The Benefits of Using Printing and Direct Mail Services for Your Next Project

In today’s digital world, there are a lot of options for marketing your products and services. Digital marketing comprises any marketing efforts that use the internet. Standard channels include SEM and SEO, social media, email marketing, banner ads, videos, and others.

With all of these options at your fingertips, it can be easy to view direct mail marketing as an outdated tactic. But the truth is, investing in direct mail services continues to be a great way to reach prospects, win their attention, and connect with them on a more personal level than digital marketing allows.

In a channel preference study, Epsilon found that 73% of U.S. consumers prefer direct mail for brand communications because they can read the information at their convenience.

In this blog, we’ll review direct mail services and the benefits of using them compared to other marketing tactics to help you determine if you should add direct mail to the budget for your next campaign.

What Is Direct Mail Marketing?

Direct mail marketing refers to any physical promotional mail a business sends through the U.S. Postal Service (or another delivery service) directly to customers or prospects at their homes or businesses. Common examples of direct mail are postcards, catalogs, coupons, flyers, and product samples.

What Are Direct Mail Services?

Any company that prints, prepares printed materials for mailing, and delivers direct mail for customers or clients provides direct mail services. This includes USPS, along with independent direct mail companies that serve local and national customers.

The Benefits of Printing and Direct Mail Services:

They’re Cost-Effective

Compared to other forms of marketing and advertising, costs for printing and direct mail services are actually quite affordable. Since direct mail marketing is cost-effective, it’s just as easy to run test campaigns and test a wide range of approaches with both direct mail and digital services.

Postage varies depending on the number of pieces in a direct mail campaign, so the more pieces you decide to send in a targeted geographic region can significantly reduce postage costs.

They’re Personal

Today, direct mail technology is at its best. Personalization is no longer just printing a name on a letter or postcard and calling it a day. With improved technology, you can personalize your direct mail campaigns with any data point you can get on a customer or prospect. Creatively personalizing your direct mail campaigns will make them much more impactful and can positively impact your brand equity. According to Canon Solutions America, personalizing a direct mail piece with the recipient’s name alone can increase response rates by 44%, while personalizing with a name and printing in full color images and content can increase response rates by as much as 135%.

They Enable Precise Audience Targeting

Direct mail campaigns enable a level of audience targeting that simply isn’t possible with digital. With a direct mail marketing campaign, you can get granular. You can target campaigns based on multiple categories, including:

• Geographic (Cities, zip codes, neighborhoods, and others)
• Demographic (Age, income level, education, and others)
• Psychographic (Interests, values, preferences, and others)

These are just a few examples. Depending on how you want to develop your lists, you can even target audiences based on multiple categories at once. Being strategic about how you segment and target your direct mail campaigns will provide big benefits, like enabling you to reach qualified audiences and bring in new customers without a huge advertising investment.

They’re Scalable

One of the top benefits of direct mail is scalability. Digital marketing may provide a lower expense initially, but it’s only effective up to a certain point. As you look to scale and grow your business, you will eventually need to move to a more targeted medium that allows you to effectively connect with, acquire, and retain customers. This is something that direct mail campaigns can offer that digital simply can’t. It’s a channel that allows you to scale your marketing efforts with reliability and flexibility, which you can then build into your growth strategy.

They’re Easy to Measure

Some marketing and advertising campaigns are easier to measure than others. For example, measuring the success of a billboard on a highway is going to be virtually impossible. Direct mail, on the other hand, is easy to measure when things like coupons, discount codes, and unique phone numbers are included because they can always be traced back to their respective DM campaigns.

They Work Well Combined with Digital Marketing

Successful marketing strategies always utilize multiple channels, and confident marketing managers know the value of combining direct mail marketing with digital marketing. When you combine direct mail and digital tactics, you enhance both campaigns to drive results and increase overall ROI. In fact, marketing campaigns that used direct mail and one or more digital channels experienced a 118% increase in response rates compared to using direct mail only.

Trust the Phoenix-ICS Group of Companies for Your Next Print and Direct Mail Project

Due to their combined service offerings and capabilities, the Phoenix-ICS Group of Companies provides a wide range of benefits to its clients.

• Speed to Market: With the ability to insert and prepare up to 5 million pieces for mailing per day, we can expedite delivery to meet your goals. We also offer commingling services in-house and drop ship to bulk mail facilities around the country to shorten cycle times and get direct mail campaigns in-home faster.
• Strategy and Creative: From strategic development through the creative process and into project execution, Phoenix-ICS can manage your marketing campaign with agency-like precision and expertise. Phoenix-ICS also works with clients to eliminate silos and help develop a cohesive omnichannel marketing strategy for improved results and increased ROI.
• Privately Held: The Phoenix-ICS Group of Companies is privately owned, meaning it can tailor services around client needs and preferences and will always act in their best interest.
• Company Certifications: The Phoenix-ICS Group of Companies is HIPAA certified and has an SOC 2 Type II certification to ensure secure management of customer data, especially for industries working with sensitive information. Phoenix-ICS is also assessed annually by TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian to guarantee they remain in good standing.

If you’re interested in working with a print and direct mail provider known for higher quality and trusted print and direct mail services, get in touch with the Phoenix-ICS Group to explore our services and see how we work together.