Giving transparency
to cross-media marketing
With cross-media marketing, the possibilities are vast. Yet so many businesses aren’t using this personal medium to its full advantage. Our goal was to show area marketing managers what is possible with cross-channel communications. The pull? An event at a local art museum—to highlight the creative possibilities of cross-channel communications!
Our invite gave transparency into how we used variable data to personalize each piece. We wanted clients to understand exactly how they could segment, personalize and target audiences in a tailor-made, engaging way. The print piece included a PURL (YourName.IsACrossMediaMaster.com), highlighted the personalization throughout, and contained a personalized watercolor set so invitees could truly paint their own picture.
Excellent open rates led to high attendance and a successful event.
At Cipher, we practice what we preach. We don’t talk to strangers—and we won’t let you either.
Practicing what we preach, Cipher promotes highly-attended event using personalized, transparent cross-channel marketing.
The Process
When we created this multi-platform marketing campaign for our Art of Cross-Media Symposium, the goal wasn’t just to drive attendance to the event. It was to inspire our audience to think about cross-media marketing in new ways. The strategy? Demonstrate—live—all the marketing insights that speakers would share during the symposium.
We developed a hybrid campaign that showcased every element in the modern marketer’s toolkit: Great design, customer data, digital printing, personalized response options (plus a clever gift). The project involved multiple customer touches over 3 weeks. Each printed piece addressed the customer by name and industry; a QR code and PURL led to a personalized web page with registration info. (In one mailer, photo that previewed a special gift even included the recipient’s name on the mailing label—that’s the power of variable-data printing.) Follow-up e-mail marketing continued the custom messaging.
1 Save the Date Mailer
We started with our targeted mailing list of local marketing directors and professionals. The save the date was generic and introduced the event to recipients.
2 Postcard with Personalized URL (PURL)
The first mailer had general information regarding the event: speakers, content to be covered, who should attend and why. The piece also explained information regarding the mechanics around the actual promotion of the event itself. The call to action was to visit a personalized URL to register. Registrants would receive a free personalized gift.
3 Event Information Brochure
The second mailer had more granular details of each of the speaker’s presentations. Call to action remained the same: register and free gift.
4 Personalized Gift
Each registrant received a personalized onsite guide with a paint by numbers cover incorporating their name, along with a water color set. On the day of the event, we had several attendees bring their completed cover – none of them are hanging at the Museum, but they were still great to see.
Results:
19% of recipients visited their pURLs
11% of recipients attended the event
