What digital marketers can learn from direct mail

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Royal Mail’s new direct marketing platform shows that email marketing can still learn a thing or two from its predecessor, argues Jill Brittlebank, Head of Cross-Channel Strategy at eBay Enterprise.
The landscape of digital marketing has changed considerably over the past few years. While the social media boom and the rise of other online channels have seen the industry expand its horizons beyond email as the sole means of contacting consumers, those consumers have themselves become much more savvy; they are more and more selective when it comes to engaging with brands, and increasingly itchy trigger fingers hover over delete buttons.

Royal Mail recently launched a new campaign to encourage brands to use both physical mail and email in their communications with consumers using its MarketRearch direct marketing platform. Physical mail and email are obviously very different beasts, with different strengths and different perceptions amongst consumers, but that is not to say that digital marketers need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to their online communication with consumers.

New channels and technologies may have greatly increased the breadth and depth of insight that brands can draw from customer interactions, but the guiding principles remain the same: high-quality, well designed content, appropriately personalised and targeted to specific recipients, is still key. Digital marketing is in many ways an evolution of direct mail, rather than a full-blown revolution.

For example, at a time when people have become used to receiving large volumes of email almost round the clock, it is perhaps not surprising to see Royal Mail report that the difference and rarity of physical mail makes consumers feel valued.

Email, if sensibly targeted, well-designed, and suitably personalised, has the potential to achieve the same effect. By understanding what it is that consumers value about physical mail, and how they interact with it, digital marketers can use this insight to deliver even more sophisticated email (and other digital campaigns) that can help them stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Space in consumers’ email inboxes is increasingly at a premium, so any advantage could be priceless.

Furthermore, many successful modern direct marketing campaigns rely on their ability to move consumers on to online touchpoints (such as a website, or a contact email address). This highlights the importance of ensuring contact across channels is joined up as part of an integrated marketing strategy in order to maximise the value of cross-channel customer insights.

The different ways in which consumers interact with direct mail and email marketing will inevitably deliver different – but equally valuable – information about the individuals targeted. Brands need their marketers across all channels to work closely together to enable the cross-pollination of insights and the building up of more detailed and rounded pictures of customers to better engage with them.

Crucially, any analysis of customer behaviour, or of the value being derived from marketing spend, that takes a given channel in isolation will inevitably paint only an incomplete picture. Brands taking this siloed approach to marketing risk misdirecting spending and failing to make the most of their budgets – not to mention having a more limited picture of their potential customers, which will make future marketing efforts less effective.

It is important, however, that the integration of physical and digital is not limited to the sharing of customer data. While direct mail has the power to trigger customer engagement with online platforms, consistency of marketing messaging and customer-specific personalisation across channels is vital to maintaining consumers’ attention and helping them complete their intended transaction.