By 
The internet has given marketers so many different ways to reach customers. There’s email, social media, search engines, and they’re all good ways of reaching potential customers. However, just because we have new(ish) tools at our disposal doesn’t mean the tried and tested methods are any less effective.
Direct mail – reaching people with advertising materials through their mailbox has always been an effective tool for advertisers, and continues to be so, even in today’s digital world.
So how can your business benefit from a direct mail campaign?
People Like Receiving Mail
Ok, clearly, people don’t like receiving bills and tacky coupons, but even so, when they see their name on a letter, they still enjoy that little bit of excitement. There’s something personal about receiving something in your mailbox with your name and address on it, and a direct mail campaign can benefit from these emotions – if it’s done well.
People don’t want to feel like they’re just one of a million people who have received the same piece of marketing, they want to feel like there’s something personal to it, so be creative and make them smile. Postcard direct mail is a great way to do this, in which it’s like your business is just dropping by a postcard to catch up with the customer.
Minimal Distractions
When you’re using digital platforms to reach your potential customers, there are so many distractions you have to compete with. A Facebook ad features on an endless feed that can be scrolled for hours, and even if you hit top spot on Google, you’ve still got to compete with the ads.
When you use direct mail, your customers end up with something physical in their hand that won’t vanish with a scroll and demands at least some attention. It’s very difficult to ignore direct mail completely.
Multiple Channels
Different marketing channels are effective in different ways, and if you’re not taking advantage of some of them, then you might not be maximizing your return. You want your brand to enter people’s consciousness, and to do this you need to be interacting with the public in lots of different ways.
Direct mail is particularly efficient at getting its message across. A study found that 75% of people who receive direct mail can recall the brand versus just 44% who can recall the brand immediately after seeing a digital ad.
A Wider Audience
Internet and social media usage might be widespread, but not everyone is using them. There are still large numbers of people who you won’t reach through your digital marketing, and you need to find different ways of reaching these people.
If your main customers are people in demographics who don’t use much social media, then you’ve got to look for other ways of reaching them and direct mail is a good option. Not everyone has social media, or email, or even an internet connection, but virtually everybody has a mailbox.
