In today’s digital world where businesses utilize all forms of digital marketing, such as email marketing, online marketing, and content marketing, is direct mail marketing still relevant? Is it still a good marketing move for businesses to take? Is it still a practical choice for companies?
What is Direct Mail Marketing?
Direct mail marketing is a marketing method that sends physical correspondences — like brochures, flyers, and other types of promotional materials — to prospective, current, and former clients. These materials are usually sent via USPS or other similar delivery services.
Several companies, like Action Mailing & Printing Solutions, still offer this type of service to various businesses all over the country.
What are its advantages?
It is interactive.
Humans, by nature, are a curious lot. They like looking at things first before making any decisions. This human nature is something that marketers can take advantage of with direct mail marketing.
If you can catch their attention and get them to respond to your flyer or brochure — like presenting them in a restaurant or a shop for discounts or special offers — chances are, they are most likely to keep the material and use them eventually.
It has a wide reach.
While digital marketing may seem to have the upper hand in this category, direct mail marketing has a slight advantage over the former especially if your target audience is not as tech-savvy as the others.
It is creative.
There are a lot of other things you can do with direct mail marketing that its digital counterpart can’t. For example, remember those magazine inserts from perfume companies? Yes, those scented pieces of paper that serve as “product samplers.” It just needs some out-of-the-box thinking but direct mail marketing has a lot to offer in this area.
Competition is fewer.
Since almost everyone is into digital marketing nowadays, companies that take the direct mail route have fewer competitors thus giving them more exposure. Imagine their audience-reach if they have digital marketing and direct mail marketing working for them.
It is memorable.
People like nostalgia and things that remind them of the good old days, including receiving mail. For this reason, direct mail marketing resonates more with your target audience if only for giving them the long-forgotten feeling of getting excited over getting mail.
You may even take it a step further and personalize all the correspondences you send to your recipients. Certain computer programs allow some companies to individualize their marketing material and address them to their customers by name.
It has a better overall response rate.
The Direct Marketing Association stated that direct mail marketing has a 4.4% response rate compared to email marketing with only 0.12%. This means that if you market to an audience of 1,000, 44 people will respond to your direct mail than your email.
Is it still effective today?
Given everything mentioned above, it is clear to see that direct mail marketing is not going away any time soon. Despite the popularity of online marketing, offline direct marketing has proven to drive better results in engaging customers past, present, and future.
While online and digital marketing is all the rage these days, you should never take for granted what direct mail marketing can do for your business. It has been tried and tested for decades and, despite its competition, is still a driving force in advertising.
