The heart gladdens to see the USPS van although there might be a few direct mail pieces and some bills.
People are at home. And now that there is agreement that incoming mail and packages don’t bring in the Coronavirus, it’s time to look at dear old direct mail again. And the time is now for all US businesses.
This blog is a strong supporter of the USPS. Because the postal system workers have always been “essential workers” deeply embedded in the community. The Coronavirus pandemic demonstrated the great community service that the postal employees do.
Here is why/how you should consider Direct Mail/Advertising Mail in the pandemic world:
USPS in the news
USPS is in the news for mail in votes in the November US Presidential Elections and here is a BBC story that summarizes the issues. We were delighted to note that there talk of USPS funding of $25 Billion. This will probably help with additional infrastructure that would allow USPS to provide improved delivery times.
As our previous USPS-Direct Mail posts over the years indicate, this seems to be the first time , that everyone realizes the importance of USPS. In the past, before Coronavirus, it was that Direct Mail “is dead.” It was only digital going forward.
Digital Marketing owes a lot to Direct Mail
If you think about it, most digital marketing principles originate in the world of direct mail. The notification alerts for social media, email and messages on your phone grew out of AOL’s famous “You’ve Got Mail” chime. The digital world was trying to capture the anticipation and excitement of new mail. Today there are so many notifications that you need to turn them off. This deluge of digital messages is our argument for another look at direct mail.
Direct mail starts with a prospect with a known mailing address. This data comes in when you ship a purchased item to the individual. Before the digital world you had no way of tracking someone who entered your physical store but did not buy. Now you can remarket to a web visitor because they leave a digital but anonymous footprint on the website. In addition, there is profuse data about individuals browsing behavior that can help narrow down your prospect. For example, if you know that certain sports lovers buy from your e-commerce store, you can target advertising to those sports lovers as they visit sports sites. At the core of all this is the direct marketing mailing list and a history of past purchases.
If you have digital analytic data for your website it is possible to narrow down a mailing list that is pretty effective.
What is the number of direct mailers per day?
In the US about 182 million pieces of mail are delivered every day. Estimated US population of 328 million in 2019 has about 78% adults over 18 or about 256 million adults. By this calculation the average postal mail received is less than two pieces by every person over 18 in the US. Okay some days a household might have more postal mail but it would rare that an individual would get 10 or more letters in a day!
Contrast this with email. People get at over 126 emails a day. That is about a hundred times more than direct mail. We are far more likely to read a direct mail piece than an email. Just the brand hanging around the house for an estimated 17 days is great for the marketer. Some more interesting data on direct mail is here.
To summarize, now is the time for you to try Direct Mail if you had exited that platform. People are at home and adirect mail piece, properly targeted can do wonders for your B2B or BC product.