WHEN DIRECT MARKETERS plan campaigns with their printing and mail service providers, much of the attention is focused on the mail piece. The size and design of the carrier, the placement of teaser copy, the choice of paper stock…all are important to consider, as they affect response rates and the effort's overall success.
It's equally key to craft a plan for managing those responses. This goes beyond the necessary task of handling monetary donations if the campaign includes an appeal. The data DMers receive on their response devices is a valuable asset for future mailings: If it isn't collected and used as soon as it's received, its value is diminished. However, collecting and processing that data can be a substantial drain on both time and resources.
Here's where technology is the marketer's friend: Modern optical and digital scanning systems can pull data from printed reply devices and place it into almost any program for easy monitoring and manipulation.
The latest scanning equipment uses intelligent data recognition technology that stores a digital image (such as a TIFF file) from a reply piece as a control and compares it against each scanned document. Any difference is recognized as response data and collected. Scanning is done at high speeds, making it efficient even for the largest mailings.
Digital scanning technology offers several benefits that can help drive ROI for DM programs, regardless of industry or a campaign's scope.
- Time efficiency
Once a campaign hits the mail, it won't be long before responses start pouring in. For many organizations it's necessary to pull people away from their jobs to process responses. This means opening response mailers and keying in data. The time required to do this can slow down daily operations.
- Cost efficiency
The impact of having a few people handling responses rather than performing their regular jobs can be measured in dollars as well as lost time. One alternative is to outsource response management functions to a third-party supplier that specializes in this work. While this frees up a marketer's internal resources, the cost can be prohibitive for smaller organizations. Digital scanning technology eliminates that need.
- Error reduction
Regardless who's keying in a DMer's data from response mail pieces, human error will render some of the information useless. The impact of incorrect data — even something as minor as a misplaced decimal or misspelled name — can be significant enough to cause a customer or donor to jump ship. Again, digital scanning can remove that worry by offering nearly error-free data input.
- Customer satisfaction
As part of the scanning process, reply devices are stored digitally. These images provide a much easier and faster method of recall than a printed copy. This is particularly valuable for applications that require frequent retrieval of customer information from reply pieces, such as credit applications and donor history. Customer satisfaction also will increase as customers wait minutes rather than days for the information they request.
- Customized future mailings
Perhaps the greatest benefit of automated response management and digital data collection is that it allows DMers to aggregate and use that data in future communications. While the prospect of higher response from personalized mailings holds obvious appeal, collecting and organizing the historical data necessary to create the relevant customization can be daunting.
An automated response-management strategy that includes digital scanning of reply devices ensures that this data will be collected quickly and accurately. Many state-of-the-art direct mail service providers can help DMers blend response data into financial and marketing systems. That allows an organization to easily identify its highest donors or best customers and tag them for an appropriate response, which can include variable data elements that take advantage of the powerful information that's been collected.
It may not be the first priority during a campaign's planning stage, but response management can make or break the return on direct mail investment. Taking advantage of digital scanning technology is just one way DMers can streamline the process of collecting valuable response data and put it to use in subsequent mailings.
BILL ALBERTSEN (BAlbertsen@euservices.com) is the sales manager for EU Services, a DM production company in Rockville, MD.
