Should Your Company Be Using Direct Mail?

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The marketing strategies that work best for any company depend on the dynamics of the business, but direct mail is a useful way to capture the attention of potential customers. Most companies can benefit from using direct mail, regardless of the products or services that are provided by the business.

Focusing on the Target Audience

A key reason that direct mail works for any business is that it focuses on a particular group or target audience. That means that you are only sending out mail to appropriate individuals on your mailing list or in a particular area.

Targeted marketing is an effective way to obtain new customers because the flyer, brochure or coupons that you are sending out are reaching people who need the products or services that you provide.

Adding Personal Elements

The problem that many companies can face is providing a personal element to the business. If your company is struggling with personalization, then direct mail can be a realistic solution. When you send out a postcard, you can put the name of the individual at that address. It automatically makes the advertisement more personal and reaches out to individuals who may feel that businesses are lacking a personal touch.

Easy Measurements

The personal element and the targeted mailing is only the beginning. Direct mail is also easy to measure based on the number of homes that receive the mail. You can determine the effectiveness of your marketing strategy based on the inquiries and sales that you receive.

Every business can benefit from direct mail, but the decision to implement the strategy depends on your goals and your understanding of how the process works. Direct mail is an effective way to reach your target audience with an element of personalization, and it can help improve your sales.

[Source: USPS]

Dos and Donts of a Direct Mailer

Don’t neglect direct mailing just because you’re heavily invested in the online marketing world. Direct mailers are a viable marketing method, particularly if you want to build up your business locally. However, there are right and wrong ways to go about a direct mail piece.

Do:

  • Make it clear what the offer is.
  • Provide a call to action.
  • Consider using QR codes on your mailer to send the recipient to a website for additional information.
  • Send out a targeted mailing about specials and seasonal sales.
  • Provide as much information as possible on your products or services to help increase the response rate.
  • Incorporate direct mailing in an on-going campaign instead of a one off, as repeated exposure is necessary to build up brand trust and recognition.

Don’t:

  • Purchase untargeted address lists and waste the time and expense sending out mailers to people who won’t be interested in your offer.
  • Work with designers who have only worked in the online space, and do not understand the advantages and limitations that direct mailer formats have to offer.
  • Send out a single, unsuccessful mailer and decide that direct mailing doesn’t work for you. Direct mail response rates take some time to build up, and you have to send out repeated mailers to see the impact.
  • Check work sent from outsourced printers. If you’re going to save money on your direct mailing costs by outsourcing it to a cheap bulk printer, get some proofs before you send it out.

Establishing a Successful Direct Mail Campaign

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Although they are often overlooked, direct mail campaigns are one of the most effective means of promoting your business. In order for it to be successful, however, there are a few key elements you should incorporate into the campaign.

Research your target area. Choosing the right target area for your mailing is critical. Make sure the recipients are ones most likely to benefit from your products or services. For example, a roofing and siding company would not benefit by targeting newly built homes.

Create a mailer that stands out. Whether it’s a post-card, flyer, brochure or letter, your mailer needs to be eye-catching and attract the reader’s attention immediately. Grabbing the recipients’ attention will be the difference between having your mailer be read or tossed into the trash without a second glance. Use bright and bold colors, easy to read text and an opening sentence that makes them want to read more.

Make an offer. The point of a direct mail campaign is to attract business. Give the customers a reason to want to do business with you. For example, a service based company can give a discount offer on services performed, a product based company can offer a free item.

Provide company information. This is key! Customers can’t contact you if they don’t have your contact information. Be sure to supply a range of methods including your business location, phone number, website and social media platforms. Consider placing a QR code on your mailer if it fits with your target audience.

Send multiple mailings. Sometimes, your first mailer is cast aside. Maybe even the second. It often takes several mailers to obtain a response.

Track your results. Develop a way to track the results of your direct marketing campaign so that you can measure its effectiveness. This information can be used to improve future direct marketing campaigns.

Incorporate Marketing into Your Printed Materials

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Social media marketing is one of the hottest marketing trends. There is a huge amount of people using social and nearly every company has a marketing scheme designed to conquer different social media platforms. With the shift towards social that does not however mean that traditional print marketing should be abandoned altogether. Rather than ignoring print marketing it is now important for marketers to adopt a system that incorporates social media marketing into print. Making sure branding of social platforms and tags are all made available through print is a must as the social world progresses and people start looking for new ways to advertise themselves.

Combining both forms of advertising is a must as print media previously was self-reliant. Social can be self-reliant but it is more beneficial for a company to allow both users of social and non-social to know about each other. The goal is to market the company or brand and incorporating social branding into a print campaign can save a great deal of money and increase an ROI altogether. Incorporating marketing into your printed materials is a fantastic way in which to establish new customers by tapping into the vast potential of people who didn’t previously know about your company and its functions.

Print marketing still reaches a huge amount of people. People like to hold and possess physical objects and always will. By providing a physical printed sheet full of your company’s information, you can easily reach a new potential number of customers that previously seemed out of your grasp. Utilizing print marketing is a must to go beyond the traditional set barriers of marketing and merge the old and modern world together for huge results that are beneficial towards a companies growth and help to maintain sales and influence within a market in an industry.

Why Should Direct Mail Campaigns be a Part of Your Marketing Strategy?

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Marketing your business does not necessarily mean focusing on online tools or mobile strategies. Although direct mail might seem old-fashioned, it is an effective way to reach your target audience. The benefits of direct mail campaigns make it worth considering when you are looking for ways to reach out and attract new customers to your business.

Limiting the Location

A key reason that direct mail campaigns are a useful way to reach your target audience is the limitation on the area. Local businesses can reach potential customers in the specific location rather than wasting advertisements on individuals who are not likely to visit the store. It limits the location so that only the target group is receiving the advertisement.

Reaching the Right Demographic

Not every individual is able to access the Internet or has an interest in using online tools. That is particularly true of older men and women, who may or may not enjoy using the Internet. Reaching a specific demographic is a key reason to consider using direct mail marketing. It ensures that the advertisement reaches the appropriate demographic audience.

Likelihood of Looking at the Ad

It is easy to ignore banners and advertisements online. Individuals simply do not look at them. Individuals are less likely to overlook direct mail because it is found in their mail box. Even if the products or services are not necessary at the time an individual sees the ad, they are still likely to look at it and remember it when they do need that product or service.

Direct mail campaigns may seem old-fashioned at first glance, but ultimately it can help you reach your target audience. By sending the advertisement through the mail, your target audience is more likely to look at and notice your advertisement.

Connections Between the Printing and Mailing Industries

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Printing and mailing often go hand in hand. Why? When you print something, think about what you are going to do with it. If it is some kind of marketing campaign, it needs to be distributed – and this usually means mailing it.

The printing industry often supports the mailing industry. While many people have gone to electronic statements for their credit cards and receive a lot of other things electronically, businesses are still able to market inside of a person’s physical mailbox. They will work with a printing company and then seek a company that offers mailing services to get it all done.

When you can find a company that works within the printing and mailing industries, you get the best of both worlds.

It can be extremely easy to create a direct mail campaign when your print company will do all of the work for you. Think about all of it – designing a flyer, printing a flyer, and distributing the flyer – all provided by one company so you can save time as well as money.

The mailing industry is much more than simply helping things get mailed to different locations. The mailing industry is also responsible for managing mailing lists. If you want to print something and have it distributed, you will want access to a mailing list so that your marketing campaign gets into the hands of people who actually care about the product or service that you are trying to promote.

It works to your advantage for the printing and mailing industries to have a very strong connection. When the print industry partners with the mailing industry, you benefit because they are able to offer you better services.

Direct mail is the outcome of the relationship – and you can market your business effectively because people still like seeing things in their mailbox.

Why You Should Incorporate QR Codes into Direct Mail Campaigns

Direct mail campaigns need to be effective beyond anything else. While it’s also a good idea to make sure they are colorful and informative, they need to be effective. This means that you have to use all of the latest tips and tricks to make sure that readers see the benefit in what you are putting in their mail box.

The QR code is a great way to make sure people are able to benefit from your direct mail campaign. If you have a hard-to-type web address, you can simply place a QR code on your flyer so that people can scan it with their mobile device. They will then be taken to the website where they will learn more about your business.

More and more people are learning about QR codes. Not exactly sure what this code is all about? It stands for quick response and is designed to carry a lot of information inside of it. Mobile devices often have an app that will scan the QR code and decipher it. Depending upon how the QR code was created, it may provide an image, bring you to a website, or send off an email for you.

It’s very easy to incorporate a QR code into a direct mail campaign. It’s not going to cost you anything to create.

There are lots of websites that make it easy to create a QR code to your website or anything else for free. Then you simply add it onto your catalog, post card or anything else that you want to mail to your mailing list.

QR codes make it easier for people to take action. They can go to your website.

Direct Mail: Why Do You Still Need It?

Direct mail is still an important part of a comprehensive advertising campaign. While some people may view direct mail as old-fashioned, there is still a significant demographic that can be reached via this tactic. Everyone in the world gets, and opens, their mail, and using direct mail advertising is one of the most effective ways to reach a specific geographical demographic. Online advertising is extremely valuable, but it’s also extremely variable: the people that you reach can be demographically and geographically spread out. For companies that need to reach a core demographic in a specific area, direct mail can be the best way to target advertising and get a higher return on their advertising dollar.

Direct mail can be effective in many ways that online advertising simply cannot. Direct mail has more substance, and can be delivered in many eye-catching and interesting ways. Many consumers have a tendency to become blind to online advertisements over time, which can make direct mail an easier way to catch their attention. Direct mail can also reach certain demographics of consumers more easily than online advertisements, such as older consumers or consumers that just aren’t as likely to go online.

Advertising in direct mail can be fairly cost-effective as long as discounts are used for the postage and the mailers themselves are kept simple. There are many methods of cutting costs for direct mail advertising, and experienced marketing companies will be able to make suggestions to a company about ways they can reduce the overall expense. There are also direct mail companies that specialize in mailing out vast quantities of advertisements for a low per unit price. Direct mail can also be used to bring traffic into a website that the website would have otherwise been unable to reach.

Make the Most Out of Your Direct Mail Marketing

For companies that run direct mail campaigns, the ability to effectively measure the highs and lows of those campaigns is vital to the success of their advertising as a whole. The following tips will have you well on your way toward making the most out of your company’s direct mail marketing:

  1. Utilize a tracking software system that will measure the statistics of your campaign easily and efficiently: Yes, there is no denying that it may cost less money to send emails than it does to send direct mail. However, if the act of sending direct mail to your audience could bring you better results, wouldn’t you want to do that? Of course! However, we must put forth the effort to prove that is true. This may primarily mean that we set up our campaigns and landing pages in a way so that direct mail responses are measured differently than responses to your emails, social media posts, or activities on another channel. Response mechanisms such as QR Codes and personalized URLs can help us measure direct mail effectiveness as well!
  1. Select a focused audience versus conducting a blind mailing effort, thus increasing the potential for successful contacts: The days of spray-and-pray must be a thing of the past. This is certainly true from a budgetary perspective. But it also should be true from the fact that technology makes it easier than ever to create targeted, personalized materials and by doing so, we can increase our response rates. By segmenting our audiences, we can deliver direct mail pieces that may have text, images,and offers that are relevant to each individual.
  2. Ensure that your direct mail pieces are both informative and aesthetically pleasing: We must never forget marketing fundamentals. Sure, it can be fun to get excited about new marketing channels; however, we must not neglect putting forth an effort to ensure our direct mail pieces look good and tell a compelling story.

These are just a few of the ways that companies can successfully incorporate direct mail into their marketing mix.

3 Best Practices for Direct Mail

As a marketer, you may not know that there are many tools and technologies available to help your company execute successful direct mail efforts. Using tools such as variable data printing, personalized URLs, and personalized QR Codes can easily create measurable campaigns.

If you are looking to personalize direct mail pieces for your customers, here are three ideas worth considering.

Consider the location of the recipient and design the materials accordingly.

By taking a look at the recipient’s location, you should be able to identify a data element that could be converted to personalized content. For example, if you are sending direct mail to promote your retail store, gym, or another physical location, you could personalize the piece to show just how close the person is to that spot. This could be represented graphically, via a map, or simply in text (i.e. “you are less than 2 miles away!”)

If you are targeting previous customers, appeal to that and possibly reference the product or service they purchased.

If we are sending direct mail pieces to our existing customers, we truly have no excuse not to personalize our materials. Take the time to look at their purchase history. With that data, you should be able to ensure that the promotions and offers on your direct mail piece are truly relevant to them.

Based on demographics, select color(s) that may appeal to each group.

This one may take a bit more research and creativity. But there certainly are studies out there regarding the effect that certain colors may have on different groups of people. If you can find a way to use the right ones for the segments inside of your target audience, you should be able to increase your response rates.