Growing your business starts with a strong and effective marketing plan. You need a strategy that generates the highest responses and is proven to bring in better results than any other marketing strategy that your competitors are using.

Luckily, direct mail, the powerful and cost-effective marketing strategy, can help, and we have 10 tactics you can take advantage of that are guaranteed to help you grow your business this year.

1. Automate Your Direct Mail This Year

Direct mail marketing has proven to be a powerful way to advertise your business and increase growth but what if you could automate your campaigns so you could generate business growth even quicker?

You can! Try Direct Mail CRM Integration this year. It’s a direct mail solution that integrates with your CRM or marketing automation platform so you can send direct mail the same way you send emails.

With this direct mail marketing strategy, you can send direct mail with a click of a button right from your CRM or set up triggers so direct mail messages are automatically sent based on certain actions your audience takes or events your company hosts.

2. Send Customers a Birthday Mailer

To grow your business, you need to also grow and nurture the relationships you have with your existing customers. After all, more than 50% of a business's revenue comes from repeat customers.

Getting an existing customer to buy again is much easier than getting a new prospect to buy because your customers already trust your brand. They’ve converted once and know the benefits of your product or service firsthand, which gives them more of a reason to convert again.

One of the best direct mail marketing tactics to connect with customers on a personal level that will help grow your relationship with them, is by sending them a birthday card. You can include a special offer or promo code to celebrate their special day and to keep your brand top of mind.

Of course, you could send an email wishing them a happy birthday, but your customers, just like us all, are bombarded by emails every day. Emails don’t show that you care, and chances are they won’t even be seen.

3. Reach Out with Direct Mail at Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

There are 3 things to consider with this direct mail marketing tactic:

• Direct mail has a response rate of 9% while email only has a 0.2%.
• Direct mail has a 90% open rate while email only has 23%.
• Reaching out at every stage of the marketing funnel is essential for business growth.

Direct mail marketing results in higher responses, people are engaging with direct mail more than other marketing efforts, and it’s critical to connect with prospects at every stage of their journey for a greater chance that they convert.

This means using direct mail to connect with a consumer at stage 1 to build brand awareness, stage 2 to create interest, stage 3 to convert, and stage 4 to encourage repeat business is the best marketing strategy there is.

Check out our blog “How to Incorporate Direct Mail into Your Marketing Funnel” to get some ideas on how you can optimize this powerful direct mail marketing tactic.

4. Take Advantage of Catalog Marketing

Studies have shown that when catalogs are implemented in a direct mail campaign, there is a revenue lift of 163%. Plus, 60% of online shoppers enjoy receiving a catalog and are influenced by the catalog to visit the website. 84% of people from that same study also feel that it’s easier to shop online with a catalog in hand.

If catalogs generate a lift in revenue, people enjoy them, people are holding on to them to shop, —plus keeping your brand on hand and top of mind—and they influence purchase decisions, then it sounds like a no brainer direct mail marketing tactic that you need to take advantage of right now.

These statistics aren’t the only direct mail data to show how important catalogs are either. Catalogs are a powerful direct mail marketing tool that is sure to help you grow your business.

5. Reach Smaller Audiences

In the past, it has always been cheaper to reach a large audience in your direct mail campaign so you could take advantage of bulk mail discounts. This isn’t the case anymore.

With no minimum postcard mailing—also referred to as "Postcard Commingling" —you can send as few postcards as you want and still take advantage of bulk mail discounts.

This is a direct mail marketing strategy that can help you generate exponential growth because it allows you to affordably reach a much smaller and targeted audience. Better yet, because it’s so cost-effective, it makes it affordable to reach out to that same smaller audience more than once which is important because when you reach out multiple times to the same prospect, you build better brand awareness and increase the chances that they convert.

6. Reach an Audience Who is Just Like Your Most Successful Customers

We discussed how important the customers you already have are, and here’s a direct mail marketing tactic that makes your customers even that more important: Use your existing customers to find new customers who are just like them.

Thanks to advanced data technology, print and direct mail marketing companies can process your customer data, figure out which customer datasets are most important to your business’s growth, and then create a mailing list of prospects who match or “look like” your most successful customers.

This is all thanks to Look-Alike Analysis and when you create a Look-Alike Audience for your direct mail marketing strategy, you can expect massive growth.

7. Market to Those Who Live Close By

If you own a business where people need to drive and visit your location, then marketing to people who live an hour or 2 away isn’t effective and they are likely not going to visit.

Instead, try Drive Time Mailing in your next direct mail campaign and send a direct mail piece to individuals who live only a 5–10-minute drive away. They’ll be more interested in visiting or shopping at a place that is close to them, and you’ll gain an increase in foot traffic.

8. Send a Postcard to Those Who Are Interested

54% of consumers say they want direct mail from brands that interest them so send direct mail to people who just don't know they are interested in your brand yet.

Utilizing Propensity Mailing is a direct mail marketing tactic that is guaranteed to create business growth.

How this direct mail marketing strategy works, is it uses data selects to predict a consumer’s behavior and creates a mailing list of prospects who are highly interested in what your business has to offer. For example, if you own a winery, you could create a mailing list of consumers who are likely to engage in touring a winery, adults who spend $1,000 or more on wine annually, or adults who are likely to shop for wine.

9. Personalize Your Direct Mail Strategy

Adding something as simple as a name to your direct mail pieces can increase response rates by 135%.

Just like when you have an email list and include each recipient’s first name in the email they receive, you can do the same thing with direct mail by taking advantage of Variable Data Printing. In fact, you can include other custom elements as well including images, addresses, QR codes, and more to add a personal touch to your direct mail strategy.

The best part about adding a personalized element to your direct mail campaign is that you can combine this direct mail marketing tactic with other tactics as well. For example, if you take advantage of direct mail CRM integration you could personalize each automated direct mail piece for each recipient and receive 500% higher response rates.

10. Target People Who Live Close to Your Ideal Customers

If your business operates by visiting your customers to provide a service or deliver products, then Proximity Mailing is the perfect direct mail marketing tactic for you to try this year.

This direct mail strategy sends direct mail to individuals who surround your ideal customer or customers. All you need to do is enter your customer’s address, choose a radius in miles surrounding their address, and then if you’d like, filter your list based on certain demographics. Your direct mail campaign will then be delivered to those households that live near your customer.

For example, if you own a solar company, and just installed solar panels for a customer, send that customer’s neighbors a postcard. Chances are your customers’ neighbors have the same interests and needs and you could be marketing to them, letting them know you can help.

Conclusion:

At the end of the day, the best direct mail marketing tactics are the ones that make the most sense for your company’s goals and budget. Brainstorm what your company’s goals are for this year, figure out what your marketing budget for the year is, and choose a direct mail strategy that can help.

If you’re not sure the above tactics are right for you or have questions on getting started, feel free to reach out at 804-591-3352 or by chatting in through our live chat pop up. Our direct mail experts are here to help you choose the best direct mail strategy that fits your budget and that will exceed your goals. You can also click the button below to explore more and to get started on growing your business this year!