In today’s evolving marketing landscape, marketing teams are incorporating automation to supercharge their nurturing strategies. Why? Because a growing body of evidence is proving that both direct mail combined with digital automation are the keys to getting heard.
We’ll get into the many benefits of automated direct mail marketing, but first, let’s dive into how it works.
Not Your Father’s Direct Mail Marketing
Direct mail may be one of the best channels to take your marketing to the next level. Using your existing API or one of CPMI’s direct mail CRM integrations, you can now send direct mail based on any events or behaviors in your customer sales journey. This automated solution is called “programmatic” or “triggered” direct mail, and it allows you to send data-driven, personalized direct mail in real-time. From thousands of pieces of mail to a single postcard each day, our automated mailing service will print and individually send postal mail the next business day using business rules that you decide upon.
Here are the top reasons why your marketing automation needs direct mail.
The Benefits of Automated Direct Mail Marketing
Gets the Right Messages in Hands at the Right Time
Direct mail automation exists to get your message seen, when other channels are going unnoticed. With a proper automated marketing system in place, you can focus on your other important strategies that come with building and managing customer relationships.
Detailed Targeting and Personalization
While traditional direct mail has been a large batch, slow, manual process, automated direct mail allows businesses to send out frequent, small-batch campaigns that are highly personalized. And when it comes to marketing campaigns, personalization matters. In fact, almost 80% of companies that exceeded revenue goals have a personalization strategy. But how do you implement it?
With modern direct mail technology, you can create highly segmented and targeted direct mail lists based on the customer data you already have. Variable data printing, or VDP, is a print production process that allows you to change the text, color, or graphics for each printed piece. Let’s say someone has just inquired about your product. Using VDP, you can add a personal touch like the recipient’s first name, information about the product, promotional messages, or a localized map that shows the nearest retail location. This advanced form of printing not only offers personalization, but it also allows you to target who gets mailed without any delay in the printing process.
Less Competition
If you look at your email inbox right now, it’s mostly overloaded with offers, coupons, reminders, etc. Very few people answer phone calls from numbers they don’t recognize, and texting might not be the best channel to share complex information. The amount of direct mail people receive has significantly declined over the past decade, so marketing materials sent via post are more likely to catch your prospects’ attention and reactivate conversations or invite the recipient to take action.
Longer Lifespan
Email is read and quickly forgotten, whereas print can be kept as a reminder for several days or even weeks. Mail cuts through digital clutter and has one of the longest shelf lives of any marketing channel. In fact, over 25% of people report that they regularly retain mail for future reference.
Higher Response Rates
Another major benefit of using direct mail as part of your sales funnel is the fact that it generates a far higher response rate than email marketing. Most marketers are surprised to learn how automated direct mail response rates stack up against digital channels. A well designed direct mail postcard, for example, can produce a response rate of 3.7%, compared with 0.1% for both email and social media marketing campaigns, according to a recent report from the Direct Marketing Association. The prospect response rate increased by 190% compared to 2015, which proves that direct mail is more effective than ever.
Still not convinced? Here are a few more stats from Royal Mail:
- 87% of direct mail recipients are influenced to buy something online
- 54% of consumers engage in that brand’s social media after receiving a mailer
On top of that, direct mail outperforms digital ads in brand name recall and brand association.
Greater Return on Investment
Although the initial investment for direct mail is greater than email marketing, these costs tend to pay off substantially, giving you a higher return on your investment. According to Marketing Charts, direct mail has a median ROI of 29%, which beats out online display and paid ads. Click here to calculate your direct mail ROI.
Detailed Reporting and Tracking
A lot of time, effort, and strategy goes into a successful marketing campaign. And the work doesn’t stop once your mailers go out. As with most marketing channels a direct mail strategy should be measured in its effectiveness by tracking results. Print campaigns can directly attribute and measure the number of new customers, re-engagement activities, or increases in predetermined conversions. You can track results by including a QR code, trackable coupon code, landing page, reply cards, or personalized URLs on your mailer.
Also, determine what your average sales should be during your campaign by studying data from past sales. Take the total sales made during your mailing campaign, and subtract the total you have from historical sales data. This total will be the sales generated by your current campaign.
Knowing how to measure the results of your mailing campaign will help you avoid wasting your budgets on marketing strategies that are ineffective for your business. The goal is to have enough data to establish a channel that is predictable and sustainable over time.
Full Integration With Most CRMs
Another huge advantage of automated direct mail is the ability to integrate with popular CRM systems. This allows businesses to deliver the right products and services to their customers. Triggered direct mail campaigns use automated workflows from CRM and Marketing Automation software to “trigger” individual letters or postcards giving the messages a personalized feel, but freeing up valuable time for your employees.
Keep Your Funnel Flowing With CPMI Solutions
At CPMI, we offer fully-customizable automated mail campaigns. Our clients have a direct say in what goes into their cadence as well as the frequency of each touch-point. Our goal is to make sure your online and offline messages have a cohesive feel.
We offer a variety of ways to exchange data along the way. Some clients provide daily or weekly files, while others invest in an API exchange. Once the data exchange begins, these automated campaigns serve as a great way to keep your brand, sales messages, or customer persistence top of mine. Whether you need just a few pieces to mail to a targeted group or are wanting fulfillment mail to provide coverage, our exclusive in-house print facility and top-quality equipment produce your messages in a timely manner.
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