They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This adage has never been more relevant than now.
Not only are businesses rising to new challenges the COVID-19 epidemic has ushered in, they are facing a volatile and unpredictable economy as well. However rocky the terrain, the businesses with an agile plan based on sound market data will not only survive the pandemic, but can thrive despite it.
The repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic have been far reaching, but none more so than the mitigation strategies that sent much of the US workforce home along with their school age children. The fundamental and predictable consumer patterns were abruptly changed and a new type of economy emerged. Marketing the same way, or worse, pulling back your business’s marketing altogether is a fatally flawed plan. You must meet the consumers where they are buying; online.
According to a report from comscore.com, digital consumption in the U.S. is growing at an outsized rate. This phenomenon is not shocking as we have all been sequestered in our homes for months on end! In particular, social media visits increased a whopping 95 percent during the last three weeks in May compared to the last 3 weeks of February 2020. That is a dramatic increase that marketers are savvy to note. How can a business capitalize on this seismic shift in media consumption to increase reach and frequency metrics?
The secret sauce to any successful campaign has and always will be finding the right message and delivering it to the right target at the right time. It sounds simple, but marketers trip up on this basic rubric time and again. This is largely due to the one-size fits all approach to direct marketing. You carefully develop an offer for your target market and painstakingly craft a message while crossing your fingers it reaches said target. You expect to see a lift in sales traffic, but what if there was a way to get a 360 degree view of the effectiveness of your campaign? What if you could combine the best practices in direct mail with the trackable ease of digital marketing to follow your offers to your targets before, during and after your mailing?
Prisma has developed a proprietary marketing solution called Direct Mail 360. This holistic marketing approach capitalizes on data that optimizes your budget and delivers real-time results that are measurable and targeted to your specific goals. DM360 uses data derived from your target audience to amplify your messaging in social media. Clicks to your website, views of your ad and even calls to your phone number are tracked, recorded and analyzed to provide robust campaign optimization.
Because DM360 leverages the power of your own target audience to expand reach and frequency, it can be used for sales and marketing campaigns in any industry.
Phoenix Children’s Hospital Foundation partnered with Prisma on a lookalike campaign based on their previous donor lists. They launched an omnichannel campaign featuring social ads that complimented their direct mail and provided up-to-the-minute engagement tracking. This enhanced campaign not only saw the Foundation meet its fundraising goal, it exceeded the goal by a massive 46 percent.
In a quick-thinking pivot, our service client Poolwerx was able to shift their pre-pandemic message earlier this year to maximize campaign reach backed by real-time DM360 data. Instead of focusing on a seasonal sales message that seemed irrelevant, the message was shifted to promote Poolwerx as an essential business that was able to remain open and available to help customers during the initial shutdown. Agile optimization is just the tip of the DM360 iceberg! Retail, restaurants, professional services; all businesses looking for a targeted and trackable approach to direct marketing can benefit from this integrated approach.
As we all settle into ‘our new normal’, we must accept that certain aspects of our life pre-COVID 19 may be forever changed. The year over year transition to digital commerce growth was given a shot in the arm due to the pandemic, and it may not go back to the way it was before. With the right plan to pivot in the direction consumers have shifted during the pandemic, your business can increase audience reach and frequency and gain momentum while those left without a plan struggle to compete.
Contact Prisma for a quick demo and learn how to seamlessly integrate DM360 into your existing campaigns or drive new strategies in a targeted, measurable way.
