Direct mail can still be an effective tool for businesses
By Iain Macfarlane
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Has junk mail killed the effectiveness of direct mail as a marketing medium?
Many consumers may feel they are being inundated with unsolicited mail when they find their mailbox bursting with catalogs, flyers, brochures and discount coupons. And some of these mailing pieces will go directly into the waste basket without opening. So where should direct mail fit into a company's marketing mix?
A United States Postal Service study conducted in 2007 indicated that 48 percent of recipients of direct mail read their unsolicited advertising mail, 33 percent glance at it, and 19 percent do not read their advertising mail. A study conducted by the media company E.W. Scripts highlighted that direct mail users form a highly desirable audience. Specifically, 9 percent are more likely to be college graduates, 8 percent are more likely to be female, 4 percent are more likely to be ages 25-44, and 3 percent are more likely to earn $50,000+.
For a company that needs to continually generate more leads for its business or for a company that is looking for an opportunity to maintain touches with its existing customer base, direct mail offers a number of benefits:
• It has the ability to proactively reach targeted consumers by name who are most likely to respond to your message. And 98 percent of consumers bring in their mail daily and 77 percent sort through it immediately.
• It is personalized with one-to-one contact with a prospective customer as soon as they read the mail.
• It is flexible with a large variety of inexpensive and easy formats that can be used in a number of campaigns, such as, brochures, letters, invitations, catalogs, coupons, free samples in an envelope.
• It has a positive tangible impact as it is a real piece specifically addressed to a prospect or to an existing customer and it does not have the disadvantages of Internet marketing with spam, viruses and software incompatibility.
• It is an efficient use of advertising and promotional dollars as the response is measurable. And it can be controlled to be cost effective as the return on investment for each campaign can be specifically evaluated. By tracking and analyzing the results, adjustments to future mailings can be made to emphasize what is successful and to stop what is not working.
However, the opportunity to minimize costs while maximizing the planning and execution of direct mail campaigns is becoming more complicated and with higher upfront technology and computer programming costs to counter the complications of continual technology and pricing changes being implemented by USPS to manage its own cost structures. It is unlikely that small companies have the skills on staff needed to keep tracking the changing requirements of USPS and even larger companies are now looking to outsource the management of their direct mail component of their marketing mix to experts in the direct mail field.
The two areas that need skilled expertise are related to list management and mailing supply chain management, with the physical production of the mail utilizing integrated digital technologies.
Brian Euclide, president of TEC Mailing Solutions located in Sun Prairie, is the representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the USPS Postmaster General's Technical Advisory Committee in Washington, D.C. His company, which provides full-service list processing and mailing management solutions, has identified seven keys to generating successful marketing through direct mail.
1. Understand who your customer is. First, make sure you are capturing data about your current customers: who they are, what they purchased, how many times they have purchased, when was the last time, and how much was the sale. Some of this may be obvious, but too many businesses do not really understand the information beyond the sale. Second, enhance your data by appending other details specifically about those customers. Income level, age, marital status, do they have children, if so, how many, what are their ages? Do they own their home or do they rent? How much is their house worth? If your customer is business-to-business, then similar data can be obtained about businesses. How many employees, annual income, how long have they been in business, female or minority owned?
2. Find more customers who meet the profile of your existing customers. Based on the details obtained, purchase lists of prospects that meet your current customers' characteristics.
3. Make sure the data are current, up to date and clean.
a. Use a list management company to make sure your recipients currently live at the address you have by using tools like the USPS National Change of Address.
b. Eliminate duplicate records in the data by performing a merge/purge process that is a sophisticated technique to remove records based on more than simply an exact address match. No better way to waste money and aggravate a prospective or existing customer than by sending them two or more copies of your mail piece.
4. Develop exciting and noticeable creative content for the mail campaign and do not skimp on the artwork or the message. According to a USPS study, an average of 1 in 10 pieces of advertising mail elicited a consumer response, so bad art and a poor message will not inspire someone to respond.
5. Personalize the mail piece and market to those customers directly.
a. Use digital printing technology to provide relevant data and content. If your customer purchased antique glassware from you, don't communicate a sale on plastic toys… communicate a relevant product that can have appeal and draw them into other products or services that you offer. "Jane, we hope you found a great home for your antique glassware, did you know we currently have a sale on all of our glassware and furniture?"
b. Digital printing can support a design that not only communicates in words but can swap out pictures and art for each individual recipient of the mailing providing you have collected data as in point 1 above.
6. Find a way to interact with your prospective and/or existing customer.
a. The use of Personal URLs (pURLS) or personalized Web landing pages is a new technology and a great tool for getting your customers to interact with you. A pURL is a location that directs the recipient to a Web page that has been customized for that person. It can have a similar look and feel to the mail piece and will prompt the recipient to respond to some questions and provide some information. pURLS is a breakthrough technology that offers an opportunity to bridge the communication gap between the mail piece and you without necessarily requiring them to directly talk or purchase something from you.
b. In most cases, pURLS are used in conjunction with an offer to drive them to the Web site. "A chance in a drawing for a free something…", "an exclusive discount."
c. Leads can be e-mailed to you in real-time providing you the opportunity to make contact while the recipient is thinking about your products or services.
7. Test, track and repeat.
a. Test: Use different artwork, use different messages, use different offers…
b. Track: Make sure you are tracking how each variation responds and performs. The use of pURLS helps in this process since it has tools to record this information in real-time.
c. Repeat: One single mailing event is never enough. There are many studies available that have identified a guideline that a recipient needs to see a brand more than five times before they begin to remember it. This is not always the case but repetition does help build relationships.
Like so many areas of business, technology is providing tools to improve efficiency and effectiveness and lower costs. And direct mail as a part of the marketing mix of most companies is no exception. With the use of technologies, junk mail will be reduced, response rates will be improved and companies will improve their measurable marketing ROI from direct mail.n
