How Marketers Can Optimize Direct Mail for Omni-Channel Success in 2024
Leverage direct mail to reach audiences with precision, scale, and impact.
Ryan O'Connor
Product Marketing Specialist at Consumer Intelligence Group (CiG)
As we close out 2023 with the final holiday campaigns, marketing teams are heads down looking at ways to innovate and gain the advantage in 2024. As planning is underway, it’s an important time to consider incorporating new channels and tactics into your media mix, especially one that’s been making an impact recently: Direct mail.
It’s no surprise that direct mail works! Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more marketers are adopting this reliable channel to cut through the digital noise and reach audiences effectively with messages that resonate. Now we have solid results that show direct mail is making an impact.
Here’s a few…
Direct Mail’s Growing Impact:
- 74% of marketers agree direct mail delivers the best ROI, response rate, and conversion rates among all channel options (Lob & Comperemedia 2023.)
- 62% of consumers say direct mail has inspired them to act, resulting in visiting a brand’s website for more information (Lob & Comperemedia 2022.)
- Direct mail is among the top 3 marketing channels consumers trust the most – trusted by twice as many consumers as online display ads (MarketingSherpa.)
Marketers are pivoting to direct mail, especially as the cost of digital increases with more competition and fewer results; with 58% marketers have allocated more budget to direct mail in 2023 than in 2022. Direct mail is quickly becoming an ideal solution that is trusted by consumers and delivers precision and scale for advertisers.
In fact, direct mail’s impact continues to grow in Canada with direct mail revenues growing by 14.4% in 2021 and another 5.3% in the first 3 quarters of 2022 (Canada Post). This impressive growth presents many opportunities for marketers to reach new audiences and build better relationships with consumers as more organizations focus on direct mail for next year.
The resurgence of direct mail has been a bright spot for many marketers, with increasing ROI and conversion rates in 2023 compared to other channels.
For teams using intelligentVIEW there’s an extra benefit: direct mail and targeting the home can be the ultimate link for omni-channel campaigns and with intelligentVIEW by connecting direct and digital for precision targeting.
The Direct Mail Renaissance is Here:
There is a lot of change happening in the Canadian marketing industry: privacy regulations, the end of cookies, and increased saturation in digital means advertisers are looking for new ways to increase their campaigns’ effectiveness. The good news? Direct mail is experiencing a renaissance.
A key strength of direct mail is that it provides reliable and enhanced audience targeting. How so? Targeting the home via the postal code is a stable, privacy-compliant, and accurate way to reach your target audiences directly. Learn more about why geographic targeting is essential today in our insights post.
Not only is it driving effective results, but marketing teams, by using intelligentVIEW, can now connect all their channels, from direct mail and digital, to out-of-home, using the postal code as a common unique identifier.
Use Direct Mail to Deliver Omni-Channel Campaigns for Better Results:
Looking to reach your exact addressable audiences across multiple media channels? It starts with adopting omni-channel strategies and connecting direct and digital targeting to deliver precise campaigns to your target audiences that drive increased engagement.
A common misconception we hear from some advertisers is the belief that they are reaching the same target audience across all channels by selecting the same audience attributes across multiple media platforms. (Facebook, DV360, TikTok etc.) However, this is the wrong approach because simply choosing the same attributes in different channels is NOT targeting the same audience at all.
So, what is the best way to reach your ideal target audience? It all leads back to the six-digit postal code, a privacy-compliant and unique common identifier. This is the key element that makes it possible for marketers using intelligentVIEW to reach audiences effectively across digital, social, and direct channels.
Not only are marketers adopting direct mail more into their media mix, but it is also becoming the cornerstone for connecting media channels. In fact, 39% of marketers stated they are taking steps to better integrate direct mail with other marketing channels and are seeing the benefits, according to an October 2023 study from Marketing Charts.
Some of these benefits include geographic precise targeting across media channels, better engagement with audiences, higher ROI, increased personalization, generating more leads and customer acquisition. This integration opens new horizons of opportunity and it’s time to take action.
As marketers continue to leverage direct mail, the ability to activate omni-channel campaigns will be a vital asset for your 2024 programs.
Connect Your Direct and Digital Campaigns with intelligentVIEW
As the marketing landscape changes and evolves, Canadian marketers will need a future-proofed solution that provides access to up-to-date, privacy-compliant data, actionable insights, and the ability to reach audiences across channels with scale and precision. Fortunately, intelligentVIEW can do this, all in one platform.
Connecting audience insights to media activation is what we do best; intelligentVIEW can be the solution you need to efficiently build, profile, and activate audiences across media channels to deliver truly effective campaigns across Canada and better ROI.
Sources:
- Canada Post
- Marketing Charts – The Changing Role of Direct Mail
- MarketingSherpa
- Lob & Compare Media: The State of Direct Mail 2023
- Lob & Compare Media: The State of Direct Mail 2022