Tips for Tracking Attributions from SF University

Aaron Smith: 

So today, presenting, we’ll have Amy Brody, who’s our Vice President of Marketing Services, we’ll have Alex Saunders, who’s our digital marketing expert, and Donna Hecke, who’s our client services director. So they’re going to kind of map us through the whole customer journey, and how do we actually measure what’s going on? 

John Wanamaker once said, we love this quote, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don’t know which half.” I mean, there’s so many different ways that you can try to get customers. However, you don’t, you never know where they’re coming from, right? There’s, like I said, even direct mail, for example, people say it’s dead. It’s not, it’s just not done right, so we’re going to help you guys fix that and not just direct mail: everything else. How do we maximize that dollar spending, so we can know that 100% of the money we’re spending on advertising is not wasted?

So I’m going to hand it over to Amy who’s going to start with our customer journey. We are going to have an opportunity for questions at the end as well. So if anybody has any, feel free to jot them down. I’m going to sit down and I’ll let you guys go from here.

Amy Brodie:

Thanks, Aaron. Hey, everybody. How’s your tour? Looking at all the swag you get, that’s always kind of fun. And something probably has your name on it. Mapping the customer journey. So what is that all about? It’s really, it’s taking a moment to figure out in your minds–what are your customers doing when they come into an interaction with your brand? So what are they doing? What are they thinking? Where are they even? Where are they when, all of a sudden, your brand pops up? Very important to know that. Why is that crucial? It allows you to anticipate where your clients are going to be and tailor your marketing to them.

Right. So, you know that 85% of your customers are going online first. Then, you want to make sure you have an online presence. So it’s those kind of details, but then it goes way deeper into that, into a whole…customers and who they are and what they are in the psychographics. But that’s an example of just…when you hear the term “meet them where they are”, I’ve been in marketing for so long and like, I hear that all the time. Like, what does that really mean? Well, that means to make sure you’re in front of them wherever they are in their current journey, not just throwing out things at a wall and hoping it sticks with some people.

What I didn’t tell you is that I have been in marketing for over 30 years. I’ve… *laughs* don’t go there. So I’ve been a salesperson. I’ve been a director of marketing. I’ve been a strategic advisor, a client service director. Anyway, I’ve been at this from all facets and I’ve been in the customer’s shoes, of course–Just ask my husband, you can count the number of Amazon boxes that arrive on my porch daily. So that’s, just want to let you know who I was. But anyway, we’re going to talk about your customer, and where do we find them and what are those key touchpoint.

So awareness. Where are your customers when they first become aware of your product? Have you brought them there? Have you met them there? Are they on their computers or are they in a shopping mall? Are they reading the newspaper? Consideration. Your customers are in the point of saying, “You know what? I do need this. I need something, and I’m going to get it. So I’m starting to think about where I’m going to get it and who I’m going to get it from.” Decision. They’ve come a long way. They’ve done their homework. They’ve done their research. Now they’re like “I’m going to pick.” And what’s going on in their brain as they go to make that decision? That’s what you already know by having mapped their journey. So you’re there, ready to present them with the information that they want.

Conversion. That’s the actual process of: you put the credit card in, you hit buy, and Amazon shows up two hours later with whatever your purchas is. That’s, conversions are…you’ll hear later. Very important as to what happens. Where are they? What are they thinking when that conversion is taking place? It becomes very important in how you market to them. And then the post-conversion, that’s the after-purchase. You’ve bought something, you’re excited, you bring it home. What is the experience from there? Do you get good customer service? Did the transaction go well? You got a question? Was the delivery good? You called help because you couldn’t quite set it up. Just couldn’t get it going. How was that experience that you had?

So those are key touchpoints. And if you think in terms of your customers of all those different times that they’ll be touched with your message, you have to make sure that you’re thinking in their minds, where are they? Are they brand new? So we’re just educating. We’re just making them aware. There’s no way we’re getting a sale day one. We want to just make a presence, and we want to get into that consideration stage so we can then get to the decision conversion and post-conversion.

Common pitfalls. Bad data. How many of you track data of your customers: where they are when they come in? Do you have a database? So as you know, when they come in, when you start collecting your data, the most important piece of that is making sure that it’s accurate, making sure that the numbers that you’re going to use to make a whole lot of decisions in your marketing and where you’re going to market, are coming from a place of good data, an understanding of the data that will help you reach your goal. Because sometimes it’s not just the simple sale of a product. Sometimes it’s the–I want to make the customers aware. We don’t have enough awareness. So pulling out the data, what made other customers become aware of you? How did other people get to you? That’s how you start to learn. And you use that data to then say, okay, we can go to market to those people at that stage that they’re in.

Not collaborating. Right? So your your folks are getting already to do a big marketing plan. You’ve got it all set. They are getting, all their team together or not. And that’s where the collaboration comes in. If you can do everything right about your marketing, if they’re only talking, if those people are only talking to their one customer and not the salespeople and not the people who are interacting with the product, you’re going to miss so much information and miss the point and miss those important factors of how to reach them. So it’s important to make sure that they’re talking to not only the marketing person, but go talk to the finance person and see what they say. Talk to the CEO and see what’s important to her. And then to static. All right. That is where you ser it, forget it. I know you guys don’t do that because you’re here. The people who understand marketing are here at this kind of thing. You can’t just set and forget it. Everything is changing, especially with our technology now. So you really do have to look at the numbers, on a regular basis and make adjustments. There’s nothing wrong with making adjustments. You haven’t done something wrong. You haven’t made a mistake. You’ve learned, and now you’re going to put that information into what you’re going to do next.

Measuring the effectiveness. So that goes back to, we’ve talked about how we’re going to map and know where we’re going to get and everything. How do we know that that works? Well, first of all, you’re going to track conversion rates. Those are how many of your customers that came to you actually ended up purchasing. How many? Customer satisfaction scores. So we asked, right? It’s a pretty big deal. People read reviews. They look online to see what your percentages are. Do you have four stars? Five stars? Customer satisfaction scores are more than the surface. Yes. We all want to have five stars, but it’s very important that you are thinking about, What’s that three star? What’s that two star. Somebody who’s mad and ticked off and has a chance to express himself. Fine. Put that in a box. Or is this a trend that’s happening? And something needs to change here.

Retention rates. How many times do your customers come back? We all know it costs a whole lot less to get a customer to come back and get a brand new customer and start that awareness stage. Pointing at the map that’s not up, but it’s a very first stage to get them through all the way over here is a lot longer than it’s they’re already there. And then they’re going to buy again. Net Promoter score. That’s when you say to customers, “Hey, would you, use us again?” And that is one of the most telling things you can ask, and ways that you can learn how they’re feeling about the experience they just had with your brand. With that, I’m going to turn it over to Alex and have her talk about some real-time attributions. 

Alex Saunders: All right. So attributions. What in the world does that mean? Attributing results or not attributing results or attributing not-so-successful campaigns. Right? Figuring out what in the world did we do? Did it work? Did it not work? Right. We’ve got to track it. So for the sake of today’s example, what we’re going to be talking about, specifically the vehicle of marketing, will be direct mail with some digital enhancements here. So when you hear direct mail, how many of you have heard the term direct mail is dead? Direct Mail is dead. Direct mail is expensive. There are so many other cheaper alternatives or more cost-effective alternatives. But do you guys go to your mailbox every day? You sure do. And how many marketing pieces or how many pieces of direct mail do you get in that mailbox?

Audience: Too many. Too many.

Alex Saunders: Okay, okay, I wanna know who’s your mailbox? I need to talk to them. You don’t get as many direct mail pieces as you do emails. I mean, me personally, I get probably 200 or 300 emails a day and I get about 4 or 5 marketing pieces of mail. A couple of bills here and there, but there’s a lot more real estate in that mailbox. But I don’t have to tell you guys direct mail works. Keith built this company on direct mail. Direct mail has always worked. Direct mail still continues to work.

But the old-school way of doing direct mail is in fact dead. So when we talk about the new age or bringing your direct mail up into the 21st century, it’s enhancing it digitally. Adding other touch points, tracking it, measuring those results, and actually using that data to be better, smarter marketers.

Now, before we talk about direct mail, let’s just talk about consumer behavior, right? It’s important for us to understand how consumers respond to things. Because when we talk about that awareness stage, put yourself in the shoes of a consumer. That’s what we all are at the end of the day, right? Some of us are business owners, some of us are marketing managers. But think of how you buy things. The average consumer sees somewhere between 4 to 10,000 marketing messages a day between every channel possible. Direct mail, emails, radio, TV, the logos that are on your cups. Right? How many people had Starbucks today? How many people had Dunkin today? You see that messaging everywhere.

So as consumers we are inundated, right? You have to figure out a way to break through that noise, right? You have to do it better. You have to figure out what that awareness stage looks like and meet those people exactly where they are. But again, direct mail: 98% of people check their mail daily. 79% of those consumers will act on a direct mail piece immediately, depending on where they are within that customer journey, so you have to speak to them accordingly.

Now, again, direct mail is not dead. Direct mail has always worked, but the old-school way of doing direct mail is in fact dead. So we need to be smarter about how we’re marketing to our customers. Know who we’re talking to. Know what those demographics look like. Because the way that I like to be marketed to might be different than the way that you like to be marketed to. Right? So adding those personalized touches really goes a long way.

So again, for the sake of what we’re going to talk about, here is a way to bring your direct mail into the 21st century. And that is with an automated platform called Direct Mail Booster. So anything that you can do to automate any process within your organization, do it. It’s going to save you time. It’s going to save you money.

So what direct mail booster is or DM Booster is, is really a direct mail enhancement tool. It takes that one single piece of direct mail and adds those digital touchpoints. But more importantly, it helps you guys track. It helps you understand what is working, what is not working, ways to add extra touch points and speak to those clients where they are.

How many of these technologies here, maybe Facebook, Instagram, Google, how many of these maybe look familiar to some of you guys? Okay, and how many currently don’t utilize direct mail in their marketing mix? Okay. Have you tried it before? No? Okay. Well, hopefully you’re going to take something away from this.

So 80% of sales are made between that eight and 12 touch. So if you just send one, two, three pieces of direct mail and put a Google ad up for a day or two, it’s not enough. You’re simply scratching the surface. It takes somebody eight, sometimes 32, sometimes 100 times to see your brand before they even remember you, before they bat an eye on it. Depending on where they are in that customer journey. If you’re selling pizzas or maybe you’ve got a nail salon, yeah, maybe takes two or three times. But if you are a real estate agent or maybe you’re a pool resurfacing company, that your product is $100,000, it’s going to take somebody a long time to make that decision. Right. It’s not automatic.

So we’re adding eight to 32 additional touches to those individuals that we’re actively mailing to, but we’re helping you track. You and your team get access into a dashboard where you can see, live time, exactly how these campaigns are performing. So it takes a lot of that guesswork out of it. So every solid mail campaign starts with a good mailing list, right? That clean data. You put a piece of mail out to a certain demographic, a certain audience, and we hope for the best. Right? And we sit and we wait, we wait for that phone to ring.

So instead of just sitting and waiting, what we do is we automatically upload that mailing list in that audience into Facebook and Instagram. And now we target those exact individuals that you guys are mailing to. So the purpose of this is kind of prime the pump, if you will. Right? Deliver that cohesive message that looks and reinforces that direct mail piece to that exact same audience.

Yes, sir.

Audience member: So you can take the list that you’re going to direct mail to and put them in Facebook or Instagram and send them targeting ads?

Alex Saunders: Yep. If I’m mailing to you, I upload the list, I find you, hopefully. I find you depending on if you have an Instagram or Facebook account or both. And then I’m able to display that exact same ad, that cohesive ad message and imagery. And then you get that direct mail piece, you know, five, six, seven days later. So you look at that and you say, hey, I recognize this. I’ve seen this before, right? And then that awareness, you move through that journey.

Audience Member: Is that automated? So if you have a list of 500,000, it automatically goes through and finds those people?

Alex Saunders: Yep, it’s all automated. We take 99% of the guesswork out of this for you. Right? We’ll go through and strategize with you. Okay. Here’s my ideal audience, or here’s what my existing customers look like. Here’s a mailing list or a prospect list. It looks exactly like those people. You say “here’s what I want to mail. That creative looks great. Here’s my offer.” All automated. Typically, it’s a 30-day campaign. Now of course you want to be more consistent than that–mail every 30, 60, 90 days, whatever that cycle looks like. But yes, it’s all automated.

Now, what you can track in the dashboard is you can log in and see, “All right. Your mailing list, for example, was 20,000. We reached 6,800 of those folks via Facebook and Instagram. I was able to display 16,000 warm-up ads to those folks. And I had 92 people click on that ad. And this ad looks exactly like that direct mail piece that they’re going to receive in the mail here in just a few days.” So they’re already responding to it. They haven’t even received that physical, tangible piece yet.

Just about every single piece of mail that goes out of our facility here is tracked. It’s like the Amazon tracking of your direct mail pieces. So that way we can give you guys the peace of mind that what you’re paying for is actually being delivered. So you can see in your dashboard exactly when we’re mailing the pieces out, when they’re going to hit or project to hit in homes, and then of course, it’s that “at-the-home peace-of-mind delivery. Peace of mind is one thing that timing your other marketing efforts more strategically from a marketing standpoint, I think is extremely important.

You wouldn’t send an email follow-up if they haven’t even received the postcard yet, right? That doesn’t really make a lot of sense. So you can time those other efforts more strategically.

Now, QR codes I know you guys know what those are, right? They’ve been around forever. Static QR codes where it’s really from your convenience for end user. They scan the QR code, they get to the website. Hopefully, they do what we want them to do. Then that’s the end of the story, right? But you can do it better than that. You can personalize those QR codes, right? So if you have a mail piece that’s 5,000 people, we can print 5,000 personalized QR codes on those pieces. So that way Donna’s is different. Mine is different. So instead of just looking at quantitative data, now you can actually pull up a list. You click on this little people tab and you can see “Alex Saunders at 123 Main Street scanned that mail piece 6 times. Donna scanned it 21 times. This person maybe once or twice. Who do you think you should follow up with? 

Audience Member: 21?

Alex Saunders: Well, all of them. That was kind of a trick question but YES! The one who scanned it that 21 times? Do you think they’re interested? Yeah, they’re moving through that journey. So meet them where they are! Now, informed delivery. How many of you guys have that? Okay. And those that have it. How often do you check that email?

Audience Member: Every day.

Alex Saunders: Of course you do. So our open right here is 100%. What email have you guys ever sent that’s gotten 100% open rate or even close to 50% open rate? Doesn’t happen, right? Informed delivery is free through the USPS. Go sign up for it. What it does is it sends you an email every day that says, “Hey Alex, here’s what’s coming in your mailbox today.” So now your mail piece floats to the very top. It’s in full color, and you can click on this little ad. Your clients or prospects. Can click on this ad and it sends them straight to the website. They still have not received the direct mail piece yet, so they’ve been touched maybe six times by now. What do you guys think is going to happen when they get that tangible piece in the mail? Do you think they’re going to recognize it?

Probably, right? Higher likelihood of that happening. Now 35, it’s actually 42 million people that are currently signed up with informed delivery. Anybody that changes their address within the postal service is automatically opted into this. So if you are an organization or business that you know, knew movers, if you’re a painter, if you’re a closet re…read…doer, person. New people, as soon as they move into their home, what’s the first thing they want to do? You want to take a sledgehammer to everything, right? They want to redo things. New people. They need a bank. They need a school. Hopefully, they figure those things out first.

But think of the opportunities here, getting in front of people first before your competitors do. And this is a really easy way to do it. It is not to replace any form of email marketing whatsoever. It’s meant to enhance your direct mail campaigns. But again, from a results or attribution standpoint, you can see how many emails were sent to those folks on your mailing list. You can see how many of those were open, and we provide you the exact report of these 374 folks that clicked on that ad and went to your website. Why is that important?

Audience Member: Because you’re filtering down from the 48,000,

Alex Saunders: Those are the people that are saying, “Hey, this is a really good offer, I like this, I’m interested in this.” So what should we do with interested people? Follow up with them, move them through that map. Right? So it’s taking the guesswork out of it, right? These are your people here. These are the people that are moving through that stage. So I think you guys can see kind of where I’m getting at.

So call and text tracking. You put a postcard out in the mail. We sit there. We hope the phone rings. But when we say, “Hey, how did that direct mail campaign go?” You say, “Oh, nobody called.” I hate that, right? I hate to hear that you’re not getting the results that you want. Has your receptionist asked every single person how they heard about you? Maybe 50% of the time she does. She’s doing her best. We all are. But how many of those people maybe got your postcard, scanned that QR code, went to your website. The last thing they remember is they found you on Google, What got them there?

It takes all of that human error element out of “Did they come from here? Did they come from here?” The only place this phone number exists is on that mail piece. So we dedicate a local, or toll-free number to your mail pieces. So that way when those prospects are clients are calling, you don’t really have to ask them where they heard about you. You know exactly where, because that’s the only place that number exists.

So how many of you guys would rather receive or communicate via text message than a phone call? I talk to people all day. I love it, but after I’m done, I won’t talk to anybody. Right, I am exhausted, I want to text somebody if I can text to make an appointment, and I don’t have to have any human interaction, that is for me right now. It’s not every day, but meet people where they are. Some will want to call someone a text. Some will just go on the website and do what they need to do because they’re pro buyers. That’s great. You want to appeal to every single audience.

So the way that text works is on your mail piece, we would print: Call or text apply to 69922. I text that as a prospect or a client, I get an auto-response. It says, “Hey, thanks for your interest in blah blah blah blah blah.” Right? Click the link below, send me straight to the website. But now you guys can see exactly how many calls, how many text messages, and have the cell phone information of those individuals.

How valuable is it that you have cell phone information of a decision maker that’s making a decision for 30, 40, $50,000 product or service?

Audience Member: Priceless.

Alex Saunders: You can listen to those recorded calls so that way you know you can do your QC. Maybe your receptionist is having a bad day five days out of five days and it’s time to make some adjustments, right? So you have to figure out how to warm people up the right way and don’t unsolicited call or text people, right?

So when you use this data, it’s important that you figure out the right follow up strategy depending on the demographic. And that’s going to change. That’s always going to be changing. So you’ve got to be valuable in that process. Let me get there. Right. And maybe it’s just sending, you know, an email follow-up like, hey, sorry you left this in your cart, right? Or hey, we’re here if you need us. Here’s all the services. Here’s our emergency light if you ever need us. But then keep following up with them until they tell you to go pound sand. Respectfully!

Now, once you get people to your website, what happens? A couple things happen. Nothing. They go to your website, they’re interested, but they’re not interested enough to call you or give you a phone number or give you any information. So then they leave. And when they leave, what do you guys think they’re doing? They’re doing the price shopping. They’re doing their due diligence. Right? They’re shopping competitors. Or again they’re simply doing nothing. They’re saying, “Hey, this is a really good offer. I need this telephone service, but I’ve got to wait for my spouse or partner to talk about this”. And then they leave the website and nothing happens. And do you ever follow up with them?

Probably not because we don’t know how. Maybe we send them another postcard or another form of communication in the next 60 days, but maybe they’ve already made that decision, right? So you’re missing an opportunity. Now, what’s the last thing you shop for? That crab bag?

Audience Member: That was a while ago. The last thing I shopped for? Ummm…

Alex Saunders: Not to put you on the spot.

Audience Member: I genuinely don’t remember. 

Alex Saunders: How about you, sir?

Audience Member: Maybe clothes?

Alex Saunders: Okay, so let’s say, I don’t know, you’re going to go Golf Galaxy or you’re going to, Vineyard Vines or you’re going to wherever you’re shopping for. Right? They’ve got a great sale. You put some things in your cart and you’re like, wow, that’s that added up quick. I don’t have free shipping or I have no offers, so then I leave. Right? What is the next thing that happens once you go back on the maybe check the scores or check the weather? What happens? What do you experience? That brand. Hey, you left this in your cart. Free shipping, 20% off. Please come back and purchase right there. Following up with you in a non-invasive way. It’s non-invasive because you’ve shown interest, right?

Now, if I got a random ad for ARP, that makes absolutely no sense to me. I don’t need that yet, right? So it’s all about where they are and reaching the right person. So online follow up makes sure that we put the message in front of the right people that are showing interest in your brand, new product, or service, whatever it may be. So again, these ads are meant to look and mimic exactly like the direct mail piece to reinforce what we just sent them a few days ago. And it’s all automated. I know it’s happened to all of us.

Audience Member: What is that called? 

Alex Saunders: It’s called Google retargeting, online follow up, cookie-based retargeting. All those things are kind of used interchangeably. There’s a pixel that goes on the back end of your website, so as soon as somebody hits it, they pick that up and then bam, the next time they go do whatever they’re doing on Google, they’re going to be displayed that ad.

So what you guys can see, of course, is how many people are visiting, how many ads are displayed, and how many people are coming back second, third, fourth, fifth time. Now, 86,000 Ad displays. What that means is I put 86,000 digital messages or images in front of people that are showing interest. If you guys have ever done direct mail, you’d probably know that postage is one of the most expensive costs or parts of a direct mail campaign. There’s really no way around it, right? A cost, maybe about $0.30 to get one message across.

So do the math. There’s 86,000 postcards to send at one time at $0.30. That’s pretty big chunk of change. I’m not saying don’t do direct mail in those quantities but be smart about how you’re doing it. Something like this that allows you to spread that marketing dollar out in multiple baskets is going to net you a better result, right? You’re going to meet people where they are. Not everybody’s going to have Facebook. Not everybody’s going to have Instagram. Not everybody is going to be online Googling. Some people are just going to simply take that postcard, scan it, go to the website, or say, “Hey, this is a really good offer. I’m going to pick up the phone and I want to talk to somebody.” Meet them where they are. Social media follow-up works in the exact same way. So I’m looking for that shirt. I’m looking for those golf clubs. I’m looking for whatever I’m looking for. I go back online, scrolling Facebook and Instagram once the kids are in bed and then BAM! There it comes, 20% off. Free shipping. And then that’s when I’m in that buying mindset, right? You’ve moved me through that journey. You’ve had eight, 16, maybe 20 touchpoints with me thus far. I’m like, “Hey, this is a pretty good brand’s, pretty good offer to go ahead and buy this,” right?

So it follows the people that go to your website via Facebook and Instagram, and you can see the exact same stats that you can on the Google side. How many ads have been displayed, how many visitors have come and gone to your website, and how many times people have come back second, third, fourth, fifth time and identify: Are they male? Are they female? What age demographic is responding to this? So if you notice that there’s a low click rate, we need to change something up, right? We need to make an adjustment. We need to see “Okay men are responding to this. So maybe let’s make the creative, match that audience.” Right. That’s also not rocket science.

But if you’re not tracking it, you don’t know. Right? So all it’s meant to do is help give you attribution and help you be better, smarter marketers. Now, if I told you I had a prospecting list of people that were on your website that were interested, would you guys want that list? I hope you want that list. So lead match identifies people that are going to your website. Tells you with 95% accuracy, a residential address for that individual, what they’re interested in, what they’re doing, basically, how many times they visited and how much time they’ve spent on those pages. So now, just because somebody said they found you on Google, you know exactly where they came from.

You’ve got leads. Leads are people that came to your website that we haven’t mailed to. Matches are people that came to your website from that mailing list. We’re matching that visitor back to a mailing address, that original mailing that the whole thing started with. So that gives you attribution that, “Hey, I mailed to these people, they’re responding, but they haven’t yet converted.” So who do you think you should reach out to? Yes, sir.

Audience Member: So can you tell the actual people or are you just telling the domain of the company?

Alex Saunders: So there’s some privacy things, right? You have to be very careful about our communication to them. Legally, I can collect one data point, which is a residential address. It’s the most concrete data point. How I’m getting that is through three things. I’m looking at the cookies-I know we’re probably getting into the weeds here. But cookies that are on the device, right? Every device, you’ve got cookies enabled. Yes, you’ve cleared them out, but next time you go back, they’re coming back, right? Device ID, every single device. This laptop here, the desktop here that we’ve got, the laptop here. My cell phone. Your cell phone. Every device has a device ID. It’s kind of like a Social Security number that’s attached to a person. Right?

That’s also been attached to a cell phone plan, which is then attached to a residential address, and a person, and a human right. So all of those data points are interconnected. And then IP address, of course. Now IP address is not a concrete data point in itself, because every time you move, like when I hop on the Wi-Fi here at Strategic Factory versus Tampa, Florida, those IP addresses are different, right? So through those three data points, I’m able to say “This is the residential address of the person that was on your website,” legally. Now, if they were on your original mailing list and your mailing list has names attached to it, I’ll spit that data back in that report because that’s not anything new, right? You already provided that to me. But we can append it for phone numbers, emails, if they drive a red Ferrari, or own a parrot. Whatever you want to know about those individuals, we can get it. We’ve just kind of go through the proper channels. 

Audience Member: And so that’s the service that you all offer? It’s just called Lead Match? 

Alex Saunders: Yeah! Lead Match is one of the technologies in the full DM Booster suite. That comes with it as sort of a full circle here. Right? You’re doing all this advertising and all this marketing and 90% of people are going to your website. So we want to identify who they are, what they’re doing. So that way we can take this data and then say, okay, “here’s all the data points. Here’s what works. Alex Saunders was interested in a $500 Dyson vacuum, A V 900. Send me a postcard about that V 900 with a 20, 30, 40% off and maybe free shipping.” And I am more likely to convert than Donna, who is not interested in the $900 vacuum.

Audience Member: So quick question as well. What about bots? Right. So you don’t you get a lot of bots on the site? 

Alex Saunder: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So it is difficult to track that. In a sense, I can’t prevent it from happening. Right? But what I can prevent is the accuracy. I’m gaining a 95% residential address that’s 95% accurate. So if I notice that it’s, you know, an overseas address, a UK address, somebody has hit the website 10,000 times and was there for maybe three seconds each time. I know that’s not legit. Right?

So, we look at that data that, we scrub all of that out. and we have filters within that data collection that helps eliminate 90% of that. I would say, with utmost conviction. But yeah, data is data, right? If you were, you know, based in, you know, Owings Mills and you have 75 people that are hitting from, you know, Colorado and Texas and here and there, it’s like, “okay, well, where are these people coming from? Right? How are they getting to my website? Did their neighbor tell them?” And then all, you know, so you got you’ve got to look at it and kind of take it for what it is. But 95% accurate residential address. And what we can also see is, again, the top five URLs that they were on. So we can then say okay, here are our top five products or services. Those are the things that these people are interested in. So let’s market to them about those products or services. 

And you can also filter it by geography. You can filter it down by again the time that they were on the website. So if somebody was on there for more than five minutes or their bounce rate was less than a minute, you know, I would consider those a pretty interested person. So it’s all relative depending on what your business is and what your sales process looks like. But if your sales process or that closing process is nine months, it takes somebody from awareness to, you know, inception to conversion, your marketing campaign should be no less than nine months, right? Because if it takes them nine months to convert, why would you stop at three months? It doesn’t make sense. You’re wasting your money. So again, there’s no point in collecting any of this data if you’re not actually going to do something with it. So all of this is automated. All of these data points are here. But with that, it’s also kind of, um, there’s a lot of data here, right? It can be confusing. It can be overwhelming.

What in the world do I do with this? The worst thing that you could do is do nothing with it. So part of our process here and what we help you with is understand the data, how to use it, when to use it, and what are those proper channels to move them through from not awareness to conversion. And then those reorders. Because think of the lifetime value of a customer. It’s a lot cheaper to keep them coming, keep them satisfied, keep them happy, than to go out and start a new marketing campaign to get a new customer. But really, you should be doing both.

And we should kind of have a, you know, even teeter totter there. Questions, thoughts, comments, concerns? But with that, I’m going to introduce Donna here. Well, of course I’d be lying if I didn’t show you case studies, right? Does it actually work? Yes, it works. We’ve been doing this now for the last ten years. So this is a nonprofit campaign, that had a 12-month–notice that–12-month. Not a one-month, not a two-month. They didn’t get this in 30 days, right? Increased giving by 25% for a total of 1.6 million. Now, of course, not everybody’s going to have that budget. You’re also not going to have that audience, right? You have a very niche audience. I’m sure some of you do as well. But we’re here to help you with that.

We’ve seen a lot of really great campaigns. We’ve also seen campaigns that have not performed well. We know exactly what those downfalls are, so we can help you with that. And now I’m going to introduce Donna here. 

Donna Hecke So as Alex mentioned, what I’m going to get into a little bit is the understanding the data side. Okay. So how many of you guys are familiar with these phrases here at the bottom, like, response rate, conversion rate, customer acquisition? A little bit?

So, it might not be new. So your response rate, of course, that’s the percentage of people who actually responded versus the total number of mailers that you’ve sent out. For that, in terms of response rate, if you get a 2% response rate, that’s pretty much the average, the national average rate. If you get a 5%, you had an excellent campaign.

For conversion rate, what that is, and Alex talked about that a little bit, when you get that client to convert. So they got that DM that, the mailer, they scan that QR code, and from there they took the next step on that journey. And so for that again percentage, if you get around 2% response, that’s pretty much average. if you got like a 5% response, you’re doing excellent.

So the next one is cost per acquisition. Of course, that’s the amount of money that, it costs you to get that new customer. Right? And for this, you want to look at a ratio. So you want to see like 3 to 1. That’s that’s a really good cost per acquisition. If your campaign is getting you a 1 to 1, then you might want to rethink your strategy of what you were doing on that campaign, maybe the messaging or graphics or something. Right?

So next we need to look at evaluating ROI. Do you guys know what ROI is? Yeah. Return On Investment. So, I’m not the best at math, but this is an equation that everybody needs to know for sure, right? So to get your ROI, you take your net profit and you divide that by the total campaign costs. Multiply that by 100 and you get your ROI. 

So when you look at those numbers, the most important thing that you need to do is not just, take a guess. You want to look at all of the information that went into this, right? So for your your cost for the mailer, you want to look at the design, the printing, the postage. You want to look at all of it. So you can get that accurate thing. Then from there, you also want to look at all the revenue, like, what did I really get from all of this? So you get that accurate percentage of your ROI.

So then an example calculation. So this is the budget, that I’m showing you. Here is an example from a senior living facility that we worked with. This calculation of course works for any budget, for any scenario. So the total campaign cost for this was 10,000. Rhe total revenue that was generated was 25,000, which brought the net profit to 15,000.

So the ROI, of course, if you do the calculation, is 10,000 divided by 15,000 times 100. They got 150% return on their investment. That’s pretty great, right? Yeah. So next with with this data, what you need to do is you need to like look at how the campaign did overall.

You want to analyze the data. Take a good look at that. So based on that, what you’re going to see is do I need to refine my target audience? Like so for example, maybe I sent out the campaign to a group that was 65 to 75 and 45 to 65. Maybe all the people in the 45 to 65 age bracket, I got really good responses of, but not the 65. So that helps us laser focus our target.

Maybe we need to adjust the messaging and offers. So, like what Alex was mentioning, you know, the Dyson, like, maybe we need to sweeten the deal. Instead of 10%, we need to provide 20%. 

So we’ll do a new campaign based on that. And then to optimize the design. So take a look. As an example, we had a client who had the best response rate. They are a home remodeler. And we found that doing images of an actual remodel versus the beach, which is where all of their target audience is, the beach didn’t much better. Go figure. Right? So that’s important data to use for future campaigns. So, there we go.