Maximize Your ROI: Integrating Direct Mail Into Digital Campaigns

Give Customers Something to Hold Onto

For many of today’s busy consumers, digital ads are just something to endure before getting to the content they actually want. Immediate yet ephemeral, these ads can come and go without customers taking much notice. Direct mail, on the other hand, gets delivered right to customers’ mailboxes, and will likely be physically handled, sorted and opened. Where digital skims the surface, a physical medium such as direct mail can go much deeper.

Studies have also shown that even the act of touching a tangible object, such as a postcard, catalog or other mailer, can bring about the “endowment effect”—a phenomenon in which people place more value on items already in their physical possession. In this way, direct mail can trigger a sense of ownership, encouraging interaction with the mailpiece and helping to move customers toward a purchase.

While digital ads come and go seemingly at random, retrieving and sorting through the mail is often part of people’s daily rituals and can serve as a breath of fresh air from the constant onslaught of digital ads. Two-thirds of consumers say they read mail the same day they receive it,^[2] and some may save mailpieces for days or weeks to revisit later. This “object permanence” effect can reinforce the marketing message over time, contributing to higher brand recall and increased customer loyalty.^[3]

Integrate Digital Enhancement for Easy Tracking

Direct mail can be powerful on its own but connecting it to digital channels can take campaigns even further—making it easy for customers to keep exploring while allowing marketers to track responses and measure success.

By incorporating digital enhancements into direct mail, companies can gather valuable data in real time. If a brand sends a postcard promoting a sale, for example, a smartphone-scannable QR Code^®[4] on the mailer could lead right to the online shop where recipients can browse. Including a discount code on the mailer that customers can enter at checkout can help inch them closer to conversion.

With this type of campaign, marketers can track a wide range of customer actions, including how many people scanned the QR Code and when, what people did once in the online shop, how many people added items to their carts, which items were most clicked on, and which were purchased. All of these insights can help shape future messaging and offers, allowing brands to deliver more relevant campaigns that increase the chances of interaction.

Including a personalized URL (PURL) in direct mail can serve a similar purpose. Tailored to individual customers, these URLs often contain their first names and lead directly to a customized landing page. Companies can then track who went to these web pages and what actions they took once there. With 88% of marketers saying personalized direct mail significantly improves response rates,^[5] even light customization can go a long way in increasing interaction.

Tools like the free Informed Visibility^® feature can also be used to track campaigns in near real time, enabling marketers to follow mailers from initial intake scan all the way through delivery, then follow up with complementary digital efforts. This can help keep their message top of mind and create a straightforward pathway for customers to respond. If a mailer is advertising an exclusive event for loyalty customers, the digital follow-up could offer a quick way to RSVP digitally.

Lean on the Data to Drive Smarter Targeting

Today’s direct mail is a far cry from the mass-blast relic of the past, with more ways than ever to curate marketing to customers’ preferences and needs. With research showing that personalization increases marketing return on investment (ROI) by 10%–30%,^[6] tailored content can mean the difference between a sale and a loss.

Direct mail platforms can be easily integrated into existing tech, such as a customer data platform (CDP) or customer relationship management (CRM) system, allowing brands to trigger personalized content based on customer interactions. With these platforms collecting data from an entire marketing stack, real-time behavioral insights can be used to trigger perfectly timed, pertinent campaigns.

Customers who’ve just signed up for a loyalty program, for example, could be sent a mailer with a special welcome offer and further details about the program’s benefits. These triggers are also often used for retargeting after cart abandonment. For anyone who’s added an item to their online cart but failed to actually make a purchase, a complementary postcard could be sent out, reminding them of the items left behind and perhaps offering a discount to entice them toward checkout.

Connecting direct mail platforms to analytics platforms will keep data coming in continually, making it easy to measure performance and optimize future efforts. These platforms can provide real-time insights on overall performance so brands can see what’s working and what’s not. Armed with this information, marketers can refine campaigns as they go, creating better-curated campaigns that speak more directly to customers’ needs, and therefore increase the chances of interaction and conversion.

Working with a digital printer that specializes in variable data printing (VDP) can make it simple to personalize at scale. High-volume VDP pulls data directly from a company’s CDP or CRM, allowing every piece of mail in a single print run to be customized—from copy, images and design to offers, QR Codes and URLs.