Direct mail may seem old-school, but when coupled with other digital marketing efforts and tools, it packs a powerful punch, generating leads and driving sales.

I wanted to learn more about how direct mail has evolved, so I recently attended a webinar hosted by Modern Postcard. Here’s what I learned.

Please note I was NOT paid to write this; these are purely my takeaways and what I think would be helpful to you and my clients.)

Designing a Successful Direct Mail Campaign

Why Direct Mail in a Digital World?

Prospecting for Customers with Direct Mail

The Key to Direct Mail Prospecting

So, How Do You Use These Lists?

The Statistics: USPS Household Generational Survey

What's the Best Format for Direct Mail?

Designing Your Next Direct Mail Piece

Partnering Up: Digitial, Email Marketing & Direct Mail

Measuring Your Direct Mail Response

Keep Experimenting…

Why Direct Mail in a Digital World?

Direct mail works. 73% of American consumers prefer being contacted by brands via direct mail because they can read mail at their convenience, according to the USPS Generational Study

Even Google sends direct mail to sell ad words, so if Google is doing it, you know it has value. 

Direct Mail Myths

It’s old school, but there’s a sort of nostalgia there. Nearly 90% of Millenials love receiving mail, and ⅔ of Gen X consumers say they have a positive impression of companies that send out relevant marketing mail. 

Email vs. Direct Mail

I love email as a marketing channel. It’s budget-friendly for most folks, and you get a big bang for your buck because it’s quick, easy, and effective. But if you're lucky, only 15%–25% of your audience opens your email. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use email marketing. Instead, it means to catch that other 75%, you'll need to find another way to reach your customers or email them more than once.

Direct mail has a 100% “open rate” with your current customers, and if you partner it up with your email campaign, you can reach the remaining customers who didn’t open your email.

Prospecting for Customers with Direct Mail

Your email can end up in the spam folder for a variety of reasons. However, direct mail ends up in your customers' hands no matter what. Even if they recycle it, they still see your branding—hello, brand awareness—and it’s a touchpoint. (According to HubSpot, it can be anywhere between 1 and 50 before a prospect is in the buying stage.)

Okay, so you’re convinced you’re ready to jump and start sending postcards to all the people on your list. Hold your horses. Before you jump that gate, let’s pause to plan your direct mail campaign.

Planning a Successful Direct Mail Campaign

First things first, like with any marketing, whether it’s email, advertising, or a website, ask yourself the questions below so you can develop an intentional, thoughtful, helpful, and successful marketing campaign.

What’s your goal?

• • • Drive traffic to your website.
    • Generate leads?
    • Sell more products?

What makes your store, product, or service different from your competitors?

• • • Does your customer service set you apart?
    • Your expertise?
    • Your prices?
    • Quality products?
    • Your process?

What will happen if they buy your product or service?

• • • How will their life be better?
    • What do they worry about?

How much is a customer worth?

In other words—how many marketing dollars are you willing to spend to get new customers?

Who Are Your People?

Your campaign won’t be successful if you don’t talk to the right people. Know your target audience; if you haven’t yet, define your buyer persona. You wouldn't try to sell a Bronco fan a Raider jersey or vice versa, so do your homework.

Like with email, the quality of your list matters. Look at your best customers and what qualities they have in common to help you determine who you want to target.

The Key to Prospecting

Take a good look at who your best customers are. Then, find more like them. This is why it’s so important to define them. These folks will give you the highest ROI for your marketing efforts.

Different Types of Prospect Lists

Here are a few of the different types of lists offered through Modern Postcard—

• Consumer data, households with demographic information. If you’re a log home contractor, you could target new log homeowners within 30–90 days. New homeowners will spend more in their first 90 days than in any other period.
  

• Birthday programs are perfect for restaurants, hospitality, and retail. Send a coupon for a free dessert or 10% off on your customer’s birthday. I love the little samples that Aveda gives away around my birthday.
• Business data complied: all businesses with business demographics.
• Occupant data, households by carrier routes with minimal targeting.
• Specialty data, all other data (see below.)

1. 1. Magazine subscriber files, list for magazines like Log Home Living or Architectural Digest
   2. Trade association memberships, if you’re in the business of marketing to the mass timber industry like my friends at the IMTA this might be helpful.
   3. Transactional data: online mail order, bought certain things, did they buy ATVs maybe they would also be interested in a truck to haul it around?
   4. State licensing bureaus, teachers, real estate agents, 
   5. Credit and financial information

So, How Do you Use these Lists for Direct Mail?

• EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) allows you to communicate with everybody at a low cost in a local carrier route. This isn’t targeted, though. It looks cheap on the surface but costs more in the end because it’s sent to everyone. But if everyone is a potential customer, this is the way to go.
• Saturation allows you to target by carrier routes nationwide with names, suppression, and tracking available.
• Demographics allow you to target only the households that are most likely to buy your products or services. It allows you to target the right people at the right time. Your cost of mailing goes up, but your price to get that customer goes down because you’re sending to the right people.

Predictive Modeling for Direct Mail

Predictive modeling gives you the best customer list. These are the people that best match your buyer persona. With this service, they review shared traits between your customers and then build a profile to create a model.

The Statistics: USPS Household Diary Study

The USPS tracks about 20,000 households and the mail pieces people keep and respond to. Here’s a breakdown of the format mix in a typical household mailbox.

What’s the Best Format for Direct Mail? 

It depends on your goals and what you’re trying to say. You don’t have to get a fancy bi-fold postcard or mailer if you lack the content or messaging to fill it up.

Letters in an envelope don’t hit like they did ten or fifteen years ago, either, because GenX is now the biggest spending demographic. (Finally, our day has come!) Growing up with MTV has made us very visual, and we want our information fast, just like our MTV.

Don’t skimp on the quality of your printing. If you go with low quality, you’ll lose trust and sales. Like owning a home have pride of ownership and craftmanship when it comes to your direct mail pieces.

Designing Your Next Direct Mail Piece

Now, for my favorite part, the design. Whether you’re sending a postcard, letter, or flyer design your direct mail piece for success by including the following—

Graphics

Their purpose is to grab your customer’s attention from the shape and format to the images and layout.

Copy

Your messaging should identify your customer's pain points and show them how their lives will be better with your product or service (aka the benefits), its features, and what makes you different.

Offer

What you’ll give your customers.

CTA

What’s the next step they need to take? Don't make them guess or be ambiguous. Examples include—

• Schedule a Call
• Get an Estimate
• Get 20% Off
• Download Now

Partnering Up: Digitial, Email Marketing & Direct Mail

People think it’s one or the other, but partnering up direct mail with email marketing or layering it with your other marketing, like online ads, will give you a big boost. The combination and cadence is what works best for you. There isn’t a secret formula.

Match Digital Display Ads to Postal Mailings

Digital ads can be matched to a consumer or business postal profile. Compared to running a postcard campaign only, you’ll see a 30–40% lift in response.

Geofencing

Geofencing is when a customer visits a predetermined physical space, like a conference or event, and then is served up specialized marketing or advertising. It can be postal or digital marketing, and you can target your audience by—

• Neighborhood
• Individual Households
• Facilities, conference centers or restaurants
• Before and after events

Direct Mail Postal Retargeting

For example, say someone visits your store but gets distracted by something and abandons their cart. You can trigger a postcard to be sent to them to remind them to complete their purchase. You can target pages, check-outs, or abandoned carts.

Measuring Your Direct Mail Response

It used to be you wouldn’t know if someone received your mailpiece or even if they responded, but now you can track responses using—

• Promo codes
• Coupons redeemed
• Call logs
• QR Codes
• CRM (Customer Relationship Management software like Salesforce, Zoho, or HubSpot)

The campaign designed below was combined with email and used a QR code to track clicks through bit.ly. See the campaign here.

Keep Experimenting with Your Direct Mail…

Marketing is one big experiment. When you don't succeed, try and try again. Try different—

• Sizes and formats
• Audiences and lists
• Images
• CTAs
• Running different combinations of digital and postal marketing
• Messaging

See what works best for you, and when things flatten out, spice it up by trying something new to keep it fresh. Want to dive deeper into direct mail? Read up on Mastering the Art of Direct Mail here.

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