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Direct Mail Marketing for Small Business

Small businesses often struggle to gain people’s trust in the beginning. It can be complicated to get prospective customers acquainted with your brand. Possibilities are that they are already using the products and services of some other company. Therefore, you have a bigger challenge to get them to use your products or services instead. Why should they change what they have already been doing for a long time? Because you’re better.

The key to smart marketing plans is to prove that you are better. You need to deploy some robust marketing strategies to accomplish your goals—everything from digital marketing to small posters outside shops. One of the best ways to reach out to your prospects is through direct mail marketing. There’s nothing better than sending a physical item that they can see and touch—hence making them think about you. Unlike social media ads and emails, direct mail is tangible and can be felt. You might not realize the power of tangibility until you use it.

Direct mail can also help you keep in constant contact with your existing customers. Even though your customer base is small currently, you need to take care of it. Sending direct mail items to appreciate them and offer some amazing discounts can help you get repeat business and build brand image. Hence, direct mail for small businesses is the perfect way to go.

There are several direct mailing services that you can use to print and mail postcards, letters, and cheques. Next-Day Flyers allow you to produce and deliver your mail in just one day, whereas Modern Postcard can help you create customized direct mail campaigns. Similarly, Mail Shark enables marketers to create targeted mailing lists, and Vistaprint lets you design your own postcards. Therefore, all business mail services have something great to offer to you. PostGrid offers all-in-one solutions wherein you can design, print, create mailing lists, mail, and track altogether.

In this blog, we will understand the various benefits of direct mail for small businesses, how to conduct a successful direct mail campaign, and how to select the right print and mail solution provider.

Direct Mail Gets More Attention and Has a Higher Brand Recall Rate

Large businesses can afford playing around with different types of marketing channels and might not be affected by the failure of one. But as a small business owner, it is no game. You need to carefully select a marketing channel that best suits your needs and is sure to catch your target audience’s attention. Direct mail has those qualities. The brand recall rate generated by direct mail is 29% higher than any digital marketing channel. Hence, it is obvious that people will identify and know you better through direct mail. Plus, its tangible and creative nature is extremely attention-grabbing.

There is Lesser Competition in Direct Mail

One of the greatest reasons why direct mail advertising for small businesses is a success is that it faces less competition. Today, most marketers are focused on email marketing, social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, and other digital marketing channels. These things have overwhelmed people, and they are likely to skip through any online ad that they see. However, when it comes to direct mail, people are inclined to pay better attention to it as mail reaches their homes directly and not on their screens. With less competition and high response rates, you can nail your direct mail marketing campaigns easily.

Garner Emotional Responses

Direct mail for small and medium businesses also works due to its capability to form emotional connections with the target audience. You can drive people to complete your call-to-action only when you can connect with them emotionally. For example, nonprofits use real-life stories to raise donations. Others leverage pictures of real people using their products or services in their direct mail items to spark interest among the audience. Things of emotional appeal can always work in your favour, and direct mail helps you create that appeal.

Moreover, getting something in the mail is nostalgic to most people. They tend to be excited to see what they have got in the mail. Such responses are valuable, and you can use them to strengthen your relationships and increase engagement.

Direct Mail Has a Long Shelf-Life

You might not have the budget to spend a lot on marketing every single week or even month. Hence, you need a durable form of marketing—something that stays for a long time. Direct mail definitely has a longer shelf life than any other marketing channel. Nobody views display ads for more than a minute or so. But direct mail is read for a long time, shared with family and friends, and stays in the house or office for more days than you can think of.

Some people file your marketing postcards and letters for later use. Some simply pin them to their boards. The trick is to include an interesting offer that they are tempted to avail of. This way, your mail will not be thrown out until and unless the person has already used up the offer, which is exactly what you want.

Direct Mail Is a Cost-Effective Marketing Channel

Again, small businesses cannot invest in expensive marketing strategies. Furthermore, not all expensive marketing strategies turn out to be useful. So, the only smart option is to find something useful and cost-effective. It doesn’t matter what budget you currently have. You can always use direct mail marketing for small businesses.

Direct mail is the most budget-friendly marketing form. Though it used to be expensive before, the story has completely changed in today’s time. Now, you can automate the entire process, hence saving a lot of time, effort, and money. There is no minimum amount of money that you should spend on a direct mail campaign. You can spend as little as possible and still get excellent results with smart targeting and personalization.

Canada Post offers several postal discounts while mailing in bulk. Hence, even if you decide to conduct a large-scale campaign, you can still keep your marketing costs under budget.

Test and Track

Direct mail for small businesses should be all about finding out what works the best and using it. It requires you to test and track. Usually, testing is done before conducting a large-scale campaign. However, it can be just as useful for small-volume campaigns. The knowledge you receive from sending out test mail is impeccable.

You can divide your target market into two halves and send out two different types of mail. This way, you can decide which type performs better and should be used in your future campaigns. In order to track results, don’t forget to use trackable features like QR codes, pURLs, dedicated contact numbers, and redeemable discount codes.

Design Something Out of the Box

Out of all the direct mail tips for small businesses, the one that will always work is creativity. People appreciate something that is completely out of the box and unique. You don’t have to spend a lot of money and create direct mail items that are too much in the face. Even an outstanding headline with relevant imagery on a small-size postcard can work wonders—if you have done it right. Focus on how your direct mail looks and what message it sends when a person first views it.

Direct mail allows you to be creative, so take the opportunity to create something pleasing and eye-catching. You can experiment with the colors, offers, layouts, copy, and more.

Do’s and Don’ts of Direct Mail For Small Business

Read below the basic yet most important direct mail tips for small businesses to do it right and garner more and more responses.

Do’s

Conduct targeted marketing. With the help of Canada Post’s SmartMail Marketing, you can target certain neighbourhoods and postal codes that are “customer-rich” areas.
Always segment your mailing lists. Determine your customer persona and use the related demographics and build segmented and highly targeted mailing lists. This step can help you mail to less but relevant people.
Personalize your direct mail pieces whenever possible. It increases your chances of conversions considerably as people are more likely to be impressed by personalized mail than general mail.
Focus on your design. It should include all the elements of direct mail design, such as the CTA, offer, and more. Make it eye-catching and appealing.
Automate direct mailing. PostGrid’s print and mail API can help you conduct direct mail marketing campaigns without any manual effort.

Don’ts

Don’t forget to mention your contact details on every mail piece.
Don’t include a CTA without first adding an offer. They should both complement each other.
Don’t wait for people to respond; always follow up after your mail reaches someone.

Things to Consider While Selecting a Print and Mail Solution Provider

While you can conduct a direct mail marketing campaign in-house, it is not advisable. Who would want to get their small team engaged with stuffing envelopes and affixing stamps? These things are easy yet extremely time-consuming and can increase costs. Hence, you should find a print and mail solution provider and automate your campaigns.

While selecting one, marketers should check for a few things like whether they have an in-house designing team, their rates, mailing options, and more. PostGrid’s print and mail API empowers you to design your own mail items through pre-built templates that you can customize. Moreover, the rates are all-inclusive, and there are several postal discounts included.

Direct mail marketing for small businesses is a blessing. It levels up your marketing strategies along with keeping your marketing costs low. Furthermore, with PostGrid, you can further reduce your costs without compromising on the quality. You can yield great results with no manual effort and added efficiency.