Direct Mail Best Practices

Do you think direct mail is just for “old-fashioned” companies? Or that mailing direct mail postcards is too expensive to be profitable? There’s no shortage of myths about direct mail, many of which couldn’t be more untrue.

From perceptions that direct mail “just doesn’t work” for young audiences to ideas that direct mail is impossible to customize, read on to discover the 20 biggest direct mail myths and why they’re 100% untrue.

From their mailboxes to their smartphones, tablets, notebooks and more, consumers now have a huge range of ways to receive marketing messages, connect with brands, and learn more about the companies and products they care about. 

While some may associate omnichannel marketing with smartphone apps, email newsletters and connectivity, the reality is that offline marketing – including direct mail and in-store experiences – plays a major role in executing a successful omnichannel campaign.  

From QR codes to online coupons, let’s take a look at how direct mail can be integrated into your omnichannel marketing campaign to connect with your target audience, increase brand recognition, and produce results.

If you keep up to date with marketing news, you may have spotted mentions of “omnichannel marketing” in blogs and magazine. Omnichannel marketing is the result of a change from mass marketing to personalized communications. Omnichannel marketing is, in many ways, an evolution of integrated marketing, which saw businesses divide their marketing budget across multiple mediums to reach consumers online, offline, in print, via radio, social media, and using direct mail. While integrated marketing involved multiple marketing channels, omnichannel marketing is about a universal experience. From PC to tablet, retail store to phone, companies develop a unique experience across platforms and marketing channels. Confused? Not to worry. Like many other new marketing developments, there’s a great deal of discussion and debate about omnichannel marketing. There’s even a lack of consensus about how to spell it, much like the in early days of ecommerce. In this guide, we’ll explain what omnichannel marketing is, look at what is involved in an effective campaign, and explore the benefits of omnichannel marketing for your business.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, the American Red Cross faced a funding deficit. The economic crisis had left many of the humanitarian organization’s supporters short on cash and unable to provide the financial assistance they once could.

The Red Cross also faced an image problem. Although it was known worldwide as the organization dedicated to helping people during and after disasters, it was far less associated with holiday season giving than many other major charities.

With funding running out, this presented a serious obstacle for the Red Cross. True to its nature, the organization saw an opportunity in the funding shortage and put itself into action to work out how to repairs its finances.

Read how the American Red Cross used an integrated marketing approach to successfully achieve its objectives.

How consistent is your marketing message? Whether you’re a small business or a growing enterprise, having a marketing message that’s consistent across different mediums is the key to achieving the best possible results.

This strategy – of having a consistent message – is known as integrated marketing, and it’s a strategy that lets you avoid the numerous downsides of marketing that’s fragmented into different messages, campaigns and promises.

In this guide, we’ll look at the basics of integrated marketing and explain how you can use integrated marketing tactics to get more from your direct mail campaigns, online marketing and advertising efforts as a whole.

A great business card can open doors, help you build your personal network, and set your company apart from its competition. A poor business card, on the other hand, could do the exact opposite, locking you out of potential sales and partnerships.

Many entrepreneurs and salespeople spend hundreds of dollars designing their business cards. They hire the best designers, give them free reign to be as creative as possible and end up with a card that may not accomplish the goal of calling attention to your contact information.

Designing a business card is surprisingly simple. The reason for this is that the most effective business cards tend to be simple. They follow the classic rules of design and ignore trends, focusing entirely on function over form and style.

In this guide, we’ll teach you how to design your own business card using an online design app called Canva. By the end of this post, you’ll have a great looking business card template that you can print and use for networking, sales and more.

When you’re choosing a postcard printing and mailing company for your next direct mail campaign, a lot of questions might enter your mind:

• Do they offer high quality printing that sets your business apart?
• Do they have a history of successful campaigns for other businesses?
• Do they offer friendly, helpful support to make the process easier?

In this post, we’ll help you answer these questions by comparing two different companies offering postcard printing and mailing: the large, publicly traded Vistaprint and the smaller, specialized, Austin, Texas-based QuantumPostcards.

John E. Kennedy, a groundbreaking copywriter considered by many to be one of the forefathers of modern advertising, once described the art of advertising very simply: “Advertising is nothing more than salesmanship in print.” Kennedy believed that far too many advertisements tried to be intelligent instead of effective, and that a great piece of marketing didn’t necessarily need to be “charming or amusing or necessarily pleasing to the eye.” Today, many marketers focus almost entirely on making their ads as pleasing to the eye or amusing as possible. At the same time, they ignore many of the most valuable lessons learned by salespeople. One of these lessons is how to work out your target customer’s objections ahead of time and overcome them. In this blog post, we’ll share five objections your prospects likely have to your offer and the techniques you can use to neutralize them.

There’s more to a persuasive postcard than just engaging copy. From smiling people to photos of your product, the right images can have a huge influence on your direct mail campaign’s response rate and profitability.

In this blog post, we’ll share five ways you can use images to increase your response rate, drive more leads and sales, and better connect with your audience in your next direct mail campaign.

Are you planning a direct mail campaign for your small business? Whether your goal is to generate leads or inspire people to take action and buy your product, direct mail postcards are great tools for achieving your marketing goals.

One of the biggest reasons small business owners avoid using direct mail marketing is due to mistaken concern over its complexity and difficulty. Since it involves visual design, printing and mailing logistics, it must be difficult… right?

Luckily, direct mail marketing isn’t just remarkably effective at generating leads and sales – it’s also remarkably easy to use, provided you work with the right direct mail marketing company.

In this guide, we’ll compare two direct mail companies – Every Door Direct Mail and QuantumPostcards – to learn which is the most efficient and straightforward option for your next direct mail postcard marketing campaign.