Direct mail helps you stay connected to your customers and, now more than ever, could prove a useful tool to ensure your message cuts-through.
A counterpoint to the many digital channels which compete for our everyday attention, direct mail provides a personal, tactile, way to remind your customers you are still here for them.
So, if you are to allocate marketing spend to mail – how can you be sure whether it will work? As with any advertising or communications, you will not fully know its viability until you test it – but that does not mean taking huge risks either – especially if you follow some of these tips to help you figure it out.
Testing audiences
When starting a mail campaign from scratch, you need to think carefully about who to prioritise when building your contacts list. Here’s three options to consider based on why you might wish to contact them.
Direct mail for customer acquisition
Who is your ideal customer? Start by formulating a profile based on the typical traits and trends of your existing customer base. Then build a list. It doesn’t have to be huge – start with your email subscribers (those yet to purchase) or utilise contacts you’ve made from social media or networking events. In time, you may even wish to isolate and test specific audience segments too.
Winning back customers
Direct mail is an ideal way to send a personalised message to reconnect with customers. If you run an online business, you could use it to retarget those who abandoned their online shopping basket, or if you provide a service, potentially target those who requested a quote but never purchased. The campaign itself could be based on a specific invitation with an incentive to reconsider.
Supporting an upsell
Could customers who bought a specific product or service also benefit from a supplementary or additional offering? If so, use direct mail to tell them. Carefully segment your customers and send them specific information in relation to their previous purchase (and potentially include a loyalty offer too).
Split-testing direct mail
Even the simplest method, an A/B split test, can prove extremely valuable in establishing the effectiveness of your campaigns over the long term. Create one mailer, duplicate it, but edit just one element such as the headline, offer, or call to action. Only test one variable at a time and send both versions simultaneously to avoid timing itself becoming another variable. When undertaking a high-volume campaign, even testing a couple of variations before a large send can help reduce inefficiencies with your approach.
If you already send regular mailers, for example, to welcome new customers, why not test your existing campaign or approach alongside something different? It could be a different design, message, format or even include a promotional gift. At the very least, it will give you confidence that your existing approach is the right one, or better still, it may uncover more efficient or effective ways to approach key parts in your direct mail strategy.
Tracking your results
Whilst there is plenty of research out there which demonstrates that direct mail campaigns usually have good open and response rates compared to other channels (such as email marketing), you will never know for sure without effective measurement.
Of the many ways to help track direct mail results, the most common include:
- Unique URLs: Creating unique landing pages or web addresses for each call to action allows you to attribute traffic to a specific campaign.
- Unique discount codes: If you are running an offer, use a unique discount code or offer name for each version of your test campaign.
- Unique QR codes: Yes QR codes are having a resurgence at the moment, and yes, you can set up different codes to help you differentiate between campaigns.
Getting started
Let’s not shy away from it, testing every possible direct mail variable will get expensive if you’re not careful – which is why we suggest starting small.
To help you best utilise your budget, our direct marketing package can take care of the design, production and mailing of a campaign which could also test specific variables in small batches first. We can help recommend what to test, then support you with measuring and analysing the impact of your campaign. Crucially, we can also quickly upscale in volume as we find the winning solution for you.
