Ebi, experts in interactive marketing, has designed and developed the Digital Direct Mail (DDM) product, which enables brands to run interactive direct mail campaigns with letters that incorporate a button-press ‘call-to-action’, transmitted wirelessly through IoT technology.
Working with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Ebi delivered a campaign to inspire drivers to book a test drive. Ebi dispatched personalised DDM packs, incorporating vehicle graphics, specifications and a replica of the ‘start/stop’ button from the vehicle. Simply by pushing the button, the recipient could request a test drive.
The campaign was a huge success. Compared with the industry standard response rate of 5%, response rates for the JLR campaigns of up to 50% are unprecedented. With a 49x return-on-investment, Ebi went on to win the Data & Marketing Association award for ‘Best Use of Mail’.
We caught up with Luke Thomas, Business Development Director, and Charlie Stewart, Development Lead, to find out how implementing Daizy has helped reduce time to market, improve client engagement and streamline campaign production techniques.
Putting the digital in direct mail
I started by asking Luke how the DDM product came about. “We had the concept of combining our success in physical marketing channels with digital marketing techniques.” Explained Luke. “Low powered, low cost IoT devices were the perfect fit and we developed our own device, packaged into a product that fits through a regular letter box. Featuring a simple touch button, LED activation and a light sensor we took that to market with JLR, providing the real-time connectivity to encourage people to engage with directly with JLR’s sales teams.”
Real time performance monitoring and engagement
Luke explained the advantages the DDM product brings over standard direct mail. “Our Ebi application ‘DDM Cloud’ allows us to run the business logic of the campaign on the Daizy platform, receiving button presses from letters and orchestrating the customer journey for the response. Whether it’s to send an SMS, email or WhatsApp message or post the data into our client’s CRM. With Daizy, we’re able to quickly customise the digital campaign to meet the needs of the brand.”
“With Daizy managing our digital infrastructure, we’re able to focus on optimising the customer experience.”
Luke Thomas, Business Development Director
With data flowing directly from DDM products delivered to customers, Ebi and the client can monitor the performance of campaigns and adapt the customer experience in real-time. “With Daizy managing our digital infrastructure, we’re able to focus on optimising the customer experience. We’re bringing marketing optimisation technologies previously used in web and digital channels into direct mail – such as real time A/B testing, conversion and goal funnel monitoring. We know exactly which leads originate from the letter arriving on the customer’s door mat.”
Building for scale
As uptake of the DDM solution accelerates, scalability and efficiency in production line delivery and campaign management has become increasingly important to Ebi.
I asked Charlie Stewart, Development Lead at EBI, how Daizy has impacted production of the DDM packs. “In order to prepare the products for delivery, we had a dedicated team manually inputting personalised data to match each pack with a specific individual. Obviously, accuracy is critical and so we have to be meticulous about how data is added.”
“With Daizy, our campaign preparation practices are around 40x more efficient.”
Charlie Stewart, Development Lead
“For around 5,000 personalised packs, it would take up to 3 weeks to add and check all the data, it now takes just 3 hours and is as simple as uploading a spreadsheet and cross-checking. With Daizy, our campaign preparation practices are around 40x more efficient. Daizy enables us to be extremely competitive in the market, while also maximising the profitability of our solution.”
“We can manage existing, new and any future devices in a single platform, regardless of what technology we decide to go with.”
Charlie explained how the Daizy platform has allowed Ebi to innovate more quickly without the continual refactoring and the costs associated replacing old hardware. “Initially, we were using a single device type, but we also now have a new product that captures not only the button press but also the pack opening, so we can understand the open to button press rate. We’re always working on devices and device enhancements and the beauty of Daizy is that we can manage existing, new and any future devices in a single platform, regardless of what technology we decide to go with.”
“Our clients love the real-time and transparent nature of our analytics.”
Luke explained that the benefits of using Daizy have extended well beyond developing and producing the DDM packs, helping Ebi to streamline and enhance reporting and engagement with their clients: “Before Daizy we were manually preparing reports and submitting them to the client 4 or 5 weeks after we had launched the campaign, where now we have real time analytics in the Daizy platform. Not only have we automated a previously laborious reporting task, our clients love the real-time and transparent nature of our analytics.”
Ensuring sustainable growth
With a growing number of DDM products in the field, recovery and re-use is an important part of the solution. “As a direct mail business we’re acutely aware of the environmental impact in delivering large direct mail campaigns on behalf of our clients.”
“For every letter we dispatch we provide a prepaid envelope for the customer to return the electronic letter to us. Daizy’s lifecycle management capability allows us to quickly re-stock and reuse the device for future campaigns, avoiding a large amount of electronic waste.”
A trusted partnership
At Daizy, we love to get involved in concepts and work them through to fully scaled solutions.
“Working with Daizy has been a breath of fresh air.”
Luke Thomas, Business Development Director
That approach has translated into a very strong relationship with Ebi, as Luke explained: “Working with Daizy has been a breath of fresh air. Daizy have fed into the vision for our product and how best to develop future iterations – they have become a trusted partner for our business.”
If you’re looking for a partner to get your IoT concept up and running, or you’re moving to the next step in scaling your IoT business, we’d love to talk to you – please get in touch today.
