Do email and direct mail marketing strategy works concurrently? Yes! To tell you the truth – they can. Email and direct mails aren’t two different nodes of the tree. They belong to each other and are capable of producing the projected result when blended appropriately.
Before diving into the combined email and direct mail marketing strategies, let us see what they are and its importance individually.
Email Marketing and its Importance
Email marketing lets you do a lot of things such as keeping current customers informed, updating on brand offers, cultivating relationships with potential customers, encouraging customer loyalty, and more. This direct form of marketing is much more cost-efficient and eco-friendly as it’s totally paperless.
Although some think email marketing is outdated, it has evolved considerably since its inception and is still an incredibly valuable marketing tool. In fact, many marketers agree that email marketing is more important to them than ever before.
According to HubSpot research report, 86% of professionals prefer to use email for business purposes. And, WebMarketing says 93% of B2B marketers are already using email marketing.
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Other Advantages of Email Marketing Includes:
- 94% of internet users utilize email on a daily basis. Therefore, marketing through email helps you reach many users on web.
- It’s incredibly easy to track your ROI if email marketing methods are followed.
- The ROI is very high since you don’t have to spend money to reach the correct audience as you do with other forms of ads.
- Most important, email works exceptionally well with other forms of marketing.
This cheapest mode of marketing is what you must definitely consider in order to strengthen your brand’s relationship with the customers.
Now, let’s look into direct mailing marketing and its importance.
Direct Mail Marketing and its Importance
Direct mail marketing is one of the successful and the oldest B2B strategies out there. Although online marketing has taken the marketing world by storm, direct mail marketing will still work with your other channels when done right.
The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has proved that ROI from direct mail campaigns is higher than both online display ads and paid search.
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Direct mail marketing can offer what online marketing can’t. CPC Neuroscience report reveals some interesting facts about direct mail.
- Direct mail marketing is extremely effective since it’s easier to understand. The study says that it requires 21% less cognitive effort to process as well as elicits a much higher brand recall.
- This marketing method is far more persuasive than any of the digital media because its motivation response is 20% higher and sometimes even more.
- Direct mail is processed quicker visually than other media. It can get the message across faster.
- It is more likely to drive behavior than digital media. Direct mail surpasses the central motivation-to-cognitive load ratio threshold of 1.
This neuro-marketing study proves that direct mail is much more effective at driving customer action than digital ads.
Email Marketing vs. Direct Mail Marketing
The B2B marketers usually ignore direct mail marketing as it is created and delivered through an offline process, and thereby consumes extra time. But to your surprise, direct mail marketing performs much better when it comes to campaign response rate.
In fact, direct mail has an average of 4.4% response rate when compared to an average response rate of 0.12% of email marketing. However, email rules in terms of ROI. And also, it is cheaper. You can target the right prospects without spending much. The DMA report found that the ROI of the email was averaged at $28.50, whereas direct mail was at $7.
Combination of Email and Direct Mail Marketing Strategies
Although email is moderately identical to direct mail, the former is considered the modern strategy and simple to implement. But when you combine these two strategies, you may reap different and much better results than expected.
However, most of the marketers do not indulge in its amalgamation. They do not see it as two sides of the same coin and believe it produces the redundant outcome. To spill the beans, prospects engage differently with direct mail than email. They usually read your emails while working or out. On the other hand, direct mails are opened during their free time.
Hence to satisfy the needs of potential customers, companies should embrace both the approaches unitedly.
1. Use Email as Follow-ups to Direct Mail
You need to do dozens of follow-ups before you hear a response to seal the deal. According to Yesware’s data, 70% of sales messages don’t go past the first effort.
Image Source: Yesware
Email makes for the perfect follow up partner for your direct mail campaigns. If you delivered a piece of direct mail to a prospect on Monday, sending them an email later in the week can be a great way to remind them about your offer or products.
Keep your email as a reference to the offer that they received through direct mail. You can also provide a personalized link to a landing page to convert them quickly. This method would be a great way to bolster your campaign and improve revenue.
2. Use Personalized URLs to Measure Response
A Personalized URL or pURL is a unique landing page generated for each prospect in your marketing list. Personalized headlines, images, pre-filled forms, and other contents are automatically rendered for each member. You can track and analyze the behavior of each target uniquely as each audience has distinctive pURLs.
Businesses include these personalized URLs in direct mail campaigns to drive potential clients online. The main goal of most direct mail campaigns is to get your prospects to your dedicated landing pages. Visiting such pages from email is much easier than typing it manually using the URL provided in a postcard.
3. Customers like Your Presence Everywhere
Modern customers like it when you can meet their needs on the platforms that they frequently visit. As per the Lead Forensics report, 72% of customers say they prefer to connect with brands through multiple channels before buying from them.
And therefore, the multi-channel approach makes sense in this digital world. If not many channels, at least use email as a complement to your direct mail marketing campaigns. It helps you stay on top-of-mind of the customers and build brand awareness.
A certain percentage of the prospects simply throw away your direct mail without giving it a second thought. In such cases, sending them an email helps them reconnect with your brand.
Putting It All Together
Both the direct mail and email has been around for a very long time. These two strategies are much more targeted and personalized when compared to other digital marketing tactics. However, many marketers continue to separate them without realizing the real value. And, that’s a huge mistake.
When you combine your direct mail with email campaigns, you can quickly enhance the performance and drive superior results. The methods suggested here will add emails to your direct mail campaigns in a cost-effective way so that you can learn its benefits.
