Maximum impact assured with customised mailshot

4 July 2008

Turner & Company are commercial insurance brokers and independent financial advisers based in Leicester. The company provides broking services to clients across the UK for all classes of business insurance, risk management and personal insurances. Its independent financial advisers provide expert advice on corporate and individual life assurances, pensions and investments.

The company asked Quiet Storm to design an attention-grabbing mailer that could be customised with information from its own database. Variable data direct mail is extremely effective and has proved to result in a success rate 34% above that of mail merge direct mail. A powerful message can be devised by incorporating each recipient’s name or other information specific to their business, in a relevant image. Additional variable information can be used throughout the text to personalise the mailer even further.

The purpose of Turner & Co’s mailshot was to generate appointments with prospective customers over a 12 month period. Their Account Managers would be given the mailers for their prospect list with the instruction to send each one out a week or so before the individual policy renewal date that was printed on it.

Quiet Storm offered a choice of design concepts to Turner & Co, each conveying the message in a different way. The design finally selected used DL size card and the strap-line ‘the clock is ticking’. It called for one hour of the prospect’s time to discuss their insurance needs before their current policy came up for renewal. Impact was created by including the prospect’s renewal date in a calendar graphic as well as in the general text. Their name and address was printed on the reverse alongside details of Turner & Co’s range of services. By making the message highly personal to the recipient and their business needs the chances of it being read and acted upon greatly increase.

The whole design and print process was handled in-house by Quiet Storm’s On Paper team who liaised closely with Turner & Co to create more than 1,300 personalised mailers.

Company Director, Lee Turner said: “The variable data mailing is a different and refreshing approach to this area of our marketing and we are pleased with the finished result. Being able to incorporate a range of prospect specific information in one eye-catching communication is a great stride forward. We are still in the early days of this initiative but are aiming for an increase in our appointment ratio and a positive return on our marketing investment.”

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