WestJet reward programs take flight

Transcription

Direct Marketing
Vol. 22 • No. 11 • MARCH 2010
The Art & Science of Predictable Marketing
fast8
forward
»3
Editor’s
letter
There's something to
be said for loyalty
PRINTED ON 100% RECYCLED PAPER
WestJet reward
programs take flight
Rodale EnVision
Databases launched
New lists help marketers drive
sales growth
Airline makes move to win and keep customer loyalty
Access to 407 makes this area
a prime pick for DM suppliers
Deal with CCMP Capital worth
$635 million
»4
A nation of beer drinkers
Click!
Abe McGowan on how social media
is impacting SEO
Unaddressed mail brings
surprising results
»7
Engaging world of
mobile marketing
See how this targeted and immediate
tool can drive business
»9
2009 Image Award
Winners
How Pitney Bowes Canada finds
more effective way for small business
to maximize DM efforts
WestJet Airlines Ltd. has recently launched
its long-awaited loyalty program.
Third in a series from Colin Tener
The best and the brightest shine at
this year's awards
» 11
Post-it glams up the catwalk on
Project Runway Canada
» 13
Keeping it clean
Kristi Kanitz on why address accuracy
can make or break a DM campaign
» 16
Case study:
Invisible Fence
»6
Analytics:
an unfulfilled promise
List Buiness
» 16
Search is
officially social
»6
Holt Renfrew campaign
less than conventional
Not For Profit
» 15
Infogroup
changing hands
Jan Kestle on picking a
personification of a target group
DM Landscapes
» 14
Regional Report:
York Region
»4
The Analytics Advisor
» 13
A
fter nearly three years of
development and numerous
false starts, WestJet Airlines Ltd.
has formally launched its long-awaited
loyalty and credit card program – a move
designed to win and keep more customers
at a time when airline travel is starting to
recover after a bruising slowdown.
The programs were supposed to be
introduced last June, but were put on hold
until kinks in WestJet's new reservation
system could be worked out.
The two new rewards programs - the
WestJet Credit Card Program, offered in
partnership with RBC and MasterCard,
and the WestJet Frequent Guest Program
- both offer travellers the opportunity
to earn and accumulate WestJet dollars,
which can be used as cash toward the
purchase of any flight on any date to
any destination, including seat sales.
WestJet dollars can also be used towards
WestJet Vacations packages (up to 500
WestJet dollars p.p.). There are no points,
redemption grids, advance booking,
blackouts or seat restrictions.
“These programs are designed to
be simple, open and transparent,” says
Lauri Feser, WestJet vice-president of
marketing. “Canadians want to be able
to understand the way their rewards are
calculated, and they don’t want to worry
about whether they have enough points
to do what they want. For the frequent
business traveller, our research indicates
there is strong appeal for the rewards
offered by this type of program. Most
of all, they want to be able to use their
rewards without blackout periods and
other restrictions.”
Canada’s number two airline, based out
of Calgary, hopes to tap into an estimated
$2.2-billion market in Canada for those
who fly between four and 20 times a
year with its new loyalty program. That
includes the elusive corporate traveller
who WestJet has been coveting for years.
While the airline estimates it holds
about 24% of the corporate travel market,
the goal is to bring it up to 35% with the
help of the loyalty program
WestJet has joined with RBC and
MasterCard to launch its new travel
reward credit card program. RBC’s first
MasterCard product offering in Canada
includes two new cards - the WestJet RBC
World MasterCard and the WestJet RBC
MasterCard. With each, cardholders earn
WestJet dollars on everyday purchases.
Giving customers the world
The WestJet RBC World MasterCard
provides 1.5% in WestJet dollars, plus a
See WestJet reward... page 4
Leverage marketing
intelligence
» 17
The last in a five-part series from
Rick Brough
Digging deep into
social media
» 23
Lydia Cappelli on why social media
is becoming a higher priority for
marketers
2010 Data
Now Available
www.environicsanalytics.ca
(416) 969-2733
Publications Mail Agreement #40050803
Want to boost
response rates?
Getting more attention in the
mailbox just got easier. Now you
can use Repositionable Notes on
the outside of your direct mail.
Make your message stand out. Call 1 866 511-3133 or visit canadapost.ca/bigimpact today.
March 2010 ❮ Direct Marketing ❮ dmn.ca
2
You’ve
FOUND
something smarter than a smartphone
Environics Analytics announces the
release of 2010 marketing data.
The industry’s most reliable information just
got better with up-to-date 2010 statistics to
power your marketing, research and
strategic planning.
Times have changed. With the latest 2010 data,
your decision-making will be based on the most
accurate information on consumer expenditures,
demographics and lifestyle preferences. Get the
newest stats to make sure you’re delivering the
right message to the right customer using the
right media.
Because you’re only as smart as your
most recent data.
Now updated:
t PRIZM C2
t DemoFacts (current to 2020)
t HouseholdSpend
t BusinessWhere
t Social Values
In our popular software tools:
t Envision
t PCensus
t Micromarketer Generation3
t ArcGIS Business Analyst
t Allocate, Solocast and Alteryx
2010 PRIZM C2 linked to:
t PMB
t BBM RTS Canada
t NADbank
t Polk
t Canadian Financial Monitor
t infoCanada
t Universe Canada
t MSN/Sympatico
t Research Now
Find and keep your customers.
www.environicsanalytics.ca (416) 969-2733
Commentaries
dmn.ca ❯ Direct Marketing ❯ March 2010
editor’s letter
in this issue
Something to be said for loyalty
departments
Amy Bostock
At the time of writing this letter I am counting
down the minutes until I board a plane for
sunny Nassau. Scuba diving, swimming
with sea lions, eating lots of fresh fish and
attending my four-year-old nephew’s
kindergarten – these are just a few of the
things we have planned for the next ten days.
Accommodations are compliments of
my wonderful sister-in-law and her family.
Airfare compliments of my obsessive
use of my Aeroplan card. I use it at the
grocery store, the gas station, the LCBO – I
swear the speed with which I can whip
out that card would put a Wild West
gunslinger to shame. Go ahead, mock me,
but I have two free tickets to the Bahamas
in my hand and you have this issue of DM.
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find
a wallet these days that didn’t contain at
least one loyalty card. I know my purse
alone has about five. More and more
merchants are recognizing the value
in offering something extra to their
customers. Our cover story this month
takes a look at the newest company to
jump on the loyalty program bandwagon.
After a couple of false starts, WestJet has
formally launched its long-awaited loyalty
and credit card program. This program,
three years in the making, will allow
directives
Dan Cadieux
W
ow! 2008 and 2009 were
interesting years. What will
we say about 2010 and what
changes will we experience? For many the
past year has been a challenge in different
ways. Some business leaders have been
forced to make difficult decisions, others
are enjoying success. Friends have lost
their jobs while others are finding new
opportunities. Family members are
wondering how they will retire, others are
making the most of new found freedom.
Change is all around us. Many don’t like
change; but it is driving new experiences
and new opportunities.
How is change impacting
the list business?
Think back a decade or more and
consider how different the list business
was. Historically you could purchase a
list of yacht or aircraft owners to target
the affluent. Then came PIPEDA and the
sources of those highly targeted lists were
no longer available. The Do Not Call List
has impacted our business by reducing
the quantity of consumer phone numbers
available for telemarketing thereby
changing how some companies market.
The Canadian Electronic Communications
Bill C-27 is indicating more changes are
around the corner, possibly similar to the
CAN SPAM Act in the US. Many of the
changes were “forced” upon the industry
by government and consumer protection
organizations. Have the issues been
resolved or will the next generation be
coming in the
April issue of
Direct Marketing
lobbying for more changes that will impact
our industry?
How has our industry responded?
Through times of change, our industry
has and continues to develop new
products and services to meet the needs
of our customers. Clustering and mosaic
systems have increased in popularity to
target consumer demographics no longer
available in the list. Modeling and analytics
are experiencing growth in marketing
campaigns to predict the attributes
of a consumer more likely to respond.
Mapping improves the ability to see and
access a level of information not visible in
traditional databases. Mobile marketing
allows individuals to be reached where
they are. Variable print helps personalize a
message to a level not imagined years ago.
With the changes in our industry and
the tremendous adoption of CRM systems
and data warehousing, all companies are
increasingly creating and maintaining
their own databases and lists. Think about
it… every company has their own list of
customers, suppliers and prospects. The
list might simply be kept in their email
software, such as Outlook contacts, or be
in sophisticated CRM software hosted in
the Cloud. Therefore list companies are
adapting their business from providing
lists to also providing list related services.
Many of those services are designed
to assist their customers in creating,
improving, cleaning or maintaining their
own lists. An increasing percentage of
Case study: KFC
JSee how the new KFC online coupon
campaign is smashing industry
standards with the help of Pitney
Bowes Business Insight.
frequent flyers to collect WestJet Dollars
that can be used with no redemption
grids or minimum payments.
March is also our List Business issue that
delves into the world of list brokering and
how that industry is evolving to keep up
with the changing DM world. Dan Cadieux
of infoCanada has some great insight to
share on the topic in our Directives feature
below. In his column, Dan talks about how
the DNC list and the Canadian Electronic
Communications Bill C-27 have impacted
the list industry, how the industry is
responding to these changes and what
the future holds.
We all know that a list is only as good
as its data so we’ve asked Kristi Kanitz of
Flagship Software to weigh in with an
article about the importance of address
accuracy when it comes to maintaining
effective and profitable lists.
Don’t forget to check out this month’s
Click! section that explores the mysterious
and complex world of search engine
optimization and social media.
I’ll be back in time for our April issue
of Direct Marketing which focuses on
mass direct and online coupons. In the
meantime, I’ll be doing my best to reload
to points for next years’ vacation.
The changing list business…
list business revenue is coming from list
hygiene and list development services.
An example of a series of marketing list
services provided by infoCanada includes
taking a customer file, correcting and
standardizing the customer information,
appending email and/or mobile phone
numbers, blasting an email or text
message offer to the customer soliciting
a response so the company can collect
additional data and improve their internal
customer data. Today instead of only
selling lists list companies are providing
value added services also.
What does the future hold?
The appetite for information, at both
a consumer and business level, has
increased tremendously in the past few
years. We all carry around incredible
amounts of information in our mobile
devices, phones or laptops, not to
mention those with computer networks
in their homes. We try to keep the
information secure and update to date.
We are all creating mini databases; list
businesses do that on a much larger scale.
The social media explosion into the
market space is creating a massive amount
of information that is growing daily.
Most of the information is unproven and
unknown - does it hold an untapped
potential for marketing value? Many
of us think so and are working on new
social media solutions. User generated
content and crowd sourcing are creating
massive databases of unique and hard
3
to find information - is the information
reliable and valuable enough to become
part of marketing campaigns? All of this
information will continue the evolution of
the list business.
The highly connected youth of today
are behaving in a way very different than
any generation that has gone before
them. This group are an emerging
demographic that are savvy - socializing,
communicating and acting in new ways.
They fast forward through commercials
on their PVR and have commercial free
satellite radio in their car or use their iPod.
They have advanced spam blocking on
their email. They also play FourSquare and
are Facebook fans of Coke, Nike and the
new indie band on the scene. They Tweet
or Buzz and rely on real or online friends
for referrals. They are 10 times more likely
to Google a problem instead of dialing a
help number and sitting on hold. Will they
become more traditional in their behavior
as they age or will they be another catalyst
for change in the list business?
We are seeing change all around us
in our world and the list business is no
different. Looking back, the list business
has already undergone significant change.
Looking forward, the future for the list
business is exciting and posed for further
transformational changes!
Dan Cadieux is President of infoGroup |
infoCanada, a changing organization in a
changing industry, and can be reached at
[email protected]
The New Retail Economy
Regional Report: Halifax
Direct Marketing welcomes Darrell
Cook, Vice-President of Sales and
Marketing for Conversys Inc, to their
family of contributors with this first
column on four strategies to increase
your market position.
Join us next month for a taste of what
the East Coast of Canada has to offer
when it comes to the direct marketing
industry.
DM People...........................................................10
News Worth Knowing....................................10
In The Mail..........................................................12
Event Calendar..................................................23
advertisers
Canada Post 1 & 15
Environics  1 & 14
ingroup/info Canada
5
FSA 24
resource directory
DM CREATIVE 19
Designers Inc.
MAILINg EQUIPMENT 19
Canadian Mailing Machines Inc
Bowe Bell & Howell
LIST SERVICES 18-19
Cornerstone Group of Companies
CleanList.com
ICOM
infogroup/infoCANADA
Arhway Marketing Services
SCOTT’S Directories
North American Direct Marketing
Direct Media Canada
Toronto Board of Trade
CALL CENTRE PRODUCTS / SERVICES 20
CallCentrejob.Ca
EXTEND Communications Inc
Newfield Contact Solutions
Tigertel UTR
Protocol
DATAbASE MARkETINg 20
Boire Filler Group
Interact Direct
Environics Analytics
DATA PROCESSINg 20
MLS
fULL SERVICE OPERATIONS 21-23
Address-All Mailing Services Ltd.
Andrews Mailing Services
Clixx Direct Marketing Services Inc.
CMS / Complete Mailing Services
Data Direct
DM Graphics
RDP Fulfillment Corporation
Key Contact
Mailmarketing Corporation
Origo Direct Marketing Communications
Pillar Direct
Pitney Bowes
SMART DM
The FSA Group
Wood & Associates Direct Marketing
Services Ltd.
Column
4
The Analytics Advisor
Picking a Personification of a Target Group
E
ven in these still challenging
economic times, targeting
and segmentation continue
to provide significant ROI for direct
marketers. In the last three months, I have
heard from no less than four customers
saying that their segmentation and
targeting efforts resulted in significant
lift of response rates for their direct
marketing campaigns. In looking at these
success stories (some of which we hope
to share with you in future case studies
here in DM), a common thread emerges.
In all the campaigns, donor or customer
data were combined with our off-theshelf segmentation system PRIZMC2
to create custom segments or target
groups. Analysts then made a deep dive
into a variety of data sources to develop
a detailed picture of each group. Finally,
they used these insights to formulate a
specific offer, pick the right creative hot
buttons (for both copy and images) and
determine what other advertising and
promotional activities would enhance the
campaign. This personification or imaging
step supported a research-based decision
regarding the best offer, best message and
right media for the desired response from
each target group.
Using data linked to a geodemographic
system further helps marketers understand
each target segment’s potential by market,
augmenting its profile with hundreds of
demographic variables that detail media
habits, leisure and lifestyle activities,
shopping behaviour, financial behaviour
and psychographics. By revealing deep
insights about custom target groups
through rich survey data, geodemographic
analytics has become a powerful
instrument in any marketer’s toolkit.
How do we know so much about
each segment? The detail comes from
is available for large urban markets.
But direct marketing typically requires
neighbourhood and postal code
information for targeting initiatives. That’s
where geodemography comes in. In
partnership with the survey companies,
geodemographers code their files with
cluster systems (like PRIZMC2) and create
national profiles of thousands of variables.
The commercial cluster systems available
in Canada have between 60 and 120
segments, so the records are sufficient in
By Jan Kestle
behaviour in their databases. As a result
of our partnerships with them, we know
the propensity of households in each
PRIZMC2 cluster to open a direct mail
piece. When we combine this information
with the cluster of a postal code and the
number of households within a postal
code, we can then infer the propensity
of the households in a custom target
segment in a market to open direct mail.
To produce the results, companies like
ours have created software systems to do
“By revealing deep insights about custom target
groups through rich survey data, geodemographic
analytics has become a powerful instrument in any
marketer’s toolkit.”
the providers of important media and
marketing databases who conduct large,
scientifically accurate surveys at least
annually. These surveys provide marketers
with information about the behaviour and
values of Canadians. But even with their
large sample sizes, the survey cannot offer
data for small areas; in some cases, the
data is available only for Canada and the
provinces while, in others, the information
large surveys to get enough observations
about each cluster to estimate its
propensity with a high degree of accuracy.
For each geodemographic cluster, we’re
ultimately able to create a buy rate or
propensity to participate for purchasing,
using, belonging and believing.
Let’s take an activity like “open direct
mail” as an example. Both PMB and BBM
RTS Canada include a measure of this
the math—the marketing math—behind
the scenes using algorithms and formulae
that have been developed, tested and
refined over the past thirty years. The
results are both reliable and affordable.
Back testing, that is, estimating a
buy rate using this geodemographic
method and comparing it to an actual
rate from survey or transactional data, has
repeatedly validated the approach. But the
results are still dependent on the quality
of the cluster system (a whole other topic)
and the quality of the survey sampling.
To maintain our rigorous standards,
we rely on PMB, BBM RTS Canada and
NADbank for media habits, purchase
behaviour and lifestyle activities. Our
financial profiles come from the Canadian
Financial Monitor while household
spending data is derived from Statistics
Canada’s Survey of Household Spending.
Our psychographics come from links to the
Environics Research Social Values Study.
And our car profiles are based on data from
R.L. Polk Canada. Most recently, we have
added profiles based on ComScore Media
Metrix for online behaviour.
Personification of target groups using the
geodemographic method brings consumer
behaviours and preferences to life, giving
marketers a vivid picture of who their target
customers are, how they live and what will
resonate with them. Canadian marketers
are very fortunate that such rich data
gathered by these best-of-breed research
organizations is available to enhance their
target marketing efforts. DM
Jan Kestle is the president and founder of
Environics Analytics, provider of the PRIZMC2
segmentation system.
dmlanDscaPes
A nation of beer drinkers
I
t should come as no surprise that Canada ranks among the top beer-drinking nations in the world. Each year, Canadians over
the age of 15 drink more than 77 liters of beer per person—with a noticeable spike every March on St. Patrick’s Day—making
beer the country’s most popular alcoholic beverage. Today, 8 percent of Canadians drink four to six beers per week, according
to BBM RTS Canada. A few years ago that figure would have been higher, but Canadians have been switching to wine and spirits recently,
dragging down beer’s market share.
To reverse that slide, brewers have sought to expand the audience for their brands by examining who these consumers
are and where they live. While one might imagine a map of Canadian beer-drinkers to be coloured by college towns where cases of
brewskis accompany every sporting event, research reveals that Canadian beer-drinking is a bit more egalitarian. As shown in the above
map from Environics Analytics, those who down a six-pack of beer each week include both young urban singles and rural retired
couples. They live in blue-collar industrial towns as well as white-collar suburbs, and they’re found everywhere from downtown
Winnipeg and Montreal to rural Nova Scotia and British Columbia. An analysis using PRIZMC2, EA’s segmentation system,
shows that the top beer-drinking lifestyles include Heartlanders (mature, working-class town couples), Survivre en
Ville (young and old low-income Québec urban renters) and Startups & Seniors (midscale mix of young and mature
singles and couples). They’re more likely than average Canadians to lead active lifestyles, scoring high for skiing,
fishing, camping, hunting and cycling. For a night out, they have high rates for going to movies, dinner theatres, music
festivals, bowling alleys and billiards halls, where they no doubt pound down a pint or two of their favourite brew.
And when these folks get a thirst for something different, almost anything alcoholic will do: they have high rates
for drinking European wine, sherry, whisky and even liqueur.
To fend off the wine and spirits tide, beer marketers can turn to a variety of mainstream
channels. Research shows domestic beer drinkers watch a lot of television and have wideranging interests—from the World Fishing Network and TV Land to Canal Vie and The
Pet Network. Although they’re not big on print or online media, they’re fans of radio—
especially sports and mainstream rock stations—and admit that they’re responsive to
radio advertising. However, marketers should think twice before rolling out new variations of
their ales, pilsners and lagers. Canada’s hardcore beer drinkers describe themselves as loyal to their
favourite brand and express little interest in trying different labels or the latest lime-flavoured brews.
5
What’s driving your business?
What’s driving your business?
Informationit drives your
Informationbusiness success
it drives your
business success
Find your solution @ infocanada.ca
800-873-6183
Find your solution @ infocanada.ca
InfoCanada, a division of Infogroup, provides a flexible suite of data-driven solutions
that add insight to every stage of the sales and marketing process. Whether you’re
introducing new products, entering new markets, acquiring new customers or building
more profitable relationships with existing customers – you can rely on InfoCanada to
achieve
results.
InfoCanada,
a division of Infogroup, provides a flexible suite of data-driven solutions
that add insight to every stage of the sales and marketing process. Whether you’re
Information
it’s what
we do
it drives
our business
solutions:
introducing new–products,
entering
new– markets,
acquiring
new customers
or building
more
profitable
relationships with existing
– you
canyour
rely best
on InfoCanada
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Quality/Comprehensive
Data tocustomers
pinpoint and
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prospects to
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• Email Marketing Services to find, attract and acquire new customers
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Information – it’s what we do – it drives our business solutions:
• High Quality/Comprehensive Data to pinpoint and close your best prospects
• Email Marketing Services to find, attract and acquire new customers
• Customer Insight to build deeper and more profitable relationships
83DMN
6
Column
When unaddressed Analytics:
an
unfulfilled
mail produces
promise?
upmarket results
The third in a series on the challenges
Holt Renfrew finds surprising success with
unaddressed catalogues By Michele Sexsmith
I
n the world of luxury retailing,
the personal touch has always
been touted as the best way to
handle affluent customers. Just ask Holt
Renfrew, Canada’s leading luxury retailer.
For years, Holts has sent personalized
direct mail regularly to some of its best
customers, always tailored to their
previous purchases and preferences for
the finer things. But when Holts wanted
to attract new customers for its fine
jewellery, it decided to forego the kidglove treatment and instead turned to an
unconventional approach: unaddressed
mail to targeted postal walks. And the
results proved surprising.
Holts has never been shy about trying
new approaches to win customers. For
173 years, the retailer has used new
and unusual marketing strategies to
promote its exclusive fashion apparel,
footwear, handbags, cosmetics and
jewellery. Every spring and fall, it mails
a catalogue with its to-die-for wares to
customers who treat the beautiful book
like a collector’s item. In November of
2007, Holts launched an outreach effort
with its so-called White Catalogue of
jewellery items. The company hoped to
raise awareness of its jewellery collection,
acquire new customers and compare the
effectiveness of a catalogue to direct mail
for connecting with prospects.
To reach the target audience, the
company printed 100,000 copies and
inserted them in a Saturday edition of the
Globe and Mail distributed in Toronto,
Montreal and Vancouver. According to
Pierre Montagnier, Holts’ Senior Manager
of Customer Analytics, the campaign was
well received, creating a lot of buzz for
the chain’s jewellery department. But the
approach had limitations. It didn’t screen
out existing customers and the newspaper
distribution zones were too large to allow
Holts to select preferred areas for targeted
marketing. “Geographically inflexible” is
how Montagnier describes it.
More problematic, the results were hard
to measure. “The campaign was successful
on the surface,” says Montagnier. “People
came into the store talking about the
catalogue and we had strong aggregate
growth in our fine jewellery business. But
when we attempted a deeper analysis
of this particular marketing tactic, it was
hard to measure the results. Our response
measurement was fuzzy.” Unable to see
a significant difference in sales patterns
or customer acquisition between the
targeted cities and those that didn’t
receive the catalogue, Holts couldn’t
determine the program’s effectiveness.
For Montagnier, an analytical marketer
who holds a Ph.D. in mechanical
engineering, this lack of quantification was
particularly frustrating. “If marketing isn’t
measurable, why bother doing it?” he asks
rhetorically from his Toronto office. “We
wanted to crunch the numbers to make
sure that we’d made the right decision
using newspapers. But the numbers just
weren’t available.”
To design a more measurable
campaign, Holts revamped its approach.
In 2008, it contacted Environics Analytics
(EA), the Toronto-based marketing
analytics company, to help identify its
best customers and determine where
to find more of them. Using PRIZMC2,
EA’s segmentation system that classifies
Canadians and markets into 66 lifestyle
types, analysts first categorized
Holts’ existing customers into one of
the clusters. Not surprisingly, many
hailed from the nation’s most affluent
segments, such as Cosmopolitan Elite
(very wealthy middle-aged and older
families), Suburban Gentry (wealthy,
middle-aged suburban families) and
Les Chics (sophisticated, urban Québec
couples and singles). Then researchers
mapped the presence of key clusters to
neighbourhoods within the trade areas of
Holts’ stores. By knowing the top clusters
and customer sales per neighbourhood,
marketers could pinpoint the
under-penetrated areas—that is,
neighbourhoods where like-minded
prospects live who were not already
regular Holts’ customers.
Holts selected the 294 most promising
postal walks (consisting of about 300
households each) near its flagship stores
in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. In
the fall of 2008, it mailed 75,000 lavish,
art-directed, high-gloss catalogues
to unaddressed households in those
targeted areas. But it also identified
“control” neighbourhoods with a high
concentration of the key clusters and
held back 16,500 catalogues to test
the difference in sales between the
two groups. Then it sent 40,000 of the
20-page catalogues to existing customers
who’d never bought jewellery in order
to compare a direct mail approach to
customers with the targeted unaddressed
strategy to prospects. Finally, to obtain an
accurate budget comparison, Holts made
sure that the cost of mailing the catalogue
unaddressed to the target postal walks
was comparable to the cost of the
previous year’s newspaper insertion.
“We wanted a scientifically designed
test,” says Montagnier, “so when it was
time to compute ROI, we’d have hard
numbers and not just intangible feedback.
By distributing catalogues at the postal
walk level, we felt we could better trust
the results.”
With its careful design, the less
personalized campaign yielded a number
of surprises. First, the response rate of
prospects who received the unaddressed
catalogues matched the response of
existing customers who were sent direct
mail—both in number of purchasers
and amount spent by each responder.
In addition, residents in the postal
walks who received the new catalogues
showed a 60 percent lift in sales over
those in areas who didn’t receive a piece.
“That was the icing on the cake,” says
Montagnier. “The campaign proved that
receiving a catalogue made a difference
in sales. Even when comparing customers
who share the same lifestyle, those who
receive a catalogue tend to shop more
than those who don’t.”
Beyond the lessons learned, the
campaign made money for Holts. Despite
the $3.30 cost for each catalogue, the
unaddressed campaign not only broke
even thanks to the immediate sales to
the new customers, it eventually proved
profitable. A follow-up analysis showed
that a significant percentage of newly
acquired customers returned to purchase
jewellery within six months—a good
indicator of customers with a promising
lifetime value. “The campaign wasn’t just
a one-time wonder,” says Montagnier. “It
really created a larger base of jewellery
customers.”
The White Catalogue campaign also
indicated which PRIZMC2 clusters were
the most responsive to the catalogue
mailing, and Montagnier’s team hopes
to refine their cluster selection for future
marketing campaigns. Although he
recognizes that Holts’ indirect approach
to marketing fine jewellery through
unaddressed mail may be unusual, he
believes it can be extremely effective if
married to well-designed analytics behind
the scenes.
“There is no magic to this kind of target
marketing,” says Montagnier. “You just
have to go about your analysis in a very
disciplined manner. If you look for your
most profitable customers and address
them specifically, even in an unaddressed
way you cannot go wrong.” DM
Michele Sexsmith is a vice president and
practice leader at Environics Analytics,
overseeing the retail, real estate, media and
manufacturing industries.
of leveraging database analytics
I
n our last instalment we
talked about some of the
organizational issues that
impede the spread of analytics. But we
would be remiss if we didn’t make clear
that sometimes the failure can be laid at
the feet of the analysts themselves. Over
the past 20 years I’ve seen good analysts
and bad ones. Contrary to popular
opinion, the difference between the two is
very rarely about their analytic capabilities.
Of course, analytical skills themselves are
important, and some people are better
at crafting creative solutions to tricky
marketing challenges or diagnosing what
is going on in the customer base. But good
analytical skills are really only the price
of entry. In this instalment we’ll outline
some of the factors that help analysts do
their jobs more effectively and contribute
to the growth of analytics within their
organization.
Understand the business
Analysts must understand the industry
and the company they work for. That
may sound obvious, but I’ve seen many
analysts who have tunnel vision about
their statistical expertise and have no idea
how their organization actually operates
in the marketplace. Some questions to
explore include: How does the company
make money (this is not always as obvious
as it might appear on the surface)? What
is the competitive environment? What are
the major issues facing your industry and
your customers? There are many sources
of information on these issues, including
annual reports, industry websites and
business publications. Investing a little bit
of free time will reap big dividends in your
ability to make relevant and impactful
analytical recommendations.
Treat internal groups as
if they were customers
Whether analysts are attached to a
specific marketing team or serve in a
centralized support group, the reality is
that Marketing pays the bills, so you would
be wise to treat them as if they were your
customers, because that’s what they
are. Fundamentally, that means listening
to what they are trying to accomplish,
recommending an approach that will
work, engaging them in the analytical
process to the extent that they need or
want to be engaged, and providing regular
status reports as to milestones and delivery
dates. In short, you want to be part of
the solution, not part of the problem. As
they come to look upon you and your
colleagues as valuable allies they will seek
out your help more often and be more
open to your recommendations.
Unfortunately, analytical groups often
take a different approach, acting more
like they are doing Marketers a favour just
by showing up. One organization we did
work for had a centralized analytical team
housed in another country. Periodically
they would fly up to Canada and deliver a
predictive model to the local Marketing
team. Usually that model was not chosen
by the local team, was not needed by that
team, and thus was shelved as soon as the
analysts got back on their plane. No one
would think to engage them in helping to
solve any of their problems. Good for us,
as outside consultants, but arguably not
good for the organization that had the
talent but ended up wasting it.
Speak “business” not “statistics”
Analysts are not part of some divine
priesthood whose secrets cannot be
shared with mere mortals. If analysts can’t
communicate their ideas in ways that are
understandable to end users then they
won’t be doing their jobs properly.
Nobody cares that you can derive some
long-dead Russian statistician’s algorithm
from first principles.
So drop the jargon and explain
yourself in terms that your audience will
understand. That doesn’t mean talking
down to them – it means explaining
objectives and methodologies in business
terms, not statistical ones. I’ve long
maintained that an analyst who can’t
explain their approach to a non-technical
audience (like, say, their mother or most
CMO’s) doesn’t really understand what
they are doing.
Take the example of proper sample
size, an on-going area of debate. You
can bring out all the formulas you want
to justify a sufficiently large sample for
a given test cell. But if you explain to the
marketer in charge of the program that an
insufficient sample size means that any
learning they think they will gain may not
be repeated in subsequent campaigns,
and that will mean that they may not get
their bonus, or could even get fired, then
you are more likely to make your case for
proper test design.
Help marketing prioritize
analytical resources
A key role that analysts can play is helping
the organization as a whole prioritize
scarce analytical resources. Analysts often
have a better idea of the areas where their
efforts offer the greatest potential than
Column
others in the organization. A proactive approach at
budget or planning time can make all the difference
in ensuring that the right resources are applied to the
right projects.
Sell yourself and your craft
As a species, analysts tend not be very good at selling
themselves. To some extent this is the communication
issue we talked about above. But more fundamentally
I think it stems from the view that if they can see good
results from their efforts then they assume that other
rational people can see them too. Unfortunately, that
is not always the case. Analysts would be advised to
trumpet their success at all appropriate points to make
sure that the powers-that-be understand where some
of the value added came from.
Failing to do this can be bad for both the firm
and the analyst. I once worked with a colleague
whose prior position had been part of an analytical
team in a financial institution. His entire group had
been fired because, he believed, they had been
unsuccessful in convincing their organization that
they were adding value. When times got tough,
they were among the first to go. I have no doubt
that they were adding value, but the organization
reverted to a “seat-of-the-pants” approach to
marketing and eventually got taken over by a
competitor.
If there’s a theme to these suggestions, it’s that
good analysts understand that they are part of a team.
They try to make it easy for the rest of the organization
to work with them and in the process help enhance the
role and impact of analytics. They are not the only force
7
pushing in that direction, but if they remain locked
in an ivory tower or fail to effectively engage those
around them, it will be that much harder for analytics
to deliver on its promise. DM
Colin Tener is V.P. Business Development for CVM
Marketing Inc., a consulting practice that focuses on the
art and science of identifying which customers represent
the greatest potential value to your organization and then
helping to realize that potential. He can be reached at
(416) 572-7682 or [email protected].
Targeted, cost effective and immediate
Mobile marketing a powerful tool to engage with clients and drive business
T
hink about the possibilities.
Hearing that the weather
forecast calls for sunshine in
Toronto tomorrow but heavy snow in
St. Catharines, marketers at Bell Mobility
swing into action.
They punch a few keys and send a
short message (SMS) to only those mobile
customers in the path of the storm – a
special offer for Roadside Assistance that
can be activated simply by responding “yes”.
Targeted. Concise. Relevant.
Immediate.
It is just one of the communication
programs Bell Mobility has developed to
make the most of the emerging power of
mobile marketing.
In fact, SMS – and Bell’s mobile
portal – have become key elements of the
company’s overall marketing mix, letting
Bell reach clients wherever they happen
to be.
For example, Bell provides clients with
updates on their accounts and service
information about their devices. Bell
sends out notices about manufacturers’
software upgrades, providing clients
with the Internet address to immediately
download what they need.
Bell also uses SMS to upsell and fulfill
services. In one case, select clients
received an SMS with an offer for Call
Display which they could sign up
for – and have working – immediately.
The company has also had success when
SMS is combined with direct mail and
email to clients as part of client lifecycle
communications.
Key element of integrated
marketing campaigns
More and more, SMS is part of an
integrated approach. When Bell recently
developed a virtual Cowbell app to help
Canadians cheer on our Olympic athletes,
targeted clients received tailored SMS
messages, customized to their phone
platform. The campaign also included
online banner ads, mall hand-outs, a
banner on the Bell phone browser page
and emails to clients.
SMS also played a key role in launching
Bell’s Voicemail to Text service. Bell sent
targeted SMS messages to inform clients
about the new option and drive them
to bell.ca where they could get more
information and load the service with the
site’s self-serve tools.
Cost-effective immediacy
In addition to giving marketers the laserlike ability to target messages, SMS has
at least two other significant benefits: it’s
cost effective and it’s immediate. The cost
per touch point is relatively low, and it’s as
simple as using the appropriate list of our
clients and crafting the message.
As for immediacy, SMS is one of the
few marketing vehicles that enables a
company to reach its audience the next
day. It also gives marketers fast feedback.
Bell knows almost immediately if a given
message is hitting the mark and rigorous
post-campaign analysis enables the
company to see what worked.
When there are longer campaigns,
Bell monitors the responses
continuously, making necessary changes
on the fly. This is especially important
in an environment where it can be a
challenge to make your exact point in
140 characters or less.
Don’t miss your
chance to be heard!
By Olga Romero-Marshall and Chris Hilborn
Respecting the customer
This level of access means Bell is especially
sensitive to client’s wishes. The approach
is to use upsell and promotional SMS
messages more sparingly than service
updates or account information.
As well, Bell responds immediately
when a customer wants to opt out. The
company has its own do-not-SMS list,
updated daily and integrated with its call
centres to ensure all clients’ requests are
respected.
Looking ahead
All this is only a start, given what is
happening with the explosion of short
codes and companies growing their
opt-in advertising bases.
Things will accelerate with the
continued growth in mobile search and
display advertising. This year, expect to
see a lot more multi-media messaging,
or MMS, where graphics and pictures
augment the text.
Plus, with the advances in what
Bell’s wireless networks allow and
the continual evolution of device
technology, smartphones are
increasingly becoming an integral part
of today’s lifestyle. For example, Bell has
just made it possible for its satellite TV
subscribers to manage and schedule
their PVR recordings anywhere using
their smartphone.
And as global positioning becomes
more a part of social networking,
the long-promised location-based
services will be another avenue for the
innovative marketer.
So again we say, when it comes
to mobile marketing, think of the
possibilities! DM
Olga Romero-Marshall is Director, Direct
Marketing & Co-op Advertising for Bell
Mobility. Chris Hilborn is Director of Base
Management for Bell Mobility.
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Column
8
direct&Personal
by Billy Sharma
Susan Sommers
Finding the balance in life
caught up recently with Susan
Sommers at the launch of our
books last December. She had
just authored her fourth book: Marketing
To Win: Building and Sustaining your
Non-profit Brand, while I was promoting
my second book: The Handbook of Direct
Marketing for Non-Profit Organizations.
We agreed to stay in touch, and
last week our reunion turned into an
interview for this column. She told me, “My
favourite three things are family, friends,
and fitness.” Now that sounds pretty
traditional, but then she amazed me by
recounting how she came to the decision
to rethink her whole career.
I
Fitness is now fundamental
to her new way of life.
In fact fitness is so important to her now
that she is making a radical departure from
her PR work, for which she has become so
well known.
It is a huge change for her and as she
said, “The biggest shift has been in the
last year, when I realized that I wanted
to inspire and motivate women about
fitness, so I have moved away from the
public relations work in marketing and
media.
“I will be launching a website, a (social
media) blog, and organizing retreats for
women, starting in the Fall of 2010. In
September my new book will be launched.
“It is a new chapter in my career and a
very exciting one!”
This resulted from meeting a likeminded woman at the YMCA, Theresa
Dugwell. The two of them have developed
five motivational personal stories from
different sources. The book and the
website will help guide, encourage and
show older women 45+ how important
and easy it is to stay fit.
The book is called: Power Source for
Women: Proven Strategies, Tools, and
Success Stories for Women 45+.
It covers how to start and maintain a
fitness program for life; it gives tips and
advice on proven strategies; it provides
tools and hints and even shows you how
to reward yourself.
She joined the YMCA back in 2002 in
North York and continues to go to the
gym six days a week, combining weight
training with aerobics training. One day a
week her husband, Peter, who is also her
coach, helps her with a weights program,
He was instrumental in getting her to
run two full marathons and ten halfmarathons, even though they are now in
their 60’s.
“It doesn’t matter if it takes me seven
hours to finish or if I am one of the last
to finish. What it has taught me is to be
more focused. It has provided me with a
more balanced and healthier life-style and
taught me endurance.”
Family comes first now.
Susan met Peter through a networking
group and the rest is history.
“I now spend a great deal of time with
my children and grandchildren.”
Susan has two daughters from a
previous marriage, while Peter has one
daughter. Their six grandchildren, four of
who live in Toronto and two in Vancouver,
are very important parts of their lives.
Susan comes from a small family, only
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one brother who lives in California, while
Peter comes from a family of six brothers
and sisters who are a very close-knit
group. From day one of her marriage
to Peter she was accepted and warmly
welcomed by the rest of the family
members, something that Susan values
and appreciates.
The friends and influences in her life.
Susan smiled when I asked her to name
the important friends and influences in
her life. She told me that they were, in no
particular order, “My mother, my father,
and my husband.
“Then there is my mentor, Ruth
Hammond. She taught me public relations
at the University of Toronto and continued
to coach and guide me for many years.”
A bit about Susan’s past
Born in Maplewood, New Jersey, a small
town about 45 minutes from New York
City, Susan attended Syracuse University
where she earned a Bachelor of Science
degree, majoring in Speech and Drama
with a focus on Public Speaking.
She went on to Columbia University’s
Teachers College and graduated with an
MA. Here she met and married the one
and only Canadian student in her class.
In 1968, they moved to Toronto.
Susan told me, “My first job, at age 23,
when I arrived in Toronto from New York
City was as a Co-Publications Editor for TV
Ontario. That was great.
“What was not great was being called
an aggressive American, in the early years,
when I was really just being very focused,
excited and motivated by my work,” she
recalled with a smile.
From 1972 to 1974 Susan worked
as a researcher for Peter Gzowski and
Alexander Ross, who were freelance
writers at the time.
In 1976 she wrote her first book,
Handmade In Ontario — a book about
and for people in arts and crafts. She met
a potter called Robin Hopper who helped
her in her research to find more renowned
crafts-people. The book was a big success
and sold over 5,000 copies.
“It was also the beginning of my work in
journalism at The Globe and Mail and the
Toronto Star. The first clients in my public
relations firm were Visual Arts Ontario and
Artpark. That was in 1982.
“My second and third books were called
Building Media Relationships I and II and
were based on a workbook I used to teach
a media relations course at Ryerson.”
Susan laughed as she told me about the
time, at a book signing, when a woman
arrived at the signing table with the book,
Hormone Replacement Therapy. Yep, the
woman thought she had come to a book
signing with the thigh-master queen,
Suzanne Somers.
Susan has taught at a number of
universities and community colleges.
“My favourite has been teaching at the
University of Toronto, Continuing Studies,
where I have been teaching courses since
1996.”
Another area that she is still active in is
the Alzheimer Society of Toronto.
“My three years of working with the
Alzheimer Society of Toronto has been
very meaningful to me. On a personal
level, my mother had Alzheimer’s disease
for six years and died in California last
February.”
Susan informed me that she had just
renewed a contract with Alzheimer
Society of Toronto to do all their marketing
for next year, including the Manulife Walk
for Memories. For the past three years
she has helped run the Alzheimer Society
of Toronto’s annual Manulife Walk for
Memories, held every January 30th. She
has helped build the corporate and media
sponsorships for this annual event and the
total currently stands at $530,000 – her
goal was $400,000. As well she secured
over $250,000 in media sponsorships.
Susan truly believes that in the future
the most important aspect of DM will be
one-on-one marketing.
“One-on-one marketing is very
personal, very targeted, well branded, and
customized and involves much market
research so each entity truly understands
the other,” she explained.
The ups and downs of
running a PR Business
“Back in 1992, I had two public relations
clients and their contracts both ended at
the same time. I worked for another PR firm
for three years, before venturing out on my
own again.
“I ended up teaming-up with partners
who unfortunately turned out not to have
the same goals as I did.”
“If you could do it again, what would
you do differently?” I asked.
“I would have taken a job at a large
public relations firm back in 1982, before I
started my own PR firm. It would have
enabled me to understand the systems
needed to run this type of business.
“However, looking back, I’ve never
regretted moving to Canada. It has been
a wonderful place for me to live, raise a
family and build my career.”
And now she is at it again, building yet
another career.
She looks so healthy, so lively and so
radiant that I couldn’t resist asking her if it
was due to her new life-style or the man
in her life she has been with for the last 17
years.
“Well both - but it doesn’t hurt that
we just got back from a cruise and have
booked another one for next year!” DM
Billy Sharma is president and creative director
of Designers Inc., Toronto. He can be reached
at 416-203-9787 or by email at: designersinc@
sympatico.ca
Awards
2009
Image Award winners
The 2009 Distributor Winners
TORONTO—Not-for-profit organizations
used them to raise funds, promote health
and safety, and protect the environment.
Human resources management used them
to recruit policemen, motivate employees,
build awareness and promote corporate
values. Sales and marketing people used
them to introduce a range of new products
from Smart cars to Blackberries –all with
the same result.
“In this age of restraint, what happened
here explains why the use of promotional
products continues to grow even during
tough economic times, “ said Ed Ahad,
President of the Promotional Product
Professionals of Canada (PPPC) at the
annual Image Awards Sunday night.
“This event was about innovation,
versatility and productivity,” Ahad said.
“From eco-friendly paper made from
recycled elephant dung, to programs
that generate a 566% increase in sales
simply by adding an online catalogue,
promotional products offer effective
business solutions for a very wide and
diverse range of opportunities.
“From promoting better health to
protecting the environment, promotional
products have once again proven
themselves to be very effective and in
many cases inexpensive communications
tools,” Ahad explained. Genumark
Promotional Merchandise Inc. took home
a Silver Image Award for producing more
than one million specially designed tape
measures to highlight the Heart and Stroke
Foundation’s Healthy Waists campaign.
Their facts were compelling: 60 percent of
Canadian adults are overweight or obese;
obese Canadians are four times as likely
to have diabetes; 3.3 times as likely to
have high blood pressure and 56 percent
more likely to have heart disease. “Put this
information on a tape measure to remind
people of the risks and distribute them
free via a national pharmacy chain and
people get the message,” he said.
Environmental programs continued to
be an important theme in the choice of
promotional products programs in 2009.
In addition to two new award categories
introduced this year by PPPC, Best in Green
and Eco-Solution, a significant number of
entries were built around products using
ecologically beneficial products. Debco
Bag Distributors was awarded a Gold
Image Award for its program targeting
low volume clients with a bag full of
promotional product ideas and a seminar
to help them build their businesses. “In
choosing the products we focused on
everything ecological to let people know
that this has become an extraordinarily
popular product category,” Debco Senior
Vice-President of Sales & Marketing Stan
Gallen said in his program description.
Ecology sells evidently. Gallen reports
the promotion generated a 124 percent
increase in the first six months of the year
compared with the entire year’s purchases
from this target group the previous year.
Technology was another important
theme reflected heavily in this year’s
Image Awards. Promotional products
have always favored technology but now
the industry has gone beyond simply
imprinting high technology products to
using new communications technology to
market them. Ash City won a Silver Image
Award for its flash-based e-marketing
tools, which allowed distributor clients to
build everything from their customized
online catalogue to promotional videos,
electronic flyers and websites. Likewise
Ottawa-based Akran Marketing won
a Silver Image Award by generating a
five-fold increase in sales of Canada
Day items through the introduction of
e-catalogues and other online marketing
tools used in association with traditional
methodologies.
Human resources programs won a
number of awards this year ranging from
recruiting to creating better workplace
environments. Montreal-based Copilote
earned a Bronze award for a six-month
contest to focus employee attention on
the six core values of its client, a major
cable television company. The contest,
with prizes ranging from sports bottles
and coasters to a vacation and a RolexTM
watch, generated such a huge response
from employees that the program will
be repeated and expanded. Driven by
peer recognition, which resulted in the
nomination of 600 candidates whom
their colleagues felt best applied the
core company values in their daily work,
the program achieved huge impact over
a six-month period of high awareness
among employees.
Close to 60 companies received awards
or honourable mentions for their work
but several of those firms made many
trips to the awards podium. Spector &
Co. of Montreal won nine Image Awards
including one gold, six silver and two
bronze trophies. ESP Wholesale of
Markham, Ontario, followed closely with
eight awards, four gold, three silver and
a bronze.
For the fifth consecutive year,
Toronto-based Leed’s won Gold Supplier
of the Year. In addition, Leed’s won two
other Gold Image Awards for Supplier
Best Website and Best Catalogue. As
well, Deborah Porteous of Leed’s won a
Bronze for Supplier Sales Representative
of the Year.
Among distributors of promotional
products, Waterloo, Ontario-based
Immediate Sales Agency, member of
BrandAlliance, led promotional products
distributors with five Images Awards
including two gold and three silver.
PROFESSIONAL DEALER
GOLD • IMMEDIATE SALES AGENCY LTD., MEMBER OF
BRANDALLIANCE
SILVER • MULDOON MARKETING INC.
BRONZE • ACCOLADE REACTION PROMOTION GROUP
HONOURABLE MENTION – WHY-STERIA MARKETING
PROFESSIONAL CONSUMER
GOLD • UNIVERSAL LINKS INC.
SILVER • THE BRANDING COMPANY
BRONZE • COTTON CANDY INC.
HONOURABLE MENTION – THE PROMOTIONAL
SPECIALISTS
MULTIPLE AUDIENCES
BRONZE • ACCOLADE REACTION PROMOTION GROUP
HONOURABLE MENTION – THE PROMOTIONAL
SPECIALISTS
NOT-FOR-PROFIT
GOLD • TAPAJ EFFETS PROMOTIONNELS
SILVER • GENUMARK PROMOTIONAL MERCHANDISE INC.
BRONZE • THE BRANDING COMPANY
HONOURABLE MENTION – UNIVERSAL LINKS INC.
CATALOGUE PROGRAMMES
SILVER • AKRAN MARKETING
BRONZE • METROMEDIA MARKETING LTD., MEMBER OF
BRANDALLIANCE
HONOURABLE MENTION – METROMEDIA MARKETING
LTD., MEMBER OF BRANDALLIANCE
BUSINESS TO BUSINESS
BRONZE • COPILOTE INC., MEMBER OF BRANDALLIANCE
HONOURABLE MENTION – LES PRODUCTIONS
RHINOFÉROCE INC
The 2009 Supplier and Multi-Line
Agency Winners
SUPPLIER AND MULTI-LINE AGENCY SELFPROMOTION
GOLD • DEBCO BAG DISTRIBUTORS
SILVER • ATTRACTION INC.
BRONZE • PRG MULTI-LINE
HONOURABLE MENTION – ECORITE
BRONZE • THE PROMOTIONAL SPECIALISTS
HONOURABLE MENTION – ACCOLADE REACTION
PROMOTION GROUP
ECO-SOLUTION
GOLD • IMMEDIATE SALES AGENCY LTD., MEMBER OF
BRANDALLIANCE
SILVER • TRIMARK SPORTSWEAR GROUP INC.
BRONZE • ASH CITY WORLDWIDE
BEST EMBROIDERY
GOLD • METROMEDIA MARKETING LTD., MEMBER OF
BRANDALLIANCE
SILVER • IMMEDIATE SALES AGENCY LTD., MEMBER OF
BRANDALLIANCE
BRONZE • THE NEXT TREND DESIGNS, MEMBER OF
BRANDALLIANCE
The 2009 “Of the Year” Winners
DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR
NATIONAL • ACCOLADE REACTION PROMOTION
GROUP INC.
WESTERN REGION • (Tie)METROMEDIA MARKETING
LTD., MEMBER OF BRANDALLIANCE
WESTERN REGION • (Tie)IMAGE GROUP INC.
CENTRAL • GENUMARK PROMOTIONAL MERCHANDISE
INC.
EASTERN REGION • GAGNON LEVESQUE INC.
SUPPLIER OF THE YEAR
GOLD • LEED’S
SILVER • SPECTOR & CO.
BRONZE • DEBCO BAG DISTRIBUTORS
MULTI-LINE AGENCY OF THE YEAR
WESTERN REGION • WESTPOINTE MARKETING GROUP
CENTRAL REGION • CREATIVE BY CRAIG INC.
EASTERN REGION • AGENCE IMAPRO INC.
SUPPLIER CUSTOMER SERVICE
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE YEAR
GOLD • LORNA SHARKEY – ESP WHOLESALE
SILVER (Tie) • DONNA DESBOIS – SPECTOR & CO.
SILVER (Tie) • JOSIE DI STAOLA – SPECTOR & CO.
BRONZE • PAOLA RICCIO – SPECTOR & CO.
MOST CREATIVE NEW PROMOTIONAL PRODUCT
GOLD • PROMOBILIA CORPORATION
SILVER • SPECTOR & CO.
BRONZE (Tie) • APF MARKETING LTD.
BRONZE (Tie) • PROMOBILIA CORPORATION
HONOURABLE MENTION – APF MARKETING LTD.
SUPPLIER SALES
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE YEAR
GOLD • CHAD MAYBURY – TRIMARK SPORTSWEAR
GROUP INC.
SILVER • VINCENT SARROINO – SPECTOR & CO.
BRONZE (Tie) • NELSON ESCOTO – WHITERIDGE INC.
BRONZE (Tie) • DEBORAH PORTEOUS – LEED’S
MOST BENEFICIAL SALES AND MARKETING AID
GOLD • SPECTOR & CO.
SILVER • ASH CITY WORLDWIDE
BRONZE • SPECTOR & CO.
HONOURABLE MENTION – STARLINE INDUSTRIES INC.
SUPPLIER BEST
WEBSITE OF THE YEAR
GOLD • LEED’S
SILVER • ASH CITY WORLDWIDE
BRONZE • DEBCO BAG DISTRIBUTORS
The 2009 Distributor and Supplier Winners
SUPPLIER BEST
CATALOGUE OF THE YEAR
GOLD • LEED’S
SILVER • TRIMARK SPORTSWEAR GROUP INC.
BRONZE • ASH CITY WORLDWIDE
BEST IN GREEN
GOLD • AVATAR BRAND MANAGEMENT INC.
SILVER • IMMEDIATE SALES AGENCY LTD., MEMBER OF
BRANDALLIANCE
9
10
News
dmPeople
WORTHKNOWING
Transcontinental Inc. sells its
U.S. direct mail operations
Miller Zell
Adconion Media Group
Pheromone
John Moezzi has joined Miller
Zell’s digital media practice
as director of digital media
operations.
Ramazan Demir has been named
Chief Advisory Science Officer and
Patrick Meininger has been named
Chief Strategy Officer.
David Rollert has joined
Pheromone, the interactions
agency as its vice president of
interactive design.
listwatch
ResponseCanada
Canadian Movers
The British Collection
Master File
New list — ResponseCanada Canadian
Movers — Interact Direct Data Products
— This compiled file contains movers
in Canada, reaching a wide variety of
demographics. Movers are updated
monthly with new Canadian data feeds
and a complete Canadian hygiene process.
Selects: 400,000 universe
Contact: Your list broker or Interact
Direct Data Products, 787 Industrial
Road, London, Ontario, Canada NV5 4J4;
Phone: 800-790-6245; e-mail: jbisset@
interactdirect.com
Named here are 61,612 subscribers to
Realm, the English Gardener and English
Home magazines.
Selections: Last six months, Canadian, gender,
home address, publication, state/SCF/ZIP
Price: $105/M
Contact: Evergreen Marketing, Evawn
Lewis (864-882-1170 ext. 224; evawn@
evergreenmarketing.com
Test Discounts on the
Men's Database
Transcontinental Media has progressed
from being a publisher to being a brand
leader and producer of content that
nurtures the various passions of different
communities of interest. Target these
consumers now!
With 9 publications from Good Times to
Les Affaires and everything in between,
varying ages and interests are available
to target your market. Access all of the
French language publications through
the Transcontinental Subscriber Database
- French. Click here for the datacard.
With over 500,000 names across 9
publications plus 2 business lists (Les Affaires
500 and PME 300), Transcontinental is a
marketer's one-stop-shopping dream!
To discuss how Transcontinental can help
marketers achieve their objectives, please
call the Cornerstone Group of Companies
at 416-932-9555, and ask to speak to Rosa
da Silva, Ext. 309, or contact by e-mail at
[email protected].
Looking to target those hard to find
Outdoor or Do-It-Yourself Enthusiasts?
For the first time, Cornerstone is pleased
to offer a new de-duped “Men’s Database”
consisting of the following 4 publications:
Cottage Life, explore, Outdoor Canada and
Home Workshop.
Until April 30 2010, all test and re-test mailers
will received $10/M off the base on the above
4 publications, as well as the database.
For more information, call Cornerstone
Group of Companies at 416-932-9555, and
ask to speak to Stephen Manson-Hing ,
Ext.415 or contact by e-mail at smhing@
cstonecanada.com
Canadian Business
Office Supplies
This file names 122,806 professionals sourced
from various direct response vehicles.
Selections: Fax numbers, gender, job title,
phone number, postal code, province, SIC
code, state/SCF/ZIP - Price: $95/M
Contact: Stanford Direct, Gabriella Sayers
(201-497-0871; [email protected])
Choose from a wide
range of lists to optimize
your next campaign.
Victoria’s Secret Direct
Canadian Buyers and
Inquirers
Specialists Marketing Services has won
management of this file naming 36,800
last-30-day direct mail- and online-sold
individuals. Cornerstone Group of Cos.
was the previous manager.
Selections: Amount purchased, FSA,
province, gender, state/SCF/ZIP
Price: $156/M
Contact: Specialists Marketing Services
Inc., Anna Feely (201-865-5800 ext. 2113;
[email protected])
CLB Media Masterfile
Trying to reach your niche business to
business market from one source? Take
advantage of the CLB Media Masterfile,
a unique database comprised of active
subscribers from ten publications;
reaching a wide range of industry
sectors.
Magazines from the CLB Media
collection include Canadian Electronics,
Canadian Occupational Safety, Canadian
Security, Design Product News,
Electrical Business, Manufacturing
Automation, Metalworking Production
and Purchasing, Plant Engineering
& Maintenance, Security Products &
Technology News and Woodworking.
CLB Media provides marketers with an
opportunity to target their audience by
offering further list selectivity including
job function, industry type, and
employee size. Whether your offer is for
training seminars, business products or
services, corporate fundraising, or any
other B2B offer, the CLB Media Masterfile
is the answer for all your marketing
needs!
For more information, please call 416932-9555, and ask to speak to Brigida
Maxwell-Beckwith, Ext.186 or contact by
e-mail at bmbeckwith@cstonecanada.
com.
Note: The CLB publications are also
available to rent on an individual basis.
Transcontinental has signed an agreement
to sell its U.S. high-volume direct mail
operations to IWCO Direct, a U.S.-company
headquartered in Minnesota. The sale
includes substantially all of the assets of
Transcontinental's U.S. direct mail group in
Warminster and Hamburg in Pennsylvania,
and in Fort Worth, Texas and Downey,
California. The transaction is subject to
regulatory approval and is expected to
close by the end of Transcontinental's
second quarter.
"Transcontinental has decided to focus
on its other market segments," explained
François Olivier, President and Chief
Executive Officer of Transcontinental.
"The sale of our U.S. high-volume direct
mail operations will benefit customers,
employees and the industry."
"We are pleased to combine the strengths
of the Transcontinental Direct's U.S.
operations with IWCO Direct. This provides
a robust national total package footprint
for our customers seeking innovative and
cost-effective programs for customer
acquisition, loyalty and engagement
programs anchored by powerful strategy
development," said Jim Andersen, IWCO
Direct President and CEO. "The IWCO Direct
team is looking forward to working with
our new colleagues from Transcontinental
to create exceptional direct marketing
programs for our customers."
While awaiting regulatory approvals,
the two companies will continue to
operate independently until the sale closes.
Transcontinental's high-volume direct
mail group in the United States generated
revenues of US$153 million in 2009 and
employs about 1,200 people. CIBC is
acting as exclusive financial advisor to
Transcontinental on this transaction.
COVER-ALL expands colour
capacity with iGEN 4
Cover-All Computer Services Corp. and its
wholly owned subsidiaries PostLinx and
SMART DM have finalized the installation
of an iGEN 4. The iGEN 4 is in addition to
the current iGEN 3 which is operational at
the Birchmount Facility.
Clients of all three divisions have been
taking advantage of the combined services
within the Cover-All group by leveraging the
data skills, variable colour and post-imaging
services such as saddlestitching, self-mailer
creation, simple folding or selective insertion
on one of our intelligent inserters.
There would be few service providers
in the Canadian graphic arts industry that
would have all these services under roof and
even fewer whose past and experience is
truly rooted in the effective management
and use of data.
The iGEN 4 takes variable colour to
the next level with vibrant image quality
and advanced color management tools
that ensure consistent, high definition
color images. Inline spectrophotometer
automates color adjustments and
calibrations to consistently deliver superior
image quality and spot color accuracy on a
wide array of paper stocks including coated,
uncoated, textured, smooth, and specialty;
and the largest cut-sheet size of any digital
color press. As well as helping to reduce
environmental footprint with non-toxic dry
inks, minimized waste, and 97% recyclable
or remanufacturable components.
Executive CAAP West
program takes on the
challenges of a new era in
marketing communications
The Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA) is returning out West with an updated
Executive CAAP (Communications and Advertising Accredited Professional) program
as part of a commitment to elevate professionalism and relevance in marketing
communications education. The CAAP program is uniquely designed to help young
executives develop their skills in managing the ongoing changes in the complex and fastmoving communications landscape.
Aimed at ambitious branding practitioners who have been working in the
industry a minimum of 2 years and who are passionate and curious about marketing
communications, the next Western market session of the Executive CAAP program will
begin in May 2010. The program features a convenient curriculum design combining both
Edmonton and Calgary markets.
“The CAAP program is about helping better equip young professionals in our industry
with the skills they need to become agile practitioners,” said Suzanne Filiatrault, director of
professional development, ICA. “To do this we’ve developed a group of talented instructors
Not For Profit
11
Post-it Works it on
Project Runway Canada
Canadian Campaign Raises Awareness, Funds
D
ue to the success of an integrated marking campaign, Post-it Notes
became more than a piece of paper for memos, reminders and lists
when six contestants on Project Runway Canada created dresses using
the much-loved stationery staple.
By Amy Bostock
In a touching twist, the dresses were
modelled by women affected by breast
cancer and auctioned off online with all
proceeds benefitting the Canadian Breast
Cancer Foundation.
The purpose of the campaign was to
generate awareness for the Canadian
Breast Cancer Foundation and enhance
Post-it Brand’s presence among target
audiences.
“Our objective for 2010 is to go after
more retail consumers and to get them
to see the brand in a fresh new way,” says
Sherry Browne, Brand Manager at 3M
Canada. “At the same time we wanted
to build on the strong relationship we
had with the Canadian Breast Cancer
Foundation and do more to help elevate
awareness.”
The fully integrated campaign didn’t
have a huge budget to work with but by
combining a national public relations
campaign, online ads and banners
and the online “Design it with Post-It”
engagement game, 3M was able to build
a successful campaign around the Project
Runway challenge.
with Post-it, an online game connected
to the show
• Launched three new Post-it Designer
Dispensers featuring designs by top
Canadian fashion designers Brian Bailey,
Marie Saint-Pierre and Wayne Clarke
• Leveraged creative in-store retail
displays causing a tremendous lift in
Post-it product sales
The online auction of the dresses
created on Project Runway raised $12,000
in one week.
Web traffic increased to the 3M Canada
site, thanks to the Design it with Post-It
game and contest. The target of 5,000
entries was blown out of the water with
final numbers coming in at 19,074 entries.
The Post-It Facebook page registered
“Our objective for 2010 is to go
after more retail consumers and
to get them to see the brand in
a fresh new way. At the same
time we wanted to build on the
strong relationship we had with
the Canadian Breast Cancer
Foundation and do more to help
elevate awareness.”
The successful campaign:
• Won the Canadian Office Products
Association’s 2009 Marketing Award of
Excellence
• Generated over 180 media hits and
52 million print, online and broadcast
impressions
• Raised $12,000 for the Canadian Breast
Cancer Foundation
• Received 11,860 contest entries and
19,074 submitted designs in Design it
From WORTH KNOWING page 10
who also actively work in the profession, to ensure the learning is current and practical.”
The CAAP program is designed to inspire strategic creativity in a new era of marketing
communications. It reflects new media learning and best practices that are associated
with building effective consumer/brand engagement. Drawing on a combination of
up-to-date, real-world insight and case-based examples, CAAP graduates gain the
background, confidence and credentials they need to make their mark as exceptional brand
communicators.
“CAAP offers an employer the opportunity to have their employees educated and trained
by the top leaders in our industry, which is something no single agency can do by itself,”
explained Jim Kabrajee, ICA Board Chair and CEO, Marshall Fenn Communications Ltd.
“For employees taking the course, the opportunity for practical training and hands-on
experience from instructors who have spent much of their career in advertising and
marketing is not to be missed. Having CAAP credentials on a CV is a sign of accomplishment
and a signal that the candidate has a firm grounding in our business,” Mr. Kabrajee added.
CAAP is a recognized industry standard in Canada, uniquely designed to reflect the
complex business challenges of the marketing communications industry. The program is
divided into two terms: the first focuses on building communications business strategy,
insight and briefing development skills; the second focuses on skills development in
integrated brand communications planning. The total program provides an advanced
learning experience to challenge students with case-based solution planning, skills
application and teamwork dynamics.
From a brand perspective, the
campaign exceeded all of 3M Canada’s
expectations, increasing sales by 2.5 per
cent and elevating top-of-mind awareness
among consumers.
“We also released a new line of limited
edition dispensers with the goal of selling
2,500 units,” says Browne. “We ended up
selling over 5,000.”
6,000 fans – 3,500 more than anticipated.
“We ended up reaching 46 million
people,” says Browne, “and were the subject
of 180 news stories across the country.”
But this was not a one-tie deal for 3M
Canada. The company plans to maintain a
long-term partnership with the Canadian
Breast Cancer Foundation and are already
hard at work on the next fundraising
campaign. DM
Infogroup acquired by CCMP Capital
nfogroup, the leading provider of
data-driven and interactive resources
for targeted sales, marketing and
research solutions, announced that it
has entered into an agreement to be
acquired by affiliates of CCMP Capital
Advisors, LLC in a transaction with a total
value of approximately $635 million,
including the refinancing of Infogroup's
outstanding indebtedness.
The agreement was unanimously
approved by the Infogroup Board
of Directors based upon the
recommendation of the Mergers and
Acquisitions Committee. Under the
agreement, Infogroup shareholders will
receive $8.00 in cash for each share of
Infogroup common stock they hold.
"After conducting a lengthy analysis,
we are pleased with the thorough
process and outcome," said Infogroup's
Chairman of the Board, Roger Siboni.
"This transaction fulfills our commitment
to maximize the value of Infogroup for
all shareholders."
"Transitioning from a public to
a private company brings many
benefits to our shareholders, clients
and employees," said Bill Fairfield,
Infogroup's Chief Executive Officer. "Our
shareholders will receive an attractive,
immediate and certain cash value for
their shares. For Infogroup's clients and
employees, the merger will allow for
greater stability, focus and flexibility
to make the strategic, long-term
investments that are needed to advance
the Company's leadership position,
grow the core business, expand product
solution offerings, improve overall
cost structures and efficiencies, invest
in technology and expand our global
reach. Under the new partnership with
CCMP, we can accelerate the positive
momentum we started this past year."
"We are delighted to have reached
an agreement to acquire Infogroup,"
commented Richard F. Zannino, CCMP
Capital Managing Director. "Marketing
clients today are craving innovative,
impactful and cost-effective ways to
reach their target customers. We are very
much looking forward to working with
the talented team at Infogroup to help
its clients meet those needs and to take
full advantage of its leading position in
the highly attractive data and marketing
services sector."
12
intHeMaIl
this column is sponsored by canada Post.
Canada Post zeros in on future
customers for Polar Windows
Regional business generates surprising results with Acquisition Admail
F
or over thirty years, Polar
Ray-O-Max Windows has been
manufacturing, delivering
and installing high quality solar energy
rated windows in homes across Manitoba,
Saskatchewan and Alberta. The company
has grown significantly over the past
three decades and currently employs over
150 people.
“The most unique aspect of our company
is our people,” says Polar Ray-O-Max
Windows CEO Glenn Jorgensen. “Our
window system has evolved over the past
By Sarah O'Connor
Working with Canada Post’s Acquisition
Admail service, Polar Ray-O-Max Windows
distributed approximately 4,000 pieces of
direct mail to their three primary markets,
Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg. They
employed artwork and messaging that was
developed in-house by Jorgensen and Laurie
Sinclair, Executive Assistant to the CEO.
The campaign was composed of two
mailings. The two postcards had the same
image on the front, with the message
“Did you hear about the neighbours?” On
the back on the first card homeowners
kind of fears or buyer’s remorse is alleviated and
the process just starts to go more smoothly.
That’s actually why I developed the campaign.
I mean yes it was great for marketing, yes it did
generate business but I wanted to increase the
level of the experience of the purchase of our
products.”
Overall, Jorgensen and Polar Ray-O-Max
Windows were very pleasantly surprised by
their partnership with Canada Post and their
Acquisition Admail campaign.
“Canada Post was phenomenal to
work with, absolutely phenomenal,” says
Jorgensen. “What we feel was the most
impressive was the way Canada Post
stepped up and segmented small chunks
out of the postal code and delivered the
message for us.”
Going forward, Polar Ray-O-Max
Windows has every intention of continuing
with their direct mail initiatives.
“We are currently in the process of a
redesign for piece that we’ve been sending
out to the Alberta markets but based on the
success of this campaign we plan to continue
with our 11/180 program from now into the
future,” says Jorgensen. “The only change
will be the design of the piece.” DM
“Typically in a B2B or B2C or any
kind of sales situation, the more you
communicate with your clients, the
more any kind of fears or buyer’s
remorse is alleviated and the process
just starts to go more smoothly.”
thirty years with no small amount of input
from our employees. From the galvanized
steel reinforcement to the glass design, the
environmentally friendly paint process to
the patented insulated frames, it is our staff
that manufactures a true lifetime product.”
Before joining forces with Canada Post’s
Acquisition Admail service, the company
had dabbled in direct mail initiatives in the
past, but not extensively. For a company of
this size, sending unaddressed mail to entire
postal codes meant painting with too broad
a brush, and they were looking for a way to
target their audience more precisely without
a prohibitively huge financial outlay.
“Up until Canada Post came to us with
a solution you couldn’t do unaddressed
ad mail unless you did the entire postal
code and because we write about four to
five thousand contracts a year in all three
locations, it wasn’t cost effective,” says
Jorgensen. “We wanted to hit the twenty
homes around every installation job just to
generate some interest. And that’s how this
program came to be. We came to Canada
Post with our concerns and our needs and
they meet them.”
Because Polar Ray-O-Max Windows
specializes in renovations, it is also
important for them to be able to target
specific neighbourhoods where the homes
are of a certain age and homeowners are
more likely to be interested in replacing
their windows. A well planned direct
mail strategy allowed the company to
communicate with potential clients more
effectively, particularly when, as in Polar
Ray-O-Max Windows’s case, it is combined
with other forms of advertising including
outdoor and print.
were informed that their home is eligible
for $1,350 in savings, and on the second,
which arrived about five to six weeks later,
the original question is answered with the
phrase “They’ve got Polar Windows!”
Having some experience with direct mail,
Jorgensen and Polar Ray-O-Max Windows
were cautiously optimistic about the results
they hoped to generate with Acquisition
Admail. “Our goals were modest,” says
Jorgensen. “We had hoped to see a
response rate around 1%.”
The results were quite shocking, both
in terms of how successful it was but also
in terms of how stark the geographic
disparities were. In Manitoba the response
was startlingly positive, while the campaign
made little impact in other markets.
“Winnipeg’s response rate has been a 5%,”
says Jorgensen. “In Alberta we could count
on a hand how many calls we’ve received on
this, which to me speaks to the piece.”
The wide disparity in the results seems
to be due to a combination of factors,
including regional differences as well as
the continued effects of the economic
downturn.
“The economic meltdown effected
Calgary harder than the other two markets
but typically Edmonton and Calgary
perform almost identically,” says Jorgensen.
“Over the past year Calgary has dropped far
and away behind, to the point where it can’t
really be explained totally by economics.”
Jorgensen believes that the artwork and
messaging simply did not resonate with
Calgarians, and this issue is currently being
addressed.
Beyond an overall increase in sales, Polar
Ray-O-Max Windows enjoyed additional
Sarah O’Connor is a Markham-based freelance
journalist. She can be reached at (647)261-2260
or [email protected].
benefits from their direct mail campaign
which, though less tangible than ROI, are
equally valuable to this company.
“We started to see our level of dissatisfied
customers, erroneous service
calls and what we call call-backs start to drop
away,” says Jorgensen. “Typically in a B2B or
B2C or any kind of sales situation, the more you
communicate with your clients, the more any
List Business
13
Keeping it clean
The importance of address accuracy in direct mail campaigns By Kristi Kanitz
T
he list was purchased, the great
creative with the attractive
offer finally finished, the mail
piece has been delivered to Canada Post.
Sounds like everything was checked off
the to-do list, right? Maybe not – if address
cleaning was not part of the process, your
ROI is at risk.
Address accuracy is an often
overlooked part of direct mail. Canada
Post requires a Statement of Accuracy for
Addressed Admail runs of 5,000 or more
pieces so many smaller mailers bypass this
A recent Canada Post survey
showed that 67% of mailers
estimate their file is at least
95% accurate. However
74% do not measure their
undeliverable mail and 69%
could not estimate the financial
impact poor address quality
would have on their mailing.
step to save money. However, skipping
address cleaning can cost you a great deal
more in the long run.
The most obvious drawback to poor
data quality is that your mail piece will not
be delivered or delivered to the intended
recipient. Without a Return Postage
Guarantee, undeliverable Addressed
Admail is recycled by Canada Post. The
reality is that, if companies are not willing
to pay for address cleaning, they are not
likely to pay for RPG either. So if you are not
cleaning your data, you may be wasting
a large percentage of your mail and not
even aware of it.
Without clean addresses, your mail might
experience a significant delay in delivery
time. This is of particular importance when
sending dated offerings such as a coupon
with an expiry date or advertising a one-day
sale. If it takes Canada Post an extra week to
decipher the actual address, you have lost
that sales opportunity.
A recent Canada Post survey showed
that 67% of mailers estimate their file is at
least 95% accurate. However 74% do not
measure their undeliverable mail and 69%
could not estimate the financial impact
poor address quality would have on their
mailing. Most Mail Service Providers will
tell you that their customers are convinced
of the cleanliness of their databases right
until they are run through SERP-certified
software and the Statement of Accuracy
proves otherwise.
With the multitude of data collection
software and list brokers on the market,
it is not surprising that address errors
occur. Some companies do not collect
postal codes because “it is too hard for
operators to enter them”; others use place
holders such as A1A 1A1. Poorly designed
forms (often in US-designed software)
force addresses into non-standard
formats, have insufficient room to collect
complete addressing information, or may
not automatically prompt for suite or
apartment numbers. Although reputable
list brokers regularly clean and maintain
their lists, errors will always be a part of
address databases.
So, what should you be doing to
ensure your message gets to the right
place at the right time? Best practice in
address hygiene involves the three “C”s –
complete, correct and current. Whether
your company chooses to maintain
their own databases or use an MSP or
data house, address cleaning is not as
expensive as many companies believe and
the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Complete addresses contain all
the components necessary to deliver
the mail piece. This includes suite or
apartment numbers for urban addresses,
and full rural route information such
as box numbers, for rural addresses.
New Canada Post requirements for
the Statement of Accuracy will identify
“questionable addresses” which are
missing suite numbers or important rural
delivery information. Your company will
need to update these addresses, either
by checking original documentation,
contacting the customer or prospect, or
by removing them from the list.
Correct addresses are those that match
an entry in the Canada Post database of
Canadian addresses. There will always
be a small percentage of addresses that
do not appear such as new subdivisions
or commercial properties. However, be
aware of the physical delivery/mailing
address issue that can arise with B2B
mailings. There are many commercial and
industrial companies that have their mail
delivered to a post office rather than their
physical location. So if you are preparing a
B2B mailing and the accuracy rate is lower
than expected, you might want to see if
this accounts for the discrepancy.
According to a recent Canada Post
study, the majority of undeliverable mail
pieces are due to movers. Ensure your
addresses are current by taking advantage
of Canada Post’s National Change of
Address service through your Mail Service
Provider. If the intended recipient has
moved, you can update your mailing to
reflect their new address. Keep in mind
that mail is only forwarded for a short
period of time; the basic fee covers 6
months of redirection. After that, your
customer or prospect might be lost to you.
As of January 2010, the NCOA database
contains 6 years of move data and new
rules allow you to update your internal
database as long as you have an existing
business relationship with that customer.
So remember complete, correct
and current for your next direct mail
campaign. Personalization, great creative
and a fabulous offer will go far but only
if the mail reaches its target. Without
accurate addresses, that piece will
languish in a recycle bin along with your
potential ROI. Address accuracy including
mover updates should be an essential
component of every direct mail budget.
Getting your message to the right person
at the right time is the goal of every
campaign and it won’t happen without
clean addresses. DM
Kristi Kanitz is the General Manager
of Flagship Software Ltd., developers
of SERP and CASS/PAVE-certified
address management and presortation
software. To contact Kristi, email:
[email protected] or visit
Flagship Software on the web at www.
flagshipsoftware.com.
Media Horizons Management Launches
New Rodale EnVision Databases
Three Rodale EnVision files combine transactional, behavioral and demographic
data tools with Rodale lists to help marketers drive sales growth
Norwalk, CT – Media Horizons Management today
announced the launch of Rodale EnVision, a powerful
consumer database of former book buyers and
subscribers to Rodale’s authoritative publications
revitalized with current transactional information.
Powered by Alliant Advantage™, this new solution
consists of three files: Rodale EnVision (5.1 million),
Rodale Magazines EnVision (2.7 million) and Rodale
Books EnVision (3 million). Each is a multichannel
direct response buyer file enriched with lifestyle data
from Equifax, with the strength of the Rodale brands.
Rodale EnVision, available only from Media
Horizons Management, lets marketers tap into a
rich aggregation of data – behavioral, purchase,
demographic, purchase type and value – matching
the right offer to the right buyer at the right time in
order to drive sales growth.
Rodale’s popular magazines include Prevention,
Woman’s Health, Runner’s World, Men’s Health,
Organic Gardening and Bicycling. Its well-known
books include titles in categories such as health,
gardening, cooking, wellness, helpful hints and pets,
and includes a Spanish language category.
These three new databases provide new and
former users of the various Rodale magazine and book
brands exciting opportunities to test combinations of
previously unavailable transactional and behavioral
data, offering strong hotlines across the board.
“The depth and breadth of the Rodale EnVision
files, combined with the extensive transactional data
and predictive behavioral data attributes of Alliant’s
cooperative marketing database, and the right mix of
Equifax demographics, add up to a powerful solution
for getting your message and offer in front of just the
right audience and driving campaign success,” said
Alan Zamchick, Vice President of List Management,
Media Horizons Management.
Rodale EnVision uses data sources that are
updated quarterly, providing a robust selection of
large “hotline” file segments, from three-month
recency up to 24 months of purchase activity.
The three response channels include direct mail
sold (66%), Internet (22%) and telemarketing
(12%) to help empower multichannel marketing
approaches. Rodale EnVision also has five product
buyer categories available (merchandise, book,
club/continuity, magazine and entertainment/
music/video) and 28 product interest categories,
everything from “adventure” to “woodworking.”
Purchase data includes aggregated total dollar
amounts, and whether the purchase was made with
cash or credit card. DM
14
Regional Report
RegionalReport
York Region
Access to highway 407 makes York
Region prime pick for DM suppliers
A
By Amy Bostock
bout 30 minutes from
Toronto’s busy downtown core
you’ll find York Region. Made up of nine
different cities and towns, York Region
supports one of the strongest and most
concentrated DM industries in Canada.
“If you Google direct marketing
Canada, most of the listings that come
back will be for York Region,” says
Steve Falk, President of Westminister
International in Markham. “I think because
of the age of the community and the
industry – they kind of grew together
– York Region now has the biggest
concentration of DM services in Canada.”
A fact that Shelly Wrong, Vice
President/General Manager at Basset
Direct, says is a big draw for clients.
“By having this cluster of direct
marketing services all within the
same area makes York Region a really
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Who we
visited
• Bassett Direct – Markham
• Contact Centre Employer
of Choice – Newmarket
• Flagship Software – Oak
Ridges
• HKA Data Processing
Corporation – Markham
• Market Focus Direct –
Markham
• Phoenix Systems Newmarket
• Replica Business
Continuity Recovery
Systems – Newmarket
• The FSA Group Markham
• The Helicopter Group –
Richmond Hill
• Westminister
International - Markham
Complete, Correct and Current
- It’s what we do!
A market leader in providing SERP™/PERL™ certified Canadian and
CASS™/PAVE™ U.S. certified address management software and
services to Canadian and U.S. companies for more than 10 years,
Flagship Software has the expertise to deliver the mailing solution
that’s right for your company.
• increase accuracy and reduce errors
• keep your list current and maximize delivery
• simplify your process and decrease labour costs
• save money and increase productivity
• maximize advertising dollars and grow your reach
Visit us at www.flagshipsoftware.com or
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to set up your complementary web demo today!
Flagship Software…Proudly Canadian
Regional Report
York Region
◗◗ York Region covers 1,776 square kilometres from Lake Simcoe in the north to Steeles
Avenue in the south. It borders Simcoe County and Peel Region in the west and
Durham Region in the east.
◗◗ During 2009, York Region's population grew by approximately 20,600 people in
6,486 newly completed homes, reaching a total estimated population of 1,032,600.
◗◗ Percentage of York Region residents with a university degree is 19.7 versus the
Ontario average of 15 per cent.
convenient place for clients to do
business.”
Although some downtown companies
still see York Region as being the edge
of the known universe, easy access to
highways 407, 404 and 400 makes the
area a real hub.
“Getting agencies [from the city] up
here can be a challenge since there is
still the perception of us being just south
of the North Pole,” says Rob van Velzen,
President of The FSA Group. “And with
so many companies downsizing and
being understaffed, they just don’t think
they have the time to come here – let’s
face it, they’re used to hopping in a cab
and getting where they’re going in five
minutes.”
But once van Velzen tells people that his
Markham-based office is only 20 minutes
from the airport and about the same from
downtown, their attitude changes.
“As soon as you tell people ‘I can see
the 407 from my office’ they immediately
see you as centralized,” agrees Falk.
For Kristi Kanitz, whose company
Flagship Software Ltd. Is located in Oak
Ridges, being north of Bloor is actually an
advantage.
“Toronto was just too expensive and
it was harder to get employees to travel
downtown,” she says of her decision to
relocate her business from Waterloo to
Oak Ridges in 1999. “Here people are
going against traffic while commuting,
there’s great access to public transit and I
have access to a skilled labour force within
York Region.”
In fact, a recent census report shows
that the percentage of York Region
residents with a university degree is 19.7
versus the Ontario average of 15 per cent.
“The York Region area attracts skilled
workers who want a different quality
of life than being downtown offers,”
says Paul Gaynor, President of Market
Focus Direct. His company, which
focuses on targeting, analytics and flyer
management for the retail sector, has
been in business for 39 years and has
clients across the country. “That’s one of
the great things about doing business
here – people want to live here and they
want to work close to where they live.”
Add to that the fact that rent is less
than half of what you’d pay downtown
and space is more readily available and it’s
no wonder York Region is thriving.
“York Region has a great infrastructure
for business,” says Jeff Doran, President
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30
of Contact Centre Employer of Choice in
Newmarket. “It has everything you need.
Yes, Toronto has more of everything you
need but it also has more traffic, higher
overhead and less parking.”
And judging by the fact that the DM
industry appears to be holding its own
even during tough recessionary times,
clients are more than happy to send their
business to the 905 area code.
“Most of our clients are in the
downtown Toronto area,” says Wrong,
whose company offers variable colour
printing, letter shop services, complete
project management, data entry and
secure storage. “And with the cluster of
DM companies all within the York Region
area they see this as really convenient.”
Gary Dubenofsky of The Helicopter
Group agrees that more is better when is
comes to the DM business.
“Although there are a lot of DM
companies in York Region right now
there does seem to be enough work to
go around,” says Dubenofsky, whose
one-stop DM shop increased business 10
per cent over last year. “It also means that
15
we can draw on partners who may offer
services that we don’t.”
“Business here is also strong because
the set-up costs are so low compared to
bigger city centres,” says Kanitz, “yet we’re
still close enough to Toronto that clients
don’t see us as some hick company.”
Another draw for DM suppliers, especially
those in the mailing end of things, is the
newly renovated Newmarket RVU.
“Now people don’t have to go to
Gateway to do their mail drops,” says
Kanitz. “They can hop on the highway,
get off at Mulock Drive [in Newmarket]
and be processed in the time it takes to
wait in line at Gateway. This is a fabulous
advantage that York Region can offer the
mailing industry.”
As with the rest of the country, DM
suppliers in York Region are cautiously
optimistic about the state of the industry.
“We’re sending more pieces out, have
signed new clients and our volume is
up,” says Falk. “Everyone would tell you
that they’d like to be busier but I’d say
that the DM industry in York Region is
doing just fine.”
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16
Click!
PRoFitiNG FRoM the
oNLiNe RevoLUtioN
Search is officially social Case study:
The impact of social media on SEO
®
Invisible Fence
S
of Western
Canada
ocial media is the hottest topic
in online marketing today.
Companies that know how
to utilize this form of media are using it
to great effect in their online campaigns
and optimization strategies. Companies
that aren’t in-the- know understand that
they will need to figure things out and
incorporate its use into their mix sooner
or later if they want to stay in the game.
It is the great e-Commerce dream of the
21’st century- where there’s potentially
a pot of gold hidden in every Facebook
page. However, to tap into that pot
of gold, it requires careful planning,
dedication and creativity to capture the
imagination of the audience. In other
words it has to be really, really good!
Social Media IS a powerful tool from a
narrow Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
site to yours, can be measured and is used
as a vote of confidence for a site. If your site
is good enough to merit having a human
being do some work to give credit to your
site and its content, then your site must be
something special. This is one of the more
powerful measurements for Google. In
essence, people vote with their links. This
is also one of the most misunderstood
techniques in SEO and thus one of the most
abused. One good qualified link from a
superior source is worth a lot more than a
horde of links purchased from a black hat
SEO firm. Link with care or Google may
blacklist your site, setting it back in the
search engines tenfold.
Another amazing element in the
algorithm is User Generated Content
(UGC). If a website is so good that it inspires
somebody to actually take time out of their
If your site is good
enough to merit
having a human
being do some work
to give credit to your
site and its content,
then your site must be
something special
perspective as well as from the broader and
ultimately more relevant perspective of
getting a conversion on your website.
To understand why Social Media is so
powerful we need to do a fast overview of
search engine behaviour.
In brief: Search Engines have many
measuring sticks for rating a site. Various
sources have suggested that there
are roughly 200 different variables in
the Google algorithm that are used to
determine if a search result is worth
presenting to a user. That’s a lot of data
crunching on the part of Google’s search
bots. Sadly, the bots don’t get it right all of
the time. However, the good news is that
Google algorithms also rely on humans to
rate a site for them through links and their
own contributions.
Inbound links, meaning the act of a
webmaster creating an actual link from their
busy day to add to the content- whether
it is by adding a comment to a blog or
by passing it along to others with some
additional comments- then this must truly
be a good bit of content.
For those paying attention you can
detect a theme here. Google is looking for
human behavioiur. Adding a link, adding
content, passing the item along to others
etc., is a reaction that can be automated, and
it is! But it happens naturally too- and it’s
measurable. This is where we come back to
Social Media.
Social Media is, in theory, not controlled.
It’s SOCIAL media - society at large takes
an interest and runs with it. When a
group of people like something a lot they
share it, talk about it and contribute to
it. In other words it spreads on its own in
an uncontrolled fashion ie: it goes viral.
When that happens, search engines are
swamped with data. Inbound links can
appear in their thousands and UGC can
blossom as people comment, share and
spread the content. The content must
be good, right? The content must have
done well on the other 198 variables in the
algorithm, right?
To answer those questions, type in “ha
ha ha” in Google. Bet you see some video
results being offered, one of which is a
baby that was posted on November 1,
2006 in YouTube. Check it out and join the
other 106 million+ people that have made
this one of the most widely viewed content
pages on the Internet. That averages at
about 100,000 views per day. The amazing
thing about it though is it’s a video on
YouTube. It’s made with Flash. It’s invisible
to the search engines. So how does it get
on page 1 of Google for “ha ha ha”?
Google can’t see it, but it sees so
much material around it (UGC) and sees
so many links to it that describe it with
the key words “ha ha ha” that it knows to
place it number 1 on page 1 in its search
results. This video went viral. Google
trusts the people, saw 100,000 visits a day
and gave it what it was due. Social Media
is the voice of the people and the Search
Engines must be paying attention. And
they obviously are!
2010 will see the introduction by Google.
com of a major adjustment to its algorithm
called “Caffeine”. Quietly developed in 2009
and being tested today, this under the hood
tweak to the Google SERP (Search Engine
Results Page), formula will allow Google to
index pages even faster. The changes are
being introduced to give more weight to
Social Media, Facebook & Twitter content.
Google hopes that it can now keep up with
the frequency of changes in social media.
The rush by Google and BING also saw
separate deals with Twitter, as the search
giants know Social Media might begin to
encroach onto search engines’ turf and
they need to be relevant. However, we still
don’t expect Facebook or Twitter to replace
search this year! (Even though the 2009 year
ended with a surprise. Facebook surpassed
Google traffic (visits) on Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day, repeating the feat again on
New Years Day as reported by HITWISE).
But what does this all mean in the big
Search Engine and Social Media picture?
Social Media can influence search results.
Search has officially become “Social”. If
the people like it, they will spread it, give it
kudos and Google will rank it accordingly.
Too bad that baby wasn’t doing some
product placement at the time. He’d be set
for life! DM
Abe McGowan is the Director of Search Engine
Optimization at Eden Advertising & Interactive. He
can be reached at [email protected]
Dmworks.ca provides visibility among
customers for Invisible Fence of Western Canada
E
ffective marketing can mean
the difference between
business success and failure
– no matter how large or small the
organization. Small businesses, however,
often face added challenges – from
balancing both the cost and time it takes
to assemble and execute a successful
campaign with limited resource pools,
to the implications of legislation such as
the Do Not Call Registry that govern how
organizations outreach to their customers.
As more SMBs look for do-it-yourself
options, many are turning to online tools
to economically reach out to both new
and existing customers.
One such example is Invisible Fence
of Western Canada. For the last 35 years,
Invisible Fence® has been keeping dogs
and cats safe at home by providing pet
owners with trusted technology, proven
training procedures – and total peace
of mind. The company pioneered the
concept of electronic pet containment,
developed its renowned Safe Dog® and
Perfect Start™ Pet Training methods, and is
proud to be the industry's leader with the
most experienced local dealer network,
nationwide.
Cynthia and Greg Deitz are the owners/
operators of Invisible Fence of Western
Canada. The company sells Invisible Fence
solutions as well as other product lines,
such as collars, pet doors and behavioural
solutions, for pet owners, reaching a
territory that includes most of Alberta and
interior British Columbia. In addition to
overseeing a large territory, Dietz manages
a fluctuating staff, employing six full-time
employees throughout the year, and
growing to 16 employees during its busy
spring, summer and fall seasons.
The Challenge
Invisible Fence of Western Canada
regularly relied on advertising, radio,
e-mail marketing and direct mail to reach
its current and potential customers. Nearly
70 per cent of marketing efforts put forth
by Invisible Fence of Western Canada
focus on awareness, with the remaining 30
percent centered on retention of existing
customers.
As a small business, Invisible Fence
of Western Canada was always on the
lookout for an effective way to reach its
current and new customers that balanced
cost and ease of use. After seeing an ad
in an invoice from Pitney Bowes, Dietz
decided to examine the company’s
dmworks.ca as a solution for its direct
marketing efforts.
Results
Dmworks.ca (www.dmworks.ca) is a
do-it-yourself online tool that is designed
to make it easy for small or mediumsized businesses to harness the power
of professional direct mail. The tool
enables organizations to create and send
direct mail right from their own desktop
with access to easy-to-use templates,
stock images, mailing lists, templates
for personalised web landing pages
and e-mail campaigns. Dmworks.ca
also includes provisions for tracking and
reporting.
“I used to work as a marketing manager
at a large company and was used to
having agencies create all my marketing
collateral for me,” says co-owner Cynthia
Deitz. “Now as a small business owner, I
have to do it all myself. Having a costeffective application like dmworks.ca is a
great alternative.”
Deitz uses the online tool to promote
events and field days, which are often
co-hosted by local vet clinics. The tool
and direct mail have been a particularly
effective way for Invisible Fence of
Western Canada to reach customers
located in rural parts of Alberta and British
Columbia, especially in areas where
dial-up Internet connections are still
prevalent.
“I can crank out pieces in one hour
whereas it was more time consuming
to do it before,” said Deitz. “The entire
process is very efficient, from proofing to
merging mailing lists.”
According to Deitz, dmworks.ca has
had a positive impact on her business
since implementation: “I’m seeing a 6:1
return on investment,” she notes. DM
Bill Mackrell is Vice President & General
Manager, Marketing and Mailing Solutions,
for Pitney Bowes Canada.
Click!
17
Leveraging Marketing
Intelligence to Improve Results
The last in a five-part series
By Rick Brough
O
ver the last several issues
of DM, we have outlined a
disciplined approach to help
you construct a powerful database
marketing strategy. The approach hinges
on consistently gathering, analyzing and
leveraging three types of key information
— Customer Intelligence, Business
Intelligence and Data Intelligence.
This instalment tackles the role of
Marketing Intelligence which involves
leveraging automating work processes
and technologies that pull all these
types of information together in order to
cost-effectively optimize your marketing
results, including:
• Marketing Velocity
• Marketing Productivity
• Marketing Measurability
• Marketing Accountability
• Marketing Control
By automating routine marketing
activities, you will free up resources so
that you can focus on strategy and ad-hoc
programs that will enable you to better
automation can streamline key processes
including:
• Initial customer selection
• Recording in a campaign management
data mart
• List processing and formatting
• Delivery data to your “execution” vendor
• Post-campaign analysis reporting
Supercharging Your Campaign
Management
If you’ve automated marketing processes
and continue to find the scale, number or
breadth of your initiatives causes your team
to devote considerable time to executing
complex routine tasks, Campaign
Management (CM) technologies are often
a cost-effective solution. CM allows you
to manage multi-channel, multi-wave
campaigns and develop sophisticated
ongoing dialogues with customers.
Dynamic and user-friendly interfaces
allow you to use CM for optimizing
campaign planning and performance
measurement functionality. For example,
a highly dimensional data model and
presents a flattened view with an intuitive
list of fields grouped by subject areas.
Most applications also facilitate offer
management processes for recording all
financial costs and response assumptions.
This allows you to compare planned
versus actual results and enables full ROI
calculations.
Marketing Resource Management
Marketing Resource Management (MRM) is
the next level of automation for efficiently
getting marketing tasks accomplished.
When implemented correctly, MRM
dramatically reduces the manual process
involved in planning via multiple
spreadsheets. As a result, it substantially
reduces the need, and costs associated
with, preparing time-consuming
status updates throughout campaign
implementation. That allows you to focus
your resources on strategic activities rather
than managing manual processes. Three
broad areas comprise MRM:
By automating routine marketing activities,
you will free up resources so that you can
focus on strategy and ad-hoc programs that
will enable you to better cross-sell/up-sell,
anticipate and respond to competitive or
economic pressures, launch new products
and ultimately enhance your revenues.
cross-sell/up-sell, anticipate and respond
to competitive or economic pressures,
launch new products and ultimately
enhance your revenues.
How to Leverage
Marketing Intelligence
When managing your marketing
campaigns there are varying degrees
of marketing intelligence automation
options available. For example, if your
marketing activities are repetitive and
guided by consistent business rules,
you can automate list preparation and
customer qualification – drawing from
relevant databases at logical intervals. You
can also process trigger-based campaigns.
On-going marketing activities that can be
easily automated include new customer
on-boarding programs and customer
retention programs.
In fact, you can automate any
marketing program triggered by business
rules. That use of marketing intelligence
CM solutions allow for multi-segment
splits, nested segmentation, multiple
wave designs, event-triggered capabilities,
seed list management and other features
critical for tapping into databases. At the
same time, you can develop campaign
selections, target segments, create control
cells, and obtain counts for each step in
the campaign.
CM solutions also allow you to develop
multi-channel, dynamic dialogues with
your customers. That means that you can
map out the best 1:1 dialogues based
on current and previous interactions
offline and online. With all contact history
recorded, you can establish response
rules for automated measurement or
for future trigger-based initiatives.
The additional layer of history enables
in-depth analysis of campaign results
since the applications connect directly to
your marketing data mart.
Typically, the entire marketing database
is available in a logical view that takes
• Production management, including
a marketing calendar for managing
activities and a workflow for managing
individual tasks within each activity.
Processes defined through your best
practices ensure compliance every time.
Project managers can set schedules
and assign work to appropriate roles
or individuals. Graphic displays of the
tasks involved in delivering marketing
projects provide insight into the
production process and facilitate
collaboration among your extended
team of agencies and vendors.
• Asset management provides efficient
access to marketing’s physical and
digital assets.
• Financial management and planning
provide data for budget control and
forecasting. This enables improved
financial decision-making and control
with an up-to-the-minute view of
budgeted, forecasted, committed and
actual spend by project type, initiative,
budget and date.
The Demand for
Marketing Intelligence
As a marketer, you are always striving to
keep ahead of fast changing industry
trends, competitive pressures, economic
fluctuations, fragmented markets and
changing consumption habits. At the
same time, channels are becoming
more complex with dynamic content
enabled through print and electronic
communications. Finally, your ability to
execute marketing programs successfully is
being put to the test with the executive call
for “doing more with less”. Tapping into any
level of marketing intelligence automation
ensures that you can be more efficient and
more effective in all of your increasingly
complex marketing initiatives. DM
Rick Brough is Director, Customer Insights for
Thindata 1:1, a Transcontinental Company,
(www.thindata.com) which is a North
American leader in multi-channel databasedriven marketing technologies, email
marketing and strategic solutions. Thindata 1:1
systematically shifts customer communications
from mass marketing to compelling and costeffective 1:1 dialogues – thereby maximizing
revenue growth and ROI. Contact Rick at
416.361.3522 or [email protected]
18
ResouRce
DiRectoRy
LIST SERVICES
North American Direct
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and direct marketing services
including data processing,
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to various Organizations which
includes Consumer Mailers,
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North American Direct Marketing
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including data processing,
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For more information please contact:
Kim Young – email: [email protected]
Jannett Lewis – [email protected]
For List Management please contact:
Jacqueline Collymore – [email protected]
North American Direct Marketing, 44 Wellesworth Drive, Suite 206, Toronto, Ontario, M9C 4R1,
TargetSource®
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Find out more
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19
CANADIAN MAILING MACHINES INC.qxd
Resource
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LIST SERVICES
MAILING EQUIPMENT
11/05/2007
2:07 PM
Page 1
30 Mural Street, Unit #6&7
Richmond Hill, Ontario
L4B 1B5
To learn more about our products and flexible service offerings, contact
(Sales) John Wilbrink ( 1.800.889.6245 x 2014 * [email protected]
(Service) Leighann Paulionis (1.800.889.6245 x 2023 * [email protected]
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20
ResouRce
DiRectoRy
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Drive profits to your bottom line with
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TRANSFORMING YOUR CUSTOMER DATA TO DRIVE BUSINESS DECISIONS- this is our passion!
aralytics
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ervices Inc.
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416.270.8896
www.karalytics.com
DATA MINING & ANALYTICS
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21
1 8/21/08 10:22 AM Page 1
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SERVICE
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1UOTESSSPENCER
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2ONSA#OURT-ISSISSAUGA/.,79
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Est. 1951
Data Services I Inkjet I Laser
Insert I Affix I Polybag I Fold & Slit
Fulfillment I Co-Pack
WE MAIL
WHY ISN’T YOUR COMPANY LISTED?
Contact Peter O’Desse at 1.800.668.1838 or [email protected]
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455 GORDON BAKER RD. TORONTO, ONT. CANADA M2H 4H2. T: 416.490.8030 1.800.508.3941 F: 416.490.8455 E: [email protected]
Resource
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DATA PROCESSING
22
P1162 PMQ Postcard 9/24/09 10:40 AM Page 1
Resource
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FULL SERVICE OPERATIONS
Lead Generating Website for Printers & Mailhouses
PRINTERS
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DIRECT MARKETING LEADERS
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| Web: www.mail-o-matic.com
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YOUR RDP FULFILLMENT CHECKLIST
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£ÇÓxÊV*iÀÃÊ
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SERVICES: ,ITERATURE0/3$ISTRIBUTION
N#HEQUE#ASH2EFUND/FFERSN+IT
!SSEMBLYN#ATALOGUE&ULlLLMENTN
0REMIUM/FFERS
Clixx offers Marketers the perfect mix of
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t Direct Mail
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t Digital Print on Demand & Web-to-Print
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Our services include:
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welcome bonus of 100 WestJet dollars. The
card has an annual fee of $79.
With the WestJet RBC MasterCard,
cardholders earn 1% back in WestJet dollars
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annual fee of $39. Both cards provide a 0.5%
bonus in WestJet dollars for WestJet flights
and WestJet Vacations packages purchased
on the card.
WestJet has promised no blackout
periods, seat restrictions, or advance
booking requirements like other loyalty
programs in the market.
building loyalty –
one traveller at a time
Unlike the WestJet RBC MasterCard,
where customers can use WestJet Dollars
immediately, the loyalty program requires
passengers to accumulate more than $1,500
dollars worth of travel a year before they can
begin to collect and spend their WestJet
Dollars.
Any WestJet Dollars already in the
account will remain there for five years,
but the minimum threshold is reset every
year before additional WestJet Dollars can
be added. Once subsequent thresholds,
like the $3,000 mark, are hit, members will
receive additional rewards, like free flights,
third-party lounge access and advanced
seat selection vouchers.
The credit card program is aimed at the
mass market, while the loyalty program is
aimed at the business traveller, according to
a statement by WestJet.
At the moment, there are no plans to
bring a retail or gas partner in, but it is
something they are considering for the
future.
How WestJet measures up
Air Canada's loyalty program, Aeroplan,
has more than six million members. CIBC's
AeroGold Visa card is the most popular
travel rewards credit card in Canada.
WestJet's program is meant to be fairer
than many other frequent flyer programs by
discriminating between passengers who
book well in advance and get a better price
than those who pay more because they
have to book at the last minute.
"In this case, WestJet is doing something
very smart," says airline analyst Rick Erickson.
"They're basing their plan on the amount
of money spent, not miles flown." DM
eVents
calenDar
May 14, 2010
ICSA Toronto Chapter Annual
Customer Service Conference
Toronto
The ICSA-TC will be hosting the
“Customer Experience Excellence”
conference on May 14th at RBC in
Mississauga, ON. We have six engaging
speakers who will present and discuss
the latest trends and best practices on
topics that include moulding effective
leaders, employee engagement,
realizing a contact centre’s potential,
recruiting through social media and
connecting with customers. There will
also be a panel discussion and Q&A
session with four customer service
advocates from industries ranging from
technology to banking to. As a customer
service professional, this conference is
a must. You can download a brochure
in the Events Calendar section of our
website, www.icsa.on.ca, or contact us
at 905-477-5544 or [email protected] for
more information.
diReCt MARKETING
Vol. 22 | No. 11 | March 2010
PUbLIShER
Mark Henry - [email protected]
EDITOR
Amy Bostock - [email protected]
ART DIRECTOR
Vanessa Dhanbeer- [email protected]
SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAgER
Peter O’Desse - [email protected]
PRESIDENT
Steve Lloyd - [email protected]
June 10-11, 2010
MARCOM Professional
Development forum 2010
Gatineau
The 2010 Theme is Marketing with
Authenticity. When we market and
communicate with authenticity, we’re
connecting at a deeper level – where we
are truly heard, believed, remembered
and trusted. At MARCOM, you’ll take
the next steps in your marketing and
communications to reach that deeper level
of audience engagement and connection.
Our Educational Program comprises
inspiring Keynotes, 15 concurrent sessions,
Peer2Peer Roundtables, Poster Campaign
presentations and a choice of 3 Pre-Forum
Workshops to provide an intensive,
focused start to your MARCOM experience.
MARCOM content is developed
in conjunction with our Advisory
Committee of trusted experts from
the government, not-for-profit and
association sectors.
Find all your information and keep in
touch at www.marcom.ca
CONTRIbUTINg WRITERS
Rick Brough
Dan Cadieux
Lydia Cappelli
Chris Hilborn
Kristi Kanitz
Jan Kestle
Bill Mackrell
Olga RomeroMarshall
Abe McGowan
Sarah O'Connor
Michele Sexsmith
Billy Sharma
Colin Tener
LLOYDMEDIA, INC.
HEAD OFFICE / SUBSCRIPTIONS /
PRODUCTION: 302-137 Main Street North,
Markham ON L3P 1Y2 Phone: 905.201.6600 Fax:
905.201.6601 Toll-free: 800.668.1838
[email protected] www.dmn.ca
23
Digging deeper
into social media
Social media becoming higher priority for marketers
B
y now, most organizations have experimented with
some form of social media activity, be it on Facebook,
Twitter, Youtube or other networking sites. At first,
content was published without a strategic plan and with the
vague goal of increasing website traffic and lead generation.
Today, most organizations feel more comfortable with social
media and are ready to move on from the trial phase of their
marketing efforts to a more strategic use of this channel.
According to the 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report
by Marketing Sherpa, about one-quarter of organizations feel
more comfortable with social media and are ready to move on
from the trial phase of their marketing efforts to a more strategic
use of this channel. In another recent survey by ISITE Design,
among organizations investing in interactive strategy, nearly
three-quarters say that social media is either a new priority or
more of a focus this year.
Social networking sites are the focus of online interactions;
more than search
This comes as no surprise. In a 2008 survey by Cone, 60% of
consumers polled said they felt a stronger connection and better
served by organizations they could interact with in a social media
environment. Nielsen recently published statistics showing that
social media usage increased by over 80% between 2008 and
2009. Brian Solis, digital analyst and principal at Futureworks,
believes an important milestone is being reached in social
media as organizations listen and respond to their audience
by improving content, defining future engagements, and
humanizing communication. Organizations are not only joining the
conversation but they are also finding their own voice and purpose.
eMarketer goes as far as to say that paid advertising, banners,
text ads and search advertising, will no longer be the primary
focus of online spending, although they will continue to
drive traffic and engagement within the larger social network
presence. Most social marketing dollars will go toward paying
salaries that support blogging, content development and
monitoring of social channels. The remaining dollars will be
spent on help from outside agencies, consultancies and service
providers.
Social networking requires a great deal of human commitment
H&R Block, the company that prepares income taxes, has been
running a successful social media campaign since 2007. Paula
Drum, VP of Marketing, has stated publicly that she was surprised
by how much human capital is needed to make social media
campaigns work. H&R Block recruits hundreds of advisors during
tax season to answer over 50,000 questions on a web site called
“Get It Right”. Ms. Drum advises organizations to take staffing
and workflow into consideration when planning a social media
campaign. Paul Verna from eMarketer corroborates this point,
“The low cost of social media can lull marketers into improvising
EDITORIAL CONTACT:
Direct Marketing is published monthly by
Lloydmedia Inc., plus the annual DM Industry
Source Book, List of Lists .
Direct Marketing may be obtained through
paid subscription.
Rates:
Canada
U.S.
1 year (12 issues $48)
2 years (24 issues $70)
1 year (12 issues $60)
2 years (24 issues $100)
Direct Marketing is an independently-produced publication
not affiliated in any way with any association or organized
solutions, but taking account of the time spent debating,
formulating, managing and executing social media campaigns—
not to mention creating content—makes it clear that money is at
stake and a well-thought-out plan is needed.”
What do high chairs and high technology have in common?
Graco Industries, maker of car seats, strollers and high chairs for
babies and infants has pursued a long-term, community-building
approach to social media since 2007. Their goal is to "humanize"
the Graco brand and to build lasting relationships with an online
community of 34 million tech-savvy parents.
The core component of Graco’s social media effort is centered on
a corporate parenting blog written by employees who are parents,
for other parents, about real-life stories and situations. The Graco
blog actively participates in other online communities such as
BlogHer, CafeMom and TwitterMoms. It is also active on other social
media tools such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter.
Last January, Graco scored some major customer points
during a product recall of a baby stroller. Recalls can be messy
business with clogged phone lines, crashed websites and
anxious customers. By reaching out through Twitter, Graco made
personal contact with customers, bringing them the information
they needed calmly and quickly. Customers were able to check
their model numbers directly on Twitter to confirm if their stroller
was affected. If so, they were guided through all the steps of the
recall. This level of online customer service could not have been
achieved overnight; it took months of building an internal social
media team that had a good enough rapport with customers to
handle the situation when trouble hit.
Telstra, an Australian telecommunications giant, encourages
their 40,000+ employees to engage in conversations with their
customers instead of blocking access to social networking sites as
do many corporations of their size. In order to proactively manage
their employees’ social media behaviour, Telstra formalized
a policy of “3Rs” – responsibility, respect and representation,
which is part of mandatory training for all employees. The
training is delivered online in flash comic book format featuring
an interactive character known as “Lilly” who explains how to
effectively discuss Telstra in online social networks.
These organizations have invested heavily into social media.
As most profit-oriented organizations, there most certainly are
business goals and metrics attached to their social media efforts.
Do they reap the rewards to the bottom line? H&R Block signed up
65,000 new customers in one year, Graco’s online chatter doubled,
and it is too soon to tell with Telstra. In the case of Graco’s
product recall, the best results are sometimes those that were not
anticipated but have an enormous impact. The question is, can
you afford to be without a social media plan? DM
Lydia Cappelli is an interactive marketing professional. To contact her,
visit her Web site at http://lcappelli.com, or twitter @l_cappelli.
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