How Can Direct Mail Automation Help Streamline Your Business?
Direct mail automation enables the integration of direct mail into the rest of your business automation tools, initiates campaigns, and eliminates the manual process involved.
Direct mail automation enables the integration of direct mail into the rest of your business automation tools, initiates campaigns, and eliminates the manual process involved.
In an ever more digital world, it's possible to think of direct mail as a thing of the past. But you'll be shocked to learn just how valuable it still is. What with consumers now swamped by massive emails, meetings, and appointments? How else are you going to get them to stop and focus on something that's not on their to-do list?
Direct mail offers a highly effective way to establish significant relationships with clients, candidates, and leads. It's personal, tangible, measurable, and versatile. Indeed, statistics on direct mail are evidence of an enduring and even more fruitful marketing channel. Here is a look:
Direct Mail Marketing Statistics
Clearly, direct mail is not dead, and it's foolish to focus all your advertising budget on digital channels. A recent survey says that direct mails have a 4.4% response rate when compared to 0.12% of email marketing. Postcard mailers serve as a fast and measurable technique to get more sales, increase revenue, and establish your brand's market identity! But postcards are not the only element of direct mail.
Direct mail can be done in multiple styles and formats. Most people who are quick to dismiss this advertising channel don’t understand the extent of its capability. Indeed, with automation, you can mail anything, not just flat mails.
- Spending on direct mail has reached $38.5 billion and is the largest share of local advertising in the U.S.
- On average, advertisers spend $167/person on direct mail
- The same advertisers make an average of $2095 sales per person through direct mail
- 7 in ten consumers value direct mail more than online communications
- 54% of consumers welcome direct mail from brands they like
- Direct mails have an open rate of up to 90%
- Direct mails are 5-9 times more likely to get a response than any other advertising channel
- ROI from direct mail is 30 times higher compared to that from digital mail
From self-mailing coffee cups to popcorn machines, imprinted objects, calendars, CDs, DVDs, food gifts, and product samples, direct mail automation can craft the most brilliant campaigns for you.
Why Automate Direct Mails?
The advantages and material costs associated with direct mail are clear. However, the time investment is not. Manually crafting a direct mail campaign is not easy. Indeed, it's correct to say the process is often cumbersome because apart from time investment, you must also:
- Carefully consider the promotional item and supporting materials such as packing, note cards, and branded boxes. Promotional items must stand out and appeal to your prospects. You also have to keep in mind postal restrictions; items like firearms and tobacco are a no-no!
- Source the above materials and items
- Store the items while you work on the campaign. You may need to create an inventory tracking system for the items.
- Manually assemble the packages, write personalized handwritten notes, take the packages to the post office for mailing, and then put together a tracking system for their delivery.
- Deal with misdirected packages and come up with follow-up procedures.
- Recreate the campaign in a CRM system to track and collect data. Estimate ROI and report outcomes.
Keep in mind that all the above is just for one campaign; imagine if they were 20 or 100, that requires a team and considerable time investment. It's likely to interfere with other operations.
Automation removes the manual processes in direct mail. The campaign is triggered and put together by software, allowing the marketing team to concern itself with other revenue-generating operations.
Types of Direct Mail Promotions
Digital direct mail works for various types of customer, sales, and marketing campaigns. Whether nurturing a lead during their buy journey or rewarding specific customers for desirable behavior, automated processes ensure messages reach the intended audience at the right time.
And what's advantageous is once you set up the process, you can forget about it because operations run on their own, and data collection is automated for analysis and reporting.
1. Automated Direct Mail Campaigns
These deliver packages, eGift cards, notes, and other physical direct mail items to consumers according to a pre-set workflow. For example, you may set that after a user buys an item, they automatically receive an automatic handwritten "thank you" note.
2. Triggered Direct Mail Campaigns
Here, the software algorithms are triggered by external actions or behaviors that signal the need to establish contact. These behaviors are called trigger points and are often programmed into the software.
For example, automatically sending a direct mail to a list of mortgage holders who may be up for a refinance because of declining interest rates. Another example is when a candidate agrees to an offer and automatically receives a congratulatory note from HR.
Advantages of direct mail automation:
- Direct mail API remembers to send customers notifications of announcements or upcoming events.
- Modern automation software interface with customer servers allowing them more control to track mailing and choose which events to receive notifications.
- It gives you more control; you no longer have to email spreadsheets to the printing press; everything can be done in-house.
- Eliminates errors associated with multiple people working on one project.
- Reduced cost because some of the tasks are automated.
- Multiple channels: direct mail can be combined with online channels to increase general ROI. Statistics show that when combined, the response rate grows by 35%. It increases digital actions too.
- It helps reach consumers who are not responding great to emails.
- You can automate almost anything. For example, you can trigger the sending of physical gifts, sweet treats, plants, wine, and corporate swag.
Wrap-Up
The average person gets about 90 emails per day. Furthermore, a lot of email advertisements are filtered as spam or go missing. Clearly, direct mail advertising is necessary. It's an essential part of a great marketing strategy.
It's trackable, tends to stand out, works for all age groups, feels romantic, and has a higher ROI to boot. Sure, manually crafting postcards and catalogs is cumbersome, but that's where automation comes in, and just about anything can be mailed. Don't let these benefits pass you. Include direct mail as part of your marketing strategy today.