Digital fatigue has become a real issue for consumers and marketers.  The onset of the pandemic caused businesses to focus mostly on their digital platforms.  This hyper focus and reliance on digital media has led to increasing levels of digital fatigue, thereby creating a new challenge: how to establish authentic engagement with their consumers to override digital fatigue and create new connections that drive business. 

A simple solution for this is to incorporate direct mail as part of your marketing campaign.   The “2022 Hybrid Audience Engagement Survey” conducted by PFL revealed personalized physical mail has significantly higher engagement and response rates at 54% than other forms of communication, even personalized email at 32%.

Adding a non-digital channel to your approach can break through to your prospects in a way that digital alone struggles to do. Direct mail gives you an opportunity to leave a lasting impression and build a more personal connection with your prospects. According to Writers Block Live, businesses that opt to use direct mail and digital ads together lead to a 28% increase in conversion rates and a 450% increase in response rates.

How can direct mail enhance a digital campaign?

Incorporating direct mail into a digital display campaign provides additional opportunities to use your customer data through a marketing channel with a proven success rate. Applying variable, individualized messaging in every direct mail piece creates a strong brand impression and provides a personal touch that homeowners trust. Coordinating digital technologies like geofencing with direct mail campaigns provides layers of contact within targeted communities by combining mobile ads and mailed promotions.

With direct mail in your marketing mix, you’ll be able to reach prospective audiences and initiate new relationships more efficiently and effectively than you can with digital campaigns alone. It’s especially successful when included in local promotions and campaigns. If you know who your target audience is — as defined by demographic and behavioral data — you could rent or purchase a list of names and addresses of people who meet your target criteria.

Consumers see direct mail as offering value when they include coupons or coincide with BOGO or other discounts. Because people tend to hang onto a mailer until they can use the offer, they may look at the piece over days or weeks after it’s been received. In addition, studies have shown that feeling and touching a mail piece triggers emotions that makes the engagement all that more real, credible and memorable. Use mail to grab your audience’s attention and connect with them on a personal level.

Take advantage of direct mail’s superior precision 

Direct mail gives you the opportunity to personalize your message and include a personal greeting or add a map based on the recipient’s address. This can be effective when combined with digital advertising or emails that can coincide with mailing dates.

The idea here is to prime your audience with a direct mail piece that lands in a person’s home mailbox, followed by an online ad that shows up on their smartphone, coordinated with information sent to their inbox via email and then finally reinforced with additional digital touches using techniques like geofencing and retargeting practices. This is becoming increasingly true as the cost of adding an AR experience through direct mail becomes more affordable for businesses of all sizes.

As we emerge from the pandemic, the need to digitize every aspect of your business can be reassessed mindfully and with your business goals in mind.  Digital fatigue has given us an opportunity to get back to basics and engage consumers in a more tactile way. According to a 2022 Forrester study, 70% of respondents expressed a desire to use digital to enhance their direct mail campaigns. We can help you figure out how to lift your brand above and beyond the clutter in the advertising world.  Contact us today to get started on your break through strategy.