DM makes other media work harder
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Work up a sweat: how Direct Mail can make other media work harder
Campaign integration is so much more than using the same creative across all your media. Successful integration means really walking in the shoes of your customer, thinking about where they are and what frame of mind they’ll be in when they’re exposed to your message. And what combination of media will make them most likely to act on it.
Every marketing medium has its strengths and we’ve summarised those in the list below to help you choose the combination that’s right for you.
Advertising
TV, radio, outdoor and press advertising are very effective ways to get a simple message out to a large group of people. If you’re launching a new product to a mass market, advertising is a cost effective way to get the attention of your audience quickly and build awareness for your brand.
The challenge for advertising has always been how to communicate messages that are more complex, drive immediate action or target a discrete group of people. In the last decade, both online and offline media choices have mushroomed so there are more TV programmes, magazines, papers, supplements, websites than ever before with smaller audience shares. This fragmentation has presented more challenges for advertising.
Direct Mail
Combining Direct Mail with your advertising is a powerful way to make it work harder and address some of these challenges.
“Advertising leads a horse to water, Direct Mail makes it drink.” This old adage captures one of Direct Mail’s core strengths in a nutshell, the ability to turn attention into interest and interest into action. Our relationship with advertising is fleeting, we have 30 seconds before our attention moves to the next ad and sometimes we are not paying attention at all.
72% of Irish people put time to read their post and having your message in their hands means they will take a little longer over it. More time means you can say a little more about your product, giving them good reasons why they need it and what they should do next.
Another advantage of using Direct Mail is that your offers and promotions are more likely to slip under the radar of your competitors, so they’ll be slower to catch up and copy what you are doing.
Web
Integrating your website into your campaign will reinforce both advertising and Direct mail activity.
Most Irish users are accessing the web via broadband, so you can use interactive tools like video, podcasts and forums to drive home your message and make sure you don’t lose precious leads at this stage. For some tips on how to use Direct Mail to drive traffic to your website read the article "Have you clicked yet? Using Direct Mail to drive traffic to your website".
The right choice of media really depends on your objectives, your target audience and your message. Why not try and test some combinations from the list above and see what works hardest for your brand?
See how other businesses have integrated direct mail
- Microsoft wanted to improve customer satisfaction and positively engage with their customers
Resources:
This series of articles originally appeared in Marketing Magazine in 2008-2009. There were commissioned by An Post with leading figures in Irish media to show how direct mail can work in conjunction with other media in all kinds of communication campaigns.