Dwight’s Blogg

Many businesses mistakenly think their marketing efforts should take a backseat as summer arrives. It’s when people go on vacations, schools break for summer, and overall activity seems to slow down. Rather than pulling back, however, savvy marketers see the summer as an opportunity to ramp up. Why? Let’s take a look.

You might think your marketing messages, products, and outstanding customer service define your brand. But the truth is, the perceptions of your customers define your brand. It’s what they believe about you, not just what you say about yourself.

If you want to understand the value of print versus digital in marketing, look at the world of education. Studies consistently find that while digital communications have great value in providing top-level information quickly when it comes to processing deeper concepts, print is the hands-down winner. These results were recently confirmed in a groundbreaking study from Columbia University’s Teacher’s College.

Buyers have come to expect personalization in all of their marketing communications. They get personalized recommendations from their favorite online stores and are used to seeing their names in the subject lines of marketing emails. They have come to expect personalization in all their marketing communications, including direct mail. Are you giving it to them?

Should you choose direct mail or email when planning your next marketing campaign? Sometimes, the answer is: “Use both!” The best marketing often happens when you use direct mail and email together. Here are five ways to combine the two channels and achieve great results.

You will eventually lose subscribers, no matter how great your email content is. Even if they are still connected to your brand, the average person gets between 100–150 emails daily. That can be overwhelming. If people unsubscribe, how do you win them back? One proven strategy is to use oversized postcards.

Whether you are creating a direct mail piece, an email, or a social media post, FOMO, or “Fear of Missing Out,” is a powerful tool. Harnessing FOMO can drive engagement and conversions by creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity, compelling customers to act quickly so they don’t miss out on something good.

While we all know that personalizing your direct mail pieces can improve marketing results, the process can seem intimidating. What do you need to watch for? How can you make sure nothing goes wrong? Here are five tips for getting started on the right foot.

Direct mail is changing. This channel remains highly effective, but most people don’t have the attention spans they used to. Mail that is fast and easy to scan is winning the day. According to Who’s Mailing What! (WMW!), a database of nearly 300,000 direct mail pieces, the average word count used in marketing copy for envelopes, postcards, and self-mailers has dropped by 24%, 30%, and 29%, respectively, over the past 20 years.

Whether you are sending direct mail only or integrating direct mail with other channels, marketing has many moving parts. The final “send” or “go live” is simply the last link in the chain. To ensure that the whole project stays on schedule, work backward to ensure each component is on schedule.