Direct mail and email campaigns are a great way to reach your target market
Direct mail and email campaigns enable you to pitch your offering to your target market. Direct mail has an open rate of 90%, where a email open rate averages 23%. Because the typical American household receives 2 pieces of direct mail per day compared to dozens of email per day, the “rarity” of direct marketing makes 77% look forward to opening them. 1 This doesn’t mean that email marketing is less effective. Both both direct mail and email campaigns are useful, but their value depends upon your objectives.
Objectives may range from wanting to educate prospects about your offering to encouraging sales with discounts and promotions and running loyalty campaigns laced with up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. There are many factors to consider when you roll out your campaign, but whatever your lead gen objectives are, make sure you follow best practices so that future campaigns can be improved upon. If you follow basic guidelines, you’ll be able to see what worked and didn’t overtime as you roll out your campaigns.
What variables affect campaign success?
- Contact list and list number of contacts
- Messaging
- Creative
- Timing
- Industry
- Call-to-Action
- Other mail/competitive pieces at time of delivery
- Physical attributes (difficult to open – i.e. glue tears off key message, images don’t download, etc.)
- Deliverability or Environmental factors
Track what works and doesn’t
When conducting a direct mail or email campaign, use tracking mechanisms to verify whether objectives are being met or improvements need to be made. Popular tracking methods include:
The list matters
Generally speaking, your list of contacts will have one of the largest influences on the success of your campaign. Whenever possible, use your own list rather than one that’s purchased. Go a step further, however, and follow basic guidelines or do’s and don’ts. If you do, you’ll have an even higher probability of success.
