From building trust with your customers to providing that feeling of excitement when opening the mailbox, here is a list of our top 10 advantages and benefits of direct mail marketing.
Marketing is complex and marketing is evolving: Display, Social, Mobile, SMS, MMS, Personalized TV. However, some of the best results tied to improving brand awareness, customer retention and overall sales come from tried and true strategies such as direct mail services. Here is a list of our top 10 advantages and benefits of direct mail marketing.
Mail Remains Physical
While we live in a digital world full of different social media platforms, endless videos, and countless advertisements, consumers have always preferred a tangible form of information. People will always favor having something physical placed in their hands. Even sales of physical books can surpass that of e-books, as people have a better chance at remembering information in physical forms. In marketing, brand recall rate is higher with direct mail, messaging sent in physical form.
Real objects are still seen as valuable, and a direct mail piece is no exception to the rule. While email advertisements are convenint and remain a highly used channel for marketing, the benefits of a direct mail piece being delivered to your highly targeted customers still holds great value.
People Enjoy Receiving Mail
People still enjoy the act of receiving mail. Many people would rather sift through a few postcards or catalogs to browse for products than browsing via email. With the explosion of email inboxes these days, seldom is the thrill of receiving an email.
Even though and perhaps because, mail has become one of the less common options for marketing over recent years, people like the personal attention from direct mail. There is no denying that it is exciting to receive. Direct mail marketing can evoke a comparable level of excitement as one gets from receiving a letter or postcard from a friend. It is one strategy that is simply much more engaging than an email. In fact, customers tend to appreciate receiving mail from brands that they like.
Direct Mail Benefits from being Cost Effective
Despite what many believe, one of the benefits of direct mail marketing is its cost efficiency. Direct Mail is ranked as being an effective strategy for driving customer action. Above the Line (ATL) ads may seem like the better option for increasing brand value. However, successful direct mail will see a greater response rate. When looking for channels that can make contributions directly to your bottom line, the benefits of direct mail marketing outweigh many other options.
Personalized Data-Driven Marketing Benefits
One key benefit of direct mail is that you are able to use smart data to reach targeted customers that you may not have been able to reach otherwise. Saturation mailings have been abandoned by sophisticated marketers.
Brands can customize their creative direct mail marketing campaign to specific audiences based on attributes such as interests or lifestyle data, past transactions, demographic and geographic data, and even website browsing behavior.
Let’s take geography as an example. The creative used with a consumer living in a warm southern state may be very different than the creative used with a consumer living in a cold northern state. Creative may differ depending upon whether you are marketing to an urban or rural area. Direct mail marketing campaigns can be targeted to be delivered in specific locations tied to income level or home value.
When brands have a solid grasp of their customer, direct mail, personalized data driven mail, will deliver great results and save a company a great deal of money in the long run.
Direct Marketing is a Multichannel Experience
Direct mail marketing is a key part of a cross-channel marketing strategy, creating aligned offline and online advertising campaigns that compliment each other. Overall, brand recall is higher if an email campaign is followed up with a direct mail campaign. In addition, brands can get an increased response rate if a digital display ad is followed by a direct mail campaign. It is obvious that if you are not using a direct mail campaign in your multichannel marketing direct strategy, you may be missing out on increased response rates and easy business opportunities.
Build Effective Brand Trust with Direct Mail
Another benefit is the trust that is built with direct mail. The internet has always been incredibly saturated with online advertising due to relatively low initial costs. As a result, customers get confused because they are not particularly sure which ads can be trusted, and which are malware. This causes potential customers to proceed online with caution, as they no longer trust the advertisements they find online. Only reputable online brands actually have a chance in engagement from digital marketing use.
With time, direct mail marketing can further build brand trust through direct mail advertising. Using consistent factors such as brand colors and designs, as well as the inclusion of graphic elements that your customers can find online will build brand trust.
Direct Mail is Easy
It is much easier to assimilate direct mail at the cognitive level. In fact, it has been discovered that those who read direct mail require even less cognitive focus to see information compared to those that see digital advertisements. Your brand and call-to-action in direct mail are more effective than digital ads.
In addition, you can improve your direct ad impact, and send messages that are more complex. Even with more complex marketing messages, your customers are more likely going to see the material and understand the advertisement. Enjoy the greater messaging flexibility by using direct mail campaigns.
Simplicity of Execution in Direct Mail Marketing
Direct mail typically does not require much technical education or a large investment in digital infrastructure. You don’t need to spend a great deal of money to create the opportunity to reach customers through direct mail as you would with digital advertising.
Brands can get a direct mail campaign running in a short period of time with few resources, such as one or two freelance copywriters and designers. There’s no need to wait long before optimizing a direct mail program, as direct mail is as easy to track as any other digital channel. Direct mail always gives brands the opportunity to grab their targeted audience’s complete attention with physical mail compared to the digital ads that they may have to compete with for screen space. Digital advertising limits space to only about 8% of the display area. Brands can turn campaigns around faster than alternative channels due to rapid deployment. Mailing maximizes potential sales windows.
More Chances to be Creative
Digital channels have opened up previously unexplored creative avenues. Animation, call-to-action buttons, and videos have all been utilized as strategies in digital advertising. But, there are also plenty of ways that direct mail marketing can pursue creative avenues just like digital ads.
Some companies make a huge impact in direct mail advertising by sending actual products through the mail. Others use 3D mail to make statements. Depending on your brand and the products you sell, you can use simple or complex copy to bring sophistication to your marketing direct strategy.
For more ideas on how to inspire your creative direct mail campaigns check out our tips here.
There are a wide range of ways to benefit from direct mail marketing. Brands may get a higher return on investment or increased brand value through direct mail marketing. Despite the different types of marketing and mailing vehicles like digital banners, PPC, emails, inbound marketing, and other content, direct mail marketing still shows undeniable benefits. Increase response rates from target customers through creative mailing strategies and direct mail campaigns.
The things that have made digital advertising more effective today than when it first came on to the scene include the ability to personalize and measure. But let’s be clear, these are the things that have long been available with direct mail.