A forgotten marketing channel?

It’s the modern day. Technology adds convenience to marketing, but customers are sick of the cold impersonality of the digital world.

That’s why smart businesses are incorporating direct mail as part of their multi-channel marketing campaigns.

So how does direct mail function as a component of multi-channel marketing? What does it do, and how can it support other channels?

This article seeks to answer any questions that you may have about the role of direct mail marketing in an effective multi-channel strategy.

When implemented correctly, a well-choreographed blend of direct mail and digital marketing can achieve phenomenal results. Customers love the personal touch of direct mail, and the physical limitations are overcome with the benefits of digitization.

Before we reach all of that, though, it would be good to cover the basics.

What is Multi-Channel Marketing?

To put it simply, it’s the combination of several marketing channels working together to maximize engagement with customers and leads.

These days, marketers who rely on just one marketing channel miss out on potential customers who would more readily engage with another form of marketing. It's important to diversify, and have channels that will consistently deliver your marketing message at the right place, and at the right time.

For example, a customer who loves hearing from their favourite business by direct mail might not regularly check their emails or might not appreciate being contacted by phone.

These marketing channels would fail in converting this customer, so marketers who only run these channels have no hope of achieving a sale here.

What’s So Great About Multi-Channel Marketing?

The effectiveness of multi-channel marketing is widely accepted, with 87% of retailers agreeing that a multi-channel marketing strategy is critical or very important to their success.

Every marketing channel has its strengths and weaknesses. For instance, email marketing often fails to engage with consumers, while direct mail can be tricky to track.

A multi-channel marketing strategy can effectively reduce each channel’s separate weaknesses through combining each’s strengths.

As well as encouraging customer engagement, facilitating brand loyalty, and driving business for your company, there’s plenty of other benefits of including direct mail as part of your multi-channel marketing.

1). Reaching More Leads

Direct mail has an incredible response rate compared to digital marketing. In fact, direct mail has been proven to have a response rate 36x higher than that of email marketing.

By including it as part of your multi-channel marketing campaign, you increase the chances of engaging with your leads simply by appealing to more people. After all, more marketing channels mean more chances to connect.

2). Collecting More Data

This also means that there are more ways to collect customer data. Some individuals dislike sharing information over the internet but would be more than happy to get in touch as the result of direct mail correspondence.

Utilizing multiple marketing channels not only means collecting more information about your customers, it also means collecting more information about the channels themselves.

You can learn which channels are more effective and can shape your future campaigns based on these findings.

If email marketing just isn’t getting the results you need, you can focus more of your time and energy into a successful direct mail campaign, or vice versa.

3). Getting Your Name Out There

It’s quite simple. Reaching out in more ways will make people see you more.

Throwing yourself out there through more than one marketing channel increases the odds that you’ll be noticed.  Appealing to people’s marketing preferences also makes it far more likely to make a positive impact.

Though it may not yield immediate results, a consistent presence through multi-channel marketing means that you’re always at the top of your leads' minds.

If they’re not ready to commit to a purchase just yet, you’ll be their first thought when they are ready.

What Do Businesses Think is Wrong with Direct Mail?

Despite the proven effectiveness of direct mail marketing, there are still a high number of sceptical businesses.

A few years back, it was reported that 82% of businesses utilized email as part of their marketing strategy, while only 50% used chose to use direct mail marketing.

So why is this? Truthfully, direct mail marketing does have a few limitations:

1). It’s Disconnected from the Rest of Their Network

One of direct mail’s greatest assets is its ability to more intimately connect with the customer.

There’s just something about the physicality of direct mail that appeals to people’s more sentimental nature. As such, it is the perfect channel to inject a little personalization.

The problem here though is that direct mail is not always linked directly to business’ CRMs. This is why many companies are put off by direct mail. They believe that the channel requires too much effort to personalize the marketing when the distribution information isn’t readily accessible.

2). It’s Too Much Effort to Organize

While digital marketing, such as ads and emails, can be easily organised and automated through a wide range of available online services, traditional direct mail can be a little trickier to manage.

This is why many businesses opt to stick with digital marketing. Some believe that traditional direct mail to requires too much work to manually create and distribute.

These Can All Be Overcome with Multi-Channel Marketing

By connecting your direct mail marketing to digital channels through multi-channel marketing, almost every limitation can be counteracted.

If you have issues with tracking the effectiveness of your direct mail marketing, try including a URL or QR code linking to a digital channel in your marketing materials.

That way you can measure your response rates digitally. In fact, depending on the creativity of your multi-channel marketing, you can measure almost anything with direct mail.

For instance, your marketing materials could include a URL linking to a quick questionnaire that measures levels of customer satisfaction.

How can Scribeless help?

• With Scribeless’ seamless integrations, you can even connect your personalized direct mail campaigns to your CRM. This allows you to easily segment your mailing lists based on particular customer behaviours. That way, you can target specific leads as easily as you could with a digital marketing campaign.
• We will even handle the production and distribution of your marketing materials. Now a direct mail campaign won’t even be difficult to implement.
• Those who have included us as part of a multi-channel marketing strategy have seen as much as an 18% increase in engagement over traditional direct mail.

Taking the step to transform your direct mail through personalization and implementing it in a multi-channel campaign can really evolve your marketing output.