Getting your brand seen is tough. So, don’t bury yours in prospects’ junk folders
The decision makers you want to engage receive c. 121 emails per day. They’ve saturated news feeds; their inboxes overloaded with spam and your competitors’ generic promotional messages. Each screaming for attention but going ignored.
Getting your brand and credibility consigned to prospects’ junk folders won’t win you business. In fact, it will lessen your chances. So, rise above the chatter.
If you’re gunning for big contracts, pay the respect your prospects deserve. Send them personalised communications. Messages that are relevant and considered. Schedule periodic campaign pieces and don’t overload them with irrelevant garbage.
With an open rate of 92%, direct mail marketing is still an effective B2B lead generator capable of delivering 4.4% response rate. Email can only muster 0.12% [Forbes, 2017]. In fact, one of our campaigns got a 61% response. Not too shabby eh?
But you don’t get these results by substituting weak mass email with a direct mail equivalent. You have to do it well – the way we do it.
Direct mail use is back on the up, and for good reason. It’s not something you want to exclude from your promotional mix. Ditch the scatter-gun approach. Get targeted. Get results.
Targeting 50 key accounts or your whole database? Give your direct mail campaigns Bigger Impact
If you want a decent response, direct mail campaigns take research and planning – Bigger Thinking. It takes dedication. If you’re going to get personal and be relevant, you need to understand customers pain points. Know your audience.
It’s tempting to want to send email and direct mail campaigns to all and sundry. We’ve all heard seasoned salespeople tell us it’s a numbers game. And to a degree it is. But sometimes, less is more. By spending time segmenting your database, you can reduce it to manageable numbers – prospects who’ve got a genuine need for your product and service – an addressable market. It will save you money in postage and sales team follow-up time too.
Direct mail isn’t an isolated tactic. It needs integrating with your other offline and online activities. That’s why we consider the whole customer journey. What’s the optimal frequency of messages, and what do we want prospects to think at each stage? What do we want them to do?
We can’t guarantee that prospects will be sitting at their desks waiting to tear open your direct mail. But your marketing messages will have resonance. They’ll be credible and relevant.
But this is B2B. It takes more than one mail drop, and you need more than one follow-up sales call to bag that lucrative contract. That can be tricky to coordinate. Your marketing activity and your sales team must work in sync. That’s why we get input from sales early on and establish a scheduled follow-up plan that won’t see them overstretched.
So, whether you want to target 50 high-value prospects or 500, try our Bigger Thinking philosophy to deliver Bigger Impact in your sales pipeline.
Database management and distribution list creation
Direct mail campaigns are reliant on clean data
At the heart of every successful direct mail campaign is a clean, managed database. Without accurate information, your messages won't reach your prospects. They'll never be delivered, read, or acted upon. In short – a waste of money.
Keeping your databases clean and current can be a gruelling job. Day-to-day tasks get in the way. There's always another priority. And let's be honest, who likes cleaning data?
But when you consider the average person changes jobs 10 to 15 times in a career, you start to understand how quickly your data can become obsolete. If you neglect your database, it becomes useless. Your customer relationship management system [CRM] becomes outmoded, and sales activity misses the mark.
As part of your broader direct mail marketing project, we'll help keep your lists relevant and useful. Our team will work with you to consolidate, cleanse and migrate old databases into your CRM and improve its structure. We'll help identify the most relevant members of decision-making units [DMUs], and advise on screening against the Mail Preference Service. Your mailing lists will be in great shape.
You can sit back, confident your direct mail campaigns will hit the mark.
Start conversations by astounding prospects
Your competitors might be contemplating direct mail marketing too. So, we’ll make sure your campaigns stand-out from their ‘vanilla’, manila envelopes.
Our creative team will transform your marketing messages into campaigns that’ll bypass the PA’s ‘filing system’, hit your prospects’ desks and make them sit up and pay attention.
Using innovative package designs to pique curiosity, to headlines and visuals that hammer home your offer, prospects will remember your brand.
Think outside the mailbox
It’s rare one hit opens the sales’ floodgates. That’s why we Think Bigger than stand-alone, one-off mailshots. To keep targets on the hook, you need a creative, multi-channel approach.
You might need to capture information from decision-makers before they become a marketing qualified lead. Sometimes, you’ll need to take prospects beyond paper. Leveraging our digital marketing skills, you could direct them to a personalised landing page. Show them gated content like an animation sequence to explain your working process and its benefits. Or you might want to share a whitepaper. The more complex, and higher perceived risk of purchase, the more we need to be creative and take a phased approach.
Think about when you’ve made a critical investment for your business. You weren’t convinced by a one-off sales leaflet, were you?
If you’re thinking direct mail, let’s leave sending unimaginative A4 laser-printed flyers to your competitors. Let our creative team make your brand stand out from the crowd – and stay out of the bin!
Tuffnells launched their European delivery service with the support of direct mail marketing
Intermedia launched Tuffnells’ European delivery service with a strong three-part direct mail campaign.
With significant website traffic spikes, enquiries and new business wins, the commercial director summed it up best. The campaign “…more than washed its face”.
Learn moreLet us give your direct mail marketing Bigger Impact
Sending repetitive, ill-conceived mailshots that plead for prospects’ time won’t get you new business. It will damage your reputation and waste your money.
Direct mail needs meticulous planning and creativity for your brand to be distinguished. If you want decision makers to read your messages and act upon them, talk to Intermedia.
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The Quays, MediaCityUK,
Manchester, M50 3UB
