“How your marketing going?” If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked that question in the last six months, I could retire today. You see, I’m a businessman with an operation that manufactures a branded, household product, selling over a quarter of a million dollars in retail and Internet sales annually.
It’s part of a series of household products and accessories aimed at U.S. homes, and we’re pretty happy with its success.
I believe in the long-term value of direct mail marketing. It helps us reach out to our customers, and other interested buyers, with a human touch. Direct mail marketing, is a well-tested, well-researched medium that shows results.
There are ways to make your company’s direct mail marketing stand out from all the rest. Some tips offer compelling benefits to the reader, ask for a clear action step in return, and use address validation to increase ROI on direct mail marketing. It also helps, to have a decent designer in-house to make your eye-catching direct mail pieces.
It seems that every recent interaction I’ve had from agencies, freelancers, and SEO firms has been to share their overestimated value of marketing via daily Twitter trends, Facebook feeds, and Reddit conversations. I’m not sure social media and all that will work for us. After all, there are many tried and true marketing methods that produce a higher ROI for what we do. But week after week, I get asked. But I say no. Here’s why I use direct mail.
Provokes Buying
ExactTarget’s 2012 Channel Preference Survey showed that 65 percent of people who receive direct mail made a purchase. That ranked it right behind email (66%) in provoking a response to buy.
Includes Sophistication
Direct mail offers higher address verification than email, leading to better names and addresses, and usually higher response rates. One way to get this is to work with some international address verification. They will help businesses to increase their quality of address data, with better addresses, and fewer misspellings and formatting errors.
Produces Emotional Investment
A Millward Brown case study showed that physical media leaves stronger feelings in a person’s brain, and produces more responses connected to internal feelings. This led researchers to understand the tangible quality of a direct mail piece and its effect on buyers.
Offers Cost-Per-Order Rates
According to the Direct Marketing Association Fact Book 2011, catalogs are a cost-effective marketing tool, and more affordable compared to paid search ($99.47US) and email ($53.85US).
Enhances ROI for New Customers
Direct mail (34%) beat out the email (25%), SEM (10%), and affiliate marketing (8%) for which marketing channels work best to get new customers, according to a Target Marketing survey. The survey also showed higher rates of customer retention using direct mail (37%), ahead of the email (31%), phone calls, (7%), and social media engagement (6%).
I’m happy to use direct mail. Some might call me old school, or say I’m resistant to change. But I’m not. I just tend to stick with what works. And for my business, direct mail marketing is a great tool to use for our marketing efforts.
