4 reasons why direct mail marketing shouldn't be written off

In today's technology-dominated world, the idea of sending mail through post is laughable, and using it as a marketing tool even more so. After all, why would anyone use this archaic system when virtually every person can be contacted through email, social media, or even text messages? Direct mail marketing sounds like a waste of time and money then. But that isn't really the case.

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Contrary to popular belief, direct mail can be leveraged for increasing sales for your business. Non-profits and grocery retailers, in particular, find direct mail to be a far more effective marketing tool as compared to emails. And there's no reason why businesses in other sectors can't leverage it to their benefit. Here are four reasons why marketers should use direct mail to gain customers:

There's no such thing as mailbox overload

While email might be better to connect with people when compared to social media, inboxes are extremely crowded these days. Around 99 consumer emails were sent/received each day last year which makes grabbing a person’s attention in their inbox a difficult task. Mailboxes, on the other hand, are free from clutter and people tend to read every piece of mail they receive in the post. Also, the chances of your competitors using direct mail as a marketing tool are pretty slim. Which means that your marketing mails will be looked at — something that can’t be said for any other marketing channel.

It's trustworthy

People are becoming aware of the proactive advertising and marketing they’re subjected to on the internet. With advances in information tracking being used for personalised advertising, people no longer trust, for good reason, everything they read on the internet. Clickbait and suspicious links drastically reduce the effectiveness of marketing emails — a problem that doesn’t exist with mail that arrives by post. In this scenario, power lies in the hand of the individual and not the business. They can choose what to do and what not to do. There are no prompts like ‘sign-up to avail this offer’ which arouse suspicion. This automatically increases the level of trust in those you are marketing to.

It benefits from better targeting

As every marketer knows, advertisements are only effective when they’re shown to the right people. Advertise to people who don’t care about, or those who won’t benefit from, your product and you’ve just wasted your precious marketing budget. While email lists are improving, direct mail list vendors have been compiling their databases for decades. A fact that you can leverage to contact the most promising prospects through a channel they cannot ignore. You can also make use of your house list to entice previous customers into making another purchase.

It's not as expensive as it seems

While the production cost of direct mail is undoubtedly high (printing does tend to be more expensive than creating templates online), it drives more conversions than PPC and email marketing. This means it has the lowest cost-per-lead translating to the highest return on investment (ROI) which is what every marketer ultimately aims for.

Direct mails also give people a break from the screen. A study found that direct mails require 21 percent less effort to process than digital media; which translates to improved understanding and memory retention. With the entire marketing industry fighting it out in the digital sphere, going old-school with your marketing strategy might just be the way to go.