A successful direct marketing campaign is both personalized and well-executed. A targeted audience is crucial to not ending up in the junk pile of discarded and unread daily mail. Fortunately, there are certain steps you and your business can take to ensure your return on investment (ROI) and that you’ll capture your targeted audience and they will heed your call to action.
In Today’s World
Direct marketing has come a long way since its hit and miss days. Today’s marketers leverage specific data at various stages of the campaign in order to facilitate customer action. A good marketing strategy will always take advantage of this available data which includes geographical location, demographics and, possibly, firmographics.
- Geographic data tells you where your potential customers are located.
- Demographic data refers to your customer’s average age, economic status, ethnicity, education and employment.
- Firmographic data is similar to demographics for businesses and organizations. It’s data used for B2B companies in order to target businesses that can turn into clients. Data may include industry, annual revenue, company size and location.
How to Use this Information
This information not only dictates where you will focus your direct marketing campaign, but also determines the message you send that will most likely lead to a positive response from a potential customer whether that is buying a product, sharing your information or signing up for future communications. Keep in mind that while your message is personalized and changes based on data, your brand’s voice will always remain the same.
As with other marketing channels, direct mail requires more than one touch. Most marketers recommend at least 4 touches along with your other marketing channels.
Make sure you have metrics in place so you can track your ROI. This may include number of mailings, cost per mailing, response and conversion rate as well as number of buyers and average revenue.
Trust your data and have faith. Timing is everything and while one postcard may find its way into the circular file, the next one may be just what your targeted audience requires at just the right time.
Why Direct Marketing
With the advent of digital marketing, mass mailings of direct mail have declined and response rates have increased. According to the 2015 Direct Mail Associate Response Rate Report, direct mail outperforms all digital channels combined by nearly 600 percent. In addition, cost per acquisition is competitive with an average of $19, and it returns the same ROI as social media. Oversized envelopes have the best response rate, followed closely by postcards. Forty-four percent of marketers used three or more channels with the most popular being email, direct mail and social media.
