Direct Mail Marketing

Reach Your Target Prospects. Gain More Customers.

Many marketers have fallen in love with digital channels, and they do have a critical place in a well-formed marketing strategy. Those same marketers have fallen out of love with direct mail marketing, and it is a key miss in an integrated, multi-channel marketing strategy.

Nearly every consumer in the US has a mailbox, yet the average household receives only 2 direct mail pieces per day compared to 157 emails. Direct mail is highly targetable, easy to measure, and allows for virtually unlimited creativity when it comes to format, design and offer. Compared to an email, with limited variability (character constraints, opt-in requirements, generalized targeting), direct mail allows you to bring the whole might of your message to bear through intense targeting, innovative packaging/design and compelling offers.

With the advent of multi-channel workflows, direct mail is an essential component to reap the maximum results from your campaigns. The ability to measure, target and iterate makes it a proven tactic often included in our ThinkFirst engagements. Let’s get together and talk about how we can help take your business to the next level.

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List. Creative. Offer.

Your direct mail marketing program will live and die on the basis of three things: the quality of your list, how engaging your creative is, and what offer proves to be the most compelling for your targets. How do you get to the right combination? That’s where art and science intersect. Our ThinkFirst process identifies your top buyer personas and targeting criteria to ensure your mail pieces reach the right prospects. Our creative geniuses use that information to create a visual representation of your brand that hits home for prospects. Industry-wide research provides visibility to current competitor offers, allowing us to ensure your offer has strong market relevance.

The Importance of Testing

The secret to optimum yield in direct mail marketing is great testing. The secret to great testing lies in process and measurements. Defining your test thoroughly at the outset, identifying appropriate benchmarks and establishing test goals that fit within your financial targets are the foundational items your test is built upon.

The beauty of direct mail is its ability to be easily measured, but most people do not go deeply enough into the numbers to identify opportunities to test, optimize and scale. At Valve + Meter, testing is part of our DNA. We will establish a test protocol, map out test elements, and work a rigorous process to determine realistic opportunities to scale. Once we’ve optimized to squeeze every last drop of revenue out of the test, we can rapidly scale your direct mail marketing campaign to bring measurable results.

Direct Mail Marketing Strategy

Targeting

Are we reaching the right people?

Format

What is the right format for maximum response?

Messaging

Are we delivering messages that resonate?

Distribution

What is the optimum method of delivery?

Offers

Is our offer compelling? Does it drive response?

Creative

Does our creative encourage engagement?

List Development

The list is responsible for a majority of the results of your direct mail marketing campaign, so we spend most of our time thinking about mailing to the right people. Sending mail to muddy lists with inaccurate data is wildly inefficient and drives up the cost on every single piece. There are two basic types of lists: house lists and rental lists. You own your house list, which usually consists of customers and prospects you know. Rental lists come from third party vendors, and can make or break your direct mail campaign. We work with you to develop the right list strategy to target the people most likely to respond.

Direct Mail Tactics

2D Mail

Letters, postcards and self-mailers all have their place in a well-executed campaign. Selecting the right format is as important as what you say on your direct mail piece.

3D Mail

For maximum response rates and a memorable experience, you can’t beat lumpy, dimensional packages. People simply can’t resist opening a personalized package.

Personalization

Personalization of direct mail pieces with your prospect’s name can increase the response rate by 135%. More personalization will usually work better.

What We Test

Testing involves three key components: lists, offer and creative. Many businesses spend an outsized amount of time asking to change creative, but it’s usually the least important component to test. We believe in spending time getting the creative right, but focusing tests on lists and offers. Rigorous testing procedures will ensure your direct mail piece is optimized before scaling. We utilize an A/B methodology for direct mail tests and work to find statistical significance when launching a campaign. The winner becomes our control and we test against that winner with new test ideas. The goal is get better every time, or at least to learn something new.