Although the digital world we live in continues to advance, traditional marketing methods are still highly beneficial and effective. Since internet users are constantly shown advertisements, they’ve learned to ignore the clutter in their email inboxes, social feeds, and web pages. Plus, with so many players competing in the digital marketing space, it’s more difficult than ever to capture the attention of online users.
However, when implementing direct mail as part of your multi-channel marketing strategy, your company, products, and services can stand out from the noise. Properly utilizing direct mail messaging will allow you to reach your audience, grab their attention, and connect with them on a personal level. With the help of an expert partner like the team at Arkansas Mailing Services, you’ll be able to target your high-interest customers and significantly improve your return on investment (ROI).
What is Direct Mail Marketing?
Direct mail marketing is a form of advertising that encourages recipients to take action without the involvement of a middleman. Customers and prospects alike are sent physical pieces of mail – straight to their homes – that contain information about your company, products, and services. Direct mail marketing can take many forms to effectively reach customers and spark their interest, such as:
- Newsletters
- Brochures
- Catalogs
- Coupons
- Postcards
- And more.
The most effective direct mail marketing campaign uses a format that appeals most to your target audience. The overall goal is to utilize an impactful call-to-action (CTA) that entices customers to interact with your brand, such as encouraging recipients to use a coupon, visit your website, follow your company on social media, and others.
Reasons to Use Direct Mail
Even though technology may be evolving, direct mail is still incredibly useful. There are numerous reasons to add a direct mail component to your current strategy.
- Cost-effective. Rather than attempting to market your product to everyone, direct mail allows you to focus on high-intent customers, thus boosting your ROI. You can also conduct testing to discover the ideal combination of offering, audience, and design for your campaign.
- More visibility. Regardless of how much effort you exert to craft the perfect email, your potential customers are already overwhelmed with other promotional content and therefore most likely won’t open your message. Direct mail, on the other hand, has a higher delivery rate and open rate due to the recipients’ tendency to sift through each piece before discarding or keeping.
- Effectively target ideal customers. By investing some time into leveraging available data, you can identify which customers would likely want or need your products and services. Whether you segment based on occupation, buying habits, or location, you can streamline your efforts and send messages only to those interested.
- Establish customer trust. The influx of promotional emails within customers’ inboxes not only causes them to instinctively delete them, but when they receive messages from unfamiliar sources, they’re likely to believe it’s a scam. Direct mail marketing can be highly personalized, allowing recipients to feel unique, trusting, and attentive to your brand.
- Increase brand awareness. Even if certain recipients aren’t interested in your products and services at the current moment, they’ve seen your logo and have associated what your company provides to it. Then, if the day comes where they’re ready to buy what you have to offer, they’ll remember the mail piece. Before the direct mail campaign, they didn’t know who you were, which is a testament to the power of branding.
- Complement other marketing strategies. A key fundamental principle of marketing is to never rely upon just one source. A multi-channel strategy aims to reach potential customers wherever they spend their time, as well as connect with them on various platforms.
- Easy. With direct mail marketing, you don’t need to possess in-depth knowledge of anything technological, nor do you need to provide a significant investment upfront. Measuring the success of your campaign is simple, whether it include landing page views, tracking each piece to delivery, or counting the number of redeemed offers. It’s also easy for the customer, as they’re able to digest the information quicker compared to a digital campaign.
Benefits of Direct Mail Marketing
When you begin a direct mail campaign, you’ll experience the benefits firsthand, whether it be seen in improved sales or web traffic. Notable benefits include:
- It enters the home. Unlike emails, physical mail pieces don’t carry with them the threat of a scam or computer virus. Therefore, recipients are more comfortable opening a message from an unknown source. The potential customers, even if they don’t act on your offer, will have touched the mail, looked at it, and interacted with it. The mail is noticed and has a better chance of being remembered.
- It’s flexible. Direct mail can take many forms – not only when it comes to format, but also in terms of the actual message. Whether you choose to promote an upcoming event, introduce a new product, send a reminder, or execute a survey, you don’t need to worry about word count. Your entire message will be received, whereas with email, likely only the subject line is retained.
- It sticks around. Direct mail has a fairly lengthy lifespan compared to email and other forms of digital marketing. Once the piece sparks interest in the household member gathering the mail, they’re likely to leave it on the counter for others to see. In the digital realm, recipients typically keep scrolling or delete the message.
- It stands out. As few marketers are taking advantage of direct and bulk mail printing services, your piece has a greater chance of standing out from the crowd. Even though the internet is full of marketing messages, physical mailboxes aren’t, making the strategy less common and more effective.
- Targets all age groups. Although the number of users on social platforms and the internet in general continues to rise, not every person is active. The inactive population therefore isn’t exposed to the digital advertisements your company may be running. Having a multi-channel approach allows you to reach those not online in addition to the active users, thus spreading your message even further.
Get Started with Your Arkansas Direct Mail Marketing Campaign Today
At Arkansas Mailing Services, we have the knowledge and experience to help create an effective direct mail campaign for your business. We are a one-stop-shop for all of your printing and mailing needs, so you’ll never have to worry about working with multiple partners to distribute your campaign. Our customer service, focus on security, and top-of-the-line printing and mailing equipment have set us apart from the competition since 2004.
If you’re looking to save time and money on your direct mail marketing campaign, let’s work together. We make mailing easy! Contact us today to take advantage of all the benefits direct mailing has to offer.