Saying Hello to Digital Marketing means saying Goodbye to printed Direct Marketing, right?
Wrong. At least, not according to Royal Mail, whose new interactive mail service (accurately targeted door-to-door Direct Marketing printed campaigns that can be linked to cyberspace!) is proving surprisingly successful at a time when it seems that other marketing mediums, such as e-mail marketing and mobile marketing, etc., are all the rage.
But, given that it’s in the Royal Mail’s interest to promote their new interactive service; they would say that, wouldn’t they?
Well, yes, but the success rates of Direct Marketing campaigns (commonly referred to as ‘DM campaigns’), launched, managed, tracked and then reviewed by all sorts of UK companies make DM a tactic that no business should ignore.
It really is a mistake to see printed DM campaigns as being ‘separate’ to online campaigns. Why? Because now, with one scan of their Smartphone, your flyer, envelope, chunky pack, or other type of mailer can take your customers even further – right into the heart of your Web space, and BEYOND…
DM campaign success rates can vary, of course, depending upon a number of factors. But, without a doubt, your number one priority when looking to design, orchestrate and track a DM campaign is to make the information you send out to targeted, potential customers useful. Also, when you tell them about your product(s) or service, try to say it differently to your competitors, and try to present the information differently, too.
By making your envelope attractive and giving the targeted addressee a taste of the Special Offer contained within, you can lift your typical response rate up to around 3% – 4% (from the 1% – 2% response rate a plain white C4 envelope with a red business frank, and containing a letter and a couple of leaflets, typically achieves).
If your DM is designed to get potential customers to head to your website in droves, then, before your printed marketing material goes out, be sure to have a strong landing page there awaiting their visit. (If you’d prefer them to call, how about setting up a dedicated phone line as part of your campaign?)
Your website landing page could include info on your new product, a ‘how-to use’ video, a function that allows customers to ‘register for updates’ and even a feedback facility.
Your landing page’s theme should, of course, be easily identifiable as being ‘linked’ to your printed material, as well as being persuasively written to encourage potential customers to buy; which brings us, folks, to calls-to-action…
Printed and online Direct Marketing without a call-to-action is a bit like a joke without a punch- line, or a thriller without a climax – it was all going so well until the end, when the audience found they had nothing to react to, and the whole build-up was actually a complete waste of time. So be sure to add a call-to-action to your DM that gets people to react, or rather to ACT: to call you, to e-mail you, to place an order NOW on a time-limited offer “before someone else does”, “before time runs out”, “before stocks dry up”, before the product or service you’re selling “returns to full price at midnight this coming Friday when the moon (and the order book) will be full!”
Capice?
English