The Secret Weapon for Increasing Engagement

Snail Mail: Are You Risking Everything by Not Using It?

Inboxes are crowded, and it’s harder than ever to break through the noise. Your prospects are on the perpetual quest to inbox zero, open rates are sitting at around 20%, and the average lifespan of an email is 17 seconds.

 

Many in B2B marketing have turned to texting to avoid the barriers of entry related to email. Considering that 97% of SMS messages are read within three minutes, it’s a good approach. But, as SMS marketing becomes more mainstream, people are beginning to experience SMS fatigue alongside their email fatigue.

 

Meanwhile, physical mailboxes are sitting empty. Talk about a missed opportunity – especially considering people enjoy getting mail. 73% of American consumers say they actually prefer being contacted by brands through this channel.

 

Because all the focus has been on digital marketing in recent years, a personalized piece of direct mail now stands out. Compared to email, direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to process. It’s more memorable, too. According to Marketing Profs, only 44% of people can recall a brand immediately after seeing a digital ad. An impressive 75% can do so after seeing a piece of direct mail.

 

It takes a consumer an average of seven interactions with a company or brand before they take an action. With the average lifespan for a piece of direct mail sitting at 17 days (compare that to email’s 17 seconds!), think of all the opportunity there is for your brand to become familiar to your prospect – all thanks to a postcard sitting on your prospect's desk or kitchen counter.

 

Distributing your efforts between email, SMS, and direct mail via an omnichannel marketing approach increases the frequency that your prospect is exposed to your messaging – and doesn’t burn your audience out on any one channel.

 

If you’re trying to increase engagement for your company or brand – which you should be – then incorporating a direct mail strategy into your marketing efforts may be the secret weapon you’ve been looking for. The response rate for direct mail is exponentially higher than it is for other channels: an average between 2.7%–4.4% compared to 0.6% for email. Higher engagement means stronger relationships with your customers, a better reputation, more referrals, and more sales.

 

Using a tool like CLOSEM, you can integrate direct mail, SMS, and email seamlessly into an easy-to-implement automation and see 40%+ engagement rates. This is the power of omnichannel marketing.

 

The data is clear: if you’re serious about reaching your goals, it might be time to give direct mail a well-deserved role in your outreach efforts.