RISORSE
Creating print with digital connectors (such a print piece leading to a digital touchpoint via a QR code, NFC etc.) is an essential part of the XMPie platform but do you know that with XMPie, marketers can also create on-demand print pieces triggered by an action a consumer has taken on a digital touchpoint. These Triggered and Personalized Direct Mail pieces can lure the consumer back to the digital realm.
With the XMPie platform, the communication piece is guaranteed to reflect the most recent information related to the recipient’s journey because XMPie uses live data. Any updates to the digital touchpoint are used when the print piece is triggered and produced; if the data was updated at any point in the journey, for example in a digital touchpoint like a website form, then that change will be reflected in the next outgoing print. Harnessing real-time data changes would be impossible using a static data source that is unconnected to the rest of the campaign.
Triggered email is very common in the digital world, but print has many advantages over digital. It can be more impactful and memorable than digital touchpoints. In a recent study by the CanadaPost, Direct mail was found to be easier to process mentally andtested better for brand recall. Another study by the US Post Office showed that customers react with stronger emotions to print vs. digital.
In my eyes, the best marketing campaigns should include both, each deployed appropriately according to how the consumer is reacting to the brand.
When Should Marketers Use Triggered Direct Mail?
Let’s take a look at a fictitious travel agency, Unique Travel. Like many travel agencies today, Unique Travel supplements its income by selling travel merchandise. It offers a wide range of branded travel items –such as power adaptors, cosmetic bags, sleeping eye masks, etc. for purchase on its website.
Some of the visitors who go to the Unique Travel merchandise pages will put items in their shopping cart but not complete the checkout process.
Unique Travel can use this as an opportunity to further communicate with its customer. Each evening, it prints postcards offering discounts on merchandise to all those who abandoned their shopping cart that day. The postcard has a QR code leading the customer back to his or her merchandise page to complete the purchase.
This workflow is an example of a Triggered Direct Mail piece – the postcard is triggered by the abandoned shopping cart event.
Another example where Unique Travel uses Triggered Direct Mail in response to an event, and to direct the customer back to the digital world, is after it hosts its seminars. Unique Travel invites its prospects to lectures about its tours. People register on the Unique Travel website for the event and download an entrance ticket. At the event entrance ticket are scanned so when the lecture has finished, Unique Travel knows exactly who attended the event and who registered but did not participate.
Those who attend the lecture will receive a triggered personalized postcard offering a discount for referring a friend: Attending the lecture triggers the refer-a-friend postcard. Those who did not attend the
