Personal messages get more customer response
Gary Evans, Senior Editor -- Furniture Today, July 16, 2007
Unless you live a lonely life, you're not likely to get excited by mail addressed to "Postal Patron." You toss the stuff in the trash. But if it has your name on it and talks about a personal interest, it's likely you'll pay attention.
If you're the sender and the personal approach is flexible, easy and fast, wouldn't you use it? That's where retail technology comes in.
A company called Standard Register is helping retailers penetrate the clutter of generic messages that bombard consumers daily and get their message across with custom printed documents and promotions.
According to Rick Royall, a company account executive based in High Point, the response to personalized, one-on-one customer communications from his company is often three times as high as it is with generic messages.
It's also many times faster. And Royall says it's not all that expensive. Drexel Heritage and its retail customers provide a perfect example of how the process works.
He said retailers previously went to the Drexel Heritage Market Resource Center (MRC) Web site, pulled up stock postal cards, posters, tri-fold brochures and other marketing collateral, typically with a product image on the front and space for copy on the back, and ordered several boxes of cards.
When the cards arrived, the retailer would have someone write copy for the material, get a printer to print it, and then take it to a mail outlet. All that could take weeks, Royall said.
Now, Drexel Heritage dealers can go to the same MRC site and click on Standard Register's link, called Smart Works, which takes them to a database of stored templates. There, dealers can choose images from 60 DH collections, have someone write the copy (or pull from copy provided by the manufacturer), view a proof, attach their mailing list, push a button, and in hours it's in the mail and on the way to consumers.
The transmission makes a stop at one of Standard Register's 30 "output centers" across the country closest to the dealer's ZIP code marketing area. There, it's digitally printed and mailed. If the dealer needs mailings to specific demographics — income levels, home values, etc. — they can turn to Standard Register's sister company, U.S. Data, which will provide it.
Royall says manufacturers should be eager to participate by providing product images and other materials because it gives them control over their brand, fonts, logos and other company information. Standard Register can set a site up with the vendor, something Royall will be talking about in a presentation at the American Home Furnishings Alliance's sales and marketing meeting in August.
While the service is relatively new to furniture, the auto industry has been using this approach for more than five years. "When you get a card in the mail, they know what kind of car you own (and pitch you a new one)," says Royal. "Or you get one that asks you to come in for an oil change."
