AI and automation are hot topics in all areas of business these days, and marketing is no different. Because direct mail has such a high response rate compared to digital marketing, it is seeing a strong comeback. More and more marketing departments are devoting resources to personalized campaigns—and that's where technology plays a big part.
Automation tools can help your team’s bandwidth, removing some of the manual tasks from your employees and allowing for more time to devote to the people-centric parts of your business. One of the best ways to put tech to use in marketing is to assign triggers that kick off marketing campaigns for you. These actions or events, when they happen, tell your connected tools to send a specific piece of collateral, such as mailing a postcard, catalog, or coupon.
When added to your digital marketing strategy, these triggered direct mail campaigns provide a personalized touch point to a customer or prospect who has taken a specific action. Converting these types of "warm leads" is much easier than sending mass mail to people who've never heard of your products or services.,resulting in better ROI.
What Triggers Can Be Used?
We've discussed how important your customer and prospect database is when using automation, and triggered direct mail campaigns are no different. You can design a campaign around any fields you capture, provided that you have clean data and the right tools set up.
You can also use triggers no matter what industry you're in or type of business you have. For example, a membership organization can mail an informational welcome packet automatically when a new member is added to the database. Or, if you have a product-oriented business, you can set up a personalized coupon to go out when a potential customer abandons their shopping cart items. One of the easiest pieces of data to capture is a significant date—like a birthday or membership join date—that you can use as a trigger to send a special communication.
How Does It Work?
Most companies aren't going to invest in a massive stack of tech tools to make triggered mail campaigns happen, so having a partner is important. Vomela's intelligent mail capabilities can help you reach your customers based on the actions you capture in your database. You still need the tools in your system, but Vomela can do the heavy lifting for you.
You also need to decide what you want to accomplish and design a workflow around the trigger. For example, if you want a customer to purchase a specific product, you need to first capture their cart abandonment, set up the trigger, decide what type of collateral (like a coupon) you want to send them, and design copy and visuals to complete the branded piece. Then you need your partner to print your personalized piece—complete with mailing label and barcode—and mail it.
Testing is an important function of your automated direct mail campaign. You need to make sure it is functioning properly at each stage, or the damage will be greater than the potential reward. Make sure you are double-checking any lists that are created based on your triggers to see that the data is being captured and exported properly.
For more information on sending intelligent mail and how Vomela can work with you on your automated marketing campaigns, contact your Vomela account manager today!
