Should You Gamify Direct Mail?

As you brainstorm ideas for making your direct mail more engaging, have you considered gamification? In this strategy, you turn your direct mail pieces into components of a game. You might deliver game boards, tokens, or pieces of a puzzle. Gamification creates an element of fun and engages your target audience in a fresh and interesting way.

In an article written for Marketing magazine, Jennifer Browers, director of loyalty marketing, Epsilon, listed four benefits of gamification. We added number five.

1. Takes the dull out of onboarding.

Introduce your products by letting recipients learn about them by adding pieces to a game board. Or mail out a series of surveys over a period of time, allowing you to gather data on your customers while they earn prizes for the surveys they complete.

2. Get your competition on.

Create competition between household members or colleagues in the same organization.  Or create a group challenge for members of a team.

3. Bidder, bidder, bidder! 

Browers points out that auctions are a form of gamification, too. Nonprofits can really benefit from this strategy.

4. Buddy up for a good cause. 

Rewards earned in games can be used for a variety of purposes. Consider allowing recipients to donate the prizes they earn to programs and causes they care about.

5. Create long-term engagement.

Games create engagement that lasts over time.  It gives you an opportunity to send a marketing touch every few days or week.  These are contacts that your customers and prospects will not only tolerate, but actually look forward to. That’s marketing gold!

Are you ready for marketing gold? Let’s get your gamification on!

Please give us a call at 440-946-0606
Or visit our website here for more information.

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Securing Your Customers’ Loyalty

Your customers are a hot commodity. Everybody wants them. So how do you keep them loyal to you? Make your relationship so great that they don’t want to go anywhere else.

1. Market in the age of “me.”  

Know your customers well enough to give them a personalized experience. This goes beyond targeting with basic demographics like gender, age, and household income. Look at the channels your customers respond to, when they make purchases, and what they buy. Acting on this data helps your customers see that you know and care about them. It helps with cross-sells and upsells, too!

2. Coupons galore!

Consumers have a love affair with coupons, including mobile. According to Juniper Research, mobile coupons are 10x more likely to be used than printed coupons.

3. Don’t be channel agnostic.

Know which channels your customers are most likely to respond to, then use them. If a customer requires two emails to respond but responds the first time to direct mail, get them on the “mail first” list. If someone else is more likely to respond to an email than a printed newsletter, get them on the “email first” list. Keep your branding, message, and imaging consistent regardless of channel.

4. Ask their opinion.

Use response cards, personalized URLs, and other survey mechanisms to get your customers’ opinion on products, services, and potential business changes. When one specialty retailer wanted to give its location a facelift, it used a targeted direct mail piece with personalized URLs to ask its customers about products and services they wanted but the company didn’t offer. It got an earful! The retailer incorporated the most popular suggestions, and its sales soared.

5. Remember to say “thank you.”

Everyone likes to be appreciated. Send a personalized “thank you” letter, postcard, or other mailer once in a while. Attach a no-strings coupon or discount just to engender their goodwill . . . and you will.

Gaining customer loyalty doesn’t have to be rocket science. You just have to put in the effort.  

Please give us a call at 440-946-0606
Or visit our website here for more information.

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