Innovative Direct Mail Marketing Ideas That You Must Consider

What is direct mail and what are its benefits?

Direct mail (also called advertising mail, letterbox drop, mailbox, or admail) is any physical correspondence you send to people via postal mail. The aim is to introduce your business to prospects and turn them into customers. It is a great channel to use both for B2C and DTC marketing and has its own impressive share of benefits compared to digital methods. There are a number of reasons why direct mail is effective.

Direct mail can be targeted precisely. One simple way to do that is the Every Door Direct Mail service by USPS (in the U.S.), which lets you send promotional mail to customers in different areas. As the service uses the USPS’s recipient base, you won’t have to search for people and their addresses yourself. Another way is to use the mailing lists you collected yourself.  

It has a high ROI. 84% of marketers think that direct mail provides the highest ROI of any channel they use.

The results can be tracked. Here’s how: сreate separate contact information for each mail campaign. If your goal is to get people to visit your website, create a dedicated landing page or UTM tags and point to it in your mail. To make the process easier for your subscribers, add QR codes or shorten the links. If you want to get calls — dedicate a unique phone number to use just for that. Then, when someone visits that landing page or calls that unique number, you’ll know they came from a successful direct mail campaign. 

It’s impossible to end up in the spam folder. An email can go to spam and the recipient won’t see it, but this can not happen with direct mail. It will always be put in the mailbox, and the owner will see it together with the rest of the mail. 

There is no need to opt in for direct mail. To legally send promotional emails to someone, the recipient needs to first give their permission for that. Businesses need to ensure double opt-in, disclose their privacy policy, etc. There is no national-level prohibition (in the U.S.) to send direct mail advertising, though.

Direct mail works great with a digital marketing strategy. As part of a multi-channel strategy, it complements marketing efforts and can also be a pathway to digital channels (like social media and a website).

Direct mail is less common. With fewer marketers sending it, it makes it a rarity in a prospect’s inbox and something to get excited about. Especially if you make it more personal by adding a handwritten stamp or writing the recipient’s address by hand.

Direct mail is tangible and it sticks around. A $10 off coupon for a local pub or a gift card for a flower shop, an invitation to the new shopping mall in the neighborhood, or a sticker with a useful checklist. There is no need for a brick-and-mortar location — it can be a discount to an e-commerce store, too. When people get this type of mail, they will likely stick it to their fridge or leave it on their table.

It increases brand awareness. In the example above, people eventually remember and use the brand’s offer. But what if they don’t? Will the mail just lay there, and be eventually forgotten? Not necessarily. They may not have a use for it now, but they saw your logo, your brand name, and what you do. And if the day comes that your mail recipients need something you offer, they might just visit your site and buy it. 

Creative direct mail marketing ideas to help you promote your business

Postcards

One of the simplest things to send is a postcard with contact information and a CTA (call-to-action). 

Companies like VistaPrint, MOO, 48HourPrint offer direct mail design templates to choose from and customize. The postcards can be made in many different sizes, with different types of paper, and in a wide range of colors. Some companies also provide direct mail services — they not only print it but send it to your customers on your behalf.

Coupons (or coupon codes)

89% of millennial shoppers in the U.S. agreed that they would try a new brand if they got a coupon or a discount for it. Coupons also make it easy to track the return on investment of a direct mail campaign.

They can be put on a postcard, printed on a hand tag attached to a product sample, on a flier, or on other printed materials.

Birthday or anniversary discounts

Offering discounts or promo codes for a customer’s birthday or an anniversary is a good way to foster brand loyalty and remain top of mind. It can be as simple as a postcard or a separate printed piece added to a catalog, brochure, or another type of mail. 

The timing is important for this kind of promotion since you want your postcard to arrive right on the day of the event or as close to it as possible. Especially if you add a time limit for the discount to be claimed.

Brochures with detailed information

If you’d like to give more in-depth information, consider sending brochures instead of postcards. Thanks to their format, it’s easy to add photos, icons, illustrations, product guides, menu listings, and other things that don’t fit on a postcard. You can see a brochure template’s front and back sides in the slider below:

Interactive mail

Interactive mail is another one of great direct mail campaign ideas. As the name suggests, it is meant for the recipient to interact with it. It calls for physical action by interrupting readers’ train of thought and bringing their attention to the mail. 

Some examples of interactive mail include:

• Giant stickers (that may contain an emergency shutdown checklist for a boiler, for example).
• A ring sizer (good option for companies that sell jewelry).
• Free product samples or testers (i.e., perfumed paper slips, shampoo testers, etc.).
• Lumpy mail (mailers filled with something to make them bulge, not flat).
• Scratch-off (an option for a coupon).
• 3D glasses or a magnifying glass (along with a postcard or a brochure with some of the information hidden, where the 3D glasses or the magnifying glass’ role is to reveal the hidden to the user).
• AR prints (images or text that move or become 3D when viewed through a smartphone’s camera).

Catalogs

Catalogs are a great choice since they let you demonstrate multiple products. Some of the oldest mail-order catalogs in Europe and North America existed since the end of the 19th century (i.e., Thonet (released in 1859), Kastner & Öhler (released in 1885), Sears (released in 1888), Spiegel, Freemans (released in 1905)).

Modern companies that actively use mailed catalogs include Oriflame, Lands’ End, Lillian Vernon, and others.

Free samples

Free product samples are an effective and widely used way of marketing that introduces potential customers to the business. They have a number of benefits for both companies and their clients:

• People can try products without leaving their homes.
• Product samples remove the price barrier — samples let people try the product first without spending money, and this, in turn, makes the decision (to buy or not to buy) easier for a potential customer.
• It’s cost-effective with bulk rates of mailing services.
• It’s a great way to support multi-channel promotions, like during new product launches.
• As an added benefit, the business can receive real feedback from the target audience.

Overall, this tactic fits any kind of product where it is possible to offer a sample 1) of the same quality as the actual product, and 2) of the adequate size that gives the recipient a clear idea of the product or service (perfume strips are a good example).

Free samples work great for cosmetics, food, and drinks (i.e., small chocolate plates, wine in 0.2-liter bottles), car care products, pet food, and many others.    

Direct mail marketing best practices to make the most out of your campaign

There are multiple ways to improve your direct mailers’ open rate, response rate, and ROI, on top of sending a good medium like a postcard or a catalog. Here are a few of the best practices — suitable for small and bigger businesses alike.   

Include a clear CTA

A call to action, or CTA, is one of the most important parts of any marketing campaign. The best direct mail CTAs are clear, noticeable, and logically continue the flow of the rest of the content in your campaign. 

Define the action you want your prospects and customers to take and choose the CTA to represent it. Keep it simple by offering one place to learn about your business or redeem a discount.

Make your CTA stand out: box it, or use bigger bold letters than for the rest of the copy, and place it in the center of the postcard/mail.

Include links or QR codes in your direct mail

Mailers can be used to get your leads into other channels like social media or a website. A way to do that is to add a scannable QR code or a shortened link to the direct mail-specific landing page. This way, you’ll be able to both get people there and track the results. 

Offer a limited-time promotion

Limited-time promotions create a sense of urgency and appeal to the fear of missing out on something good or popular. They often happen during the holiday season and get heavily promoted via digital channels. Used together with direct mail, limited-time promotions can be an incentive that turns a prospect into a buying customer.

A week-long 50% sale, free shipping, or special extra benefits for new customers could tip the balance for an undecided lead and get you more sales. 

Always personalize

Personalized direct mail works better than non-personalized one. One of the best marketing ideas for direct mail is to address the recipients by name. Another is the buyer’s interest — i.e., if someone has a car, they may be interested in car insurance or car care products.

Handwrite your stamp for postcards

A handwritten note is one of the best ways to connect with customers when it comes to a direct mail campaign. Together with personalization, it gives a special and premium feel that is hard to come by in the age of automatic digital ads.

Handwriting is also time-consuming — especially for businesses with large mailing lists. The solution is to use a custom stamp that will give the impression of handwritten text.

Give your customers something to keep

Direct mail has an advantage over digital mail in that it is tangible and can stick around. Make your mail stand out by giving your customers something fun and practical to keep. 

A pad of sticky notes, fridge magnets with calendars, or something else handy is more likely to be kept than thrown away. Keep your mailer even more memorable by making these items branded. Click on the slider below to see some examples: 

Pique curiosity with non-standard envelopes and shapes

When someone is sorting through their mail, how it looks and feels to the touch helps decide whether to open it or not. This tangible aspect of direct mail is a great advantage. You can add an object inside the envelope and pique customers’ interest. 

The popular way to go about it is using mail inserts and buck slips. Buck slips, also called “buck inserts” or “buck sheets”, are single, unfolded sheets frequently used as inserts. They are approximately the size of a dollar bill, measuring around 8.5×3.5 inches or smaller. The small size makes them a great envelope stuffer, and the “go-to” for direct mail campaigns.

It also combines together nicely with the idea of giving your customers something to keep — like a fridge magnet, sticker pad, or branded notebook. But mail campaigns can make creative use of multiple things — a penny, a USB drive, or a pen, to name a few.

Ready to test your direct mail campaign ideas?

Direct mail has a number of unique benefits that digital channels can’t provide. Although it’s relatively similar to direct email marketing, it can engage the sense of touch, has less competition, and has the ability to stick around in the customer’s home and keep your business top of mind. 

Postcards, coupons, interactive mail in the form of free samples, and birthday or anniversary discounts are all great to use in your direct mail campaign. 

Consider using these direct mail types to get the most out of it: 

• Postcards
• Coupons
• Birthday or anniversary discounts
• Brochures
• Interactive mailers
• Catalogs
• Free samples

The best and most creative direct mail ideas are always those that are most relevant to your business. Consider your overall strategy and goals, and if the benefits appeal to you, give it a try.