Direct Mail Versus Email – What’s the Use Case?

Ever get tired of sending 200 sales pitches per day and never hearing back from your prospects? For all the hype around electronic communication, sometimes it’s simply not enough to create a real connection. Plus, competition is fierce so you will have to get creative to rise above the noise. Here’s the use cases where you might want to use direct mail versus email or phone calls – or combine these two strategies to increase the chance of receiving a response.

Direct mail is the practice of sending physical objects, such as handwritten notes, cards or small gifts to try and connect with someone. This tactic is bound to help you re-engage with cold prospects our reach out in a very classy way.

Direct mail has been around for a long time – it’s one of the oldest forms of advertising. However, it’s not as common as phone calls or email in most companies’ sales strategy.

Recent research from XANT shows that most commonly, companies will use email (35% of respondents use this method of communication) to reach out to prospects.

Only 38% of companies use direct mail in their outreach campaigns, although a whopping 65 percent of leaders say they are likely to respond to direct mail!

How Direct Mail Stands Out in the Spam…Ugh, Crowd

But at a time when the average office worker gets around 121 emails per day, it’s almost impossible for sales reps to stand out in the crowd with an email-heavy strategy. I’ve illustrated this post with a screenshot of my own email notifications – sad to see, but my inbox is no man’s land. You hear that, man who is constantly trying to pitch me XYZ? Take a hint.

All things considered, do you really want to go this path anymore with your prospect outreach?

Sure, email will remain, for the most part, an incredibly useful tool for marketers and salespeople alike. There’s no denying it brings real benefits. But without infusing your strategy with some other innovative play, you can’t possibly win.

Create Real Relationships With People

Receiving a handwritten note or a funny card can be the icebreaker that you might need to make first contact. There’s many reasons that you would use direct mail, but most of the time it comes down to the human touch and making people feel special and valued:

• It shows that you took the time and put in the effort to do something different
• It shows that you are a real person, and care about making an impression
• Direct mail gives you the option to add a personal, heartfelt touch to your message

You might consider a handwritten note takes a lot of effort on your part, and is not easily scalable. However, innovation in technology has made it easy for sales reps to create and send direct mailers in automated fashion. You can do this with just a few clicks, straight from the Customer Relationship Management software (CRM).

Here’s just a few cases where you could use direct mailing and how and out-of-the-box design can warm up your prospect and get you closer to your contract signing.

Initiating a Conversation With a Prospect

There’s nothing that de-ices a cold prospect like a handwritten note. What’s the big idea? Whatever you want it to be, really. Your product, your offer is always a big improvement to your prospect’s life.  After all, salesmen are just problem solvers – find your prospect’s need and solve it.

Follow Up After a Meeting

You would follow up with a tank you email to any face-to-face or online meeting – so why not take the time and do it the right way? Sending a thank you card will certainly make your outreach memorable.

Customer Onboarding

When a customer just purchased your product, you should not welcome him on board with a dull email – or worse, radio silence. Nobody likes that kind of attitude, you don’t like it either. It’s a ‘take the money and run’ kind of play. You need to create a warm welcome to the family for your customer. And a handwritten card, even a small gift – is a great way to do that!

Re-engaging With a Non-Responsive Customer/Prospect

One of the most frustrating cases for sales reps is when they have productive meeting or phone call with somebody, only to hear crickets days later. Perhaps they really weren’t interested? Playing polite just to avoid saying ‘no’? Perhaps they moved to Canada, changed their name and now live in a forest…

OR maybe they are incredibly busy, get tons of calls and emails each day – and the only way to bump yourself up on their priority list is by approaching them in a truly innovative way. Enter the direct mail.

There’s dozens of cards to choose from in the XANT sales growth platform.

Funny, fancy or radically cordial, all these messages are built by professional designers and guaranteed to increase your chances of successful outreach.

The Effectiveness of Direct Mail: Download the Research!

If you want to learn more about how B2B leaders are using direct mail to win, download the “State of Direct Mail” study from XANT. It’s a fascinating piece, and you’ll be able to learn:

• How companies are using direct mail effectively within their outreach campaigns
• What types of direct mail customers prefer, and why
• The one thing that you must do to make sure your direct mail campaign is successful