Science & USPS Both Support Mail-Digital Mating

For any direct marketers who haven’t committed to combining direct mail with digital media, 2017 is a perfect year for experimentation, with both “brain science” and U.S. Postal Service incentives increasing the attractions of a mail-digital marriage. For example, an article from The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) recently highlighted the “neuromarketing” evidence for mail-digital pairings in a recent study by Temple University and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Office of Inspector General and another study from a partnership the Canada Post and True Impact Marketing, a leading neuromarketing research firm. A key finding from the first study: Consumer “willingness to pay” was significantly higher when media was delivered across both digital and physical channels rather than a single channel. An important finding from the second effort: While digital media provide key platforms for customer interaction, direct mail is often better at closing the marketing-sales loop. So for marketers, a mail-digital combination offers the best of both worlds, helps bridge the gap between interaction and action and boosts sales. Why wait to reap the benefits? Especially now that the U.S. Postal Service is offering a range of 2017 programs that make the economic decision easier. The new Informed Delivery program, which inserts mail into consumers’ daily digital routines, is one example. Informed Delivery users receive e-mails that capture grayscale images of the address side of their mail. Under the program, marketers can take advantage of three potential touchpoints with one mail piece: an advance preview via e-mail/app, actually delivery in the mailbox, and inclusion of a unique URL in the digital preview to drive trackable traffic to a website. Plus, the USPS has two promotions supporting mail-digital pairing this year. The Emerging & Advanced Technology Promotion (March 1 – Aug. 31, 2017) encourages mailers to integrate direct mail with advances in mobile technology using NFC technology, Video in Print (ViP), Beacon technology, “Enhanced” Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality (newly included this year) or, as of 2017, use of Digital to Direct Mail to boost response with dynamically printed, personalized messaging automatically triggered by digital interaction. Mail-digital pairing is also rewarded by the Mobile Shopping Promotion (Aug. 1 – Dec. 31, 2017), which encourages mailers to invest in technologies that take recipients directly from the mail piece to a mobile-optimized online shopping experience via Quick Response (QR) Codes, Snap Tags, Watermarks and other technologies. For more details, see http://www.acculistusa.com/usps-science-encourage-merger-of-digital-mail-efforts/