In a highly digital world, direct mail marketing isn’t a strategy that many marketers frequently use these days. Although it’s easy for one to assume that this form of marketing no longer works, it isn’t obsolete. Direct mail marketing remains a viable option offering appealing marketing despite the wide range of digital marketing platforms available today.
Companies that use direct mail marketing enjoy greater visibility, higher response rates, and creative opportunities. If you’re wondering whether direct mail is still an effective marketing strategy, here are five things that prove it is:
Engaging Customers
You can use direct marketing to keep your existing customers engaged, even when you’re not selling something to them. It enhances customer retention by allowing them to become repeat customers, refer your business to other people in their circle, and nurture long-term relationships.
For instance, if you’re a real estate company, you can work with an experienced printer like Wise Pelican to produce direct mail postcards with tips or encouragement messages that reflect your thoughts towards your customers.
Doing this makes it easy to send them messages on upcoming special offers, new products, or events. Further, you can use direct mail marketing to re-establish connections with customers who’ve not purchased stuff from you for a while.
You’d have to find out why they’ve not been responsive, address their needs, craft a strategy for serving them better, then deliver a message to win them back in their mailbox.
Personalization
One aspect that makes direct mail highly effective is its ability to target recipients and deliver direct personalized marketing messages to them. It’s the most effective way to maximize the customer information that any business has available.
Companies can use age and purchase preferences to personalize unique pieces and deliver them to customers directly via mail. This level of targeting allows companies to customize marketing messages that suit the target audience’s persona.
Tangibility
The other aspect that makes direct mail an effective marketing strategy is tangibility. Direct mail marketing involves sending physical items that recipients can interact with, touch, or even use. Most people like to receive mail about new products from brands they follow. It reflects tangible messages’ appeal over those delivered online and makes direct mail assertive and memorable.
For instance, recipients can stick attractive brochures on fridge doors or use a pin sent to them by brands they follow. Placing direct mail in these private spaces that aren’t accessible through other strategies shows how invaluable direct mail can be. The tangibility aspect makes direct mail stand out as a strategy that causes brands to stick with the recipients.
ROI Potential
Direct mail marketing yields higher returns compared to other forms of marketing. Although the actual Return On Investment (ROI) varies depending on how well a direct mail campaign is conducted, companies can earn a 29% ROI on average. This ROI may be attributed to various factors, among them the high response rate that direct mail attracts.
Compared to other marketing strategies, direct mail is highly personalized and customized based on the individual recipient’s interests, which increases response rates significantly. Direct mail also has a higher open rate. People rarely take a stake of mail from their mailbox and place it in the trash without scanning or reading through them.
Studies show that at least 53% of recipients read direct mail while 21% scan through them. It means that most recipients get to see marketing messages delivered to them via direct mail, an aspect that boosts response rates.
Trustworthiness
Another thing that makes direct mail marketing an effective strategy for companies is trustworthiness. Most people are familiar with direct mail; it’s been around for quite a long time. This familiarity builds trust and gives recipients a sense of security, particularly senior citizens and people who may not be familiar with the technology.
Direct mail also provides an authentic way of building brand awareness. Most people keep mails containing information about special offers, current events, and coupons for some time. Your brand becomes more familiar to them whenever they see direct mail from your company.
Final Thoughts
Before digital marketing, brands relied on direct mail to deliver marketing messages to their audience. Although digital marketing seems like it has taken over the marketing space, thousands of companies still use direct mail for marketing themselves and keeping their brands top on the minds of their audiences. If you’re unsure whether including direct mail in your marketing strategy is good, the five points discussed above prove that it’s still effective.
