Yeah, Direct Mail Still Works
You may not yet have noticed, but direct mail is regaining its popularity.
Because while digital marketing remains super-saturated, direct mail lets you reach prospective customers with significantly less competition for their attention and without running afoul of spam laws.
More trusted and liked than other marketing channels, direct mail offers advantages, including:
An existing infrastructure of 166 million home and business addresses
Congressionally mandated delivery six days each week
An increasingly attractive option of personalized communications
Targeted delivery down to the street level
It’s also worth considering that direct mail is easily integrated with digital marketing campaigns. This makes for seamless and effective customer experiences.
And did I mention the ability to use dimensional mailings (aka “getting stuff”) and long-form letters more likely to engage audience members?
Direct mail’s resurgence hit me with a letter from Jerome’s Furniture. Using a format, tone, font and design straight out of “The Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters of All Time,” Jerome’s touted its 70th anniversary sale with a personalized letter and strategically placed bold and red type.
This two-page letter undoubtedly tried to impart a sense of urgency to every San Diego County homeowner about Jerome’s financing, shipping and discounts. Yet it was the lead paragraph that made me smile when they said:
“We’ve never written a letter of this importance before, and we may never write one like it again! That’s because our accountants may not let us!”
Bogus, of course, but still highly entertaining.
Your business can also profit from the strategic use of direct mail to target specific audiences. Key to making it work well will be either keeping your message really short or telling a long, compelling, well-written tale that engages and entertains readers.
Here’s the thing: Because of the rise of spam and phishing attacks, the proliferation of fake news and misinformation, and the increasing use of online cookies making consumers recognize how much they’re being tracked and targeted, many people have lost trust in email and social media.
This points to direct mail as a more personal, physical and trusted form of communication that 81% of recipients are likely to open.
After all, if companies like Jerome’s, Google, Chewy and IKEA are still using direct mail, you’ve got to figure they’re on to something.
With that said, I wish you a week of profitable marketing.
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