Connect and Delight Across the Customer Lifecycle — Part 1

Jennifer Bellin, chief marketing officer at PFL, recently hosted a roundtable discussion: Connect and Delight Across the Customer Lifecycle: Reinforce Your Campaigns with Direct Mail. Bellin explained how she has observed an evolution in marketing, from focusing mostly on new customer acquisition, to a split, pretty evenly, between new customer efforts and existing customer programs.

What’s more, according to some studies, the conversion rates for existing customers are significantly higher than those for new customers. Existing customer conversion rates are often 60 or 70 percent, while conversion rates for new customers can be as low as 5 percent, and up to just 20 percent for the best of companies. This means that sales and marketing investments go much further when you are focused on upselling, or cross-selling, to loyal customers.

Bellin was joined by Janel Maysonet, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Avidia Bank, and Christina McLeod, senior marketing campaign manager at KnowBe4. During the discussion, they discussed how direct mail can be implemented within various stages of the customer lifecycle, including both acquisition and existing customer stages, while also providing examples.

In this first part, we will see how Maysonet has been using direct mail at Avidia. Next time, in Part 2, we will look at McLeod’s direct mail campaigns at KnowBe4.

Jennifer Bellin: Today, I have the privilege of hosting Janel Maysonet, who has worked for a number of years in bank marketing, most recently taking Avidia's direct mail program to new heights. Janel, could you share how you got started with direct mail?

Janel Maysonet: Sure. We use direct mail, as well, as a way to stand out from digital. I think that digital is such a part of our landscape now that people are quick to click that “X” or scroll right through. But when they get something in the mail that's not a bill, people are usually pretty excited, and they'll pay attention to it. At Avidia, direct mail was initially mostly operational for us, and then we started using Salesforce. Then we integrated Marketo for our marketing automation, and we found new ways to use direct mail through our partnership with PFL.

JB: Very interesting. Can you tell us a little bit about some of your business goals and priorities for this year, and how these direct mail programs and campaigns will help with those goals?

JM: A major goal of ours has been a consumer product redesign. We took all of our checking products, and we totally redesigned them. We've used direct mail as a huge piece of communication about that. We're also doing a consumer digital bank redesign with new online and mobile banking. We've been able to use direct mail to communicate that, as well.

JB: Direct mail is actually great for one-to-one and one-to-few account-based marketing programs, because you're able to send to just a few highly valuable and highly engaged prospects. This allows you to have the budget to send a higher-end mailer or do something extra special. So how are you incorporating direct mail into your omnichannel mix?

JM: Direct mail is part of every one of our campaigns. They say people need to see something at least seven times before they recognize it, and we always see direct mail as one of those channels, as a part of our overall marketing campaign. We've also been able to use direct mail to communicate when we know that we don't have all of our customers' email addresses. For instance, we have some older customers in our demographic that we might not have an email for. We believe direct mail is a great way to, one, get an email from someone and, two, make sure that they receive the communication from us.

JB: Let's transition to some real-life campaign examples that are being executed across the customer lifecycle. Janel, would you like to share about your mortgage program?

JM: Sure. This is a great example of how we've been able to use automation in combination with direct mail to really engage our customers for our mortgage business. And it works through Salesforce. We are alerted through Marketo when someone has purchased a new home. We then send out, through PFL, a postcard, along with these great marble coasters. We've received a lot of really positive feedback—and not only from our customers, but also our lenders.

It can even be a really great brand piece. Say someone has a welcoming party and they have the coasters on the table. A guest might notice and ask, "What logo is that?" "Oh, that's Avidia Bank. They helped us with our mortgage." It really goes beyond just direct mail. It's a nice example of how we've been able to use automation, direct mail, and promotional items to better engage with our customers.  

JB: Well, I think this is super cool. I wish my mortgage company had sent me a nice gift like this. Let’s talk about another campaign.  

JM: As I mentioned, a goal for us this year is our digital banking upgrades. We wanted to make sure everybody was aware of a very important update that we made to online banking. With this campaign we decided that, rather than sending a huge packet of information, we would use a QR code. Recipients scan that code, which takes them directly to the FAQ page about online banking. The great thing is that we're able to update that page in real time when information changes.  It's also a nice mixed use of digital and direct mail together—and we can track through the QR code. For something so simple, there’s a lot of power behind it for communication, tracking, and engagement.

JB: You have one more—I think this looks so fun.

JM: Thanks! This features Max, our “spokes-pig.” and this is for our adventure savings program we worked up with PFL. It’s a great example of something we used to do fully manually with my team. Here’s how it works with our savings program: Kids meet a certain savings milestone, and we send them a gift card to encourage them to continue to save. Also, on their birthday, we send them a card with a note that if they come into the branch, they can get money deposited into their account.

We used to do this all manually. Our retail team would send us spreadsheets with the birthdays coming up and where they hit on their deposit level. Then, I would have someone on my team physically go out, buy gift cards, stuff them in the envelope, and mail them out. Well, we don't have to do that anymore. We've been able to automate everything through Salesforce, Marketo, and PFL. It's really given a lot of time back to my team. We probably save at least 40 hours a month in manual labor by automating this program.

JB: And what a cool way to get kids started with early saving habits.

JM: And not only is it an awesome way to encourage kids to learn about their finances and save, but it's a great way to connect with the parents. It's really a win-win situation for us.

JB: Love it. Next up is an informational letter. Tell us a little bit about this program.  

JM: All right. I’ve heard that people don’t really use direct mail that much for operational reasons. However, we do. As a bank, if there are any significant changes, we have to give at least a 30-day notice. And it needs to be written and sent in the mail. This is a really dynamic piece of the business for us.

For instance, we had to change all of our checking accounts this year. You'll see the pink areas of the letter are different merge fields, so we were able to list multiple accounts on one letter based on a list of data we sent to PFL. We deleted people who had multiple accounts and put all the info in one letter, which prevented people from getting multiple letters if they had multiple accounts with us. This really saved some money.

There was also a packet that was 28 pages long, so it was quite large. However, we got some good feedback from everybody who received it. We know that if we send something via direct mail, people will see it and receive it. Not so with email. Again, not exciting, but important. This campaign had a lot of moving parts and pieces, which is why it's essential to have a partner that knows what they're doing to be able to pull something like this off.

JB: And believe it or not, a lot of our mailings are much more like what you're showing here. They're just letters that have a lot of important personalization that you must get right. So maybe it’s not as fun and exciting, but it's very much spot on with what a lot of our customers are doing today. You can also nurture employees and engage them via direct mail. Do you want to talk about this, Janel?

JM: Sure. We redid our mission, vision, and values at the bank. And like at many other places post-COVID, a good number of our employees are actually working remotely, or hybrid, and we wanted to get the message out there to employees in their homes. On the left-hand side is a seed packet, and when you open it up, it has our new mission and vision and values in there. This was a good way to get the message out to our employees and engage them in a fun way through direct mail.

JB: One of the most rewarding things for me, as a marketer, is when someone reaches out to me personally, and says, "Oh, wow, I love that campaign," or responds in another positive way. Have you received any interesting responses to your campaigns?

JM: Absolutely. We got a great response from the mortgage campaign we sent with the coasters. A lot of the customers really loved it, and our mortgage lenders loved it too. There was a ton of positive word of mouth and some metrics. It's great to look at the numbers, but it's also great to measure the sentiment, and there was a lot of positive sentiment around that campaign.

JB: Terrific! Now, let's transition to how to build a scalable direct mail program. What did it take for you to evolve your direct mail programs to where they are today?

JM: As I mentioned before, we started out very operational, and then we moved over to automation and got really creative with it. Getting that positive internal buy-in is wonderful, because it gives us the ability to get more budget for these campaigns. And then just being creative with it, and testing it, and seeing what works and what doesn't.

JB: So, now, let’s talk a little bit about measuring. And no matter what part of the customer lifecycle your campaign is focused on, it really is important to set the appropriate metrics to measure success before you start planning your campaign. It’s critical to think about the goals first because that’s what will help determine what calls-to-action you choose, what formats, what messaging, what type of campaign. So, tell us a little bit about how you measure the impact of your direct mail campaigns.

JM: We typically utilize a landing page alongside a direct mail piece. I showed an example of that earlier with the QR code. Scan that code and it goes to the landing page. From there  we're able to track, through Google Analytics, who's visiting the page and what the traffic looks like. Many times, we'll add Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters to our campaign, so we'll know in Google Analytics what kind of traffic are we getting from direct mail, or email, or our digital ads.

JB: What advice do you have for someone who's starting to build their direct mail program?

JM: I would say be creative. People love to be surprised and delighted. If they get something different, it kind of disrupts the day in a positive way, and you really remember it. I'd also say work with an experienced vendor, such as PFL. They’ve really made my life a lot easier. There are times when we'll have an idea and our PFL rep will work with us to find multiple ways to execute that idea.

Take the seed packet, for example. There were just so many different options, and PFL helped us choose one that worked within our budget. And they're always offering up ideas on industry trends. Things like, "Put that postcard in an envelope, people might be more likely to open it," or, rather than using oversized, maybe try smaller ones—say, a four by six and see how that does. So, again, be creative and work with strong partners who get it.