Direct Mail Still Rocks. Here’s How to Boost Its Effectiveness {Updated}

Although digital marketing has spread its influence throughout the different industries, direct mail is far from gone. As with all quality things, it just needed a makeover to conform to the demands of modern business.

Here are a few tips on how you can make direct mail work for you.  

Choose the right type

The playground of direct mail is an adventure park sprinkled with lots of fun rides. The first step is to choose the type(s) that would make a fusion with your online marketing efforts. It is essential for your online and offline marketing strategies to complement each other and for your brand identity to be consistent across all channels and realms.

Depending on your business niche, you might find brochures and catalogs to be most suitable but if you are going for a lot of images and quality paper, the final cost can be hefty. The newsletter can also be convenient to update your customers of any new additions to your offer in products or services. Another effective element could be postcards, they can be a refreshing tool to catch their attention and make them take action. 

Focus first on current customers

If this is your first time giving direct mail a try in the business sense, it is best you start with your current customers. Ideally, you already possess a database of all customers and details of their purchase. Regularly updating this database is crucial for many reasons, among which is also direct mail because you need their exact names and addresses to be able to send the material. 

Moving on, besides a log about their purchases, hopefully, you have asked for their feedback on the product and the overall service. If you haven’t, you need to start inquiring after their opinion since it is of great importance. For instance, if for some reason they disliked the product and made only a one-time purchase, sending them promotional material of any kind will not get you on their good side. In fact, it would be a waste of resources.

Monitor the results

In the world of digital items, a tangible one stands out, and there is no doubt about it. However, to know that you are on the right track and that your campaign materials are not just getting thrown away, you need to monitor the effects in some manner. This is the part most digital generations are worried about but in fact, the answer is simpler than it seems.

The solution lies in a combination of direct and digital marketing, that is, in the shape of a tracking system. Namely, the whizzes from PostcardMania came up with an automatic follow-up system that is triggered when somebody visits your website through the link from the direct mail campaign. This means that each time they surf the internet, ads that match the postcard appear. In case they decide to dial the distinct number from the campaign, they will be redirected to your regular business phone and then it is all up to your employees. 

Personalize the user experience 

Modern-day people are always in a hurry and they don’t socialize as much as previous generations used to, at least not vis-à-vis. This is because owing to technology, we no longer have to leave our house to communicate with people. Many activities have become impersonal since we happily seized the opportunity to do as much as we can from the screen of different devices.

The lack of time and this detachment, as studies show, have resulted in 42% of consumers preferring to choose from a selection of options and being told by brand what to pick. People want to feel special but they also want to have a direct message about what to opt for. To build a stronger relationship with them, a detail such as using their name on the brochure you sent to them would suffice to make them feel appreciated.   

Get creative with the design and copy

As mentioned, your brand needs to be consistent across your digital and direct marketing campaigns and that means both in the sense of the copy and design. Also, keep in mind that you have but a few seconds to grab your target audiences’ attention so you need to intrigue them with a short but powerful title. The rest of the copy should also be short so that they would be interested enough to accept the call-to-action and visit the website.

When it comes to the design, be careful not to overdo it. Some marketing teams try to fill in all the space not occupied by text at the cost of influencing the legibility of the message. Speaking of which, choose the colors and the font carefully to ensure people can easily read the copy. 

Final thoughts

Older generations remember with melancholy writing letters to Santa Claus when they were little. On the other hand, younger negations don’t have such memories, but most of them get excited about receiving a tangible postcard and following up on the clue online. It only goes to show that direct mail is a cross-generational thing that any business can benefit from. 

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Photo by Chad Peltola on Unsplash