With so much focus on being up-to-date with digital marketing, many business owners are missing out on a very powerful way to reach their audience — good, old-fashioned snail mail, also known as direct mail marketing.
The irony (and the power) of direct mail marketing is that in this day and age, it is a unique way to reach your audience. While your patients may feel bombarded by emails, web ads and social media information overload, these days a personalized piece of mail is a novelty.
Further, direct mail marketing has an exceptional return on investment. According to our research, practices receive a response rate between 0.5 and 1 percent of all mailings. And the more they do, the higher the return.
Direct mail may seem outdated, but a growing number of businesses and marketers are acknowledging its benefits over more cutting-edge marketing strategies.
Here are five benefits of a direct mail marketing strategy for your practice:
- The return on investment (ROI) is measurable. You can target a particular promotion to your direct mail campaign or include a specific code or incentive solely for direct mail recipients to measure exactly what business comes in from the campaign.
- You get a higher recipient rate. Unlike other forms of marketing — such as email or social media campaigns — you have a very high chance of your audience receiving, opening and seeing your promotional material as it goes directly to the recipient. Unlike email where you are competing with spam filters or Facebook where your post may or may not be seen, unless you have the wrong address you can be pretty sure your mail will get in the hands of your audience.
- The physical mailbox is less crowded. While email inboxes and social media feeds are inundated with messages all the time, fewer businesses are vying for attention via a physical mailbox. With less information to filter through, your messages are more likely to make it through to curious eyes.
- Direct mail is hyper-targeted. Since it is based on physical vicinity, direct mail enables you to target real potential patients that live within your practice neighborhood. Therefore, you aren’t wasting any advertising dollars on irrelevant parties.
- There is greater trust with direct mail. Because of the abundance of spam and hoaxes found in the digital world, many people are reluctant to open emails or follow through with online advertising and promotions. Since it is more of a personalized form of communication, direct mail doesn’t have the same sort of mistrust that the Internet tends to generate.
I am not promoting that you should abandon digital marketing for your practice because there is a strong audience there that is only growing as the digital world takes over. However, including direct mail in your marketing strategy is an effective way to expand your reach and get your message to stand out to your audience.