Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)

Proof in the Pudding: AutoNation Saves Big With New Personalization Strategy
October 22, 2008

I’ve been talking about saving money and increasing marketing effectiveness at the same time. Let’s look at a high-profile example.

AutoNation, the largest U.S. retailer of new and used vehicles, wanted to streamline its marketing materials. AutoNation consists of 383 different franchises, comprising 35 different brands, in 17 states. Philosophically, it was committed to personalization, but imagine the nightmare that this structure presented!

To meet its challenge, its printer—the high-volume direct mail company DME—had taken the “brute force” approach, producing preprinted stock “shells” for each campaign and brand. These were carted to DME’s humidity-controlled warehouse, stored, counted for individual print runs, and transported back for each print run, in which the personalized information was overprinted. 

This was an expensive labor- and inventory-intensive process involving multiple set-ups, print runs, and trips to the warehouse.

So DME developed a new solution—one that would reduce inventory, manage the various brands, process multiple personalized orders in the same print run, and provide a better means of response tracking to AutoNation.

DME invested in a new system, XMPie PersonalEffect, that treats each campaign as a single project, even though each campaign involves multiple brands and dealers. The business rules for composing the individualized offers are programmed independent of the design. All elements for the campaign become data-driven variable objects instead of static fields. Thus, instead of using pre-printed stock, AutoNation’s campaigns are now printed, as needed, using plain, unprinted paper.

The result? AutoNation no longer must warehouse pre-printed stock for different dealerships and brands. Consequently, it saves the cost of pre-printing each set of shells. It also saves the cost of warehousing and transporting them.

Not only this, but for AutoNation, the increased personalization has resulted in greater effectiveness of its campaigns. Responses to its direct mail pieces are up 35%. Revenues are up 65%. And all of this does not come at a higher cost. In fact, cost of production has decreased versus the hybrid offset/digital method.

Now there’s some good news in this difficult economy!

Have questions? Comments? I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at info@digitalprintingreports.com. For more information on primers for marketers and small businesses on digital, 1:1, Web-to-print, and personalized URL applications, visit Digital Printing Reports. You can also keep up with all of my posts on EBS, The Inspired Economist ("Greening Print Marketing"), and other blog sites by following me on Twitter.

Posted by Heidi Tolliver Nigro on October 22, 2008 | Comments (0)