Direct mail has the possibility of being the most effective form of promotion, even in today's digitized world. If you're like most small business owners, then you took one look at that sentence and laughed! It's doubtful that many people outside of certain circles still hold this opinion. That being said, it really does have the potential to be extremely effective if applied correctly and used as one tool in a larger campaign. It's best to maximize how you leverage the pros so you can minimize the influence of the cons in this case. In fact, it might help to take a look at these cons first off so you better know how to mitigate them.

Cons of Direct Mail Marketing

The expense might very well be the biggest drawback to direct mail as a marketing platform. You have to print and mail messages to every single person on your mailing list. At least, you do in theory. Many companies engage in this wasteful practice and continue to print hundreds of promotions that nobody will ever read. To solve this problem, you'll first want to purge your mailing list of old addresses you know aren't active any longer. This alone can slash how much mail you're sending out by more than half. Once you have a leaner list, you can begin to target people properly. Mass mailings are often thrown away or recycled, which is another major drawback that can be solved using this technique. Make sure to tailor everything you send out to the people who are going to be receiving it. Once you have, you'll notice that you're quite possibly sending out less mail to people while, at the same time, you're receiving much better conversion rates since everyone who receives your message will, in turn, be more likely to act on it. In fact, this is one of the major benefits of marketing with direct mail.

Pros of Direct Mail Marketing

Unlike digital messaging where you send something into the ether and hope that it gets there, you can trust that at least some portion of people you mail will read your messages as long as your list was segmented correctly. People will be more likely to follow a message if it pertains directly to them. Business owners who keep an eye on who has bought from them before will be in a better position to make this call. Once you figure out who buys what things and when they buy them, you'll be able to figure out who to send messages to. The use of a public outreach tool like Postlead.io will make this call much easier. Using a tool like this makes it easier to track your messages too. When you use tracking and promotional codes, you can quickly figure out which of your customers are using the cards and mailers you send out. This isn't possible with most other forms of marketing, thus making it unique to the world of direct mail in many ways. Those who collect a great deal of tracking data will be able to make the best business-related decisions.

Starting a Direct Mail Campaign

Increasing your chances of direct mail success couldn't be easier. While business owners used to struggle to find the sort of information they needed to run their campaigns, they can use Postlead.io to manage their mailings and send out customized postcards. Each of these is personalized, so your customers will know right away that this isn't just another piece of direct mail they can ignore. Take a look at your mailing list and then contact us online so we can help you get the postcards you need to run the best campaign you've ever had.