How to Integrate Direct Mail and Email to Increase Your ROI

At first glance, email marketing and direct mail marketing look remarkably similar to each other. They’re both highly targeted, inexpensive, and ideal for informing prospects about the value your business can offer.

Similar doesn’t mean exactly the same, however, and while direct mail marketing and email marketing might share some common elements, they also share a huge range of differences.

Direct mail achieves far higher response rates than email – often 30 times higher with a targeted mailing list. It also offers a far longer shelf life, with emails quickly discarded and direct mail postcards often kept around for several days.

These advantages don’t make direct mail a better all-around choice than email, as both marketing channels excel in different circumstances. In fact, direct mail and email are incredibly powerful when used together in an integrated campaign.

Here are three ways that you can integrate direct mail and email marketing to create a powerful synergy, achieve higher response rates, and keep your business at the front of your target audience’s mind.

Send prospects to the same landing page using email and direct mail

For decades, the traditional direct mail call to action has been “Call Now.” Thanks to the rise of QR codes and short URLs, direct mail calls to action are rapidly starting to include URLs to specific landing pages.

One of the biggest advantages of email marketing is that it allows you to send people to specific, personalized landing pages. Reaching a checkout isn’t a five-step process, but a simple one-click task that makes taking action easier.

Create a consistent, integrated experience across direct mail and email by using the same landing pages in your direct mail campaign as your email campaign. Including a QR code or short URL makes it easy to take prospects from mail to your website.

Think recipients won’t go from a direct mail postcard to website? Think again. Direct mail is one of the most effective marketing channels for directing prospects to your website, with direct mail recipients spending 28% more online than non-recipients.

Use direct mail to follow up on customers that don’t respond online

Email marketing’s greatest weakness is its low open rate. While direct mail postcards are read by almost all recipients, even if they’re eventually discarded, email is often ignored entirely or deleted by recipients.

This weakness can be improved on by using direct mail to fill the gaps left behind by your email campaign. Instead of following up repeatedly using email, follow up with non-responsive customers and prospects using direct mail.

Direct mail’s amazing open rate makes it a fantastic choice for contacting prospects that don’t open your emails. A single direct mail postcard can “reactivate” people in a way that email simply can’t achieve.

If you have an important message to deliver that isn’t being read by recipients via email, segment your list into openers and non-openers and use direct mail to reach the people that don’t open your email.

Offer different purchasing options using direct mail and email marketing

Many of the people on your company’s email list are interested in your products and services but uninterested in shopping online. Offering different purchasing options through direct mail and email lets you maximize your campaign’s response rate.

For example, many of the people that receive your emails might not be interested in shopping online. If your company can provide a local shopping option for them or a phone checkout option, there’s a chance they might feel more motivated to take action. 

Likewise, a certain percentage of your audience will only be interested in shopping online. Promoting the same offer – whether it’s a product or service – with different purchasing options is a great way to appeal to the largest possible audience.

Use email marketing to send prospects to your website and direct mail to educate customers about nearby retail outlets and your phone-based checkout. This gives your audience multiple purchasing options, increasing your overall response rate.

How can your company integrate its email and direct mail marketing?

By using email and direct mail marketing together, your business could achieve a powerful synergy that expands the size of your audience, increases your response rate, and gives you the best of each marketing channel.

From reactivating non-responsive leads using direct mail to offering a selection of different purchasing options via email, use each marketing channel strategically to get the best of both digital and direct mail marketing.