PERSONAL bests
According to the plan, each prospect is to receive a full-color, 24-page booklet tailored to provide all of the information the group needs to make a decision, including the options that are appropriate for the type of event being planned. People who ask about booking a small meeting, for example, receive information only about services related to smaller venues and not larger conference facilities.
[ The Solution ]
To get the project started, contact information for dormant prospects—people who had asked for information, but who hadn’t booked an event—was used. Also included in this prospect group were people who had previously booked an event, but hadn’t booked another one in the past 12 months.
Customized booklets were, and continue to be, produced and mailed by Royal Impressions. Content—copy and images—are drawn from a database based on information collected by the sales team about the prospect. Each booklet is 100 percent variable, with the names of the event, sponsor and prospect used throughout, and the pages built from 3,000 combinations of text and images. Files are sent twice a week to the printer, where they are produced and mailed to prospects within 72 hours.
Royal Impressions produced the initial run of 1,650 booklets using a Xerox DocuColor 6060 digital production system and Xerox ASF 100 bookletmaker. Pages were prepared with Pageflex Mpower variable data software.
[ The Results ]
Based on the very positive response from the original group of prospects, Disney Destinations discontinued its use of static sales collateral. It now mails out customized booklets to 25-50 prospects a week. Both response rates and conversion rates have more than doubled because “prospects are happy to just get the information they need to make a decision.” The company’s printing and storage costs have been cut in half and, if details need to be changed, there no longer is any wasted material because nothing is printed in advance.
