Direct Mail Marketing To Millennials

Marketers are really starting to look at how millennials respond to marketing. In a recent study conducted by DigitasLBi, Razorfish, Tumblr, and Yahoo, millennials will have a cumulative $1.4 trillion in spending power by 2020. Therefore marketers need to be paying attention to this group of people. Since they are known as digital natives many people have felt that direct mail was not a good way to reach them. However, this has shown itself to be untrue, millennials like getting mail.

How can direct mail appeal to millennials?

1. Authenticity: All the messaging and imagery on your direct mail pieces need to be authentic and in sync with your brand. Show that you are consistent, responsible and transparent. Provide links to access more information about your company. Show your passion not only for what you do but the people in your organization that do it.
2. Accessibility: How easy is it for someone to reach you? How many ways to respond to your direct mail are there? If they call you will they reach a human or an auto attendant? The easier it is to respond the more responses you are going to get.
3. Human Appeal: Create a sense of connection with each individual with not only personalization but through emotion. Highlight real people in your organization who are doing good things and remember to use a picture. When you humanize your brand you have a greater appeal.
4. Social Awareness: Show case all the good things your company is doing for social causes. This goes beyond just donating money, which is seen as a token gesture. How are your employees giving back? Pick Charites that are in sync with your brand or that you and your employees feel very deeply about. Then tell everyone about the great things you are doing!
5. Technology: Since this group is very digital savvy, make sure that you are including technology in your direct mail. Not just QR codes, but more powerful NFC, Augmented reality and more. Direct mail is a great gateway to online content and mobile devices. Millennials like interactive experiences, so give them that experience generated from your direct mail. Remember, they love to share good experiences with friends!

Millennials are great people! Targeting them with direct mail is not as big of a challenge as some people try to make it. Using the 5 techniques above will help you effectively communicate with and sell to millennials. Your direct mail should be inclusive and informative, not pushy. Keep you calls to action very specific with easy to understand benefits. Millennials view direct mail as more trustworthy than electronic communication, so make sure to capitalize on that!

Providing an excellent user experience across multiple channels is required with this target group. Embrace that and create fun engaging direct mail that moves recipients online to landing pages, social media or whatever content you want. As always, make sure to track your responses so that you know what is working and what is not. Lastly, keep in mind that all millennials are not the same, they are individuals just like the rest of us and have varying wants and needs. Capturing their response information and adding that to your database is valuable. It will allow you to provide better offers to them in the future.