By KPM Group

Running a successful direct mail campaign requires a considered planning, creative and evaluation.  But targeting remains crucial – success will depend on getting your message in front of the right audience.

Direct mail remains a great way to achieve this – it continues to deliver in today’s digital, post-GDPR world. You can safely use mail as a lead generator and to direct people online. Direct mail is not subject to the same data restrictions as email, so it is easier to implement and stands out from crowded inboxes.

Define your strategy

The most successful campaigns span multiple channels, reaching customers across a variety of touchpoints.

Your campaign will achieve more if it has a clear goal. Perhaps you’d like to reactivate lapsed customers, or promote a retention or loyalty initiative?  Maybe you have a coupon or offer code? Talk to your print provider at the start about what you want to accomplish. They can help to define a strategy that best utilises mail at key points in your customer journey. 

Develop buyer personas

A key step in identifying your audience is to develop buyer personas. It is worth spending considerable time and thought on these to establish a few different potential buyers. 

They should be based on your own customer data, and include demographics such as age, income, occupation, location, gender etc. A good persona will go beyond demographics and also include behavioural insight:

• What are the customer’s goals and challenges?
• How can your business help them to achieve or overcome these?
• What common objections or barriers there are to purchase?

Your marketing message should address these points. Whether your company is targeting senior business executives, fitness enthusiasts or charity donors, the important point is to determine how the ideal customer feels, what they need, and how you can help.   

Ensure good data management

Direct mail offers a huge opportunity to reach your audience, providing that your campaign is well-targeted. Forbes reports that 82% of direct mail is read for a minute or more, so it’s important that your data is accurate.

Remember too that unlike email, you can send direct mail to customers without their explicit consent. Direct mail gives you more freedom to connect and engage with customers, and then to direct people to digital.

Of course, personal data is subject to the data protection terms of the GDPR, so you will need to prove a legitimate interest. 

Segment for improved results

You can target your mailing more accurately by segmenting your data, depending on the profiles and buying behaviour of your buyer personas. Messaging can then be tailored to very specific groups about their needs; helping you to achieve the goal of ‘right message, right audience, right time’.

Personalisation can also be utilised here. It is possible to tailor messages with dynamic content including images, offers and formats that will better resonate with them personally – increasing your chance of a higher response rate and return.

Segmentation will help you to send relevant, useful direct mail to each recipient, rather than wasting vital resources and money.

In summary

It is essential to target your message at the people most likely to respond to avoid wastage and increase response rates. These may be existing customers, but even then there are various profiles from repeat, regular purchasers to infrequent spenders that you may wish to target separately. For new business, you need to identify people who match the profile of your existing customers.

The most effective direct mail campaigns are created using considered planning, fuelled by data insight. We can help your message to reach the right people, and ensure an integrated approach across platforms – making the most of your marketing budget.

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This article is abridged from KPM Group’s blog How to target your direct mail campaign. Read the full version here.