Customer acquisition doesn't get more sophisticated than this

One of the largest providers of home equity and consumer loans in the U.S., American General Finance came to Kobie Marketing in 1998 for help in improving customer acquisition and increasing ROI.

To meet the challenge, Kobie created a series of high-impact direct mail packages. These mailings were extraordinarily sophisticated because of the database manipulation required, which involved 48 states, extensive mailing lists and multiple creative packages. In addition, packages were allocated by state according to the number of loan offices in each state, adding an extra management concern. And test cell criteria in selected markets brought still another complication.

Over three years, 10 million acquisition pieces were mailed. Kobie provided the creative work, of course, along with external lists and highly demanding list management, data processing management, production, personalization supervision, and program analysis.

Kobie capability:

140-way split? 200 different versions? Nothing we cannot handle.

In the Fall of 1998, Kobie also designed a new campaign combining both print and a 60-second direct response TV spot. Kobie managed the creative, production, and media buying for this effort - with impressive results. The campaign was triumphant on all levels, delivering both call volume and cost/lead results that far exceeded expectations. Call volume was 82% above objective, while cost per lead was 117% below objective. The conversion rate of calls to closed loans was 20 points higher than anticipated.