Variable Data Printing

Personalisation is a proven method of maximising ROI, and by using this service you can easily personalise your mail-shot for each of your recipients. Our top of the range XMPie software ensures the most cost-effective personalisation print services on the market.

Below is case study illustration of Variable Data Printing...

Project:  Swanhouse Gathers Valuable Customer Information
Market:  Retail – Restaurant
Business Application:  Direct Marketing/Traffic Generation/Loyalty

Business Objectives
Swanhouse is a national restaurant franchise based on the concept of a neighbourhood pub where friends and family can gather to enjoy food and televised sports in a comfortable, friendly atmosphere.

The Swanhouse franchise in West London was searching for a cost effective way to reach out to their existing customers. They had tried giving patrons surveys to be filled out at the restaurant table but the completion rate was very low. Surveys that were completed by hand also presented a challenge to employees because handwritten comments could be difficult to read and data had to be manually input into a spreadsheet in order to do any analysis.

D&PI proposed XMPie as a solution that would help the restaurant achieve its goals.

• Increase its customer loyalty
• Easily obtain customer feedback
• Gather valuable ‘opt in’ data from customer (contact info, email etc.) for future marketing efforts.
• Promote new product offerings via on-line coupons

Results
The program was a success and the restaurant owner immediately gained valuable insight about their business that enabled him to determine levels of customer satisfaction, frequency of customer visits, and most and least popular aspects of the restaurant.

• Over 27% of restaurant patrons completed an on-line survey
• Demographic and individual customer contact information was gathered for use in future restaurant promotions, including close to 300 email addresses
• Business increased at the restaurant compared to the same period a year before. This was attributed to the XMPie programme because no other marketing promotions were done by the restaurant
• From the on-line survey Swanhouse learned:
• 49% of respondents visit the restaurant one to two times a week
• Over 70% of respondents felt that their dinner/lunch was ‘Great’
• Besides the food, patrons favourite thing about the restaurant is its family atmosphere

Campaign Architecture
The XMPie programme provides digitally printed cards, branded with the Swanhouse theme and distributed to patrons by the restaurant servers. Each card contained a unique URL and password and encouraged patrons to visit the microsite in order to win a guaranteed prize. Once on the site, patrons were asked to complete an on-line survey about their experiences at the restaurant. Upon completion, an email containing a prize coupon was automatically sent to the participating restaurant guest.

The restaurant owner received immediate email notifications of these visits. He was also able to immediately review the feedback from patrons via an on-line dashboard.

Target Audience and Messaging
The audience for this campaign was current restaurant patrons

Offer
Patrons were guaranteed to win a prize if they visited the microsite and completed the survey. They had a chance to win a free Kid’s meal, 10 free wings or £100 in cash.

Creative and Outbound Piece
The creative for the cards was developed by D&PI

Reasons for Success
The owner described the programme as a valuable and affordable tool for marketing his establishment. According to the owner, Swanhouse Franchise  ‘this was a huge success! I was able to build guest loyalty and gather valuable information on future marketing efforts. It worked and I plan to use it again.’

Best practices learned from this campaign are:

• Gather Customer Data. Any retail operation can benefit from collecting information on their customers. This Swanhouse franchise did not previously have contact information on individual patrons. The collection of email addresses opened up new communication opportunities that the restaurant never had before. For Instance, when a special theme day party had to be postponed due to bad weather, Swanhouse was able to send a notification email to its patrons.
• Make it Easy.  Simple is best principle is still relevant and in this campaign it is applicable in several manners.
• XMPie was a turnkey solution that Swanhouse could easily implement. The owner simply had to decide what he wanted to use as an offer and what he wanted to learn about customers.
• The response mechanism, visiting the microsite, made it simple for restaurant patrons to complete the survey and collect their prize coupons.
• Because XMPie is a complete solution it is easy for D&PI to offer this to other restaurants and retail establishments.
• Make a Good Offer. The fact that all patrons were guaranteed to win something made this campaign’s offer more enticing. The timing was also good since with the poor economy more patrons were looking to take advantage of discount offers.

Client   Swanhouse is a national restaurant franchise that is based on the concept of a neighbourhood pub where friends and family can gather to enjoy good food and televised sports in a comfortable friendly atmosphere.

Print Provider  D&PI founded in 1988 is a full service provider of integrated marketing print, internet and email and other methods of marketing communications. D&PI helps clients market smarter by offering: target marketing, print-on-demand, web to print and personalised cross-media tools. XMPie is personalisation software hosted by Xerox.

Hardware  Xerox iGen 4
Software  Xerox XMPie
Target Audience  Restaurant Patrons
Distribution  1000