LABELING GROWTH

If you want to put a label on DYMO’s marketing goals for 2008, try personalization. And understanding shopping patterns.

The Stamford, CT-based company, which markets a variety of labeling solutions for consumers and small to medium-sized businesses, is faced with the challenge of figuring out the purchase patterns in a niche that is heavily researched and shopped online, says Michael Klazema, director of Web marketing and CRM.

“The challenge we’ve noticed over last 12 to 18 months is that people take longer from when they started to investigate the product to when they buy,” he says. “Instead of a week as we saw two years ago, now it’s about two weeks. The challenge is to understand this new delayed shopping behavior.”

What’s causing the delay? Klazema says consumers are likely incorporating more information into their decision, gleaned from places like social media and comparison shopping sites. The trick, he says, is playing toward the delay.

Site optimization has been essential in making the site a useful place to build relationships, particularly with product owners.

Many people who visit Dymo.com may be looking for support for a particular product. The main purpose of the space, says Klazema, is to be a source of information about the company’s labeling products, both for prospects and owners alike.

While products are sold directly on the site, he says that channel conflict with retail partners hasn’t been a problem. “We have a policy of not actively undercutting retailers on price.”

Between 10% to 20% of the Newell Rubbermaid subsidiary’s marketing is spent online. Most of that is devoted to rich media, which allows for interaction with consumers, Klazema says.

Once somebody owns a DYMO product, aside from contacting the company with a technical problem by phone, the vast majority of interaction is online. Calls to action in offline communication always drive prospects to the Web site, except in reseller specific promotions.

A big challenge is to understand what category and application area consumers are shopping for, says Klazema. Toward this end, Dymo.com uses Offermatica’s multivariate testing solutions to profile returning customers and target them with content and offers.

My DYMO is an area of the site tailored specifically to owners. Without registering, you can get some benefits of the site. But if you register, the experience goes further, offering information about what products work with the printers a customer owns.

“We want to make it easier for consumers to continue to use our printers,” he says, noting My DYMO offers things like personalized support pages or quick shopping cart shortcuts for products that have been previously purchased from the site.

Klazema says DYMO has seen an increase in sales from customers who use the personalized functions, which have been up and running since early 2006.

The company tracks how much time visitors spend with personalized versus nonpersonalized content.

“We’ve seen a slow but steady month-over-month growth,” he says, noting that, obviously, consumers don’t use the personalized areas on a day-to-day basis, simply because nobody buys labels that frequently.

“We feel we’re able to reach a large portion of the installed base,” he says. “Revenue in this area doubled since we added personalization.”

E-mail newsletters are also part of the marketing mix. When a customer registers a printer, within a day they receive a thank-you message, which also tells them about the personalized My DYMO area of the Web site. Follow-up e-mails share tips about how to use the printer better, offering ideas gleaned from the most commonly asked call center questions. And after 30 days, customers receive another e-mail with a basic question — are you satisfied? Yes or no?

“Luckily for us, 95% of people click the ‘yes’ button,” says Klazema. “But either way, they are invited to write a product review.”

DYMO hasn’t yet gotten into the social media pool, other than posting consumer-generated product reviews. Early next year, the company is mulling the launch of tip and advice section, where people share their own best practices for the label makers.

As far as search engine marketing, in terms of sales, specific terms, of course, pull the best. But there is a lot of generic search activity around phrases like “label printer” or “label maker.” A prime benefit of search is the insight it gives into customer behavior, says Klazema.

“Label makers are usually a considered purchase,” he says. “In a week or two, once people think they want a label printer, they then narrow down search to specific models or makers or brands. I don’t think there’s any other type of activity online that has a better ROI than paid search.”

DMYO doesn’t use direct mail in its marketing mix.

“A big portion of the ROI of direct mail is determined by the ability to target people and buy the right lists,” Klazema says. “For a lot of purposes, we have a general purpose solution, a label printer, It’s not easy to find a niche market and find the right lists.”

A final — but positive challenge — is the fact that once people try labeling, they really, really like it, he says.

“Once you discover labeling, it’s like a nice holiday destination you want to go back to.”