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Learn How to Integrate Direct Mail & E-mail for Max Results

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Even though omnichannel has gone from marketing buzzword to marketing given, AccuList USA’s retail, catalog and e-commerce clients can still face challenges in getting the most ROI from direct mail and e-mail integration. A recent MarketingProfs post offered a collection of stats and tips that can help.

Direct Mail Adds Important Punch to Campaigns

For those who doubt the power that traditional mail can add to a digitally focused effort, the article cites a few important facts about snail mail’s bottom line punch.  For example, campaigns that use two channels together, such as direct mail and e-mail, have been shown to get up to a 35% lift over those using a single channel, per IWCO Direct data. The younger generation may be very digitally savvy, even addicted when it comes to social and mobile, but recent studies from the U.S. Postal Service prove mail’s sales power: A whopping 57% of Millennials make purchases based on direct mail offers! Other USPS studies show why mail works so well regardless of age: People spend more time with physical advertising, have a stronger emotional response and remember the physical promotion better than digital efforts. Plus, beyond the ability to use direct mail’s sizes, formats and tactile designs to grab attention, today’s print technology makes it easy to link a printed piece to digital channels via QR codes, near-field communication (NFC), and augmented reality (AR).

How to Improve Integration of Direct Mail & E-mail

So how do you get the most out of a direct mail-e-mail marriage? Here are some ideas from the MarketingProfs post’s authors, Dennis Kelly, CEO of direct mail automation tool Postalytics, and Nancy Harhut, a creative director who has worked with leading brands such as Google, Adobe, McGraw-Hill, and Nationwide Insurance:

  1. Consider delivering critical information in both channels to reinforce the message.
  2. Have each communication build on the previous one.
  3. Use direct mail to emphasize a key message or break up the expected routine.
  4. Ensure both e-mail and direct mail adhere to the same graphic standards and reflect the same voice so each piece reinforces and extends your brand promise.
  5. Use direct mail to initiate a conversation with people whose email addresses you do not yet have, or with those who have repeatedly not responded to your email

For more on workflows integrating direct mail and e-mail, see https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2018/34741/best-practices-and-tips-for-integrating-direct-mail-into-email-marketing-campaigns

 

Skeptical of Marketing Tech Buzzwords? You’re Not Alone

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To help support direct marketing clients, AccuList USA tries to keep up with the latest in marketing technology and tactics, and so we’ve been bombarded along with clients by advice on how to seize opportunities with personalization, “big data,” omnichannel, real-time marketing, and, most recently, artificial intelligence (AI). Marketers struggling to find room in real-world budgets often worry that they’re falling behind in an escalating martech arms race! New research by Resulticks—a survey of over 300 marketing pros across industry verticals—offers interesting perspective.

Big Expectations: Big Data and Personalization

“Big Data” was the hot topic at the 2013 DMA Annual Conference, with 50% of marketers enthusiastic about investing. But making practical sense of those data torrents turned out to be more difficult than expected. Resulticks finds that only 16% of today’s marketers have fully implemented big data solutions, 20% have given up on the concept, and just 27% rank big data as a top priority now. Part of the problem is overhyped, underperforming martech platforms, per the survey, with 21% of marketers complaining that vendors overpromise and underdeliver. In contrast, personalization—meaning targeting that goes beyond basic attributes such as name to deeper parameters such as purchase history and online behavior—has done better in fulfilling expectations, with 60% of today’s marketers reporting full or partial implementation. The only fly in the ointment: Tech investments have not always kept pace with enthusiasm, and only 20% rate their software ability to deliver personalization as “excellent.”

Technically Challenged: Omnichannel

Back in 2014, one study found almost half of retailers saying they were going to commit to an “omnichannel” approach. Unlike multichannel marketing, where marketers touch customers at multiple points on their journey, the ambitious goal of omnichannel marketing is to create a seamless customer experience across all channels. Resulticks finds that only 9% of today’s marketers describe their approach as omnichannel, compared with 63% who use a multichannel approach. Technical barriers explain omnichannel’s failure to thrive. Only 35% have fully or partially implemented the required software platforms for omnichannel, and, among those who have bet on platforms, 58% rank vendor execution as “poor” to “fair” (compared with 13% who give their omnichannel software “excellent” marks).

Enthusiastic Embrace: Real-time Marketing

There’s a better report card for the “real-time marketing” that rapidly uses data across channels for more timely, targeted engagement in the customer journey. Resulticks reports that 49% of marketers rate their real-time marketing ability as “good” to “excellent,” that half say they have fully or partially implemented real-time marketing solutions, and that 47% say real-time is a priority for their organizations today. However, many marketers may need to adjust their definition of “real-time” if they want to compete for customers’ expectations; 47% are defining real-time as responding in an hour or more (with 20% taking a day or more), compared with the 12% delivering true real-time response in the milliseconds.

New Kid on the Block: AI

Social media giants have been betting on AI, and marketers are following their lead, with one study showing more than 50% planning to adopt AI in the next two years. However, Resulticks’ survey finds almost half (47%) of the marketers polled already rate AI as overhyped. Here’s a big source of that skepticism: 43% of marketers believe martech software vendors overpromise and underdeliver, and 69% rate their vendors’ ability to execute AI as “fair” to “poor.”

To download the study report, go to https://www.resulticks.com/marketingflabtofab.html