Using Direct Mail to Reinforce Your Online Campaigns

Although online advertising has made significant inroads, direct mail is still one of the most effective strategies used by marketers today. Think about it – everyone is sending emails, but who is sending snail-mail? If it’s you, you’re on the right track.

But what would happen to your conversion rate if you were to combine your online and direct mail advertising into a single multi-channel campaign?

According to a study by the Direct Marketing Association, targeting customers from two channels makes them 20 to 60 percent more valuable. And reaching them through three channels increases their value 60 to 125 percent. Thus, one can deduce that using direct mail to reengage customers with your online campaigns is an effective strategy in increasing your conversion rates.

Consistent Message

You can send a direct mail piece to arrive in your customers’ mailboxes a few days after they receive your email promotion – or send an email alerting them that a special offer is currently in the mail.

You can even branch out to text or multi-media messaging as well as social media in order to further push the campaign over more advertising channels. The combinations of channels and calls-to-action are limitless.

Creating a multi-channel campaign only works if your message is consistent across all channels. If your customers can’t mentally connect the postcard in their hand with the email they received yesterday, then the goal of the campaign – to reinforce your promotion or message – will not be fulfilled.

– Use consistent fonts, colors, graphics, images, and content in each message to create a visual connection between different channels.
– Directly reference your other messages in each piece to further emphasize the connection.
– In order to be effective, your goal here is reinforcement: of your message, of your products, and of your brand.

Making Connections

So how to you create those direct connections between your online and direct mail messages – and how do you make those connections result in conversions?

You need to make it easy as possible for your customers to respond to your advertising in order for a multi-channel approach to be effective. In this case, you need your email, direct mail, banner ads, and text messages to point towards the same landing page. On your direct mail pieces, you can utilize:

– QR codes. Customers scan the code with their mobile device and are taken to the dedicated landing page for your multi-channel campaign.

– PURLs. Personalized URLs that are customized with the customer’s name. Or, you can use a special code that takes less time for the user to type into their browser. A PURL can lead to a landing page specifically tailored to that individual and containing a clear call to action. These enable you to record where the customer is coming from (your direct mailing, as opposed to an email link or banner ad).

– Links to videos that contain more information about your company’s products and services, the specific promotion you’re pushing, and a more engaging call to action. Video is now the 6^th most popular content marketing tactic. 46% of people say they’d be more likely to seek out information about a product or service after seeing it in an online video, according to an article from Eloqua.

Combining your online marketing campaign with direct mail messages can help you create a streamlined and complementary marketing campaign, and engage more potential customers with your company, ultimately leading to more conversions. Use your direct mail, email, and other analytics programs in order to track the efficacy of your individual messages and the campaign as a whole. These metrics can inform changes in your message or strategy to make your campaigns more efficient and effective.

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Megan Webb-Morgan, a business blogger for ResourceNation.com, covers a variety of topics including business software and marketing.