Is your brand fading into the background? Digital marketing overload has led to digital fatigue, banner blindness, and increased use of ad-blocking software, resulting in poor brand performance, and increasing digital marketing budgets. If digital marketing is the only arrow in your quiver, listen up. Incorporating Direct Mail into your 2024 campaigns can help your brand get noticed and improve results.
Marketers are struggling to get consumer attention online, which has become seemingly insurmountable. Yet despite this, a recent Gartner survey shows that 72% of marketing budgets are allocated to Digital Marketing. Recently, this practice has started to change. According to John Leonard, V.P. Sales and Marketing, Cover-All Business Communication Management, their Direct Mail division has steadily grown in the last twelve months. “Businesses are experiencing declining results with their digital marketing alone and are beginning to catch on to what companies like Google and Amazon already know; Direct Mail combined with digital is a significantly more effective marketing strategy than digital alone,” says Leonard.
Along with higher visibility, other compelling reasons exist to add Direct Mail to your digital marketing campaigns. Direct Mail has a higher brand recall, is favoured by consumers as being more personal, is considered more trustworthy and has a higher ROI than digital.
- Direct Mail offers higher visibility than digital marketing. In a time when consumers are overloaded with promotional emails, digital ads and social media feeds filled with paid advertisements, physical mailboxes remain a relatively uncluttered medium. Instead of increasing digital marketing spending to combat these challenges, organizations realize they can achieve better results by allocating a portion of their budget to Direct Mail.
A recent Canada Post study revealed that people paid 39% more attention to integrated Direct Mail and digital campaigns than to single-media digital campaigns, and demonstrated 40% higher brand recall. On average, businesses that employ omnichannel marketing strategies also retain 89% of their customers, as opposed to only 33% of customer retention for companies with weak or no omnichannel marketing programs.
- Direct Mail has higher brand recall than digital marketing. With an ever-shrinking attention span of approximately 25 seconds, consumer attention has never been more challenging. Yet, a Canada Post study revealed that Direct Mail held attention span 118% longer and stimulated 29% higher brand recall than digital marketing. Consumers spend, on average, 20 seconds reading an email offer while spending 30 minutes a day reading their mail. Furthermore, Direct Mail advertisements stay in a home for an average of 17 days.
Direct Mail enjoys such impressive results due to the sensory and tactile experience that triggers consumer emotions more effectively than digital marketing—leading to higher recall and response rates.
- Direct Mail is considered more personal than digital marketing. Consumers don’t appreciate generic messaging; they value personalization. Ninety-one percent of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations that are relevant to them, and 70% say Direct Mail is more personal than digital marketing.
Personalization driven from first-party data is quickly becoming the strategy of choice for marketers as third-party cookies are phased out. Although consumers like to see their names on marketing materials, they are more impressed by offers focusing on their buying habits and interests.
“Specialized software programs can contribute insights into consumer behaviour by analyzing historical brand interactions. A fundraising organization, for example, can improve donation goals by analyzing historical data points and applying calculations to show future values, allowing for creating customized and relevant content for recipients”, says Leonard.
- Direct Mail is more trustworthy than digital marketing. Consumer trust is vital in many industries, from fundraising to highly regulated organizations like banking and insurance. Online scams and cyber security risks have reduced consumer trust in online marketing. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, cyber-attacks have increased 89% in the past 12 months. With 91% of all cyber-attacks, from phishing email to unsuspecting victims, consumers are becoming increasingly wary of opening email even if they know the sender. With Direct Mail, the consumer trust rate is high. Approximately 76% of people say they trust ads they receive in the mail. A staggering 90% of millennials believe Direct Mail advertising is reliable, and 57% have made purchases based on Direct Mail offers.
- Direct Mail has a higher ROI than digital marketing. Direct Mail response rates are 4x higher than email response rates. Campaigns using a letter-size envelope generated a 112% ROI, according to the 2022 Response Rate Report released by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). This represents an improvement in ROI of 19% over email campaigns. According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), personalizing your Direct Mail can improve your ROI by 300% to 1000%.
The marketing adage – zig when everyone else is zagging – applies to channel marketing. Direct Mail allows brands to stand out in the marketplace. It is also advantageous that younger demographics view Direct Mail as novel. They have grown up with digital marketing, and getting a personalized piece of mail instantaneously gets their attention and makes them feel valued.
In 2024, tap into a fresh perspective on reaching your audience and boosting your campaign results by rethinking your marketing channel strategy to incorporate Direct Mail.
John Leonard is V.P., Sales & Marketing for Cover-All Business Communication Management. He works with his team and clients to develop relevant and effective communications by using data and technology. Contact Cover-All Business Communication Management to find out more at (416)752-8100.