With the emergence of digital media, most people thought that print media could soon be obsolete. As social media, online forums and online social groups took over the marketing arena, marketers almost forgot about direct mail, brochures, and catalogs. But recent direct mail statistics showcase that print marketing is gaining traction once more with more customers responding to direct mails than emails or social media ads. 

The tangible nature of print media gives it an edge over digital advertising. It is personalized and increases customer engagement as customers feel they are part of the business. Today, technology has revolutionized print media allowing companies to produce advertising materials with attractive designs and excellent graphics. Having realized the vitality of print marketing and its effectiveness in bolstering customer response rates, it is imperative to implement a practical marketing strategy. Here are some tips that can help increase lead conversion and retention through print marketing. 

Using Customer Relationship Management (CRM Tools) 

Improving response rates implies targeting the right market. Your client base might span from young to old, or from rich to middle class but you’d love to provide personalized catalogs for every customer. CRM software can assist you to track the behavior of your customers in online platforms. It assists in highlighting the desires and products likely attractive to a particular customer. With CRM, you can create targeted print marketing that will be effective guaranteeing positive ROI. 

Research by Direct Marketing Association points out that 42% of direct mail customers prefer responding online meaning increased traffic and customer engagement in your site. You can increase this percentage by using CRM to ultra-personalize brochures, guides, and recommendations you send to your customers. Again, it has been found that adding the customer’s name, more personalized information and full color boosts the response rate by 500%. CRM helps to gather prospect’s information as they interact in various digital media. With this information at hand, you can create colored, well-designed catalogs or postcards or that resonates with the desires of the recipient. 

Diversify Your Print Marketing Techniques 

Do not rely only on print mail. Use other print designs to improve networking – a vital tool in creating meaningful connections that trigger word-of-mouth advertising through referrals. Use business cards so that whenever you meet prospects in soirees, pitching decks or tradeshows, you can hand to them so that they can contact your business later. Combine this by creatively designing your physical stores with conspicuous signs, banners or even flags. 

Such form of print advertising enables customers to associate products in your physical store with those offered in your e-commerce outlet. It makes them visit your site for more information and more products thus increasing traffic and ultimately the response rates. Moreover, when you’ve product promotions underway, why not use postcards? They are simple, easy to read and allow the customer to highlight the best products in a whim. Accompany your postcard with catalogs that showcase prices of items to enable the customer to choose what’s ideal. 

What if you want to increase customer awareness of product specs and benefits? The answer is designing eye-catching brochures. Ensure that your brochures talk less but say more. You can even spruce up your brochures by including links to videos. With these techniques, you can get to utilize the power of print media which is its ability to stick into the mind of the customer. 

Striking a Balance Between Print Marketing and Digital Marketing 

It is possible to concentrate on one form advertising until you realize you’ve shoved away the other completely. Effective marketing campaigns emanate by creating an equilibrium point between the two forms of advertising. Lay out a framework that enables you to track customers in the online and physical world. Such frameworks are paramount in identifying the effectiveness of every marketing channel. It allows you to analyze response rates in regard to every print or digital media marketing technique. Also, you can increase conversion rates by retargeting customers by linking direct mail and online ads. 

When launching a direct mail marketing campaign, ensure that the offers are compelling, attractive and apt for the target market. Here are some tips to help create direct mails that lead to higher response rates. 

• Use customer name and other personalized information 
• Provide enough information about the products 
• Ensure the benefits of the products are more than the features 
• Accompany direct mails with gifts 
• Utilize time limits to trigger higher response and conversion 
• Make offers with Yes/No response 

Reaching out to the customer in this digital age has become so much easy but converting them into loyal customers is an arduous task. While print media marketing might be costlier than digital marketing, it is an effective technique of retaining customers. Increase customer’s loyalty, bolster conversion and ramp up ROI by making direct mail one of your marketing techniques
 
 
Caryl Anne is a contributing writer and media specialist for Allegra Network. She often produces content for a variety of print marketing blogs. 

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Identifying Your Best Sales Leads

In order to come up with the most responsive direct mail list you’ve got to know something about your best customers. How do you do that? Here’s the secret: Simply find people with the same demographic characteristics of your best customers.

To learn how, let’s review the factors that make up a direct mail campaign and see where customer profiling fits in.

When it comes to marketing, knowing exactly who your customers are is one of the most important bits of data you can amass.  Without it, your marketing campaign is nothing more than the blind leading the blind.

Marketing Case in Point

Say you own a restaurant.   It’s Saturday Night and your restaurant is packed.  You’re obviously doing something right but you’re not sure exactly.  Is it your friendly staff, the food, the pricing, the service, the ambiance?

You advertise, at a great expense, in local newspapers and magazines. You sometimes offer coupons or a promotion. Once in awhile you send out direct mail.

But still you don’t have information that is critical for successful marketing to a focused audience.

What You Need to Know When Marketing to Your Customers

1. Who are your customers? The restaurant is full and you may know a few of your regulars, but who are the other customers?
2. Even if you knew who they are, how do you contact them to promote slow nights?
3. Why are these people coming to your restaurant in the first place?
4. Where is your money being spent most effectively – newspaper ads, magazines ad, direct mail, other promotions?  What is giving you the best Rate of Return?

Marketing to a Focused Audience

Here’s the good news. There is a  simple way to gather that information which allows you to tastefully communicate with your customers and keep you top of mind.

One way is to have a table tent that offers a free soda or iced tea (minimum cost) or a free dessert for simply doing one of two things.

1. If the customer has a smart phone,  scan a little funny looking bar code or
2. If they don’t have a smart phone, simply text a keyword to a certain phone number.  Either way the customer receives the offer. In the process, you  ask everyone, with absolutely no obligation, for their email and cell phone number so that you can contact them, once in a great while, with other offers.  Most customers will join in.
As you gather that information, you start communicating with them.  Send a quick poll to find out why they come to you and what attracts them. You can offer specials on Monday and Tuesday nights. You can have a “kids eat free” night, two for one drinks or whatever to bring the customers through your door.

How will you send those offers to your customers? By either email or text message . Text messaging is more effective because it’s read instantly.   If you’re selling pizza, you can text customers about a special at 4:30 pm so they think about ordering one and picking it up on the way home.

You can also send reminders of reservations so that if their plans change, you’ll know that you have a table open to take another reservation.

The methods of marketing to customer’s mobile phones are endless and the cost of focused marketing is much less than, and more effective than the old model of expensive advertising.

If you want to create great marketing content for your brochure, direct mail or any other marketing piece, simply follow the masses.

The term, “monkey see, monkey do” has a lot of validity especially when it comes to marketing.  People in general follow the masses because it lessens their fear of standing alone and taking a risk that apparently other people aren’t willing to do.

Take for example copycat crimes.   Research has shown that the larger the news story, the greater the chances that imitative incidences will arises.  Another study in New York showed that when one person stopped in the street and looked up, approximately four percent of the people walking by also stopped to look up.  When five people stopped to look upward, 18 percent of those passing by stopped to take peek; and when the crowd increased to 15 people taking plight upward, 40 percent did so as well.  And if you have teenagers, you’ll understand this phenomenon well as they take to doing what their peers are doing rather than follow their own distinctive path alone.

Your Marketing Content Should Leverage Testimonials

Knowing and understanding how and why people follow the masses will help you move one step ahead so you can create content that works.  Leveraging testimonials reinforces that others took a risk on buying your products or services, easing potential customers’ fears of making the wrong purchasing decision.  Testimonials are powerful and provide information in which others can identify.

Your Marketing Content Should Create Some Buzz

Companies advertise the size of their customer base all the time.  Case in point, McDonalds proudly displays in numerical value how many billions they have served.  Like a gas station sign, they add to that count for every new billion served and if 100 billion people have chomped down on a McDonald’s hamburger at some point, it can’t be all that bad, right?  Remember, people like to follow the masses.

Your Marketing Content Should Tell a Story

Effective non-profits looking to raise funds do this well – they create marketing content that tells a story.  Stories are emotional and appeal to people because they provide a human side and are relatable.  Maybe your company doesn’t have a huge social cause behind it like working to cure malaria, but there’s probably story or two about how your products or services solved people’s problems and made their lives better.