Direct Mail 101: Rethinking Customer Communication as a Strategic Leadership Tool

The most crucial strategy your business can form around customer engagement has to do with breaking through fatigue. Most people are bombarded with messages from the moment they open their eyes in the morning. Phone ads, sponsored social media posts, the latest SMS with a discount code, and a flood of newsletters all bombard customers, aiming to get them to buy, buy, buy.

Most people, especially digitally savvy consumers, have developed a mental filter around digital marketing materials. They automatically filter out these different demands on their attention and don’t register much beyond some annoyance. This digital fatigue is bringing back marketing methods that people wrote off as defunct a few years ago, such as direct mail.

Direct mail is an underutilised channel through which you can connect with your customers. Showing innovation in customer communication can also position you as a leader in your field and increase the confidence that your team has in your leadership. This guide can help you incorporate direct mail into your leadership strategy.

Show Leadership in Customer Experience 

As a company leader, the direction for your customer communication plan must come from you. While you may delegate other employees or a marketing team to come up with a plan and execute day-to-day marketing tasks, you set the vision for your communications. You are also responsible for ensuring that your communication strategy fits with your goal for engaging with customers.

One of the main goals of customer communication is to build trust. 72% of business leaders prioritise trust when choosing companies to work with. That’s because they’re taking a risk by trusting an unknown business with their operations or money. You can gather leads and contact information with a catchy marketing plan, but turning leads into paying customers requires building trust in your company. 

Direct mail is one of the best channels for building trust because it is more tangible than digital ads. People tend to trust something more when they can hold it in their hands, rather than easily ignore it by scrolling. Direct mail also allows you to show your attention to small details, to a Francotyp Postalia machine, for instance, that does your own franking. These details show customers that you believe in your business enough to invest in it. 

Omnichannel marketing is crucial for building trust. People need to be exposed to your business to build trust, and that means they need to be exposed even when they're offline. Opting for a personal communication method, such as direct mail, gives your customers a tangible reminder of the investment your business placed in the customer relationship.

Showing such investment in the customer experience demonstrates leadership to outside partners and within your team.

Innovate Your Marketing Strategy 

The wheel of marketing turns, and strategies that used to be derided as old-fashioned are now innovative. The digital world is no longer the cutting edge of marketing innovation, but an oversaturated area causing advertising fatigue among audiences. That makes physical marketing, such as direct mail, a vital strategy to set your business apart from competitors.

True leadership in marketing means disregarding conventional wisdom. No opportunity to reach customers should be discarded. With a creative strategy that demonstrates market knowledge, any marketing channel can be effective. 

^{Supplementary reading: Mastering the Art of Digital Marketing: Strategies for Success}

Direct mail is an opportunity to set your brand apart from competitors. While most people are transferring all of their marketing channels to digital channels, physical channels are a way to show the diversity of your tactics. Direct mail also lends greater credibility to your business due to its older reputation. 

Using direct mail strategically will yield greater results for your business. Direct mail is a great way to communicate with people who are already on your contact list, strengthening relationships with a personal touch. 

Demonstrate Brand Leadership

Direct mail offers you another channel through which you can communicate what makes your brand unique. Mail is a three-dimensional branding material that people can physically hold in their hands, as opposed to a two-dimensional ad. Every detail of the mailer, from its size to the choice of paper, communicates something about your brand. 

By giving customers something physical to hold, you are remaining in their minds and building a longer emotional connection. Even if they throw your mailer away, they still have to open the mail, read it, and then decide whether or not to keep it. This creates a lasting impact. 

The choice to communicate with direct mail is also a more emotional one than an entirely digital strategy. It creates a feeling of intimacy with the recipient. Customers also have a higher view of your brand’s reputation because physical mail shows that you are willing to invest resources in communication with them. 

Empower Your Team 

Part of good leadership means thinking about the effects that your decision has on other people in your company, not just on your bottom line. Opening up a new marketing channel can boost team morale if you play your cards right. 

Working with analogue methods is a welcome change for marketing and sales teams, who often experience burnout and overwhelm due to the high amount of time they have to spend on social media and online. Direct mail allows them to test their creativity in a new medium. 

^{Read more:} 

^{The Key to Empowering Your Team}

^{Empowerment in Leadership: Strategies for Cultivating High-Performing Teams}

Direct mail also has a measurable, proven ROI. Once your team sees tangible results, they will feel more confident and empowered, improving morale across the board. 

Resource Allocation & ROI Thinking

Investing in a direct mail strategy for your company is a wise leadership decision because it has proven to be effective. Analytics show that direct mail has a higher ROI than almost all other marketing channels. 

Direct mail works best when you target your segment correctly. You can precisely target likely customers based on demographics or purchasing behaviour, rather than relying on the algorithm to work in your favour. 

To track your ROI, monitor your response rate and click rate from your mailers (most businesses do this with a custom QR code attached to the mailer). Most importantly, track the amount of money earned from customers referred through direct mail. Customers who respond to physical mail tend to be more loyal and spend more money over time. 

Leading in Customer Communication

Demonstrating leadership in customer communication gives your company a competitive edge over other businesses in your field. It shows your team that you are leading the industry in the right direction. Opening up innovative channels in marketing with proven ROI, such as direct mail, is a surefire way to demonstrate leadership and build customer trust. 

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