Written by David James – Bethesda List Center, Inc.
Direct mail is a cost-effective marketing tool for targeting both existing and potential customers. It is great at gathering information from prospects, encouraging customers to purchase online and getting leads to visit a website. Here are seven reasons why you might want to consider being one of the smart marketers today using direct mail.
- Personal touch
Direct mail allows you to enter your prospect’s life as soon as they open your mail. Your piece should meet your prospect’s way of thinking and connect with them on a personal level. A strong sales piece will let you talk directly with your prospect and present your offer with expertise that only you can bring. It is not possible to attain those same results with emails. When people read their email, they may have other things to worry about too.
Maybe there’s a new Twitter post they have to look at or there are new notifications they have to see. Computer users are the most distracted individuals today and this is one of the reasons why unsolicited mail doesn’t get a lot of attention. With business-to-business postal direct mail, you can let your sales piece do its job as you are stepping in when your prospects are not busy trying to understand everything at once.
- Extremely targeted
It is possible to target markets by past purchases, demographics or psychographics. Your prospecting mail list can consist of contacts sharing some similarity such as belonging to the same age group or using the same zip code. You can also build a mail list from responders – people who have taken action in some way such as asking for more information. People included in this list have expressed their willingness to purchase something. In business-to-business purchases, many high ticket items are not sold based on one mailing.
It is hard to acquire accurate, quality email addresses today mostly because people don’t go for third party offers. A postal direct mail list provides more prospects compared to email lists that miss the the target audience.
- Inbox overload
We get more emails than we are capable of reading or want to read. Inboxes are overloaded with news, offers, personal communication and updates. Not everyone has the desire or time to click into every mail. Many people don’t even check their emails every day. When they finally check their inbox, it is likely that they may just delete your Email. Some might argue that physical mail is thrown away too, but their open rate is higher than emails. And, you have the time in the hand – between the mailbox and the trash. Envelopes and letters can both sell your products.
In a study conducted by data services company Epsilon, it was found out that 77% of customers search through physical mail once they receive it. This means a higher chance to get your mail read. There is not as much competition in direct mail and that is where you should focus on. Allow others to experience the inbox overload everyone is facing and use your direct marketing campaign to your advantage.
- Stealthy
Unlike online marketing, direct mail allows you to build, test and grow a business or campaign with extremely little visibility by your competitors. There are various tools that can be used to spy on your competitors online. With direct mail, your competitors will not know what your conversations are or how often and how much you are mailing.
- Increased trust
With the growing threat of viruses, spam and identity theft, people are becoming more hesitant about responding to online offers. Direct mail, on the other hand, is safe. The mail is delivered 6 days a week.
People are now more careful and apprehensive in the online world. This concern can be unfavorable to your sales message. People might doubt even the simplest words you write. Direct mail doesn’t face these same issues. You can include as much as you want without pushing people away. Customers are more likely to trust a direct mail than a suspicious fancy email.
- Easily scalable
The number of available responsive lists is the only limit when it comes to the size you can grow to. Direct mail allows you to predictably scale your business by continuously testing additional lists. With a reliable list broker, you can predict the size you can scale to, sometimes even after the first test. The biggest variables in a direct mail marketing campaign are the mail piece, response device and list. Having only three main things to test makes it easier to track and modify your campaign.
- Independent platform
With direct mail, you don’t have to worry about big companies telling you your message doesn’t meet their requirements. You also don’t need to think about algorithm changes, quality scores or other things usually associated with emails or online marketing that can seriously affect your business overnight.
Direct mail is beginner friendly. There’s no need to know how to write a code or hire someone to write it for you. No code is involved in direct mail. Once the layout and copy are completed for the mail piece, launching your campaign is very easy. Order names from your list broker and call the print and mail shop to complete your order on a certain date.
Direct mail also allows you to verify the quality and accuracy of the mail list since you have a physical address that can be cross referenced with other databases to prove its quality and demographics. This is not possible with an email campaign because most of the time, the email supplier will not give the email contact information to the marketer.
If you want to stand out, you have to do something different from your competitors. These days, a postal mail piece is unique and special. It is not often when someone gets a personalized envelope with an interesting teaser line that will encourage them to open it. This uniqueness will get more interest from the recipient and a response from them. Direct mail also connects with customers on a more personal and deeper emotional level than emails.
