6 Ways to Utilize Direct Mail for Acquisition
Everyone wants the key to acquiring more customers. But as seasoned sales and marketing professionals know, the key is not just one thing, but many. Attracting new customers is a personalized mix of touchpoints that:
- meet the consumer where they are
- anticipate their needs
- position your product as the solution
You likely already have email and social media touchpoints in your marketing mix, but have you considered using direct mail for acquisition? You’d be amazed at what direct mail can do to get your message out to new prospects. Direct mail definitely meets consumers where they are (in their own homes), but – here’s the major benefit – in a non-intrusive way. In fact, people enjoy getting mail (even Gen Z – 83% of whom said they are happy when mail arrives.)
Here are a few ways you can use direct mail for acquisition of customers:
1. Use Targeted Mailer Lists
Putting targeted mailing lists into action is one of the easiest ways to get started with direct mail. Simply build or buy a list of addresses in an area you want to reach, and then filter the list based on certain criteria to make sure your direct mail campaign will reach the most relevant audience.
The types of targeted lists are:
• Demographic: Filtered by customer characteristics such as age, income, and more.
• Street: Pinpointed to a specific street in your community.
• Radius: Target prospects by specifying a distance around a center point, such as a satisfied customer’s address, to find like-minded buyers.
• Zip code (EDDM): Saturate a desired market by delivering your campaigns to every address within a target zone, be it a single zip code or an entire city. It’s quick, easy, and saves you 6₵ per piece over standard mail. This is called Every Door Direct Mail®.
To Build or To Buy Mailing Lists?
To build a mailing list, search through your database for prospects who inquired about your company or filled out a quote form but didn’t end up completing a purchase. If you don’t have enough data on hand or are trying to break into a new market, buying a list may be a quicker option.
Just a note – when you are looking for a list to purchase, make sure it’s from a reputable company that tells you exactly where they get their database. For example, Xpressdocs’ database is compiled from high-quality, third-party list services, including White and Yellow Page directories, public records, catalog purchases, surveys, publications, and state and government sources. The lists are also updated monthly or bimonthly and regularly cleaned using the U.S. Postal Service National Change of Address (NCOA®), providing you with a clean and accurate database of millions of households and businesses.
2. Include Promotional Offers and Coupons
When you’re reaching out to a prospect and hoping to acquire them as a customer, remember that you’re building the first step in your relationship. Customers love to know that you value them. To make a good impression even on first contact, include a promotional offer, discount, or coupon on your direct mail piece to encourage recipients to take action. Hint: a limited-time offer, such as a promotion that needs to be claimed within the next two weeks, creates a sense of urgency and helps drive immediate responses.
3. Don't Forget your Call-to-Action (CTA)
Define a specific call-to-action in your direct mail pieces so that when a prospect receives one, they’ll know what step to take next. Contrary to what you might think, marketers use direct mail to encourage prospects to take all kinds of different actions, which if the proper measures are put in place, can also be tracked! The USPS recently polled more than 300 marketers on the actions they saw were being driven by direct mail, and they included website visits, purchases, program signups, store visits, and app downloads. Whether your goal is getting prospects to visit your website, call a phone number you set up for the campaign, scan a QR code, or redeem an offer in-store, a compelling CTA is crucial for driving response rates.
4. Cross-Channel Integration
Integrate your direct mail campaigns with other marketing channels such as email, social media, and online advertising. Use QR codes, personalized URLs, or unique promo codes to track response rates and measure the effectiveness of your campaigns across multiple channels. While direct mail already has an impressive return on investment (ROI), pairing direct mail with other channels grows this return exponentially (up to 28% according to a recent study.)
5. Creative Design and Packaging
Invest in high-quality design and packaging to make your direct mail pieces stand out. Eye-catching visuals, engaging copywriting, and innovative formats can capture recipients’ attention and increase the likelihood of engagement. Creative design goes a long way toward making your direct mail piece memorable, which is good news since direct mail is more memorable overall than digital media. According to a study by the Canada Post, direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to process and elicits a 20% higher motivation response than digital media. This means that when you take the time to design an engaging piece of direct mail, it has a much greater chance of being remembered than a marketing email.
6. Follow-Up and Nurture Campaigns
Implement follow-up strategies to nurture leads and maintain engagement after the initial direct mail campaign. The “Rule of Seven” in marketing states that prospects are unlikely to become customers until they’ve received at least seven different marketing touchpoints from a company. These touchpoints should be varied. Follow-up with targeted emails, phone calls, or additional mailings to continue the conversation and guide prospects through the sales funnel.
By incorporating targeted mailing lists, promotional offers and coupons, CTAs, cross-channel integration, creative design, and follow- ups into your direct mail campaigns, you can effectively acquire new customers and drive business growth.
Further Reading
Now that you’ve acquired new customers (congratulations!), don’t slack on giving them reasons to stay! This is called customer retention, and direct mail can be your go-to strategy for retention as well! Check out our blog 6 Ways to Increase Customer Retention with Direct Mail for more.