Why Direct Mail and Digital Marketing Need Each Other

3/15/2021

Facebook, Instagram, email. Without question, a digital platform is excellent for spreading the word about your event. However, not at the expense of a direct mail marketing component. Though digital promotional efforts make it easier to reach your audience, it’s equally easy for folks to delete or ignore messages. On the flip side, this is precisely where direct mail postcards shine. In other words, if these two were people, they’d be a match made in heaven!

Weaknesses of Digital Marketing

We bet you’re reading this on your phone, laptop, or tablet (isn’t technology wonderful?).  With people today essentially plugged in and able to communicate 24/7, an overwhelming deluge of information and marketing efforts now inundates consumers, making it difficult for your message to stand out from amongst all the other ads, emails, and memes.

1. AdWeek reported that “Yes Lifecycle Marketing surveyed roughly 1,000 consumers on their email habits and found that 36 percent have separate Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail accounts for brand messages. This figure jumps to 58 percent for millennials.” So, that email or newsletter you crafted? It’s getting re-routed to a place where it’s even more likely to get lost in the clutter.

2. According to Digital Donut, only 44% of people remember a brand when they encounter it online, while 75% could do after receiving something in the mail.

3. We may be spending about two hours a day on social media networks, but as this Kissmetrics article informs, “As a general rule of thumb, about two percent of advertisements garner our valued attention each day. In other words, only about 100 out of every 5,000 ad exposures have any meaningful impact on consumers.”

Strengths of Direct Mail Marketing

Direct mail may seem old school, but it’s got punch. There’s a reason so many more brands are adding printed pieces to their marketing strategy!

The Private Life of Mail, a study conducted by the UK Royal Mail, uncovered the following statistics:

• 39% of respondents said they have a dedicated display area in their home where they put mail.
• A household keeps advertising mail for 17 days on average.
• An average of 23% of all mail is shared between people in a household.

Instead of being re-routed or deleted, your direct mail postcard is likely to get handled and read. Additionally, it’ll remain somewhere prominent in the home where it can continue to make an impression.

Holding a direct mail marketing piece has an impact – it’s science! 

A study conducted by Bangor University and brand agency Kantar Millward Brown suggests that “greater emotional processing is facilitated by the physical material than the virtual.” Essentially, when something is in hand, it is more memorable and has a lasting impact.

Every promotion hopes to gain a positive response, and direct mail remains very effective in this regard. According to another study from Kantar Millward Brown, “Direct mail achieves a 3.7 percent response rate with a house list and a 1 percent response rate with a prospect list. All digital channels combined achieve only a 0.62 percent response.”

Have you been putting direct mail to work for your events? From invites to updates to reminders, direct mail campaigns can be super versatile and effective. What are you waiting for? Start planning your direct mail strategy now, starting by designing postcard mailers for your campaign!