As popular as digital options have become, there’s too much value in the mailbox to leave it out of your marketing plans.
Finding the best way to get your product in front of potential customers is an age-old marketing problem, and the potential answers continue to grow as new avenues open up. Staying on the cutting edge of these opportunities is important for businesses to grow and thrive in today’s world. But marketers can’t forget that time-tested marketing tactics, such as direct mail, have also kept evolving too.
Direct mail marketing is often pushed aside in favor of the newest, shiniest toys and tools out there, but it’s far from obsolete. With 71% of American consumers of all generations excited to discover what the mail brings every day, it’s only becoming more valuable as time goes on. As 4 in 5 American consumers expect and look for deals or special offers in the mail, direct mail marketing puts personalized value directly into the hands of consumers primed to act — as a key piece of an omnichannel strategy.
Digital Response Rates Pale in Comparison to Direct Mail
As we’ve highlighted before, response rates from physical advertising can be approximately 9 times higher than response rates from digital advertising including email, social media, and paid search. A key part of this is the overwhelming clutter in many email inboxes, especially when compared to the comparably empty mailboxes. Every website, every service, and every app wants to have access to that inbox. It makes sense — it’s extremely simple to add another person to an email list. It takes more time and dedicated planning to add someone to a physical mailing list.
Creating and maintaining a strong direct mail presence for potential and existing customers is an easy way to remain top of mind for your product. In order to make a direct mail campaign as effective as it can be, it’s important to know and understand your audience so you can provide them with the information that best suits them. This is vital for tracking the effectiveness of your campaigns, and making it convenient for your potential customers to interact with your product, whether that’s through QR codes, URLs, trackable phone numbers, or some other method is a key step to making a successful marketing plan.
Oversaturation of the Digital Marketplace Dilutes Its Impact
Digital ads proliferate on nearly every page of the internet. Whether it’s preroll ads on YouTube videos or banner ads on the latest news article, it’s next to impossible to visit a web page without seeing some form of advertisement. While value can be gained from running ads like these, their constant presence has driven hundreds of millions of internet users to adjust how they interact online.
A reported 42.7% of internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 across the globe use some form of ad blocker, and that number jumps to 46.2% when you close that age range to 16-24-year-olds. With this type of software running, those banner and preroll ads never even get a cursory glance — they’re completely blocked before any type of impact can be made.
Digital marketing is a powerful tool, but it can’t be pushed out without a clear plan in place. Going for a thoughtless scattershot approach is about as effective as playing Texas hold ‘em in a wind tunnel, and typically ends up with similar financial results.
Putting Physical Products in a Mailbox Guarantees Views
The rise of ad blockers is a direct response to the intrusive nature of many forms of online ads. While a stuffed mailbox can be a hassle to carry back to the counter, there are no similar systems in place to stop someone from at least glancing at the material in their hands before sorting it aside.
In an interview with Dave Braun, the President of New Control in The Financial Brand, he said that, “…at end of the day, it’s one of the most intrusive channels. You still have to take the mail out of your mailbox and decide if you’re going to read it or throw it away. As a result, people who receive direct mail, take time to read it and respond, are extremely involved in their decision to take your product or service.”
Physical products are less prevalent than they were before the world turned its collective eyes to computer and phone screens, but that also means physical products that still make their way in front of people are that much more notable. There’s considerably more money in advertising today than there was before online took over as the primary form of daily interaction, so finding ways to stand out in an increasingly cluttered field is extremely valuable.
As anyone who paid attention to the disastrous ‘pivot to video’ trend from years back well knows, simply betting your future on views is foolish. Balancing getting eyes on your product or brand with smart, effective data usage is key, and can lead to significant benefits if executed well.
Build a Strong Direct Mail Campaign to Expand Your Business
As digital avenues continue to introduce and remove options from marketers’ toolkits, direct mail offers an expanding opportunity for you to take advantage of with key audiences. Getting your products and messaging in front of the right people doesn’t have to be a daunting task when you work with a marketing partner that understands your needs and the trends you should be following.
Building a strong direct mail campaign is only one part of a data-centric, omnichannel strategy, giving you the power to know more and do more. Amsive is ready to help you take the next steps, so let’s talk about how to achieve more for your marketing — and your business.
Author: Ryan Smythe, Content Manager
