Harnessing the Power of Direct Mail
Fed up of hundreds of emails filling up your inbox everyday? You’re not alone! Marketing research shows email response rates are a rather sad 0.12%, compared against 4.4% for direct mail, read on to find out why print definitely isn’t dead in 2020…
What is Direct Mail?
Direct mail is a marketing strategy that involves sending a mailer, letter, invite, brochure, etc. to your existing or prospective clients. It can be used for both B2C and B2B, but mostly it’s directed at consumers.
Why Direct Mail?
The saying ‘If you mean it, print it!’ has never been more poignant in today’s digital world. The success of companies such as Moonpig, Funkypigeon and Touchnote show that we still love to receive printed items that resonate with us and mean something.
Direct Mail is the only marketing channel which engages all the senses, as you can touch, feel and smell it… The printed word brings out our humanity and touches people, and moves people to action like no other medium.
In our digitally optimised world, it’s obvious that customer targeting has never been easier. But now we receive up to 10,000 marketing messages a day! So it’s also never been harder to cut through all the marketing noise and make your brand message stand out and be remembered. Digital marketing is now perceived as a distraction to our lives, and print is the antidote to that distraction.
7 Reasons why you should be using Direct Mail
- Brand Retention
Because of direct mails sensory connections, it is over 5x more likely to be remembered compared to digital channels. Research proves that consumers trust brand messages through direct mail much more than digital adverts.
- Response Rates vs Email
The average response rate of a direct mail campaign is between 2.7 – 4.4%. This dwarfs email response rates of 0.12%, as an example, if you sent a marketing piece to 1000 people, 43 more people would respond to your direct mail. cross marketing, (Direct Mail and Digital) is the perfect way to reach your whole target audience.
- Household Reach
The average piece of mail is kept in the household for 17 days. It is shared on average with members of the house hold 23% of the time and can be also shared on social media when done right.
- Open Rates
82% of mail is opened, and 47% of direct mail is read or scanned. Because competition for attention in the letterbox is currently so low, direct mail has an incredibly big open and read rate compared with most digital channels.
- The impact of Personalisation
Direct mail is much more visual and physical, giving you much more freedom for creativity. Direct mail can be personalised so your promotion speaks directly to the contact. By using their first name or some personal information on the design, is a great attention grabber.
- Highly Targeted
Because direct mail is direct, it can be highly targeted to existing customers, leads and prospective customers. Although mailing lists can be bought and sold, using direct mail for on-board, re-targeting and building loyalty are extremely effective.
- GDPR Friendly
Unlike email you don’t need explicit consent to send direct mail to your customers. You can often rely on “legitimate interest”
How Healeys Can Help?
Healeys have been helping clients realise the power of Direct Mail for years, using state of the art software to integrate variable images and data into numerous Direct Mail Campaigns. Our creative digital print presses enable us to enhance your mailing piece with foils and white/neon inks, ensuring your Direct Mail makes the biggest impact. Healeys can also produce and undertake a sample mailout, a pre-production run of different mailers to gauge which message and design has the most impact and response.
In the recent Ricoh webinar ‘Beyond CMYK – The agency’s Perspective’, Senior Creative at Paperhat Creative, Danielle Crebbin stated,
“A key aspect of a direct mailing campaign is to have the ability to run a small sample mailout with a number of different designs and messages. The response from these, shape the main mailing and ensure that our client gets the best return on investment”
If you’d like more information on Direct Mail and the benefits to you and your clients, please contact one of the team by emailing [email protected] or calling the office on 01473 461122.