Talking about direct mail, or as some people might call it slow mail, in this day and age seems like a joke. After all, why would you take the trouble of sending information to people through direct mail when you can send it to them via email? Email is probably a hundred times more convenient and it saves a lot of time. In most cases, sending an email makes complete sense. But direct mail has its own merits too. It’s especially relevant in business and here are a few reasons why.
Guaranteed Inbox Delivery
With emails, there is a real chance that your newsletter wouldn’t reach the prospective reader’s inbox in the first place. There are several ways your emails can be relegated to the spam folder even if you get the email ids through legitimate subscriptions. If your content is unimpressive enough, the user might deem it spam.
With direct mail, there is no such risk. Very few people actually use direct mail for marketing today so your mail would be one of the few marketing pieces to reach the target audience. These audiences are also already converted customers that have already made a purchase. After all, you won’t get a customer’s home address as easily as you might get their email address.
Getting Attention
The novelty of getting marketing newsletters in mail would catch and hold your customer’s attention. Yes, people have a very limited online attention-span and would most likely ignore your emails if they don’t immediately grab their attention. However, this doesn’t really apply to normal, direct mail. Here people will pay attention and read your newsletter or mail. In many cases, they’ll read it all the way through even if the content is only mildly interesting.
Your email has to compete with a lot when it enters the target audience’s inbox. It needs to compete with similar marketing emails, work-related emails, personal emails, etc. In essence, the target inbox is always going to be crowded. But if you send your newsletter or promotional material through direct mail, especially during the time when people don’t receive their bills, you’ll catch their attention immediately.
Personal Touch
Emails can be impersonal and distant. It’s very difficult to connect with the customer through emails simply because it’s very difficult to catch the customer’s attention through emails. You don’t really face this impediment with direct mails. They’re a window into the private life of your customers. You’re reaching them in their homes, delivering your sales pitch directly to them when they’re not distracted by hundreds of different things.
Naturally, to avoid being tossed away, your promotional material needs to be relevant, have content that would impress, and a solid call to action. Your promotional material needs to be just as impressive, if not more impressive than your emails. That’s because your customer is paying keener attention to it and will notice the flaws quickly. There are several other advantages of direct mail that you won’t find in emails. For example, people are more likely to trust direct mail than email. So, it’s a good idea to use this mode for marketing once in a while.
