In an increasingly digital world, direct mail (DM) can seem dated, uncool and boring.
Everyone has the world at their fingertips these days, and technology is more accessible than ever before – even among older generations. The pandemic made us rely heavily on our smartphones, tablets and laptops to work, play and socialise and B2B and B2C businesses realised the importance of shifting their marketing to digital.
But, in recent months, we have seen an increase in people executing direct mail campaigns over digital counterparts.
DM and other non-digital marketing tactics now give businesses the ability to stand out from their competitors in an overly saturated digital marketplace.
Direct mail can be far more personal than digital marketing
Smartphone and tablet users get bombarded with online advertising every single day. Although these ads can be very targeted – in both B2B and B2C advertising – they are seldom very personalised.
In comparison, DM can have a far more personal touch. Most people enjoy receiving mail addressed to them and check their mailboxes and doormats regularly. An eye-catching direct mail marketing piece that’s completely personalised can be an effective way to stand out from all the digital noise created by your competitors.
It’s less likely to be considered spam
Audiences are increasingly aware of the nature of online advertising – we’ve all been there when you check your social media feed to see it littered with adverts from a website you were browsing just hours before. As a result, some online advertising can come across as spammy, intrusive and a little annoying.
Direct mail, on the other hand, is far less likely to be considered as much of an annoyance – especially as its popularity decreased in recent years. At worst, your DM piece will be put into the recycling bin, but only after it’s been scanned and read by the recipient – as a physical piece of mail with someone’s name on it can be very difficult to ignore.
Direct mail can have impressive conversion rates
In a recent case study, we explain how we helped the University of Salford cleanse and manage their alumni data using a personalised multi-channel marketing campaign.
For the DM aspect of the campaign, we wanted to tap into alumni who were perhaps less tech-savvy than others and used a combination of personalised, ‘nostalgic’ creative and PURLs (personalised URLs), to encourage them to update their marketing preferences and details.
Of the people that visited their PURL from our direct mail, a truly impressive 95% went on to successfully update their contact details.
Comparing this to the email aspect of the same campaign – from all the successful email deliveries, 3.2% went on to convert (which is still a lot higher than the industry average of 1.2% we might add!).
To take away…
Direct mail is powerful because it’s something different.
We all get bombarded with emails, display ads, search ads and more every day. But can you say the same for DM marketing?
To stand out from your competition in a digital world, consider supplementing your digital marketing with some traditional direct mail – and see the benefits for yourself.
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