Increasingly e-commerce businesses are considering catalogue marketing to drive sales. However, a key consideration is to identify the right time to embrace Direct Mail and take advantage of the benefits it brings.
Here are six indicators that serve a testament that the time is right to invest in the medium:
- You’ve been trading for at least two years
Your business idea is proven, you’ve survived your first year and are focused on growth. Crucially, you have a customer base size that allows effective targeting solutions to be built, typically at least 2,500 customers. - Your digital channels are performing well
You are confident you’re getting the best from your digital activities. Your SEO, PPC, and retargeting are optimised; you’re happy with your site’s user experience and you’ve used your learnings to fine-tune your marketing. However, you’re reliant on a single or limited array of channels to reach your audience. - Your online growth is plateauing
This is the number one reason digital businesses test Direct Mail. Channels that have been successfully driving sales are tailing off. Marketing spend online is optimised and investing more delivers a decreasing Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS). As it’s more difficult to attract new sales at the same Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), other channels you may not have considered that can help reach new audiences become viable. - You need to grow sales and profitability
Customers recruited online are price-driven, often looking for the best deals. As you develop, you’ll want to cultivate a higher quality of customer. Catalogues allow you to recruit customers with a higher Average Order Value (AOV) who are more likely to buy again. And it’s these repeat purchasers that deliver profitability. Catalogues also expose people to new products. While search directs you to what you want to find, a catalogue is a source of discovery. It introduces people to new things they did not know about which encourages sales. - You want to develop your brand
There’s nothing like a physical catalogue to create an emotional connection with your brand. Your choice of layout, size, imagery, and paper quality all convey what your brand stands for. Its tactile nature drives an engagement that’s not possible to deliver online. Developing a catalogue helps your customer buy into your brand from the word go so you can develop a more meaningful long-term relationship with them. - You can commit to developing a new channel
Let’s be honest, catalogue marketing is hard. It’s more time-consuming, costly, and resource-heavy than digital channels with different metrics. It’s not a short-term option. It requires you to invest in the medium-term, and commit to a minimum of three mailing campaigns over 6-12 months to see the commercial benefits to your business. However, the benefits from a branding and sales perspective can be substantial.
In short, the expanding practice of digital marketing has only amplified the return on investment you can get from a successful Direct Mail campaign sent to your customers. Direct mail campaigns give a high ROI, they can work effectively in a campaign by themselves, or alongside a digital-marketing campaign as part of your omni-channel strategy. You can use Direct Mail to target the right customers at the right time and most importantly it’s measurable, it’s easy to track the results of each campaign you run. There is less noise than through digital channels and you can capture the undivided attention of your customers with its romantic appeal.
If you still need convincing whether Direct Mail is the right channel for you and why it should take a place in your marketing tool belt, view our latest client success story.