Cut through the clutter with a creative twist on direct mail

Integrated direct marketing campaigns consist of coordinated promotional efforts that send a consistent message across multiple marketing vehicles to individually target specific consumers more directly. Because consumers gain information from a wide variety of marketing vehicles and media sources, it is important to cut through the clutter and reach your audience through a variety of channels.

Consumers are overwhelmed by marketing communications so you must make sure to create communications that are timely, relevant, creative, interesting, personalized and contain value. It’s important that promotions contain a unique personalized message, multiple touch points (such as email, mail, or website), one-to-one marketing, and interactive components.

Promotional objectives to consider for an integrated direct marketing campaign:
• Create Awareness
• Stimulate Demand
• Identify Prospects
• Retain Loyal Customers
• Combat Competitive Promotional Efforts
• Reduce Sales Fluctuations

The Direct Marketing Association credits Dimensional Mail as the number one most effective and track-able advertising method with a 5.59 response rate compared to telephone (2.53), catalog (2.24), and direct mail (2.15).

Integrated direct marketing campaigns can consist of any of the following services: personalized direct mail, list acquisition, email, program analysis reports, dimensional mail, promotional items, customized flyers, envelope websites, personalized URLs, generic URLs, web page, online survey, and variable data.

I recently designed an integrated direct marketing campaign that consisted of a dimensional mailer, variable data, promotional item, website initiatives, and customized flyers. My campaign was themed so that it was relevant to my prospects and timely in terms of our economic recession. The package had a label on the box with a variable and posed a marketing uestion to my decision maker.

It wasn’t until they opened the box and saw the contents inside that they knew who had sent the package; and by then I had them hooked. They were already cooing over the goodies inside, personal touch, creative presentation, and information included about how to increase their business with my products and services. The informational piece discussed our differentials, directed them to our website for more information, and included a call to action that offered a gift card to a popular dining establishment if they set up an appointment. The package stood out from the typical direct mail clutter and caught my customers’ attention right away.

The most important part of an integrated direct marketing campaign is to analyze performance, follow up, and get feedback. Did prospects respond to your call to action (i.e. call for an appointment)? If not, consider sending a follow-up mailer, email, or make a phone call to be sure they received it. How successful a promotion is depends widely on the quantity and quality of the feedback you receive.

My campaign has had a 36% response rate so far and was a tremendous return on my investment! Ask yourself, what was the response rate for your last direct marketing campaign? Do you know what your ROI was?

Amanda Moore

PIP Printing and Marketing Services