There is no silver bullet to advertising, as professional marketers know. It’s about aligning all the stars. In this case, the stars are audience segments, targets, messaging, channels, calls-to-action, promotions, and everything else related to an ad campaign. Most marketers are finding that multi-channel campaigns are the most effective, and personalization greatly increases response rates.
The fact that these two items have been driving greater results with consumers and B2B clients, has driven an increase in two specific channels – digital ads and direct mail. They are officially the best combination for winning new business. Toss in email for existing clients, and the trio will drive the best sales results at the best cost factor.
Direct mail has become a major player because the restrictions on email, difficulty in capturing emails, and decrease in email response rates. Direct mail has also been driven higher in effectiveness because of IP targeting and Reverse IP Append services. The following explains how each of these work:
IP Targeting
Purchasing a list is still one of the most common ways for a business to find new customers. The challenge is cost. To send out multiple mail pieces can be relatively expensive. And, we all know you need multiple touches to get a response. The ideal world is to mail promotions to the list and drive the recipient online. However, only a limited percent will respond to a single mail piece and go to your web site. And, even fewer will provide you with their email address for ongoing marketing. Only visitors to your site will be able to be served digital ads through what’s called “remarketing.” But IP Targeting addresses this challenge. Now, marketers can take a direct mail list and append the direct mail list with an IP address. TAG offers these services. Digital ads can now be served to everyone on the list with a match. And, match rates are extremely high).
Go one step further. Now you have two channels working in sync – direct mail and digital ads. You have exponentially increased the likeliness of an engagement. Once that person engages you will hopefully get a sale. However, if they are still only in the consideration phase of the relationship, marketers can now follow-up with a direct mail piece only to those engaging through a web visit and specifically showcasing products or services they viewed on your web site. This builds a highly effective campaign.
Reverse IP Append
If your challenge is that you drive a significant amount of traffic to your web site, but you fail to convert a high number of visitors into clients, then Reverse IP Append will help. You’re probably already remarketing to these individuals through digital ads. Great first step. Unfortunately, it’s not as good as adding another channel. By placing a pixel on your site, TAG’s Reverse IP Append service can identify the visitor, and provide a physical mail address for that consumer. You can now direct mail visitors of your site with a highly personalized piece of mail.
You may be thinking, that’s too much mail for too many visitors. Well, you are in complete control. You are able to determine which visitors you wish to send direct mail to. Some of the criteria you can utilize:
- Exclusion Lists – These are good to avoid direct mailing current customers, employees, known partner visitors.
- Behavior Triggers – You can dictate what actions the user must take on the site to justify sending a direct mail piece. This may include specific page visits, number of pages, use of an onsite tool (such as a calculator, product configurator) or a combination of actions.
- Revisits – you may wish to only trigger direct mail for those who have revisited your site, but still not converted to a sale or customer.
Welcome to the world of connecting the dots in marketing. IP Targeting and Reverse IP Append are two great tools that utilize the power of direct mail in a multi-channel effort. With direct mail response rates climbing, especially for audiences such as millennials, you cannot ignore the power of this channel.
