Direct mail is an excellent way to keep your current members up to date on your organization’s causes and goals. It is also a great way to reach out to prospective members and allow them to see what they could support by helping your organization. When choosing a marketing option, being aware of what methods attract and scare away members is important.
Organizations want to reach as many people as possible without involving intrusive marketing techniques. Direct mail advertising is a great method to avoid intrusive marketing.
What is Intrusive Marketing?
Intrusive marketing is any form of marketing that turns off consumers by feeling interfering. You may have heard the term there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but this statement is far from the truth. Bad publicity can lead to consumers not trusting an organization, which is the opposite of what marketing campaigns aim to accomplish. Most people view telemarketing, spam email, and unsolicited text messages as forms of intrusive marketing. Others may view receiving junk mail as intrusive.
We are surrounded by advertising all the time. Digital advertising, however, doesn’t have a good reputation. People don’t appreciate pop-ups interrupting their web browsing, and it’s creepy when the same advertisement follows you around no matter where you go online. But the fact is, 83 percent of people don’t think all ads are bad. They want the ability to filter out annoying advertisements. So, instead of being a thorn in your member’s side while they browse the internet, choose a non-intrusive method of advertising like direct mail.
Target the Correct Demographic
There are a lot of techniques to be mindful of to avoid making a direct mail marketing endeavor feel like a junk mail attack. If your organization is going to advertise by direct mail, you should aim to do it right.
When materials are sent to random, non-specific groups of people, it’s very likely the mail won’t be received kindly. Without a focused group of recipients, the materials that arrive in the mail may come off as trash. By understanding your member’s name, age, location, and interests, you can customize your direct mail pieces. Personalized mail doesn’t come off as intrusive and is more likely to be valued and appreciated than bulk messages.
Marketing materials that are geared towards the right group of people allow the content to be well received. Thoughtfully created pieces will enable the content to be well-received. Direct mail can significantly help your organization not to come across an intrusive with its marketing materials.
Understand Your Mailing List
Organizations need to determine if their goal is to engage current members or attract new ones, who their targeted receiver is, and what they are looking to gain by initiating a direct mail interaction. Choosing a mailing list is very straightforward when you understand your goal demographic. There are a lot of lists to choose from including specialty, response/house, custom-mailing, and cloned.
The trick to achieving a successful direct mail project is to grab your audience’s attention without them feeling attacked. When you understand your intended audience, you can make the right decisions for your direct mail project. For instance, you can determine what mail piece would be the best to get your message across to your members. Based on your audience, a letter format may be more effective or possibly a postcard or brochure/pamphlet. Choosing the right type of mail piece for your members allows you to effectively display what your organization is about without feeling intrusive to the receiver.
Why Direct Mail?
You can get reliable results from direct mail. The direct mail approach can be customized to your audience much more than other electronic options. By taking a more personal approach, direct mail isn’t an intrusive marketing strategy like robocalls and non-personalized spam emails. When you choose direct mail, your members will feel more represented and interested in what your organization has to say. Direct mail will allow your organization to maintain a great public appearance instead of hitting a bad publicity roadblock.
Valtim and Direct Mail Marketing
Direct mail may feel like an overwhelming project to take on, but Valtim can help make the process easy. We can help your organization personalize and customize direct mail pieces, whether you choose to create and send a postcard, letter, or brochure. We can also assist with creating and assembling targeted materials per mail piece. Let Valtim help with your direct mail project and assist with it succeeding.
