5 Marketing Trends to Include in Your Direct Marketing Strategy

Direct marketing continues to play a vital role when engaging with customers. For a company to succeed long-term, marketers must monitor their strategies and tactics by a re-assessment of marketing trends and ensure they have the budget to support their marketing efforts. Based on the latest trends and developments, here are our suggestions for producing a winning direct mail strategy that gets results.

Direct Marketing Trends

When it comes to trends in direct marketing, it’s wise to look at both micro and macro trends.  You want to keep an eye on what’s trending today and what’s likely to be trending in the future. To do this it helps to keep in touch with consumers. Be curious, ask questions and search out new things you may be surprised at some of the results. For example, direct mail is booming even in a time of digital empowerment.

1. Social Media

Social media has become the top-tier form of marketing and will continue to remain at the forefront. Communication is crucial for every business but positive engagement with the consumer is the answer for improved reputation. Social media also allows brands and users to interact freely and quickly while providing awareness to your brand and an increase in your revenue.  Consumers will continue to be on the lookout for brands and companies online and they will expect to find your company there when they do.

Over the next five years, social media is expected to grow in focus, taking up almost a quarter of total marketing spend. This is partly due to the increasing use of mobile devices. As your company focuses more on social media, it’ll become important to integrate social call to actions on your direct mail marketing ads.

2. Email Newsletters

Don’t underestimate the importance and power of email newsletters. According to Pew Research Centre, 9 in 10 adults go online to check email daily,  it’s really simple to understand why it is so effective. The purpose of newsletter marketing is to engage and advise subscribers, customers or prospects by providing content that would address a potential ideas, questions or problems to build loyalty, trust, and brand awareness.

Moving forward, giving your audience informative and interesting content while following best email practices has significantly proven to  increase engagement and help your brand stay connected. Leverage your email newsletters to build your online community, activity and social growth strategies by simply including social sharing buttons to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest etc. The same goes for increasing traffic to your website, proper calls to action and targeting your emails correctly; you can increase traffic, grow online sales and engage with customers to ultimately become loyal fans of your business.

3. Video and Live streaming

With Facebook Live and other live streaming platforms becoming increasingly popular, video marketing should play an imperative role in your marketing budgets. To maximize the effectiveness of videos you should include; call to actions and links in your marketing pieces. This can be done with a QR code that consumers can scan with their mobile device –they’ll be taken directly to your video.

Quality and branded video is expensive to produce which is why many savvy marketers will be asking consumers to create videos to promote their brand in an organic and budget-friendly way.  Using your direct marketing pieces to spread the word about video- related contests is an excellent way to promote your company. In addition, you could provide consumers who shared video testimonials or product shout-outs special discounts or promotions.

4. Content Marketing

An integrated approach to your content marketing strategy will be essential to the success of your overall marketing plans. This means that your content across mediums, including marketing, needs to be cohesive, consistent and clear.

Whether you’re producing a shared media products flyer, a blog, a video or a social media post – ensure that your branding is evident and that your message is on point.

5. Targeted Marketing

Marketers agree that the landscape will be more difficult to navigate moving forward. To get the most from your marketing dollars you’ll need to ensure you’re reaching your target market – which is why direct marketing is so important. With direct mail marketing, you can conduct a customer demographic analysis to ensure your direct mailing is sent to your exact target consumer – people are looking for your product or service and are ready to make a purchase.

While there’s no guarantee what a new year will hold, marketers who integrate these top marketing trends into their direct marketing strategy will be off to a great start.