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:: CLIENT ::Ferrellgas is a leader in the propane industry, providing propane service to approximately one million homes and businesses in the United States through their Blue Rhino and Ferrellgas brands.
:: PROBLEM ::As a large and successful propane distributor with more than 900 locations, localized marketing is a foundation for Ferrellgas’ continued growth. Customizing text, images, pricing and offers for location-specific marketing communications is an everyday necessity. However, their distributed marketing coordinators were without a centralized system for managing their marketing assets and performing these routine tasks.
Without a centralized marketing portal, each location-specific marketing touch required their designers to create a new graphics file, their accounting team to manage a separate order and payment, and a marketing coordinator to shepherd the order through the production process.
These manually-intensive creation and management processes were exacerbated by a 10-business-day process for producing direct mail pieces, which involved overprinting location-specific customization onto stock printed shells. This lengthy production cycle meant that pricing information on mail pieces was often outdated by the time it landed in local markets. Because retail propane prices can fluctuate day to day, this problem created angst among local managers and decreased usage of Ferrellgas’ historically-effective direct mail tactics.
:: SOLUTION ::Facing these challenges, Ferrellgas chose Mail Print’s Marketing Communications Portal solution. Ferrellgas’ marketing assets were loaded to an online portal and utilized throughout various templates. This system allowed for fast and easy customization of text and photo elements on all of their advertising. The portal also enabled connections with Ferrellgas’ existing database, targeting tools and email provider, further streamlining their marketing processes.
Mail Print’s integrated print automation and direct mail marketing delivery services also reduced the production and mail prep time for Ferrellgas’ direct mail marketing from 10 business days to 24 hours, helping their locations reach their audiences with timely, relevant messaging.
:: RESULTS ::Using Mail Print’s Marketing Communications Portal has decreased cost, improved speed to market, and reduced marketing project management time for Ferrellgas, resulting in a significant improvement on their ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment).
The marketing portal is also improving the efficiency of Ferrellgas’ internal departments. Ferrellgas’ marketing coordinators are saving a combined 120 hours per month, their accounting department is saving 20 hours per month, and their graphic designers are saving 160 hours per month, allowing these resources to be used on other initiatives.
Overall, the transition to using Mail Print’s marketing management solution is saving Ferrellgas more than $80,000 per year, while improving the usage and effectiveness of direct marketing by their field locations.
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