Can you imagine a day without an email? Can you imagine a day without any pop up or banner ad? No, you can’t because it’s 2018. Today, we live in a digital world where Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, etc. rule everything we see online. In fact, the offline world is also heavily influenced by these online giants. Don’t forget the involvement of Facebook in the last US election. They are all after money, and the money is earned through advertising. Every day they bombard us with so called targeted, high-quality emails and advertisements. Do you like them? I know you don’t. Though not so long ago there was a world without digital advertising. Direct mail was powerful, effective. How is direct mail in 2018? Is it outdated, dead? Will it come back ever? The answer is it’s not dead. It is alive and performing well. Amazed? You must be. Well, read this article to learn more about the true status of direct mail in this modern era and its future.
What is Direct Mail?
Direct mail is a marketing process where promotional materials like letters, postcards, etc. are sent to the mailbox of your home. Not very long ago this process was extremely common all over the world.
Why Direct Mail is Effective
# Rocking Response Rate
It’s all about quality, not quantity. According to the USPS (United States Postal Service), direct mail decreased 29.85% since 2006. Though, that might be a good thing for you if you decide to use direct mail, as you will have less competition in the mailbox. According to the DMA (the Data and Marketing Association), direct mail receives 4.4% response rate while email receives only 0.12% response rate. You can see how effective direct mail is even today. Usually, it is about 10-30 times more effective when it comes to response rate. Moreover, it is found that there has been a 54.55% increase for house lists and 70.59% increase in prospect lists in the USA since 2006. So, if it is about response rate, then direct mail is unparalleled.
# Incredible Return on Investment (ROI)
According to the DMA, the median return on investment for direct mail advertising is 29%. This beats out paid online search advertising (running paid ads with a search engine), which has a 23% return on investment. This means if you pay $100 for direct mail advertising, you are expected to have a return of $129 on your campaign.
# Trust is Its True Power
True, trust is one of the major factors why direct mail advertising works better than digital advertising. When you open a mail, there is no fear of hacking, identity theft, virus, or anything like that. On the other hand, when it comes to digital advertising, we barely trust any ads, emails from any unknown sources as they could be risky. Well, there are some good, reliable emails, but it could be time consuming to find them out; it’s more like selecting the brightest star in the sky in a cloudy night. This is how direct mail again outclasses digital advertising.
# Magnified Engagement
The target of all marketers is gaining engagement as much as possible. According to the USPS, if it’s print advertising, then our brain shows 20% more motivational response, and brand recall is 70% higher than digital advertising. According to the Indiana Digital, oxytocin level increases 38% while opening paper coupons. In 2017, the rate of using coupons (how much of the population uses coupons) was 88%, and in 2018, it is expected to be 93%. And when it comes to postcards, the rate increases 3.9% each year according to the USPS Household Diary Study. So, direct mail again wins the race against digital advertising.
# Totally Tangible
You can feel the mail when you touch it; it attracts your senses. It gives you pleasure. On the other hand, digital advertising is quite robotic. It can’t create any impact on us like direct mail advertising.
# Millennials are Marvelous
Some might assume that millenials they supposed to respond more on online versions than offline versions of ads, given that technology is such a big part of their life. But the stats show the opposite; millenials respond very well when it comes to direct mail. According to the InfoTrends, 38% of millennials prefer direct mail while 26% of them prefer email. This 12% difference is not ignorable at all for a serious marketer. The stats are really encouraging for marketers who want to target the millennials.
# More Memorable
This feature is very important for a long-lasting relationship with the potential customers. According to stats, millennials remember physical ads more. If someone remembers an ad, then he/she could be a potential user of the brand in the future.
# Less Competition
Your inbox is loaded with tons of useful and junk mails. Chances are very high that you will not read a lot of them. Emal is now over-saturated and over-loaded. But this is not true with direct mail. If designed well, your direct mail piece could bring excellent results. According to the DMA, 42% of people open catalogs after receiving them. Obviously, this rate is a lot higher than the rate of reading any promotional ads in the email. More than 100.7 million American bought products using catalogs in 2016. So, a marketer should never under estimate the power of direct mail.
# Personalization Matters
This is one of the greatest strengths of direct mail. According to stats, if a person’s name is used, then the response rate increases up to 135%. Obviously, if you see your name written with care, then you are bound to have a positive idea about the brand. On the other hand, digital ads are too generic. They seem like someone just quickly pasted a big list of email addresses into the recipient field of the email and then pressed SEND without much though.
# Don’t Buy or Rent A List
To give the marketers the most out of their money, USPS has a service called “Every Door Direct Mail.” This brilliant idea can save thousands of dollars of marketers. If you target a specific area or Zip code, then you don’t need a list of specific people to send your mail too. USPS has done everything for you. You can target 10,000 households at once. All you need to do is spend around 0.29 dollar for each household. If done correctly, with a well designed marketing piece sent at the right time, this could be a good investment for your business.
Let’s Learn About Neuro-Marketing
DMA has done research on neuro-marketing, and they found three crucial factors that marketers should know to get the most out of their advertisements.
- Think Bold
To get the most out of your ads, you need to be bold. It is found that most people’s attention span is around 8 seconds, so marketers must do the most of the work before this time limit ends. If you fail, then you will lose a potential customer forever. So, be bold.
- Use Visuals
This is another strong strategy that marketers should give a lot of attention to. It is found that our brain processes visuals 60,0000 times faster than text. So, focus on using smart visuals and remove unnecessary text from the mail. Follow the quote “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
- Keep it Simple
It’s all about simplicity. Our brains are capable of doing extremely complex things when necessary, but when it comes to making a purchase, simplicity outclasses complexity. So, keep it as simple as possible to get more profit.
Best Practices to Become Successful
Direct mail is can be very successful when it comes to response rate, but this doesn’t mean marketers don’t have to do anything to get the maximum return. There are some techniques that marketers need to follow to get the best results.
# Nothing Beats Creativity
A creative direct mail can beat both a digital advertisement and a generic direct mail piece. Your time and effort will pay off for sure if you showcase creativity. For example, a creative team sent direct mails that were only readable when soaked in water for increasing awareness on “World Water Day.” Isn’t it a fantastic, creative idea? No doubt it is. So, brainstorm and get creative ideas. If you don’t have enough creative people in your team, then recruit someone with a creative mind. Surely, it will bring good results for you.
# Put Some Emotion
When it comes to making purchases, emotion sometimes dominates over logic. So, if you put some emotion into your ad and your results can improve. “Natural History Museum” showed a great example. They sent an eraser written “It is estimated that up to 20 animal species become extinct every day” on the surface of the eraser. Do something that can evoke emotion like that. Utilize the emotion.
# Target Sensibly
Senior citizens and young people aged 18-34 have been shown to be the two groups that respond most to direct mail. So, you need to focus on them more than other age groups to get the maximum return on investment.
What About the Future?
It’s bright, very bright. It is estimated that about 38.5 billion dollars will be spent in direct mail in 2018, and it will increase in 2020. So, it is obvious that direct mail is BACK to rule the world of advertisement once again. There is a saying “Everything old is new again”. Many things go in cycles. The internet and mobile phone phenomenon came around 2010 and quickly changed things, leading to an explosion of online advertising. A few years after this, it appears that advertisers started to notice that digital marketing was missing many great advantages of print marketing and direct mail. This lead to many of them going back to print marketing and direct mail. Good luck with your direct mail and we hope we have taught you a few things!
