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With businesses’ physical locations closed and vendor fairs, trade shows and conventions canceled, how do you reach your customer base and expand your company’s horizons?
Direct mail!
Yes, really. While direct mail may sometimes seem outdated with the proliferation of digital marketing and email, think again.
Not only does direct mail have a relatively high ROI, but it also gets undivided attention from recipients. Few people throw away any part of a stack of mail before at least glancing at each piece. And, with the current quarantine orders in place across much of the country, the effectiveness of direct mail may increase.
USPS and other delivery businesses continue to deliver mail and packages to customers. Only, under the abnormal circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic, people are also home for an unprecedented amount of their day. People whose attention may have been challenging to capture previously are suddenly able to give attention to the direct mail messaging in their physical mailboxes.
Here are three creative ways to use your mailing list today to take advantage of the uninterrupted mail service and shipments during this time of decreased commercial activity.
Incorporate AR
Augmented reality is a technology that overlays digital elements on a mailer’s physical surface, bringing additional movement, context, and connection to the piece. The recipient activates a visual trigger on the direct mail piece with a smartphone or tablet camera, turning a traditional piece of mail into an experience. In addition to adding a sensory element, incorporating AR into your direct mail allows you to provide more content and track scans, clicks, and downloads easily. As a bonus, AR delivers a “wow” factor and a fun experience that people are more likely to share with friends and family, extending the reach of your campaign.
Hewlett Packard Enterprises added augmented reality into a direct mail campaign to support the launch of its software product HPE Primera. An AR experience was embedded into a printed flyer. The flyer offered consumers the opportunity to select one of three worldwide locations to be transported to and then used a call-to-action to encourage the consumer to visit the new microsite for the software product. The unique design of the printed piece resulted in strong customer engagement with a click rate of over 30%.
Consider the following ways to use AR in your next direct mail campaign:
- Share pricing, payment or discount options
- Add video demonstrations of your products or services
- Offer a “find a location” experience
- Enable customers to see how your product would look in a specific location in or around their home
The more interactive a mailing, the more likely it is to capture your mailing list’s attention, and the more successful it will be.
Use Dimensional Mail
Dimensional mail is an incredibly useful form of direct mail advertising. Dimensional mailers include boxes, tubes, containers, bags and any other carrier that has length, width, and height. The goal with a campaign using dimensional mail is to create an exciting opening experience that results in brand recall. Typically, companies send product samples or promotional items. While three-dimensional mailers are more expensive in terms of both production and postal handling, the almost perfect open rate and higher return may be worth the higher budget.
Coke used a highly successful dimensional mail campaign to advertise the “Rock in Rio” music and entertainment festival a few years ago. They designed a set of musical cans that each represented a different style of music that would be present at the festival.
As part of a VIP kit, the cans were mailed to influential Brazilian celebrities. Scanning each of the cans with a mobile app launched playlists of bands performing at the festival.
To top it off, the VIP kit itself served as a cardboard amplifier. The DIY “speaker” allowed fans to place their smartphones into a slot on the box and crank up their music without any added cables or electricity.
The celebrity recipients shared their VIP kits on social media, generating more than 30,000 likes on the first day and reaching more than 1.7 million people.
How can you add dimension to your mailers and captivate your mailing list?
- Get interactive. Engage your recipients with a mail piece that requires pulling, tearing, folding, or spinning.
- Add a pop-up. Pop-up mail adds weight and drives curiosity.
- Consider packaging. Send your piece in package form. Include objects that promote brand awareness and a brochure or card with information about your brand.
- Include specialty folds. Folds such as the iron cross roll, gate or accordion add thickness to your mail pieces and set your mail apart in the mailbox.
Dimensional mail continues to be one of the most exciting and effective methods of sharing your marketing message.
Combine direct mail with a digital marketing strategy
While email may be the most used tool for marketing, studies show that response rates are higher for direct mail. Direct mail campaigns also generate purchases that are up to five times larger than email campaigns.
Combining direct mail with email or other digital marketing strategies led to purchases six times larger than email alone.
Consider the following combined digital and direct mail marketing strategy used by a marketing company in Utah to increase engagement with their clients.
The company sent out a direct holiday mailer to all of their clients with a holiday poem, a $20 bill, a QR code, and a hashtag.
When the recipient scanned the QR code, they opened a video that featured staffers expressing their gratitude to the customers. The footage also encouraged them to spend the $20 on someone less fortunate during the holiday season.
Then, the agency asked everyone who received the mailer and followed through to share their act of kindness on Twitter, using the provided hashtag (#20Helps). This marketing campaign began five years ago, is still going strong, and has been celebrated as a huge success by the company.
Combining direct mail with a digital marketing strategy doesn’t have to be complicated.
- Email – Email can be used both before your direct mail pieces hit mailboxes to build curiosity and after to keep the offer fresh and serve as a reminder to respond.
- Social Media Ads – Sites such as Facebook offer the ability to match your direct mail file to your audience on the site. This allows you to send targeted direct mail ads to your customers and prospects picked up through Facebook.
- Display Ads – Banner ads on web pages can affect consumers at any stage: awareness, education, or evaluation to purchase. Matching your direct mail file to an IP address allows you to target specific people on your mailing list.
Mail has a unique, tactile sensation that email and digital marketing cannot replicate. Using the two strategies in tandem can work well to increase exposure with customers and prospects and, in turn, generate new leads and increase response rates and sales.