Direct Mail Solutions

Direct mail is among the most effective marketing channels to get your potential customers to complete a specific action. It can be signing up on your website, purchasing something, or subscribing to your services. 

But why does it matter?

You can use direct mail solutions to conduct successful campaigns that drive responses and sales. Thus, you can increase your revenue and expand your customer base. But it doesn’t stop here.

Keep reading to learn more about offline mailings, benefits, and best practices. We will also discuss how automated direct mail services transform this traditional channel into a data-powered, result-driven one.

Direct mail helps you get a better return on investment and skyrocket your sales. 

You get an average return of £14 on every £1 you spend. Also, nearly 60% of all mailers have a 100% open rate.

So, if you send 1,000 mailers, you can expect at least 600 customers to open and read your message. You can use PostGrid’s advanced direct mail solutions to prepare, print, and ship mail items in one place. Hence, you can control your spending better and get better results.

Below are the primary reasons to add direct mail to your marketing mix:

• Reach thousands of prospects simultaneously: Direct mailing lets you connect with any number of people you want. Contacting one household via physical mail helps you communicate with everyone living there. Thus, your brand experiences high visibility and exposure. You can send on-demand mailings or conduct a bulk mail campaign. Our automated mailing house offers high-quality printing solutions and Royal Mail shipping.

• Best for account-based marketing (ABM): It is a growth strategy wherein your marketing and sales teams must collaborate. Including direct mail for ABM allows you to nurture your accounts and take them ahead of the sales funnel.
• Personalise your communications: People love getting mail. You can enrich this experience further by personalising your items. Try adding the recipients’ names and other information to make your mailers relevant to their needs. Fortunately, PostGrid is among the best direct mail marketing companies that make personalisation a breeze.
• Direct mail attracts better results than digital marketing: It helps make people feel special and get your message across 1:1. You can add interactive elements, like pURLs, to redirect recipients to your videos and landing pages. Also, you can create a social media buzz about your mailers and invite people to share their experiences.
• Send customers a tangible reminder: Direct mail creates memorable experiences for recipients because they get an item to keep forever. Instead of reading something off a screen, they have something personal to remember you by. PostGrid’s direct mail marketing solutions help you conduct such campaigns online while engaging your audience.

 Also Read: Mail Legal Documents Securely

Associating with direct mail advertising solutions benefits businesses for many reasons. But you must know this channel’s primary pros and cons to make informed decisions and launch better-performing campaigns.

Here are the top direct mail advantages:

• It has a broad demographic: Direct mail has a better reach than email and digital marketing, based on your target demographics. You can connect with your audience via offline mailings whenever needed. But contacting them via email or social media is tricky. They might not have an active account. Or they might not use the platform when you launch your sponsored ads campaign. Many people also miss out on marketing messages by many brands because the internet is full of them.

• It faces less competition: More businesses are switching to online marketing and ditching their offline mailing efforts. Hence, you can play the small field and make your business stand out with mail. People find getting a well-designed mailer surprising these days. So, leverage this opportunity to its fullest potential via effective direct mailing solutions. A thoughtfully curated and personalised mailer goes a long way in promoting your brand.

• It is creative: Direct mailings don’t lock you into the analogue advertising framework. You can make it creative in many ways, like adding images, experimenting with different fonts, and using multiple layouts.
• It is interactive: Direct mail offers better interaction opportunities with prospective customers because it helps you reach physical mailboxes. Receiving a postcard or letter with an exciting offer and CTA gives people something to do, increasing brand awareness.
• It enhances customer retention and visibility: A direct mail automation solution provider enables you to acquire and retain customers. It assists you throughout the customer journey. Direct mail is a flexible channel because you can send it to everyone, from new leads to high-end clients.
• It lets you create trustworthy relationships: Customers trust direct mail more than digital communications. Mailing them allows you to build genuine connections and drive brand loyalty.
• It is integrative with online marketing: You can add social media pages to your mailers using shortened links and QR codes. Also, redirect your mail recipients to your website, YouTube channel, etc. It lets you combine offline and online marketing to boost exposure by reaching the maximum number of people.

However, you may encounter some drawbacks when using direct mail. It can be

• Untrackable: Collecting response data from online marketing campaigns is simple. You can get the click-through rates and conversion data online. However, direct mail marketers find tracking and measuring their campaign’s performance challenging. They are unaware of the number of people who read or discarded their mailers. 
• Uneditable: You cannot change your direct mail content once you send out the mailers. Your marketing team cannot modify any aspect even if your campaign isn’t performing well. Nevertheless, a direct mail marketing solution can eliminate manual activities, leaving no room for errors.
• Inaccurate data: Your mailing list might have many errors, like incorrect city names and ZIP codes. They can cause delivery delays, lost items, mail returns, etc.
• Expensive: Cost is the primary drawback of direct mailing. You must pay for the design, printing, packaging materials, assembling, and postage. Many companies need assistance to afford the campaign because of non-negotiable prices and increasing postage costs.

They can rely on PostGrid’s cost-efficient automated direct mail solutions to embrace the benefits and discard the drawbacks. We help you track your mailers via different techniques, like adding a coupon code or a personalised link. 

Additionally, you can compile accurate and targeted mailing lists with PostGrid based on your buyer personas.

 Also Read: Direct Marketing

Direct mail prices depend on several factors, including the

Campaign Size, Mail Type, and Packaging

Sending oversized mailers to your target audience can cost a lot, typically around £8 per mail piece. The weight and size can raise the costs rapidly. However, sending standard-sized direct mail postcards is cheaper. Thus, your mail type makes a broad difference to your mailing budget.

Also, the number of mail pieces you send affects the rates. A small-scale campaign where you send 100 mailers is more affordable than sending 10,000 items. But please consider bulk shipping discounts when calculating the costs. Usually, direct mail solutions, like PostGrid, offer cost-effective packages for large-scale campaigns.

Let us discuss packaging—letters require envelopes for mailing. Or reduce expenses by sending self-mailers, postcards, or leaflets. Also, consider the rates for labels and stamps if you do everything in-house.

Ad Artwork

You may need to pay a designer for your mail artwork if you don’t have an in-house design team. Yes, you can create something in Microsoft Word yourself for free. But you may still need paid templates to create quality mailers.

Direct mailing solutions offer free templates with customisation options.

You can use our platform to design your mailers using our HTML and PDF templates. It simplifies your job and saves money. Plus, we allow you to add your images, logos, and more to modify them based on your needs.

Printing

Printing prices are between 24p and £1.6 per piece. However, they vary depending on the paper stock, quality, weight, and size.

Also, one-sided printing costs less than double-sided. You can save further by choosing B&W over colour printing.

But you don’t need to compromise on these elements when printing and shipping via direct mail advertising solutions. Since we have partnered with many local, national, and international print services, you need not worry about the quality.

Distribution

The costs can vary based on how many pieces you want to send and the current postal charges. You may pay between 20p to £1.6 per item.

The best way to control distribution expenses is to send bulk mailers. It helps you reach more people for less money instead of spending a lot on sending only a few mailers.

These are the primary factors, but you also pay indirectly for

• Printing equipment, like printers, paper, and ink cartridges,
• The office space to store and sort mailers and
• Staff members who work on in-house mailings.

But you can avoid the hassle and cheaper, all-in-one pricing using direct mailing solutions to outsource your processes. It is a better approach for businesses that want to cut unnecessary expenses and save their staff’s time.

 Also Read: How to Promote a New Offer

The initial stages of a direct mail campaign are similar to launching digital marketing. 

You can follow these steps to create your direct mailing campaigns that drive your desired results:

• Note Your Mail Marketing Goals

Think about what you want the campaign to achieve. Do you want to get new leads or move the ones you already have further along the sales process?

Do you need to send loyalty mailers to existing customers? Or your campaign goal is to send transactional mailings on time and receive payments faster?

Most companies use direct mail advertising solutions for marketing purposes. But many also use them to send compliance and transactional mailers. Hence, differentiating between the campaign types and listing your goals is essential.

Also, it helps you create a better campaign with relevant messaging to get the best results. 

Use this quick checklist for reference:

Campaign Type

• Marketing
• Compliance
• Transactional
• Customer communication

(Tick anyone)

Your Goals (general)

• Get leads and boost sales
• Engage past customers
• Connect with current customers to cross-sell, upsell, or get repeat business
• Send transactional documents for smooth customer communication
• Mail compliance notices or documents
• Other

______________________________________________

Your Goals (quantitative)

• Get ___ response rate and ___ conversion rate. 
• Get ___ leads or increase sales by ___%.
• Send ____ transactional or compliance mailers.
• Other.

______________________________________________

Additional Remarks

______________________________________________

These goals are helpful when you use a direct mail solution to create and launch your mailing program.

You can craft relevant direct mail content based on these factors with an eye-catching design. Having your goals in front of you from the start also helps you measure and compare your outcomes. 

PostGrid enables companies from all industries to bring their direct mail vision to life. They can automate their campaigns with us, irrespective of their goals. 

• Know Your Market and Audience

You must ensure your mailings entice recipients to engage with your brand and buy something. And the best way to reach this goal is to know your audience, their preferences, likes, and purchase behaviour.

Understand your prospects’ needs to match them with your solutions. Marrying these two factors lets you maintain relevance, increasing the chances that the recipient appreciates and replies to your message.

PostGrid’s automated direct mail solutions allow you to create segmented mailing lists from scratch. Thus, you can only ship your marketing items to those most likely to be interested in buying from your business.

Create and Update Your Lists.

You can use two list types for your mailing campaigns. 

• House lists: You can compile these lists in-house using your CRM data. They have the names and delivery addresses of your existing customers or prospects. 
• Rented lists: You may contact an agency to rent or buy lists for your upcoming mailing campaign. It is a decent option, but the data quality can be low. Also, you can only use rented lists a few times. 

You can test your lists for accuracy by mailing your marketing mailers in small batches. Gather data on how the recipients respond. Also, please refine your lists before conducting your campaigns to avoid mail returns and delays.

Use direct mail marketing solutions if you don’t want to or cannot complete these processes in-house. PostGrid’s automated mailing API can handle everything on your behalf—even cross-confirming your intended recipients’ delivery addresses!

• Narrow Down a CTA For Your Campaign

Your campaign CTA significantly affects your desired outcomes. People might like your message and want to avail themselves of your brand’s offer. But they cannot do anything unless you tell them how you expect them to respond. 

Thus, craft a thoughtful and upfront CTA that is easy to act upon. It should also be memorable and eye-catching, allowing recipients to see it instantly when they read your message. 

More tips include

• Only use one CTA for every campaign to avoid confusing your prospects.
• Add value to your mailers and drive action. 
• Combine your CTA with an offer as a reward.
• CTAs can be different from asking mail recipients to buy from you. Some CTAs take customers closer to the purchase stage. They can be
  • Contact us today.
  • Download our latest published ebook.
  • Sign up for a free account.
  • Book a consultation.

Our direct mail solution allows you to add your preferred response mechanism or CTA to your mailers. You can include custom links and QR codes to drive any action.

• Design Your Mail Items

Refrain from burying your headings, CTAs, and offers in crowded graphics or text overload. Your design should make your primary message pop and have adequate white space.

It makes your content breathable and understandable to your audience. Also, making all the elements distinct ensures the recipient sees and remembers everything. 

You can use our pre-built templates to create your mail design. It benefits you in two ways. You can make last-minute changes to the components however needed, and save on design costs.

• Printing and Labeling

Printing is among the most crucial steps in your mail marketing launch process. It can make or break your campaign because the print quality can leave an everlasting impression on recipients. 

Imagine you follow all the above steps. You negotiate rates and select a printer that agrees to deliver in a few days. But you are surprised to see low-quality graphics on thousands of items when you receive them. Or the weight was not the one you selected.

Sadly, many companies face these situations. But you can avoid them by using direct mail marketing solutions instead of manually finding and partnering with printers.

It guarantees you only get the best results, justifying your costs and helping you make your campaign successful.

PostGrid also manages labelling, stamping, and presorting in an automated manner. Hence, we ensure consistency and quality throughout the process, keeping you from unwanted situations like the one discussed above.

• Send Your Mailers

Many businesses find mailing to hundreds or thousands of mailing addresses difficult. It requires many people and loads of time, and effort to accomplish this task. 

Also, you may need to arrange transportation from your office to the Post Office to drop off your items.

The result? Confusion, delays, and wastage.

Thus, choose a direct mail solution to handle everything, freeing you from the task and ensuring better results.

• Analyse Your Campaign Performance

You must measure your campaign’s success using metrics other than the response rates and ROI. Promo codes, pURLs, and physical coupons can give you more in-depth information about your recipients’ reactions to your mailers. 

Try learning the cost per conversion to determine how much value the campaign brought to your brand. Also, it lets you attribute value to your entire marketing program and compare it with other channels.

PostGrid’s direct mail automation solution gives you access to your campaign’s detailed insights and analytics. Thus, you can unlock everything you must know about your audience responses to plan your upcoming campaigns accordingly.

You can choose between many direct mail formats. Make informed decisions based on your campaign goals and budget.

Here are the best options you can select from:

Postcards

Direct mail postcards are always first on our list because they offer immense value and are cost-effective. You can use them for various occasions, like

• Inviting customers and prospects to an event
• Promoting new products or services
• Requesting customers to sign up for a loyalty rewards program
• Greeting your audience on special occasions
• Celebrating their lives’ crucial milestones
• Cross-selling and upselling to existing customers, and
• Boosting sales with seasonal promotions and discount offers

Postcards are small and compact, helping you communicate quick and memorable messages. The standard 4 x 6 items are apt for most use cases. But you can choose the oversized ones to make your brand stand out.

Our direct mail marketing solution helps you choose different postcard sizes to suit your needs.

Letters

Some refer to letters as the classic package. They consist of a one or two-page message, a business response form, and an envelope.

These elements allow recipients to read the message and reply instantly without paying the postal charges.

Also, letters offer more space and scope for personalisation. Hence, you can add more details relevant to the reader’s unique needs to convince them your brand is the best.

Most businesses use letters for surveys and fundraisers. But they also make excellent marketing, customer engagement, and demand generation tools. You can print and mail them via our direct mail automation solution.

Flyers and One-Piece Mailers

Flyers are cheaper than postcards because they don’t require envelopes. You can use flyers to grab your audience’s attention and give them something to hold on for a long time.

You can use unfolded or folded ones based on your preferences. They are usually colourful and have limited text to make your offer look more appealing.

Other one-piece mailers include brochures. They are similar to flyers but have more folds and information.

Please remember to add your brand’s name, logo, and contact information even when you want to restrict adding too much text.

Newsletters and Content Kits

Direct mailing solutions can help you send content kits with printed copies of your blog posts, ebooks, and other resources. Or you can keep it simple and mail weekly or monthly newsletters to your audience. It is an excellent way to connect with interested prospects and update them on the latest events.

This tactic makes people curious to know more, persuading them to complete the CTA and buy from your brand.

PostGrid’s API integrations let you fetch data from your CRM and auto-fill mailers. You can use them to send newsletters with frequently asked questions (FAQs) to hot prospects.

Transactional Mail

Direct mailing solutions allow you to design, print, and mail transactional items the same way as marketing ones.

PostGrid helps your finance and accounting team improve customer communications by letting them send

• Invoices
• Cheques
• Bills
• Statements
• Tax documents
• Legal documents

We allow you to send error-free mailers to the correct addresses without delays. It helps you stay on track and boost internal efficiency.

Sending direct mailers is missing from the priority list for most businesses. Most would prefer doing better things than talking to printers and managing logistics.

But mailing is still a significant business function. Enter—direct mailing solutions.

Smart Communications

Arrange your direct mail communications wisely with our API or mailing platform. It lets you schedule your campaigns beforehand or initiate on-demand mailings based on your needs.

We tailor our solutions to your business to help you beat the competition and send quality mailers. You can communicate with your audience on time, answer their questions, and add exciting discounts to your mail items.

Your GDPR-Compliant Print and Mail Partner

PostGrid complies with GDPR and other data security requirements for printing and mailing your customers.

We prioritise our client’s data confidentiality and privacy. Hence, you can ensure your customer records are in safe hands.

Also, we prepare, print, and ship your items via Royal Mail within the GDPR framework. You need not worry about violating laws or paying penalties because we safeguard your brand and manage everything on your behalf!

Seamless Deliveries Across the Country and Worldwide

We offer high deliverability rates and mailing accuracy (thanks to our address verification capabilities). PostGrid standardises and cross-checks every delivery data before shipping your items. It ensures you don’t get mail returns or encounter delays.

Moreover, we have partnered with the postal services to ship your items, which means you can safely mail anywhere.

But it’s not it! PostGrid’s direct mail marketing solutions let you print and distribute items in 245+ countries. We can help any type of business connect with their audience no matter where they reside.

Short Runs

Do you want to send single mail items to your customers? We have you covered!

PostGrid prioritises all orders, small-scale and large-scale. But the per-piece costs might be slightly higher.

Bulk Mailing Discounts

Sending mass mailers has many benefits. You can

• Contact your entire customer base or all prospects under one campaign.
• Save time and effort by mailing everyone simultaneously.
• Get bulk postal discounts and save money.

Our automated direct mail advertising solutions help you send mailers in bulk volumes hassle-free. Also, our API and software are scalable, avoiding slowdowns and technical glitches.

Data Acquisition

Use direct mailing solutions to build segmented delivery lists without having in-house data. You can compile them based on geo-demographics, like

• Age
• Gender
• Income
• Profession
• Location
• Marital status
• Preferences
• Buying history

PostGrid helps you prepare for your campaign, irrespective of whether you have a delivery list, artwork, or other resources.

Multi-Channel Advertising

Create seamless and consistent multi-channel advertising campaigns across text, print, and email.

Our mail integrations allow you to add automated direct mailing features to your existing marketing or CRM systems. Thus, you can conduct your advertising campaigns under one roof and manage omnichannel interactions better.

You can use direct mailing solutions to outsource tasks and cut manual effort. However, you can avail of more benefits by following these tips:

Discuss Your Unique Selling Points (USP)

Differentiate your brand from the competition by highlighting your USP. Tell your customers why they should select your products or services over others.

This technique lets you stay on top of the minds of your mail recipients. Instead of sending generic messages they forget, you can capture their attention and hook them to your brand.

Be Concise

Customers should understand your value proposition via your direct mail message. Please avoid jargon to make your message straightforward and clear.

PostGrid’s direct mail solutions offer different mailer sizes to let you pick one based on your messaging.

Postcards are apt if you only want to use a few sentences. However, letters are better to provide recipients with detailed information. Though some businesses send two or three-page letters, try sticking to one page to keep it simple.

People read short messages more readily than long ones. You likely have a few seconds to capture their interest. Hence, draft concise content comprising everything your audience needs to know about your brand on a single page.

Focus On Your Product’s Benefits Instead of Features

Your prospects are more interested in how your brand’s solutions can benefit them, not its features. Hence, try highlighting your advantages and matching them with the audience’s needs.

It helps you create relevance and nurture leads.

Use Easy-to-Read, Clear Fonts

Recipients should be able to read your direct mailers. So, ensure your items have adequate negative space, simple layouts, and understandable fonts.

Fancy fonts look good on a screen. But they might appear different on printed mailers. Thus, consider the best fonts for your direct mail campaign based on your selected format and message size.

Our direct mail automation solution offers many fonts for your design. You can use them or add more from online resources to suit your requirements.

Run Tests to Check List Accuracy and Relevance

PostGrid helps you send test mailers to check if your list matches your marketing campaign goals. It also lets you confirm whether you are mailing to the correct audience.

Thus, you can work on getting the desired conversion rate from the beginning.

Proofread Your Mail Items

Printing and mailing items without proofreading is a mistake to avoid.

Proofread your content before printing items to identify and remove misspellings, typos, incorrect capitalisations, and other issues. Also, check whether your tone and language match with what you want to convey.

Determine whether your imagery, colours, orientation, and other elements appear appealing.

Follow Up With Your Prospects

Contacting your mail recipients after every direct mail marketing campaign is crucial to the ROI. Some people need help remembering to reply to your offers. Others might need more convincing to complete the CTA.

Hence, use your direct mailing solutions to conduct follow-up campaigns and get the most out of every list.

Drive Online Traffic to Your Website

Include scannable QR codes, coupons, pURLs, and other trackable aspects to drive traffic to your website. These are excellent tools to combine online and offline marketing channels.

Also, they help you boost your social media following, website sign-ups, newsletter subscribers, and more! Add the correct CTA that compels them to take the desired action to get closer to conversion.

PostGrid’s direct mail API and software focus on providing clients with an impeccable mailing experience.

You can expect many features, like

Creative Artwork

As discussed above, you can create your designs using our templates. But you can also add your images, brand name, and other elements to give your artwork a unique appearance.

Our direct mailing solutions help you print crisp images that blend well with your design colours. Also, we only process ‘fit for printing’ mailers, helping you always get high-quality items.

Our printing partners follow postal guidelines to make sure the size and design of our mailings are within the rules.

Programmatic Mail

It refers to direct mailers businesses send based on customers’ actions. You can also call it triggered mail.

Triggered mailings build on your brand’s existing relationships, which occur online. They harness these relationships using the power of traditional mail.

Sending triggered mail to the relevant prospects via direct mailing solutions allows you to

• Use personalised offers to convert them into customers.
• Base mailings on the user’s previous booking, abandoned cart items, or other actions.
• Retain customers and attract new leads.

Postal Shipping

PostGrid lets you send your mailers via postal services. You can choose from 1st Class Mail, 2nd Class Mail, and other options.

Also, you may select express shipping for urgent mailings.

We ensure your mailers are secure and the Post Office delivers them accurately!

You can enjoy other features, like

• Variable data printing
• Address verification
• Real-time tracking
• Metadata tagging
• Direct mailing campaign reports
• 24×7 customer support
• Flexible packages
• Dedicated account manager

Direct mail is among the most effective and engaging marketing channels. But you need help compiling the elements and launching your campaigns with minimal manual effort and investment.

Thus, many organisations use automated direct mail advertising solutions to outsource tasks and get higher responses.

PostGrid’s print and mail services are the best example of how automation can transform offline communications. We assist you throughout the process, ensuring you don’t need to go anywhere or do anything in-house.

You can integrate our API or software and start creating your campaign minutes. Sign up for more details on our turnkey direct mail solutions!