GRAPHIC ADVISOR ISSUE THIRTY-SIX
Locking in a Lasting Relationship with your customers also in this issue:
Loyalty Programs Really Pay Off Three Reasons to Hire a Professional Designer
Your logo here
Want to sell more? Try building relationships with your customers. Yes, it really can be that simple. People like to do business with people. More specifically, they like to do business with people who care about them, who listen to what they have to say, and who are accessible and responsive to their needs. By using the variety of tools in your marketing arsenal, you can build relationships that keep your customers engaged and loyal.
What tools do you have at your disposal? Print.
Build Business by Building Relationships
Multi-channel marketing.
Social media.
Newsletters, direct mail
Every marketing channel
Social media is not a sales
letters, postcards, and
has its own sweet spots,
channel. It is a relationship
other printed materials are
so understand the power
channel. Use social media
great relationship builders. As you use
of each channel and maximize it. Print
to engage your customers in a larger
these tools, don’t always be trying to
creates the sense of gravitas and trust.
community. Get your team members
sell something. Share information. Give
Email and mobile allow immediate
interacting with your customers as
advice. Provide useful resources so that
communication and facilitate click-
genuine, caring human beings. Have
your customers look forward to each
through feedback. Social media fosters
your team participate in discussions
communication. Consider selecting
long-term engagement and community
(whether on your sites or third-party
interesting or unusual substrates, folds,
building. Understanding the sweet
sites) so your customers know you
and bindings that take advantage of the
spots of each medium and layering
are really listening. Sponsor contests.
unique, tangible characteristics of print.
them over time reinforces your brand
Create discussions around the culture
Data. Knowing your customers helps
and helps you stay top of mind.
of your business, or fun and unusual
deepen relationships over time. You will speak differently to the Gen-X crowd than
ways to use your products.
Personalized URLs.
Regardless of the channels you are
you will to Baby Boomers. You will speak
Personalized URLs allow you
using, ensure that your phone number,
differently to a recent college graduate
to connect with customers
Web address, and links to your Facebook
than you will to the head of a household
and get their feedback
page, Twitter account, and Pinterest
with children. Using data doesn’t have
using a simple, personalized online
boards are included and clearly visible.
to mean full personalization, although
interface. By asking their opinions on
Give customers multiple ways to contact
it can. Segmenting into different target
products, services, and their experience
you and encourage them to do so in
audiences can also be highly effective
with your company, personalized
the ways they feel most comfortable.
by allowing you to speak to customers
URLs let people know that you care
based on their common interests.
and that their voices are being heard.
As a marketer, you have
It also gathers additional information
tremendous resources for
on those customers so you can better
building long-lasting, positive
target and customize communications
relationships with your customers.
with them in the future. Relationships
Need help using them? Give us a call!
photos Šistock.com
require two-way communication!
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m a r s g o r P Loyalty
D
oes your company have a loyalty program? A way to keep customers engaged with your business and encourage repeat business over time? If not, it might be time to get started.
Case Study: Hotel Resort
The program now has been running
Take the example of this New
for years, and the facility is nearly
Jersey-based hotel and resort that
always booked to capacity. Ongoing
used loyalty programs to encourage
CRM programs permit the resort to
20% of its customers to repeat
effectively resell, upsell, and cross-
business just the first year alone.
sell to its customers, all the while
The resort learned the value of loyalty campaigns when it implemented
building additional rapport and trust. Loyalty programs take a little extra
a program that gathered information
time and effort to set up, but once
on customers on their first visits. It
they are up and running, they are
immediately followed up with colorful
highly cost-effective to maintain. The
brochures thanking them for their visit and
benefits? They speak for themselves.
Case Study Results • 20% of customers receiving the direct mailers booked with the hotel or used its facilities the first year — nearly 30 times the industry average for static direct mail campaigns.
inviting them to return again. Automated, trigger-based workflow was used to get these mailers into customers’ hands immediately while their good memories of
ff ! O y a Really P
time spent at the facility were still fresh. The resort was willing to spend a significant amount of time, money, and energy to develop these mailers because it knew that once a customer returns a second time, his or her loyalty is cemented. Thus the extra effort spent getting those customers back in the door would pay off in long-term profits.
• The resort recorded record revenues from its services and had the most lucrative month in the company’s history.
photos ©istock.com
• Quarterly earnings doubled year over year.
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E
ngaging customers involves more than just sending out informational or promotional print pieces. It involves touching customers’ emotions and engaging with them at a deeper level that draws them in. That’s why, even with so much templatebased design available these days, professional designers still play an important role in today’s marketing communications.
Professional designers do more than place text and images on a page. They take into consideration everything from aesthetics to substrates to prepress, binding, and finishing that the average marketer can’t possibly be expected to know. If you’re doing 1:1 marketing, designers play a key role, as well. This is because variable fields can bring some unexpected surprises in a document layout. For example, if you have 1” maximum available space, that’s no problem if the recipient’s last name is Smith, Walker, or Johnson. But what happens if someone has the last name Salomonowicz or Drozdovandropopozgiopanatzakis?
Here are three areas where professional design can really make a difference.
Professional designers know things the average person doesn’t.
Three Reasons to Use a Professional Designer
Want to grab someone’s attention? Use color and graphics! But when you’re creating the pieces yourself, sometimes even the most eye-popping colors just don’t reproduce as you expect. Or when you re-size a picture, it becomes pixilated no matter what you try. What happens if your paper or finishing cost is more than expected or your project is delayed because of design and format considerations
(Yes, these are real last names!) Those and other possibilities have to be planned for upfront.
Your company’s image is affected by the quality of your marketing materials.
Good design accommodates multi-channel. In today’s competitive, multi-channel marketing environment, you must not only be able to design for print, but for the Web, email, mobile, and more. Each has its own nuances in design, color, and format. Professional designers are expected to be comfortable working in most or all of these formats, and the ability to create consistency across multiple channels is one of the hallmarks of professional design and marketing. If you’re tempted to shave a few dollars off your budget by cutting out a professional designer, think twice. These critical links in your marketing chain bring value far beyond just creating printed (or electronic) documents. They are the creative force behind the professional image of your company, and some things are just worth paying for.
Like it or not, buyers judge a book by its cover. If your marketing materials look unprofessional — if your colors are muddy or your hairlines don’t match across the fold — your company will appear unprofessional, too. When all else is equal between you and your competitor, the company with better designed brochures and marketing materials will get more sales.
photos ©istock.com
that were overlooked upfront?
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W
hen you think about evaluating the success of a 1:1 printing campaign, how long a window do you use to determine the dollars it generated? Do you cut it off after a week? A month? Several months? What about the lifetime of the customer? Lifetime customer value (LCV)
indefinitely. Many companies estimate their LCV out for three to seven years. Otherwise, it’s considered too speculative to be useful.
True Measure of Effectiveness Even if it’s an estimate, LCV gives you a much better idea of what value your marketing campaigns are creating. For example, the Print on Demand Initiative case study archive contains a case study submitted by a small lawn care
is an overlooked metric that
company that sent out a mailing of 300
needs to be a larger part of how
1:1 pieces to great effectiveness. When
marketers measure their success.
the campaign revenue was considered in
Granted, LCV is very difficult to estimate,
Look at Value Over a Lifetime
You don’t have to calculate out LCV
isolation, the mailing barely broke even.
but it’s important to keep the issue in
But the company knew that its customers
mind. Customers gained through 1:1
tend to be very loyal over time, so the
printing tend not just to purchase more,
addition of every new customer meant
but to be more loyal than customers
several years of recurring revenue. As a
gained through static methods. Thus, the
result, the owner estimated the campaign
benefits of customer retention must be
ROI at 8000% on a LCV basis, something
considered alongside other factors in
that made this a best practices case study.
evaluating the cost-benefits equation.
How do you view your customers?
How do you determine LCV? There are a variety of factors to consider: Churn rate: How often do customers leave your customer base?
On a one-off basis? Or as having Lifetime Customer Value?
Retention cost How much does it cost you to support, bill, and incentivize your customers? Periodic revenue Do you have recurring revenue streams? How much do customers spend during an average period?
photos ©istock.com
Profit margin
You don’t have to calculate out LCV indefinitely. Many companies estimate their LCV out for three to seven years. Otherwise, it’s considered too speculative to be useful.
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