5 Ways to Create an Effective Direct Mail Marketing Strategy
When it comes to winning over new customers and staying in touch with existing ones, direct mail is a valuable method for your company to incorporate into your marketing strategy. Direct mail is 49% more memorable than email, and printed mailings are free from the limitations of emails like subject lines, character counts, and formatting constrictions. Removing these factors allows for more customization in your messaging and presentation.
Direct mail marketing even helps you reach customers who may not be using the internet or looking for your services online since everyone has a mailbox. Mail open rates have increased by 10% since the start of the COVID pandemic, and the average piece of mail stays in a person’s home for eight days—both of which contribute to the likelihood that your mail will be seen and read.
However, if you dive in before considering the direct mail marketing rules and best practices, you risk wasting resources, losing customers, and missing out on opportunities to make a sale. Follow these steps to create and implement your successful direct mail marketing strategy.
1. Know Your Market
Knowing who receives your direct mailings is the first step in a successful campaign. Once you know your target customers, you can strategically send specific versions to different audience groups. Market segmentation helps you divide your mailing list by specific demographics like age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, income, location, occupation, and purchase history. This personalization lets you use your resources with maximum efficiency to target each customer with offers that will appeal to them individually.
An excellent way to ensure your campaign is successful is first to test the market on a smaller scale. Try a targeted campaign with just a few thousand names and see the results, record your findings, and analyze the outcomes to see how you can improve next time. That’s how you’ll successfully grow your marketing strategy.
2. Personalize Your Mailings
When you send customized direct mailings, you’ll see higher sales numbers and more brand loyalty from your customers. Use customer relationship management (CRM) data to determine precisely what your customers need and to predict their subsequent purchases.
With your extra CRM information, you can highlight the products you think your customers will want and tailor messaging focused on the preferences of each potential lead—show your customers what (your data says) they want to see.
3. Update Your Mailing List
If your mailings don’t reach your target customers, you’ll waste your time and resources on leads that will never pan out. Make sure your data on your customers is up to date; that includes their names, phone numbers, and addresses.
Your digital marketing team should be responsible for keeping your mailing lists updated. Your lists should always be current with the National Change of Address (NCOA) and should be checked regularly to ensure you don’t have duplicate listings, which can be expensive for you and annoying for the mail recipient.
4. Create Attractive Messages
Direct mail has more flexibility than emails, which have limiting factors—like character counts, and subject lines being the de facto first impression of your message—so use that to your advantage and get creative! You can completely customize your messaging for maximum impact, grabbing your customer’s attention with designs that inspire them to move forward with purchasing from you while simultaneously showing off your company’s brand colors and logo.
When you design your self-mailers, envelope, or catalog, choose imagery and formats like 6″ x 10 ¾″ or 5 ½″ x 8 ½″ self-mailers or 9″ x 11″ oversized catalogs that will stand out in the mailbox and make your recipient want to flip through your materials immediately rather than drop them into the recycling bin.
5. Drive Customers to Act
Include a clear call to action with your customers’ next steps so they can complete their transaction with you and make it as easy as possible to get started. The clearer and easier you make their path to purchasing, the more likely they are to follow through. Use special offer codes to track responses so that when your consumers make a purchase, you’ll know specifically which offer caught their attention.
Develop Your Direct Mail Marketing Strategy
Even though we live in an increasingly digital world, direct mail advertisements can still be an effective, unique way to get in touch with new customers, as 73% of consumers prefer direct mail brand communications.
We can help—as one of the country’s largest print and direct mail powerhouses, the Phoenix Group of Companies’ direct mail service can handle everything your business needs. We can do everything from small trigger campaigns to massive national acquisition mailings, and we are consistently expanding our capabilities.
Get in touch with our team to see how we can help your direct mail campaign succeed, and download our direct mail factbook for more insights.
