Is your e-commerce brand sending direct mail yet? If not, what’s stopping you?

Sure, launching a direct mail campaign may be a traditional marketing approach, but it certainly isn’t outdated. Today, e-commerce brands of all sizes can easily automate direct mail campaigns just like with emails. This allows e-commerce marketers to benefit from the efficiencies and strategic targeting of marketing automation as well as the high response rates of postcard marketing.

No matter what kind of business you are running, a small grocery store or a large e-commerce company, direct mail campaigns are definitely worth your consideration as one of the best marketing channels. In fact, some of the biggest e-commerce brands are thinking outside of the box with direct mail and realizing phenomenal results.

Click here to find out which 3 surprising brands are growing with direct mail.

3 Benefits of Direct Mail Marketing Campaigns in E-Commerce

While your small business may operate solely online, this doesn’t mean all of your marketing should, too. Read on to learn about a few of the benefits of direct mail marketing campaigns automation in e-commerce direct sales.  

1. Direct Mail Helps E-commerce Brands Stand Out.

Chances are, the majority of your active or potential customers are suffering from some form of digital fatigue—just like most Americans. The amount of messaging we all receive on a daily basis through screens is just too much.

The digital landscape is becoming increasingly cluttered, noisier and, quite frankly, more annoying each day. It is a messy, competitive space in which marketers fight for consumers’ increasingly overwhelmed attention spans. Direct mail gives you access to another playing field entirely—one that is favorable to marketers:

• The mailbox is actually becoming less competitive. The US Postal Service handled 50 billion fewer mail pieces in 2016 than in 2008.
• For every $167 spent on direct mail, marketers sell $2,095 in goods.
• Direct mail’s average household response rate is 5.1%, according to the Direct Marketing Association. Compare this to 0.4% for social media and 0.6% for email and paid search

2. E-commerce Direct Sales Insights: Postcards Build Trust.

Building trust and loyalty is critical to the success of any e-commerce brand. But it can be difficult for e-commerce stores that have no physical presence and only exist in a digital, online world to establish authenticity in the eyes of consumers, even as online shopping becomes the norm.

Postcard marketing helps e-commerce marketers break through this barrier, because postcards have a unique, innate emotional effect. Consumers will be more likely to trust your brand if you send direct mail simply because a mail piece is tangible. According to a USPS study, direct mail sales campaign makes a significantly stronger emotional impact than digital ads, resulting in brand recall up to one week later. And a strong call to action and attractive design, coupled with an easy way to make an online purchase (like a QR code, for example) will ensure a high return on investment. However, customer acquisition is not the only area where direct mail sales campaigns should be used. As proven by the experience of many e-commerce brands, direct mail campaigns work even better for customer retention and client re-engagement.

Stitch Fix, an e-commerce subscription-based fashion retailer, sends direct mail for reactivation.

Pro tip: Don’t miss the chance to promote your products or services during the seasonal holidays. Send your holiday offers beforehand giving your customers enough time to fully enjoy the benefits of your offer before it runs out. Don’t want to wait for a holiday season or a special date? Send them a personal thank you note after purchase, or a surprise gift card just for being your long-term valued customer.  

3. Direct Mail Campaigns Improve E-commerce Website Traffic.

While direct mail’s high response rates make it a great channel for conversion, it is also well suited for re-engagement and re-targeting. There are a number of highly effective direct mail re-engagement strategies, but there is one often overlooked built-in retargeting tactic that can be a boon for just about any e-commerce brand.

When you launch a direct mail campaign that drives consumers to your website, you improve the quality of your website traffic. This is because a prospect who is arriving via mailer is going to have to type in your url, or a personalized url (purl).

This small layer of friction is going to weed out lower quality leads. Anyone who is going to go through the effort of typing out a url is likely going to spend some time looking at your content, improving time on site and bounce rate stats. Additionally, the use of a trackable url allows you to measure the performance of your direct mailers and continue to refine your targeting.

Home goods e-commerce retailer Wayfair sends promotional postcards.

Pro tip: Some customers still prefer to reaching your business via a phone call. Make sure to include more than one way of contacting you on your direct mail piece.

Pro tip: If you don’t want to make your customers manually type in your website address, you can bring them to your website via a QR code. It will also yield good results if you want to send them digital coupons and discounts via a direct mail campaign. Customize QR code which will contain a coupon code or lead to a landing page that contains all the available coupon codes. This way your direct mail postcards will still have a nice and not cluttered look. Creating a QR Code is extremely simple with Beaconstac’s QR Code Generator.

Choose Inkit to design your postcards with the help of a custom postcard builder. There are a lot of templates, as well as editing and personalization possibilities to ensure easy designing process and best results. With a simple drag and drop functionality, your direct mail piece will be ready in a couple of minutes.  

Is it Time to Add Direct Mail to Your E-commerce’s Marketing Strategy?

Even in e-commerce, an online stores’ industry, limiting yourself to online marketing can lead to mediocrity. To compete in today’s increasingly competitive digital landscape, you need to reach prospects online and off.

The most effective e-commerce direct mail campaigns we see at Inkit are omni-channel. This means they are pieces of larger strategies encompassing direct mail, email, mobile, push, social selling and more. And this isn’t a marketing phenomenon limited to our client base. According to Royal Mail Group, direct mail can lift online campaigns by as much as 62%. So, what are you waiting for?

Three Things that Impact Success of Your E-commerce Direct Mail Marketing Campaign

1. Target Lists for Direct Mail Campaigns

With a properly built target list, you can reach a better return on investment. In order to target relevant and segmented audiences, you can use Inkit’s integration with different online services and apps, such as HubSpot, Drip, Marketo, and others. Just upload your mailing lists to Inkits’ automation system and manage your workflows, segments, and lists for integrated, cross-channel marketing campaigns.

2. Personalization

Direct mail marketing campaigns give you the possibility to create personalized and cost effective ways to reach your potential or existing customers. Combining Inkit’s integrations and the postcard builder, you can create triggered direct mails with personalized content based on consumers’ buying history, purchase and website behavior, and more.

2. Direct Mail Automation

With the rise of automation, there is no need to spend your time and efforts on visiting post offices anymore. Inkit offers direct mail automation software which enables you to create, print, and send direct mail in just a couple of clicks.

Are you ready to integrate automated direct mail into your multi-channel marketing strategy? Schedule a demo with Inkit’s direct mail automation software and we’ll get you started right away.