Today’s consumers are channel agnostic and therefore a campaign often requires a cross-media approach to ensure that it reaches its full potential. The marketing reality is not about choosing between online or offline, but about the right set of channels working together to maximise the return on investment (ROI).
Well-designed direct mail works as an indispensable booster to online activity in the ever-busier consumers’ lives. Furthermore, direct mail delivers certain advantages that digital media simply cannot match: it is the only medium which speaks to customers’ senses of touch and smell and that addresses a need for tactile experiences. Through catalogues and vouchers, direct mail is one of the most impactful channel to boost sales, with for instance 65% of US consumers of all ages making purchases as a result of direct mail. When the objective is to expand e-commerce sales to new markets, a reliable address list and targeted direct mail campaign is sometimes all that is needed to drive traffic to an online store and trigger sales cross-border.
Below, we focus on three strengths of direct mail.
- The mail moment
Direct mail enters an individual’s home and is consumed on a one-to-one basis. This gives you much more time with your customer, time that’s invaluable in raising awareness, persuading, convincing and engaging them in a relaxed environment at a time of their choosing. A Belgian study shows that 90% empties the mail box every day and 78% reads the mail immediately. Mail is therefore also appreciated by 63% of the receivers. Royal Mail confirms that consumers react on almost half of mail (by reading, keeping or acting on it).
- Lead to action
Direct mail is the most likely form of communication to get a response from a customer, with the cost of every response measured with accuracy. The medium offers incentives to make people act – the ideal outcome for any customer communication. According to Print Power, response data on direct mail are between 54% and 83% of all mail opened, depending on the relationship with the sender. According to the IPC Direct Mail Guide, 47% of Swiss consumers visited a store in reaction to admail.
- Media integration
Omni-channel communication requires perfect integration of all channels and content, and also reinforcement of individual channels via synergies. Direct mail increases the effectiveness of other channels, especially online channels. Online media become 60% more effective when combined with direct mail (BrandScience 2011). Private Life of Mail, a 2015 study by Market Reach, showed that campaigns with mail drove market share growth with 3 times the efficiency of campaigns without mail.
There are many more strengths of direct mail - follow the links below to explore them.