Royal Mail MarketReach is launching a new campaign through Lida to promote the benefits of its programmatic mail service, fronted by industry champion Publicis Sapient chief Nigel Vaz and designed to drive awareness of the scheme.
The programmatic mail service was launched in February by tech start-up Paperplanes and followed Royal Mail trials in 2015.
Royal Mail and GI Solutions are backing the scheme, which enables brands to automatically send highly personalised mailshots to online customers who have visited ecommerce sites but not followed through to make a purchase.
Paperplanes claims that campaigns can be initiated within hours of a customer visiting a website and delivered within 48 hours.
Lida’s marketing campaign includes direct mail, an online animated film, and an interactive game, which communicates the message that “Smart mail delivers smarter results”, and marks the first time that MarketReach’s ‘Mailmen’ creative is being used to support a specific product.
Vaz, who is chief executive of Publicis Sapient EMEA and APAC, endorses Programmatic Mail with the line: “Now some of the smartest programmatic customer retargeting is delivered by hand.”
Royal Mail MarketReach is using the campaign to target a group of 13,000 key decision-makers at the 5,000 largest advertisers in the UK. The initial mailpack will also reach people working at advertising and media agencies on client business.
The direct mail and a follow-up email drives marketers to a landing page that features an animated educational film featuring a customer called Ben inviting brands to “put programmatic mail to the test”.
The animated creative is designed to reflect the ease involved in using Programmatic Mail and leads to an interactive game that uses a live action demonstration to showcase its strengths.
People pick a playing card from a specially-designed deck and a follow-up mailpack is issued within 24 to 48-hours, containing the chosen playing card and a personalised message.
Digital display, including static banners and rich-media that invites people to play the game in-banner, will drive awareness of the campaign.
Lida’s activity builds on the initial success of Programmatic Mail for brands including retailer JD Williams. A test campaign the company ran boasted response rates as high as 6% and uplifts in sales conversion rates 14%.
Lida chairman Matthew Heath said: “Programmatic Mail is in its infancy in the UK but it has a massive future ahead of it. It offers a unique ability to join up the customer experience, to be timely and relevant, to turbo-charge mail’s well known and proven qualities around tangibility, longevity and memorability.
“Unsurprisingly it is seeing response rates increased by 6% and conversion improvements of 14%. It has staked a very compelling claim to become part of many multi-channel media plans and to build a bridge between the on and offline world of your customers. Digital has not reduced the need for mail, it has given it a whole new purpose.”
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