Whilst spend on digital is increasing fast, we believe that the old favourite, direct mail, is an important channel in the marketers’ toolkit. As information available online escalates, attention spans are dwindling. It’s easier to simply hit delete than sift through your inbox or scroll past a sponsored tweet rather click through the link.
The Direct Marketing Association found that post is twice as more likely to engender trust than email, as well as being more memorable and authoritative. Direct mail is becoming the introductory tool to lay foundations while reaching out to new customers, while email is a great way to follow up and build that relationship further.
With traditional offline marketing methods like direct mail, recipients are more likely to physically pick up information, making it far more memorable. This is why 34% of marketers are looking at investing in direct mail marketing in 2015, according to ALF’s Marketing Spend Report.
As the report points out: “The trick, now, is to ensure that you’re building a coherent, consistent and interesting journey online and offline. If the messaging is supported across channels, both online and offline can complement one another.” DMA research shows that: “nearly half of people (44%) could be driven online by an interesting piece of physical post, primarily to the brand’s website.”
To ensure that relationship is built on solid foundation, here are some things to consider when developing your direct mail campaign:
Use highly targeted, personalised campaigns
According to the Direct Marketing Association, using variable data printing to personalize your campaign can increase prospect response by 300 – 1000%. The Royal Mail took the idea a step further by ‘printing’ their campaign on chocolate and having their prospects’ names piped onto the chocolate. Sweet!
Get creative
When you’re investing in direct mail, it makes sense to spend time on a creative message that will really resonate. Consider testing a message on social media and use the most popular one in the direct mail. Digital Radish recently conducted an augmented reality direct mail campaign for game developers Unity. A moleskin diary contained a QR code for an app to download; recipients were able to hover their phones across the moleskin to view a 3D augmented reality version of the Shard (built using Unity’s game engine software). It was a great way to marry a traditional channel with the latest technology.
Track your campaign
Include an offer code, voucher or discount specific to mail campaigns to see where consumers are responding. By directing them to your company website and entering the code, you can capture personal data online with ease. Personalised URLs (PURLs) are another good way to track consumer responses. The can collect real-time information including email addresses, the time when they logged on (time to respond) and help to build your database for acquiring and renewing subscribers.
In conclusion, direct mail is a great way to tap into new prospects and to grab the attention of your clients. In the digital age, when information is physically placed in front of your audience, it makes a refreshing change.