The Structural Graphics Blog

The Case for Direct Mail

By, Andres Aguirre

In today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, many companies and businesses are relying more on their brands to stand out and to differentiate themselves among their competitors. The necessity of a strong customer relationship with the brand has never been more important, and a mixed multimedia presence is required in order to create and maintain such relationships. The economic recession heavily impacted many businesses and the most direct result was usually a slice to their ad spend. And while most companies dropped advertising and marketing from the top of their lists, the ones who saw the most success and a faster recovery were the ones who were able to sustain a consistent branded presence throughout several communication channels - including direct mail.

Direct mail marketing has the advantage of being easily targeted in a very accurate manner, delivering extremely efficient campaigns and high returns on investment as opposed to a radio ad or TV ad, or online banners for example. However, some industry experts have expressed concern over the future of direct mail advertising, and reasonably so. With today’s constantly evolving and diversifying media landscape made possible by mobile broadband internet, it’s no wonder why more and more people are reading their mail, newspapers, and magazines online. After all, it costs less and it’s much easier to deliver content over the web.

Yet, there are some things that simply cannot be translated; some sort of immutable and irreplaceable properties of the medium itself that are somehow lost in translation. Paper is something tangible that you can feel, pick up, turn, fold, and manipulate in ways that are simply impossible with a pdf file. There is no way to translate these aspects into the digitized format – it’s fundamentally different. A computer can help you collect, organize, and visualize complex data into a coherent and apparently similar form, but it also has the ability to malfunction and to distort information. You can’t feel, taste, or smell the internet, and you don’t get nearly as much junk mail as you do junk e-mail. On the internet it is easy to get lost in the virtually limitless amounts of information, infinite numbers of web pages, and vast quantities of user-generated content, whereas traditional print is strictly bound to what is transcribed. No hyperlinks or pop-up ads to take you away to another dimension.

My point is- there are some very elemental differences between our digital worlds of new media and ‘traditional’ media formats. A new emulation or digital incarnation of a preexistent medium should by no means be taken as a substitution for it. This should never happen. Instead it should be seen as an additional communicative tool, another channel by which to reach prospective clients and customers, and obtain feedback, information, and research.

So don’t be in a huge rush to move all your ads to Facebook. Instead of assuming that one medium can perfectly replace another, pursue the creative, interactive, and integrated use of all media. The key to a long and prosperous brand life is taking advantage of the multiple communication channels that are available, and using them to their full potential in order to introduce your brand message and personality - or in short - a consistent integrated multimedia presence.

Depending too much on volatile social networks

There is no doubt that social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter offer unbelievable business opportunities. However, when businesses rely too much on the emerging medium, still in its infancy, there can be problems.

This week Twitter announced that it will no longer allow third-party applications to advertise in their live tweet streams. But guess what was announced last week? In-stream Twitter advertising platform, Ad.ly, just secured an additional five million dollars of angel funding. There is no word yet on how Ad.ly will deal with this, but it seems pretty bleak for the young startup. There entire business model will be obsolete when Facebook enacts this new restriction next month.

The folks who probably are affected most by sudden regulatory changes from the major social networks are developers. The rules for developers are constantly changing, especially on a major platform like Facebook. For example, Zynga, developers of Farmville and Mafia Wars, two of the most popular third-party apps on Facebook, face this same danger. What if Mark Zuckerberg, 26 year old CEO of Facebook, wakes up tomorrow with an itch in his throat and decides he doesn’t like cute little farm animals and doesn’t want them on his site?

Last year the enormously popular website Tr.im ceased operations. Tr.im was a service that allowed Twitter users to shorten long URLs to preserve space in their 140 character tweets. After offering the company for sale and failing to find a buyer, they had to shut down. A company representative said there was just no way to monetize their site traffic. Isn’t that something they should have thought of sooner? Anyway, all of the millions of people that used their shortened URLs now found them completely useless. Dead links everywhere!

Of course I am not advising that you drop your social networking efforts or cancel your Facebook account. We have seen lots of success driving new people to our brand through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. But with companies increasing their online spending every year, you have to wonder if some of them are putting all of their eggs in one basket. Smart marketers are finding ways to utilize digital and traditional mediums through highly effective integrated campaigns. These campaigns take advantage of the best of both worlds, which makes a lot of sense given how volatile online networks seem to be.

Tips for Marketing to C-Level Executives and Everyone else!

You’ll find plenty of books, articles, seminars and guides on how to market to c-level executives. They are the elusive top-prize for most b-to-b marketers. However, they read mail, visit websites, check voicemail and respond to marketing just like the rest of us. The trick to reaching them really isn’t all that different from reaching any other consumer.

To get anyone’s attention you need to be relevant, engaging and impactful. That’s it. That formula works regardless of the title you are going after. If your marketing can combine all three of these components chances are you’re going to have a successful campaign.

Relevance: Is your message relevant to a c-level executive? Depending on the size of the company, buying decisions are often made below the c-level, so perhaps you’re making an assumption on who the right person to talk to is. You also have to take into account that many c-level execs have assistants. If an assistant doesn’t think what you have to say is relevant to their boss, chances are they won’t pass it on.

Engaging: So perhaps you have made it into a c-level executive’s office. Now what? How are you going to get he/she to notice your message? Engagement is all about getting the recipient to notice and spend time with your brand. Using personalization is a very effective way to engage your recipient. Taking that one step further, a PURL (personalized URL) holds their attention and allows you to capture more intelligence on your prospects. We’ve got more ways to make something engaging than you can shake a stick at! By the way, where the heck does that expression come from? Since I am a bit of a nerd I had to look it up.

Lastly, we have to be impactful. Our piece has to make a lasting impression. I have received a lot of flat mail in my day and the only one I can really recall is my Dunkin Donuts coupons. Impact can only be had when the piece speaks right to the recipients needs and causes a response. [blatant sales pitch warning] We know impact like nobody’s business. As LeVar Burton used to say, don’t take my word for it.

It’s sort of funny that entire books, lectures (and blog posts) have been dedicated to this subject. For me, there aren’t too many differences between getting the attention of a c-level exec and Joe Shmo. I admit, the gatekeepers that executives have tend to be much better than Joe’s, but even gatekeepers respond to clever marketing.

Integrated Campaigns and the Goldilocks Theory

Long gone are the days of huge marketing campaigns with ginormous budgets and low expectations. Marketers today have to stretch their budgets and insist on higher returns. This has been obvious since 2008, when everything began to dramatically slow down. However, in our business this slow down has given rise to the opportunities in integrated campaigns. An integrated campaign is all about finding that sweet spot between too little and too much.

The Goldilocks Theory was originally applied by NASA to describe the distance from the Sun that a planet needs to be in order to have the right temperatures to support life. Venus sits in front of that zone between the Earth and the Sun and has an average temperature of 900 degrees. By contrast, Mars sits beyond the Goldilocks zone and has an average temperature of negative 100 degrees. Not surprisingly, Earth sits comfortably within the zone and well, I don’t have to tell you how nice the weather is here.

The same theory can apply to integrated campaigns. Too little, and your ROI will be gut-wrenchingly cold. Too much, and you’ll be burned by an over bloated budget.

The key to finding the goldilocks zone in your integrated campaign is to keep a few basic principals in mind.

1. Prioritize your channels: You can’t do everything in the campaign so figure out what channels tend to yield the best response rates and start there.

2. Remain consistent: Your creative, messaging and overall theme must be consistent throughout the various channels. If your direct mail piece drives them to a landing page, then be sure the landing page has a similar look and message as the direct mail piece.

3. Follow your targets: Understanding what channel your targets responded too is important for obvious reasons. The channels you use in your next communication are going to be determined by the outcome of this campaign. Don’t get stuck not knowing what worked and what didn’t at the end of a campaign.

4. Ask your targets: Be sure to ask your targets how they prefer to be communicated with. This can be done on a landing page or in an email, but it is important information to have for your future communications. I recently received an email from Sirius Satellite Radio telling me that they never hear from me and asking how I would like to be communicated with. I receive about two emails a month from Sirius and I have never responded to any of them until that one arrived.

Applying these principals to your integrated campaign will help yield the greatest results. Of course, understanding your targets and prioritizing your channels is marketing 101, but when it comes to integrated campaigns the rules change a bit and finding the goldilocks zone in your efforts is the difference between too hot and too cold.