Businesses today are investing more of their budget into digital marketing. Some businesses depend entirely on this way of advertising. The big benefit of this is the ability to target the right audience, track campaigns, and easily optimize them. But what many of these businesses are realizing is that digital marketing alone is not enough.
Many businesses are facing new challenges with digital marketing. Because more advertisers and marketers are investing in this, the competition has become fierce. Advertising costs are rapidly rising and it’s getting harder to stay profitable. It’s also becoming harder to get the attention of prospects and customers.
In addition, digital marketing is becoming more restrictive. For example, Facebook and Instagram no longer allows you to target specific subdivisions or email lists in the real estate industry. Advertisers are slowly losing the ability to effectively target and track their prospects and customers in various industries and advertising platforms.
Is Traditional Marketing the Way Forward?
With everything that’s going on with digital marketing, it seems like the traditional way of advertising seems to be an essential part of the overall strategy. Businesses should not be focusing solely on digital marketing to generate leads and customers. Traditional channels like newspapers, print marketing, and billboards need to be used.
There are many pros of traditional marketing:
– It’s a great way to reach your local audience.
– The cost of advertising on traditional channels has gone down.
– More people are familiar with traditional marketing.
– It can help you establish your local brand.
Of course, you also have the cons of traditional marketing which are:
– Higher upfront costs due to a lack of scaling options.
– Difficulty in tracking and optimizing ad campaigns.
– Scaling ad campaigns can be costly.
The Marketing Channels that More Business Need to Use
Of all the traditional marketing strategies, direct mail way of advertising is the one more businesses need to use. Over the last few years, direct mail has become neglected as budgets starting going into digital marketing. However, direct mail type continues to perform for many businesses. There are several reasons why direct mail is important.
There’s Less Competition
Depending on the way your mail is designed, you are guaranteed to get your message seen as long as your mail is delivered. In digital marketing, you have to get your email opened, compete with other businesses on social media for views, and try to get your ad to stand out among competitors. Mailings like brochures and postcards are seen immediately.
Recipients will make a decision on looking deeper into your brochures and postcards based on the design and copy. In comparison, your ad or message may not even get seen if it gets buried in the social media feeds, search engine listings, banner ads, and emails. You’ll be surprised at how many people are looking forward and pay attention to the mail they get.
It’s Easy to Target the Right Audience
If you work with a good list broker, you can access customers that are very targeted for your offer. For example, a list broker can rent you a list of people that have recently bought vitamins and other types of supplements. While you can’t track every aspect of their behavior, what you do know is that you are sending out a mailing to people that are actual consumers.
You Can Measure Direct Mail Campaigns Effectively
While other channels like billboards are harder to test and measure, you can measure direct mail campaigns quite effectively. You can easily run split test mailings by using different call numbers or extensions. You can use the same approach testing out different mailing lists as well. Some businesses will even integrate a website offer in the call to action.
And if you’ve already been running digital marketing campaigns for some time, then you can use your data to build your direct mail campaign. You’ll have a general idea of what types of headlines, offers, call to actions, and other elements work in your sales copy. While all of your data won’t translate to direct mail, you’ll see that a lot of it will.
It Works Well with Digital Marketing
The idea here isn’t to abandon digital marketing. It’s to use traditional channels like direct mail and print marketing to supplement your strategy. For example, once you’ve been able to acquire an online customer, you can reach out to them with direct mail. This can help your business stand out as opposed to trying to get your email opened in your customer’s inbox.
In fact, there are many examples of companies that use this marketing strategy. They try to acquire as many customers as possible through low priced introductory offers. Once the customer submits their payment address, the address is sent continuous follow-up offers that are designed to sell higher ticket products and services.
Direct Mail Is Flexible
Direct mail works in many different situations. You can send out traditional sales letters, postcards, brochures, newsletters, and magazines. It really comes down to what your goal is with the direct mail campaign. You can also build campaigns based on your budget. There’s no need to design and print elaborate mailers if you’re trying to get somebody to book an appointment at your practice. You can keep things simple and low cost with postcards.
Direct mail works for many different types of businesses and industries. Chiropractors, dentists, law firms, pet care centers, gyms, and even eCommerce stores can see great results with direct mail. In fact, it’s a secret weapon for many businesses as their competitors have ditched direct mail for digital marketing.
The main point here is that sometimes digital marketing just isn’t enough. You need to use other channels to help support your overall marketing strategy.
If you’re interested in launching your own direct mail campaign, you’ll want to work with a printing and campaign management company. Wise Pelican can help you design your postcards, track your mailings, and manage addresses. You can make the whole direct mail process easier with our services.