Click here for a printer friendly version
Acquisition Marketing
Acquire Valuable New Customers with Better ROI
The Challenge
A large financial services company looked to make a sizable impact on new acquisition numbers in a cost-effective manner through direct mail. The goal was to drive traffic into branch offices and call center channels by capitalizing on brand and product television advertising. Both creative and direct mail methodologies were tested as a part of the campaign. SIGMA designed the challenger creative, and executed the challenger mailing methodology.
The Breakthrough
SIGMA’s objective was to acquire a large number of incremental new customers while continually increasing ROI and reducing cost-per-customer-acquired.
- SIGMA created a challenger self-mailer piece to the champion letter package that had been used in past acquisition efforts. The focus of the piece was to encourage more initial engagement with the mailing through the use of a scratch-off panel. The panel was placed in a central area on the self-mailer, drawing the prospect closer to the key messaging on the piece. The resulting effort elicited response significantly above that of the champion letter package.
- Saturation mail, sometimes referred to as “Dear Resident” mailings, have recently come back into vogue for prospect mailings. The advantage in postal rates is significant, allowing companies to mail at a lower cost per piece. Results showed that the saturation mailing more than held its own in comparison to the traditional targeted mailing. SIGMA used geocoding and business rules for the initial mailing, with intent to identify high-propensity geographies based on response for future iterations.
The Win
- Increased sales of nearly $11 million over client’s previous acquisition method.
- Increased response rates from previous mailings by over 20%.
- Reduced cost-per-customer-acquired by 17%.
- Created opportunity for even greater effectiveness with future iterations through the use of “targeted” saturation.