Introduction into B2B Direct Mail Marketing
Have some highly relevant accounts in your list and don’t know how to convert them? Well, the answer is crystal clear – Marketing. But how? What marketing channel should you use, and how to get the best out of it?
First, let us be clear about what B2B marketing is; it basically comprises marketing activities conducted by B2B companies – those who sell to businesses. B2B marketing is different from B2C marketing (wherein a company’s products and services are advertised directly to customers).
The best way to reach out to your corporate customers is direct, which is why direct mail marketing is your best choice. Businesses can use direct mail as a lone marketing medium or by collaborating with other forms. Many marketers think that direct mail marketing is still expensive, untrackable, and difficult to conduct. However, with new direct mail practices, these things are turned into mere myths. 70% of direct mail recipients think direct mail makes them feel special. Using direct mail, B2B businesses can establish strong relationships with their clients and increase ROI drastically.
We have put together a B2B direct mail guide to understand direct mail better and all the possibilities you can explore.
Best Practices for B2B Direct Mail Marketers
Direct mail marketing becomes easier when you clearly know what things you are supposed to do. Moreover, by understanding these things, you can improve your chances of getting responses and driving conversions. Find below the best practices for you to incorporate into your B2B direct mail marketing strategies:
1. Align Marketing with Sales and Define Prospect Profile Carefully
In B2B marketing, you target a company that is most likely to be converted into a customer. It is important to note that employees of your prospective company can shift positions or leave the organization. Your direct mail activities can go to waste if you send mail to an employee who has already left. Hence, it is vital that you align your marketing efforts with your sales team to guide you about the concerned persons and add them to your mailing lists.
Always take notes from your sales team and then mail accordingly. Furthermore, define your prospect profile clearly and target the right ones.
2. Include a Straightforward CTA
Your call to action should be no mystery to your direct mail recipients. Hence, include a straightforward CTA, which can be completed by them easily. Including a CTA in your direct mail pieces is very important as it fulfils the main purpose of the campaign.
Tell your customers about what is expected of them. Sending a mailer without any CTA can never get you any responses as the customers are not directed towards the next step. Therefore, always include a CTA; it could be anything from signing up on your website or requesting a demo.
3. Step Into Your Prospect’s Shoes
You should be aware of your prospect’s preferences, life stages, likes, dislikes, lifestyle habits, and needs. Only then will you be able to know what they exactly want? Advertising to the right audience is simply reaching out to people who actually require your products or services. Companies should make sure that their direct mail is curated in a manner that answers their prospect’s questions.
Avoid complicated language and explain your brand in a way that appropriately suits their needs and can induce them into buying your product.
4. Personalize Your Mailers
Sending plain mailers with no personalization can lead to campaign failure. Personalization can be used in any manner – you can do as little as insert the first name of your prospect on the item. This simple step can help you connect with the person instantly. Sending personalized direct mail to existing customers also helps in retention and repeat business. Always make your customers feel special as it results in increased brand loyalty and reputation.
5. Get Creative
Creativity can do wonders. Advertising is all about grabbing attention and nothing can do that better than an eye-catching and appealing direct mail item. Get as creative as you can and send mail pieces that do not miss any eye.
You can add your logo, include some jaw-dropping graphics, draft a persuading copy, and use bright colours. The right combination of these things can make your direct mailer a conversion driver.
6. Follow Up Regularly
Sending a mail just once and waiting for a response won’t help it. You need to follow up and know what is in the minds of your audience. An email after receiving your mailer is the first step of follow-up. Further, you can send another mail piece or even call them up. B2B marketing requires strong and frequent follow-ups. You might have to invest a little more in sending follow-up mail, but it is worth it.
B2B Direct Mail Use Cases
Direct mail can be used for a number of things like increasing customer engagement, driving online traffic, and more. Keep reading to explore the opportunities that direct mail marketing offers to B2B marketers.
1. Reach Out Directly
Create a concise yet attractive direct mailer to be sent out to your prospects. You can directly reach out to your prospects and secure a one-to-one connection with them through direct mail marketing. With the help of targeting, you can reach out to the right people with the right message, which will surely get you somewhere.
2. Grow Your Network
Whether it is growing your network offline or increasing your social media followers, calling out to people to know about your brand is an excellent strategy for any business. Especially in B2B business, companies are focused on growing their contact lists and inviting more and more people to know them.
Companies can send direct mail to people engaged with their business through social media platforms as they already know about their brand and are more likely to be converted.
3. Engage New Customers
Getting new customers is one of the most important use cases of direct mail marketing. It is because sending direct mail to someone who has never heard of you can help such people know you, ultimately increasing brand awareness. However, it is needed that you first study your audience, personalize your direct mail, and then launch a campaign. Reaching out to someone for the first time with an impressive mailer that solves their queries and offers a solution to their needs or problems is something you can root for using B2B direct mail.
4. Keep Your Audience Updated
It is a great idea to keep in touch with your audience and side-by-side promote your new product launches, services, discounts, season sales, and any events or conferences hosted by you. This twin approach to keeping your audience updated by educating them on the latest affairs and advertising your brand can help you engage more and more people. Some people might not be interested in your new product but might want to participate in your contests and vice versa. B2B direct mail marketing enables you to develop new ways of communicating with your prospects and luring them into completing the desired CTA.
B2B Direct Mail Examples
- Trustpilot used large-sized letters with popping colours and an eye-catching format to induce their audience. Their letters were simple but had an appealing message.
- CAT used B2B direct mail for promoting their events and special offers. They kept the colours consistent with their brand for easy brand recall. The most intellectual part of their campaign was that they added an excellent offer that was very persuasive against a CTA.
There are two popular direct mail items that any B2B company can use. Both of these items are highly professional but at the same time have attention-grabbing features.
1. Postcards
Postcards are both concise and appealing. They can communicate your message to your prospects in short and simple messages and in a very professional manner. Undoubtedly, postcards are appealing, and many people tend to collect postcards – which offers your brand more exposure when you print your logo on them.
Nowadays, postcards come in various sizes and types. There are dual-fold and tri-fold postcards available that companies can use as per their messaging. Pop-up postcards are also getting popular. Hence, postcards offer great versatility and are also very cost-effective.
2. Letters
Letters can be hyper-personalized according to the requirements of your prospects. You can simply put out their whole range of needs and offer solutions to each one of them. Such letters can change the whole game as they are capable of commencing a deep personal bond with a person. The talks through letters are down-to-business and straight to the point. Like postcards, there are some variations in letters as well. You can either use single-page or multiple-page letters. Some companies also use oversize envelopes to stand out from the crowd.
Things to Take Care of While Conducting B2B Direct Mail Campaigns
1. Take and Implement Customer Feedback
Don’t forget to collect customer feedback and implement the same in your upcoming campaigns. You can ask your direct mail recipients about what they liked and disliked about your direct mail items and what they are exactly looking for. Such reviews or feedback can be really valuable as they give you an outsider’s view of your organization which can be very helpful.
2. Add Inducing Offers Against Your CTA
Asking for a favour in return for nothing seems dull and will not land you anywhere. If you expect your prospects to complete the CTA, you should provide something in return. Like we said earlier, CAT’s B2B direct mail campaign was successful as they offered a great deal in return for a CTA.
3. Always Test and Measure Results
In order to have an idea of what your audience likes, send out some test samples and measure the results. Launching a large-scale campaign without any research and testing can lead to great losses. Instead, test and learn first, then you can proceed to launch a big campaign. It can help you save a lot of money, time, and effort. PostGrid’s direct mail automation solutions can help you test and measure results through detailed campaign analytics and insights.
How to Track Your B2B Direct Mail?
There are a lot of trackable features that you can include in your direct mail pieces. Adding such features in direct mail is very important as they form the base to measure your campaign results.
1. PURLs
PURLs are personalized links that take your prospects to a personalized landing page. This page might include their name or other aspects specific to them. You can also include their name in the customized URL, like www.xyz.com/steve-matthew. Such links make it easy for you to record your mailers’ open rates and make your prospects feel special.
2. Trackable Phone Numbers
Always insert a contact number that is unique to your campaign and easily trackable. You can create a dedicated phone number and use it for a particular campaign. Hence, every time you get a call on this line, you know it was prompted by your direct mailer. Measuring campaign results this way is easy and highly productive. You can also record all the calls on this line to trace respondents and follow-up accordingly. Make sure that the number is toll-free.
3. QR Codes and Coupons
Adding coupons and scannable QR codes is the easiest way to track your B2B direct mail marketing campaigns. Whenever a person scans a QR code, it will take them to a landing page where they can complete a CTA. The coupon codes also offer companies a way to track results as every coupon is redeemable on either an online purchase or by taking it to an offline store.
4. Automation
Direct mail automation solutions like PostGrid can help you track results, and get timely reports and insights. They can help you measure everything appropriately and design your future campaigns accordingly.
Be it including pURLs or trackable phone numbers. You can do it all through a direct mail automation API. PostGrid’s API is completely designed to suit your B2B direct mailing requirements and makes it easy for you to design, launch, and track your campaigns. With PostGrid, you can:
- Create or design your direct mail items using in-built templates
- Get them printed and mailed on-time
- Track the progress of your mail items
- Manage user permissions
- Get timely reports and campaign insights
- Integrate with your CRM so you can get rid of manual data entry
- Ensure data privacy and confidentiality
- Build new mailing lists and segment them according to certain demographics
- Verify and validate addresses speedily
Conclusion
B2B direct mail marketing is the most impactful way to reach out to your corporate customers and convince them to try out your brand. PostGrid’s direct mail solutions can help you conduct successful direct mail campaigns capable of driving results and boosting sales.
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