With direct mail still outperforming digital response rates*, it is important to win at tapping this valuable marketing channel. However, if you are fresh out of direct mail marketing ideas, we’re here to help.
Here’s a short list of ideas to kick your next direct mail campaign into high gear.
1. Use branded postcards.
If promoting your brand is a campaign goal, then nothing beats a branded postcard. With no envelope to stand in the way of getting eyes on your logo and your message, the postcard is ideal.
Postcards work especially well when you have a well-established social media campaign going. Even people who merely glance at your postcard as they sort their mail will have seen your brand.
Then if you catch them again with your social media marketing, you are reinforcing the idea of your brand rather than simply introducing it.
2. Connect your direct mail marketing ideas to your Web presence.
You’re sending snail mail, but if you tie it to the digital realm you’ll see an exponentially higher ROI. Got emails? Use them with your direct mail campaign, timing their delivery to occur as close as you can to the same day.
When people see your mail the same day they get your email, you have made a nice impression that is bound to plant your message firmly in the minds of at least some of your target audience.
3. Tie your campaign to a separate, timed event.
Nothing tops the effectiveness of a one-two punch. One of the most compelling direct mail marketing ideas is to time your mailing so it coincides with a separate event.
That event could be something that is newsworthy, like the election. Mention something in your mailing that connects the reader to something he may already have on his mind, and it’s more likely that you’ve piqued his interest.
4. Tap into “FOMO” with a save-the-date postcard.
Printing “save the date” on a postcard causes an automatic response in most people: “what’s going on?!” Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) will take over so they won’t be able to resist reading the rest of the card.
But as direct mail marketing ideas go, this one requires some additional maneuvering because you’ll need to have an actual event to announce!
5. Tap into wanderlust with a travel postcard.
Another postcard idea for you: tap into the desire to be “anyplace but here” with a postcard that looks as if a friend who is traveling sent it.
Gorgeous travel photos stimulate our sense of discovery, lift us out of our present scene, and entice us to take risks. You don’t have to be in the travel industry for these travel-related direct mail marketing ideas to work.
6. Make them feel special: include a unique code.
When you include something in your mailing that is unique to each recipient, you are accomplishing two important marketing tasks.
- You are adding to perceived value of your mailing because you are giving the recipient something that cannot be shared, and which can bring value (a discount, for example).
- When people use their unique codes to do whatever your call to action directs them to do (visit your website, place an order with the coupon code, call to use the code etc.), you are receiving invaluable marketing data that you can use to track the success of your campaign.
We’re here to help you.
Hopefully you’ve found a few direct mail marketing ideas that work for you. But if these ideas don’t help, and you still need some direction with your marketing campaign, leave a comment or send us a note. We would love to help!
*Source: Direct Marketing News. Retrieved 3/23/2016 from http://www.dmnews.com/direct-mail/dma-direct-mail-response-rates-beat-digital/article/245780/
