Thought leadership and content marketing are primarily an online, internet-based marketing strategy, but there’s no reason the precepts of these two ideas can’t be used in direct mailers. Rather than pummeling potential customers with blatant ads and cheap tricks, direct mail marketing businesses should consider including useful, unique, and relevant content on their mailers.
Common Direct Mailer Traps
Direct mail campaigns require detail-oriented, well-researched planning to produce a successful return on investment. However, many companies get desperate for results and begin executing poorly planned direct mail campaigns with barely any tangible results. Before starting your next project, review some of the most common direct mail traps.
- Sending mailers to the wrong target audience. It’s important to pause and double-check the list before printing, posting, and mailing hundreds of mailers.
- Forgetting to add a call to action. Recipients need direction about where to go after receiving your document in the mail. Leaving them without a call to action guarantees lack of response across the board.
- Building fake hype about the product. Don’t oversell a product for the sake of the transaction. Focus on developing quality products to impress customers immediately.
Recognize some old mistakes? Before taking direct mail action again, slow down the process temporarily to make sure you avoid these easy mistakes. After clearing up any problems, start gearing your campaign towards thought leadership. The concept may sound strange in the context of direct mail, but a few useful techniques could drastically transform your success rate.
Minimize Content
Some direct mailers are covered in text. The effort is genuine, but the product is an immediate turn-off to recipients. It’s scary to minimize the text because there is a lower guarantee of grabbing the recipient’s attention. Be picky about the content, choose text to accurately represent your brand, and provide practical information to help potential customers recognize the quality of the product without the noise of meaningless tag lines and attention-grabbing statements.
Protect Your Reputation
A large part of thought leadership is reputation protection. Use direct mailers to boost your reputation by giving your brand credibility through the content included. Avoid making extreme statements about your product. Be honest with consumers about your weaknesses, and become a trustworthy resource for reliable products and services.
A New Type of Content Marketing
Content marketing and direct mailers complement one another well. Learning how to apply content marketing strategies to direct mail campaigns helps establish your role as a thought leader. Utilize keywords, use effective language, and watch your product boom in popularity.
Mailers always involve risk. There is no guarantee of people reading the material before throwing the mail in the trash, but making the content worth reading should remain a priority regardless.
Thought Leaders Keep Their Cool
Don’t give in to the pressure to print busy, colorful direct mailers. Thought leaders aren’t afraid to reinvent old ideas, provide new perspective, and take risks. Succeeding as a thought leader means challenging the status quo. To keep the industry thriving, use direct mail marketing to distinguish your voice against the competition. New techniques and fresh ideas elicit respect, and recipients of your mail will notice the difference.
