Is direct mail marketing dead? In short, no, it is not dead. In fact, 70% of consumers like direct mailing instead of digital marketing because it is more personal.

So if you have already tried direct mailing and it failed, the problem isn’t the mail marketing system; it’s your campaign. Creating an excellent mail marketing campaign can take a long time if you aren’t sure what you are doing.

There is no need to fret, though; in this brief article, we will cover how to gain the customers you need through a powerful direct mail marketing campaign. Oh, and you won’t have to do it alone; there is a team of people waiting below to hear about how they can properly market your business through mail marketing.

What Is Direct Mail Marketing?

Direct mail marketing, also known as mail marketing, is any type of physical correspondence you send to your customers via mail to gain their attention and business. When you send direct mail marketing documents, you will want to be sure to include your business name and logo.

Other things to include on your direct mail marketing:

A call to action
A way for your customer to reach out to you

Of course, that is the bare minimum that you will put in your mail marketing. You will want to appeal to your customer’s needs, so they reach out to you.

Is Direct Mail Marketing Useful?

Although it may sound outdated to send things via mail, direct mail marketing is still an excellent way to reach your target audience. There are several reasons why this strategy still works.

It Is Interactive

One major reason why direct mail still performs so well is that it is a very interactive experience. Customers receive a physical item in the mail. When you include a promotional offer that requires your customer to do something with the mail, such as bringing the flyer into your store, it makes your client more likely to keep it and look at it.

It Has a Wider Demographic

Direct mail can have a more extensive reach than digital marketing, depending on your target audience. If your audience does not have an email or doesn’t frequent social media, direct mail marketing can reach those customers you would have missed with digital marketing.

It Is Creative

Using direct mail marketing does not mean that you are stuck with analog advertising; there are so many different ways that you can combine direct mail with digital marketing. Physical mail marketing allows you to engage your customers in more ways than you could with only digital marketing.

There Is Less Competition

Many companies are switching to mainly focus on their digital marketing campaigns instead of using direct mailers. This opens an excellent opportunity to stand out to your target audience. People nowadays are surprised by physical mail, so an eye-catching mailer can go a long way when advertising your business.

How Much Does Direct Mailing Cost?

The price of your direct mailing campaign will depend on several different factors, including the kind of mail you send and how many pieces you wish to send. If you plan to send oversized mailers or catalogs, you can expect to pay around $10 or more per piece because of their weight. Standard postcards cost between $0.10 to $0.30 per card.

In addition to the mailer’s cost, you can also expect to pay for the design of your mail piece. You can always create something for free in Microsoft word, but you are limited to their templates in the Microsoft suite.

Instead, it may be best to employ a professional to design your mailer. The price for a professional varies based on the own rates they set.

Printing Costs

The cost for printing can vary based on if you need color ink or if you are okay with black and white. Color mailers are best to use if you want to catch the attention of your target audience.

Other printing costs:

Paper quality
Paper size
One-sided pieces
Two-sided pieces
Number of prints

In general, printing costs vary between $0.03 to $2.00 per piece, depending on the level of detail needed for your mailer.

Distribution Costs

Lastly, a final cost you will need to consider is the distribution cost which is what you pay to have your mailers mailed out. Distribution costs vary based on current postage rates and how much mail you send out. In general, it is best to expect to pay between $0.25 to $2.00 to mail out your mailers.

How Does Direct Mail Marketing Work?

Mail marketing campaigns are similar to the digital marketing process. The main difference between the two is the way the information gets distributed. In order to have a successful direct mail marketing campaign, there are a few steps you will need to follow.

Establish Goals and Objectives

Before you send out your direct mail campaign, you must first identify what you would like to accomplish with your campaign. That step can be challenging if you have never had a direct mail marketing campaign. If this is you, there are a few questions you must ask yourself.

What Do You Wish to Achieve?

What is it that you want your campaign to do for you? Do you want it to generate sales? Some companies who answer this question say that they want their campaign to build awareness among their target audience. Others wish to supplement a digital marketing campaign to help get the message into the hands of their audience.

What Do You Wish to Accomplish in Six Months?

How about one year? Your long-term goals for your direct mailing campaign may differ from the goals of your first campaign. Still, it is best to know which direction you want to go so you can move in the right direction with each of your direct mailing campaigns.

What Skills May Be Transferable to Direct Mailing?

The foundations for a digital marketing campaign aren’t much different than those in a direct mail campaign. Audiences, copy, and design assets may be repurposed and used in a different marketing channel.

More questions may arise as you continue to build on your campaign, but as you answer these basic ones, your objectives and goals may start to become more apparent. Be sure to be very specific in your goal-setting. When creating and sending out your campaigns, it may be best to attack your goals to data to optimize your processes and messaging as you become more familiar with direct mail campaigns.

Understand Your Target Audience

With those questions out of the way, you need to define your target audience for the campaign. The more you clarify and define your audience, the better your mail marketing campaign will deliver the results you want.

For example, when looking at your target audience, ask yourself, “what are their problems?” and “What are their needs?”. You will also want to answer how your offer solves their problems.

Your target audience probably has a lot of different solutions available for their problems. Still, the goal is to make you go from being a possible solution to the only logical solution.

If you are mailing to your current leads or customers, there is a good chance you already have detailed information about your clients. If you have new prospects, you may not know much about them. So before you send out your campaign, be sure to dive into audience research so you can create an offer that is sure to resonate with them.

Audience Data

When defining your target audience, there are three main categories you should focus on: behavioral, demographic, and psychographic. Behavioral data includes email engagement, website activity, sales engagement, and purchase history.

Your demographic data includes details such as your clients’ income, age, marital status, and gender. It can also include the industry they work for, the size of their company, and more. Psychographic data dives deep into your customer’s opinions, hobbies, attitudes, and values.

Buyer Personas

Buyer personas are crucial because they help identify common problems, traits, and needs among the ideal buyers of a specific service or product. Buyer personas are a great starting point to help you and your team understand your audience.

Create Your Mailing List

With your audience deciphered and your campaign goals set, it is time to create your mailing list. In general, there are two different types of direct mail lists that you can use, purchased lists and house lists.

House lists are the addresses and names of clients you already collected data from. If you have a marketing automation tool or a CRM, you can use it to store information from your customers.

Your house list is valuable because these customers are already familiar with your product and your company. Some of these clients may have already purchased something from you, so they won’t need too much awareness building or nurturing content as your other prospects may.

Purchased lists are a bit tricker than your house lists. High-quality purchased direct mail lists enable you to select a specific group of people with a high degree of deliverability. It is crucial that you work with a reputable company, such as Catdi, to ensure that you send your mail to excellent and active addresses.

Develop a Call to Action

If you want your direct mail process to be as successful as possible, you will want to create a good offer and a call to action. If you do not put effort into those two things, your campaign will blend into the background, and you won’t reap the results you want.

Unless you have an on-staff copywriter or a copywriter yourself, you may want to invest in a copywriter. They have the ability to convey the message you want to your audience in a way that they can best understand.

How to Write a CTA

Your CTA, or call to action for long, should be short, quick, and to the point. When creating your CTA, there are three factors you must focus on.

Three main factors in your call to action:

What you’re selling
Why this product or service will help them
How to get said service or product

It doesn’t matter if your direct mail campaign is selling a product to Gen Zs or if you’re offering an educational piece to CEOs; you will want to make sure that your call to action is clear and to the point. You want your offer to be very compelling and attractive to your target audience so they will say “yes” and will seek your service.

Make Your Offer Beneficial

So you have an excellent product that fixes a considerable problem amongst your target demographics, right? Your target audience doesn’t know that, so you need to figure out a way to communicate a strong benefit.

Your mailer will go into the trash as quickly as possible if you don’t. When explaining the benefit of your product, be sure to appeal to emotions first and logic second.

Let’s be honest, we all do things we need to do, but we procrastinate and do them when we have time. When we are presented with something that we think we need or want, we’re more willing to act.

Start Your Mail Marketing Campaign!

We all know that in order for a marketing campaign to be successful, you need to make sure you reach your target audience in a way that they best understand. You want to ensure that your message conveys emotions that make them want to reach out to you.

Direct mail marketing is an excellent way to reach your target audience in a way that digital marketing may not. If you are ready to start seeing a massive return on investment, contact us now!