How Snail Mail Can Improve Your Customer Relationships
Have you given up on the old way of marketing? Here is an article by Bill Magana that encourages us to take up the old habit.
Snail mail is back in fashion. The more the world communicates online, the more that items sent via traditional mail will seem unusual, special and memorable.
Old, traditional forms of mail marketing have become new again and even trendy, and they convey a warm-and-fuzzy retro feeling that appeals to many market segments, from young hipsters to nostalgic boomers. Consider trying some of these options:
Postcards
Photo by SameDayPrinting via Flickr
Mailing a postcard costs only half as much as mailing a letter in an envelope — and postcards are more likely to be read, according to Deliver Magazine. Use postcards to reach out to your existing or potential customer base to announce special events or sales, drive traffic to your website, or simply remind people of who you are and what you can do for them. No matter the purpose of the postcard, pay particular attention to your graphic design, which can be a powerful way to reinforce your company's image and logo.
Holiday Cards
Photo by CTSI-Global via Flickr
Sending a Christmas card is a way to provide a gentle and joyful reminder to your customers of how important they have been to you over the past year. Christmas cards can be more subtle than postcards. You don't need to plaster your logo all over the cards' covers. Instead, use a traditional, humorous, or sophisticated image on the cover, depending on your intended audience, and let your signature line inside speak for itself. The more attractive the cover, the more likely your card will be saved and displayed on mantelpieces at home or on cubicle walls in the office, so select or design the cover carefully.
3-D Mailings
Photo by Spitalfields via Flickr
If you are promoting a product that is entertaining and fun, and you want your mailing to really stand out, consider sending 3-D mailings. With the help of a professional printer and die cutter, you can create multi-dimensional objects that remind people of your company's business in a humorous way.
For example, a marketing company sent out cards that, when opened, featured 3-D pop-ups that looked like quaint medicine bottles, with labels saying they were cures for things such as "Budgetary Constrictions." The cards were packed in clear envelopes cut in the shape of old-fashioned medicine bags, which were far more likely to attract attention than plain, conventional envelopes.
These mailings were more expensive than conventional mailings, but according to Deliver Magazine, written by the U.S. Postal Service, they drove traffic to the company's website at a higher-than-normal rate.
Another way to implement 3-D mailings is to ride the current wave of popularity of 3-D movies by enclosing 3-D images along with 3-D glasses in your promotional material. Putting on the glasses to see what the image looks like will prove almost irresistible to many of the mailings' recipients.
Letters
Photo by SteveNakatani via Flickr
Don't overlook the power of the tried-and-true direct-mail letter campaign. A marketer writing for Forbes said she has seen a letter get a response that was 1,300 percent better than that received from a fancier mailing package. She advises companies to write the letters using a conversational tone that sounds like a one-to-one conversation.
Author Bio: Bill Magana is an NYU grad who spent a dozen years in marketing at a Fortune 500 company. He left corporate America a year ago to launch his own consulting business. So far, so good!
Great article Amanda. I often say to law firm clients that in their marketing they should aim to address these common stereotypes and explain how they do business. If you assume that people are often thinking these things, then adopting a proactive approach is a good way of addressing them, I believe.