Thursday, August 11, 2016

How Direct Mail Can Boost Digital Marketing Power

Direct mail is becoming a key player in the digital marketing world, as Christopher Karpenko, executive director of brand marketing at the U.S. Postal Service, recently argued in an article for the Association of National Advertisers. His points are worth summarizing and support our own belief in the response power of combining direct mail with digital marketing channels, such as opt-in e-mail and social media, as we do in our Digital2Direct program. Karpenko points out that direct mail has evolved and now achieves even greater response power via technologies such as Augmented reality (AR), near-field communication (NFC), and quick response (QR) codes. These technologies bridge the physical and digital gap by launching a website, a video or an interactive experience right from a paper mailing piece. "These can be powerful ways of sparking product discovery and drawing consumers into the digital ecosystem of a particular brand," he writes. Technology is also removing the "snail" from "snail mail," with real-time delivery scan notifications already sent within a few minutes and now an "Informed Delivery" service on the horizon from the USPS. Informed Delivery will allow consumers to check their e-mail inbox, social media and mobile apps to actually see the front of most mail pieces coming to their physical mailbox before they arrive. To read our complete blog post, including how direct mail can leverage social media engagement, go to our website's full-length version, which also includes a link to Karpenko's article, with an interesting Chick-fil-A case study: http://www.acculistusa.com/how-direct-mail-boosts-digital-marketing-power/