Digital marketing strategies such as social media, SEO, and email took the marketing world by storm when the business world entered the digital age. As a result, offline marketing techniques like direct mailing using a postcard appeared old and boring.
However, postcard marketing isn’t dead. In fact, a significant portion of local advertising spend in the US goes to postcards and other forms of direct mail at USD$38.5 billion. Add to it the high open and response rates of direct mailing, including postcards, that can reach up to 90% and 4.9%, respectively.
Direct mailing using postcards still works. One proof is the number of business management systems, like the one offered by Jobber, that partner with email solutions to enable postcard marketing within their platforms. Indeed, it’s a marketing strategy that every marketer should consider using. Read on to learn how to master postcard marketing and discover the advantages of direct mail marketing using postcards for your business.
How to run a successful postcard marketing campaign?
The key to a high-converting postcard campaign lies in your approach. So while there are many tips on how to incorporate postcard campaigns into your business’s overall marketing plan, you only need these three tips to master it:
List your goals to know how to measure your campaign
What’s the end goal of your postcard marketing campaign? Understanding your campaign’s goals will help you determine how to track your success. It will also help you create a compelling call to action. Most businesses use a platform such as Postalytics for their direct mail campaigns to achieve one or a combination of the following objectives:
- Driving more customers to their business website
- Increasing physical store traffic
- Improving sales
- Receiving more consultation calls
As you can see, postcard marketing can help you achieve many goals, so there are tons of ways to track your results as well. While it’s true that measuring results in direct mail campaigns can be a little more complex because you won’t have access to the analytics that most digital marketing channels provide, there’s no doubt that it can be done.
All you need is a unique phone number, landing page, or any tracking device or method. That way, you’ll know whether a specific call or visit to your website came from your postcard marketing campaign.
Build a list and segment it for a more targeted campaign
To launch a postcard marketing campaign, you need a mailing list. Some businesses purchase mailing lists from third parties. While it can help, the best way to build a list is still through your own lead generation efforts. Use lead magnets to encourage people to share their addresses. Lead magnets can be freebies or raffle entries.
You can offer your lead magnet every time someone visits your store or buys your product or service. When gathering information, get as many details about the customers as possible. You’ll have a better chance of creating a targeted mailing list that way.
Once you already have a list, don’t forget to segment your audience according to any criteria possible. The best way to do it is to carefully think about whom your product or service is best suited for, then focus your efforts on the specific segment that best describes your customers or market.
Audience segmentation also allows you to personalize your messages. Direct mail personalization, of course, fosters deeper connections with your market. In fact, direct mail response rate increase by up to 135% when you add the customer’s name to your postcard.
That’s why many businesses also incorporate segmented postcard marketing into their account-based marketing campaigns to strengthen their relationships with their customer base. It will increase your chances of actually hitting your conversion targets and generating more revenue for your business.
Sync postcard marketing with other marketing channels
Focusing on only one marketing channel means you’re missing out on the benefits that another strategy can provide. That’s why it’s best to use a multi-channel approach. Cross-platform marketing also allows you to reach more people.
Consider syncing postcards with email, SEO, and social media marketing by including links or any details that direct your customers to your email list, business website, and social media pages. Once done successfully, you can then market to these same people using these channels. Note, however, that it’s essential to be consistent with your content design and branding if you plan to leverage cross-platform marketing in your business.
How can postcard marketing benefit your business?
Direct mailing using postcards brings unique benefits and advantages that make it as effective as other marketing tactics. It could even be a better option because of the following reasons:
- A cost-effective marketing strategy: Direct mailing is cost effective.
- Each click or impression in a digital advertisement can quickly become very costly. It’s especially true if you’re operating in a highly competitive industry.
- Now that the world is already in the digital age and more and more businesses are going online with their marketing efforts, digital marketing costs are expected to skyrocket in the next few years.
- On the contrary, print marketing’s expenses are decreasing because there’s not much competition in the physical marketing landscape. In addition, there are also many ways to save money on postage.
- People like to receive physical marketing messages: Consumers don’t see direct mail postcards as an outdated marketing tactic. The truth is they enjoy getting one! Not only 4 out of 10 individuals like to check their physical inboxes every day, 76% of people who actually check their mailboxes also trust ads from brands about new products when it’s delivered to them physically.
- These stats could be because direct mail is already a familiar marketing channel. After all, postcards and other direct mail forms have been around for quite some time now, way longer than most marketing strategies.
- Targeted marketing becomes a more straightforward process: Many people, even some marketers, think that audience targeting can only be done on digital platforms like social media where there are readily available targeting tools.
- The truth is that you can also ensure that your marketing messages reach the right people using direct mail. In fact, postcards allow business owners to hyper-target their audience. It’s especially true for businesses that operate locally. It makes sense because physically communicating with the people in your city, town, or neighborhood is the best way to promote awareness regarding your brand—if you’re a local business. Direct mail can be very targeted as long as you have already identified your ideal market.
- Furthermore, with postcard marketing, marketing messages will reach who they’re intended to and no one else. It means that your budget wouldn’t be eaten up by clicks or impressions from people who aren’t even part of your target audience or market.
Conclusion
The three tips mentioned in this article should be enough to help you enjoy all the benefits of direct mail marketing. Keep in mind, though, that it’s still essential to track your results for every campaign. Understanding how your campaign performed based on different metrics can help you optimize copy, images, branding, and calls to action in the future, increasing your chances of getting your business to stand out from the competition.
