Increase_Revenue_Direct_Mail_Marketing

Winter is coming: Get a jump on your holiday direct marketing tactics

When it comes to holiday marketing, it’s time to start planning for it. The Holiday season – starting with Black Friday and continuing through New Years – is prime retail season for everyone, and you should focus your budget on proven direct marketing tactics.

Direct marketing via postal mail can still have a vital role to play, especially for smaller shops looking to compete with the “big box” stores in town. Creative, interesting, and engaging holiday marketing materials will help ensure people remember you, no matter what Macy’s has on special.

Direct Marketing Tactics: 6 Tips For Better Holiday Marketing

1 – Have Plenty Of Variety

One of the best aspects of direct mail marketing is the wide range of options you have in mailed materials. Your campaigns should include as many different types as mailers as possible, to increase the chances of catching someone’s eye with one of them. Focusing solely on one type is a “putting all your eggs in one basket” situation.

2 – Make Your Materials Fun

There’s no better time of year than the holidays for more advanced or complicated mailing materials, because people are already in a mood for unwrapping presents. Utilizing multi-fold mailers, or larger envelopes with several smaller envelopes inside, turns them into an actual experience. Recipients will be encouraged to linger over your offerings, if you make it fun to go through them.

We suggest including coupons or similar small gifts in these sorts of mailers, since the customers will want some sort of reward for their time spent.

3 – Get Specific With Geo-Targeting

One key direct marketing tactic is being as targeted as possible, and this is especially important when you’re competing with larger stores during the holiday season. Utilize services like USPS’s new Every Door Direct Mail to find the most likely buyers in your area, and target them with materials designed for them specifically.

Broadly speaking, the more personalized the materials are, the better. It helps differentiate your specials from the much more “mass market” offers from bigger outlets.

4 – Don’t Forget Cyber Monday

Just because direct mail is offline, it doesn’t have to stay there. Your direct marketing campaigns should include mention of whatever Cyber Monday promotions you’ll be running on the website. You could even send out mailers specifically for Cyber Monday, with scan-able QR Codes that lead to special bargains.

5 – Watch For Leaks

Here’s another way you have an edge over the big stores: You are flexible, and they are not. The Black Friday/Cyber Monday fliers for large stores virtually always leak days or even weeks ahead of time. The moment one leaks for a store in your area, you should be looking for a way to turn it to your advantage. Find a similar product you can afford to sell at a loss, or offer something that’s complementary to other offers. (If someone is selling printers for cheap, undercut them on the paper or ink.)

Even if it means inventing a new promotion on the spot, this can be a great tactic, and direct mail can be produced quickly enough to announce it.

6 – Get Ready To Measure Everything

Along with including them in your regular reports, you should also track your holiday promotions separately and in as much detail as you can possibly handle. Measuring your holiday stats from year-to-year is a great way to refine your marketing campaigns for future seasons.

Pay special attention to response rates, so that next year you can focus on whichever forms of direct mail were most popular.

Need more tips? Just contact OneStopMail with your questions!

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