As an agency with attribution, measurement and acquisition at its core, TV and digital channels offer a lot of what we and our clients need: primarily the ability to measure and optimise campaigns based on tangible and robust results. Therefore, when introducing a new channel into the core mix, we face and ask the same questions: will this allow us to reach the required return on investment (ROI)? How can we attribute results to the activity and track performance? How quickly can we act on our results?
Although TV and digital may typically be at the centre of our campaigns, door to door advertising can equally provide the answers we need to these questions, and act as not only a driver of customer acquisition, but also to harvest the response we get from channels such as TV, in the same way a PPC campaign would.
In an environment where consumers are perpetually bombarded with advertising, door drops offer the potential to cut through the noise. Rarely do advertisers have access to a product that goes directly to the audience’s doorstep and straight into their hands. The latest JICMail data (the award-winning currency for tracking door to door advertising engagement) demonstrates that there’s a high level of interaction with door drops across consumers of all life stages – from millennials to the 65+ market.
Therefore, when introducing a door drop campaign, there are a few elements to consider that will set the activity up from the best possible launch point. Below are our top tips for executing a door drop campaign successfully:
- Know your audience. As is the case with all channels, we have access to a plethora of data which can help us to reach the right people. Find the postcodes of the current customer base, for example, profile this against Experian Mosaic data, then target these lookalikes. Use JICMail data to validate how your target audience responds to door to door advertising, including that of competitors and use this insight for your first campaign.
- Nail down a control creative. To stand out amongst the other four advertisers’ packs that come through the letterbox, a door drop creative should have some alignment with your other media activity, both in tone and style. There are tons of opportunities to be super creative with the packs, and it’s usually the more unique formats that have a higher response rate percentage (RR%). Personalisation can be key in engaging your audience, and an offer code not only helps activation but also trackability of the campaign.
- Test, test, test. Once you have results from your control pack, introducing additional formats can help you measure results against that. Target a region specifically or exclude one in order to monitor any uplift or the opposite. If there’s a key period of the month for an advertiser, up the weight that week versus running a flat campaign. Testing should be evolutionary, not revolutionary.
- Measurement. Contrary to expectations, door drops are one of the easier channels to measure. If an advertiser can use an offer code, that’s a great way of tracking success initially. Using a geo-targeted campaign again allows us to track specific uplift. Equally, postcode matching customer data to previous drops allows us to generate tangible results. And, don’t forget to track the softer metrics – door drops can have a significant impact on those key brand KPIs.
- Model your data. After you have initial results, build a model based on these insights. What are the top performing sectors, and what has been our penetration here? We can find lookalike sectors across the UK, or just increase the cut through across those high performing areas.
All Response Media viewpoint
As an agency, door drops offers a lot of potential either to supplement a base campaign or even act as a standalone. What often holds our clients back is the initial cost for both postage/distribution and print – we’re paying the price of going direct to our target market, and the price can be over 10x higher than TV for example. Despite this though, the response rates of door drops can equally be 10-20x higher – which outweighs that increased cost.
As we’ve seen both through using JICMail data and probably through our own experience, door drops can sit in people’s homes for weeks – constantly reminding the consumer to act. For clients that don’t use door drops, you can start small – test a region to supplement a TV campaign, or launch it in solus as a national campaign, monitoring overall uplift in returns and brand awareness – it doesn’t have to be a huge campaign to see the results.
Read more information on our door-to-door services.
