A customer relationship management initiative helped the Banking Administration Institute (BAI) cut its direct mail expenditures for its last annual conference in half, from $200,000 to $100,000.
David Blum, CTO of BAI, said last fall, thanks to being able to target more effectively, the group reduced the number of mailing pieces promoting its Retail Delivery Conference from about 125,000 to 80,000.
The drop in direct mail can also be attributed to a shift of some communications to e-mail, Blum said.
BAI is a 78-year-old nonprofit which serves the banking and financial services industry with training, research and other programs. The Chicago-based organization has a database of 250,000 to 300,000 active buyers and prospects and 40,000 organizations.
Unlike many industry trade associations, only 2% to 3% of BAI’s revenue come from membership dues, making conference revenue all the more important, noted Blum.
BAI– which competes for attendees not only against other nonprofit trade groups but also for-profits like the American Banking Association and companies like Thompson Financial Publishing–also wanted to shift toward being customer-centric, rather than product-centric. The sector had seen declines in attendance not only because of the economy and post-Sept. 11 travel concerns but because of consolidation in the banking industry.
Laraine Spector, president of Midway Strategy Group, a consultancy that worked with BAI, said the organization had been collecting vast amounts of data on its customer base, but hadn’t really been using it to shed light on who their conference attendees were and why they attended BAI programming.
“We were planning campaigns on the backs of napkins and not maximizing our investments,” Blum said.
In October 1999, BAI began working with Unica Software Co.’s Campaign Manager system to decrease customer attrition and ultimately increase ROI. Melva Godwin, marketing analyst for BAI, said this has helped the company better profile its customer base.
In the next phase of the CRM program, Godwin said, the group will look at using segmentation to increase and better track response rates. BAI is now in the first stages of an RFM/segmentation scheme.
Blum, Godwin, Spector and Kyran Wallace, director of solution consulting operations for Unica, discussed BAI’s CRM initiatives during a session at Chicago Direct Marketing Days at Navy Pier on Tuesday.
