How mail can get the best from digital

Why you should use mail to engage
Advertisers often overlook mail, believing it’ll always take months to set up, and response is difficult to measure and work into an attribution model. But with programmatic mail launching along with insights from JICMAIL data, mail has been transformed to a marketing channel with a much faster turnaround.

Some key JICMAIL stats really highlight how mail cuts through the noise of other channels:
- 80% of adults open all mail.
- 91% engage with mail.
- 87% think that mail can be trusted.

What’s more, 70% of people are driven online from mail. There are many interactions that mail can trigger before getting to the end sale, as this example from Boden demonstrates:

In this case, although the person who got the mail threw it away, they then visited the website on a laptop before using a code to purchase an item on their smartphone.

At Edit, we have access to the JICMAIL database, so we can integrate all into our mailing campaigns and show clients the full picture of this form of marketing, including the potential reach and frequency of a mailing and any commercial actions taken. An example is shown below for a financial services client targeting males with an addressed mailing piece.

How to make mail more effective
Offline retargeting and programmatic mail allows us to use permissioned online behavioural data for offline customer targeting. This offers the opportunity to cross sell or reconnect with non-responders and create a more personalised mailing. For example, customer milestones, such as a birthday, could be used as a trigger in a mailing to make it more personal and effective.

Another way to combine mail with digital has been demonstrated by one of our award-winning campaigns for a premium automotive brand, Triggering a Reaction, which we won a Gold and two Silver DMA awards. We created a button pack which was mailed to their most valuable customers. Once the button was pressed by the consumer, it automatically triggered booking a test drive of the new car model at their local dealership and sent the consumer an email to confirm their test drive had been booked. This was an example that MarketReach referenced, showing how inside and creativity can be married up in mail to create an effective way to engage users.

Connecting mail to new technology
Besides the web, there’s also up and coming digital tools, like WifiPak, which transmits digital content such as video, audio or even downloadable PDFs via a Wi-Fi connection, and can sit alongside direct mail in the house for delivering one message across multiple marketing channels.

Then there’s Voice tech. According to MarketReach’s research , 89% of marketers plan to use voice tech in the next year. Google and Amazon have most heavily invested in voice activation, and 70% of the people surveyed believe that voice tech such as Alexa or Google Home adds convenience to their lives. In the US, voice activated direct response has launched, which can be integrated as part of a direct mail campaign – you’d just need to quote the name or code on the mail aloud and the voice tech would quickly look up the relevant information or offer online.

Scanning a QR code quickly connects you to a digital action, such as a payment or experience. With most smartphone cameras being able to process QR codes, and 79% of all adults owning a smartphone, it’s easier than ever to get people onto your website quickly – they just scan the code and it takes them there. It’s fast and a memorable way to do things, which makes consumers more likely to convert.

Report on your results
As MarketReach pointed out, tracking and attribution of connected mail is vital to get the best from it. You need to be able to draw conclusions from results gained through an easy-to-report-on model, which means we can effectively report back to the C-Suite at all stages of the direct mail process. You also need to be able to optimise campaigns in real time based on performance – this is where direct mail is sometimes dismissed as a channel. Yet it’s becoming much easier to turn campaigns around quickly and adapt to changes alongside online marketing, making mail and digital more able to work together.

Direct mail is more flexible than ever, and with a 91% engagement rate with direct mail – which could go up with more people spending time at home right now – it’s an effective channel to get your message out there. So, aligning your direct mail and digital marketing strategies could help to ramp up brand awareness and conversions. If you want help getting started with this, feel free to turn to us.