The ascent of digital channels has forced many marketing organizations to profoundly rethink their marketing methodologies. While digital media has proven to be effective without any doubt — that doesn’t mean other customary methods for marketing have turned vain. Indeed, the inverse is valid, particularly in regards to direct mail marketing.
Here’s what study shows:
- Direct mail has the highest rate of success in new customer acquisition at 34% compared to other marketing channels (Target Marketing Magazine).
- Targeted direct mail boasts a 4.4% response rate, compared to email’s rate of 0.12% (PR Web).
- Consumers spend an average of 30 minutes reading their mail on any given occasion (Compu-Mail).
As indicated by a DMA research, “56% of buyers think printed marketing is the most dependable of all channels of communication.” Direct mail might be customary, however may actually get a superior ROI contrasted with other advanced marketing channels. Indeed, even Millennials—the alleged “digital natives”— also like reading print media time to time.
Let’s focus on some scientific facts created by smarter folks.
A year ago, a Canadian neuro-promoting firm led a general report for Canada Post that looked at the impacts of paper marketing (direct mail pieces, for this situation) to digital media (email and promotional advertisements).
This firm used superior eye-tracking and high-resolution EEG brain wave measuring devices, alongside regular techniques, for example, polls, to collect information.
The poll delivered two significant outcomes:
Overall effectiveness, alluded to as the inspiration to-cognitive load proportion within the research, demonstrated that direct mail scored a normal 1.31 contrasted with 0.87 for all the digital channels. This is critical on the grounds that, in this kind of test, values more than 1.0 are demonstrative of wider in-market success.
Further, purchasers who got regular direct mail offers could review the brand 75% of their time. For purchasers who just received only digital forms, the brand was recalled only 44% of their time.
As indicated by the Forbes assessment of this logical research, “Science evidently reveals that paper can be more impactful and imperative than digital media.”
In fact, the latest edition of DMA Response Rate Report states that direct mail offers “strong return on marketing investment,” with an average ROI of 15% to 17%. They also note that oversized mailers, such as postcards, have the best response rates, at up to 4.25%, with a targeted mailing list.
Its promotion gives customers time to think. They present new thoughts with the space to develop into the things we didn’t know we needed. These thoughts transform into our must-have buys.
With print ads, we’re not anticipating a following click.
There is no I-gazed at-a-screen-throughout the day eye strain. We’re not stressed over battery-life. We are not shelled with contending ads from about half a dozen offers for our attention by means of algorithms. Also we’re not hindered by social networking updates, instant messages, and in-application notices.
It’s calm.
Maybe above all, we are “constrained” to consider every direct mail offer we come across. It isn’t important whether we discard it into the junk or promptly make a buy. We think over the offer and choose what to do with it.
The advertiser, notably without much effort, understands our “buying psychology”.
Therefore, many people can reveal to you the names of many nearby organizations that one day they will depend on to choose a restaurant or food joint, fix a leakage , or get their dead lawn back to life.
That is the power of direct mail in the digital world.
Direct Email Marketing
Email marketing is a crucial tool for attracting and retaining customers.
Do you know that around 74 trillion emails are sent every year? And these numbers keep going up, with about 28% more email sent in 2016 than in 2015, as per the Communicator Email Benchmark Report 2016.
In 2018, the numbers will be considerably higher, as the latest Radicati Group Email Statistics Report shows. People will send and receive 269 billion emails per day in 2018, with an expected 3.7 billion email users worldwide by the end of the year. In five years’ time, there’ll be even more email with an expected 319.6 billion emails sent.
Who’s using all these email? In US only, over 90% of adults utilize email.
What’s more, it’s not simply with the adults who are using email, but around 74% of youngsters depend on mail communications, says Adestra.
As indicated by DMA Insight’s 2016 email benchmarks, the average deliverability rate for email was 98%.
Compared to that with social networking, where you need to time your message ideally, and still only can reach out to a handful of them.
Consumers and Email Marketing
In case you’re still thinking about how email marketing appears from the buyer perspective, this next group of email marketing details gives some knowledge. As per Adestra, buyers prefer email to be the mode of communication between them and their trusted brands.
Email also serves to be the dominating communication tool for the professionals. Around 95% of experts utilize email, making it an ideal channel for business to business correspondence.
Email marketing statistics
The DMA Insight states customers also quoted that they get too many irrelevant emails from brands. And with 17.3% of emails sent classified as spam as per the Radicati Group research, it’s easy to see how consumers could easily be put off by getting the wrong emails.
It’s also easier than ever for consumers to fight back, with changes to email apps making it easier for them to block emails they don’t want.
The ideal approach to fight this is with personalization. Communicator Corp says personalization reduces email unsubscribes, increases the number of clicks and results in a higher open rate. Automated emails which include personalization have a 75% higher open rate than those that don’t.
If you’re still skeptical of the results direct mail can harness, here are 10 reasons why direct mail is very much alive and kicking.
Top Channel for Direct Response Rate
Although there has been seen a decline in the response rate for the direct mail recently over ten years, it’s yet standing strong. In the response rate report by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), it analyzed Epsilon and Bizo’s data and found that direct mail achieved 4.4% reaction rate, as compared to 0.12% achieved for email.
Generally speaking, the DMA found that the direct mail’s reaction rates are around 10 to 30 times higher than that of digital sources. It observed that purchasers, inundated by inboxes with tangled with many unsolicited promotion emails, are more responsive to direct mails, which appears less often through a less cluttered channel.
High Perceived Value
Even the most evident junk mail in your mailbox has something that few marketing messages will ever have: the truth factor. We’ve sent it and got it, opened it, spared it and discarded it for a lot of our lives. It has weight, substance and measurement. Mail is constant.
It’s nothing like a surprise as an investigation led by the UK Royal Mail, The Private Life of Mail, reasoned that the rise in the utilization of direct mail and its continuing viability is on the grounds that, “Giving, getting and taking care of tangible items stay profound and natural parts of the human experience.”
This emotional impact is what’s at the base of its viability: 60% said this impact established an overall enduring mental connection with them, making it simpler to review later on. 57% of respondents said that direct advertising influences them to feel more esteemed and makes a more genuine relationship.
More Desire to Purchase
A U.S. research paper came up with similar findings.
Enhancing the Value of Mail: The Human Response, backed by the U.S. post office, utilized eye-movement tracing and biometric estimations, for example, heart rate and breath rate to grab attention and enhance emotional engagement with both direct and digital mail marketing. It then utilized magnetic resonance imaging to capture the participant’s brain action when requested to recall a specific promotional ad.
Results showed that participants had more prominent attention on digital promotions and that engagement was similar for physical advertisements. Although, people who were being exposed to physical promotional ads experienced higher excitement and greater subjective valuation and interest for the things publicized.
Standard mail is Tangible
Is there any marketing channel that offers a more substantial solution than the direct mail? With the present generation shelled with video promotions, remarketing and PPC each time they touch a screen; direct mail offers you the opportunity to get something genuine into the hands of your niche audience making an association that simply isn’t the same with email or other online ads. In addition, once your audience opens a bit of a regular direct mail, surveys indicate that they are significantly more prone to set aside the opportunity to investigate the offer than they would in correlation with email marketing.
Direct mail Shapes Personalisation to a New Level
While one side of marketing is your ability to impart your message clearly; while the other side is about building associations with your clients. What can be the way to build connections?
Getting personal and demonstrating that you both know and comprehend your client can be a great approach. The outcomes can be amazing as well. Researches demonstrated that utilizing customized direct mail as a component of a digital marketing strategy can see reaction rates for a campaign hit more than 20%. You won’t discover those numbers with any online marketing.
Direct mail is the Brand Awareness King
With an expected 81% of brands dependent on social media for brand awareness, you can’t be rebuked for looking further abroad than a Facebook page for your image building strategies. While direct mail is a focused teach, there is lesser direct mails going out than before and with about 80% of purchasers saying that they will open all their postal mails, you can be relatively sure that your message will land up with the right eyes on it and less competition as well.
Direct mail complements a Digital Strategy
While some might find it helpful to get offers after they’ve abandoned a cart, others will neglect to get those messages or simply think that it’s absolutely creepy. “How did they get my email address?” While I’m certain a few people will feel the same after getting a piece of direct mail, researches have demonstrated that any direct mail sent within 24 hours of an abandoned online cart can avail a conversion rate of more than 40% and beats email by 16%. The consequences of multimedia promoting can be genuinely amazing and direct mail can assume a crucial part in achieving certain clients that decline to be reached by online.
Direct mail is Open for All Audiences
Alright, so while my Grandad might be super technically sound, but late research demonstrates that 41% of individuals aged above 65 years don’t access the internet often. For the marketers, that is a colossal fragment that can’t be focused on by utilizing PPC, Email or social networking. In this case direct mail enables you to keep your offers open to all groups of people instead of simply the greater share who fit your online approach.
Direct mail allows Creativity
Disregard the postcard, leaflet or catalogue, 2018 direct mail campaigns are going to be tied to be even more innovative and conveying; something that your clients can’t resist. From the British Gas conveyance to organizations as well as to organizations worldwide who utilize Game of Thrones to enhance their campaigns, direct mail takes into consideration an abundance of substantial creativity that simply doesn’t exist on online.
The Millennial Demographics and Conclusion
This implies to millennial, as well. The general impression of millennial is that they were all purposes raised with iPhone or tablets in their hands and could never be keen on anything as old world as postal mail. This too might be something of an urban legend.
The truth is; a vital percent of millennial like mail. It has an in-built emotional reaction factor. Gallup revealed that 36% of individuals younger than 30 anticipate checking their mailboxes each day. Also, 95% of 18-to-29-year-olds have a positive reaction to receiving individual cards and letters. Remarkably this age will employ a consolidated $1.4 trillion in spending power by 2020, as announced by Accenture.
It’s anything but difficult to see the open doors that post office based mail will keep on providing canny advertisers and entrepreneurs.