The online coupon company CoolSavings is mailing for the first time with a 100,000 drop.
The co-op direct mail piece, “Young Families” is targeted to CoolSavings’ best customers–women, ages 25 to 40 who have visited Coolsavings two to three times a quarter. Many of them have purchased. They are mail order buyers with children and average household incomes of $47,000, according to Ken Treske, chief marketing officer at the Chicago company.
Only CoolSavings’ members who have given permission to receive special offers from advertisers will receive the piece, he said.
To increase the open rate, recipients will receive a “heads up” e-mail alerting the to look for the envelope in their mailboxes. Some 10 days after the envelope arrives, CoolSavings will follow up with another e-mail reminding customers to open the envelope.
Treske said he expects a response rate “20% to 50% higher than what an advertiser might see with a Madison or an Advo co-op mailer.”
The decision to mail resulted from the excellent performance CoolSavings’ list among marketers who rented it, Treske said. “We’ve seen in our solo list-rental programs [deliver] response rates that beat client’s averages by 50%,” he said.
Treske said that use of e-mail along with direct mail makes the piece stand out. “We don’t know of anyone who is doing it exactly like this,” he said. “It leverages the strength of the brand with the strength of modeling and e-mail.”
Advertisers in the co-op include Disney, Grolier, Olan Mills and Oreck.
The creative features a picture of the company’s piggybank with sunglasses icon.
Response Media in Atlanta is handling the direct marketing services for CoolSavings. Treske would not reveal the marketing budget for the campaign. CoolSavings spends $7 million a year to recruit advertisers, he said.
CoolSavings total list contains 9 million household records.
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