What is Direct Mail Marketing?

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Direct mail marketing is a type of marketing strategy that brands and businesses use to engage customers offline. It communicates its message to potential or regular clients via printed brochures, flyers, and other dimensional packages. Direct mail marketing has become a valuable tool for businesses and marketers in a world taken over by social media and other online platforms that compete for attention.

Rising above the noise of digital overwhelm has become more difficult than ever causing marketers to shift to mediums where their message can be received clearly. Direct mail marketing strives to solve the current digital overwhelm by bringing the old ways to life.  

How Does it Work?

Word Cloud with Direct Marketing related tags

In direct mail marketing, a business owner or brand sends out tangible items to clients, customers and prospects. It aims to inform, connect and engage customers and prospects using printed marketing material like flyers, postcards, brochures, letters, catalogs, and much more. Direct mail services play an important role in ensuring these tangible items reach the intended addresses of potential customers or regular clients. The process of creating direct mail marketing involves researching your target audience, building a mailing list, and creating campaigns that align with the industry trends and developments. The last stage is sending the tangibles through mail to your respective recipients.

Why is Direct Mail Marketing Still Useful Today?

  • It Boosts Brand Visibility

Direct mail is interactive and therefore, boosts brand visibility since customers need to physically handle their mail and have a look at it before they act. Based on what they see, they can choose either to keep it or act immediately. Customers are more likely to engage with your promotional offer or call to action that requires them to do something after getting the intended message. 

  • It is Memorable

A personally chosen item or a handwritten note can create positive emotional connections compared to a standardized corporate gift. Getting letters in your mailbox evokes nostalgia in your potential customers about the times their family and friends have sent them mail. Adding a personalized touch like a signature or a handwritten note on your promotional item is memorable and sparks an emotional response in the recipient.

  • Allows for More Creativity

For a seamless customer journey, you can combine the power of digital content marketing and social media with direct mail. You can deliver creatively presented items like personalized gifts, handwritten cards, innovative swag items, experience tickets, gift cards, sweet treats, and much more. You can do whatever you feel works best for your brand as long as it evokes their emotional response to purchase your product or services.

  • It is Easy to Use

Direct mail is more straightforward compared to other channels, as it does not have complex bidding strategies to review, no platform to learn, or audiences to build. Instead, it has fewer steps and components to get the job done. First, you need to determine your target audience, choose a product, and then start your design. Once you have your design ready together with the mailing list, the direct mail service can deliver them to your recipients through their mailboxes. 

  • Less Competition

Your brand or business can benefit massively from direct mail marketing as it is less congested than online advertising. A potential client or customer is more likely to respond to an offer when they receive 2 pieces of physical mail a day compared to over a hundred ads or emails a day. The items that people receive in physical mail stand out because they get less distracted and are more likely to pay attention to your campaign.

ROI and Personalization of Direct Mail Marketing

After launching your campaign, it is important to understand how it is return on investment and how it affects your customer. How you measure your return on investment (ROI) depends on several factors such as the metrics for measuring the success, specific goals of the campaign, and the monetary return of the conversions. Personalization creates a one-to-one connection with your target audience that builds the relationship more compellingly. It can take the form of a handwritten note and can continue with carefully packaged items that resonate with your target audience at a personal level.

Direct mail marketing may seem outdated but has proven its effectiveness in the modern era which is full of digital overwhelm. However, this doesn’t mean you should do away with online advertising since customers still want to sign up for a loyalty program or read online reviews. You can always pair direct mail marketing with digital marketing to get the best of both worlds.