A recent report found that about 62% of consumers acted on an offer after receiving a piece of direct mail. When you pair this with the fact that nearly 8 out of 10 consumers put more trust in print communications like direct mail compared with other channels, you have a method of customer communication and outreach that is ideal to drive conversions, which makes direct mail a valuable tool in your overall print marketing strategy.
However, the challenge with direct mail is that marketers don’t always understand the kinds of campaigns that are most compatible with direct mail marketing. To help marketers better understand the arenas where direct mail can shine, let’s look at three kinds of common marketing campaigns where direct mail can be most effective.
Event-based marketing campaigns
While event-based marketing campaigns that promote things like an open house or a grand opening may seem more suited for email marketing, the continued decline of B2B email health via metrics like decreasing inbox placement or increased bounce rates actually makes email campaigns more of a gamble in getting the word out about your event — plus, the increasingly ineffective nature of email makes it less likely that your recipient will share your email with others in their professional network.
What’s more, 85% of consumers who receive direct mail read pieces the day they’re received, whereas about 40% of consumers said they have up to 50 unread emails languishing in their inbox.
With direct mail campaigns for event-based marketing, here are a couple of things to keep in mind or try to better equip your direct mailer to drive recipients to your event:
- Put the Postal Service to work for you. The USPS® Every Door Direct Mail® (EDDM) online tool allows you to target specific addresses in neighborhoods or zip codes that may be most receptive to your event — this level of targeting also means you can use a digital on-demand print model, which helps you control print costs because you know the precise number of mailers you need. Plus, USPS Informed Delivery® allows for the integration of digital calls-to-action to better help you track the number of recipients who engage with digital components of your direct mailer.
- Incorporate quick response (QR) codes for a multichannel approach. Not only does designing an event invite or postcard with QR code differentiate your direct mailer from others that your audience may receive, it also makes it simple and easy for your audience to have a digital experience via a code that opens a video, a landing page, or another form of digital content. QR codes that open to an RSVP form can help you evaluate the performance of your mailer via submissions, and also ensure you have the appropriate resources to facilitate attendance to your event.
With more than 72% of households having more than two people living together, using direct mail campaigns for event-based marketing can also be extremely effective in creating buzz via word of mouth.
Product launch marketing campaigns
Launching a product or service is a more focused initiative than event-based marketing in large part because the messaging in these kinds of campaigns needs to be more targeted or speak more directly to the challenges your audience faces, and how your product or service can help them overcome their challenges.
The challenge with using digital channels for product launch campaigns is that so many marketers are relying on email to introduce themselves to new customers — for example, a recent report found that there will be more than 376 billion emails sent per day by 2025. In contrast, consumers receive less than 400 pieces of mail per year, which significantly reduces the noise and competition for marketers to position the value their product or service provides.
There are a number of steps marketers can take to help ensure using direct mail to market a product or service launch is effective and delivers a healthy ROI. For example:
- Think in a more targeted manner about the customer you’re trying to reach. Maintaining your customer relationship management (CRM) system data and ensuring your mailing lists are an accurate representation of engaged, interested leads is a critical first step, especially given the number of employees who have changed industries or job titles in recent years. Once you have clean CRM data, you can also use variable data printing (VDP) to personalize your mailer using customer data points like name, title, purchase history, or customer lifecycle stage.
- Make sure your call-to-action (CTA) is clear, compelling, and valuable. With a new product or service, the recipient of your direct mail piece needs to know exactly what’s in store for them if they convert on your offer. As such, crafting a clear CTA that conveys a specific value proposition, highlights a unique benefit, or encourages additional exploration of your offering is a key component in creating an effective direct mail campaign to promote a new product or service.
- Consider an AR experience. Speaking of additional exploration, using a QR code to launch an augmented reality (AR) experience provides a dynamic, immersive environment for recipients to learn more about your product or service in a new or unexpected way. Augmented reality experiences such as 3D models, 360° views, or even interactive games can provide a fun and informative way for your customers to get a hands-on tutorial on the value and significance of your product.
Account-based marketing campaigns
B2B account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns are the most highly-targeted campaigns of the ones we’ve looked at thus far, and part of what makes them a good fit for direct mail marketing is that the number of people you’re sending to is relatively small, which then allows you to create high-value offers that are specifically tailored and personalized for your target audience.
As such, the ROI with direct mail in ABM campaigns is best realized with premium print pieces — something beyond a conventional postcard — that are sent to contacts you know are most likely to convert on an offer or take some other specific desired action.
For example, ABM direct mail campaigns can include incentives such as special gifts, personalized merchandise, offer codes, exclusive promotions, personalized AR experiences, and even virtual reality experiences.
ABM campaigns in direct mail can also be an ideal vessel to create effective omnichannel campaigns that include additional touchpoints like follow-up emails, SMS messaging, or even InMail messaging on LinkedIn — provided you have a contact’s profile information — to continue the conversation after your mailer has been received.
Using direct mail in ABM campaigns can be extremely effective in demonstrating to already interested prospects that you have a detailed understanding of their industry and their challenges, and that you took the time to craft a memorable piece of content with an offer that’s designed specifically with them in mind.
Curious about how you can use direct mail in your next marketing campaign? Quantum Group can help you print high-quality direct mail that achieves your goals and objectives. Download our new guide, How to Execute a High-ROI Postcard Campaign, to take your direct mail campaign to the next level.
