Delivering Customer Experience with Direct Mail

However, with rising postal and paper costs, it is essential that direct mail is effective, to make the process worthwhile. Here, we will explore how businesses can use direct mail to create a memorable and effective customer experience.

Personalisation

In terms of what the direct mail pieces look like, incorporating personalisation into your campaign is worth consideration. Rather than just launching a direct mail campaign to anyone and everyone, using data-driven strategies to launch campaigns can result in a better ROI for the business.

Creating campaigns with a personalised touches and elements can make your direct mail stand out amongst crowded markets. By using the data approach, digital printing can allow you to create pieces that are tailored to each segment of the market, or parts of your customer base. Providing unique and tailored offers to certain age ranges, customer profiles or different incentives for current customers and prospective ones, can make your campaign more effective than a general mail campaign.

Integration with other channels

One way to get the most from your direct mail campaign and create a strong customer experience, is to incorporate it amongst other marketing strategies, across different channels. By doing this, brands have the potential to capture the attention of customers more effectively than they would by adopting a single channel approach.

In practice, adopting the multi-channel approach can have very strong results, with the adoption of this yielding up to a 300% increase in conversions. Integrating direct mail with TV campaigns or social media marketing can provide increased brand awareness and recall. It can work well as a follow-up message or a reminder, such as an email a customer saw for a product online, then sent an offer for the product via direct mail – this has the potential to influence the buying behaviour of that person.

Call to Action (CTA) and compelling content

The importance of a call to action cannot be underestimated. Without clear instruction or direction, the marketing materials are at risk of falling flat, as there is no next step for a customer to take. A strong CTA can increase response rates, create an easy process for the customer to follow and make a purchase, perhaps with a targeted offer, and can drive leads and conversions. The CTA is the final act of the direct mail piece, directing the customer to carry out a desired further action, and is arguably the most important element of the campaign.

Compelling content is also important, as is the design of the direct mail. This doesn’t necessarily mean complxt decoration or layouts, but the ease for which it is for the recipient to make sense of and act upon the material. The design is about making the message clear, and as simple to understand for the customer as possible.

Direct mail campaigns that are overly complicated or cluttered, run the risk of muddling their overall message, the brand identity, and the overall purpose of the marketing. Keeping things simple yet engaging can make your brand stand out, leading to an advantage over other campaigns and brands.

Overall

Direct mail campaigns can be very effective for the customer experience. Focusing on elements including the design and the personalised aspect can see not only an increased appeal to customers, but also a tangible increase in the open rate, as well as more leads and conversions for the business. Use data to launch the campaign with an aim, targeting the correct people with the correct information, and importantly, use the direct mail method as just one part of an overall marketing strategy.

Sources

Direct Mail Trends and Predictions for 2023 - Blog | Who's Mailing What! (whosmailingwhat.com)

Direct mail printing outlook 2023: About data, targeting, triggers (brandunited.com)

(27) The Rise of Direct Mail Campaigns in 2023 | LinkedIn