From horse-drawn carriages to top lead generation strategies, direct mail continues to uphold its name as the gold standard for the marketing industry. Even in the 21^st century, direct mail prevails against the challenges of new-age marketing and succeeds where many new marketing platforms falter.  

Its impact and adaption to change are one of the many reasons why direct mail surpasses other digital channels to reach new audiences every day. While there are numerous benefits to including direct mail in your marketing campaign, here is our top ten benefits list for 2023:

1.) CHOOSE your Audience 

Typical digital marketing campaigns allow marketers to choose vague characteristics and keywords to target their audiences. Then, marketers must rely on these advertising platforms to locate new prospects. This method results in unresponsive, uninterested, or otherwise unqualified users seeing these ads –wasting your time and money.

Giving YOU the power to choose your audience is exclusive to direct mail marketing. Before you send out your first mailer, you know exactly who you are contacting and why. There is no vagueness or uncertainty as the campaign relies on YOUR decisions and not a third-party algorithm. 

2.) Re-Targeting Made Easy

Depending on the industry, your potential customers may require more time to discern their need for your service or product. In this circumstance, re-targeting ensures that these prospects choose your company when they finally act. 

Re-targeting is a simple process with direct mail because every mailer connects to a specific name and address. And because you have the power of audience targeting, your campaigns can easily remove unresponsive prospects or past leads from your current campaigns. 

3.) Finding Marketing Pain Points

Digital marketing is constantly changing and requiring marketers to learn new trends and face new challenges. However, the constant changing of algorithms causes a disparity between old and new campaign comparisons. It is hard to judge past campaign successes and failures if the advertising platforms themselves change so frequently. 

Because direct mail functions as it always has, there is no algorithm to consider when comparing past campaign strategies. This consistency makes it possible to identify issues within each campaign, whether the message, audience targeting, or mailer design is to blame if the campaign results underperform. With fewer variables to cause unnecessary confusion, direct mail makes helps identify pain points within a company’s marketing endeavors. 

Related: Finding Your Business Pain Points with Direct Mail

4.) Convenient and Secure

In the rising age of online malware and phishing scams, each new generation grows more cautious about the digital ads and emails they receive. It is risky to click on an ad or link, especially if the online company requests personal information. 

Fortunately, there is no risk of viruses when receiving or reading direct mailers. In addition, campaigns typically print out the company’s name and physical address on their mailers, providing more trust that their ad is from a verifiable source. 

Furthermore, because many federal laws protect personal mail from tampering or theft, prospects may feel more inclined to provide their personal info through the mail. This trust also benefits nonprofits fundraising, as donors can send cash or check through the mail without exposing their debit or credit card info. 

5.) Sending a Strong Intent Signal

Digital marketing has purposefully made the online lead generation process as simple and seamless as possible in the hope of receiving more conversions. As a result, the sales funnel is made a little too easy for internet users to engage with online advertisers. Filling out an online form or replying to an email increases the likelihood of spam from bots or low-quality prospects.

Uninterested or antagonistic prospects are much less likely to respond to a direct mail campaign. Prospects must sit down, complete, and return a physical document rather than type out a form online. Any response would indicate only highly interested households since they were not deterred by the several deliberate steps to return their form.  

6.) Less User-Generated Data (for More Accurate Results)

Many users have learned to spoof their personal data due to their fear and regular distrust of social media platforms. Ages, names, and even locations are typically entered by the end-user when creating an account, meaning that the data an advertising company relies on for audience targeting could be fake or otherwise misleading. 

If your company exclusively focuses on a particular online audience, this falsified data could lead to poor audience targeting and lower sales. Even if a company creates an excellent marketing strategy to target its ideal audience, they are still at the mercy of this user-generated data for advertising. 

In contrast, direct mail data — such as names and addresses — cannot be altered or faked by the addressee. All this public information is easily verifiable, so you can be confident that every household chosen is a correct match for your campaign. 

7.) Less Intrusive

Dubbed “banner blindness”, this phenomenon occurs when internet users habitually ignore online displays or search ads during their online session. Because of these intrusive ads, users tend to gloss over, skip, or otherwise ignore all forms of digital advertising – regardless of the message or marketing budget.  

By its nature, direct mail is much more tolerable within the home. Instead of flashy, in-your-face content 24/7, the physical presence of the ad allows prospects to interact and read your mailer at their own pace. And because there is much, much less daily direct mail advertising, households are more likely to devote their time sorting and reading their actual mailbox instead of their email. 

8.) Easier to Remember

Multiple marketing touchpoints are a priority when planning a new marketing campaign to improve an individual’s recollection of the ad during the decision-making process. Because most users see digital ads only once or twice, constant marketing channels are needed to remind prospects of a business’ product or service. 

However, an several direct mail studies reveal how direct mail affects one’s memory and recollection. For example, Canada Post participants showed 21% less cognitive effort to process the information presented in a print ad (compared to digital ads). In addition, OIG study participants were much more likely to recall a print ad they viewed a week ago rather than their digital counterparts. 

Related: Why Direct Mail Works From a Cognitive Perspective

9.) Highly Motivational

The same OIG study found that direct mail outperformed on review time, engagement, and brain stimulation when viewed by participants. These reactions are helpful for memory recollection and encourages further action from prospects. 

Over 56% of participants from an InfoTrends survey claimed to have visited a physical store or online shop after receiving direct mail from that company. The same study found that 62% of participants went on to make a purchase after receiving direct mail, showing once again the impact direct mail has on an audience. 

10.) Omnichannel Integration

Any marketer will tell you how essential it is to use an omnichannel approach with every campaign strategy. Not only must your message be clear and concise among all platforms, but you must have multiple channels targeting the same audience for maximum effect. 

Thankfully, direct mail is easy to integrate with any current digital or traditional marketing channels that companies utilize to ensure long term success. One PFL study found that a majority of participants observed significant improvement when integrating direct mail within their multichannel campaign, with 11% observing major improvements, while 39% found moderate improvement, and 34% found slight improvement. 

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