Julie Market of Catherin’s Gardens has experimented with direct mail using SAF postcards, with great success. Read more.
Here’s a new twist for your Valentine’s marketing: This year, go old school.
“Direct mail, one of the most maligned marketing practices, is having a moment,” writes Etelka Lehoczky for Inc. magazine. “When done right, the return on investment is surprising, say who have come to rely on it as a powerful tool in their marketing arsenal.”
In fact, direct mail is on the rise — used in 57 percent of marketing campaigns, up 7 percent over 2015 and second only to email, according to the Direct Marketing Association.
“Response rates can reach 5.3 percent when you use a house list of existing customers and opt-in recipients, and overall they are up almost 2 percent compared with last year,” Lehoczky writes. “That dwarfs the 0.3 to 0.9 percent scored by all of the tracked digital methods.”
Still, not all direct mail efforts are created equal. Here are some tips on how to keep your promotions out of the recycling bin:
Include Staff in Pics. In addition to beautiful flower shots, you may want to get your staff to say cheese. Photos of real people in your store help maximize direct mail’s “trust factor,” says Joy Gendusa, CEO of marketing company PostcardMania. ” I always recommend that there be a photo of some person at the company on the card,” she says. “That just makes it real, instead of a stock photo.”
Make it Interactive. Connect your direct mail efforts to your online presence with scannable codesand links to social media. Pay attention to your branding, says Liz Miller, senior vice president of the CMO Council, a network of marketing executives. “It should look like your website and have the same content, the same tone, the same language. It’s all got to connect to online and offline strategies.”
Go Big. Don’t put in all the effort of a direct mail campaign, only to spoil it with a stingy discount. “Business owners will pick a wimpy offer, something that doesn’t cost them a lot of money (e.g. 10 percent off),” says Steven Wagner, owner of the postcard mailer Health Media Concepts. “Be aggressive. You’ve got to break through the clutter, or you’re going to waste your money.”
Read about how one florist in Oak Forest, Illinois, has used Society of American Florists direct mail materials, including postcards, to attract customers to her business. (Her return rate for holiday pushes? An impressive 15 percent.)
