Podington Garden Centre imail Case Study
Introduction:
Located in the heart of the Northamptonshire countryside, Podington Garden Centre is an independent, family-run business offering a comprehensive range of flowers, foliage and garden accessories, from water features, wild bird and animal equipment to barbecue apparatus and al fresco furniture, for purchase in-store or online. The village-based garden centre prides itself on its expert team of trained horticulturists who are on hand to provide advice on any flora or fauna related topic, be it alpine plant or herbaceous perennial.
Podington Garden Centre relies heavily on direct mail to promote its services to a wider audience. Whilst this forms a key part of its ongoing marketing activity, the business will up the implementation of its mailings at specific times of the year to bolster the seasonal surge in sales for certain gardening items. Pre-imail, all of Podington’s direct mail campaigns were conducted in-house leading to a welter of problems relating to expense and efficiency. The system was not only proving costly but extremely time-consuming and tedious as well, with skilled staff having to manually mail merge multiple documents, then print, envelope, frank and post them, resulting in a misspent use of valuable resources.
The Solution:
An automated solution was required which allowed the business to continue to maximise direct mail’s commercial benefits but at the same time reduce outgoings and inefficiency – and imail seemed the obvious answer. Of all the hybrid mail products available in the marketplace imail stood out as superior, in terms of technology, cost savings and creative control.
As an electronic to physical mail solution, imail is accessed via the Internet using a simple step-by-step browser and allows Podington to submit large volume runs of multipage direct mail pieces to a geographically dispersed audience, with minimal hassle. The business can also upload its own pictures, logos and artwork producing improved communications via increased customer engagement and branding exposure.
Podington started using imail in January 2010 and has reported significant benefits as a result of the switchover to this service from a manual mail merge system.
Benefits:
Since opting for imail Podington has enjoyed a number of economy and market improvements; notably a 33% cut in mailing costs due to the elimination of printing, franking and stationery requirements, as well as a 12% increase in sales arising from the enhanced quality of direct mail campaigns. The automation of the mailing process has also had the added advantage of freeing up staff time.
imail’s two day definite delivery timescales means the business knows exactly when designated mail pieces will land on a target audience’s doorsteps, enabling it to appropriately resource its call-response centre. This has resulted in a higher pay back level for each campaign as all incoming sales opportunities are effectively managed.
With data quality being a key determining factor in the success of any direct marketing campaign, Podington has found imail’s slick postcode checking software, which isolates and identifies inaccurate postcodes, of huge benefit. The resulting reduction in volumes of returned mail has not only allowed for improved targeting but also secured a more effective appropriation of crucial marketing budget.
“imail has surpassed expectations in its delivery of cost savings, efficiency improvements and increased sales activity, proving itself to be an invaluable tool in the implementation of our direct mail campaigns. With green considerations also coming high up our agenda, we were thrilled to find a solution that simultaneously cuts the carbon footprint of our DM activity by reducing a letter’s delivery mileage and, thus, environmental impact.”
Proprietor, Podington Garden Centre
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