Those of us in the printing and mailing industry, especially here in Los Angeles, keep hearing that Digital is in and Print is out. People claim that email marketing and social media campaigns are inexpensive and get better results than direct mail. Some of that may be true — if you are emailing and marketing to an existing database, especially if the demographic is under 30.
However, if you are trying to get new customers, older customers, or you want to increase your database or your donor base, direct mail can be a better vehicle and not as expensive as you thought. We at ColorTrend specialize in helping businesses, both profit and non-profit, benefit from direct mail in Los Angeles and beyond.
Consider how many of your unsolicited emails will wind up in the spam folder, or ignored with the hundreds of emails that your recipients get each day. A nicely designed and printed direct mail piece will at least get handled from the mail box and could win you a new customer.
Consider these statistics form Carolyn Goodman at www.targetmargeting.com:
Direct Mail: Is It Old Fashioned If It Still Works?
- 42 percent of recipients read or scan direct mail pieces: That means that nearly HALF of your target audience is actually stopping, for a few seconds, to read your message. If you’ve designed it properly with a strong and relevant offer/call-to-action, you might achieve a 1 percent, 2 percent or even 14 percent response rate (yes, I’ve achieved that!). Digital ads, in comparison, are lucky if they get a 0.14 percent ad clickthrough rate — and then, once they get to the landing page, you’ll be lucky if you convert 2.35 percent.
Source: http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/post/direct-mail-is-it-old-fashioned-if-it-still-works/
Many digital companies that we think are only web-based, use direct mail. ColorTrend recently upgraded our web page. As a thank you, Google gave us a discount code to use Ad Words. Did they email it to us? Or send us a link? No, we received a very nice letter and folded card, IN THE MAIL. It was personalized with our name and information designed very well and in a very pleasing envelope.
Consider this article from the Printing Association of Southern California:
- Google makes a lot of money. It makes it by selling ads on its website. How does it sell the ads? With print, of course! To get us to buy an ad, we (and millions of other firms) received a direct mail piece offering $150 of ad credit to take out a Google ad. Of course, they could have put the offer on their website, but we would have had to search for it. They knew that it probably wouldn’t happen, so they used PRINT to get our attention.
Source: http://piasc.org/downloads/Update/2015/update11-02-15.pdf
So next time you are thinking about getting new customers, reaching out to your donor base, or just letting your existing customers know about a new product or service, think about using Direct Mail. Whether you are in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, or anywhere else in Southern California, ColorTrend can help you with a direct mail campaign. We are here to help you grow your business.
Call, email or fill out our project estimate form to get started today!