Heinz Marketing recently listed a Direct Mail comeback as #1 on their list of the 10 most important Business-to-Business marketing trends in 2012. “With increasingly better abilities to cost-effectively reach micro-segments of prospects and customers with unique, traceable messages, B2B marketers are making direct mail a more prominent part of their marketing mix again.” Heinz Marketing expects this trend to continue into 2013.
The economic downturn and the rise of Internet marketing put a damper on direct mailing for many businesses. For years, companies had been sending direct mail almost blindly, without any consideration for whether the recipient had a need for their product. When the recession hit, mailings were the first line item scratched from many companies’ advertising budgets.
So, What’s up with Direct Mail now? Enough companies have gone digital that people get far fewer pieces of junk mail in the mailbox now than they used to. Apart from store flyers, people receive very few pieces of mail that are sales offers. This means they actually read them instead of tossing them as they used to. This gives direct mail a better chance of being effective than it has ever had before. And According to a survey by a Florida-based PR company, novel, creatively-shaped mailers snatched up to three times the level of attention than online and email campaigns did.
Because different marketing methods work better than others for different types of prospects and clients, an integrated approach may be the way to go. When you know who your prospects and customers are, you can decide how to market to them.
Direct mail can be a successful component of an integrated media campaign. One way to use it would be to send out a direct mail piece with a unique code and a link to your website. As your prospects fill out their information, have them answer one or two market research questions. That way you will be able to match the responses with the code and get information about your potential consumers.
In today’s economy, businesses want to advertise only to those population segments that show real promise. With new technologies innovative marketers can zero in on prospects with actual potential and reduce unproductive mailings.
If you took Direct Mail out of your marketing mix, maybe it’s time to add it back.