GRAPHIC ADVISOR
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ISSUE THIRTY-TWO
Drip Marketing: Keep the conversation going!
also in this issue:
A/B Testing: Gaining Insight Through Dividing and Analyzing Step into Style Sheets
MARKETING ADVISOR
Your logo here
ISSUE THIRTY-TWO
Drip Marketing: Keep the conversation going!
also in this issue:
A/B Testing: Gaining Insight Through Dividing and Analyzing Step into Style Sheets
W
A/B Testing: Gaining Insight Through Dividing and Analyzing
hile A/B testing sounds
company which call to action is the most
a mirror image of
complicated, it’s not. It’s
effective with its target audience. Most
the other and
splitting the mailing into
likely, it will use that same call to action
includes enough
in the future.
names so that the
two groups, modifying one variable at a time, and seeing which performs best. By
If you want more results from your direct mail or other marketing efforts, you need to continually refine your campaigns over time. Test new graphics. Test new messaging. Test new offers. That means A/B testing.
You can use this approach to test every
results are statistically
continually testing one variable against
element of your campaign. Use it to test
significant. Then pay attention
another, you can identify those elements
graphics. Background colors. Starbursts
to what you learn
that consistently tend to produce the
and drop dates. The more you test, the
and use it to
best results.
more you can refine your campaigns for
knock your next
peak effectiveness.
campaign out of the park.
Case Study: Postcard Testing
Need help? Talk to us about what
For example, a company with a customer
Case Study: Newsletter Testing
A/B splits make the most sense for your
database of 5000 people might decide
One healthcare provider sending patient
next campaign.
to create a postcard campaign with a
newsletters did A/B testing over a period
discount code.
of years. It assigned each article a unique
It might design the postcard, then
tracking code paired to the household
modify the call to action to test the
receiving the newsletter. As those
effectiveness of two different sets of text.
households were tracked through the
To 2,500 people, it mails the postcard
patient database, the healthcare provider
that says, “Offer ends this Tuesday! Use
was able to see which articles had the
code A1.” To another 2,500 people, it
most impact.
sends the same postcard but with a
The first year, the provider’s ROI
different call to action that says, “Limited
was $62 for every dollar spent on the
time offer! Use code A2.”
newsletter. The next year, that rose to
The company then tracks which group, A1 or A2, has the highest number
The key to A/B testing is to select names and addresses randomly so that each split is a mirror image of the other and includes enough names so that the results are statistically significant.
$78. The next year, it rose to $88. Clearly, tracking was worth the effort!
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of people redeem the offer. Say the postcard with code A1 has a 5% response
How to Choose the Split
rate (125 of the 2,500 people in that group
When it comes to choosing the split, you
used the code to buy a product) and
can divide the campaign evenly or select
the postcard using the code B1 has a 3%
out a smaller portion to use as a control
response rate (75 of the recipients used
group. The key is to select names and
the code to buy a product). This tells the
addresses randomly so that each split is
2
T
his is the philosophy behind
Success with Drip Marketing
drip marketing. Send a postcard
One firm used drip marketing to turn
on Monday. Blast an email on
its zero response (yes, zero response)
Thursday. Mail a marketing letter the
marketing letter into a campaign with
following week. By continually putting
1700% ROI.
your message in front of people, you stay
First, the company scrapped its
top of mind. When they’re ready, they’ll
traditional one-page marketing letter
pull the trigger.
with the dry, boring introductory
It’s not just about staying visible. It’s
paragraph, service pitch, and standard
also about keeping your competitors at
closing, and replaced it with a more
bay. It’s a common marketing adage that
engaging marketing pitch. Then it
customers can only keep three to five
followed up with a phone call from
brands in their heads at one time. The
a live person. Ten days later, it sent a
more visible you are, the less room there
second letter. The total cost of the
is for your competitors.
campaign—$2,600. The results? The company closed on
What makes a successful drip
$90,000 in sales within six weeks. That’s
marketing campaign?
a 17,000% return on investment!
Repetition. You can offer discounts and promotions, but most importantly,
marketing that caused the success.
it’s about building relationships and
There was a change in strategy too. But
creating conversation.
part of that change involved adding the
This means the content must be meaningful. It must be something your
drip marketing approach of multiple contacts over time.
customers and prospects actually want to read. To do this, you need solid content that positions your company and your brand.
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Keep the Conversation Going!
You have a great product. You have a great marketing message. So what does it take to convert a prospect into a customer? Sometimes it’s simply a matter of time and exposure.
Of course, it wasn’t just the drip
Drip marketing can take many forms, including postcards, newsletters, marketing letters, and email. Regardless of the media used, the goal is the same. Engage your customers. Position your brand. Foster trust and credibility. By doing so, you will stay top of mind, keep your competitors in the corner, and boost your sales at the same time.
Best Practices Want to see what drip marketing can do for you? Here are some best practices to keep in mind: 1. Focus on content. Provide real, measurable value. If it doesn’t provide value, it won’t create customer engagement—just clutter. 2. Be consistent. Drip marketing is about consistency. Make a commitment. Create a marketing schedule. Then stick to it. 3. Follow up. You can drip, drip, drip, but at some point, you need to give a call to action. Follow up by phone, email, or other media.
4
S
tyle sheets, also known as “paragraph styles” and “character styles,” are among the most powerful yet often underutilized features in today’s page layout software. Styles help ensure that typographic characteristics are used consistently throughout a document, and save time when a typeface or a point size needs to be changed.
Step into Style Sheets...
For example, if you’re laying out a
the style, and clicking OK.
document, and you’ve set all the body
At heart, that’s all there
text in 12pt Garamond Regular but the
is to it. The same goes
client would rather use Bell Gothic, you
for character styles: If
can simply change the typeface in the
there are some words in
style sheet and it will change all the text
a document that should
that has been “tagged” with that style.
be in italic, rather than
You can also link styles: If you have a style
manually applying the
called Body Text and another called Body
italic version of a typeface,
Text–No Indent (which are identical save
create an “Italic” character
for, you guessed it, an indent), you can
style. You can also assign
make one dependent on the other; and
keyboard shortcuts to
if the basic Body Text specs change, you
styles, for even more
layout. InDesign CS 5.5 has improved and
only have to make the change once.
time-saving.
simplified EPUB export immeasurably.
Recent versions of InDesign have added
(or you may walk into problems!)
Mapping character and paragraph styles
an “Object Style” that lets you save fills,
Importing Style Sheets
to HTML or XML tags goes a long
strokes, positioning, text wrap settings—
Styles can be imported from other
way toward saving time and hassle in
even effects like drop shadows—and
documents, so if a project has the same
multichannel production workflows. In
apply them to other objects. Likewise
typographic specs as a previous one,
fact, the best results in EPUB workflows
Table and Cell Styles—incredibly helpful if
you can avoid having to duplicate
is to leave no text untagged. This will
you lay out a lot of tabular data.
previous efforts.
give you maximum control over the look
Styles are used in programs like
and appearance of electronic content—
Style Sheets are Easy to Create!
Microsoft Word and can be imported into
something that certainly needs a great
Style sheets are perceived as being
InDesign or QuarkXPress—helpful when
deal of control and improvement!
laborious to create, which is one reason
you may not know instinctively whether a
why they are often underutilized, but
subhead should be formatted as Heading
creating and working with styles, and it’s
they don’t have to be. Creating a style
2 or Heading 3.
worth taking a little time to investigate
is as simple as formatting a selected
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InDesign CS 5.5 features a new Edit Export Tags feature that lets you map your style sheets to HTML, EPUB, or PDF tags.
There are many more nuances to
them—both to save time, and to prevent
chunk of text, choosing (in InDesign) the
HTML and EPUB Tags
headaches and bottlenecks within
New Paragraph Style command from the
Style sheets are also used to create tags
your workflow.
Paragraph Styles palette menu, assigning
that are used to format HTML or EPUB
a name (preferably a meaningful one) to
(e-book) files exported from an InDesign
6
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E
verywhere you look these days, you’re bombarded with data about how much money marketers are putting into their Internet presences. E-mail marketing. Web site development. Search engine optimization. Banner ads. Social networking. This creates the impression that print is irrelevant, but in fact, the opposite is true.
Here are some more eye-catching data:
• A 2008 Magazine Publishers of
What does this mean for you? Print matters.
America study reconfirms prior studies
When looking for strategies to boost your
that show including URLs in magazine
Web traffic, get print into the mix. Send a
ads drives readers to advertiser Web
direct mail piece. Use the space on your
sites. The biggest lifts came in the
catalogs, brochures and even invoices
women’s service, home and travel
to advertise your Web address, Twitter
categories, where ads featuring Web
ID and other URLs. Make sure important
addresses were 98%, 103% and 186%
Web addresses are in your trade and
more likely to boost Web site visits,
consumer advertising. Find excuses to get
respectively.2
them in front of your customers. Take
• Seaport Village, a San Diego retail hub, saw a 26% rise in traffic to its Web
advantage of every opportunity. Print is highly effective for driving all
site right after city officials launched a
types of consumer and business behavior,
fool you. Print has power, including the
holiday direct mail campaign steering
including building your online presence.
power to drive online activity. One of the
visitors to the shopping center.3
Use it!
Don’t let the ubiquity of Internet data
most effective ways to build an online presence is to use print. For example, a survey of 2,251 senior
• A USPS/comScore survey found that people who receive a catalog account for 22% of Web site traffic and 37% of
executives, the “BE: USA 2008/2009:
money spent at retailers’ Web sites. In
The Media Survey of the United States’
fact, shoppers who received a catalog
Business Elite” found that this elite group
were twice as likely to make an online
was heavily influenced to increase their
purchase at the retailer’s online store.4
Web traffic as a result of print. Nearly
Use Print to Boost Your Online Presence
one in four (23%) was motivated to visit a marketer’s Web site as a result of a local newspaper ad, rising to 38% who were motivated by a magazine ad.1
Print has power, including the power to drive online activity. One of the most effective ways to build an online presence is to use print. http://tinyurl.com/nvkmc5 http://tinyurl.com/nkq83y 3 https://www.delivermagazine.com/marketing-tips/2008/02/29/direct-mail-drives-web-traffic-for-retail-hub/ 4 http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/204586/print_catalogs_boost_ internet_sales_pg2.html?cat=3
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