Institute of Directors

Project: Institute of Directors targets new members

Business Application:Personalised Membership Mailers

The Institute of Directors (IoD) is the UK’s longest standing organisation for professional leaders with over 100 years of experience in business membership and benefits. The IoD wanted to increase the uptake in new membership enquiries as well as provide an innovative service to their membership audience by implementing new communication mediums. The system, which was launched in May 2010, was expected to reduce printing and enclosing costs, to save on postage and envelopes while enabling the IoD to dramatically increase the uptake in new members and decrease the sales process lifecycle. Description

To attract new members into the IoD, the organisation has historically mailed a 4 page postcard with a BRE into a DL outer. The mailer has the name personalised to the front and a form on the inside for the recipient to fill out their details and interests. The text on the inside outlines the benefits of IoD membership. Once the form is completed, it is enclosed into the provided BRE and mailed back to the IoD sales team.

This process can take in excess of one week, and can lead to a cooling of the sales lead and a potential delay in the prospect being contacted by the IoD. It also incurs extra production time and cost from the additional postage, envelope and extra fulfilment.

Cross Media acknowledged the current approach and offered a new alternative, which encompasses the same format of the mailing piece, but with the addition of a Personalised URL (PURL) in place of the form. This enables the recipient to log on to their personal webpage and confirm or alter their details, click “Submit” and then receive a pack in the post or a call from the sales team. A notification email is sent to the sales team at the IoD confirming that someone has requested more information. They can then act accordingly by calling them, emailing or sending more information.

Case Study

Programme Objectives

• Increase uptake in membership enquiries.

• Reduce postage costs.

• Reduce cost of envelopes.

• Cut down the sales lead time.

Results

• Increased membership enquiries by 150%.

• Trebled previous response rate.

• Reduced production cost.

• Cut the sales lead time from in excess of one week to one day.

• Provided an innovative method of contacting prospective members.

Direct Mail

Effectively

Highlights

Cross Media Communications | t: +44 (0) 20 7689 8705 | f: +44 (0) 20 7689 8706Citybridge House, 235-245 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7JD

The PURL also had a “Join Now” button so that recipients could go straight to the IoD website and apply to join for membership immediately.

In addition to the PURL and the printed mailer, the IoD created a unique telephone number for this campaign so if people wanted to call them directly, they could.

The new mailer included variable images according to the recipients’ geographical. This showed that the IoD was not just in London and helped to target other regions of the UK.

Once the mailing piece was sent, Cross Media sent an email one week later which reflected the mailing piece and had a link to the recipients PURL.

The response rates from the mailing piece were excellent with many people logging onto their PURL, however with the reinforcement of the email the numbers increased dramatically.

The campaign returned a 6% response of people who logged onto their PURL, with 17% of visitors clicking “Join Now” and 24% confirming their interest and requesting more information. Once the visitor was on their PURL there was a 41% chance of them taking action and clicking through.

The email had an open rate of 17%, and 39% of those who opened them clicked through to their PURL.

In addition, Cross Media were able to demonstrate to the IoD the regions that are responding well and those that need more focus. Within the analysis the IoD were able to see the best responding industry for their membership and size of company and turnover.

All of this enabled the Institute of Directors to draw a pictureof their ideal member for future mailings so that they can beeven more targeted, returning even higher response rates.

“Cross Media helped us to plan and implement a new approach to our acquisition campaigns by incorporating DM, email and online activity.

I am pleased to say that early indications show this approach provides us with a marked improvement to our response rates, when compared to our usual campaigns. With this approach we are certainly getting a better return on our investment.

The Cross Media team are very easy to work with and very accommodating. I look forward to working together with them in the future, and I look forward to even better response rates!“

Matthew Wayne, Marketing Executive at the Institute of Directors

PURL

Email

Case StudyEffectively

Cross Media Communications | t: +44 (0) 20 7689 8705 | f: +44 (0) 20 7689 8706Citybridge House, 235-245 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7JD