I Print n Mail Launches Direct Mail Tool with Speech Recognition

Direct mail marketing firm I Print n Mail has released the NextGen Direct Mail program. The solution features technologies such as lead tracking, recording, analytics, and speech recognition to help marketers assess campaign performance and improve conversion rates.

NextGen has speech recognition technology that can follow phone conversations between sales reps and prospects. On a call-by-call basis, it then assigns scores on how well the reps do. The program also rates how ready the prospects are based on their tone of voice and the questions they ask.

"Direct mail is a tried-and-true marketing approach," said Andre Chandra, general manager at I Print n Mail, in a statement. "Despite competition from the online and social media space chasing the same marketing dollars, direct mail is still one of the best ways to get you in front of a prospect. Yet, it's time for direct mail to be on par technologically with these younger marketing media."

Using NextGen, after the mailers are sent, each inbound call from prospects is tracked and recorded, and marketers can access the information in real time.

"It's like having Google Analytics on your direct mail campaigns," Chandra said.

With the tool, marketers can discover which territories work best, what products have the biggest potential, what the most frequent questions are, and which promotions are most intriguing. Big score gaps between the sales rep and the prospect (for example, a hot prospect versus an underwhelming sales rep) can be flagged so supervisors can immediately attempt to save the leads and convert the prospects into customers.

Irate customer calls can also be flagged so managers can swoop in and help defuse the situation.

Additionally, marketers can also use this technology as a training and performance review tool.

Early results show big payoffs: Marketers can pivot up to 75 percent faster by having all the analytics ready at their fingertips, and conversion rates have risen by up to 35 percent.