Targeted Direct Mail Campaigns Power Sales and Add Value To Your Business

Direct mail marketing can be a powerful tool, even in a world constantly growing more digital. A targeted campaign skips the crowded inbox, the muted television, the ignored phone call. Instead, a mailer lives in your customer’s home, keeping your business and offer top of mind.

Prioritizing direct mail enables you to reach every generation and demographic. Regardless of age or orientation, every one of your customers with a mailbox is a potential new sale. A customized mailer could be the final push they need to bring them to your dealership.

You’ll even reach people without an immediate need to buy, but who are thinking about it for the future. A customer not in the market today could be so tomorrow, and rather than having to decide where to go for their next car, they already know to go straight to you.

A Worthwhile Investment

Well designed, a piece of physical mail acts as an extension of your sales team. It provides everything someone would need to know about making a buying decision, all before they set foot on the show floor. They’ll know precisely the value and benefits they’ll receive and the savings they’ll see.

That value doesn’t get lost in a torrent of emails, either. Your offer lives alongside your customer wherever they keep their mail. It is a constant, physical reminder of what you can do for them. In big, bold, eye-catching letters, it’s clear what they’ll get, how, and when. Keeping your business a constant in their lives keeps them engaged no matter where they are on their buying journey.

By empowering your customers to make more informed buying decisions, your initial investment in the mailer pays off as well. Your salespeople will spend more time closing the sale and less discussing trade values and incentives. Then, when your mailer helps drive an uptick in overall sales, your business comes out with a net positive in revenue that can repeat campaign after campaign.

Reinforced by Data

There’s hard data to back up direct mail’s potential. According to the US Postal Service, as of 2019, 51% of Americans read the advertising mail they receive, and an additional 21% scan it¹. That makes 72% of your mailed-to customers who somehow engage with your piece and a majority of them who could be taking the time to learn more about your offer.

Compare that rate to a recent report from HubSpot that puts open rates on email at a maximum of just 26%². This contrast is likely due in large part to how easy it is to delete emails. Your customer will interact with your mailer simply because it exists in physical space.

Most of all, direct mail drives customer conversion. A survey by InfoTrends found that 56% of consumers who responded to direct mail went to the business’s website or visited a store directly. In addition, 62% of people who responded to direct mail in a select three-month span made a purchase³. By putting something in your customer’s hands, you incentivize them to learn more.

Direct mail increases the engagement and conversion potential of your advertising. In short, you’ll see more customers in a better position to buy more often.

Reach More Customers, More Often

Your customer base spans generations, and some of them might not be as tech-savvy as others, so adding an analog option caters to their familiarities and engages them on firmer ground.

Generation X and Baby Boomers remain some of the best targets for direct mail marketing. Boomers especially, as 72% of them review, read, and sort their mail at least six times a week⁴. Plenty of opportunities to capture their attention. Both the 55-64 and 65+ age groups also have a 47% reading rate of advertising mail, more than any other age group.

That doesn’t mean the younger generations are out of reach. Millennials might seem like the toughest target audience due to the sheer amount of connections they have to the digital world and how they’re disrupting established norms. However, direct mail can be a potent draw, as only 19% of millennials reported “always” or “frequently” opening emails. By contrast, 62% say they visited a business looking to buy based on something they’d seen in their mailbox⁵. That’s more than both Generation X and baby boomers.

Mail likely matters more to millennials for a few reasons. First, despite their digital savvy, they appreciate an ad they can hold in their hands more than the constant bombardment of content they see online. Second, they can be cautious when making nonessential purchases, and printed materials usually have more information on them than an email. That way, younger buyers have a better idea of what they’re buying and how it benefits them. Third, and most importantly, millennials are more likely to shop at businesses they feel care about their communities and their customers. The personal touches on a direct mail piece show them that your dealership values their time, money, and individuality.

What It All Means

Direct mail can reach, engage, and convert your customers regardless of their age. It has the potential to outperform digital marketing based on key metrics. And it offers something no other form of advertising can match: a physical presence in your customer’s home.

Direct mail is a powerful tool that can take your business’s sales success to new levels. And we know it works. reVo MG’s dealer partners have seen significant return on investment when running a campaign with us: it pays for itself in new sales long before the selling stops.

We’re firm believers that any partnership is earned, so contact us today to learn more about partnering with reVo on your next direct mail campaign.

Footnotes:

Image Credit: Takahiro Sakamoto on Unsplash