Direct mail drives online interactions?

According to research from Pitney Bowes, “60 percent of respondents believe that offline marketing is most likely to get them to visit the website of a company from which they have not previously made a purchase”.

Hmm.  Should we believe these respondents?  Are traditional media still alive?  TV, radio, direct mail, billboards, etc.  Could it be true that these media still need to be part of our marketing mix?

The answer:  IT DEPENDS

Let’s go back to what I always go back to…  STRATEGY.  The decision to use traditional mass media (direct mail among them) really depends on your overall strategy.  One of our clients truly cannot survive without mass media working in concert with email, SEO, PPC, social media, and everything else.  They are a mass consumer marketer.  They need to hit the people in their geographic region from all angles.

Of course companies like GEICO, Budweiser, and Toyota depend on this strategy.  But some smaller regional businesses need to do it this way too.

And we’ve found that direct mail is, indeed, terrific for nurturing targeted lists that have been compiled from mass acquisition efforts.  So… Yes!  We do believe that direct mail can drive online interactions.

In fact we’ve seen it work very well.  One of our clients got a 14% response rate from a direct mail effort.  Not bad, huh?  But we recommend using it sparingly with a “smart” strategy.  Otherwise you’ll over-spend on printing and postage.

Targeting, segmentation and relevance are the keys to a direct mail strategy that will truly drive online interactions and deliver ROI.