Marketing Commentary from interlinkONE
Marketing. Web-to-Print. Warehouse Management.
Three Ways to Personalize Your Direct Mail Efforts
Posted by 
on Tuesday, December 13, 2011 
at 7:01 AM 
in 
If your company sends out direct mail (which it should be doing as part of multi-channel campaigns, right!), it is vital that you add personalization to your materials.
One benefit of doing that is it may help your materials stand out from the crowd. Also, personalizing direct mail helps us to demonstrate to our customers and prospects that we’re paying attention to them, and that we want to share relevant information and offers.
It really does boil down to this: When it comes to mail, the more enticing the material, the more likely a recipient will be to read it and take action. And a personalized direct mail piece can certainly be enticing!
If you are looking to personalize your direct mail pieces, here are three ideas worth considering.
3 Ideas for Personalizing Direct Mail
- Consider the location of the recipient and design the materials accordingly: By taking a look at the recipient’s location, you should be able to identify a data element that could be converted to personalized content. For example, if you are sending direct mail to promote your retail store, gym, or some other physical location, you could personalize the piece to show just how close the person is to that spot. This could be represented graphically, via a map, or simply in text (i.e. “you are less than 2 miles away!”)
- If you are targeting previous customers, appeal to that and possibly reference the product or service they purchased: If we are sending direct mail pieces to our existing customers, we truly have no excuse not to personalize our materials. Take the time to look at their purchase history. With that data, you should be able to ensure that the promotions and offers on your direct mail piece are truly relevant to them.
- Based on demographics that you know, select colors that may appeal to each group: This one may take a bit more research and creativity. But there certainly are studies out there regarding the effect that certain colors may have on different groups of people. If you can find a way to use the right ones for the segments inside of your target audience, you should be able to increase your response rates.
These are just a few ideas for how your marketing efforts can be improve with personalized direct mail.
Are there others that you’ve enjoyed creating or receiving? If so, please let me know in the Comments!
Tags 3 Tips for Succeeding with Direct Mail
One of my favorite people in the print industry, Margie Dana, wrote a fantastic piece this week that was titled “How Direct Mail Packs a Punch in 7 Ways“.
If you are looking for ways to improve your marketing efforts, her article is a must-read. It provides inspiration and incentive for companies to use direct mail to reach their prospects and customers.
If Margie’s post does inspire you, I’d like to share a few tips with you as well. Here they are!
3 Tips for Succeeding with Direct Mail
For companies that run direct mail campaigns, the ability to effectively measure the highs and lows of those campaigns is vital to the success of their advertising as a whole. The following tips will have you well on your way toward making the most out of your company’s direct mail marketing:
- Utilize a tracking software system that will measure the statistics of your campaign easily and efficiently: Yes, there is no denying that it may cost less money to send emails than it does to send direct mail. However, if the act of sending direct mail to your audience could bring you better results, wouldn’t you want to do that? Of course! However, we must put forth the effort to prove that is true.This may primarily mean that we set up our campaigns and landing pages in a way so that direct mail responses are measured differently than responses to your emails, social media posts, or activities on another channel.
Response mechanisms such as QR Codes and personalized URLs can help us measure direct mail effectiveness as well!
- Select a focused audience versus conducting a blind mailing effort, thus increasing the potential for successful contacts: The days of spray-and-pray must be a thing of the past. This is certainly true from a budgetary perspective. But it also should be true from the fact that technology makes it easier than ever to create targeted, personalized materials and by doing so, we can increase our response rates.By segmenting our audiences, we can deliver direct mail pieces that may have text, images, and offers that are relevant to each individual.
- Ensure that your direct mail pieces are both informative and aesthetically pleasing: We must never forget marketing fundamentals. Sure, it can be fun to get excited about new marketing channels (i.e. I’m so excited that I can add a PURL to my mailers!) However, we must not neglect putting forth an effort to ensure our direct mail pieces look good and tell a compelling story.
These are just a few of the ways that companies can successfully incorporate direct mail into their marketing mix. If you’d like to learn more or perhaps see how interlinkONE’s software can help you in that regard, click here.
QR Codes in the Wild: August 2011 Edition
Over the past month, I’ve seen quite an increase of QR Code usage. I’ve seen more of them than ever before as I flip through magazines, as I walk by storefronts, and especially as I flip through my mail.
A big reason for the uptick of QR Codes in my mailbox may have to do with the USPS’ summer discount on mobile barcodes. The discount is scheduled to expire at the end of August. Here’s hoping that companies continue to incorporate QR Codes into their printed materials regardless.
Below are some of the pieces that caught our attention over the past month. We hope that you enjoy them.
Direct Mail Piece from Kohl's
Jiffy Lube's Postcard
At the Pharmacy
While Doing Some Back-to-School Shopping
Flipping Through a Magazine, Getting Ready for Football
Doing Some Car-Shopping
Sitting In Traffic, a Parking Lot, or a Driveway
Can Direct Mail Help Your Website?
A recent report from GI Insight provided a couple of statistics to reinforce the effectiveness of direct mail.
While those with “ink in their veins” may wish the percentage was higher, I think that seeing this quote is fairly encouraging: “47% of UK consumers said that they are ‘more often than not’ driven to a website by something they have received” in the mail.
I also enjoyed this one: “43% said that they kept direct mail around the household in order to remind them to visit the company’s website in future.”
Yes, while social networks, emails, mobile, and other channels will continue to also drive people to the web, those channels may not necessarily have the ability to “stick” around someone’s house to remind them to visit a company’s website at a later date.
Of course, marketers may ask this question — how do I know if my direct mail efforts are driving traffic to a website?
Three Ways To Track Direct Mail and Its Impact On Your Website
Use Google Analytics to Benchmark Direct Traffic
Prior to sending out the direct mail piece, monitor and record the Direct Traffic that Google Analytics reports on your corporate website.
Then, monitor those numbers as the direct mailer starts to land in people’s mailboxes. While this is not going to tell you exactly how many people hit the website because they saw your URL on the mail piece, this approach may help you to gauge if the needle moved at all.
Yes, it may sound simple and less than scientific… but it’s something that should and can be done by anyone.
Use Personalized or Unique URLs on the Direct Mail Piece
Rather than printing your corporate website URL on the direct mail piece, use a custom or unique URL that will only be promoted to the people receiving the direct mailer.
That URL may simply serve as a redirect to the corporate website once it’s entered. Or maybe it points to a landing page that is embedded into one of your site’s pages.
This activity should help to serve as a good indicator if the mail piece made an impact.
Ask People!
This approach is often simple to execute and can result in solid data… but it’s often overlooked. In the contact forms that are provided on your website, add a question that asks people how they heard about you.
Also, train and encourage sales reps to ask new prospects that request more information if they received the mailer and then record it.
Moving Forward
Of course, direct mail’s impact isn’t necessarily measured only in the few days that it lands at the recipient’s house. As the 43% statistic above shows, people may store and return to that mailer at a later date — perhaps even weeks later. Thus, keep an eye on website traffic over the long-term to see if the impact of the mailer is still being felt.
Graph Expo News: Speaking on Print & Social Media
I’m excited to announce a couple of speaking engagements that interlinkONE and Grow Socially we’ll be participating in at Graph Expo 2011. If you’ll be attending the show, I’d love to see you there. Here are the details of the presentations:
Tips On How To Integrate Print With Other Channels
This presentation will be delivered on Sunday, September 11th, at 1:00-1:30.
During this session, we will provide tips, best practices, and inspiration on how print can be integrated with channels such as:
- Mobile
- Social Networks
- Your Website
How to Use Social Networks to Help Grow Your Business
This presentation will be delivered on Monday, September 12th, 11:00am – 11:30.
John Foley, Jr., CEO of Grow Socially and interlinkONE will be delivering this session.
He will provide key strategies and takeaways for companies that are looking to use social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, and more to better serve their customers and reach new prospects.
We hope to see you at Graph Expo soon!
