Creative Direct Mail Cuts Through the Clutter

Creative direct mail is a must.

Why is creative direct mail important? Because each and every day we’re subjected to nearly 3,000 messages. We only pay attention to a meager 5 percent of that number. That comes out to about 50 messages out of nearly 3,000. If that sounds bad, wait till you read this: of that paltry 50, we only remember about four of them. And things go downhill further from there—because if you sent one of these 3,000 per day messages, your company has a short three seconds to grab the attention of readers and another 10 seconds or so to give them a compelling reason to act.

Creative direct mail, not clever direct mail

Creative direct mail doesn’t mean clever for the sake of being clever, it means cutting through the clutter of 3,000 messages bombarding your prospects. Your communication must stand out and establish a connection. To achieve this, many businesses lean towards digital forms of communication to make their pitch. Digital does deliver to a certain extent, but if all you’re relying on is digital, you’re missing a big opportunity. Creative printed direct mail can make meaningful, one-on-one connections with your customers better than any other form of communications.

This is not to say that you should abandon digital. Combine print with digital to expand your reach and increase your revenue!

Print and digital: a powerful one-two punch

Print and digital media are a match made in marketing heaven. It’s been shown that a multi-channel campaign can increase the audience you’re able to reach, making the sum of your efforts that much more effective. The truth is that having creative direct mail as part of your marketing mix can increase ROI by 20 percent. Print can’t always produce results on its own. Customers may have to go online to complete the conversion. Print and digital working together really do provide marketers with a powerful one-two punch, not to mention better results.

Creative direct mails works wonders

For creative direct mail to be effective, you must put a fair amount of effort into planning it out. There are countless ways to approach a direct mail campaign, which is good news because that means endless opportunities for creativity and variety. But this also means that throughout the process you’ll come up against a host of critical decisions that will either make or break the campaign’s success.

Here are just some of things to consider:

• Mailing list
• Message
• Format or package
• Business letter or sales letter
• Envelopes and opening mechanisms
• Varnishes, coatings and paper choices
• Addressing techniques
• Contests, surveys, etc.
• Variable printing and customization
• Multi-channel marketing (remember, don’t underestimate how well print and digital work together)