When 70% of consumers say that direct mail feels more personal to them than online outreach and almost 40% of those consumers have admitted that direct mail has convinced them to patronize a business in the past, it stands to reason that direct mail should be a keystone component to your marketing campaign.

However, direct mail doesn’t do you any good if you don’t add a “follow-up” component to your campaign. At Bluegrass, we use a customized and integrated follow-up approach, which I’m going to break down for you below.

Retarget Your Audience via Digital

Digital retargeting is a great strategy, especially when paired with such a powerful, successful marketing medium as direct mail. If we were playing volleyball, then direct mail would be the bump and the set. Retargeting would be the spike!

You want to retarget your direct mail audience via both Facebook and Google. How do you do this? After all, direct mail is a physical medium and those postcards go into mailboxes.

The easiest way to bridge the gap between mail and digital is with technology like Amplify by Bluegrass. Following mailing, your campaign message and graphics are presented to your audience across a variety of mediums. Their engagement is tracked and presented within a custom campaign dashboard, allowing you to easily track all of your campaign’s performance.

However, if you don’t want to create a full blown omnichannel campaign like Amplify, you can still run a great direct mail campaign and follow-up with the following simple actions.

Call Them About It

Yes, even in today’s world we find that an old-fashioned follow-up phone call can pique the interest of certain people, especially if you’re in an industry that depends on relationship building. Many of these potential leads would appreciate a phone call, especially if you’ve done your homework and are reasonably certain that you’re filling a necessary niche. Be sure to mention the name of your company and the mailer they received to jog their memory.

Leave a Voicemail

Today, most of us don’t answer our phones, especially if it is a phone number we don’t recognize. Which means it is important to leave a voicemail to get your message to the potential customer. There are services like Sly Broadcast that can even leave a pre-recorded message from the phone number of your choice. Depending on the size of your business, you could leave these messages yourself, use software like Sly Broadcast, or even hire a team of subcontracted virtual assistants.

Send a Text Message

You’ve called them, you’ve left a voicemail, and now it’s time to send an SMS blast. Services like EZ Texting allow you to send multiple texts simultaneously. I’ve found that the best types of text messages are open-ended questions, which introduce the potential for a conversation. Think of all the people you can reach when 98% of the US population owns a cell phone and check it an average of 5 times per hour!

Send An Email

Most people today have more than one email address, where we get an excessive amount of emails every day. This means creating a unique email strategy is crucial if you want yours to be opened. An email is more likely to be opened if you have a compelling subject line that sparks interest. Be sure to include key information in regards to the goal you are trying to achieve without sounding pushy. Don’t forget to personalize you emails. When the recipient sees their name, it makes them feel special and can open the door to a future relationship. Finally, a compelling call to action will seal the deal.

Direct Mail Alone Isn’t Enough

The truth is, you’re already convinced that you offer a product or service that can be beneficial to your audience. Now you need to convince everyone else. Have you heard of the marketing Rule of 7? A prospect will need to see or hear your message an average of 7 times before they take action. If you continuously present your message naturally and pleasantly, you’ll find that a little bit of persistence pays off.