How can you best integrate direct mail with digital marketing?

Overcoming Common Challenges
Integrating Direct Mail with Digital Marketing

Integrating direct mail with digital marketing can seem like a juggling act, but with the right approach, you can make both work in harmony. Many marketers face challenges when trying to align these two channels, but there are effective solutions to help you overcome them.

TOP CHALLENGES + HOW TO SOLVE THEM

#1 - Coordinating Campaigns

Challenge

One of the biggest hurdles is coordinating your direct mail and digital marketing efforts. When campaigns aren't synced, you might miss out on maximizing your impact.

Solution

Use a unified strategy. Create a detailed plan that outlines how both channels will work together, focusing on (3) key areas: messaging, offer and look & feel.

1. Consistent Messaging

Use consistent messaging across all platforms in order to create a cohesive brand experience. For example, use a unified slogan or tagline when using direct mail to guide traffic to a landing page and then continuing to interact via digital advertising.

2. Offer > Promotion

In order to entice recipients to engage further, ensure that a special promotion in the direct mail piece matches the online offer and that your offer coordinates with the product or service feature that it is promoting, as well as

3. Look & Feel

Ensuring the look and feel are consistent—such as using the same color schemes, fonts, and imagery—across both the direct mail and digital campaigns, will reinforce brand recognition and trust, achieving a more seamless integration.

#2 - Tracking and Measuring Success

Challenge

Another common issue is tracking the effectiveness of your campaigns -- and with direct mail in particular, half the battle is not getting caught up in the myth that it is harder to gauge response rates compared to digital marketing's analytics tools!

Solution

The immediate gratification of receiving data (such as client clicks and form submissions) from digital marketing platforms can sometimes obscure the actual assessment of success.

However, in reality, direct mail data offers greater precision than digital marketing because we can conduct a direct response analysis that links responders back to the original mail file. But it is not just the price data analysis that is impressive for direct mail --- the results speak for themselves:

Direct mail boasts an impressive response rate of 4.4% when sent to house lists, significantly outperforming email marketing, which typically sees a response rate of just 0.12% -- down from 1% just 2 years ago!¹

Response Rate by Channel

ANA Response Rate 2021 v. 2023²

The stark contrast in results underscores the powerful impact that direct mail can have when it is strategically and effectively utilized as part of a comprehensive marketing strategy.

To enhance the effectiveness of your direct mail campaigns, it is essential to integrate elements that can be tracked and measured. This information is crucial in understanding how these physical marketing efforts align with and contribute to your broader digital marketing objectives.

By incorporating unique promotional codes, QR codes, or personalized URLs within your mail pieces, you can accurately track and analyze the responses from your audience. These tools enable you to gather valuable data on how recipients are engaging with your mail, allowing you to assess the overall performance of your direct mail initiatives.

BKM Marketing's ability to do a responder match on campaign responders to those on the mail list at the end, or middle, of a campaign, has proven to be instrumental to driving success for everything from bank marketing to lawn care or franchise promotional campaigns.

In these two instances  in particular, responder matching can be performed by comparing a list of who has opened an account or signed up for a lawn service to those who received a direct mail campaign. Similarly, we will layer in attribution data, such as appended email addresses, if using IP targeted ads or social media campaigns.

Interested in delving in more? Download our free 2024 BKM Marketing Augmenting Digital with Direct Guide >

#3 - Maintaining Consistent Messaging

Challenge

Consistency in messaging is crucial, but it can be tricky when managing multiple channels. Mixed messages can confuse your audience and dilute your brand’s impact.

Solution

While we mentioned this in #1, the importance of consistent messaging cannot be emphasized enough - so here it is again!

Develop a cohesive message strategy -- and keep it simple and FOCUS.

Focus on ensuring that the tone, style, and core message are consistent across both direct mail and digital platforms. By maintaining a unified brand voice, you’ll reinforce your message and create a stronger connection with your audience.

#4 - Personalization and Relevance

Challenge

Too often people are overwhelmed by the idea of implementing personalization, especially when managing across multiple channels. Businesses steer away from this essential element for a number of reasons, most often: assumption that it is expensive, fear that it is intrusive or non-compliant, mistaken belief that it will be too difficult to implement, or simply because the abilities are so limitless that the concept is open-ended and obscure to be able to formulate a clear, effective and relevant plan.

Solution

With the right strategies and tools, personalization can be seamlessly integrated across multiple channels, creating a more engaging and effective customer experience. Personalized direct mail can boost response rates by up to 135% compared to non-personalized mail.³

Use data to personalize your outreach. Leverage customer data to tailor both direct mail and digital content to individual preferences and behaviors. This will make your messaging more relevant and engaging, increasing the likelihood of a positive response.

Where to begin?

It's far simpler than you think, take these two simple, effective approaches for leveraging triggered direct mail:

1. Behavior

We are all inundated with these day-in-and-day out! So start simply... personalization based on consumer behavior.

If a customer frequently browses a particular product category on your website but hasn't made a purchase, send them a triggered direct mail piece highlighting those products with a special offer, thereby encouraging conversion in a personalized manner.

2. Location

Personalization can be enhanced by tailoring direct mail and digital ads according to a person's location.

By using geolocation data, businesses can create campaigns that are relevant to the customer's immediate environment, such as promoting local store events or region-specific products. This not only makes the marketing efforts more pertinent but also increases the likelihood of engagement, as customers receive information that resonates with their daily lives and surroundings.

Through these methods, businesses can overcome the challenges of personalization and harness its full potential to create meaningful connections with their audience.

Key Takeaways

Integrating direct mail with digital marketing doesn’t have to be a daunting task.

By addressing these common challenges with thoughtful solutions, you can create a cohesive and effective marketing strategy. Sync your campaigns, track performance, maintain consistent messaging, manage resources wisely, and personalize your approach to maximize your results. With these strategies in place, you'll be well on your way to achieving marketing success.

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SOURCES

1. Association of National Advertisers. (2021). Response Rate Report.

2. Association of National Advertisers. (2023). Response Rate Report.

3. Association of National Advertisers. (2022). Response Rate Report.