DMN3 Blog

The answer is absolutely! Now there’s a new tool to help: Smartphones. If you want to learn how direct mail can increase online sales success, read on…

It’s no secret that the use of direct mail by advertisers was reduced during the recent economic recession. Professional direct marketers turned to lower cost email for their direct marketing strategy. What these marketers forgot is that it is not about cost. It’s about return on investment (ROI).

There’s good reason to integrate both offline and online marketing efforts. Combining both online and offline direct mail effectively in an integrated marketing and advertising campaign can result in much higher returns than simply using online media.

According to an Exact Target 2009 Channel Preference Study:

1. Direct mail has directly influenced more consumers to purchase than any other channel. 76% of consumers have been directly influenced to purchase through direct mail. The only exception is for teens, where direct mail-influenced purchases (55%), second only to television commercials (62%).
2. Direct mail is the only channel where permission is not a prerequisite. Although 78% of online consumers have provided their address to a company in order to receive direct mail, it is the only channel through which consumers are still receptive to unsolicited offers. With the exception of direct mail, consumers don’t want to hear from marketers whom they have NOT invited to contact them. Period….and that includes email.
3. Only 15% of consumers want all of their direct marketing messages to come through email.

Direct mail is different in 2011 than it has been in the past thanks to recent technology advances. These advances have increased its effectiveness, its ability to measure results and its ability to more easily integrate with online marketing strategies.

Here are some things you can do with your direct mail marketing to steer traffic to your website, landing page or micro website.

• Include a compelling and valuable offer to entice them to visit the website. Make sure it’s something consumers want.
• Use clear "call-to-actions” (CTAs) that specifically describes what consumers are to do. Don’t make them guess what you want them to do.
• Include a deadline for action. People respond better when time is limited.
• Test the use of various direct mail formats. The more complex the offer the greater the complexity of the direct mail format that should be used. Only testing will tell though.
• Construct a landing page or micro website specifically for the direct mail campaign. Such a site allows you to maintain relevancy with the direct mail and control and complement the message of the direct mail. It also allows you to more easily track responses to the direct mail campaign.
• Capture contact information: Even an email address tied to a specific direct marketing piece can provide you the information you need to start a relationship marketing program. If the offer is good enough, you may even get other information for your CRMS database.
• Use personalized mailing pieces: In the past, mailings may have been segmented by certain parameters, but that still resulted in large number of consumers receiving the exact same mailing because of printing charges. Today’s digital printing allows direct mail marketers to use personalized teasers, headlines, subheads, photos and body copy. Instead of printing a everything looks alike mass mailing, today you can personalize the mail going to each consumer through the use of digital variable data printing technology.
• Use an easy-to-type URL:  Unlike email that can contain a clickable link to your landing page, in direct mail you can only print a URL. That requires consumers to type the URL into their browser to reach your landing page. Using a short, easy-to-type URL is highly recommended for direct mail. In fact, personalized URLs (PURLS) is another strategy that is often recommended for getting extra attention and making it easy to type. Thanks to digital printing, such PURLs might include the name of the direct mail recipient, e.g., JohnDoe.somewhere.com.

Just as digital printing was a game changer for direct mail, today there is a new tool to integrate direct mail with Internet marketing. That new tool is the barcode reader apps on smartphones.

Direct Mail and Barcodes: A Recipe for Success

Direct Marketing professionals should be taking advantage of the penetration of smartphones and their barcode reader apps in the marketplace.  By the end of 2011, over half of all cell phone users will be using smartphones. That’s 120 million smartphone users.

Barcode scanning, which was considered a niche application, is now going mainstream. According to its Q3 2010 Smartphone Intelligence survey, Kantar Media Company’s Compete found that 28 percent of smartphone owners have used barcode scanning apps. Smartphone owners have used the apps to scan a product’s barcode while in a store to compare prices, bring up more information about it or purchase it with their smartphone.

This trend is growing rapidly. ScanBuy, a maker of 2D barcode scanning solutions, reports that use of its own platform grew by 700% in 2010. Red Laser, acquired by E-Bay in 2010, had 5 million downloads of its barcode app by October, 2010. This was an increase of three million downloads of Red Laser between June, 2010 and October, 2010.

Expect 2011 to see even greater growth of mobile barcodes, especially the QR code. ABI Research issued a custom research report on smartphones last year. According to that research:

• 80 percent of Consumers surveyed  in the U.S. expressed interest in scanning mobile barcodes
• 58 percent said  they were willing to download a code scanner app
• 69 percent said they would scan barcodes to obtain product discounts and coupons

Look at Japan where 86 percent if smartphone users scan barcodes four or more times a month!

The use of mobile barcodes should be a big deal to direct mail marketers. Barcodes plus smartphones have the ability to effectively integrate traditional media like print, direct mail, coupons, point-of-purchase displays, etc with online marketing efforts.

The result is that you can turn static media like direct mail into interactive experiences using direct response vehicles. You do that by using the barcode to direct users to a mobile-optimized landing page with functionality tailored to the intended audience and application.

On the landing page use CTAs that utilize rich media, exclusivity, social media, downloads, incentives, prizes, contests, polls and contextual relevance to create significant engagement with your audience.

Employing these tactics should result in more effective integration of your online efforts with offline direct mail to achieve better results for your marketing campaigns.