Undoubtedly, we have entered into a world where digitization has stepped its foot almost everywhere and will be overruling the world in so many way related to our marketing outreach. But does that mean every other opportunity will become irrelevant? Of course NO.
There are few things that are still relevant and will always be. Among such campaigns is the direct mail marketing route.
Just because it sounds little interruptive one cannot ignore it completely. In fact, it’s less noisy than any other form of marketing that is overcrowded on the internet. Direct mail’s read-through-rate is higher than the email blast. When response rate is high, ROI is likely to become high.
Therefore, direct mail marketing is still alive and will be paramount for B2B businesses in 2018.
Why Is Direct Mail Marketing Still Alive?
It’s because direct mail stands out and the reason it stands out is that it is targeted. In today’s world where inboxes of each and every person are bombarded with emails, nobody is sure of the level of commitment they will get from those.
But on the positive side of direct mail, the audience get a high level of commitments through it. Direct mail talks directly to the prospects and that’s the reason why it gets noticed more than other marketing methods.
A piece of a letter in the hand feels more personal than an email received in the inbox. When you’re on the computer, you will surely get distracted by the number of notifications and other things going on at the same time. So you can’t say an email can be that person. Instead, direct mail will allow you to enter the prospect’s life as soon as they open the piece of mail.
Direct mails contain the power of trust. You can send as much of information and attachments you want. Whereas emails have the risk of getting hacked by the hackers, leaving it no more personal and no more secure.
The direct mail marketing has a better response rate. It’s very probable that people will reply to your email but when you send a direct mail the chances of getting response are high. According to a survey done by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), it was made clear that the response rate of direct mail marketing is 4.4% as compared to email’s average response rate of 0.12%.
With direct mail, it’s easy to track results as compared to that of emails and social media due to spamming, ad blockers, filters, returned emails, and many other factors. However, direct mail makes it easy for you. All you need to do is to offer them a unique code along with the mail.
Direct Mail Trends To Use In 2018
Despite the fact that direct mail has lost its importance for the last few years, it’s still holding the better response rate than email. Then, why shouldn’t you try some better trends to keep it going with direct mail and grow your ROI in 2018. Here are few trends that will help you.
Personalized Engagement
Whenever the term personalization comes it means there’s a bond between the two. Similarly, when you send direct mails it should be more personalized so that you can create a bond with your customer and get the results you want.
Before sending mail, research about your audience so that you already know their interests and accordingly you can design your mail to appeal your targeted audience by knowing what is important to them.
Integrated Direct Mail Campaigns
Integrate online and offline mail campaigns to avail more benefits for your B2B business. It is so necessary because it makes easy for people to follow.
Landing pages, email addresses, interactive media, social media, online ads, Television ads, radio or whatever it is, integrate and coordinate your marketing campaigns across all multiple channels. This ensures consistency, your customers see the same messages and it is also effective in broadening your audience and lead generation.
Unique Coupon Codes
As the name suggests, unique coupon codes are not that can’t be shared with anybody other than the one it’s provided to. That’s why it’s more helpful in generating higher ROI than other generic coupons.
Also, you can track your customer with these coupon codes and find relevant information about them so that you can create a better customer profile for them.
Appointment Mailers
Also known as meeting makers, these kind of mailers have strong call-to-actions that often comes with an incentive. This serve for the purpose of converting warm leads into opportunities. For instance, you can send zomato food voucher with chocolates.
Enhanced Delivery
You can create a better texture for your mail so that it can look interesting. We all know that a touch has the strongest impact on the mind. So when you work to create a better mail for your customer by adding some shapes, colorful sheets, images etc., it work to influence your customer’s mind very hard.
Foil Stamping
Shiny things are always eye catchy. Hence, foil stamping can be the perfect way to grab the attention of the people in 2018 and to stand out.
Website Visitor Tracking Campaign
Creating a unique trigger for visitors arriving to your site from a unique link presented in your direct mail marketing campaign can be a great way to engage new business.
Visitor tracking software is easy to implement and overlaps digital efficiency and intelligence with old school marketing outreach. Allowing you to follow up with those who have displayed deep interest with contact information.