In the digital age, it feels like traditional direct marketing (ie. DRTV and direct mail) is starting to get left behind as marketers embrace the efficiency and speed of digital marketing. After all, digital marketing campaigns and their subsequent rate of return are easy to analyze and there’s greater efficacy in personalizing email blasts and social media traffic than there is a mass mailing. Direct marketing methods aren’t going anywhere though, and they can still be effective even in the mobile-first marketing culture that has come to pass.
Direct Marketing 101
Many direct response marketing techniques also have digital components that help bridge the gap. Here are the direct marketing strategies that you need to pay attention to no matter where your marketing strategies lie on the analog to digital spectrum.
Use multiple media types to continue the conversation
The practice of using TV to create awareness around a direct mail piece or print ad is nothing new. Frequency of exposure within multiple media your target engages with continues the conversation. And if you’re after distracted Millennials, you need to reach them in more than one place. TV-connected devices account for 23% of Millennials’ total time with video. Traditional advertising models are changing as innovative technologies such as programmatic and addressable ads allow advertisers to reach consumers in new and creative ways.
Use traditional marketing to push promotions and coupons and get first-time customers to give you a try. Then use social media to develop the relationship with the customer further. If they have a good experience with your business or product they’ll be more likely to promote it to their friends.
Complement direct mail with digital reminders, messages, and customization
Contrary to popular belief, direct mail isn’t dying in the face of the digital marketing revolution. In fact, direct mail is still a $900 billion industry with the highest response rate in comparison to other direct response marketing techniques. Ergo, your direct to consumer marketing strategy needs to include it even if you can’t track important metrics like open rates.
There are many ways you can do this, such as syncing a package’s tracking number to an SMS system to text the customer a reminder to leave a review or give them a discount code to shop again. To increase your physical open rate, the actual direct mail itself needs to have some kind of incentive for the customer or prospect to open it then making your mailings compelling enough that the customer will actually want to follow up with you.
Get attention with personalization
Direct response strategies should also take advantage of personalization and the customer’s ability to control the way they’re sold to — aspects that digital marketing opens the doors to as impersonal communications increase the unlikable feeling of being sold to.
Be open to new opportunities
Like any other marketing method, direct response marketing techniques need to evolve on account of our ever-changing technology, culture, and expectations. More traditional methods like TV and direct mail are here to stay but are now held to higher standards and can be integrated with digital methods like email and social media.
Whatever you do, don’t jump into any marketing program without a plan. The program’s success depends upon whether you have a clear strategy in place and how carefully you measure your media investment.
