While digital marketing is all the rage today, direct mail marketing – which includes items like catalogs, coupons, flyers, and self-mailers – continues to be a popular and effective avenue for retailers to reach new customers and retaining existing ones. Results found in the 2018 ANA/DMA Response Rate Report indicate that direct mail response rates for both house and prospect lists continue to vastly outpace those seen on digital channels (email, online display, paid search, social media).
So what does this tell us? Chiefly, two important things. One: direct mail marketing is worth investing in. And two: marketers should maximize the effectiveness of their campaigns by targeting both direct mail and digital channels together. By bringing them together as part of a multi-channel approach, marketers are able to create brand awareness and connect with customers across all of their channels and maximize campaign effectiveness. But how do you go about seamlessly integrating these two marketing avenues in a cost-effective manner? By using your customer data to take a data-driven marketing approach.
Customer Data is Key to Successful Marketing
Today’s savvy marketers understand the importance of and need for a centralized customer database. The buzz in the business world today revolves around being "data-driven," but it's important for marketers to recognize that simply being in possession of customer data doesn’t mean they are data-driven. For marketers to be truly data-driven, marketing campaigns must be created based on actionable insights gained from detailed customer data analysis.
Most marketers don’t possess the technical prowess of IT or the analytical skills of data scientists, so how do they go about obtaining the customer data insights needed for successful campaigns? Luckily, technology aimed at helping marketers address their customer data analysis and management needs is available in the form of the Customer Data Platform (CDP).
How Customer Data Platforms Enhance Multi-Channel Marketing
Clean, organized customer data is the key component to integrating digital and direct mail marketing initiatives, and the use of a CDP makes analyzing, managing, and unifying customer data for these campaigns simple and intuitive. With a CDP, marketers are able to quickly and easily gain insights into their customers (such as behavioral data on email or online ad click rates, for example) and use that data to enhance and personalize marketing campaigns.
Our latest whitepaper, “Mailbox Meets Inbox: Integrating Direct Mail Into Your Digital Marketing Strategy,” discusses how CDPs help marketers structure their customer data and make behavioral and demographic data points actionable across all marketing channels. It features helpful tips on how to execute omnichannel initiatives across direct mail and digital marketing, as well as examples of retailers who have mastered catalog mailing.
Want to Take Your Marketing Data to the Next Level?
QuickPivot offers an integrated CDP that enables marketers to deliver coordinated customer experiences across all channels, measure results in real-time, and refine marketing programs to improve performance. To learn more, or to request a demo, contact us at quickpivot.com.
