Direct Mail - You're Doing It All Wrong
ROI is hard to prove for Direct Mail unless it the campaign is directly tied to the sales opportunity. However, many companies use Direct Mail the wrong way and it turns out to be a complete waste of money.
Direct mail can be slow and expensive. A proper strategy can make it pay off.
Additionally, most direct mail companies charge you a platform fee + sometimes an inventory storage fee + the cost of the swag + the shipping of the swag. It adds up pretty quickly on your marketing budget. 👎
How most companies use Direct Mail
Most use it to get a meeting - this is a huge waste of $ 💸
Some use it as an end of year 'thank you for being our customer' gift - fine, but I can think of other things your customers want other than a piece of swag or some brownies. 💸
Almost all companies do not have a direct mail strategy in place. They use it as a one off for a campaign. Again, total waste of $$.💸
Examples of great direct mail campaigns
The best campaigns consider: the list, the creative, and the offer.
Send a pre-conference mailer with a key to unlock a box and ask folks to bring the mailer and the key to your booth so you capture the lead data.
Send a book your company just wrote on your best use case.
If you want to definitely get the meeting, then send an Apple watch charger without the Apple watch to your top 100 prospects. You’ll be surprised how many meetings you get. (This is where the list is imperative so you don’t just get non-decision makers).
With any direct mail campaign you need to make sure the companies you are targeting can accept gifts of certain dollar amounts. Many enterprise and upper mid-market companies cannot accept corporate gifts and often post this on their websites. Do your research first before sending anything.
The swag people care about
Executives do not care about branded swag. As a marketer you’ve been told your whole career that anything which gets produced by marketing better have the brand on it. (Am I right?)
But this is the wrong way to think about it. Most executives would appreciate an unbranded, pragmatic item, rather than a branded piece of gear. This means foregoing the clever campaign. For example, I once received a light up makeup mirror with some message on it that said “X company is shining a light on X problem.” Sure, it’s clever, but I don’t need a light up makeup mirror, most people don’t.
Also, not every company can receive gifts, as it can be seen as a bribe. Check their website, it’s usually under their policy section.
The three best swag gifts I ever received were:
A digital detox box by MailChimp where the only thing that was branded was the box itself and a 10-sided decision die. The rest of the box was filled with ways to digitally detox, like notebooks, coloring books, markers, coloring pencils, timers, comfy socks, etc.
A wooden box with my initials engraved on the bottom corner. The only problem with this gift was I cannot for the life of me remember who the company was because the branding was so minimal. There was a tiny card on the inside of the box, and that was it. It was so mysterious.
A Marketo wine and cheese board. They invited me to a virtual wine and cheese event during Covid and sent me 3 bottles of wine, plus hand delivered a charcuterie board to my house. Memorable.
The three worst swag gifts I ever received were:
Brownies. I can’t remember the company who sent them but they sent me relentless messages with, “Did you receive the brownies?” Of course I did, but I fucking hate brownies, so I threw them in the trash and also moved their emails to spam.
A Golden State Warriors street sign for my office. I can’t tell you who sent it because they sent it through Amazon with no note and never mentioned the gift in a follow up email. I do not need more tchotchkes or clutter for my office or my desk, although I am a Warriors fan, so kudos to whoever did that research.
A makeup light. I put it in my re-gifting closet to give away at a future White Elephant party. It came from an HR tech partner with some corny slogan about “the future is bright with us” or something like that.
The direct mail campaign I took full advantage of with ‘no guilt’
Someone was offering free $150 Apple Airpods on a LinkedIn ad if I took a meeting and listened to a demo. So here I am weighing out the benefits, is an hour of my time worth $150 pair of Apple Airpods? Not exactly, but my airpods were going bad and it would also save me a trip to the store, so I took it and I got them. Did I feel guilty? Not in the slightest. Why? Because I don’t believe in buying the meeting this way. You almost never get the economic buyer.
So how should you do Direct Mail right?
Direct mail should always be integrated into your campaigns. It should not be a one-off action.
First, who do you want to send gifts to? Prospects? Customers? Partners? Employees? Lots of folks/departments for you to split the invoice with should you go with a platform.
Prospects - Direct mail to prospects should only be sent to accelerate the sales cycle, not to get your foot in the door for that first meeting. For example, I would often authorize sales to send a $25 or $50 Amazon or Starbucks card to their champion who was helping us move the deal forward.
Customers - I have been guilty of sending a plant with “Thanks for continuing to grow with us” but that doesn’t mean it was a good idea. Customers want to feel appreciated. You can spotlight their successes and celebrate product milestones with direct mail built into your customer marketing strategy.
Partners - The swag I received from MailChimp was a partner gift. If the partner is making you money and you are making them money, then send them an unbranded piece of swag. But reserve this for only your top tiered partners.
Employees - There are few places I’ve worked where employees care about swag. TiVo was the only place where the employees really wanted the swag because it was coveted by the public. But a gym bag from your B2B brand? Not so much. Find out what employees care about by doing a simple survey before you waste time, money, resources on cultivating the perfect employee appreciation gift.
Second, what’s the goal for sending gifts to each group? What are the rules around sending a gift? I have worked for companies who were so nice they sent gifts to customer’s for life events, like getting married or having a baby. Those are great for employees, but it blurs the lines when it comes to sending those types of gifts to customers.
Every tactic you do needs a strategy, otherwise they are just rogue tactics strung together and that’s not marketing.
p.s. 💡These days, you don’t need to use a Direct Mail platform to send swag to people. You can use a print on demand service so you don’t have to store inventory. Or if you run out, create a QR code and hand that out to folks who didn’t receive your swag and have them fill out a form and print on demand post event.
Some print on demand services recommended to me recently were: Minuteman and Proforma Southwest. I am sure there are others, feel free to add them to the comments.