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Repost: Read original and complete article here
Almost every day of the week I am reminded of the disconnect many businesses have with integrating their inbound marketing efforts with their direct mail campaigns. All I need to do is walk the twenty paces from my front door to my mailbox to discover fresh evidence of this disconnect.
What’s interesting about this situation is that it’s not limited to small businesses – many bigger, well known brands are guilty of the same thing. Just using one day’s worth of mail (I find my mailstream volume picks up towards the middle of the week so I used last Thursday’s bundle) provides a very good snapshot of what’s going on.
Businesses have two primary methods of using direct mail – using the trade terms: they can mail “solo” or they can mail “shared”. Solo mail simply means that the business mails a single mail piece (postcard, #10 envelope package, invitation style mail package, catalog, self-mailer etc.) and bears the entire cost of the postage, the list and the production associated with getting that particular piece into the mailbox. Shared mail allows for multiple businesses’ messages to be delivered together with the costs of postage, lists and production being shared by the participating businesses. (Most of you are probably familiar with the ubiquitous blue ValPak envelope carrying 20-40 local business offers on dollar-bill size inserts – that’s a classic example of a shared mail package.)
The reason I mention this distinction in mailing formats is that, generally speaking, companies with bigger marketing budgets and dedicated marketing staff tend to favor solo mail, while local businesses with smaller budgets and no marketing staff gravitate towards shared mail. So, you would assume the bigger guys would be capitalizing on the integration opportunities and the smaller guys wouldn’t.
They aren’t!
However, there is a higher disconnect rate within the shared mail formats than there is with solo mail. We can cut the smaller guys some slack because they tend to rely on the expertise of the sales staff selling the shared mail packages, who in many cases are not looking at the bigger picture of these integration opportunities.
So, for both the big companies and the small companies currently using direct mail in your marketing mix, here are five tips for getting a bigger bang for your campaign buck:
1. Plan it out. Begin with the end in mind. (Thank you Stephen Covey!) What’s in it for the prospective customer and why should they take any action on your offer? Find the sweet spot between what you want them to do and the benefits they get by doing it. Hint: focus more on the benefits for the prospective customer. Make it unique and valuable. I don’t want to see the same offer plastered all over your website or on your retail storefront. It makes me less receptive to your “special offers” in the future.
2. Make the path short and straight. Put a dedicated url in your mail piece and make sure it links to a landing page designed to support the offer. The prospective customer should be able to take the desired action in one step. If you put too many moving parts in the offer process, you’ll quickly lose interested prospects.
3. Match the creative on the mail piece with that of your offer’s landing page. I see creative mismatches way too frequently. The mail piece has one look and feel and the web site / landing page has a different look and feel. You have to exhibit creative consistency or your response will suffer the consequences.
4. Use technology when it helps the prospective customer. Think of how QR codes were all the rage recently and how marketers blew the use of this technology 50 different ways from Sunday. If you use a QR code to simplify the passage to your site or landing page, make sure it works. Provide a short URL as backup in case it doesn’t. Name the promotion and let everyone know about it so response can come in through any channel.
5. Promote the offer on your social media platforms. I see lots of direct mail pieces that carry special offers. Invariably, they’ll show a Twitter logo or Facebook logo with the words “Follow us” next to the logos. Close the loop by elevating prospective customer expectations. Changing that text to “Get special offers from us on” next to those logos ups the incentive to connect and take action there.
Bonus tip for shared mail users: Your dollar-bill sized insert often doesn’t give you enough room to “sell” the offer. Use your dedicated landing page to flesh out the compelling reasons why the prospective customer should take action now. You can also utilize the space to up-sell or cross-sell compatible services. Remember to keep things simple enough to encourage action.
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