Digital Marketing, Direct Mail, Marketing

Combining Digital and Postal Marketing

Today’s digital world often looks down upon direct mail marketing, erroneously thinking that it is a thing of the past and it’s time to move on. Meanwhile, direct mail marketers are shouting from the rooftops that their method is still highly effective, which it is. As an advocate for both digital and direct mail marketing, I find myself trying to think of ways that these two highly effective campaign types can run in tandem. When I came across Marketing Land’s recent article, Retargeting Via Direct Mail: How PebblePost Is Connecting Digital To Snail Mail, I was very intrigued. It’s one of those concepts that makes you think “why didn’t I come up with that?” In my opinion, it’s brilliant. “You left something in your shopping cart” emails are so easy to delete, whether accidentally or on purpose, without even reading the email. With postal mail, you have no choice but to touch the mail piece, even if you intend to throw it away immediately. Yet, if it does pique interest, the tangible piece is easy to set on a kitchen table or office desk to remind you to go back and purchase that red shirt.

Though this type of system would not come at an easy cost, those already utilizing these methods are seeing response rates as high as 20% and conversion rates over 40%. In order to re-target in a timely manner, logistics such as timely printing of mail pieces would need to be put into place. While this would incur upfront costs of print and mail, the conversion rate would more than make up for these costs in the end. I honestly think this system will pay off and hope that more companies will be willing to take this leap in the near future.

What do you think? Is this the future of direct marketing?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *