FedEx Web Development
Marketing Communications Manager Website
Problem: This site addresses two issues. The first one involved the logistics of creating a quality marketing list for sending direct mail. The marketing group either made the list as clean as possible before fulfilling the campaign, or they sent each sales rep their portion of the list as an MS Excel file. The sales rep would then correct, add, or remove accounts as required and send the list back to the marketing group for consolidation. The second issue resulted from the sales reps’ need to put information in front of customers ASAP once a selling opportunity was identified. FedEx sales reps speak with several customers a week about the numerous products and services the company has to offer. It is costly, and it takes an immense amount of time and resources to print, store, and fulfill multiple communications for an unknown need.
Solution: The solution to these issues was to create a communications manager web site that allows the sales rep the ability to cleanse lists in a central location, manage customers, and communicate the correct message in a timely manner. There are many workflows and processes on the site to manage the administration and execution of cleansing a Marketing list. Marketing professionals and analysts can load lists easily to the site by uploading a MS Excel spreadsheet to the website. When a rep logs on to the system, the system determines their territory assignment and allows them to cleanse or review only their portion of the list. As the list is being cleansed, the Administrators review the progress of who has or has not reviewed their list and the extent of the changes being made. To solve the problem of the timely direct mail sales communications, the site ties into a printing system with an international printer. The site allows the user to choose recipients from their list of customers. They then choose from a library of direct mail pieces that are ready to be printed on demand. The sales rep reviews the piece to get a more detailed understanding of its intended use. This ensures that each piece is used correctly. Modifications such as name, phone, personal message, etc. are made, and the piece is sent. The sales rep is then able to track the status of the direct mail piece on the site.
Results: The centralization of the communications lists is saving approximately 40 man hours per list by removing the need to send and reconsolidate the lists. The group sends about 12 communications per year. This is a total time savings of 480 hours of a person’s time. About 40% of the records in the lists are being corrected, deleted, or added. Considering that 40% could have gone to the wrong persons or the wrong address and each piece costs between $1.00 and $2.00 to print, fulfill, and ship, If 100,000 communications were sent that could be a savings of $40,000.00 in targeting communication on one list. The direct mail communications on demand is a little harder to give an ROI for. But there are some returns that we know the customer is seeing. One, they do not have to lay out the cash up front to print thousands of direct mail pieces. Two, there is no waste. All pieces are printed and sent to a user identified by the sales rep only when needed. Three, the company is able to offer many more communications at a very small cost. The cost to produce 100,000 of the same piece is much less than the cost for an on-demand piece, but the value and timeliness of getting information to the customer is greater, and the cost is the same or less and the rep has more direct mail pieces to select from.
