Direct Mail For Banks: Why should you invest in it?
Direct mail is undoubtedly the best marketing channel for establishing 1:1 customer relationships that are profitable and long-term. Banks and financial institutions have been widely using direct mail to promote their products and services. It helps them communicate complicated financial messages in a simplified and personalized way. Moreover, direct mail marketing can help banks build brand image and gain the trust of their customers.
How Do We Know that Bank Direct Mail Marketing is Still Effective?
Let us get to the statistics – direct mail attracts an average response rate of about 4.4% by mailing to existing customers and about 1.2% by mailing to potential customers. The ROI can increase up to 900%, depending on the product or service that is being marketed.
Talking about case studies, Lloyds banking group can be presented as one of the best examples of how direct mail still works for banks. In one of its direct mail campaigns, Lloyds managed to convert 707 SME prospects, which was 280% above their target. It is just one of the many examples of how direct mail marketing induces people and drives conversions.
If you are still not convinced that direct mail marketing is far from being dead and has been continuously doing wonders in the banking industry for the past decade, let us dive deeper and see how effective it is.
Direct Mail is Attention-Grabbing
People tend to be excited by the idea of getting mail. It creates nostalgia for the time when there were only offline means of communication. Hence, many people look forward to receiving mail and are curious to know what is inside – increasing the open rates. Undoubtedly, direct mail gets a lot of attention, and recipients spend a lot of time scanning through their mail. If you have included eye-catching graphics and an interesting offer, your direct mail items are likely to fetch some valuable responses. Direct mail is the key to getting people hooked and then communicating a deal.
Direct Mail is Personal
Personalization helps create personal bonds. Banks can send personalized direct mail with tailored messaging as per their audience’s needs to get maximum responses. Financial services are very personal in nature, and the needs of different people vary considerably. Hence, personalizing becomes important. Direct mail offers a smooth way of personalization – that can impact your outreach positively and boost engagements. A thoughtful direct mail with personalized features such as the customer’s first name or mention of their life stage can be a very powerful marketing strategy. It doesn’t matter if you are sending out small-size postcards or oversize letters. Personalization through variable data always works in a good way.
Direct Mail Solves Confusion
It is often hard to explain financial brands and their services in layman’s terms. Financial decisions are tough to make and naturally lead to a lot of confusion and hesitation. Using direct mail, banks can level up their marketing strategies by reaching out to people and simplifying things. Personalized direct mail helps people get their facts straight and know exactly about the offerings of a bank. They can know better this way and respond accordingly.
Direct Mail Faces Lesser Competition
No spams, no competitions! Since fewer companies use direct mail marketing, people are not spammed with direct mail like social media ads and emails. Direct mail is apparently less common and hence more appealing. Digital advertising does not guarantee that a person will see your advertisement, but in the case of direct mail marketing, it is sure that a person will at least view the mailpiece once. Due to this reason, banks conduct direct mail campaigns to announce new interest rates, offers, and loan discounts.
Direct Mail is Appealing to the Millenials
It is easy to speculate that millennials are more interested in digital advertising and aren’t excited about receiving physical mail. However, the reality is that millennials are crowded by online ads and need a break from them. 77% of Millenials pay attention to the direct mail they receive and are likely to take out the time to read their mail. It makes them feel special. Therefore, direct mail can help banks reach out to millennials (their prime prospects) personally.
Direct Mail Helps Reach Senior Citizens
Senior citizens also use banking services to a great extent. Hence, the marketing efforts of banks should also be focused on targeting senior citizens. One great way to do that is direct mail. The answer is simple – direct mail is offline and tangible, both of which are aspects that are preferred by the elderly. Though they might be using online communication channels, they still prefer things offline. Direct mail can greatly help banks and financial institutions communicate with senior citizens and convince them to use their services.
Direct Mail Builds Trust
In simple terms, direct mail is capable of building trust. It helps improve brand reputation and increase awareness among people. Companies should be able to prove themselves as trustworthy. Direct mail patches up any trust issues and concerns of the customers by creating a trustworthy relationship with the bank. From establishing emotional bonds to persuading prospects to complete the call-to-action, direct mail is still highly effective.
Direct Mail Has a High Response Rate
As discussed earlier, direct mail receives an average response rate of about 4.4%. Even while mailing to prospects, the response rate is more than 1%, which is pretty good for banks. However, we even discussed earlier how Lloyds was able to get 280% more conversions. Hence, it is clear that direct mail marketing can fetch high response rates when done right.
Direct Mail is Cost-Effective
Unlike digital marketing which requires high investment to launch campaigns and track results, direct mail marketing is comparatively very cost-effective. The overall campaigns’ costs are affordable, and you can get further discounts by using direct mail automation solutions like PostGrid. You can easily track direct mail campaign results by adding pURLs or dedicated phone numbers — both of which are again affordable.
Direct Mail is Scalable
Be it one direct mail item or one million, the amount of effort and time required to conduct a direct mail campaign is the same. With the right strategies in execution, banks can easily send any number of direct mail pieces to their potential customers. Furthermore, a print and mail automation API like PostGrid is scalable and can accommodate your needs effortlessly.
Now that you know why direct mail still works for banks, it can also be useful to know the best direct mail marketing tips and strategies to improve results and get the best out of your campaigns.
Automate Direct Mail Marketing
Banks are more concerned about dealing with their operations than building mailing lists or sorting through mail items. They likely want their employees to focus on productive things for which they hired them. Hence, it is of utmost importance for them to automate their direct mail activities and eliminate the manual effort. With PostGrid’s automated direct mail solutions, banks can easily build segmented mailing lists, draft mailpieces using in-built templates, and track everything.
Provide Value
No matter what you are writing in your direct mail, it should be valuable and enhance your prospects’ knowledge. Content matters a lot, and banks should take care to tailor their message and target relevant people only.
Make Clear Proposals
If you are offering something to your customers, clearly mention it in your mail. Similarly, your CTA should be impressive and straight to the point. Refrain from including complicated sentences or vague statements. Make clear proposals that are easy to understand and accept.
Build Your Own Mailing Lists
The best mailing lists are the ones that have been built in-house. Rented or purchased mailing lists appear to be useful but cause more losses than profits. There is no guarantee that the records are relevant and correct. Banks can rather use a direct mail automation API like PostGrid and start building their own mailing lists.
Personalize and Tailor
Always tailor your messaging according to your intended audience and personalize as much as you can. Gather all the variable data that you have and incorporate it into your direct mail marketing strategies. The best way to do that is by using automated direct mail that not only helps you with variable data printing but also assists you in every step of getting high conversion rates.
Take Care of the Quality
A blurred image or a simple spelling mistake is enough to ruin your campaign. It can annoy your prospects and leave a bad impression. Hence, make sure to proofread thoroughly before printing out anything.
Test More
It is not enough to send out a single combination of messaging, design, and offer to test and gather results. Make different variations and keep testing. You can then compare results and go ahead with the best combination.
Direct mail marketing is clearly one of the best marketing channels for banks, and by using PostGrid, you can be assured that you are doing it right. Furthermore, businesses can streamline their offline marketing efforts, ensure data safety, facilitate bulk mailing, and do much more with PostGrid’s direct mail marketing solutions.
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