After watching its clients reap the benefits of multichannel campaigns integrating direct mail and the Web, marketing communications production services provider Tukaiz (pronounced Too-KAYZ) decided to double down on its own advice by blending direct mail and image personalization into a campaign that has driven the marketing firm’s own sales and branding efforts.

Last spring, the Franklin Park, Ill., company launched a baseball-themed campaign using print image personalization and state-of-the-art technology to show current and potential customers how the combination can bolster their marketing efforts. The one-time mailing was sent out in April (to coincide with baseball’s opening day) to more than 4,000 existing and potential clients nationwide.

The mailer, a 6″ x 9″ card die cut to an image of a baseball glove and tucked inside a clear envelope, featured the recipients’ first and last names and included a call to action to visit personalized Web addresses (known as a PURLs). That landing page dropped recipients into an elaborate baseball stadium scene that contained personalized text, audio and images. It also included survey questions about the campaign and the recipient’s interest in it. Finally, recipients were given a chance to win an authentic pro baseball jersey with their chosen name emblazoned on the back.

Frank Defino Jr., vice president and managing director of Tukaiz, says because the main purpose of the campaign was to capture recipients’ attention, direct mail — and personalized direct mail in particular — was a natural choice.

“We believe direct mail can be used in conjunction with the Internet in a different way,” he says. “Rather than your first start of action being an e-mail blast, it can be direct mail that makes people take notice.” Direct mail can be especially effective, he adds, because people might get five or 10 pieces of mail in a day, while they might easily get more than 100 pieces of irrelevant e-mail.

Personalization helped the piece become the start of an exceptional journey, according to Defino. “The journey begins when you receive it, because there’s a die cut with your name on it that you can see through the clear envelope,” he says.

It also created a “wow’ factor that caught recipients’ attention and kept the piece from being tossed into the recycling bin without a glance.

“You might ask ‘What does baseball have to do with a pharmaceutical company or manufacturer?’” says Defino. “But it’s not about the image itself being relevant to the vertical market you’re calling on; it’s about the image being so powerful that it makes the recipient take note. Everybody is looking for something clever.”

Recipients found that innovation in the Web portion of the experience as well. When people accessed their PURL, they came to a personalized landing page complete with flash, voiceover and background sound, all of which created a movie-like experience in which the recipient is the star, with his name announced by a broadcaster and displayed on a huge scoreboard.

“All along the way, this was an entertainment experience for the recipient,” Defino says.

That engaging experience was a home run in terms of garnering attention and building brand awareness, according to Defino. The campaign achieved a response rate of more than 12 percent, with an equal mix of current and new customers, most of whom Defino says then used the same campaign for their own purposes.

“They liked it so much we just had to modify it to make it relevant to what they were trying to sell in their own campaign,” he says.

The baseball mailer also earned an impressive 14-to-1 return on investment — a ratio that Defino says is still growing as companies continue to take action on the mailer, which they’ve held onto for months.

“Recipients do not throw direct mail like this in the trash,” he says. “People keep it because it has their name on it, and even if they don’t buy from it immediately, they hang onto it. That’s another advantage direct mail gives us that e-mail can’t.”

To capitalize on that advantage, Tukaiz plans to continue sending out mailers containing image personalization for as long as the feedback remains so positive.

“Even in this economy, there are no plans to stop marketing and stop what works,” says Defino. “We actually have people asking us to add them to our mailing list. The feedback we get from recipients is that this type of piece is very relevant to them, so that’s why we’ll continue to do it.”

Campaign Synopsis
Company: Tukaiz
Goal: “We wanted to show marketers how you can use the technology of image personalization in direct mail to attract recipients’ attention,” says Frank Defino Jr., vice president and managing director of Tukaiz.
Target Audience: Existing and potential customers
Geographic target: National
Channel(s): Direct mail, Web
Duration of campaign: One-time drop in April 2008
Mailings: 4,179 cards die cut to look like baseball gloves with personalized text that directed recipients to a movie-like personalized URL with flash, voiceover and even more personalized content.
Results: The campaign garnered a response rate of 12 percent and a return on investment ratio of 14:1.
See the piece: http://john.smith.mytukaiz.com