Making the most of direct mailing

Despite being one of the oldest forms of advertising, direct mail still has the power to generate business – if you get it right…

Read the full article below or read on page 24 in our December magazine

When we say direct mail is an ancient form of marketing, we aren’t kidding. The earliest known direct marketing dates back to Ancient Egypt and the year 1000 BC. An Egyptian landowner used a piece of papyrus to advertise gold in return for the capture of a defecting slave; the papyrus is now on display at the British Museum in London.

We’ve come a long way from inking messages onto papyrus, but the impetus remains the same. We want a quick, effective, way to deliver an important message to the people who will be most receptive to it. In a world where our inboxes are flooded daily with marketing messages, having something we can hold in our hands can make all the difference.

However, direct mailing is an investment, there’s no doubt about it. Email marketing requires just a little time and, perhaps, a small subscription to a distribution service. Direct mailing, on the other hand, comes with costs for designing, printing and posting the materials, so it’s essential we get it right.

Is direct mail still relevant?

As much as we’ve moved on in our digital lives, direct mail is still proving to be an incredibly powerful tool – in fact, it has seen something of a resurgence in recent years. A 2018 study by ANA/DMA found that 81% of marketers were planning to maintain or increase their use of direct mail over the coming months. Fast forward to 2022, and that notion is starting to emerge more strongly, with PostGrid reporting an increase in mail volume of 87% since 2012.

But why? Check your email inbox right now, and you’ll see why! Kaspersky Lab estimates that the average person will receive in the range of 120 – 130 emails per day, around half of which will be marketing or promotional messages of some kind. In contrast, the average number of physical direct mailings a person will receive is in the region of two to three.

Central Mailing says that business managers open 82% of the marketing mail they receive – that’s a far higher open rate than the typical 23% for email marketing. In fact, research by the UK’s Royal Mail indicates that 70% of recipients feel more valued when they receive physical mail from a company – that’s up from 57% ten years ago.

Part of the attraction of direct mail is its status as a ‘trustworthy’ form of marketing. Trust, in general, between businesses and prospects is in crisis. Regular headlines relating to data breaches, scam emails and the like have sent email marketing to the bottom of the trust list – it’s the new junk mail, and nobody looks forward to getting it.

Direct mail, on the other hand, is personal and targeted – or at least it should be when it’s done right. It’s not intrusive either; we can put it to one side and read it over coffee later which is a far better experience than logging on, seeing 50 new emails, and feeling compelled to clean out our inbox.

Tips for better direct mail

Once you’ve decided to make an investment in a direct mail campaign, you’ll want to make sure you get the return on your investment you deserve. There’s less room for error here, so it’s crucial to get it right first time.

• Define your prospect: don’t work in isolation on direct marketing campaigns. Tap up the knowledge from your sales team to ensure you’re hitting the right prospects. Clean your list before anything is mailed to ensure you’re not sending something to a contact who has long ago left the receiving company.
• Make your call to action clear and simple: what do you want the prospect to do when they read your message? If it’s not abundantly clear from the moment they open the mail what it is you’re after, you’re unlikely to get the response you want. This doesn’t always have to be ‘Buy from us’ either; consider ‘Download our whitepaper,’ ‘Request a catalogue’ or ‘Use this discount’ as alternatives.
• Get personal: there’s no excuse for ‘Dear business owner’ in this day and age. Personalisation can be as simple as including the recipient’s name on the mailer, or as complex as targeting specific businesses with messages that truly speak to their needs. Use the data you already have at your fingertips to make your message stronger.
• Be creative: stand out from the crowd with an eye-catching, attention-grabbing, mailer that can’t fail to be noticed. Use words, colours and copy to make yourself different from the competition.
• Walk a mile in their shoes: put yourself in your prospect’s position – what would you want from a mailshot today? What challenges or difficulties are they likely to be experiencing, and how can your dealership help them solve these issues?

Getting the most from direct mailing also means not just sending the mailshot and hoping for the best – have a way of tracking your success, perhaps by using personalised landing pages (PURLS), tracking ‘phone numbers or adding QR codes and coupons to the campaign. 

Follow up with your prospect in good time; email or – even better – telephone. Direct mail can have good results on its own but, when combined with other direct marketing methods, it can be unstoppable.