For many years, marketing teams have been putting most of their eggs into the digital marketing basket thinking that email, search engines, and social media was the way to go. While digital marketing is certainly effective at delivering volume and frequency, print and direct mail have the unique ability to physically connect with its audience. But what if you could combine the two? Let’s explore how you can power up your marketing strategy by integrating direct mail and digital marketing. 

Impact of direct mail

Direct mail is a tangible marketing tool that puts your brand literally in the palm of your customer’s hand. Unlike emails, ads and social media, direct mail is not as easy to dismiss or ignore. It can be highly targeted to specific audiences based on demographics, geography, or consumer behavior. Also, with direct mail the creative possibilities are endless making it something that customers want to hold onto.

Digital marketing cycle

Digital marketing is generally based on a funnel model where the customer enters the funnel at the top and based on their action or inaction they receive targeted messaging moving them down the funnel until they reach the sales goal. Once a sale occurs the customer then reenters the funnel as a potential repeat buyer. Digital marketing relies heavily on customer data to help craft messaging that has the best ROI to move the customer more quickly through the funnel process.

Mixing direct mail and digital marketing

Since both direct mail and digital marketing can be highly targeted, integrating the two together can have a huge effect on your marketing outcomes. By combining their powers, you essentially create more opportunities to feed the sales funnel. Here are some examples:

  • Add a personalized URL to your direct mail piece to give customers a unique landing page showing their closest locations, a personal sales concierge, or special offers based on their shopping history.
  • Utilize QR codes on post cards for quick access to product videos and demonstrations.
  • Retarget website visitors by sending follow up postcards with discount offers on items left in shopping carts.
  • Send follow-up emails reminding customers that promo codes on print campaigns are about to expire.
Measuring success

Integrating your direct mail and digital marketing campaigns isn’t going to be an overnight success. You’ll want to ensure that you are consistently using your messaging and sending out direct mail pieces regularly. Don’t forget to measure for success.

  • Make sure your call-to-action is directing traffic to a specific landing page so that you can measure the number of hits it receives.
  • Use specific promo codes for each campaign. 
  • Try A/B testing your messaging and design to see which is working better.
Don’t give up

Question the integrity of your list before you give up. Good marketing campaigns rely on good data and not all lists are created equal. If you’re not getting the results, you had hoped for don’t give up on your campaign all together. Investigate! Work with a print provider that can deliver the targeted data you need.

Lawton can help you get started on the road to integrating your digital marketing and direct mail campaigns. Our team is at the ready to advise you; connect with us today!