The IPM received the very sad news that Alan Crossman had passed away at his home in Bedford.

Alan was one of the early pioneers in Door-to-Door marketing with Circular Distributors and then Marketforce in the days when just a few companies had delivery teams across the UK delivering to millions of households on weekly frequencies, long before Free newspapers and demographic targeting came to dominate this service. His prominence within our industry was evidenced by his election to the IPM Board (ISP at it was then) and then acknowledged further by his appointment as a Fellow of the ISP. In the mid 90’s Alan then joined the wider promotional marketing services group Mailcom as Sales Director.

Alan was very well known throughout the industry professionally and socially. ISP Summer Lunches were all the better for Alan’s presence where he would ensure everyone had the best time they possibly could. He was a real character in the truest way always insightful and always a person you wanted to be around. On behalf of the IPM and its members we send our deepest condolences to his wife Sandy and his two son’s and daughters. Alan’s funeral took place on the 15^th of February in Bedford.

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In the second of our 6 featured cases from campaigns carried out through the Covid pandemic we have another case that we think showcases our industry’s specialism and creativity in overcoming very difficult circumstance.

All of the 6 case studies were selected by a panel of judges from a much wider pool of impressive work carried out by IPM member organisations and this week we are featuring this submission from Whistl.

Whistl

Campaign Management

Karen Roberts, Account Director and Mark Davies, Managing Director, Whistl (Doordrop Media) Ltd

Becs Phillips. Marketing Manager, RNLI

An impressive doordrop rescue

Many of the RNLI’s conventional forms of fundraising were closed-down due to Covid 19 restrictions, stemming vital funding. In addition, the organisation faced increased cost in ensuring their lifesavers were kept Covid safe during continued operations. Alternative methods of fundraising needed to be found to raise a targeted £880k in donations.

The RNLI turned to Whistl who by using donor data and their refined predictive modelling techniques identified specific areas to target potential donors. Whistl also provided support in the creative to help ensure it had maximum impact on delivery.

The campaign helped raise almost £1 million for RNLI, exceeding previous expectations and ensuring that Covid‐19 hadn’t meant a lost summer of fundraising for this remarkable life‐ saving cause. The ROI on this campaign was outstanding and the very nature of this technique meant that 45% of responding donors were new to the RNLI.

Judges’ quote

Whistl did what all good marketing should – target people where they are most receptive. And during a national lockdown the power of doordrops became even more relevant, helping a well-deserving cause stay front of mind even when they couldn’t be face to face, to exceed RNLI’s fundraising targets

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Whistl Doordrop Media, the market leader in audience targeting and leaflet services has announced Government doordrops have outperformed the market during lockdown with the frequency of interaction up to 4.21 and in-home lifespan up to 9.5 days. This has led to a 45% increase in the media impressions generated by recent doordrops compared to Q2 2019. The data comes from JICMail, the gold-standard industry audience measurement body for advertising mail and door drops, of which Whistl is a founding member.

Charity use of doordrop increased by 4% during the lockdown, defying an overall 41% volume drop.  Despite this fall in volume, viewing frequency for Direct Mail is 4.58; 3.19 for Door Drops; and 4.87 for Business Mail, with mail interaction up by 14%. Mail order and financial services Direct Mail and Business Mail remained resilient during the lockdown.  Travel, tourism and attractions were predictably the most impacted categories.

Whistl clients using doordrops during lockdown have experienced some of their best ever results, including:

• A furniture retailer had an 11% increase in their online sales by using doordrops despite their physical stores being closed
• A charity has received £37k donations from just the phone in the first week of their doordrop
• A food company saw an increase of 40% vs. the original forecasted response in the first few weeks of the campaign. The campaign is estimated to mature with +37% improvement in the cost-efficiency

Mark Davies, Managing Director of Whistl Doordrop Media, said:

“The recent release of Q2 2020 data shines a light on the behaviour of a nation at home during lockdown Q2 2020 was an extraordinary time in so many ways, not least in terms of media consumption. Much has been reported about digital acceleration during this period but with a nation at home the latest JICMail data informs us that all mail channels benefited in terms of reach, frequency and longevity in the home. This backs up the compelling results we are seeing from client campaigns that are live at the moment indicating that there is no better time to be planning a mail or doordrop campaign.”

About Whistl

Whistl is a £600m+ revenue, delivery management company that provides mail, parcels, leaflet advertising, fulfilment and contact services in the UK and internationally. Headquartered in Marlow, the Whistl group of companies operate across the UK, and handles in excess of 3.6bn items a year.

For more information on these services please visit: www.whistl.co.uk

Twitter:  @WhistlUKNews   whistl  Blog

For media enquiries, please contact:

Paul Donlon: 020 3355 0959 or email: whistl@owlms.com

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As the weeks slip by, the consumer road map to recovery slowly becomes clearer.

More and more businesses are opening on a weekly basis and into July, we already know when as an example, the hospitality sector can kick start its season, albeit with restrictions in place.

Leisure centres, zoos/wildlife parks, theme parks for a nation perhaps planning more for staycation rather than European travel, will all again become options.

Businesses should therefore be planning their promotional messages to existing and prospective customers and users now to ensure they hit the ground running.

All of these business sectors (and more) are existing users of door drops as an intrusive and engaging medium, so for a possibly digitally fatigued public, a bright, colourful, well targeted leaflet with incentives landing on the doormat could be very welcome by its recipients.

Royal Mail door to door have in response overhauled their entire booking process, updated and improved their incentive schemes and are already open for business.

Key changes to the process are best summarised as :

Minimum spend – There is now no minimum spend and clients can book just one postal sector if required, with the charge per thousand calculated according to rate card, details upon application.

Booking lead times – Subject to agreement by Royal Mail, bookings can now be made with one week’s notice with no additional charge and the surcharge on two-week bookings will be waived.

Seasonal incentives (the summer incentive is available NOW) – The minimum incremental spend threshold has been removed and all incremental volume in excess of previous year’s activity will now be subject to a 20% discount. Customers booking in specific weeks within July and August for the first time, will have a discounted rate applied to their entire volume.

Late Sales – The service is now extended to new users on their first activity. In addition to the discounted rate a new user already accesses, postal sectors may be booked through Late Sales, with a further discount applied.

Long term lapsed or potential large users – To enable long-term lapsed or potential large volume customers to trial the Door to Door service and prove the effectiveness of the channel versus other media, heavily discounted rates are available.

Incentive for growth schemes – The minimum incremental requirement has been reduced to 100,000 items.

Existing clients and new users should seek experienced guidance of how to maximise the potential value these opportunities present.

Approved resellers of the Royal Mail D2D service such as ourselves are perfectly placed to provide guidance on how to navigate the planning and booking process to help clients achieve promotional objectives using door drops.

We can be contacted at www.letterboxconsultancy.com or on 01992 637333 to discuss this package in more detail.

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