When used according to best practices and combined with a solid digital campaign, the right direct mail marketing strategies can take your advertising efforts to the next level. The world may be mostly digital at this point, but that doesn’t negate the importance and effectiveness of incorporating direct mail in your marketing funnel. The more marketing outlets you have at your disposal, the more prospective customers you can reach with creative promotional tactics that instantly grab your audience’s attention and differentiate your brand from your competitors.
How does direct mail marketing work to convert prospects into actual paying customers? Below are some effective tips to help you successfully incorporate direct mail marketing strategies into your marketing funnel to grow your customer base and bottom line.
Focus on Customer Acquisition
Customer acquisition is an integral part of building brand awareness, loyalty, and a lasting relationship. After all, customers can’t support your brand if they’ve never heard of it. These days, there are a number of online advertising avenues that businesses can take to grow their customer base.
The problem is that customers often feel bombarded by online advertisements from brands that are vying for their attention. The key is to make your brand stand out from all the others by doing something different.
Clever customer acquisition direct mail marketing strategies are the solution to this problem. Use dynamic mailers that offer special promotions and discounts and that encourage customers to make a purchase or engage with your brand in some way. You can even use print advertising to offer customers a unique discount code that they can use exclusively on your website or in-store. That way, you can track the success and efficacy of your direct mail marketing strategies more easily.
Raise Brand Awareness
Keep in mind that not everyone engages with their favorite brands online. Some potential prospects still prefer receiving notifications and promotions in the mail. You’d be remiss not to address those needs via direct mail.
Building brand awareness is all about informing people about your company, what you do, and how your products and services can enrich their lives. Direct mail marketing offers a more personalized customer outreach experience than digital ads that frustrate or annoy customers by interrupting their video viewing or social media scrolling.
Thank Customers for Their Purchase
Whether it’s their first or their hundredth purchase, it’s important to show customers how much you appreciate their support of your brand by thanking them. Sending personalized thank-you cards in the mail can be just as impactful as sending an email—sometimes, even more so. You can also sweeten the pot by including information about your company, offering digital or physical coupons, and targeted product recommendations for future purchases in your thank-you note.
Send Birthday and Holiday Wishes
Special occasions like birthdays and holidays are another great excuse to get in touch with your customers. Send them happy birthday wishes, season’s greetings, and other communications. Customers appreciate receiving personalized direct mail, so you can and should leverage any opportunity you can to make them feel special and offer them unique promotions for these types of occasions.
Build Customer Loyalty
Some might argue that customer retention is equally important as an acquisition to building a strong and long-lasting relationship. This is true on so many levels. Once you’ve successfully converted prospects into customers, you have to do everything you can to keep them engaged.
That’s why building customer brand loyalty is all about. Examples of how to do this include offering points-based customer loyalty and rewards programs, discounts on future purchases, special promotions for long-time customers, or incentives for referring people they know to your brand.
Leverage Lifecycle Marketing to Encourage Advocacy
Lifecycle marketing is a process that involves understanding the interests, wants, and needs of your customers. Companies use this data to create multifaceted advertisements and promotional material that’s custom-tailored for each prospective or existing customer. This is typically a three-pronged process that involves:
- Collecting and tracking data
- Using that data to convert prospects into paying customers
- Creating promotions that are geared specifically for each individual customer
The basic idea is to keep customers actively engaged with your brand throughout their buying journey starting from the onboarding process all the way to the retention phase.
With the right direct mail marketing strategies in your advertising arsenal, you can propel your brand to unparalleled levels of awareness and success. North American Media can help you get there one mailer at a time. We specialize in creating unique and dynamic direct mail, digital, print, and broadcasting marketing materials that are guaranteed to help you grow your business and increase conversions. Contact us for a quote today!
- Boost Your Cross-Channel Strategy with Direct Mail - April 19, 2024
- How Direct Mail Integrates with Digital Channels to Boost Omnichannel Engagement - March 15, 2024
- Maximizing the Impact of Direct Mail by Incorporating QR Codes - February 21, 2024