Product dispatch (PD) refers to inserts placed in packages, catalogues, or customer letters sent out by retailers, such as ASOS and Ticketmaster. The portfolio of brands offering PD covers numerous sectors including beauty, clothing, food subscriptions, and homeware. Therefore, no matter what your target audience is, there is likely a PD opportunity to reach them. Utilising tools such as YouGov Profiles allows us to identify where particular audiences shop online, allowing us to place inserts in the packages of those retailers.
PD media owners report that PD inserts are more responsive than newspaper inserts, purportedly for several reasons:
• You are reaching consumers when they are in the ‘buying zone’ and endorphins from the delivery heighten attention.
• Inserts for brands less familiar to the consumer are presented in the environment of a brand they already trust enough to order from, providing a perceived endorsement and validation.
• Response is particularly high if you want the individual to react in the home (e.g. online), as you are reaching internet-savvy shoppers at home.
All Response Media viewpoint
Now is an ideal time to explore adding PD to your media mix; a recent report showed that 17 million individuals in the UK have increased their online shopping during lockdown and plan to continue this behaviour long-term. Categories such as online food subscriptions (e.g. HelloFresh) and retailers selling loungewear (e.g. Missguided) have seen a particular surge in demand, which can be taken advantage of with this particular medium. PD offers the opportunity to physically put your brand in the hands of your target audience when they are most primed to buy.
PD allows for incremental reach across almost all audiences, for example, many families with children off school are currently heavily reliant on the convenience of online shopping, so inserts in brand parcels such as Ocado provide an effective way to reach them.
We recommend testing several different retailers, creative executions, and offers. These can be tracked to determine which is most responsive, through options such as a ‘how did you hear about us?’ survey at the point of conversion, or a unique discount code placed on the insert, inciting a feeling of exclusivity by making discount codes retailer-specific.
Whilst cost per thousands (CPTs) are approximately 4-10x higher than press inserts, there has been evidence of a much greater response rate across our client base, equating to efficient acquisition costs. With one beauty brand, PD was 25x more responsive than TV. Additionally, we negotiate to secure competitive rates:
• We can often negotiate incentivised cheaper rates for brands testing PD titles for the first time.
• If your brand sends out parcels, partnerships can be negotiated in which your brand and another brand place inserts in each other’s parcels for a heavily reduced CPT.
• Should the media prove itself cost-effective, there is room to scale. Some retailers offer volumes of 500,000+ each month. In this instance, we can negotiate longer-term volume commitment deals for discounted CPTs.
In summary, the expansive range of brands offering PD means almost any audience can be reached through a medium upon which consumers are currently more reliant than ever.
Read more information on our press services.
