Email, Phone and Direct Mail Continue to Lead the Pack
According to Direct Marketing News, two old standbys—email and phone—continue to provide the
highest response rates. In fact, the latest findings from December and January show that email, phone
and direct mail continue to provide better response rates and ROI than trendy recent darlings social
media and mobile.
A few study highlights:
- Email, while not the winner in response rate, shines in ROI due to its low cost. Not surprising,
- campaigns conducted using in-house lists outperform those that use prospect lists.
- Direct Mail outperformed all digital media for response rates.
- Online display advertising came in last among the digital options.
- Phone calls registered the highest response rate and one of the highest ROI percentages.
Data-Driven Personalization Has Big Impact for Email Marketing
Despite its promise of improved returns, data and analytics continue to be under-utilized by email
marketers. Big Data—that plethora of information that companies house across multiple
databases—continues to remain elusive, yet has such promise. For those still struggling to get a handle
on how data can come together to improve campaign effectiveness, start simple; begin with the basics,
like a personalized greeting, then branch out from there. Once you have a handle on the basics,
continue to take small steps to get to emails that are highly targeted and effective.
Mobile Marketing: Now Is the Time
Our love of smartphones is changing how we shop and buy and marketers need to keep their eye on the
ball. A few key trends:
Apps are the new cookie. Since cookies can’t be used to facilitate engagement, now may be the time to
engage people via an app, while we’re all still app-happy.
Enter the trend of Webrooming. The opposite of showrooming (shopping bricks and mortar, then
buying on the web), this is when consumers shop the web, then get local stores to price match, thus
avoiding shipping delays and cost.
In-location marketing is a new darling. With smartphones you can know when a consumer is in physical
proximity to your product in-store. That’s the time to deliver that compelling offer or content, not after
they’ve purchased a competitors product.
“Marketers will need to master mobile marketing in 2015. Not as a channel or tactic, but as a way to be
part of customer moments, both on- and offline. In those moments brands must be relevant, useful, and
delightful. To accomplish this marketers must have the ability to extract meaning from mobile analytics
and deliver just the right content. Mobile takes marketing agility, customer insight, and content brevity
to the next level. Mobile is bootcamp for marketing. If you master mobile, you’ll become a stronger
marketer and brand overall.”
“–Loni Stark, director, product and industry marketing, Adobe