:
• Direct data entry of URL from postcard
• By finding the paid search text ads
• Indirectly by receiving postcard and doing on-line query

Conclusion:
The direct mail created a ton of awareness that drove customers on-line to check out the business, and indirectly, found the coupon through their on-line queries.

The key to a campaign like this is to have the paid search out in front of the direct mail by 2-3 weeks. We created and dropped (including video production, landing page creation, custom HTML coding, custom SQL database design and creation, printing and mailing) the entire project in 3 weeks,.

This is how you put the GREAT into integrated!

Do you want to learn more on how your next campaign can pull numbers like this?
Call us (800) 240-3349 or visit us online at www.CarneyDirect.com.

Pete Carney
Carney Direct Marketing