4 Ways to Cultivate an Effective Direct Mail Experience

What direct mail experience do your customers and prospects get when they receive your mail pieces? The first moment when they touch and interact with your mail piece is the moment when you either get a second look or get tossed into the trash.

How many of your pieces are going into the trash? Probably more than you think, especially if you are sending to prospects who do not have a history with you. How can you turn your direct mail into a positive experience for prospects and customers?

4 Ways to Improve the Direct Mail Experience

1. Personalization — This is more than just using a name: your offer, images, and copy should all be tailored to each individual and their needs. This means your data is crucial to get personalization right. You need to capture as much information about customers as possible, beyond just purchases.
2. Touch — Direct mail is a great way to engage people with touch. There are so many options to add texture. Now, you can really make paper feel like just about anything you want it to. Tactile experiences are powerful, so take full advantage of them: Because other marketing channels are unable to give that experience.
3. Visual — This is more than just images, it is your color scheme, and layout, too. You want to draw attention and keep it consistent with your messaging. If you are unsure of what the colors mean and how best to use them in marketing, refer to our post on colors. You can now include special effects inks to really get a pop in visual appeal.
4. Something Different — People crave unique experiences. When you can provide something new and build curiosity around it, you have natural engagement. Get creative here! This can be augmented reality, video, die cuts, special folds, or anything you can think of.

Keep in mind that creating an experience with your mail piece is not all about entertainment, it is about engagement. The longer they spend interacting with your mail piece, the more your message resonates and gets acted upon. It is also about enhancing your message, not distracting from it. Many times, we focus too much on snazzy concepts, which take away from the message, instead of using the concept to boost the message. When you are able to integrate the experience with your message, you drive an increase in response rates.

Be bold and try something new. It does not have to cost a lot of money, but it does need to drive engagement in order to work. To maximize your potential, try personalization along with one of the other three, you will see a lift in results. Are you ready to get started?