Four Reasons Direct Mail is Reinvigorating DTC Marketing

Customer acquisition cost is going up, trust is going down, and it’s harder than ever to catch (and keep) the attention of your target customers. Such is the life of the direct-to-consumer marketer, who lives in a space that’s more competitive and expensive than ever. But what can you do? Rethink the way you connect and communicate.

Background: It All Comes Full Circle

Here’s a little marketing humor: A communication medium isn’t considered truly viable until marketers adopt it (and ruin it for everyone else). It’s true for social media, it was true for email, and it was true for the printing press.

In fact, within a half century of Gutenberg’s first commercial use of the printing press, someone had already thought it’d make a great tool for advertising. Because in 1498, the first catalog was born.

For centuries thereafter, this was the way of the world—and caused quite the boom period for direct-to-consumer marketers. Seeds, clothing, and even houses, it was as simple as browsing a catalog, writing your order, and sending it in.

It wasn’t until recently that catalogs and direct mail as a whole allegedly lost its luster among direct-to-consumer businesses. That new breed of DTC companies—the ones that popped up in the last decade or so—eschewed anything they thought to be outdated.

Until they didn’t.

Four Major Reasons Direct Mail Works for DTC Companies

As we discussed in our last article, rising CAC has pushed DTC businesses to rethink the way they connect with their audience. And they’ve found those ‘outdated’ strategies turned out to be timeless.

For the same reason DTC brands are opening stores, strategists and marketers at these companies are reembracing direct mail marketing—whether or not that strategy involves a catalog. Here’s why.

An Unobtrusive Break from Digital Deluge

Can you believe that they made a movie about Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan anxiously awaiting emails from each other? Simpler times. But that was a time when we were buried in mail—and email was a novel change of pace.

Now, the average person receives 120 emails a day—alongside 46 push notifications, one to two dozen text messages, and a constant barrage of pre-rolls, banner ads, and sponsored content. It’s an unending stream of distraction and often-unwanted information from the time someone wakes up to the second they close their eyes.

Direct mail? It’s a welcome reprieve. It only happens once a day—and the average household receives less than two marketing messages every day on average. And as the volume of mail sent every day continues to decline, the medium continues to become an even more lucrative option for mailers looking to get their message across.  

People Have to Interact with It

Your mailpiece might not be a birthday card with a check from grandma. It might not be that bill the person expected. And it’s definitely not the grocery flyer that the person is planning their week around. But it’s sitting next to each of them. Can you say the same for email?

Head over to your Outlook or Gmail. How many unread emails do you have? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? And when it finally comes time to clean up your inbox, how much thought are you going to put into each email?

If you’re anything like the writer of this article, the answer is… not too much. Actually, if you’re anything like me, you have Outlook rules set up to automatically send emails to a folder labeled “apparel” or “home goods.” And the second I get that notification that my Google Storage is 90% full, I simply right click on the folder and hit the letter “E” for “empty folder.”

It’s just as likely that the person cleaning out their inbox filters by sender, clicks an email, scrolls to the next sender they deem important, shift-click, and hit delete.

Even in the unlikely worst-case scenario for a mailpiece, you’ll still have the opportunity to make your pitch between the mailbox and the recycle bin. Which, again, is unlikely—the shelf life of a direct mail piece is roughly 17 days.

Unmatched Trustworthiness

Another benefit of direct mail for DTC companies? It’s trusted.

People are constantly bombarded with ads for sketchy dropshippers selling the latest item they purchased in bulk off Alibaba. Their spam folders are packed. It’s easy to impersonate a brand online—and easier to dupe someone. Guards are up—and receptiveness is down.

Alternatively, direct mail shows that the company sending a piece gives a crap, no matter how easy it is to run a campaign.

The act of sending a physical mailpiece shows that a company is willing to invest time and resources into connecting with a recipient.

It shows that a company values the time a person is taking to read the mail—and in turn makes the recipient feel special.

Personalization & Scheduling is Easy—As Easy as Email

The combination of customer relationship management software, marketing automation, buyer journey tools, and analytics has made it easier than ever to design email outreach.

Did someone cross a threshold you’ve deemed important in the buying cycle? It just triggered an email. Is someone on a subscription model about to churn based on similar users’ behaviors? It just triggered an email.

Well, automated direct mail can do the exact same thing. A good direct mail automation solution integrates with the marketing technology stack you already use to give you the same freedom and flexibility in direct mail as you get from any other form of communication.

Everything in that mailpiece can be personalized—from names to calls-to-action to the offer itself—with ease.

…But a Whole Lot More Effective

As mentioned earlier, a recipient has to interact with their mail. But that’s rarely the case. People usually want to interact with their mail.

Heck, they don’t just want to interact with their mail, they want to see what’s coming. There’s a good reason that 65 million people are signed up for Informed Delivery—and 65% of those people open their Informed Delivery email every morning.

By every single metric, direct mail outperforms email, text messaging, and digital advertising.

Open rates? A bad mailpiece performs better than a good email. Read rates? Same. Response rates? Somewhere between 8 and 35 times more effective than email. Even recall. 70% higher than digital ads.

Better yet? It’s pretty easy to align a direct mail campaign with social media for even more omnichannel engagement.

Direct Mail for Direct-to-Consumer Companies by Sepire

When it comes to direct mail for DTC companies, the benefits and opportunities are endless. And at Sepire, we specialize in creating meaningful, physical connections at scale.

Need to send one big batch to one big list? We’re built to scale. Want to develop a workflow that triggers a mailing at specific thresholds or activities? We make it happen every day. Heck, we can even send a welcome kit when that prospect becomes a customer.

And we can assure you that it’s not just the technology that sets us apart—we’re darn good at the printing part of the equation too. Learn more about our expertise in direct mail for DTC here, and drop us a line when you’re ready to get started.