Creative Effectiveness in Door Drops: April 2023

Written by Christian Petersen, Retail Advertising Mail Products Manager, Royal Mail Group, and member of the Door Drop Hub of the Print Council.

Putting money where our door drop mouth is.

Please forgive my indulgence in writing about a campaign commissioned and executed by my own business – I believe the message is worth the brickbats that may be thrown.

It’s an age-old issue that it’s easy to tell others what to do, and not follow that advice yourself. Even within organisations that act as media owners there are pressures to advertise using the cheapest possible method – not necessarily the most effective.

However, in recent times I’m delighted to say that my colleagues in Royal Mail have been setting a great example by harnessing the effectiveness of door drop as a broadcast channel by using it to promote, amongst other services, our “Parcel Collect” service, with campaigns to over 30m UK households and businesses.

View the Royal Mail Door Drop.

The creative was a simple leaflet and design to support a key business objective of increasing consumer awareness and use of the service – which provides a pick-up service for parcels from users’ homes or business premises, as well as reinforcing Royal Mail’s key brand elements such as ‘Trust on the Doorstep’ and ‘in good hands’. At the centre of this offer are our trusted and depended-upon Posties.

For once with our blogs, I’m not providing a detailed critique the item’s creative, but the communication of the message is clear and simple and attracts attention on the doormat. Engaging and effective.

The most important element is that by using the Door to Door service we are demonstrating our belief in not only our own product but the Door Drop channel as a whole, and its effectiveness as a way of broadcasting a key message to a large audience in a cost-effective way. What other media can do that?

This is common sense and good business practice, but of course these aren’t always bedfellows.

Results?

So, great that we have done this, but does it work? Well, as experienced door drop practitioners and marketers will know, if the creative, offer and audience selection is right, Door Drop really does work – on its own or as part of an integrated campaign, as JICMAIL figures demonstrate.

We recorded a 382% growth in the volume of parcels collected via the Parcel Collect service because of our marketing to consumers, of which the door drop played a key part. We also exceeded our revenue targets for the year by 34%. So, we were delighted with the results.

We also identified from our MarketReach consumer survey that 10% of those interviewed recalled the door drop, testament to both the effectiveness of the campaign and Door Drop as a broadcast media. So, investing in our own door drop campaign has demonstrated the value of the channel – and therefore this will remain a key part of our marketing mix going forward, showing it pays to put your money where your mouth is.

Want to learn more about Door Drops? Join experts from The Letterbox Consultancy and McCarthy Stone on Tuesday 4 July to gain a comprehensive understanding of the door drop channel. Sign up here.

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