AUTUMN 2016_PROMOTING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PRINT MEDIA THROUGHOUT EUROPE
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?
How print feeds the appetite for food marketing
BEST FRIENDS FOREVER How print inspires loyalty, devotion and commitment HOT OFF THE PRESSES Create topical print campaigns with fast turnaround ads THE 360-DEGREE REVOLUTION We explore how print is working with virtual reality THE LIONS THAT ROARED The best print campaigns from this year’s Cannes festival
/ LOYALTY
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RINT MARKETING can do
many things: inspire, engage, entertain, persuade, educate. But one of its key strengths for brands is keeping customers loyal. There’s something about a well targeted piece of direct mail or a customer magazine that’s impossible to put down, which builds a strong connection between brand and customer, a connection that can result in a customer choosing a single brand above all others for months and even years. In a world where switching brands of anything from washing powder to broadband providers to banks is increasingly simple, keeping your existing customers loyal – or engaged – is getting ever higher on the ‘to do’ lists of marketers worldwide. In a survey by Accenture,
engaged customers were found to make purchases 90% more frequently and spend 60% more per transaction 1 . Of course, customer service is a large part of keeping customers loyal, but print marketing also goes a long way to keeping your customers engaged and confident. The power of receiving a beautifully crafted customer magazine as opposed to an impersonal email should not be underestimated, and in these days when receiving post is increasingly rare, a piece of direct mail resonates all the more strongly. Research has found that 57% of people feel more valued when receiving mail from a brand, whereas only 17% said this of email 2 . The direct approach A clever piece of direct mail can be used to delight and reward loyal customers.
Cafe chain Costa Coffee mailed its most frequent customers a premium pack with samples of a new blend for them to trial at home. During the course of the campaign around 870,000 cups of the Old Paradise blend were sold, with some 68% of these coming from members of the brand’s coffee club loyalty scheme. Pete Markey, brand communications and marketing director at the insurer Aviva, warns of the danger that marketers can forget how marketing basics such as direct mail can drive loyalty. “Years ago I remember the day when people shouted from the rooftops about how brilliant email was when it arrived,” he says. “The view was that email would kill direct mail, but all that happened was that our inboxes filled with spam and email gradually became less effective.” Markey believes direct mail can “create
Research has found that 57% of people feel more valued when receiving mail from a brand
A MARKETER’S BEST FRIEND
Next to actual sales, there’s nothing more important in brand marketing than loyalty. Keeping a customer happy, confident and engaged in your brand takes regular communication, a strong emotional bond and a lengthy presence in the home – which is where print comes in — By Matthew Chapman
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/ LOYALTY “Print is not ephemeral. It hangs around for a long time” Paul Snoxell, Creative Director at integrated agency Partners Andrews Aldridge
Loyalty schemers Below (l-r): Chris Bates from John Lewis, Paul Snoxell from Andrews Aldridge, Aviva’s Pete Markey, Cath Kidston’s Sue Chidler Bottom of page (l-r): Cath Kidston continue to use print marketing extensively in their campaigns; a spread from BMW’s customer magazine
special moments” that strike a chord with customers and he cites a pet insurance mailing from his time at insurer More Than as proof. It appealed to pet owners on the day of their dog’s birthday to take out pet insurance for their beloved dog, and was one of the firms’ most successful ever packs.
A FAITHFUL FRIEND FOUR INDUSTRIES THAT INSPIRE LOYALTY THROUGH PRINT Utilities A gas bill no longer needs to be a thing of dread and can instead inspire loyalty. Energy firms are using direct mail to explain where they are spending their customers’ money and encourage consumers to save money by moving to a cheaper tariff.
Charity Mail can have a particularly strong loyalty impact in the charity sector. Almost three quarters (71%) of those who received a piece of valuable charity mail in the previous 12 months felt more loyal as a consequence.
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Financial services Direct mail remains popular among banks. Financial services are complicated by their nature and therefore many customers prefer to have the finer details sent to them in paper format so that they can digest the information at their leisure.
Retail Catalogues and customer magazines have long been a stalwart of the retail industry, helping to create an emotional connection between a brand and its customers. UK-based retailer Argos recently attempted to phase out its much-loved catalogue, but then returned it to digitally led stores due to customer demand.
Treat your customers Direct mail is also an important part of the marketing mix for British department store group John Lewis, as it seeks to reinforce its standing in the UK and expand into new markets such as the Netherlands and Australia. The iconic retail chain uses direct mail to reach out to members of the retailer’s loyalty scheme by sending out regular rewards and invites to special events, while it also produces customer magazines such as its quarterly Edition magazine. “Print has a real ability to cut through creatively, which is evidenced by often higher response rates for direct mail packs compared to equivalent emails,” says Chris Bates, Head of Customer Marketing at John Lewis. “A physical magazine also really appeals to customers, with many seeing it as a treat, which often appears as a coffee table staple.” A customer magazine keeps a consumer’s attention for 25 minutes3 on average, and this longevity is a key advantage that print has over other marketing channels, including broadcast and digital. “One of the things about print is that it’s not ephemeral,” says Paul Snoxell, who, as Creative Director at integrated agency Partners Andrews Aldridge, has worked on the BMW customer magazine. “It hangs around for a long time.” The tactile element of print marketing is also an effective way for brands to establish an emotional link with their customers. “It is so important how things look and feel and behave in your hands,” says Snoxell. “The
physical experience is almost as important as the creative held within it.” In order to forge a closer bond with its customers, BMW customised the content to the specific customer using data they held on their gender, life stage and interests. At least four pages in each customer’s magazine would be tailored to feature more pictures featuring their gender or articles about their specific interests. Through its loyalty programme, BMW has collected information on its customers’ sporting passions, food and drink preferences, or art and culture interests, which it uses to decide which news stories to insert or images to use. This activity, along with other supporting marketing channels, helped BMW achieve an 8% response rate to its ‘nurture’ campaign and generated an ROI of 32:1. Meanwhile, a Smithers Pira white paper commissioned by Konica Minolta found personalisation within print materials can increase customer loyalty by over 40% 4 . The catalogue connection The concept of using print marketing to nurture customers is one that’s been long adopted by Cath Kidston, the home and lifestyle brand with a strong international presence in markets such as Spain, France, the UK and Japan. Cath Kidston released a print catalogue when it only had a single store and now the brand sends out catalogues eight times a year, with mailings numbering in the millions. To mark its upcoming Disney tie-in, Sue Chidler, the brand’s marketing director, reveals that 500,000 of the brand’s ‘best’ customers will receive Cath Kidston’s new catalogue, which, at 72 pages, will be 25% larger than its previous biggest catalogue. “Getting something tangible in their hands is still something that really resonates with our customer,” says Chidler. Chidler is such a strong advocate of catalogues because they allow customers
to “enjoy something at their leisure”. This lifestyle-friendly aspect allows a brand to build a more effective connection with a consumer to achieve a soft sell, and fits in with the growing ‘slow marketing’ trend, which is gaining increasing traction across the industry. Swap shop In today’s cut-throat commercial world, where customers can switch between brands with increasing ease, direct mail plays a key role in reducing churn. Markey believes direct mail can be “hugely beneficial” in driving home a marketing message more effectively when it is “targeted at the right part of the customer lifecycle”. “It is all about having proper scheduling and thinking about who I am talking to, when, and with what message,” he says. “The really important part is having an ‘air traffic control’ system across the top.” While there can be no doubting the effectiveness of print in ensuring loyalty, Snoxell and company all agree that print is most effective when part of a more holistic solution. “Print can and does play a really important role in loyalty right now,” says Snoxell. “But you can’t do it on its own and it all has to be joined up.” Marketers should ignore print marketing at their peril in their constant effort to keep pace with the latest digital fads. The loyalty of their customers and the survival of their brand may depend upon it.
Sources
2016, Accenture, Products, Services or Experiences: What Do Customers Value Most? http://bit.ly/2aDdGNi 2 2014, MarketReach, It’s All About Mail and Email http://bit.ly/2aeIV0D 3 2005, Association of Publishing Agencies http://bit.ly/2aC0RFy 4 2016, Smithers Pira, From Innovation to Implementation, http://bit.ly/2aC0uuZ 1
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