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?