Personalised and powerful direct mail helps brands and organisations build vital long-term relationships and boost the bottom line. It engages customers and offers outstanding creative opportunities where others cannot through the median of direct mail. Printed material is and always will be more effective at engaging customers in comparison to through a computer/mobile screen.
Direct mail is addressed advertising sent to a named person for a direct purpose, hence the name ‘direct mail’. It’s a unique, powerful tool for developing relationships with customers who want to hear from you, because it physically and personally connects your brand with your audience. By personalising this mail, you will not only attract the customers attention more, but you will also be able to relate and speak to them on a more personal level. It literally puts your message into customers’ hands – and makes it relevant to them and only them if the personalisation is done correctly.
As a channel in itself, direct mail has huge advantages for marketers or small/big companies. It offers flexibility because the format and audience can be tweaked and targeted as needed. You can pinpoint the exact people you want to target using your own valuable first-party data. For instance, if you were a marketing agency targeting a specific group, let’s say theatres, you can provide exceptional creative possibilities for this direct mail, implementing imagery, language and layout that is specific to that category of business only. As an example:
Direct mail excels at building customer relationships…
It becomes part of the home and is engaged with 4.2 times on average once it is in front of the customer. 45% of direct mail stays in households for a month or more, so it’s not surprising that it drives further activity down the line. 31% of direct mail leads to commercial actions, whether that’s purchasing, going online or visiting a store. Add personalisation to this, the ROI goes up to 50%! There’s no wonder that 70% of consumers say direct mail makes them feel more valued in comparison to online marketing such as emails and social media offers.
When customers feel they are being personally spoken to by a particular brand, it has massively positive repercussions for retention and engagement. When you consider the personalised nature that can be taken with any form of print, it should come as no surprise that printed physical advertising also leads to a stronger emotional response amongst the general public. Having something which can be held, touched, and physically handled has been shown to make a substantial difference in the effectiveness of advertising.
By personalising names, company information and imagery, you can make a piece of mail link directly to any individual you aspire to make a customer. Personalised print can be as simple as targeting people from a specific area or demographic, something that is much easier to achieve with print as compared to digital. Personalisation can be also seen as targeting specific customer bases; for example, if you were a car dealership, you might want to target a consumer of a particular car brand of yours. If you were a university, you might want to target students from a particular area or school. By increasing the specific nature of targeting as it relates to your customer base you can drastically propel interest in your business to unrivalled levels.
Make your direct mail stand out…
Selecting offers and deals specific to each customer can also be seen as an effective form of personalisation. When people see a certain discount or deal that speaks to them personally, this is something that instantly grabs their attention. They are going to be far more likely to carry on reading whatever you have written on your advertisement if this opening statement catches their attention.
An example would be a car garage sending out invitations for a free service check on a vehicle, as long as a database was kept so it would send out this mail when the car was due. This is how specific we can go when printing and sending out direct mail with this personalised touch.
When you think of the additional digital noise that goes along with online advertisement – from pop-ups, virus risks, flashing banners and ads, notifications and auto-play videos – it makes sense that many consumers, when surveyed, rate forms of digital advertising so lowly as compared to print. Adding a personalised element to this already advantageous position only increases your chances of successfully retaining and gaining customers.
So whether you’re a business looking to build an entirely new customer base or retain an established one, choose personalised print as a way to revolutionise your marketing approach today! Make sure to get in contact with us today or check out our printing and mailing pages where you can find all the information you need.
