Importance of Direct Mail in Omnichannel Marketing
As marketing techniques continue to change and evolve, so do sales approaches toward customer experiences. Consumers today can purchase the same product from a brick-and-mortar retail outlet as they can from a desktop or cell phone. Omnichannel marketing is the approach that seeks to ensure these various shopping experiences are seamless for the consumer. It supports a customer journey that is connected, fluid, and non-linear.
Like most marketing techniques, marketers focus their omnichannel efforts on digital channels. However, campaigns that simply operate in a digital realm are bound to fail. The extraordinary business competition in today’s market means that in order to be prosperous, you must use every tool at your disposal. This includes direct mail.
This article explores the importance of direct mail in omnichannel marketing and ways in which it can fit into an all-inclusive marketing approach.
Boost Online Promotions
Successful omnichannel marketing provides customers with a fluid experience from physical aspects to digital platforms. Direct mail aids in this connected experience by driving prospective consumers to online landing pages, including social media accounts or specific product sales pages. By integrating a QR code or customized URL to direct mail, you can provide consumers with a way to access your online presence that they may not have realized.
Moreover, by using tools such as Google Analytics you can track and record how often consumers are using your discount code or QR code, and how often they are staying on your site. By tracking and analyzing this data, you can tailor where prospective consumers go when they scan the code or enter the URL you provide.
Analyze Consumer Response
Direct mail can also be used to gauge the response of prospective consumers that have previously been targeted digitally or through telemarketing. Take email for example. Recent studies show that nearly 80% of respondent’s engage with direct mail. Conversely, only 55% say the same about their email messages.
The experience of receiving an actual piece of tangible mail is highly valued and gives us a much-needed break from our screens. The high frequency of engagement with direct mail means that consumers are taking the time to read what’s in their mailbox and interact with the content. It’s not as easy as hitting the delete button when a message pops up on your screen.
Direct mail can help you assess if you’re heading in the right direction with your omnichannel strategy by the way prospective clients respond to a direct mail marketing campaign.
Drive Desired Reaction
Customer experience is the key to successful omnichannel marketing, and this experience should be fluid from online marketing, to in-person sales pitches, to direct mail marketing campaigns. Omnichannel marketing that integrates a direct mail strategy that ties in with a digital strategy can drive a desired reaction by both prospective and existing consumers.
As direct mail is more likely to be opened and invoke an emotional response than email, it is a powerful tool to direct a specific response. In fact, some companies can generate as much as 60% more in revenue per customer by sending direct mail to consumers. The personal aspect of direct mail can not only direct a reaction, but it can also reach disengaged consumers and galvanize former consumers.
Unfortunately, there is a strong misconception in the marketing realms that younger consumers don’t respond well to direct mail. Because of this misconception, many marketing teams are making the mistake of not including direct mail in their ominchannel marketing campaigns. By making this mistake, companies are missing a huge opportunity to boost online promotions, analyze how their customers are responding to their marketing campaign, and drive a desired reaction by consumers.
Direct mail that is seamlessly integrated into an omnichannel marketing strategy can provide significant benefits to the bottom line. Don’t make the mistake of overlooking its importance.
