In today’s B2B sales and marketing landscape, account-based strategies play a critical role in raising awareness among the right audiences, building brand affinity, and accelerating sales pipeline. However, digital fatigue is now at an all-time high—in fact, recent research found that more than half of enterprise employees have experienced fatigue due to the volume of digital promotions they receive at work. Thankfully, there is a light at the end of the digital fatigue tunnel.
As brands seek out new ways to engage burnt-out audiences, the power of physical marketing should not be discounted. Some studies suggest that direct mail open rates might be as high as 90%—presenting sales and marketing professionals with a unique opportunity to incorporate this high-performing channel into their account-based strategies.
B2B sales and marketing teams are leveraging direct mail to catalyze revenue growth by blending physical touchpoints with digital insights into a seamless “Hybrid Experience.” By incorporating direct mail into omnichannel marketing strategies, companies can build stronger and more enduring customer relationships, while driving greater revenue for the business.
What is direct mail marketing?
Direct mail marketing is the delivering of advertising materials via postal mail. The materials being sent often promote a business with the objective to engage a prospects and/or existing customers. In the past, the majority of direct mail campaigns have consisted of simple items —flyers, letters, flat mail, catalogs etc.—sent en masse to a wide audience. However, emerging direct mail tactics now incorporate increasing levels of sophistication. This allows both large and small businesses to send unique, high-value, and personalized items to a targeted group of prospects or customers. This evolution of direct mail fits seamlessly into today’s insights-driven account-based marketing (ABM) strategies.
Creating physical touchpoints that are measurable, personalized, and timely
For direct mail campaigns to be successful in the modern, data-driven world, businesses must prioritize delivering physical experiences that are measurable, personalized, timely, and orchestrated with their digital marketing campaigns for maximum impact.
Measurable
In the past, a direct mail service remained siloed from a company’s broader marketing initiatives, making measurement on marketing campaign performance nearly impossible. Today, however, thanks to the power of APIs and platform integrations, physical marketing can be easily added into an organization’s martech stack. Now sales and marketing professionals can measure and follow each step of the direct mail journey—including when pieces are delivered, how many are sent, how many are delivered, open rates, and much more—to determine overall campaign effectiveness and ROI.
Personalized
Personalization is a key factor for any well-executed ABM strategy, allowing sales and marketing teams to create deeper and more effective human connections with their audiences based on various dempgraphics. However, personalized direct mail experiences should not simply include an individual’s name on an item. Using digital insights, companies can tailor their direct mail, whatever it is, to include information and offers that are highly relevant to their targeted customer base—shifting personalized experiences to personal ones.
Timely
In our fast-paced world, direct mail experiences must be timely to ensure optimal engagement with recipients. Thanks to automation, businesses can use intent data and digital signals to trigger timely physical touchpoints—reaching the right person at exactly the right time. Think of it this way: You wouldn’t want to send out an email campaign when you know your audience is asleep—neither should you send physical marketing campaigns at a suboptimal time during the customer journey.
How sales and marketing teams can leverage direct mail
Physical marketing tactics like direct mail can be incorporated into every stage of the buyer journey, from awareness-building, to pipeline acceleration, and even ongoing customer experience.
To maximize top-of-funnel awareness campaigns, marketers can use physical marketing to more easily engage new prospects and open the door for future sales opportunities. Once the ideal customer profile (ICP) has been determined, marketers can coordinate the sending mailers to their target audiences in a way that is scalable and supports their broader ABM strategy.
As a buyer moves down the funnel, sales teams can use a direct mail piece to strategically engage with prospects to expedite response times and build greater brand affinity. For example, a sales professional can send mailers directly from their CRM and receive notifications when the mail arrives to a prospective customer, allowing them to time follow-ups perfectly following delivery. This method boosts prospect response rates significantly, allowing brands to close more deals, faster.
Once a new customer comes on board, direct mail can also be leveraged to foster brand loyalty and even encourage up-sell opportunities in the future. Using insight into when a customer’s engagement with the brand is waning, customer-facing professionals can tap into direct mail as a means of reigniting the engagement with personalized and timely content, promoting sustained customer engagement.
Bringing hybrid experiences to life with your brand
Hybrid marketing has the potential to vastly accelerate sales cycles, expand digital marketing effectiveness, and transform a brand’s overall ROI and reach. By incorporating physical mail, companies can infuse a customer call-to-action with authenticity and memorable personalization, allowing them to engage digitally fatigued audiences and establish lasting customer relationships.
To learn more about how you can incorporate hybrid experiences into your account-based marketing and sales strategies, please visit PFL.com/customer-success/.
About the Author
Follow on Linkedin Visit Website More Content by Kurt Gellert, Director of Product & Partner Marketing at PFL
