By Erwin Busselot, Director Business Innovation & Solutions, Ricoh Graphic Communications, Ricoh Europe
How do your clients connect with their customers? How do they generate interest? How do they secure the sale?
Increasingly the answer to this question is targeted, informative and engaging mail.
The latest quarterly figures from JICMAIL, the British direct mail measurement organisation, offer the newest confirmation.
They found 40% of British website visits prompted by mail converted into online purchases in the fourth quarter of 2023. 6.5% of mail (including direct mail, business mail, partially addressed mail and door drops) prompted a purchase in the Christmas trading period, with half of these purchases completed online. Year on year comparisons found 95% of mail was engaged with, up 1%, 30% of mail promoted a commercial action, up 6%, and 5% of mail prompted a purchase, up 24%.
Mail also traverses digital and physical presences. Additional digital actions now tracked by JICMAIL found mail prompts online searches (2.6% of mail), emails to advertisers (1.1%), and app download and usage (1%).
Mail drove sales in physical retail stores too. 2.3% of mail, that can employ engaging and actionable elements such as personalised and targeted vouchers, prompted an instore purchase in Q4 2023. This suggests ‘real life brand experiences’ remain important to consumers. The triggering of in-store purchases enables marketers to see their return on investment with the measurement of redemption rate.
And it is something that holds attention. Mail is interacted with for longer. The average piece of business mail is read for over two and half minutes during a 28 day period, compared to one minute for the average door drop. However, door drops are still considered the most attention efficient mail channel. In the second half of 2023, just under a quarter of direct mail was used for cold acquisition purposes. By comparison, 88% of door drops reached new prospects as opposed to existing customers.
What is it about tangible mail that stirs such a strong response?
Mail engages us in a number of ways:
Personalised content holds interest.
Creative, eyecatching imagery and messaging is memorable.
Tactility, aided by a variety of digital print enhancements, captures attention, and delivers a sense of ownership.
Visually pleasing design and content enables important information to be accessed clearly, quickly, and easily.
Brand consistency across all forms of communication fosters higher levels of trust.
Compelling customer mail can be created with digital high speed inkjet and toner technologies that deploy a powerful combination of individualised data, tailored content, Digital Print Enhancement, and vibrant design. FusionPro software can manage customised content and combine customer data with pre-defined templates for dynamic marketing applications.
www.ricoh-europe.com
