Complex Automated Direct Mail: CTAM Case Study
CTAM, the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, is a non-profit cooperative marketing communications company. With member companies including Cox, Comcast, and Mediacom, CTAM’s primary mission is to “direct collaborative marketing initiatives so [its] members can achieve greater success by working together, and ultimately better serve the millions of people they engage every day.” With so many different brands and associative offers to manage, CTAM turned to automated direct mail.
CTAM uses More Vang’s Banjo marketing automation to manage two of its most complex and high-volume, data-driven marketing initiatives–a new mover daily mailing and SmartMove.us. The campaigns are targeted at two groups of consumers. The first is those who have explicitly communicated they are moving and would like information about cable service options for their new location. And the second are those that, through predictive analytics, are deemed likely to move.
Every day, we receive data feeds containing hundreds of thousands of records from CTAM and multiple 3rd party data providers.
Banjo is configured to automatically receive and process the data to remove incomplete, duplicate or previously mailed addresses, as well as standard NCOA and CASS Certification processing. The data is then processed against service area information containing millions of ZIP codes for the participating CTAM members to ensure the customer receives an offer relevant to their new location. Banjo then automatically sends the processed data to a 3rd party provider that suppresses any records that have received recent offers and appends additional predictive data, including language information to ensure the customer receives information in their native tongue. Banjo then processes the appended data to identify the highest value prospects and to determine which customers get mailed that day. The final daily mailing file often contains thousands of consumer-specific mailers.
The artwork for each of these mailers starts as a blank shell template, which is programmed with logic to pull specific logos, copy, and offers based on the data in the mailing file—a process we often refer to as Templates/Assets/Rules (TAR). There are thousands of possible configurations for each mailer, and the final PDF is completely data-driven. Once all records are printed, the mailing drops the following day. On average, we process, print, and mail around 3,000 of these mailers for CTAM every business day, including holidays.
It’s an incredibly complex process—and we automate the entire thing using Banjo.
The best part? All of this happens in a matter of a few hours a day, and CTAM doesn’t have to lift a finger. They simply check their automated email notifications to confirm that the offers went out.
“CTAM’s marketing programs provide tremendous value as we’re able to provide leads and sales opportunities to our member companies. Our marketing programs require very complex data and fulfillment, and our account managers who use Banjo are able to execute our programs accurately and timely.”
Janine Lee, MSO Marketing Project Manager