The Ultimate Guide to Direct Mail Marketing for Trading Business

Direct mail marketing is often overlooked compared to other marketing strategies for trading business, especially when digital marketing is proven to be less costly with high results. However, direct mail marketing for your trading business can also drive better development, especially in increasing the retention rate for your existing customer. 

Instead of sending it through emails, you can implement advertising and promotional strategy for your trading business by sending physical mail pieces to your existing and potential customers. Whether you want to send them brochures or simply some season’s greetings cards for Christmas or New Year, there are some strategies you can implement to game up your direct mail marketing for your trading business. 

In this post, we’ll share some insights about the pros and cons of implementing direct mail marketing strategy for your business. In addition, we’ll also provide some tips to improve your system so it can convert to sales for your trading business. 

So, what do you need to know about direct mail marketing strategy? Here we go! 

Pros & Cons of Direct Mail Marketing Strategy for Trading Business

Direct mail marketing can be a great strategy, especially if you run a trading business that sells physical goods. There are endless strategies you can do with direct mail marketing strategy, from sending out some beta testers for a new product to your existing customers to mailing some brochures to your potential clients. 

Businesses use various techniques to engage with recipients and encourage them to take specific actions, whether to convert them into sales or drive traffic to the company’s website to learn more about the rest of the products. 

While direct mail marketing can offer several advantages, as it allows your trading business to target specific demographic or customer segments and tailor the campaign accordingly based on your marketing objectives, there’s also a catch in direct mail marketing. 

However, there are also some downsides to direct mail marketing, including: 

Direct mail marketing can be costly: Not only do you have to spare some budget for designing and printing goods, but you will also have to consider the shipping fees that may vary depending on the size and the recipient’s location.  

The result of direct mail marketing may vary: as there is always a possibility that the recipients may not be interested in your offerings which will decrease the conversion rate. To avoid this, you must ensure accurate targeting, which requires specific segmentation to analyze and identify the most relevant recipients for this marketing strategy. 

It’s more challenging to analyze the success of direct mail campaigns: Unlike digital marketing, you may need additional resources to collect data and streamline the progress tracking for each mail sent and how it converts. Without it, it won’t be easy to provide valuable insights into campaign performance and help refine strategies for the next campaign. 

The use of physical materials can contribute to solid waste that may impact heavily on the environment, such as paper or plastic: These days, most customers prefer digital communication, so this strategy may not be the best idea, especially for those who focus on minimizing environmental impact in their purchasing decision. 

Privacy issues: Especially if you use a personal address to mail the item, as many regions implement laws related to privacy policies, such as GDPR in Europe. 

Top Strategies to Boost Direct Mail Marketing for Trading Business

Once you consider the pros and cons of implementing direct mail marketing strategy for your trading business, it’s time to outline some of the best methods to ensure success for your next direct mail campaigns. 

So, here are some things you can do to boost direct mail marketing for your trading business! 

Define the campaign objective

The first thing you can do is determine the specific goal for your campaign. Do you need direct mail marketing to convert it into sales? Or do you need it to increase brand awareness so people will be curious about what’s new in your company? 

Defining clear campaign objectives is essential to know how to measure the success of your direct mail marketing efforts. Consider what you want to achieve through direct mail marketing efforts, and define specific and measurable objectives aligning with your business goals. 

For instance, if your goal is to raise your brand awareness, you can set an objective to get a specific number of mentions or tags on social media based on how many packages you send for this batch of direct mail marketing campaigns. Having this measurement will help you refine your strategy for your next campaign and improve the result based on the metrics you create. 

Identify your target audience

Identifying your target audience is a crucial step in direct mail marketing; not only should your recipient be targeted to ensure that it drives results, but knowing your target audience also can help you tailor your messages, offers, and overall campaign to the right segment. So, how do you identify your target audience for direct mail marketing? 

You can start by analyzing your customer data to gain insights into their demographics and preferences. Look for patterns and common characteristics among your most loyal and valuable customers. Prioritizing existing clients is important, as you know they’re already familiar with your product, and you want to retain them as customers by rewarding them with something that keeps your brand on their minds. 

Identify the common factors in your loyal customers to define your target audience, whether it’s their age, gender, or purchase history. Alternatively, you can divide your existing customers into segments based on relevant characteristics to personalize the direct mail campaigns for them. Each piece may require a unique approach in terms of messaging and offers for the drive to succeed. 

Decide on the type of mailing package for the campaign

Now that you’ve identified the objective and target audience for your direct mail marketing campaign, it’s time to create the mailing package and decide what kind of physical goods you want to send to your customers. 

Whether it’s some brochures, merchandise, or samples of your new products, matching the item with your main objective of starting this campaign is important. One of the best examples is when Earth Hour Corporation raised its brand awareness by sending a yellow candle package inside a building-shaped black box.

The campaign was a success because not only is the merchandise relevant to what they’re trying to raise awareness of, but it’s also complemented with the right design that makes Earth Day Corporation set on the top of their potential customers’ minds because of such a thoughtful campaign. 

Whichever mailing package you send out to your customers should be persuasive, attention-grabbing, and aligned with the campaign objective. Understanding your customer is important as it will help you choose one that resonates with them while at the same time adding value to what your trading business can offer them. 

Visualize the concept of your direct mail marketing campaign

The next step is visualization, as direct mail marketing relies on physical goods to attract customers to your campaign. The first thing you can do is create a prototype, as it will allow you to visualize and test your potential package’s concept before producing it in a large quantity. 

Once you get the prototype, you can see how the design, layout, and messaging can effectively convey your intended message to boost your brand image. If not, you can gather feedback from some stakeholders to improve it before proceeding to the large production for the campaign. 

Creating a prototype for your mailing package will also provide a realistic estimation of costs and production, which you can easily adjust to your budget. By having a sample before producing the content in a large batch, you can also evaluate the materials, printing techniques, and any process involved in bringing your mailing package to life. 

Personalize the mailing package

After the final prototype is approved, it’s time to prepare for the mailing package. Once you decide the type of mailing package you want to send to your customers, you may need some time to prepare the items, from designing the prototype to personalizing the content before the shipment.

Although you may decide on a certain mailing package due to the same interest or the same criteria your customers have, a personal touch on your direct mail marketing can do wonders to create a higher engagement rate. 

There are some strategies you can do to personalize direct mail marketing for your trading business, including:  

• Add a thank you card with a blank recipient: which you can write manually with your customer’s name. 
• Include a personalized coupon for their next purchase: whether through affiliate codes or discounts. 
• Add handwritten elements in the package: whether the CEO’s signature or a small note with motivational quotes that can make their day when receiving the parcel!

Send out the mailing package

Once everything is ready, it’s time to execute the mailing process for all the packages. Whether you do it through a postal service or direct mail provider, it’s essential to ensure accurate addresses for all the boxes before the shipment. 

Check with your mailing provider to ensure the package will be shipped on time before the campaign is due. Depending on the demography of your customer, there may be some packages that require extra shipping fees. 

Track and measure results

Just because you’ve shipped all the mailing packages for the direct marketing campaign doesn’t mean your job is finished there. Implement mechanisms to track the effectiveness of your campaign. The best way to do it is by combining offline and online marketing strategies with unique URLs in the package or coupon codes that you can easily trace to measure success. 

Combining direct mail marketing strategy for your trading business with online marketing will allow you to analyze the data to assess your campaign and refine the design for your next one. In addition, some CRM platforms also allow you to track your sales conversion. InvoiceBerry has a Quotes feature, where you can submit all the quotes delivered to your potential clients to track and update the status occasionally. 

Alternatively, you can send out a follow-up to all the recipients through other channels, whether email or social media, to strengthen the personal connection and encourage engagement. To refine your next direct mail marketing campaign, don’t forget to ask for their feedback to understand how to improve your strategy moving forward. 

Conclusion

With the potential global recession, most companies seek more budget-friendly marketing ideas for their trading business. 

Direct mail marketing may not be considered low-cost, as it requires a higher budget with a more tedious process than digital marketing. However, when implemented correctly, direct mail marketing can boost your brand awareness and effectively retain your customers as you can connect with them on a personal level through this type of campaign. 

Although the process may sound more challenging than email marketing, direct mail marketing can be a great additional strategy, especially if you already have a loyal customer base. It’s a great strategy for upselling and introducing more products your trading business offers. 

Now that you know how to strategize direct mail marketing campaigns correctly, do you think this type of marketing suits your trading business?