How to Supercharge Your Direct Mail (Hint: Integrate)

On this episode of The Whole Idea Podcast by DCG ONE, learn how integration with digital assets is transforming direct mail. Hear valuable insight into how the venerable marketing approach is transforming into something much less traditional. Join host Greg Oberst with guest Ben Allen, the managing director of The Agency at DCG ONE. Listen for tips on integrating digital assets into your direct mail campaign, capturing data and optimizing your campaigns, as well as best practices for messaging, design, and testing.  

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Air date: August 28, 2024

Transcript: The Whole Idea Podcast

Episode 10: How to Supercharge Your Direct Mail (Hint: Integrate)   

Greg:

It is one of the longest running forms of traditional marketing, but lately it's packing a whole new punch that for many brands is driving record engagement and higher ROI. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Whole Idea Podcast by DCG ONE. I'm Greg Oberst. Today we're going to get a primer on direct mail and integrated direct mail from our chief in-house direct mail expert Ben Allen, a DCG ONE executive vice president, and the managing director here at the agency. Welcome, Ben.

Ben:

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here and talk more about direct mail. 

Greg:

Yeah. This is a hot topic around our hallways here and with a lot of marketers because it just seems to have renewed energy, direct mail. Let's talk first about what's driving much of that excitement, this movement to integrate.

Ben:

Yeah. I mean, it really is changing the, the direct mail landscape has evolved quite a bit over the recent years. I think a lot of times people think about direct mail in this kind of old school way where it was just batch and blast or spray and pray, and you would send out direct mail and expect that response. But, you know, consumers are demanding a lot more these days. And candidly, as you mentioned at the, at the outset, they're demanding kind of an integrated direct mail approach. And we want to be meeting our clients and, and customers where they're at. And that might be through direct mail. Yes. But that direct mail should be integrated with other forms and different marketing channels that are also online.

Greg:

Right. And there are a couple of different forces at play with, well, there are many forces at play with integrating direct mail, but let's talk about the audience, and the demographics and the shifting and evolving nature of their habits.

Ben:

Yeah. Ironically, I think, um, well, some might think that direct mail is dead, customers and consumers are still interacting with their direct mail on a daily basis. I mean, it's, it's a surprising stat even to me. But 98% of the US consumers are going to their mailbox on a daily basis. And of that 98%, 77% of those are taking the time to sort it the day they get it. So there's, that's a lot of volume and a lot of people that are still taking time to read and digest their direct mail on a daily basis.

Greg:

We're also seeing statistics down to Gen Z and the millennial level. They're shifting habits Yeah. That are driving some greater engagement and,

Ben:

Yep. Yeah, I mean, there's, uh, I think there's a, a preconceived notion that millennials and Gen Z are kind of turned off by direct mail, but it's quite the opposite. The USPS, the US Postal Service has done a lot of research and studies, and they've actually shown that, you know, millennials and Gen Z like direct mail, they like the personal nature of it, and they really trust it more than they do some of their online marketing channels that they're being exposed to. So while the, the notion is Gen Zs are only, you know, kind of looking at their screens, there's a great need for it, and I think a great desire for both direct mail as well as digital channels.

Greg:

Well, there's this phenomenon with younger users as well. Digital fatigue, which is kind of ironic with a demographic that's grown up in the digital realm. They're a little bit tired of it sometimes. And that certainly helps direct mail.

Ben:

It does. Yeah. I think, you know, the pandemic showed us a lot, and I think there was obviously a lot of great things that came out of <laugh>, not the pandemic, but, um, advances in technology and, and, you know, we're, we're very much channel agnostic at DCG ONE, but I think we've seen, and there have been studies that have shown that, you know, um, there is screen fatigue and, and, you know, quote unquote death scrolling that's out there. And I think marketers too, there was a stat, you know, it was like 76% of B2B decision makers were saying that, you know, their buyers are less likely to engage with digital channels. So I think that's a big stat when you see that much and that high of a percentage where people are kind of fatigued on screens, I think it, it, it lends itself and it leads into an opening for different types of printed materials like direct mail.

Greg:

And on the marketing side and, and data collection side, uh, we've noticed a trend toward what has been a wild west third party cookie world for, for a few years now. And people want better data out of It.

Ben:

Yep. To cookie or to not cookie. Right. I think, you know, you've seen some web browsers kind of step up Firefox, Safari, with Apple. They've really kind of put their foot down and said, you know, we're being done with third party cookies. You know, Google said they were, and it was supposed to be 20 22, 20 23, 20 24. Now they're saying, well, we're gonna take a step back and not end third party cookies, but we don't know yet. And I think, you know, consumers are continuing to push for more privacy, more data privacy and security, especially with the world in which we're living. So I think it's, it's to be determined, but regardless, uh, I think marketers need to be kind of looking at all different channels that are out there versus just digital, because we don't know what the world will be in front of us. And, uh, I think a lot of that data that has historically been available to digital marketers might not be there or might not be there in the same way in the future.

Greg:

And that's where integrated direct mail can step in and fill some of that data void. That's because of its ability to hit so many different touch points. So, but let's go into that now a little bit, a little bit deeper about what integration actually means with direct mail.

Ben:

Yeah. We see integrated direct mail being, um, really a combination of integrated touchpoints and inside of any direct mail campaign. So I think, again, as I mentioned earlier, in the past, we would send out, or a marketer would send out a direct mail piece and just kind of cross their fingers and hope that they went to the website, called in, went to the store. I think what we're seeing now is we need to be meeting people where they're at, which is online. Even though there's screen fatigue out there, people are still using their screens. So for us, anytime we're promoting a direct mail campaign with a client, we want to be advocating for some sort of digital touchpoint or touchpoints. And that could be personalized QR codes, which were a great way to tailor a direct mail piece and send them to a relevant personalized online landing page.

Ben:

It could be the use of, um, USPS has what's called Informed delivery, which is a great, um, email tool that the post office sends out each, each day. And there's actually close to 63 million users of informed delivery. So 63 million US consumers are getting this email. And of that, it's close to six, over 60% are opening that email every day. And what that email shows is kind of what's going to be in their mailbox every day. But from a marketer's point of view, you get the opportunity, if you're sending out that direct mail piece that's going to be arriving that day, you actually get to send, uh, and promote a little banner ad in that, which is another, you know, integrated touchpoint for that DM piece. And that banner ad can then go to your personalized landing page or wherever is the most relevant for the consumer. So those are a couple of different areas where you can integrate the direct mail. There's also opportunities to send, you know, corresponding emails that we can trigger based on when a direct mail piece is scanned at the local post office. So the example would be, my mail is going to be arriving today or tomorrow. Well, I can actually send an email that exact day to know kind of that it's, or to, to promote that it's going to be in the mail. So it's kind of a, a one two punt that you can do with the direct mail.

Greg:

So with all of that, you can start to see the potential for targeting and personalization that comes with this, that, you know, techniques that we know to be really effective as opposed to generic pieces that arrive.

Ben:

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's where, you know, with, when you talk about personalization, really using those personalized landing pages can be a great benefit. And when we talk about personalized landing pages, it's not just sending a customer or prospect to a generic landing page, but since we have such rich data from the direct mail list, so we know where they live, we might know their household income presence of children, what industry they're in, we can tailor that landing page in a couple of ways. First and foremost, we can do the simple things like tailor and personalize it with their name, but then we can also be more relevant, and I kind of call it subtle relevancy, to have images that are kind of tailored to the individual. We can also pre-populate all of the form fields if it's a request for information. And while it seems simple nowadays, that pre-population can really help increase the conversion rate because people are busy and people are lazy in a lot of cases, and don't want to take the time. We included to do some of those simple steps. So we've actually seen some of our campaigns have had a lift of like 50% conversion rate when you simply pre-populate the form fields for an individual. So some of those things inside of a personalized landing page can really make a campaign much more powerful.

Greg:

Direct mail certainly isn't working in isolation anymore. 

Ben: 

Correct. 

Greg: 

And you can see the potential now for more engagement and more influence through a customer journey doesn't just stop at the mailbox.

Ben:

Yeah. I think importantly too, you know, there's a better experience for the customer, and conversely, there's a richer, better analytics experience for the marketer. Again, in the past, you didn't have the real time visibility into your direct mail campaigns. Many times you're waiting for six, eight weeks, if not more, to really analyze the results through match backs and more manual processes. But through some of the personalization techniques and the technology platforms that we have available to us with direct mail, we can now see real time who's responding, or even who's visiting some of the landing pages or scanning those personalized QR codes for more rapid follow up. So you're not even, you know, not only seeing who's responding, but you can also see, huh, I saw that Greg went to this landing page, but he didn't quite take the action to hit submit. Maybe I'll send him an email, or maybe I can send him another follow up postcard in a couple of weeks. So just a lot more real and near time, uh, analytics that are allowing marketers to be smarter about their customers.

Greg:

Right. We've seen studies and our own clients can testify as you, as you touched on, when DM is integrated with digital response rates, website visits, leads all go up sometimes dramatically. But let's toot our own horn for just a minute here at DCG one, we're of course, big believers in direct mail, but we're also in a unique position to execute integrated direct mail for our clients. 

Ben:

Yeah. We really are, I think, um, having been here now over 15 years and have had, having had experience in working at other agencies, what's such a benefit for us here at DCG ONE is the fact that we can do it all in-house, and it's a turnkey service from the upfront direct marketing strategy through the execution and analytics. You really don't get that at, at a lot of places like we do here. And we've seen it be a big benefit for our direct marketing clients because they're getting the benefit of the speed, the expertise, as well as the execution, which you just can't get other places. We really kind of look at it as orchestrating the overarching DM campaign. And a campaign, I think in our mind is, is lasting anywhere from a month to quarterly to annual. We really want to see that first and foremost as the approach that client should take.

Ben:

I would note that I think a lot of clients who want to dip their toes into the water with direct mail think, well, let me try it. But I think the, the caution there is you can't just try it once, and if it doesn't perform quite as well as you thought that you give up on it. Because direct mail is all about timing, as is a lot of marketing efforts. But direct mail in particular is all about continuity and consistency. And I think that's where we see the most success is when campaigns and clients have the, the, you know, kind of the willingness to try it and keep it going quarter over quarter, um, just to make sure that they're getting the most out of their, their DM um, efforts. But we really do take kind of this orchestration of a campaign to heart where we look and work with our clients to kind of build that upfront testing strategy.

Ben:

So we kind of dive into what are the objectives, what do they want to be looking at from a KPI perspective? And from there, when we understand that and learn that we can then work with our internal creative teams to start developing form factor ideas, creative messaging tests, things along those lines. And then the benefit in where we are as DC G ONE is we can walk down the halls and start working with our in-house print production teams, our mailing services teams, our data processing teams here at DCG ONE really to kind of understand and get them involved and kind of what are the, the, the campaign attributes? What are we trying to do from a creative standpoint? Many times as a creative, when I worked at other agencies, we would come up with what we thought were the, the coolest, best ideas from a direct mail format standpoint, only to find out that it was going to cost us twice as much to mail because the print costs were different, the postage wasn't what we thought.

Ben:

We can really kind of have some of those assurances here based on the, the experts that we have in house. So once we kind of find those ideal form factors, we know what the mailing's going to look like, we go print and we execute. And then we've got the great analytics and data team here to really kind of be looking at that campaign optimization. And as I said earlier, we can be looking at that in much more of a real time fashion. And we take all of that data and then we really kind of just la the rinse, repeat, and start to kind of look at, well, what can we test next? Because again, that's, that's the whole premise of DM, is you're never done. You're always continuing to learn and continuing to test just to make your campaign performance better.

Greg:

Well, of course, you know what this all speaks to, right? The whole idea <laugh>, it does this concept of infusing strategy, analytics, technology and, and creativity into every project. Integrated direct mail included, of course. Alright, let's, let's go back and review the fundamentals of direct mail then. You talk about this 40/40/20 rule. What is that?

Ben:

Yeah, the 40/40/20 rule is a, an kind of a tried and true direct mail rule of thumb where you really want to be putting 40% of the emphasis of a campaign to the audience or the list 40% of the campaign to the offer itself. And then, you know, cover your ears, creative types, but 20% to the creative or the actual execution. And I think the premise behind it, and it's, it is tried and true, and it has worked for many years, is because you could have the best creative in the world and, you know, forgive me, Greg, you could have the best copy in the world, but if you're sending it to someone who isn't part of the target audience or isn't interested in what you're selling, they're not going to respond. So really kind of focusing on the target audience in the list and that offer, because that's what direct mail is all about, is inciting some sort of engagement through an offer.

Ben:

That's kind of what's most important. I think, going back to it, when we talk about the audience or the list, there's lots of different opportunities that are out there these days, kind of diff uh, we look at it in, in different buckets. You know, when you look at lists or if you look at, um, targeting or data with, within direct mail, there might be a what's called a house file, which is what a customer has, and it's just they're customers that they've built over time. And they want to go to market on an ongoing basis. But then outside of that, you have different levels of prospect files, and we've seen a lot of really good success from what we call modeled files. So that's working with, you know, modeling partners, which we have really great ones of where they're, um, building either response or conversion models based on attributes or actual customers that the client might have.

Ben:

And what we've seen is through really rich, not only demographic data, but behavioral and psychographic data, you can really find lots of great prospects for your, your, um, particular product by using those different model files. If you don't have the ability to, to work with model files, there's lots of good, what are called subscriber lists that are out there. So say we're trying to create a direct mail campaign for a travel client, and we want them to kind of take action. Well, you can rent a list from Conde Nast Traveler or, you know, different, um, different, uh, subscriber or magazines that are out there where you know that there's going to be interest and you can layer on top of that different, you know, what we call selects to make sure that you're honing in on the, the ideal audience for you. So it could be household income, geography, behavioral interests, things like that, where you're kind of, again, narrowing the audience, but you're doing it in a way where you're goanna be talking to the most relevant audience. And I think that the final one, you know, the final list opportunity is more kind of what we call compiled files. And those are, you know, um, they have less attributes or kind of less specificity to them, but if you've got a retail location or you're looking more specifically at a geographic location, those can be really good low cost, but, um, impactful lists that are out there

Greg:

And you give 40% to the offer?

Ben:

You do really. Yep. I think a lot of, you know, brand marketers are looking at generating awareness and they really just want the name or their brand out there, but from a direct marketer standpoint, you really want to incite some sort of engagement, right? You're trying to create a call to action that has, uh, some sort of reason for the, for the recipient to call in or to go to the website or to go to the landing page. And the offer is crucial for that. If you don't have a compelling offer, there might not be a reason or might not be a need in the, uh, prospect's mind to, to take that action. So there's different types of offers that go into kind of that 40% on the 40/40/20 rule as it leads to offers. And it could be simply lead generation. You might just want someone to raise their hand, take the time to go to that hopefully a personalized landing page and say, you know what?

Ben:

I'm really interested in information on this product. It might be a B2B service, it might be software. They want to, you know, you want that person to kind of take that action through a lead generation offer. It might be a direct order. You want them to take that action, so you might be giving them some sort of discount, um, or a a dollars off, it could be continuity, some sort of monthly subscriber. So you give them a free month, or it could be, you know, traffic building through different discounts, uh, things along those lines. And finally, there's a lot of direct marketing that's all about fundraisers or nonprofits, and those are a big, uh, drivers to have some sort of donation. So you could be, um, adding value or, uh, matching a donation. And that's a big offer play. Uh, when it comes to the, the 40/40/20 rule and what it means for offers

Greg:

Now 20% for creative and message isn't, isn't completely insignificant.

Ben:

It's not nothing by any means, by any means. 

Greg:

What are the considerations there?

Ben:

Yeah, that 20% for creative and messaging, you know, I think nowadays with new digital print technology, there's a green field when it comes to creating smarter, more relevant, better creative. And I think what we are seeing is you have to, as I mentioned earlier, have some, you know, kind of subtle, relevant personalization. So, um, you know, don't assume that one version of a direct mail piece works for everyone, take the time and use the technology we have at our disposal to create different versions or to create unique versions for individuals based on who they are as an individual, as a family, or as a business owner or executive. I think, you know, with DM two, and when we talk about, uh, creative, the messaging is really, really important. And I think one thing to note is, you know, the copy and when you're talking to someone in a DM piece compared to a brand piece, as I mentioned earlier, with the offer, you want them to take some sort of action.

Ben:

You're trying to incite some sort of action and act, uh, activity. So it's a little bit more over the top in, in some cases. And I think some traditional copywriters in some cases are kind of like, wait, what? This is, this seems a little bit too informal, and I'm really kind of, am I asking for this? It's okay to ask and it's okay to be more direct with the consumer because again, you want them to take that action. So having that, that direct mail copy that really is focused on a call to action and making the, the reader and the recipient know that you want them to do something, that's okay. I think the last thing I would say as it pertains to, to creative is, you know, depending upon your, your brand and level of brand awareness, you might not need big fancy form factors or formats as we would call them, to have someone kind of take interest and take action. We've got really large clients that use simple formats like self-mailers or oversized postcards, but that's enough because they know the recipient's going to know and trust their brand and kind of take that action. So really, I think what it comes down to is testing and testing the creative, testing, the different offers, and testing the different lists and opportunities that you have out there as it all pertains to that 40/40/20 rule to see what works best for you.

Greg:

I'm one of those people, and I think I'm probably common in this respect, but I will at the very least, skim just about every piece of direct mail that I receive looking for something relevant to me. So what are some of the best practices then for skimmers, like me? 

Ben:

Yeah. You, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, recipients aren't reading their direct mail, just like recipients aren't reading their email, they're skimming it. There's a stat out there that I think it's, you know, an average of five seconds is the time that a recipient will take before they decide, I'm going to keep this or I'm going to throw it into the recycling bin. So you really have to kind of have something that's going to lead them in quickly. I think one thing that we look at from a best practices standpoint is if you're using some sort of what we would call like a letter package, make sure that, you know, you take advantage of that envelope that's out there. A lot of times we do what, uh, what's called a teaser line, and that's really kind of like akin to a subject line of an email.

Ben:

… you know, lure that customer, that prospective customer in with an in enticing offer or something that gets them to open it up. It, when you think about kind of best practices with direct mail too, and different letter formats and letter packages. Letter packs are traditionally the most successful format that's out there with direct mail. But ironically, I think I'm even surprised by this, the way that consumers consume that letter pack is a little bit different than I'm even used to. The way that studies have shown it is that the letter inside of a letter pack, if it includes a letter, a brochure, and maybe what's called a buck slip, the letter's actually the first thing that's read, I'm of the mindset sometimes where I was like, oh, I'm gonna read that brochure. It's fancy, there's great pictures on it, but the consumer, the, the majority of consumers are taking time to read or skim that letter that they get.

Ben:

And what they do is they read the top little portion. Sometimes it's called the Johnson Box, and then they'll skim right down to a PS or a postscript line. So it's another best practice is any sort of DM letter that you have out there really should look to have some sort of PS in the, in the copy, because that's where the reader's going to go. So if they then take the time, they'll go back and skim through the body copy of the letter. Then after they've read the letter, that's when they might go to the brochure. So it's a critical kind of piece to it, but making sure that you have a compelling letter is the most important part of any sort of letter pack.

Greg:

So letter packs are popular, if not the most popular form of direct mail. What, what are some other though popular formats that we see often? 

Ben:

Yeah, we're seeing a lot of, you know, good self-mailers that are out there. And I think using different print techniques nowadays to kind of stand out in the mail or have some sort of tactile difference. So there's different coatings or treatments called soft touch. They're spot UVs and spot varnishes that really kind of make the, the pieces pop and stand out. The good thing with those two is they can be more cost effective, they can be a little bit less expensive than letter packs can be. Conversely though, you don't have some of the privacy or the personalization that you might get on a letter pack. So, uh, self-mailers, oversized postcards, we affectionately refer to those as BAPs or big-ass postcards. That's another great way to have a little bit more real estate or space inside of a piece. But you can get up to nearly 6 by 11 inches and still mail inside of what we would call, you know, standard class marketing rates that give you, um, a, a good low-cost postage rate, but a lot of, you know, kind of real estate to get your marketing message out there.

Greg:

Alright. Zooming out to a higher level of projects that we take on for clients here at DCG ONE, what are some of the considerations that we think about as far as approach and testing it are concerned?

Ben:

Yeah, there's so many different things that you can test. We have really good insights and the ability to have near and real time analytics.

Greg:

Therein lies the strength of integrated direct mail especially. 

Ben:

Yeah. But we want to be looking and, and making good recommendations on our client's behalf to, to do the right types of tests. You know, we don't want to just be testing for testing's sake, but we really kind of look at four different kinds of elements to any good test or recommendation. You know, first and foremost, are we going to have an impact? You know, what are the results that we can expect if we're to run some sort of ab or multivariate testing with a campaign and what's that expected return on investment? You know, second would be level of confidence we're not mailing and a lot of our clients aren't mailing the quantities that they used to. So we really need to be kind of looking at what level of confidence we're going to get. And that might be limiting the number of tests that we are wanting to do in sort of inside of any given campaign, but that's okay, as long as we're getting pretty good confidence from what we see that those campaign results are going to be.

Ben:

Third, I think importantly these days it's ease. You know, we don't winna be making testing recommendations that are going to be causing the creatives to pull their hair out, our clients to pull their hair out, people to be getting just kind of so frustrated with the campaign that it's caused so much complexity that that test is kind of, you know, um, more, more work than it's worth. So how simple is that test going to be to implement and what is the time to market going to be? And I think fourth and almost most importantly, you know, nearly all the time is what's the cost going to be? I think testing is so important from a direct marketing standpoint because it allows you to continuously improve, drive a higher ROI and a lower cost of investment. But you need to know if those costs are going to be upfront. And if you're like any marketer that I'm talking to, their budgets generally aren't going up there, if anything going down. So how can we recommend and make smart testing strategies that might not even cost any money? I mean, I think there's lots of things that we can do to split apart a direct mail campaign in a smarter, more elegant way that is allowing for test visibility and ways to optimize a campaign that don't need to cost an arm and a leg.

Greg:

Well, I appreciate any testing or campaign that prevents me from pulling my hair out so <laugh>, so thank you very much.

Ben:

Of course.

Greg:

Okay. Ben, what are you hearing from our own clients in-house here when it comes to integrated direct mail and the results they're seeing?

Ben:

Yeah, I think, you know, what we're seeing, which has been eye-opening for us is that year over year, some of our larger enterprise clients, including financial services, healthcare companies, as well as travel clients, they're actually increasing their direct mail investment. So to me and to us here at DCG one, we're seeing that that's only, you know, proof that direct mail is working, especially when it's working in that integrated direct mail fashion through different types of touchpoint and not just direct mail on its own. So the power is really there, and now is the time to, to put, you know, more gas in the fire.

Greg:

Ben, this has been really insightful and fascinating. Thanks so much for sharing your integrated expertise on the Whole Idea podcast.

Ben:

Love being here. Thanks for having me, Greg.

Greg:

My key takeaways: 

Integration with digital tools brings more fuel for the customer journey, more touch points and opportunities for engagement, conversion and better. ROI. 

The perception that you can't get data and optimize fast with direct mail is now something you can officially dismiss. There are more opportunities than ever for real- and near-time analytics on campaign performance. 

And when it comes to messaging, target your audience and personalize your message. Include a strong offer, make sure it pops and write a strong call to action that is be clear about what you want your customer to do next. 

My thanks again to DCG ONE's Ben Allen. If you have questions for Ben or would like to chat with him about direct mail or integrated direct mail, write to us today at podcast at DCG ONE. Thanks very much for listening. Whole Idea Podcast producers are Mandy DiCesare and Kelcie Brewer. 

I'm Greg Oberst. Watch this channel for our next podcast and more expertise, insight, and inspiration for whole Idea marketing. 

Take care.