Right Tactics Will Bolster Fundraising If Economy Gets Rocky

Although economic growth and jobs data are strong at the start of the year, many AccuList® fundraising clients express anxiety about the impact on charitable giving of higher inflation or even recession later in 2023.

Here’s the advice from nonprofit veterans: Stay the course and avoid the temptation to cut back on direct mail or digital marketing. When fundraisers reduce the channels and frequency of donor requests, they cut opportunities for giving and erode long-term connections. 

A better way to offset economic drags is to increase the efficiency of donor acquisition and retention programs. For direct mailings, tactics such as modified package size and pre-sorting can reduce costs. Greater mailing list efficiency is key as well. Using the best-performing vertical lists and modeled data can boost donor prospecting ROI, for example. Meanwhile, house donor lists can select out lower-value or lower-response segments. 
 
In tougher times, nonprofits also can’t afford the waste of bad data. OneCause, a provider of event and online fundraising technology, found that only 18% of nonprofits reported having enough data and insights for cost-effective decision-making in 2022! So fundraisers should prioritize clean datade-duped, complete, consistent, deliverable and actionablefor cost-effective targeting. 
 
Fundraisers can take better advantage of the fact that today’s donors are multichannel responders by coordinating direct mail with boosted social media, online and mobile giving. In-person fundraising events are expected to make a comeback in 2023, too. OneCause reports 83% of organizations plan to hold at least one in-person event in 2023.
 
Data supports investments in event and online efforts. Over half of surveyed nonprofits reported generating 21% of operating budget from event and online fundraising in 2022, per OneCause. 
 
For help with donor acquisition, multichannel fundraising and data management, see https://www.acculist.com/fundraising/

Prep for 2020 Marketing With Clean, Personalized, Predictive Data

As 2019 closes, AccuList’s data services clients have a year’s worth of multichannel customer, campaign and sales information to analyze and inform 2020 plans. So what are the big trends that the data pros foresee will deliver maximum ROI?

Data Hygiene Issues Remain a Priority

Clean, up-to-date, quality data is still the basis for good marketing analyses and campaign planning. A November Business2Community post by marketer Dan Moyle helpfully summarized the key data cleansing tasks that businesses need to undertake to hit the ground running in 2020. After all, it’s estimated that 20% of the average contact database is dirty, so this is not a trivial effort. Increasing marketing efficiency, response and customer loyalty, requires removing data errors and inconsistencies. Start by monitoring data for issues such as duplicates, missing information or bad records to figure out how and where they are occurring. Then standardize processes at each entry point. Next validate the accuracy of data across the database by investing in data tools or expert data services, and commit to regular cleansing and maintenance of data quality. Identify and scrub duplicates. Once the data has been standardized, validated and de-duped, improve its analytic value by using third-party data appending sources (to flesh out demographics, psychographics, firm-ographics, purchase history, etc.) for a more complete customer picture. Establish a feedback process to spot and update, or purge, incorrect information, such as invalid e-mail addresses identified by a campaign. And communicate standards and processes to the whole team so that they understand the value of clean data in segmentation targeting, lead response, customer service and more.

Using Data for an Agile, Personalized, Customer-Centric Edge

Data trends figured prominently in the 2019 Martech Conference and a recent article from martech firm Lineate highlights a few keynotes, such as the role of data in personalization. When a 2019 RedPoint Global survey of U.S. and Canadian consumers finds that 63% expect personalization as a standard of service and want to be individually recognized in special offers, personalized marketing is clearly a competitive essential. Expect to see use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) increase in 2020 as personalization tools. Machine learning is when a computer is able to find patterns within large amounts of data in order to improve or optimize for a specific task. For example, for more personalized offers and messaging in acquisition, this means using ML to recognize if people from certain areas are more likely to respond to a specific offer or which past high-response special offers may resonate in future . Personalization is also key to the customer-centric experience proven to drive long-term retention and brand loyalty–as opposed to getting the same message again and again. When personalization is combined with elimination of data silos and creation of a single customer view across channels, marketing becomes especially powerful. Indeed, integrated database development and the elimination of data silos are also key to the growing “agile marketing” trend. Agile marketing breaks down team silos (which assumes breaking down data silos) in favor of teams focusing on high-value projects collectively. According to a 2018 survey by Kapost, 37% of businesses have already adopted agile marketing, and another 50% said they haven’t yet become agile but expect to be soon.  

Taking Data Insights From Retroactive to Predictive

Looking ahead to 2020, marketers should also consider adding predictive modeling to their toolkit if they haven’t already done so. Why? A study by ClickZ and analytics platform provider Keen found that 58% of marketers using predictive modeling experienced a 10%-25% ROI lift, while another 19% saw more than a 50% uplift. While retroactive campaign data can be very useful for reporting and results analysis, it’s not always as good for informing future multichannel directions, for optimizing media investments, or for quick execution and performance assessment. In fact, nearly 80% of Keen/ClickZ survey respondents felt they’d missed opportunities because of slow or inaccurate decision-making using non-predictive data reporting. For example, standard data analysis often fails to span all channels (e.g., online video vs. store-level programming) and mistakenly gives most credit to last-click channels such as search or transactional activities. In contrast, the Keen/ClickZ survey found marketers using predictive modeling boosted results in multiple areas, including a better understanding of the target audience (71%), optimizing of touchpoints on the customer journey (53%), and improving creative performance (44%). Predictive modeling also can help businesses synthesize large volumes of data, a key concern for many; in fact, 38% indicated their current measurement solutions do not support the scale of their data.

 

Catalog Marketing Retains Its Retail Clout

Consumer retail catalogs, far from fading away with the growth of e-commerce, have continued to deliver for our omnichannel retail clients. A Multichannel Merchant blog post earlier this year cites a number of reasons why retailers should consider expanding, reviving or initiating a catalog marketing effort, especially with an eye to upcoming holiday spending.

Catalogs Boost Engagement, Response Across Channels

Catalogs are not, as some assumed, favored only by older buyers, while younger buyers focus on digital channels. In fact, research has shown that 65% of millennial target buyers have made a purchase influenced by a catalog. Today’s lower mail volumes combine with the unique visual and tactile qualities of print to make catalogs stand out in terms of engaging interaction for younger generations, boosting response over online display and even e-mail. Retailers who integrate catalogs with stores, websites and mobile in omnichannel acquisition campaigns boost response and conversion overall. For example, researchers have found that 20% of first-time customers make a purchase on a retailer’s website after receiving a catalog.

Technology Allows for Personalized Targeting, Fulfillment

Today’s more sophisticated data analytics and marketing technologies let marketers track spending habits and response across channels to better leverage catalogs as part of omnichannel marketing campaigns. Retailers can not only use use variable data printing to personalize catalogs based on demographics and purchase behavior but can then use intelligent fulfillment technology to integrate targeted catalogs and samples into the existing fulfillment operation to expand brand marketing opportunities. To capitalize on online response to print catalogs, retailers can use innovations such as quick codes applied to printed catalog products for easier online purchasing. And they can use nimbler, on-demand printing to offer repeat customers a catalog built to their unique interests. Warehouse technology then can put the right catalogs in the right customers’ hands quickly and seamlessly. Certainly, retailers should consider how leveraging technology will make holiday catalogs into better sales drivers. For example, as the Multichannel Merchant post notes, retailers with order packing software in place can simply assign an SKU to a catalog or a pending holiday “Buyer’s Guide,” include the SKU in order packing software rules, and pack a catalog in each shipment as part of a holiday campaign, boosting brand recognition and repeat customers.

Is Your Direct Marketing Ready for Gen Z?

Generation Z is arriving in the marketplace. Gen Z, also called post-Millennials and the iGeneration, includes young people born in the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, who are now graduating and getting their first jobs. Any b2c marketer ignoring this group is risking the bottom line since Gen Z members not only make up 25.9% of the U.S. population now but will account for 40% of all consumer markets in 2020. Their annual purchasing power is already $44 billion and growing as they advance in the workforce. If you add their influence on parental spending, Gen Z accounts for closer to $200 billion in annual purchasing. Is your direct marketing ready?

The Challenges of Winning Over Gen Z

Wooing Gen Z will require marketers to amend their playbooks. Oberlo, an e-commerce agency, recently discussed Gen Z marketing challenges in its blog. IWCO Direct, a data marketing agency, comes to similar conclusions in a post. First, Gen Z members have a short attention span; marketers have only about 8 seconds to capture their notice, which is even shorter than the 11 seconds required to grab the attention of the typical Millennial. This means content must be targeted, relevant, to the point and quick to engage. Second, Gen Zers have a higher number of technological devices and are constantly jumping from one device to another. While Millennials bounce between three screens at one time, Generation Z can use up to five screens at the same time. Multi-channel, multi-platform, mobile-optimized campaigns are required to reach this generation. Third, Gen Z young adults have strong opinions and, raised to expect personalization, demand that marketers customize experiences. They will be very critical of advertising that fails to meet their standards for authenticity and meaningful interaction. What is meaningful? Gen Z members want to buy from companies that support their values, for example; 55% of Gen Z chooses brands that are eco-friendly and socially responsible. Yet Gen Z has less brand loyalty than prior generations and is less motivated by traditional loyalty programs, although they can be wooed with interaction, such as online games or events. And while Gen Zers are definitely social media fans, they use social platforms differently than prior generations. A study by Response Media found that Gen Z favors Snapchat to showcase real-life moments, gets news from Twitter and gleans some information from Facebook, although they see Facebook as a platform for older people. Market Wired research shows that Instagram is their most popular app for brand discovery, with 45% using it to find new products. YouTube video is another way to reach Gen Z.

Gen Z Was Weaned on Digital, But Print Marketing Still Works

However, direct mail marketers shouldn’t assume only a digital strategy can work with Gen Z. As IWCO Direct points out, Gen Z actually finds print media more trustworthy. An MNI Targeted Media study found that 83% surveyed said they turn to printed newspapers for trusted news instead of the Internet. Gen Z does not trust information on the Internet unless it comes from a website ending in .org or .edu, research showed. In fact, since Gen Z is online so often and using multiple devices, the biggest challenge is making a lasting impression, which is where trusted print material, such as direct mail that can be physically touched and revisited, offers an advantage. Omnichannel marketing that advertises on multiple online platforms and is combined dynamically with print is more likely to increase brand recognition than digital alone, per studies. For more insight on Gen Z marketing, including content and influencer strategies, check out this recent Forbes article.


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Corporate Gift Marketers, Buyers Ready for Year-End Holiday Push

Corporate holiday gift-giving lies ahead, and AccuLIst’s clients offering food and wine gifts and promotional products designed to clinch customer loyalty are gearing up for a key business-to-business marketing season. So what are major factors affecting corporate gift-giving in 2019?

Meeting and Exceeding Expectations

Corporate gift buyers and gift marketers will want to keep in mind some of the essential factors that affect gift satisfaction, as cited in a recent The Balance Small Business blog. To generate the desired client response, corporate gift givers should keep in mind 1) organizational policies, which may limit the dollar value of gifts or even prohibit gifts; 2) the personal preferences and needs of the recipient (note that today’s customer expectations of personalization apply); 3) any cultural/local differences (for example, a white-wrapped gift may not be well-received in Asia where white is the color of death); 4) the perceived quality of the gift and its packaging (although gift value should be proportional to client value so that a $200-a-year client doesn’t get a $300 gift); 5) today’s preference for a personal touch, such as a handwritten note or in-person delivery; and 6) IRS deductions (business gifts in the U.S. are tax deductible up to $25 per person for the tax year, although rules differ by business structure). What type of gift will meet most businesses’ requirements? The American Express Semi-Annual Small Business Monitor survey found that today’s top corporate gifts include cards or calendars (49%); gift certificates for retail or restaurants (26%); company-branded items (23%); a fruit/food basket (18%); a charity donation (18%); flowers/plants (10%); and wine/liquor (10%).

Value and Personalization Score with Clients

For more ideas, check out a 2019 Hubspot article listing more than 20 gifts rated as likely to keep clients thinking positively about a company throughout the year. Most fell within the general categories noted above, but here are the more specific descriptions for added inspiration: a terrarium or succulent garden; professional notebooks; coffee or tea blend packages; calendars; a coffee table book; a toiletry bag for travel; a gourmet food basket; a portable phone charger; a K-Cup coffee sampler; a Kindle e-reader; a custom-quality water bottle; online classes; a BarkBox gift for a pet owner; a charity donation; a beer brewing kit; quality clothing with a subtle logo; a restaurant gift card; a bakery delivery; a cook’s basket; a catered lunch; custom balls and tees for the golfer; and headphones. Note that six gifts involve a food and/or beverage basket. In choosing that basket, gift buyers may want to consider the 2019 ratings just out from Top Ten Reviews.

Top-Rated Gift Baskets for 2019

AccuList’s client Wine Country Gift Baskets once again ranked high with Top Ten Reviews for 2019. The reviewers tested baskets from the top 11 gift basket companies for taste, presentation, pricing/value, payment and delivery, customer support, number of basket types and special options (such as Kosher). Harry & David’s Founders’ Favorite Gift Box was rated “best overall,” while Wine Country Gift Baskets’ Gourmet Choice Gift Basket received “best value” for the amount and selection of foods for the price. For foodies, igourmet.com’s California Classic Gift Box was rated as “best for food connoisseurs.” To really personalize to individual tastes, the Design It Yourself company lived up to its name and was ranked as the “most personalized” option, while Gourmet Gift Baskets impressed among alcohol-themed hampers. Read more details on all gift basket ratings.

Why Participate in Modeled Cooperative Databases?

Today’s modeled cooperative databases offer big advantages for B2C and B2B direct marketers, which is why AccuList now represents 18 private modeled cooperative databases that clients can use to optimize direct mail results. These databases include millions of merged, deduped, and “modeled and scored” hotline names from thousands of commercial and nonprofit participants.  At no charge, each can match the client’s database, model client postal addresses, and deliver optimized “look-alike” names.  The database will prioritize those modeled names by decile or quintile to help clients further identify targets most likely to respond to an offer or fundraising appeal.

Fear of Sharing Misses Optimizing Opportunities

Marketers sometimes hesitate to participate because of unfounded fears of sharing exclusive/unique customers, catalog buyers, subscribers or donors with membership-based database participants. Note that these databases generally match a marketer’s names against the cooperative database files and share transactional data. If there are matches, only transactional information is added to the cooperative database records; and if there are no matches, the unique names are not added to the pool.  Why do cooperative databases opt to incorporate only multi-occurring or duplicate records? Because that is data that tends to be far more predictive, with proven response. Plus, the reality is that very few names are unique to a firm, publication or fundraiser. About 80% to 90% of consumer prospects are multi-buyers and so are in the database already, and 90% of nonprofit donors give to two or more organizations and so also are already included in cooperative data. On the other hand, by participating to access a huge pool of names rich with demographic and transactional information, marketers can tap many more optimized prospects, improve list segmentation and testing, bump up response and conversion, hone creative and offer targeting, and increase mailing efficiency.

Modeled Data Offers Cost-Effective Prospect and House Mailing

Acquisition campaigns clearly can benefit from netting look-alike prospects from the large cooperative database pool, a real boon for regional or niche mailers who struggle to find acquisition volume. The large universe also allows for more segmentation to target not only higher response groups but more valuable response segments. In the case of nonprofits, that could be high-dollar donors, for example. Profiling and modeling can create better results from house names, too. Instead of mailing the whole house file, current customers, subscribers or donors can be flagged for likelihood of response and upsell, for channel and messaging preference, for risk of lapse/attrition, and more. Plus, modeled databases offer cost efficiency via an attractive list CPM; recent, clean, deduped records that lower mailing costs; and optimization selects (or deselects) that also boost mailing efficiency and ROI. Check out these arguments for nonprofit participation in modeled cooperative databases, as well as these useful best-practices tips for commercial mailers from Chief Marketer and Target Marketing magazine posts.

Choosing One (or More) Modeled Cooperative Databases

As an industry-recognized list brokerage, AccuList now represents a long list of private modeled cooperative databases, some specializing in B2C, some in B2B, and many offering modeled names for both B2B and B2C campaigns. In addition, as a value-added option, some modeled cooperative databases feature omnichannel targeting services that allow matching of optimized direct mail names with digital media, including Facebook. We can help you choose the right solution to fit your marketing goals with the following leading cooperative databases:

  • Abacus Alliance
  • Alliant
  • American List Exchange (ALEXA)
  • Apogee
  • Dataline
  • DonorBase® (Founding Member)
  • Enertex
  • I-Behavior
  • MeritBase B2B Cooperative Database
  • OmniChannelBASE®
  • PATH2RESPONSE
  • Pinnacle Business Buyer Database
  • Pinnacle Prospect Plus
  • Prefer Network
  • Prospector Consumer Fundraising Database
  • Target Analytics
  • TRG Arts
  • Wiland

Targeted E-mail Expands Museums’ Direct Marketing Options

While previous AccuList posts focused on direct mail strategies for our museum marketing clients, e-mail marketing is also an area where our expertise can help museums reach new members, event participants, or donors, as well as improve the performance of existing e-mail databases.

Study Museum E-mail Benchmarks and Success Stories

Evidence that e-mail can be a successful player in museums’ multi-channel campaigns comes from Constant Contact’s March 2019 e-mail statistics for house databases in the arts, culture and entertainment vertical (including museums and galleries), which show overall e-mail open rates averaging 17.54%, and click-through rates averaging 6.81% for the vertical. Those results are better than the all-industries averages of 16.74% open rate and 7.43% click-through rate, plus ahead of all but 13 of the 34 verticals tracked, and far ahead of some verticals, such as technology (e.g. web developers), automotive services, salons, retail and consulting. Marketers can also use e-mail to prospect for new members, donors and event participants. For example, marketers report success with event audience building via a series of e-mails that start with a promotion linked to ticket purchase, RSVP and/or social-sharing request, then follow up with reminders prior to the event, and finish with a post-event thanks e-mail that includes a request for an online review. Other successful e-mail series reward loyalty or re-engage dormant supporters by offering special perks (such as discounts). E-mail automation can make contact strategy even easier with programmed triggers, such as a re-engagement e-mail automatically sent six months after a last visit. For some creative inspiration, check out this nonprofit e-mail gallery and Pinterest grouping of museum e-mails.

Invest in Clean, Targeted E-mail Lists

Earning response to a house database or prospect list requires a few e-mail basics: 1) personalized, targeted messaging; 2) a brief subject line that inspires opens and engaging CAN SPAM-compliant creative content that inspires click-throughs; 3) mobile optimization of the e-mail with a clear call-to-action linked to a mobile-optimized digital landing page; and 4) an updated, clean opt-in e-mail list to avoid spam filters. As data experts, AccuList’s services especially focus on the last point. For responsive, targeted prospects, AccuList’s proprietary research has identified the top choices among opt-in e-mail rental lists (plus telemarketing and direct mail lists), including lists of museum members/donors, lists of museum mail-order buyers, and lists by type of museum and collection (download our free compilation of top list datacards). For clean, targeted house lists, AccuList points marketers toward database enhancement and hygiene, including identification of recent e-mail address changes through Electronic Change of Address (ECOA) lists, enhanced targeting by adding demographics from outside lists, and expanded e-mail reach by appending opt-in e-mails to postal records.

Pair Mobile-Optimized E-mail and Landing Pages

Every e-mail—regardless of target audience—needs a clear call-to-action linked to an online page that makes that action easy to accomplish. For fundraising e-mails, check out these best practices suggested by online fundraising software provider DonorBox: 1) include a prominent Donate Now button in the e-mail with a link to an online landing page, either one page for general donations or a page per specific project; 2) include suggested donation amounts on the landing page and tie those amounts to outcomes that show how they will improve the museum and visitors’ experiences; 3) optimize the e-mail and landing page for desktop computers, mobile phones and tablets; 4) include recurring giving options on the online page for higher donor retention; 5) if appropriate include a donation “thermometer” or other graphic of progress on the donation page to encourage more donations; 6) allow for multiple secure payment gateways, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal in addition to credit cards; 7) and, finally, make sure the donation form and its processes are as simple, clear and quick as possible.

Combine Social Media Engagement With E-mail Targeting

E-mail can be a natural complement to social media campaigns, which is why social media networks themselves use e-mail marketing for customer retention. Museums can pair social media’s ability to engage and build brand, community and web traffic with e-mail’s advantage in delivering highly targeted and personalized messages, enhancing the power of both channels. Social media apps and forms can be used to capture new e-mail opt-in subscribers, for example. With platforms like Facebook, house e-mail data can be matched with the huge social audience to deliver demographics- and interest-targeted ads and promoted posts to existing names and lookalikes. Social media also is good at soliciting user-generated content (reviews, images, videos and posts), which can be used (with permission) in e-mails to boost response. And both social media and e-mail targets can be matched with direct mail for multi-channel power. Check out AccuList’s social media user lists, Facebook match and target options, and Digital2Direct programs combining direct mail with Facebook or e-mail lists.


Digital Data Feed Publishers’ Subscription Growth

AccuList helps business periodicals grow audience via direct marketing, and, as always, good customer and prospect data is at the root of marketing success. Consider a case study from The Economist, named one of the eight best business magazines of 2019 by The Balance reviewers. It isn’t only content that makes The Economist stand out. It’s a data-based audience-building strategy that has quadrupled subscription revenue over the last three years.

Customer Data and Predictive Analytics

Facing challenges in growing subscriber and advertising revenue, The Economist contracted with a customer data platform, Lytics, to shift from a print-focused to a digital subscription strategy based on customer data management, per a recent What’s New in Publishing (WNIP) post. For example, the publisher used data analytics to create content hubs, or individual pages that display digital content based on a reader’s interest for particular news topics. Tactics also included displaying offers based on the reader’s subscription status and predictive engagement score, meaning their likelihood to subscribe, derived from other readers with behaviors like theirs. And the online Economist gave readers featured content based not just on topic interest but also on behavioral scoring so readers got the type of content they wanted in the way they wanted to read it. Yet another example was a campaign for a free “Back to School Megatech” eBook, that produced a 9% click-through rate for targeted audiences.

Payoffs in Acquisition and Retention

In addition to a 4X bump in The Economist‘s subscriber revenue, the data-centric effort decreased cost per acquisition by 80%, tripled digital subscriptions, and increased time-on-site and engagement measures, per the WNIP case study post. The development of ongoing and adaptive customer profiles using machine learning went beyond simple demographics to allow for individually tailored and timed advertising and engagement strategies, such as predicting when a reader is more receptive to certain kinds of advertising or content. Retention strategies also were improved by predicting when subscribers were likely to stop visiting or subscribing.

Leveraging Data and Content for Growth

The Economist is not alone in embracing a digital subscription and data-management publishing model. The New York Times used similar strategies to boost digital subscriptions and revenues last year, even creating nytDEMO (DEMO stands for data, engineering, measurement, and optimization) as a collaboration among members of The Times data, product & design, technology, and advertising groups. The nytDEMO team offers brand marketers AI-based data tools such as “Project Feels” predicting emotional response to content and “Readerscope” identifying reader/interest audience segments. While other print and digital news operations were cutting back in 2018, The New York Times Co. used data-driven strategies to generate more than $709 million in digital revenue, with online subscription revenue up nearly 18% from 2017 and digital advertising up 8.6%. Out of its 4.3 million paid subscriptions for digital and print in 2018, more than 3.3 million people paid for its digital products, a 27% jump from 2017. Those results prompted executives to set a new target of more than 10 million subscriptions by 2025. And since NYT execs believe successful data marketing relies on quality content marketing, the revenue gains will be plowed back into content development via increased investment in newsroom and opinion operations.

 

Personalization Is Now Key to Insurance Marketing ROI

Personalization has become a mantra for all direct marketers, but it is especially relevant to AccuList’s insurance marketing clients. According to an Accenture 2018 study, 80% of insurance consumers are willing to share data to get more personalized offers, messages, pricing and recommendations from auto, home and life insurance providers. Although over 70% of insurance marketing campaigns claim to use some personalization, surveys show marketers are not doing enough to satisfy that customer demand. As a result, marketers can miss out on personalization’s proven power to improve response and ROI, lower acquisition costs, and enhance cross-selling.

Personalization Revs Mail’s Acquisition Power

While digital data often leads conversations, the importance of personalization in traditional direct mail, still an insurance workhorse, should not be ignored. After all, direct mail is considered more personal than digital by 69% of recipients, giving personalized content extra power. Direct mail also gets an average 9% response rate for house lists and 5% for prospects, per 2018 DMA/ANA data, compared with 1% or lower for other channels. Plus, for the digitally addicted, adding direct mail to digital bumps up conversion by 28%. A recent article on insurance marketing from agency Ballantine advised on top ways to maximize mail ROI, and, no surprise, personalization dominated—assuming clean, up-to-date mailing lists with important targeting parameters. First, marketers can use variable data printing and database parameters to personalize content and images to match the consumer’s life stage, so, for example, auto policy creative targeting a young single first-time car buyer differs in messaging and images from the creative for an older couple with a minivan. Next, marketers can personalize rates by taking into account factors such as the age and gender of the targeted recipient. And they can tap personal interests by leveraging affinity relationships, such as a specific sports team or association affiliation, via targeted discounts. Personalization shouldn’t stop with the mailing package but should then continue through the customer journey. Marketers can study the sales funnel to find when leads are most likely to drop out so that processes can be simplified, streamlined and further personalized to boost conversion. Simple examples include pre-filled forms and postage-paid return envelopes.

It’s All About Prospect and Policyholder Data

Meanwhile, One Inc., an insurance software company, offers a helpful roadmap to digital personalization. As with direct mail, marketing begins with quality consumer data and analysis, taking a step beyond age, gender and location to parameters that identify unmet needs and customer value for targeting and prioritization—such as a recent move, a new home, a new baby or an upcoming policy expiration date. Next, marketers need to track lead and policyholder actions to decide on the specific digital behaviors that will trigger a personalized response, say following up an online request for information with a series of lead-nurture e-mails. Then, marketers can design and test small campaigns of personalized content and process before expanding to more channels and audiences. Once strategies and processes have been developed and tested, an investment in marketing automation technology can follow, including AI algorithms using real-time data and behavior to tailor offers, customer service, cross-selling, lead scoring and more. Indeed, the advent of AI in the digital world is accelerating consumers’ personalization expectations, and the impact on the insurance industry is expected to keep rising in 2019, per articles.

Retention Relies on Smart Personalization, Too

Meanwhile, studies show personalization is also essential to cost-effective policyholder retention. One Inc. provides this example: An auto policyholder has a documented poor experience when filing a claim, putting the client in a “high risk” category for churn. Based on industry data that policyholders typically shop roughly two months (60 days) prior to policy expiration and that roughly one-third of shoppers switch carriers, marketers use the policy expiration date and contact information to send a letter 60 days before the policy is set to expire, personalized by the policyholder’s name, of course. The letter includes a personal note that acknowledges the poor experience and pledges to do better, an offer of a discount for renewing early, and rep contact information for quick response to questions or concerns.

New Survey: Online Marketing Pumps Offline B2B Sales

AccuList’s many business-to-business marketers—including business/industrial supply catalogs, business periodicals, trade shows, and recognition/incentive products—should be investing in a 2019 omnichannel marketing plan to maximize the online impact on offline buying, at least according to the latest research from Boston Consulting Group and Google. An optimal, best-practices mix of digital engagement channels—such as search, display, video, social media, e-mail and websites—with traditional print catalogs/mail, sales calls and brick-and-mortar stores can increase the marketing contribution to sales by 3% to 8%, BCG has found.

Decision-Making Starts Online, Even for Offline Buys

On average, two-thirds of B2B buyers of industrial machinery, industrial supplies, and packing and shipping products and services indicated in a new BCG survey that their purchase decisions had been significantly influenced by digital, even though the majority of buying journeys end with an offline purchase. The survey revealed that some 58% of industrial-machinery purchases were significantly influenced by online activity, even though 100% of the purchases were made offline. For industrial supplies, 88% of buyers performed some form of online research prior to purchase, while 69% then purchased online and 31% purchased offline. Packing and shipping buyers were more evenly divided in online-offline buying preferences, with 54% digitally influenced, 42% purchasing online and 58% buying offline. But it is the differences underneath the online influence data that reveal the opportunities for boosting sales. For example, spending to boost online branding ads/engagement can pay off when 75% of online industrial machinery researchers said that they consider two or more brands at the start of their buying journeys, compared with 55% of those who engage in offline research only. At the same time, 58% of industrial-machinery buyers said that they begin their online search with a product, rather than a brand, in mind. For these researchers, the manufacturers’ websites become primary points of influence.

Nurtured Online Researchers Make More Follow-up Purchases

One of the more encouraging findings in the BCG study was that online business researchers make more follow-up purchases, especially if there is engagement post-sale. When manufacturers of industrial machinery engage their customers digitally after an initial sale, those customers are three times as likely to research supplementary products, twice as likely to purchase them, and three times as likely to repurchase the product. Buyers of industrial supplies engaged digitally post-sale are eight times as likely to purchase a supplementary product of the same brand and twice as likely to repurchase the same product. Effective after-sales digital marketing activities include promoting online account sign-ups, encouraging app downloads, maintaining regular contact through e-mail or “nurture” communications, and ensuring a positive overall customer experience with the product or service.

Measurement Is Key for an Optimal Online-Offline Mix

For the best marketing return on investment, B2B marketers need to measure impacts and influences across the entire buying journey to connect digital marketing expenditures and tactics to offline sales. BCG found that measurement innovators use a variety of techniques—such as customer research, marketing-mix modeling, multi-touch attribution modeling, matched-market testing, and direct match-back approaches. For example, multi-touch attribution (MTA) is a modeling approach that attributes sales to the marketing activities that contributed most directly to revenues, using predictive models and artificial intelligence to derive statistics-driven attribution weights.  Direct match-back uses unique identifiers to tie a sale directly to the marketing activities that generated it at the individual or transaction level. Unique identifiers include credit card information, mobile tracking, in-store beacons, cookies, e-mail addresses or phone numbers.

Read more of the BCG study for survey details and success examples. And ask the AccuList team how we can help via our range of digital marketing services and Digital2Direct program, which combines targeted direct mail with social media ads or e-mail.