If you had to identify one of the most critical best practices in direct mail today, what would it be? Would it be multi-channel marketing? If not, perhaps it’s time to rethink.
Many marketers shy away from multi-channel marketing because it sounds expensive and complicated. But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, multi-channel marketing can be as simple as following up a print piece with an e-mail.
E-mail follow-ups to print are a simple, inexpensive and effective way to boost response rates for very little extra cost. But the benefits go even further. One marketer recently embarked on a personalized URL campaign, in part, to gather missing e-mail addresses because it had found that, when it had an e-mail address for its customers, those customers tended to purchase $1,000 more in services per year.
Why would having an e-mail address make such a difference? Let’s look at two reasons.
By combining variable printing with e-mail and an online registration process, one association, for example, was able to triple the attendance at its annual summer conference. In another example, a software manufacturer sent a follow-up e-mail to non-responders to a print campaign, personalized using the same rules as the print mailer, and sales of its targeted products jumped 81%. The company also exceeded its sales projections by 13%.
Of course, there are other elements to successful direct mail campaigns beyond using the dual channels of print and e-mail. Still, this combination is a key aspect of many campaigns’ success. It’s no wonder that, if you follow the blog talk, the case studies and the business media, direct mail with e-mail follow-up has become almost the de facto standard.
Don’t have your customers’ e-mail addresses? No worries. E-mail addresses are easy enough to get. Web site registration, personalized URL campaigns and e-mail list purchases are all techniques that you can use to gather the missing information. Talk to us about expanding your next campaign to include e-mail.
