by Summer Gould
As
we start the New Year and put this crazy year of 2020 behind us, we need to
buckle down on direct mail planning. The strategies we started in 2020 and were
then forced to drastically change because of Covid-19, must be updated to be
more effective in 2021. The power of direct mail has grown over the last year
as digital fatigue has grown. People look forward to direct mail that is
interesting to them. Did you know that direct mail campaigns recently have the
highest response rates ever recorded by the Data and Marketing Association at
9%?
Let’s
get your 2021 response rates even higher! Here are 5 tips:
1.
Omnichannel – Combine all your marketing channels together for a
complete omnichannel experience to drive higher results. Direct mail is a key
component in any marketing campaign, but is even more effective when combined
with other channels.
2.
Retargeting – Use direct mail to reach out
to people who have gone to your website or landing pages but did not make a
purchase with a special offer. You will be surprised at what a high response
rate you can get from this.
3.
Creativity – Grab attention with hyper
creative envelopes or mailers. Use texture, colors, images and folds to your
advantage. No other marketing channel can stimulate touch so have some fun with
it. There are all kinds of textured paper or coating you can add to enhance
your mail pieces.
4.
Targeting – You must be very targeted in
sending the right messages to the right people. You will need to segment your
data to effectively target people by interests. In order to do this, you need
to be capturing data about your customers.
5.
Personalization – Use everything you know about
your customers to create highly personalized mail. You can use more than just
purchase history for your messaging. You definitely need to use more than just
a first name to call it personalized. Create variable images, copy and colors
to drive more interest.
If
your data file is lean on information beyond name and address, you can run a
profile of your data to append additional information such as demographics,
geographics, psychographics, and behavioristic data. This can help you better
understand who your customers are in order to target better prospects. This can
help you gain new customers and send better offers to current customers.
Also,
make sure you are cleaning your data by updating addresses when people move,
removing deceased people and verifying postal addresses are deliverable. There
is no need to waste money on mail pieces that will not reach the intended
person.
Since
73% of American consumers say that they prefer direct mail because they can
read it whenever and wherever they want, make sure you are sending them
something that is of interest to them. We live in an interconnected world; your
customers expect you to communicate with them through the various channels they
use. The companies that do this effectively see the best results.
When
you use campaigns that include both digital and direct mail, you on average
receive 39% more attention than a digital-only campaign. Research shows
messages delivered via direct mail can be powerfully motivating with 92% of
people driven to digital activity and 87% influenced to make an online
purchase. Are you planning how to be more effective at this for 2021?
Summer Gould is President of Eye/Comm
Inc. Summer has spent her 27 year career helping clients achieve better
marketing results. She has served as a panel speaker for the Association of
Marketing Service Providers conferences. She is active in several industry
organizations and she is a board member for Printing Industries Association San
Diego, as well as a board member for Mailing Systems Management Association of
San Diego. You can find her at Eye/Comm Inc’s website: eyecomm.org, email: summer.gould@eyecomm.org, on LinkedIn, or
on Twitter @sumgould.
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