Boost your customer communications with clever direct mail campaigns

It’s the start of a new year. A time when businesses look to analyse what happened last year, including how effective their customer communications were at getting their brand message across. 

There is no denying that 2022 offered tricky trading conditions in every market sector. But although there have been big changes in consumer behaviour during the last couple of years (especially following the impact of the pandemic on consumer shopping habits), direct mail has continued to be a powerful and cost-effective way of ensuring brands resonate with customers. 

Well-targeted campaigns combining both online and offline marketing communications can boost your brand presence in the minds of both existing and potential customers.

At Gecko, our expert Client Services Team can provide all the advice and services you need to create seamless customer communications as you strive to build brand loyalty. Why don’t you contact us today so we can show you the benefits of targeted and personalised direct mail campaigns? Find out how partnering with Gecko can take away your customer communications headache!

Clean and segment your database to define your target audience

The first step towards successful customer communications begins with the data. We find that a lot of clients don’t have a clear understanding of who is buying their products or services, who they can target for repeat business, and prospects who may buy in the future. Gecko would always recommend that you cleanse your data at least once a year, so the start of a new year is the ideal time for action!

The advantages of cleansing your data are:

• Removal of ‘deceased’ records

• Taking out customers who have gone away

• Crossing off people who subscribe to mailing preference services

• Highlighting and substituting changes of address

By making sure you only have relevant, clean, and up to date data, you will reduce printing, mailing, and postage costs by ensuring you only target buying or prospective customers. Let us help you to reduce the stress of data cleansing by talking to Gecko today about our FREE data cleaning review.

Profile your customer database for targeted customer communications

Knowing who and where your customers are is key to producing personal, relevant, and timely direct mail campaigns. Gecko’s data analysts will take your clean data and, by using our powerful software, will provide you with a greater understanding of your customers by analysing and segmenting your data. Our data profiling service can help you to understand the demographics and who your loyal customers are, as well as highlighting areas where specifically targeted customer communications will produce the best response from a direct mail campaign. 

Our clever software will show you their location, class, lifestyle, and whether there are any postcode clusters of loyal customers. Our targeted acquisition mail tool can help you to understand more clearly who your customers are, shows you how you can top up postcodes where you have existing customers, or find potential customers with similar characteristics. This enables you to streamline your marketing communications to give you the maximum return on your customer acquisition campaign. With personalised partially addressed mail, you can engage prospects by using a salutation that reflects your brand or products, such as:

• Homeowner

• Crafter

• Pasta lover

• Home baker

• Car enthusiast, etc.

Personalised mail stands out from other direct mail by showing its direct relevance to the homeowner, making it more likely that they will read the contents.

Our dedicated team can help your brand to get noticed, whatever your budget, audience, or method. If you have an idea of what you want to achieve but need help in analysing your current data, contact Gecko today for effective relief from your data headache!

Clever designs for relevant customer communications

The great thing about using direct mail is that it doesn’t have to be just a letter in an envelope! You can use any type of mailer to hook potential new customers, whether it is a postcard, a flyer, a package, a box – you name it! At Gecko, we can help you with the concept and design of your mailer to make sure that whatever the campaign goal, your mailer will get the attention you are looking for.

Our state-of-the-art automated enclosing machines provide you with unlimited options for your direct mail campaign, while avoiding costly human errors of putting the wrong thing into the envelope. We can handle complex personalised customer communications with the option to add any items into your pack. You can be sure that with Gecko as your direct mail campaign partner, the sky is the limit! Read how we created a fully automated mailing process with more than 120,000 mailing per week for The Claims Guys.

We are also on your side when it comes to providing postage remedies and finding the most cost-effective way of reaching your existing and potential customers. We can advise you about the different methods of delivery and Royal Mail alternatives, as well as the effectiveness and costs of door drops. The Gecko team will find the best method of reaching your direct mail campaign target audience for the lowest cost through detailed evaluation of your campaign goals and budget. 

Digital print for offline marketing communications

Have you considered using all available marketing channels for customer communications in a multi-channel strategy? Offline techniques such as POS, posters and flyers,  especially combined with a direct mail campaign, can help you to target potential customers who may not want to buy online or those who do not use computers, phone or tablets to shop. 

Gecko are experts in digital printing so we understand how offline printed marketing materials can work hand-in-hand with both direct mail and digital campaigns to help drive customer engagement. We can handle:

• Any size of print run

• Any size of print including large format

• POS

• Direct Mail

Talk to us about your printing requirements and our team will manage the whole process for you, easing your stress and worries.

Offsetting carbon for greener customer communications

We care about sustainability, and we know that our clients do too. That is why as part of every print and direct mail quote we provide details of the carbon footprint for the job and the cost of offsetting it. You are then in control of the decision to offset or not on completion of the job. We send 100% of the decarbonisation element to three different offsetting projects. You can read more about how you can reduce the impact of your print in our Reduce your Carbon Footprint pdf.

At Gecko, we have your customer communications covered. We can handle everything for you from analysing and cleansing your data to designing your artwork. From print, personalisation, and enclosing requirements to sourcing the most cost-effective method of reaching your customers. Why not boost your marketing strategy with clever direct mail campaigns from Gecko? Speak to us today and let us take your customer communications headache away!

Local marketing ideas in 2023

When thinking about marketing strategies for your company, it is quite easy to overlook the audience you have right on your doorstep! So in this article we’re going to discuss local marketing ideas.

There is a ready-made target audience within the locality of every shop or business. And, for larger businesses with several outlets or physical premises, that means lots of different areas to target with marketing materials! Whatever the form of marketing, it pays to be consistent, so your business is constantly at the forefront of any prospective customer’s mind. Although postage costs have increased, this shouldn’t prevent businesses from being clever about marketing and local marketing ideas in 2023, i.e. targeting specific local areas with marketing collateral, as a way of building a local loyal customer base.

Aren’t local marketing ideas just for small businesses?

The answer to this question is, no, they aren’t! Local marketing ideas are useful, no matter what size of business and have been used by large chains to increase footfall in shop premises. Local coupon mailings are very effective in driving footfall to local supermarkets, for example. Sainsbury’s use the Nectar Card loyalty programme to send targeted offers within the locality of each store to get customers to visit the shop in person. 

However, this doesn’t mean you have to be a big retailer with lots of resource to produce an effective local marketing campaign. Local marketing ideas can be successful for any business or brand that has a physical location, where sales mainly happen in person at their place of business, as opposed to online sales – where customers could be anywhere. Whether your business is a restaurant, hairdresser, ironmongers – any company with bricks and mortar premises can benefit from a local marketing campaign. It helps to build relationships with prospective customers within a locality.

How can businesses take advantage of local marketing ideas?

The first thing to do is to decide is how far a customer is likely to travel to visit your retail shop or business premises. How long a journey do you think they would make to buy your products or services? 5 miles? 20 miles? 30 miles? If your product or service is quite specialised, customers may travel a bit further. This will give you the geographical area you can target with local marketing activities.

Next, you need a partner like Gecko. We can help you with direct mail campaigns, digital printing, data planning and processing, postage options, and marketing services to help you optimise every touchpoint and aspect of your local marketing campaign. We can also help you with the design of your collateral if you do not have a design resource in-house. Furthermore, if you are worried about the carbon footprint of printed materials, we offer you the choice of offsetting all the carbon used to produce your marketing collateral. So, how can Gecko help your offline local marketing campaign? Contact us today to talk through all your options and find out how you can increase the footfall to your business premises via local marketing ideas throughout 2023.

What are local marketing strategies?

Here are some of the most effective local marketing techniques:

Optimise your presence online

There are several ways of doing this including:

• Making sure you are listed on Google Maps

• Asking for Google reviews in your after sales communications

• Mentioning your location in online directories

• Including your location on social media pages and in posts 

• Making use of local SEO throughout your website

• Using landing pages to link to local promotions or collateral given or sent to customers

Most of the actions outlined above can be even more effective when linking them to local activities or promotions, which we are going to outline with the following local marketing ideas. 

Get involved in your local community

Joining local community activities is a good way of raising your company profile, boosting your reputation, and making sure the name of your business is in people’s minds. There are several ways of doing this, such as:

• Supporting a charity that aligns with your company beliefs

• Sponsoring local sporting events or local sports’ teams

• Connecting with local celebrities or spokespersons

• Participating in local business networking events

• Making sure you have plenty of marketing collateral to hand out at every opportunity

•  Looking into mutual or joint promotions with other local businesses

At Gecko, we can help you with: 

• General printed marketing materials to hand out at events, have as ‘leave behinds’ or to use as local door-drops, which we can also manage for you. 

• Any large format print via our large format and wide format printing machines, including signage, banners and large POS.

• Quirky POS to hand out at events to raise awareness of your social media channels and activities

• QR code panels to drive people to a website landing page (See our work for the MIND garden at the Chelsea Flow Show),

• Branded selfie frames (social media frames), detailing your event and any branded hashtags

You can find out more about how offline marketing can help to drive more people to your website in our blog ‘How printed materials can drive website engagement.’ 

Door-drops

Another very useful local marketing idea is the door-drop, which has the advantage of not needing addresses. Instead, an agency or partner posts leaflets through letterboxes within a defined location. It is a proven method of advertising for local businesses, but chains use it too – think of Domino’s, Farm Foods, Hillary’s Blinds, etc.

Door-drops can target households in your preferred location. For example a certain mile radius of your shop/place of work. Or we can create a partially addressed mail (PAM) campaign for you. 

PAM is a targeted acquisition mailing tool allows your business to see where your current customers live and targets look-alike customers in the same street. It’s GDPR compliant giving you peace of mind that you’re getting your marketing in front of new customers who match your buying customers demographic and therefore have an inclination to buy into your brand.

Gecko can create engaging on-brand printed leaflets for your local marketing campaign that are cost effective and maximise your ROI. What’s more, we can even help you to offset the carbon used producing them!

Direct mail campaigns

At Gecko, we can help you stay in front of your current customers by running regular customer direct mail campaigns. Don’t forget your current customer when running any promotions.

The Gecko Client Services Team can provide you with advice on data, strategy, design and creation, production/print, even mailing and postage services! 

Our printing machines provide any number of options for personalisation across unlimited variables for your direct mail campaigns and we can enclose C6, C5, and C4 envelopes. You can add items to the pack, and we have even produced a campaign enclosing bags of seeds! There is absolutely no limit on Gecko’s capabilities for direct mail campaigns as part of your local marketing ideas.

Build local awareness

There are any number of advertising activities available for local marketing, including:

• Roundabout/signpost sponsorship with the local authority

• Banners and billboards on roadsides, round your local football/rugby pitch

• Sponsoring local sports teams

• Bus or taxi adverts

• A-frame advertising near your premises

• Advertising in local directories, maps, tourist information etc.

• Local press releases

• Printed inserts into the local press

Using some or all of the above will raise your profile and encourage word-of-mouth-marketing (WOM.) At Gecko our specialised machines can print both large and wide formats, so we can undertake all types of POS for both indoor and outdoor marketing. Talk to us today to find out how Gecko can help you bring to life your local marketing ideas.

Combatting rising postage costs

Royal Mail has been featuring a lot in the news recently. This has led to many companies wondering about combatting rising postage costs. 

Perhaps this is not surprising, when you consider:

• We have a new monarch in King Charles III, so stamps will change

• Rising fuel costs

• The rise in the cost of living and its impact on the postal service i.e. strikes

• Sustainability: Royal Mail brought its Net Zero target forward by ten years to 2040 (announced June 2022)

All of these factors mean that postage is going to cost more across the board, with the first increases for business customers announced this month (November 2022.) So, at a time when direct mail is coming into its own and it is more important than ever for companies to establish a trusting relationship with customers, combatting rising postage costs is a hot topic.

 In this blog, we are going to examine some of the options for direct mail and other customer communications, and how these alternatives can help to maximise your budget by combatting rising postage costs.

At Gecko, we have a wealth of knowledge and experience in handling direct mail campaigns for our clients, including optimising postage costs. We understand that when setting your campaign budget, a large part of it is allocated to the cost of physically reaching your customers i.e. the postage and delivery. 

But the Royal Mail is not your only option.  So, although the recent headlines may have rung alarm bells, we can find the most reliable and cost-effective service for all types of direct mailing, ensuring that postage costs remain budget friendly.

Combatting rising postage costs: Royal Mail Alternatives

Downstream Access

Royal Mail hasn’t had the monopoly for postal services since 2003, when other providers were allowed to enter the market. Called Downstream Access (DSA) providers or suppliers, they take on the ‘upstream’ part of the postal service by collecting mail from a mailing house and delivering it into a Royal Mail sorting centre. Royal Mail then takes over the ‘downstream’ part of the process, so the post is sorted and delivered by Royal Mail employees.

Because they are only part of Royal Mail’s processes, companies like Whistl and The Delivery Group (among others), can offer postage discounts for their customers. The Gecko team can advise you about using a DSA supplier for your direct mail campaigns, and the postage savings you can make when compared to using the Royal Mail service throughout.

Door to door distribution

Also known as hand-delivered, leafleting, or door drops, door to door leaflet distribution can be a cost-effective delivery method for advertising leaflets within a town or city location. You can choose from solus or shared, so your leaflet would either be delivered on its own, or among several other leaflets. 

Of course, with this method there are no postage costs! Normally door to door distribution is priced on a handling fee per 1,000 leaflets.

Combatting rising postage costs: Campaign Alternatives

Partially addressed mail (PAM)

Using our targeted acquisition mail tool, our clever Gecko analysts will show you where your current customers live, so you can use your campaign to target look-alike customers in the same area. Because you won’t target prospects who may not be interested in your products and remove existing customers from this campaign, you are not wasting budget on unnecessary postage costs. PAM has the extra bonus of being fully GDPR compliant, so you don’t have to worry about targeting new addresses as no name will appear. You can read more about PAM here. 

Market segmentation

Splitting potential customers into segments, via a trial or small geographical location, can reduce the volume of mailings. This is a better way of maximising smaller budgets or for those companies who may be trying a direct mail campaign for the first time. Gecko’s data analysts can help you to deliver effective, personalised, targeted mailings, reducing postage costs via smaller campaigns.

Combatting rising postage costs: Optimising postage

Mailmark

Mailmark is a new alternative from Royal Mail to standard franking and uses a barcode rather than a stamp or more traditional form of printed post mark. The barcode offers distinct advantages over traditional franking:

• Machines can read the barcode instantly and it contains useful data and analytics Royal Mail can relay to their wholesale customers, such as tracking information

• Because it is more automated, the whole process from collecting to sorting to delivery, is quicker

• Because it is so much more efficient and quicker than traditional processes, postage costs are reduced

Mailsort

Royal Mail and DSA providers can offer postage discounts for ready-sorted mail. We can offer our advice and detail the cost savings as part of our mailing service.

Advertising Mail

This is a wholesale service offered by Royal Mail and aimed at helping companies to save money on postage. However, the conditions can be complicated and subject to Royal Mail audits to check that the mailing complies with their criteria. 

There are many discount levels according to:

• Size and weight of letter or parcel

• Whether the mail is sorted or unsorted

• Whether the Mailmark is used

In addition, one mail pack has to be sent to the Royal Mail Wholesale Sample address to check whether the contents of your mailing pack meet their discount criteria. This sample pack is called a Royal Mail Seed. On approval, your mailing will be issued with a licence to receive the discount.

Postage is complicated, isn’t it? But the Gecko team is here to help you through the maze, answer any questions, and recommend the most effective method that will give you more bang for your buck! 

In a nutshell, we know postal services inside out, so you don’t have to worry or waste time weighing up your options. Working with the Gecko team saves you the headache of handling campaigns in-house with the franking, sorting and collecting! Because we have everything under one roof, we can personalise, print and enclose your mailing packs for you. Our data analysts can help you to use your data effectively, reaching your target audience with little or no wastage and at the lowest possible cost. 

Why not contact us today to discuss your direct mailing plans and goals and see how we can make your campaign budget go further by combatting rising postage costs? 

The benefits of Direct Mail Automation for financial services

In our blog ‘Harness the power of Direct Mail automation’, we explained how direct mail automation can transform customer communications by providing a physical connection between businesses and their customers. Something that cannot be achieved via an app, email, text, or social media marketing. This is especially true in the financial services sector, where trust is the main driver of successful customer communications. For a customer, receiving personally addressed mail conveys confidence, professionalism, authority and above all, trust. The customer experience via an app or text message doesn’t carry this level of trust. In this blog we are going to highlight the benefits of direct mail automation for financial services and why it should be included as part of a multi-channel marketing strategy.

The benefits of Direct Mail Automation for financial services 

FCA PS22/9: A new Consumer Duty

This July, The Financial Conduct Authority set out the final rules for higher and clearer standards of consumer protection across financial services, which require companies to put their customers’ needs first. The new rules will come into force for existing products that are open to sale or renewal on 31st July 2023 and for closed products or services one year later.

The new regulations are all about how companies design, sell, service, and price their products and services, the characteristics and objectives of their customers and how they behave at every stage of the customer journey. Financial services companies are, therefore, encouraged to

• Send tailored, segmented packs to ensure every detail means something to the recipient

• Not to over-complicate communications or misguide people

• Act in good faith

• Communicate in a timely manner, so customers can make effective, timely, and properly informed decisions

An Example

The Gecko team worked with Saffron Building Society on a project to notify savers when fixed-term savings products were approaching maturity. This normally involved two separate mailings and would result in many inbound calls from confused and complaining customers. Unfortunately, the consequences cost many administrative hours, and Saffron lost customers as a result. Our team recognised that delivering the right details at the right time, relevant to individual customers, would prevent them becoming overwhelmed by too much, and often out-of-date, information.

The Gecko team created a platform using real-time data so personally tailored information packs could be delivered to customers. This included up to six recommendations, cross-sell offers, branch-specific reply devices and partially completed application forms. All the information is data compliant in accordance with ISO 27001 data security standards. As a result, Saffron has saved 235 working hours per month and customers now receive the right information to help them make informed decisions for their circumstances, with the vast majority now remaining brand loyal. Read the full Saffron Building Society case study.

The benefits of Direct Mail Automation for financial services 

Clarity of detailed information

By their very nature, financial services companies quite often need to convey complex messaging and service provisions. Such complex messaging is not easy to set out in an email, and the reader may get bored very quickly by reading a lot of text on a screen. Direct mail provides multiple options regarding layout and copy along with the longevity a customer may require, should they wish to review at a later date, or even compare benefits with different providers. Many customers prefer the comfort of having tangible mail in a physical form from their financial service providers, even though they may bank online.  

Running this type of direct mail campaign in-house can be very difficult and expensive, especially where customer communications need to be 100% secure and 100% accurate, tailored to a specific customer. 

An Example

The Gecko team worked with The Claims Guys on just such a project. Our data analysts put together a system to handle a complicated communications process for thousands of their customers managed to ISO 27001. This resulted in sending out 120,000 personalised direct mail packs per week, all with 100% accuracy using the latest available data, sometimes within just a couple of hours of receiving it.

The benefits of Direct Mail Automation for financial services 

The customer experience

Customers want to feel that they are important to a brand, and personalised direct mail can address this need and encourage brand loyalty. Recent research undertaken by Royal Mail Outreach asked people whether they trusted postal mail from certain sectors, and an average of 71% said that they did, rising to 78% in the ‘credit card provider’ category. The research also demonstrated that mail signified importance to the reader at twice the level of digital communications. 

An integrated approach, using both tangible and digital communications can improve the customer experience and encourage customer loyalty:

• Direct mail can point customers to a website or landing page

• Personalised mail may direct customers to a webpage to access documents or policy updates

• Personalised URLs or QR codes printed on a welcome pack could send a customer to a contact page, where they can download an offer code or lead magnet in exchange for their details

• Data from a contact form can be streamlined to automatically send a personalised pack to individual customers, tailored to their preferences

Gecko has a large direct mail and print facility all in house, no need for outsourcing and therefore breaking any security breaches with third party couriers/companies. We are on hand to help financial services companies with their customer communications, including bills, statements, appointment reminders, updates, T&Cs, new policies, welcome/informational packs and beyond. All can be produced in different formats and finishes to help financial service companies to convey that sense of trust, authority and professionalism to both new and existing customers. What’s more, we can even offset the carbon used in your mailing! If you would like to talk to us regarding targeted personalised direct mail, contact us and we will talk you through the benefits of Direct Mail Automation for financial services.

Direct Marketing as a Lead Generation Tactic

In this blog, we are going to talk about direct marketing, what it is, and why it can be an effective tactic for expanding your business. We will explain the three types of direct marketing and the methods employed for each, before examining in more detail the pros and cons of using direct marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy.

What is direct marketing?

Put simply, direct marketing is any marketing communications activity that directly connects a business with customers, either existing or prospective. Direct marketing is highly effective because it can be specifically targeted to certain customer groups, segments, or niches, and the effectiveness of any campaign can be measured accurately, making sure you optimise your marketing budget. Because it is a highly personalised form of marketing, you can tailor any content to the needs of your chosen target market, making it an ideal communication method for customer loyalty schemes and cross selling for example.

How many types of direct marketing are there?

There are three main types as follows:

Face-to-face

This is where a salesperson physically connects with a customer either in their home, their place of work or a third party venue.

Print

Before the invention of the internet and digital marketing, print was the main method of communicating directly with customers and is still popular today because of the opportunities for personalisation, accurate targeting, measurement, cost effectiveness and tangibility.

Digital

Since the arrival of the internet, businesses have become more and more slick at using digital communications to drive home their message. It offers the immediacy of face-to-face contact, without the associated costs.

Within each type, there are several methods of communication including:

Face-to-face:

Door-to-door selling, which is the oldest method of face-to-face marketing, when salespeople sold everything from brushes to books to vacuum cleaners directly to customers in their homes. It still exists today in a limited form for services such as double glazing and conservatories, stairlifts, and some interior design services e.g. sofa covers, blinds and carpets.

Trade Shows and Exhibitions. Industry events where the latest products are on display and new developments and trends are discussed at seminars with invited speakers. This type of face-to-face marketing is normally deployed in industries where products/services are expensive and complicated, and purchases are considered, not impulsive.

Experience Stands. You will often see this type of interaction with customers in supermarkets or at events, where businesses try to create awareness of a new product or service and they actively engage with customers by offering samples, package deals or discounts.

Telemarketing. Not strictly face-to-face, but it still offers person-to-person contact. Businesses can call prospects directly or hire third party agencies to telephone customers on their behalf. It has suffered from bad press (scammers) and GDPR and is costly and time-consuming, especially when handled in-house.

Print:

Catalogues. These are still used today, for example, Cotton Traders, Damart, Coopers of Stortford, Studio Cards and Gifts, among many. Catalogues are personally addressed to the customer, who has time to browse before placing their order via phone, website, or by posting an order form. It is normally invited via request or repeat business i.e. the customer has placed orders in the past.

Leafleting. Leafleting involves engaging a third party agency to door-drop leaflets within a specific geographical location. This method is favoured by local businesses within a given area and doesn’t offer the advantage of precise targeting.

Direct Mail. This involves sending a physical communication or piece of promotional material whether letter, brochure, postcard, package, etc via Royal Mail or a courier service, directly to customers/prospects. It is normally unsolicited and is widely used by commercial businesses and charities because it is cost effective and can be highly targeted, personalised and measured.

At Gecko, we can create a fully automated process to handle your customer communications, producing more than 12,000 items of personalised direct mail per hour. Choosing our automated direct mail services offers you many advantages over trying to handle a campaign in-house. 

Digital:

Emails. Can be sent directly to customers/prospects to invite a specific action from them -e.g. visiting a landing page on a website. It can be highly targeted, measurable and cost-effective but has been affected by GDPR laws and can be overwhelming for recipients if they receive too many. 

Text. Promotional offers are sent via an SMS text normally with a web link. Although businesses are guaranteed to contact customers, it can be seen as an intrusion. This method is best used for upselling or cross selling to an existing customer base, so has little flexibility. GDPR rules also apply.

Social Media. This method of direct marketing is growing, especially among B2B companies. It happens when customers express an interest or need via a social media channel and businesses respond directly with the product or service that fulfils that need. It is expensive both from a software and personnel perspective, but the leads are already qualified.

Read more about harnessing the power of automation with Gecko and our direct mail services.

What are the pros and cons of direct marketing?

OK, so now we have outlined the different types and methods of direct marketing, what are the advantages and disadvantages of using it as part of your marketing strategy?

Advantages:

• Precise targeting based on demographics, geolocation data, customer intelligence and buying behaviour. Read more about targeting in our blog about Partially Addressed Mail

• Measurable results through CTAs, landing pages and voucher codes give you the ability to track, measure and record the success of campaigns.

• Direct mail and email campaigns allow you to personalise your offering to individual customers. When used with a loyalty strategy, it can help to maximise promotions and upsell or cross sell to existing customers. Personalisation of mail nurtures the relationship between your brand and your customers.

• Direct marketing methods are more cost-effective than advertising, allowing you to maximise your marketing budget.

• It gives you more space to offer extra information to your customers than you could fit in an advertisement.

• Methods are flexible, giving you the opportunity to adapt your strategy according to results.

Disadvantages:

• GDPR regulations. You need to understand the law and how it can affect your campaigns. Talk to Gecko’s experts about our direct marketing services and avoid the pitfalls of running a campaign in-house.

• Environmental concerns. If you are using paper, it can turn off environment-conscious customers. It is, therefore, important to use responsibly sourced paper that has the appropriate credentials.

• Annoyance factor. Both direct mail and email marketing can annoy customers and make them less likely to buy more products from you in the future. This is why it is important to be as targeted as possible. Avoid negative associations for your brand by using Gecko’s Partially Addressed Mail and Intelligent Door Drop services.

• Competitor campaigns. If customers receive a high number of direct mail communications or emails, your message may be lost in the ‘noise’. Make sure your communications stand out by using Gecko’s direct marketing services.

• Low response rates. Response rates are normally around 1-3%, so again targeting is important to keep costs viable and avoid waste.

At Gecko, we leave no stone unturned to optimise every aspect of your marketing campaigns through our direct marketing services. Call us today to see how we can help you to obtain the desired result for your brand.

Harness the power of Direct Mail automation: Transform your customer communications

Direct mail continues to be a key channel in the marketing mix, especially as a tangible letter or marketing pack landing on the doormat provides a level of physical intimacy not offered by digital communications. It is an invaluable tool to make brands stand out in customers’ minds and can help to build long-term loyalty. Many companies still choose to handle their direct mail campaigns in-house, using limited time and resources to print documents, fold them and stuff them into envelopes. But these companies haven’t realised that they can harness the power of automation by using direct mail and print services to transform this costly, resource-heavy internal process into a smooth and streamlined one.

Automated transactional and marketing direct mail has a positive impact on customer service, perception, and loyalty. You can greatly improve the efficiency of your mailing requirements, such as speed and timing of invoices, leaflets or any other form of print required by your business, through choosing a direct mail and digital print agency.

At Gecko, our team use our state-of-the-art marketing technology, digital printing, and direct mail services to create a fully automated process to handle customer communications, no matter how complicated. We can produce more than 12,000 personalised items of direct mail per hour across an unlimited number of variables. The process streams up-to-date customer data, so the latest information is used to personalise and address letters or direct mail packs. Why would companies do this in-house when they can harness the power of automation by contacting Gecko today?

Harness the power of automating your direct mail: The benefits

Choosing an automated service for direct mail has many advantages over using an in-house mailing operation.

1. It is quicker and more efficient

Can your printers and staff product more than 12,000 pieces of direct mail per hour? Hiring staff to put together marketing mail packs or 100s of letters is expensive while using current employees to stuff envelopes takes them away from their normal work. Why wouldn’t you harness the power of automation for greater efficiency and to lower costs? This means you can channel existing resources on achieving the value KPIs required to develop and grow your business. The Gecko team will automate the entire process, streaming the daily data collection, printing, folding, enclosing, and mailing on your behalf, so your time and resources can be concentrated where they bring the most value to your business.

2. Reduce overheads

How many printers running at full speed would you need to buy to print your direct mail packs? And is the print finish as professional as using an external digital print and direct mail service? The purchasing and maintenance of printing equipment is costly, and if you are charged on a pay per click basis, direct mail campaigns can prove very expensive. At Gecko, our world-class digital printing facility guarantees ultimate personalisation across an unlimited number of variables at immense speed. In addition, we have all the materials needed in stock and our equipment can run 24/7, so you can harness the power of automation to reduce your overhead costs. 

3. Reduce variable costs

The preparation, print, and enclosing of direct mail is resource heavy. Paper, ink, envelopes – all have to be bought in, stored, and managed. Staff may have to be hired to handle the extra work and running printers for extended periods will increase your energy bills at a time when energy costs seem to be rising exponentially. It can also be a challenge to plan and allocate adequate resources for fluctuations in the volume of customer communications, especially when you have staff working from home, employees off sick with Covid-19, or during busy trading periods. At Gecko, we can increase manpower and shifts during busy periods as and when demand is higher. Moreover, we are confident that you will make substantial savings on your direct mail campaigns by contacting us for your mailing requirements.

4. Avoid costly mistakes

Relying on manual envelope stuffing is more likely to produce mistakes, such as putting a letter addressed to one person in an envelope addressed to another. This can irritate customers, or even more seriously, give them a reason to think whether they want to continue doing business with you. Thankfully, Gecko’s fully automated process avoids these costly human errors, streamlining data and print to improve customer service, reduce waste, and ensure accurate, time-effective customer communications.

5. Mail collection

Working with us at Gecko for your customer communications removes the headache of having to frank all the envelopes and organise a Royal Mail collection to pick them up. When your direct mail packs have been personalised, printed, and enclosed, Gecko’s mail fulfilment service helps you to reach your audience efficiently and effectively, while you reap the benefit of lower postage rates.

6. Compliance

Following the introduction of GDPR, there has been concern about the collection and uses of third-party data for mailing campaigns. But the Gecko targeted acquisition mail tool takes away those concerns. You can read more about our Partially Addressed Mail (PAM) software tool and the advantages it brings to targeted direct mail campaigns here.

A Case Study 

Some of our clients such as claims companies and debt management companies are in the financial sector, and they may have to act within certain deadlines and conform to specific regulations. Running such campaigns in-house can be problematical because their customer communications have to be secure and sent quickly with 100% accuracy to be effective. 

As an example, the Gecko team worked with The Claims Guys, the UK’s leading claims handling company, when they required a secure and efficient way of managing their very complex communications process. We harnessed the power of automation to put together a system for handling their communications process for hundreds of thousands of customers. The results speak for themselves with an 18% improved conversion rate equating to £6 million increase year on year. We sent out more than 120,000 personalised direct mail packs for them every week with 100% accuracy, all turned around at speed, sometimes within a couple of hours of receiving the latest data! You can read the full story here.

We are proud that Gecko made it happen for The Claims Guys along with many other clients, so if you are looking for an improvement in conversion rates through direct marketing packs, why not talk to us today to see how you can harness the power of automation to make it happen for you too? 

Offline Marketing: How printed materials can drive website engagement

During the last 10 years or so, marketing campaigns have been focused on the digital, rather than the print medium. But savvy marketers are starting to realise that optimising content is about using all the available channels, not those solely online. Although online and offline marketing goals may not be the same, by combining both techniques in an multi-channel marketing strategy marketers can make sure both campaigns work together for maximum brand engagement and improved ROI.

What is offline marketing?

Offline marketing encompasses strategies which can’t/aren’t done online, including more traditional marketing techniques, for example:

·       Point-of-Sale graphics (POS)

·       Posters

·       Print advertising (including large format like hoardings and bus stops)

·       Direct mail

·       Flyers/printed brochures

These can be used to target those customers who may not want to buy online: those who don’t have up-to-date technology; or those who are not au fait with the latest gizmos and gadgets. What’s more, traditional print campaigns cut through the ‘noise’ of digital campaigns and the bombardment of consumers with online adverts and promotions.

At Gecko, we know the power of the printed word and good visuals in an offline marketing campaign. That’s why we love working with our clients to make their digital print and direct mail campaigns more responsive, cost-effective, and most of all, profitable. If you would like our help with data, strategy, creative, production and implementation of your offline campaign, why not speak to us today?

Why does offline marketing work?

If you think about it, customers still go into shops to collect orders, try on clothes, and look at products in the ‘real world’.  These experiences cannot be replicated online. Offline marketing, therefore, offers something online marketing cannot because it is tangible, for example, a flyer, brochure, or card, or a personalised letter taken out from its envelope.

Direct mail campaigns can be extremely useful in building brand recognition because marketing materials go straight into people’s homes. It is a very personal way your brand can communicate with and engage customers via physical contact with your print media. Something social media cannot offer. Direct mail was chosen by the UK Government to communicate with its citizens during the Covid-19 pandemic, simply because it is a tried and trusted two-way process of getting attention and communicating information.

How many people will see advertising hoardings, bus stop adverts, or vehicle livery while they are driving? People cannot be on the internet and driving at the same time, so these are very effective marketing tools for building brand recognition and engagement, but they can also be used to generate more online traffic too.

How offline marketing can boost traffic to your website

Include digital information on printed materials: The first thing is to make sure that digital channels are included on printed marketing materials. Businesses can drive more traffic to a website simply by including it on adverts, mailshots, brochures and flyers.

Add specific web addresses and/or QR codes: Taking this one step further, printed materials can include a QR code that will take customers to a specific landing or sales page on a website. This page could be a sign-up page for a lead magnet or offer code, whereby useful information about customers is captured to use in other campaigns - email marketing for example. Alternatively, it could offer a specific discount code for a customer’s next online order, booking or even tickets to a real-life event. The advantage to your business is that your marketing team can track the metrics from this page to calculate the effectiveness of the offline campaign. It enables you to see how many people visit your website as a direct result of the flyer/brochure/mailshot, allowing you to calculate an accurate ROI.

Partially Addressed Mail

For a more personal touch, you can talk directly to customer groups within a specific geographical area through a Partially Addressed Mail (PAM) campaign. You can read more about how Gecko’s targeted acquisition mail tool can help your business through Partially Addressed Mail campaigns here. The mailer pack/graphics can include a QR code with an embedded url or purl (personalised uniform resource locator).  This is especially useful when business has physical locations with their own microsites, for example individual garden centres owned by one umbrella company.

·       The PAM campaign targets people within a geographical location

·       The QR code on the printed material sends them to a landing page or microsite

·       The landing page or microsite gives them a discount code for an online shop or to use in a local store, (or both!)

The example used above has the added benefit to your marketing team of being trackable and accountable at every stage of the campaign, giving you accurate reporting information about the campaign. To find out how Gecko’s targeted acquisition mail tool can increase customer response rates and improve engagement with online channels using our Partially Addressed Mail services, call us now on 0113 391 0704 or email us at hello@gecko.co.uk.         

POS

If your business has physical premises, we can add QR codes and hashtags on to printed POS graphics, whether hoardings, posters, or giveaway flyers. In addition to landing pages, QR codes can link directly to social media platforms, inviting people to follow by including statements like ‘tag and follow us on Instagram/Facebook for offers and giveaways’. Printed POS materials can also encourage social media engagement by including hashtags so customers can join the conversation or post their own experiences or purchases.

We were thrilled when @MIND got in touch with us to produce offline marketing collateral for their garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. We produced QR paddle boards for people to pick up and scan a QR code. The address on the graphics pointed visitors to their gold medal-winning garden to their informative garden webpage on the @MIND website.

QR codes on printed materials can also be used to make online events accessible, to promote hybrid in-store/online events, or even to advertise contests or giveaways both offline and online, for example, ‘apply online or in-store for your free giveaway’.

The @MIND campaign we described above is just one example of how offline marketing can be incorporated into an multi-channel marketing strategy to help to drive more traffic to websites, social media channels, online promotions, campaigns, or events. At Gecko, we are experts in digital printing and direct mail services, so if you would like to learn how to get more online response from your digital print and direct mail campaigns, email or chat to our experts today.

Partially Addressed Mail: target customer groups without worrying about GDPR

Since the introduction of GDPR in May 2018, there has been increasing unease about what constitutes third party data and wariness about its uses. At Gecko, we have found that clients have become concerned about what direct mail they can send, and to whom. This has made it very difficult for businesses to reach customer acquisition targets via a direct mail campaign. But what if you could reach new customers, even without full data? Partially Addressed Mail offers a smart solution for tackling these issues without using comprehensive data because there are no personal data requirements, thus avoiding any GDPR concerns or issues.

The Gecko targeted acquisition mail tool allows your business to see where your current customers live and targets look-alike customers in the same street. It can also target customers who match your top demographic who may already have the inclination to buy into your brand.

How does it work?

Partially Addressed Mail software contains a Postcode Address File or PAF. This file contains 1.8 million UK postcodes, with more than 30 million addresses – both residential and business. The file is kept up to date by Royal Mail postmen and women, who check and update records daily.

The software uses two methods. The first allows you to ‘top up’ postcodes where you already have a lot of customers, adding potential customers in the same postcode areas; and the second finds ‘look-alikes’ that have similar attributes to your ideal customer, using geo-demographic targeting software. Using both ‘top up’ and ‘look-alike’ methods can provide good coverage of potential customers for all your direct marketing campaigns.

Gecko uses this software (under licence from Royal Mail), to match your customer data and allows you to target small groups of households by their full postcode. The software enables you to remove your existing customers from the data, so you are not wasting budget targeting those who already buy your products or services.

Partially Addressed Mail is an ideal marketing tool if your company already has an active buyer persona*. You provide us with your current customer data, and we will run it through our profiling software to establish the target audience for your campaign. Once we have your target audience, we run this data through the Gecko targeted acquisition mail tool which details new ‘top up’ or ‘look-alike’ potential customer addresses for your brand.

Personalising Partially Addressed Mail

You may think, that without the householder names to go with the addresses, your direct mail pack could be at a disadvantage. But you can still engage potential customers by using a default salutation that fits in with your campaign strategy, or one that reflects your brand. For example, you can use titles like, homeowner, gardening enthusiast, pasta lover, DIYer etc., any title that reflect your brand or specific campaign message. This ensures that your direct mail stands out from competitor communications and demonstrates its relevance to the householder immediately, hooking potential  new customers for your business.

Gecko is a smart direct mail and digital printer with clever data processing staff, who can help you to plan your campaign and decide on nature of the pack based on any given outcome. You can use any type of mailer to attract attention, it doesn’t have to be boring. We have all the equipment on site to digitally print and enclose any direct mail pack so often advise our customers to do the exact opposite of boring! We have machines that can affix products like seed packets and teabags into your direct mail pack, so your mailer can be exciting and unique, making sure it gets the attention you are striving for.

Perfect Home is just one illustration of how Gecko’s targeted acquisition mail tool can help clients to target customers effectively using  Partially Addressed Mail.

Increasing the response rate for our clients matters to us, so if you would like to see what the Gecko targeted acquisition mail tool and our data processing team can do for your direct marketing and customer acquisition campaigns, call 0113 391 0704 or email us at hello@gecko.co.uk.