Pre-promotion research used to be viewed as a luxury that only the wealthiest brands could afford, but the YMCA is pioneering the latest internet testing techniques, which uncover marketing insights and deliver measurable cost savings -- all in near-real time.
YMCA England is looking to try out creative ideas on a wider audience than it would normally approach and to avoid wasting budget on a hypothetically good idea, which might not live up to expectations.
It will use the pre-promotional research first to test creative for its new Roomsponsor committed giving scheme.
Roomsponsor donors give a minimum monthly gift of 拢10 and receive regular up-dates about the young person living in the room that they sponsor. The YMCA had already recruited around 3,000 Roomsponsors from its pool of existing, but relatively new, donors, using mailings followed by telephone calls.
The YMCA is confident it can save money on a more direct recruitment method, but realises it will require a different creative approach.
Catherine Lawson, YMCA direct marketing manager, said: "CCB has developed real-time customer management products and has a monthly online research panel. We used this to test our fundraising ideas with different audiences, to discover whether it was possible to turn cold leads into new committed donors to Roomsponsor."
The research has made it possible for the YMCA to carry out detailed marketing planning on price, creative, message and media.
Traditionally, it takes charities and direct marketing companies several months to conduct a full test of their proposed campaigns -- even though the research usually involves very few variables.
Typically, an agency rejects four or five creative options, without any insight into donor or consumer preference, before it even presents the "winning" couple of options to the client. Then, the client tests their favourite option against its control promotion. Traditional group research is seldom an option, because results can be heavily skewed by anomalies within the small number of subjects questioned.
According to CCB managing director David Cole: "The CCB research panel revolves around a data-driven scripting process, which can be used in any online environment, for example, the web or phone, to drive relevant, real-time customer dialogue. Every script or survey is bespoke and based upon data collected before and during the dialogue, in exactly the same way that a normal conversation evolves."
He added: "The software can also be connected online to the Consodata lifestyle database, which means results can be immediately matched back to a waiting prospect file for targeting with whatever product, creative and message the research deems appropriate."
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .