Most people associate a triggered direct mail campaign with a greeting card sent on the day of their birthday. Or a discount voucher delivered after they purchase a product. If you are one of those who think so, we have something surprising to tell you. With the increasing role of marketing automation and personalization, triggered direct mail has also evolved. Now, you can integrate a CRM system with a direct mail tool to connect digital marketing with offline direct mail campaigns. Thanks to this, your disjointed marketing efforts will turn into a seamless customer journey.

Your potential and existing customers will feel like you anticipate their every wish with the ultimate service. Triggered direct mail allows sending a free delivery voucher when users abandon a cart after learning the shipping cost. Or you can use mail to automatically remind people on a target list about upcoming events. There are many other effective options to tailor your marketing efforts with triggered direct mail campaigns. To use them, you need to integrate a mail automation tool like Inkit with a CRM. Read on to get detailed instructions on how to do this.

What Is a Triggered Direct Mail?

Triggered direct mail is a mail piece sent in response to a specific customer action or event. Such an event is called a trigger. Once a CRM records it, a direct mail automation tool receives the command to deliver the mail. A leaflet, postcard, or another mail piece goes to the corresponding person within the shortest time. As a result, the customer receives the mail right after the interaction with digital channels. This leads to higher response rates and makes your call-to-action more relevant.

Apart from that, triggered direct mail provides access to offline marketing capabilities that most companies ignore. Whereas email marketing loses its effectiveness, trigger-based direct mail shows higher response rates and ensures greater personalization. Recipients show a stronger emotional reaction to mail marketing, with 70% of Americans stating that direct mail is more personal than digital marketing. To make your direct mail campaign even more effective, you can use variable data printing offered by Inkit and tailor every direct mail piece based on the customer data from a CRM.

7 Benefits Of Triggered Direct Mail Campaigns

1. Faster reaction. Triggered direct mail allows you to align direct mail campaigns with customer behavior in real-time. You don’t waste time manually tracking your customers, taking mail pieces to the post, and waiting for the delivery.
2. Flexibility in marketing choices. Integrating a direct mail automation tool with a CRM system, you will record all the results instantly. Therefore, you can immediately evaluate your marketing strategies and introduce the changes if necessary.
3. Data-driven marketing. The CRM automatically collects data to build your customer base. Hence, your further steps will rely on accurate and relevant information. Besides, triggered direct mail will allow you to avoid buying or renting out a mailing list, which may be critical for starters with a limited budget.
4. Cross-channel marketing. Triggered direct mail can easily be intertwined with other marketing means, such as emails, social media, or web resources. As a result, you can ensure a smooth customer journey across all channels.
5. Personalization. Inkit’s dynamic data insertion based on triggers makes the mail content tailored to every customer. Moreover, since the mail is sent after a specific event or action, the overall context of the delivery is also personalized.  
6. Cost-effective solution. You won’t need to blindly print thousands of mail pieces hoping that some of them will work. Triggered direct mail is an excellent way to cut printing costs and focus on specific target lists that are the most likely to convert. This will improve your return on investment and save the marketing budget.
7. Better management. Thanks to marketing automation, you will get more time for analytics and managerial responsibilities. This will help you see the big picture and make more informed decisions.

Examples of Triggered Direct Mail Campaigns

Not sure how to use triggered direct mail or where to start from? Here are several examples to inspire and guide you.

Triggered Direct Mail example #1: Loyalty reminder

Although most people willingly subscribe to loyalty programs, after some time, they are likely to become inactive. Triggered direct mail can be used to nurture loyal customers and entice them to purchase a product or service again. If a customer hasn’t spent bonuses that are about to expire, you can send a postcard reminder a week or a month before the expiration.

Triggered Direct Mail example #2: Cart abandonment

Triggered direct mail is a popular solution to reduce the cart abandonment rate. If a customer hasn’t completed a purchase within several days, you can nudge them with a direct mail piece. Make sure to use a convincing call-to-action and give a strong reason to return. Integrating Inkit with CRM, you can include a personalized URL that immediately takes customers to their cart. It’s also important to make an offer that works both for the selected and newly added items. Customers may decide to order another product or service before the triggered mail is delivered.

Triggered Direct Mail example #3: Seasonal catalogs

If you offer products or services that depend on seasonality, triggered direct mail can make your marketing campaigns more personal. At the end of October, a travel agency can deliver a catalog featuring winter holidays or exotic destinations. Such an offer will perfectly match the needs of its customers and increase the number of sales. In this case, the trigger is the period of year.

Generally, triggered direct mail is very versatile. It can be used for luxury retail, real estate, e-commerce, dental or legal services, and many other B2B or B2C domains. Your primary goal is to find which mail type is the optimum choice for which trigger.

A Step-By-Step Guide on How to Setup Triggered Direct Mail Campaign Using Inkit

To get the listed benefits and launch a triggered direct mail campaign, it’s necessary to integrate Inkit with a CRM system. Check out the supported integrations here. In case the CRM you use isn’t mentioned among Inkit’s integrations, contact Inkit to learn whether it can be used. Once you complete the integration, you can run a triggered direct mail campaign with the following procedure.

Step 1.  Segment Your Target Audiences

Start collecting information about your customers’ behavior to group them into target audiences with a CRM system. This way, you will be able to take your buyers through a customer journey tailored to their preferences.

Step 2. Use Inkit’s Functionality to Design a Mail Piece

Go to the Inkit dashboard and use a custom postcard builder to design one or several mail pieces. You may adapt your call-to-action, content, and message depending on the potential trigger. Also, make sure to include a unique phone number, email, or pURL to facilitate tracking.

If you want to deliver highly personalized mail pieces, add the customer’s name, surname, or other relevant details. Inkit supports variable data printing, so you can pull customer data from the CRM to print unique postcards.

Step 3. Add Triggered Direct Mail to Your Marketing Workflow

At this point, you have to tie the triggered direct mail campaign with other marketing activities. Open the chosen CRM (e.g., Drip, HubSpot, Iterable, or Sailthru) and include Inkit’s webhook in the workflow to activate it when the necessary event happens

Step 4. Measure and Analyze

After the customer journey is mapped out and the direct mail campaign starts working, it’s time to collect the results. The statistics recorded in the CRM will show you whether the chosen approach is effective and what can be changed. This information is critical to make your mail marketing highly efficient.