Fantasy Marketing Guide: Part of a series stressing the importance of integrated marketing

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(Read about combining Radio + Mail)

Though N’Tini’s New Orleans Steak & Martinis is renowned for its contemporary take on two legendary food ’n’ drink staples, management at the steak joint wanted to raise the restaurant’s profile even higher. Well known throughout the greater New Orleans area for its lively dinnertime ambiance, this Big Easy watering hole needed to sizzle up its lunchtime traffic. “They wanted to make sure that people didn’t just associate them with a dinnertime experience,” says Renee Hall, VP of business development for marketing technology company Dukky.

N’Tini’s and Dukky partnered to create an initiative that leveraged direct mail, personalized URLs (PURLs), social media and e-mails. Titled “Let’s Meat Up for Lunch,” the integrated N’Tini’s campaign was made irresistible by its offer of a free burger and fries during lunch hours only.

About 6,700 postcards measuring 6” x 9.5” were sent to customers within a three-mile radius of the restaurant. The postcards instructed customers to log on to their PURL, where they were walked through a four-step activation process, given the chance to share the offer with friends through e-mail and on over 300 social media networks, and then encouraged to print the offer for redemption at the restaurant.

More than 450 people responded from the mail piece, activating their PURL and sharing the message with friends. That resulted in an additional 2,469 customers visiting the site for a total response of 2,949. Of those, 333 users shared the offer on Facebook and Twitter and through e-mail.

Ultimately, a total of 1,311 people visited N’Tini’s site through shares. Sixteen percent of N’Tini’s redemptions were from postcards. The rest were from social media and the web.

Tips to Successfully Partner Social Media and Direct Mail

Use social media to promote your direct mail

Instead of sending customers to your website, try directing them to your Twitter account or Facebook page. Then alert your customers to look for a discount offer coming soon to their mailboxes. “Once they are there, you can also almost have them sign up for your direct mail list instead of blanketing the area,” says multichannel consultant Akin Arikan.

Build the drama

“Every social marketer’s hope is that a campaign or product will go viral, but that’s actually hard to do,” Arikan says. But a Facebook alert has more of a chance of becoming an online sensation. “Imagine you had something very valuable to send via mail, something very interesting. That could be quite viral.”

Be consistent

According to CMO Council VP Liz Miller, social media could veer off-message, so be consistent: “If your company motto is ‘We work harder,’ you don’t put up Twitter feeds saying ‘I think I’m going to close down early because it’s slow.’ Don’t negate your brand message.”

Face the facts

“Social media isn’t a fad,” says Dukky VP of business development Renee Hall. “It is part of life and people have made the transition. We see campaigns that our clients are running and they’re reaching demographics from a very young audience to a much older audience. They’re all very responsive.”

Use direct mail to build your customer database

Says Hall: “Combining print with some sort of interactive tool allows you to really build a database list, rank your direct mail and build a relationship with customers.”