As you probably know, marketing and advertising made a jump to digital over the past ten years and direct mail dropped off. In the age of new technology many marketers considered it old school and even dinosaur like. Why print and mail something when you can throw up an ad on Facebook and reach even more prospects?

Ads plus

Well, there is certainly nothing wrong with digital marketing, but there are some downsides to it that marketers are starting to combat. For one thing, people repeatedly look at their phones all day (on average, around two hours a day) and they are inundated with ads during that time. Literally, a person can run into a thousand ads in one twenty-four hour period. When you think about it, that’s pretty crazy.

Ads oblivion

Guess what happens then? People completely tune those ads out. They’re blind to them. This makes sense—there is only so much “noise” we can deal with, and only so much content our brains can process. But more importantly, this also means Internet ads are not as useful as they may originally have been.

Direct mail = a different option 

There are different ways marketers are dealing with this, and one way includes our old friend, direct mail. For a few reasons:

  • DM requires 21% less effort to understand and process than digital media
  • Recipients of DM are able to remember the mail piece and brand 75% of the time, vs. 44% of the time for digital.
  • DM is more effective overall than digital channels at motivating its audience, scoring an average of 1.31 vs. 0.87. (1.0 indicates greater in-market success).

DM = higher ROI

Basically, paper is easier to remember than digital—and perhaps more motivating. The DMA reports that direct mail has a 15-17% ROI when combined with a targeted mailing list. Consumers have a different experience when they receive it. There are no distractions or interruptions, there’s time to think about what they’ve read, and consumers tend to hang onto offers they’re interested in. This is all very different from quickly scanning a screen, looking at an offer and not being ready to make an immediate decision.

Audience targeting

Targeting—coming up with a very specific mailing list—is the big game changer for modern DM. Because of the data we’re able to collect now, it is possible to pinpoint a very specific audience and to personalize the DM communication through messaging and using the recipient’s name. The more personalized and relevant the offer, the higher your response rate.

As you can see, there are a lot of great reasons to add direct mail to your marketing strategy. Combined with data, creating personalized messages for very specific audiences can get your brand in front of more customers who act on your offer. Need help? Contact us today!