With the continual rise of digital marketing and social media, businesses are always looking for effective ways to market to consumers. There are plenty of platforms and channels that enable you to engage with an audience and boost your business awareness. One that continues to be useful is Direct Mail.
- What is Direct Mail?
- Understand Your Audience
- Direct Mail Design Tips
- Add Value to Your Campaign
- Think Like a Customer
- Create a Plan of Action
- The Benefits of Direct Mail
What is Direct Mail?
It’s a form of a marketing strategy that involves sending a promotional piece of mail delivered to a business or home mailbox through the USPS® or another delivery service. Some of the most common forms of direct mail include postcards, flyers, brochures, and letters. This form of mail advertising is ideal for targeting specific demographics that are not always in the same neighborhood.
52% of Americans actually read every piece of mail
Before you get started, you’ll have to put some effort into creating the mailer to ensure a response from the people receiving it. We’ve listed a few tips and benefits on how to create a successful mailing campaign.
Understanding Your Audience
Ask yourself, who is the target audience? It’s challenging to create a campaign without fully understanding who you are speaking to. Whether you’re targeting businesses or consumers, there are thousands of lists available to select from. You can choose a list based on targeted demographics including, income, age, voter registration, in-house subscriber lists, and more. You can even select lists based on what type of car they own, education level, income bracket, and employment status.
The mailing list is an essential aspect of any direct mail campaign. If you can reach motivated customers with a service or product that benefits them, you’re likely to succeed.
For example, a new pediatrician may use direct mail to send postcards to families with children. If they are running a campaign for back-to-school checkups, they may choose a list of families with children under 12. Or if they are specializing in baby care, maybe they pull a list of women who are pregnant.
It’s important to take time and learn who your audience is to conduct a successful direct marketing campaign. This can be done by taking a look at your competitors, create a customer persona, conducts surveys, and more.
Direct Mail Design
Now, you know the audience, it’s time to create an effective direct mail design. You’ll want to decide if it’s going to be a postcard, flyer, or brochure, as those are the common types of direct mail pieces.
The ultimate goal of the design is to bring attention to your business, product, or services. It’s important to design something unique that not only stand out in the mail but will also get the recipient’s attention. You’ll want to make sure that your strategy will excite them. If your direct mail piece is “somewhat boring,” they may quickly dismiss your mailer regardless of your message and offer.
When coming up with a design, make sure it’s easy to read by including short paragraphs or bulleted lists, accompanied by high-resolution images. By adding images can help bring attention to the postcard. Since you have limited space, you need to the point quickly, rather than meandering from your message.
Resource: 9 Tips for Designing a Successful Postcard
Let’s go back to the pediatrician example from above. Say they are a new practice and looking to announce their grand opening. The goal is to make the one receiving the mailer to learn more about them and attend their grand opening. The design can be fun and have an energetic theme promoting giveaways, children’s activities, and coupons for first-time patients.
Below are some elements that play an essential role.
Images:
Use images wisely. Images are one of the most critical aspects of the design because it can grab people’s attention and increase the likelihood of them reading the mailer. Need help with images? We’ve listed the 28 best sites that offer free stock images to help you and your business select a high-resolution image.
Fonts:
Selecting the right font also plays a vital role in the design process. When choosing the font, stick to one or two typefaces. You’ll want to make sure that it’s easy to read. Include different font sizes (weights) to pull the reader’s eye. It also helps break up the copy.
White Space:
This is the “empty” space between different design elements such as text, images, graphics, and blocks. Remember, it refers to the black area, not the color. Having white space helps emphasize essential parts of the design while keeping your mailing from being overcrowded or cluttered, making it difficult to understand. Learn why white space is important when designing your campaign.
Call-to-Action:
You should have a clear call to action. Prospects should know exactly what to do once they read over your mailing. By doing so, it eliminates them from guessing on their next move, whether it’s a coupon, QR Code directing them to a landing page, or a phone number.
We understand that it can be challenging to create a custom mailer design. Let us bring your vision to life. To get started, please complete our graphic design form and receive a professionally designed mailer.
Add Value to Your Campaign
Another essential rule to incorporate when using direct marketing is value-added promotion. The campaign can miss the mark or have a different outcome if you don’t include an incentive such as sales, promotions, rebates, or bonuses. The solution is to give those receiving the mail piece a purpose to purchase now, so make your offer unique and provide excellent value to your customers.
64% visited a website in reaction to Direct Mial
Whether it’s a coupon or promotion, include a code so you can measure your campaign. If it was a success or if you need to tweak it for your next direct mail campaign.
Business Tip: If possible, run an A/B test. By doing so, you can quickly decide which targeted market or CTA worked best for you.
Become the Customer
It’s always important to step back and take a look at your marketing piece. Ask yourself, how would you react if you received the mailer? Is the CTA front and center? Is the offer or promotion strong enough? Does the design make your business look approachable and credible?
Give it one more test. Let others within your company take a look at them. You can even run it by family and friends to get an honest reaction.
If it’s hard for them to understand your overall message, you’ll need to make some adjustments to your campaign.
Plan of Action
Do not rush your campaign. Instead, give yourself all the time you need to plan it well. You will need time to design the mailer and time to print it out. You also have to figure out a delivery time and the recipients to receive your package.
Resource: Improve Your Marketing Content Strategy
You may also need time to plan because of a seasonal sale when to have the sale or something with a limited window of opportunity. For these reasons, you have to plan well ahead of time so that everything works out perfectly. Keep in mind that a well-designed postcard, flyer, or brochure can help catch the eyes of potential customers, while your message will benefit your audience to take action. Consider the benefits of adding a direct mail campaign to all your next big sales promotions.
40% of people will give a new business a chance after receiving a Direct Mail postcard.
Benefits of Direct Mail Campaigns
The purpose of direct mail is not to replace email marketing but to work as an additional marketing strategy. Direct mail still works today!
Here are some reasons direct mailings still performs well:
- A leader in response rates compared to other marketing campaigns
- It’s tangible and personal
- Builds trust and brand awareness
- Highly target mail (buy lists based on consumer information)
- Versatile (Unlimited creative options)
- Cost-effective marketing strategy
- Compliments other business marketing strategies.
54% of consumers like receiving mail from trusted brands on things that they are interested in – Small Business Trends
The above information will be helpful whether you are looking to sell more items to current customers or if you’re prospecting for new leads. Give Direct Mail a try and see how it can benefit your business.
Are you interested in learning more about Direct Mail? Please contact us, we’re here to help you from start to finish. You can visit our support articles to learn more about Direct Mail.
