Why Direct Mail is Booming

Learn how to send targeted direct mail to your audience while they’re at home and ready to engage. Direct mail is skyrocketing while we remain at home due to the pandemic. And for many, remote working is here to stay. This is a great opportunity for you to incorporate direct mail into your marketing strategy.

What is Direct Mail?

In a nutshell, direct mail is a way of communicating with your consumers directly to their homes. It allows you to target your audience according to location and demographic profile.

There are many different direct mail marketing pieces, such as postcards, coupons, magazines, envelopes/wraps, and more. While your audience is bombarded with digital messaging all day, direct mail breaks through in an authentic, unexpected, nostalgic and tangible way.

Some of the best ways to use direct mail for your brand include:

• To promote a deal, discount, offer or rebate to your target audience and gain new customers.
• To update customers about upcoming events, new service roll-outs, loyalty milestones, and rewards
• To introduce your product or service to a specific area and/or demographic
• To drive traffic to your website, online store, or social media profiles
• To showcase a loyalty program or send a personalized thank you card to your existing customers.

The Current Direct Mail Opportunity

Overall, direct mail performance and engagement continue to climb. According to Canada Post, 92% of people surveyed read direct mail, and 71% share it. Direct mail isn’t just a great opportunity for your brand – it’s a missed opportunity if you don’t use direct mail as part of your integrated messaging strategy. If you want to drive traffic to your website or social profiles, keep in mind that the number of people venturing online after being prompted by an item of mail increased 88%.

So, what does this mean for results-oriented marketers?

It means there’s an opportunity for you to get your messaging directly into the hands of your target audience – while they’re at home, receptive, and ready to engage.

Direct Mail Marketing Strategy

We can all agree that direct mail performance can help your business, but how do we take advantage of that? This is where a direct mail marketing strategy comes in. You’ll want to think about the types of direct mail that would be most effective for your business. You’ll also want to keep a close eye on performance and make adjustments as you get more data. Below are a few key things for you to think about when it comes to planning your direct mail campaign.

What are Two Types of Direct Mail Advertising?

In general, there are two types of direct mail: solo direct mail and shared direct mail. Solo mail is a direct mail piece where you are the only advertiser. And, shared mail happens when a group of advertisers are placed on the same mailing. It costs a bit more to do solo mail with the benefit of guaranteed delivery and exclusive placement. For shared mail, you can reach your target customers at a fraction of the cost. Let’s break it down further.

What is Shared Direct Mail?

Shared direct mail is a piece of direct mail featuring local, regional and national advertisers who share the cost. It’s significantly less expensive than solo mail, often costing mere pennies per targeted household for design, printing, and mailing combined. Shared mail is ideal for businesses seeking to attract customers and drive sales.

• • Share the cost of mail with local, regional and national advertisers

• Reach 90% of Canadian homes at a fraction of the cost of solo mail

DRMG Money Saver Direct Mail

• 8 different publication
• Over 470+ local marketing zones
• 8,142,500 annual circulation
• 2.6 Billion coupons

What is Solo Direct Mail

Solo direct mail is a stand-alone piece of direct mail that is uninterrupted in the mailbox. This allows us to target a unique mailing list based on your advertising goals. Using billions of data points, we can send solo direct mail to your audience based on thousands of attributes such as location, home type, demographics, personal preferences, and the behaviours of your ideal customer.

Then, you can track your results to help optimize subsequent campaigns so we can put together a mailing list that reaches consumers who are most likely to be interested in your brand.

DRMG Solo Direct Mail

• Communicate with consumers 1:1
• Maximum real estate to promote your brand message, products, services and offers.
• 100% branded to your business: no shared ad space.
• Target homes, condos, apartments, businesses, and rural addresses
• Leverage 30,000 consumer data points and 800 targeting attributes

Direct Mail Technology

If you don’t incorporate direct mail advertising in your marketing strategy, you are missing out. Direct mail is an effective way to raise awareness among your target audience and increase overall conversions. For example, 92% of people say they read or scan their mail daily. That’s an incredible opportunity that you can use to your advantage. Plus, the response rate for direct mail is more than 30 times the response rate for email.

Overall, print and digital marketing are both effective, but they become even more powerful when combined using data and analytics. In fact, 186% more time is spent with integrated direct mail and display campaigns than display only,. So, consider integrating technology such as QR codes to link your print media with your digital content, exclusive offers, and more.

Data-Driven Direct Mail

Here’s some more good news for marketers: Direct mail can be leveraged with data. Similar to digital marketing tactics, first-party customer lists and third-party data can be used to help you target the right person with the right message at the right time through the right channel.

As our inboxes get more cluttered, our mailboxes have become prime real estate again. Technology has levelled up what’s possible with direct mail. Artificial Intelligence technology allows us to help brands learn more about their target audience. Tracking how a recipient interacts with a direct mail offer or whether it results in a call, product trial, or purchase is easier than ever.

Direct Response Media Group (DRMG) does a deep dive to find your target market using demographic tools and precision targeting. We include over 800 different targeting attributes such as household income, home type, and family make-up.

Then, reach your customers in three different data-driven ways:

One-To-Many

• Target customers who match your preferred geographic profile
• Reach broadly to every home, apartment, and business in a select neighbourhood,
• Deploy quick-to-market campaigns easily

One-To-Few

• Apply geographic, demographic, and lifestyle insights to select postal codes
• Maximize acquisition dollars by targeting new customers only
• Leverage postal code data to reach prospects who share the attributes of your best customers

One-To-One

• Deliver targeted marketing messages
• Deepen connections with existing customers
• Reach new potential customers
• Maximize customer loyalty initiatives

DRMG Insights

DRMG Insight is our innovative analytics program that can measure your direct mail performance in real-time. This way, you can monitor and measure the effectiveness of your online and offline marketing efforts at a glance on your DRMG Insight dashboard.

Gain valuable insights into every customer, capturing every call, click, view and QR scan from direct mail.

Here are some of the ways DRMG Insight can help:

• Monitor conversions from advertising efforts
• Monitor performance metrics that highlight ad impact
• Pinpoint the location of every QR Code scan, date, time and user details
• Unique local or toll-free number for call tracking on every campaign
• Access results from unique and engaging QR mobile experiences with video, chat, digital coupons

What’s Next?

Direct Response Media Group is Canada’s leading direct mail company, focused on digitally integrated data-driven results. Count on our experience to produce highly effective direct mail and innovative digital marketing solutions.

We combine the physical print experience with integrated digital options, offering real-time performance tracking with DRMG Insights, Direct Response Media Group’s signature tool. Reach out today, and let’s see how we can start getting results for your brand with direct marketing.