There are a lot of benefits to digital marketing - low cost (at least initially), low engagement threshold, and the ability to connect with as many eyeballs as your marketing spend can handle. But don't take your foot off the Direct Mail pedal in that Marketing Mobile of yours - because Direct Mail still has many advantages over digital marketing, so many that it just makes sense to have both channels working as efficiently as possible for you to help achieve your marketing and operational goals this year.
Direct Marketing is an all-encompassing approach that combines the best (and most productive) aspects of digital as well as print, and communicates to your customers in similar - and familiar - ways. Your ultimate goal here is to be "top of mind" when they need something done to one of their cars at home.
Digital marketing should augment your overall marketing solution, not be the only tool you use. Trust us, we know - our principals have each been direct marketers for more than 20 years and our techniques have evolved over time to include the highest-performing aspects of digital marketing in a way that augments our customers' overall marketing strategy.
Efficiency is a term that marketers often tout. By its very nature, direct marketing seeks operational efficiency at every stage of the marketing process. Anyone can "mail everyone in the database," right? It's our job as marketers to determine who in your customer database is most likely to respond to a particular campaign, and to fashion your message in a way that gets them to do so. Efficiency measures the amount of money you save by letting behavioral, geographical and transactional historical data do the heavy lifting for you.
From time to time, we come across a competitor's blog that states direct mail is dead as an industry. That couldn't be further from the truth, though. Take, for instance, these statistics from early 2021:
- Direct mail open rates reach up to 90%
- 42% of recipients read or scan the direct mail they receive
- Direct mail response rates are five to nine times higher than any other advertising channel
- 39% of consumers try a business for the first time because of direct mail
- US advertisers spend an average of $167 per person on direct mail - and these US advertisers also earn an average of $2,095 worth of goods and services sold through direct mail, per person
- Direct mail spend—at $38.5 billion—accounts for the largest portion of US local advertising spend
- Having a "digital-only" focus means you're missing out on talking to up to 60% of your customers
The trend in direct mail advertising is to be as personal as possible - your customers love the feeling that you're personally talking to them though your marketing. One statistic worth noting here is that response rates are 135% higher when your marketing piece has someone's name on it from your shop! Many of our customers include a picture of the crew or service manager along with a small message from them, and it's incredible what this simple touch does to the overall reception of your piece. (By the way, if your marketing partner can't customize your pieces to accommodate this simple thing, then why don't you consider switching to us -- we have never charged extra for this add-on).
Lastly, consider us when you're deciding how to thank your best customers for the past year's worth of business from them. Our holiday program uses greeting cards (completely personalized, arrives in an envelope, a true "touch of class") and/or postcards to deliver a heartfelt "thank you" from you to them, and to help motivate them to come in soon to do even more business with you. It is easily our most popular program, and we offer several different designs to choose from (but you can even come up with designs of your own for a very low additional charge). We handle everything from there, all you have to do is get ready for the positive goodwill you're going to start receiving once these cards arrive in mailboxes in early December!
Stay safe, everyone, and come back again for more insights from your friends here at KeyMotive!