5 Advantages of Direct Mail Automation for Your Marketing Campaigns

What if innovative, technology-focused solutions could help your marketing department and organization more effectively market and automate repetitive tasks?

It’s an interesting question that gets you thinking.

Imagine removing the manual processes involved with creating direct mail campaigns and instead, integrating automation for a seamless, streamlined experience – delivering personalized messages within hours or days instead of weeks or months.

Let’s explore what direct mail automation can mean for your marketing endeavors, in any type of industry.

What is Automated Direct Mail?

Automated direct mail, or marketing automation, may seem complex and out of reach, but the truth is, you’re probably already doing it now to some extent. Think of that email series you send when a new lead comes in or even re-engaging stagnant leads with fresh offers or promotions. It occurs when you utilize direct mail automation software to automatically send campaigns based on pre-defined triggers – and the benefits can be very impactful.

Marketing Automation in a Direct Mail World

Now, what if you could automate the process of sending letters, managing your creative packages or even re-targeting your direct mail lists online? 

In a direct mail world, marketing automation can help you manage marketing processes and multichannel campaigns – 100% hands-off – meaning it’s automatically happening behind the scenes. It enables you to free up your existing resources and effectively market on multiple channels, with repetitive tasks set up to automatically occur (while you focus your attention on other revenue-generating direct marketing tasks).

We’re marketers too – we get it. You probably spend a lot of time setting up automated and programmatic direct mail campaigns, putting all of the right pieces in place and ensuring that everything’s measurable. What if the process from prospect to customer could be easier (with full visibility from start to finish)?   

Biggest Advantages of Automation Technology

Using direct mail automation, you bring data, rules and targeted messaging together to send more timely and relevant messages (without missing a step). The result is an optimal customer experience that drives results.

Let’s explore the biggest advantages of implementing marketing automation (and why it’s a must): 

1. Efficient – Once set up, the behind-the-scenes systems run automatically, meaning that you reduce the manpower and time needed to make it all happen. You also reduce repetitive tasks while preventing any missed steps – it’s runs at 100% capacity without any worry or errors.  
2. Fully trackable – Your analytics are also set up to automatically track activity. At a glance, you will know what channel or list was responsible for generating an activity or response. No more manual reporting. You’ll be able to work with and assess data with ease.
3. Customer-centric – With personalized direct mail, lead nurturing and data management, you deliver a customized experience – with relevant content delivered to the right recipients at the right time. Craft compelling messages for all of your customer segments – increasing response rates with targeted communications.
4. Scalable – Marketing automation opens the door to seamless scalability. Once the processes and technology are set up, you can quickly and easily scale your efforts, building on the foundation you already have in place.
5. Multichannel – You can be everywhere your potential leads are. With sophisticated marketing automation solutions, you can reach prospects on their favorite channel, giving them a choice on how they connect. These multiple touchpoints will also help nurture prospects through the research process, engaging with them across multiple channels in the buyer journey.

Why is Direct Mail Automation Important to Today’s Marketers?

Ever heard the phrase, “time is money?” Marketing automation frees up marketer’s time to focus on more business-critical tasks, like perfecting the customer experience. You can conserve valuable resources while focusing your efforts on what matters most – developing more creative and compelling content and campaigns.

You can leverage marketing automation to replicate and refine processes, templates and branding –anything you want to streamline and automate. Once you get the foundation in place – from the target audience to personalized messaging and triggers – you can deliver consistent marketing across all channels with minimal effort. After that, you just need to analyze the results and refine.

Types of Automated Direct Mail Campaigns

Think event-triggered direct mail campaigns. These are used to enhance and optimize your marketing efforts – from someone opting in to receive a newsletter to making an online purchase. Here are other instances where you can automate direct mail (the possibilities are endless) to connect your consumers and engage with them on a higher, more personalized level:

• Abandoned shopping carts
• Loyalty campaigns (birthdays, anniversaries)
• Direct mail retargeting
• “Thank you” or “welcome” letters
• Downloadable whitepapers or content
• Special offers or promotions

How Do You Automate Direct Mail?

Here’s Direct Mail Automation from Splash.

Now, for some real-world automated direct mail examples that can help you streamline your marketing efforts – from FSSI’s Direct Mail and Marketing Services Division, Splash.

Print Marketing Automation

Do you have recurring, high-volume direct mail campaigns with complex logic and processing needs?
Are you overwhelmed with keeping spreadsheets and artwork up to date and in order? 

The amount of data in your complex marketing campaigns can be 100% manageable.

Scale your results more quickly with a powerful automation tool – Velocity – that manages every aspect of your marketing communications, even addressing complex data relationships with ease.

• Say goodbye to managing massive spreadsheets and matrices to track your intricate campaigns
• Streamline the entire letter management process with full control of your letter templates, creative content and packaging – in your own custom portal
• Seamlessly handle complex requirements knowing that your campaigns are accurate and manageable
• Meet your marketing growth strategies and get to market faster

Ideal solutions for: non-profit organizations, agencies, HOAs, dealerships, franchises, universities and other businesses requiring scalable direct mail campaign management. 

Integrated Marketing

What if the journey of your direct mail could be so much more than just a printed mailpiece? What if the power of digital marketing could amplify your reach?
Seamlessly integrate pre- and post-mail touchpoints into your direct mail strategy – 100% hands off. We already mentioned “programmatic direct mail” above – you can utilize direct mail automation to send direct mail and retargeted ads to your online visitors, even if they don’t submit their information on your contact form. 

With Amplify, the same message is seen multiple times across multiple channels – creating an effective end-to-end campaign that ties in print and digital media to deliver and reinforce your message.

• Drastically increase the number of touchpoints in a direct mail campaign
• Utilize Facebook, Instagram, Google and USPS’ Informed Delivery® to deliver ads and targeted messages to your direct mail recipients online
• Focus on results with campaign setup and management 100% done for you
• Elevate your brand and increase response rates

Industries that Benefit from Automated Direct Mail

When it comes to promotional and marketing communications, most industries can benefit from direct mail automation. You’ll ensure a streamlined, compliant process while freeing up time to focus on core business objectives – removing the manual processes that hold you back!

• Non-profit organizations
• Colleges or universities
• Marketing and advertising agencies
• Healthcare
• Real estate and mortgage
• Financial services
• Retail

Manage Your Direct Mail Marketing Processes with Ease

Think how you could elevate your direct mail with advanced marketing technologies. With Splash’s fully-automated direct mail and retargeting, it’s quick and easy to set up new campaigns while you seamlessly manage all the elements, with full visibility and attribution – leaving you more time and energy to focus on other business-critical tasks. 

Contact us today at (714) 436-3300 to learn how the benefits of implementing automatic systems and processes can be a game-changer to your direct mail marketing approach – one that can help turn those prospects into leads and customers.