- Omni-Channel Marketing Trend Outlook
- Seven Real Case Studies: Direct Mail Campaign in Omni-Channel Marketing
- Handy Tips on How to Make a Direct Mail Omni-Channel Strategy Work
2019 Omni-Channel Marketing Trend Outlook
In 2019, direct mail in omni-channel marketing turned into a leading marketing trend introduced by both tech giants, such as Google, and local companies with a limited budget. Most businesses admit that there is no way to achieve marketing success without the use of several channels. Even if they cannot hire professional marketers, they try to combine online and offline promotional campaigns to maximize the result. Fortunately, today numerous automation tools allow running an omni-channel marketing strategy on your own. You can integrate CRM data with social media channels or a direct mail automation tool to personalize your marketing. Thanks to this, you’ll synchronize all your marketing efforts, cut expenditures, and benefit from professional support and resources.
Omni-channel marketing allows creating numerous touchpoints and attracts a broader target audience. Every target group has its preferences and reacts to different triggers based on age, location, social status, and purchase power. As a result, they are also nudged into action by different types of marketing campaigns and calls to action. For instance, in their choice of services, baby boomers pay attention to lasting value, generation X focuses on reputation, whereas the generation Y heavily relies on the opinion of others. At the same time, 75% of millennials consider direct mail they receive valuable and 92% admit they were influenced to make a purchase by direct mail.
Any marketing strategy should comprise several well-aligned channels. Ideally, it’s necessary to combine digital marketing with offline means, such as direct mail. Let’s see how entrepreneurs use direct mail campaigns to power other channels. Use our tips to run a successful omni-channel marketing strategy.
Seven Real Case Studies: Direct Mail Campaign in Omni-Channel Marketing
Inkit has conducted a series of interviews to understand how businesses incorporate direct mail into their multi-channel marketing. Such feedback helps us upgrade our direct mail automation tool to meet every marketing need and ensure seamless performance. In addition, the real use cases are a great basis to see how other companies build their marketing and get inspiration. Most of the respondents combine direct mail with digital marketing and find this approach highly effective.
“Our intention is that some will physically interact with the mailer and by doing so either call customer service for more information or to order…or they will go to the website, learn more, and ultimately make a purchase.
We use direct mail as part of our marketing mix but it is not our only method. One of our consumer targets features older adults who may not want to transact over the web. We have a customer service number on our direct mail, so those that prefer to talk to a human and ask questions, can do so (Paul Miller, Lokus Nutrition).”
“We use direct mail marketing a part of our wider marketing strategy, for a variety of reasons. First of all, some of our core buyer demographics fall on the higher side of the age spectrum and so still respond strongly to such an approach, as well as being less keen internet users than most other age groupings (Mark, English Blinds).”
“We use direct mail as part of nurturing campaigns for high-value accounts. We’ve found them to be effective alongside more common digital channels such as email and advertising, partly due to the increasing novelty of direct mail in business (Feltham, Software Path).”
“Direct mail is a key element of our marketing mix and one of our most effective channels. Instead of using direct mail to target large segments of our database we’ve found the most effective method is micro-targeted mailings. Direct mail can have a big impact on the reader if it feels like it’s a personal letter written just for them so you need to go beyond just your standard merge fields like name, company, and address. You need to show a deep understanding of who they are and why you’re contacting them. To achieve this you need to have a CRM with detailed information on your clients that gives you insight into their challenges and your history together. You can then use this information to produce highly-targeted messaging that stand out and generate leads (Jonathan Bennett, GlobalX).”
“Direct mail marketing is severely underutilized in 2019. Millennials are especially responsive to creative direct mail campaigns as they are simply not getting much mail. I have used direct mail in the past in conjunction with cold calling, email, social and paid online advertising to get my companies brand in front of prospects (Terril Fields, Blerd).”
“Direct mail has a bad rap for being a legacy marketing tactic. To its credit, it remains a very effective tool primarily due to the focused targeting direct mail programs offer, and the opportunities it creates for more impactful digital ad campaigns. Not only are you identifying specific areas of customers to target, you can also pair a direct mail campaign with a social media ad campaign to add a layered approach to your outreach. For example, a target customer will receive the piece of direct mail, and a couple days later, they will see social media ads catered to them for however long you want to run your social campaign (Elena Raznovan Parial, Why Marketing).”
“For any large business, direct mail can and should be a center point to your marketing strategy. Given that it allows for the promotion of anything from blog posts to company news, competitions to product information. However, it should be approached differently depending on the sector you operate in. Having managed this channel in various different industries, including tech, intel, FMCG and education, I’ve found that they all come with their own specific challenges.
“Direct mail has a great ability to target a niche audience of email addresses utilizing data such as location, gender, and purchase habits. The marketing benefits are that this allows you to create tailored content to specific audiences, ensuring that the content they receive is relevant and more likely to convert (Will Bond, Twinkl).”
Handy Tips on How to Make a Direct Mail Omni-Channel Strategy Work
Omni-Channel Marketing Strategy Tip #1 Plan Beforehand
An omni-channel marketing strategy includes numerous components that require different amounts of investment. In case you decide to use every marketing channel to its maximum, the resulting marketing budget can make you bankrupt. Therefore, preliminary planning is a must to allocate the available resources with maximum efficiency. Start with defining your target audiences to understand what marketing channels they interact with most often. After that, estimate the budget necessary to run a marketing campaign for each channel and choose the most suitable combination.
For example, some of the Google Ads keywords may cost as high as $50 per click. This results in the average advertising expenditures reaching $100,000 – 150,000 per month. Email campaigns or social media marketing usually need much less or even no investment. Make sure to complement digital marketing channels with direct mail to increase your coverage and response rate. Once you select the channels, it will be easier to calculate your expenditures and the expected ROI.
Omni-Channel Marketing Strategy Tip #2 Use Customer-Centric Approach and Personalization
A customer-oriented approach is in the essence of any omni-channel marketing strategy. Although marketing techniques vary, they all are used with one purpose – meet the needs and expectations of potential customers. Modern consumers expect to receive seamless experience during the whole customer journey – from the first postcard to the purchase in a brick-and-mortar store. This means that all your marketing efforts must be perfectly aligned and complement each other. For example, it’s better to deliver a catalog only after users have given their consent on your website. Also, you should at any cost avoid conflicting messages, like when you recommend products that have run out of stock on your website.
Moreover, try to make your marketing materials, including direct mail, as tailored to your customers as possible. Generic messages no longer work. Group people based on their favorite products, visited pages, geolocation, and other details to give them exactly what they need. If you notice that a certain category often abandons the cart because of the final price for several products, mail them a discount voucher to make them buy and appreciate your impeccable service.
Omni-Channel Marketing Strategy Tip #3 Leverage Automation
You won’t be able to run a full-fledged omni-channel marketing campaign without a CRM system and automation tools. The data recorded in the CRM will serve as the foundation to make other integrations play nicely with each other. This will help you avoid wasting your time on the efforts that don’t pay off. Above all, marketing automation is necessary to track your results and measure the effectiveness of marketing channels.
Although automation practices are mostly used in digital marketing, your direct mail can also be automated. This allows consolidating your offline and online marketing efforts. In particular, Inkit’s direct mail automation tool supports integration with all popular CRMs, including Drip, HubSpot, Sailthru, or Iterable. Just integrate a list to deliver specific mail pieces to a certain group at the right moment. Additionally, Inkit will care take of printing and delivery tasks to save your time and budget. You will get a chance to focus on planning and analytics, instead of getting scattered on routine processes.
