Why Use Flyers as a Marketing Tool

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Are Flyers An Effective Marketing Tool? How to Use Them to Get Best Results?

Marketers always seek new ways to promote their business and increase sales levels. They have tried it all—from newspaper advertising to email marketing and SEO.

However, there is one tool they just can’t miss- a marketing flyer. It is one of the most effective, engaging, and result-bearing advertising mediums that can guarantee a positive ROI.

We see flyers all around us: outside our all-time favourite cafe, at the local exhibition, snuck between a newspaper, in our mailbox, etc. It is common for businesses to use a marketing flyer now and then to achieve their objectives. However, remember that people only notice and respond to flyers that stand out from the crowd!

Luckily, you can use flyers in several ways, and one effective method is to send them as direct mail. It lets you connect with your target audience directly and personally. Also, direct mail is more attention-grabbing than digital marketing channels.

Further, we will discuss how effective are flyers for marketing. Also, we have listed some ideas and tips to help you make the most of your flyer marketing campaigns. Let’s begin!

Are Flyers An Effective Marketing Tool?

At PostGrid, we come across many questions, like- do flyers work for marketing? The short answer to this query is yes! And there are several reasons we give this answer to our clients, including:

Easy to Grasp

Unlike letters, a direct marketing flyer only consists of a few words and lines. Hence, it is easy to read and remember for your target audience. Also, its design is small and compact, making your words pop to gain more attention.

Flyers don’t need envelopes; they are like a self-mailer that allows recipients to read the message effortlessly.

Long-Lasting

Australians keep marketing mail in their households for an average of 17 days. It has a longer lifespan than emails and social media posts that people scroll through daily. Thus, using flyers to promote your business helps you get more bang for your buck by spreading awareness even weeks after your campaign is over.

Higher Read Rates

About 81% of Australians read their mail items immediately after receiving them. Furthermore, 65% of the recipients read every mail piece they get in their mailboxes. It proves that direct mail has the highest read rates.

Hence, sending a marketing flyer to every prospect can help you get their undivided attention and push them to complete the call-to-action (CTA).

Creates Personal Rapport

Flyers are interesting marketing pieces that allow companies to break through the clutter and create personal relationships. For example, real estate marketing flyers can help you introduce your business to your potential clients on a 1:1 basis. This way, people remember you better and would get in touch as soon as they need to buy, sell, or rent a property.

It works in the same way for all industries. Financial institutions can use a marketing flyer to talk about their new services that directly cater to a specific section of their audience. Or, a hospital can conduct flyer marketing to reach out to their old patients and thank them for using their services over the years.

Therefore, using flyers to promote your business enables you to deepen customer relationships and build brand loyalty.

Engaging and Result-Driving

Gone are the days when companies used boring and standalone marketing programs. You can get your prospects onboard only if you put enough thought and effort into your strategies. And one fun way to engage your existing and potential customers is to send a marketing flyer to them.

It has unique design elements and short messages that work better than lengthy explanations of your products and services. Also, it is easy to save and share with other people.

You can add a compelling offer and CTA to motivate your recipients to take action. Ensure that these elements are visible to them by making your artwork breathable and less cluttered. We will discuss more on that in a little bit!

Affordable

Some marketers think direct mailing is expensive compared to other advertising, and we do not deny this claim. But, you can reverse this fact by using automation. For instance, PostGrid’s print and mail services help you save up to 75% of costs while sending your direct mail items.

Though you have several direct mail options, a marketing flyer is your most affordable choice. They are small-sized and do not require envelopes—further lowering your costs.

How to Use Flyers to Promote Your Business?

Now that you are aware of the advantages of using flyers to promote your business, here are some helpful tips to allow you to get a positive ROI:

Define Your Campaign’s Mission

Your first step should be to write down your marketing goals. Ensure that you have already consulted your sales team and considered their inputs. It helps you align your sales and marketing teams more effectively and get the best results possible.

For example, suppose your sales team has tons of hot leads they cannot convert. Then, making these prospects the prime audience for your marketing flyer campaign can help you significantly.

Similarly, you can identify different requirements and shape your campaign outline accordingly. Start by finding the answers to these questions:

• Does my brand need to target specific demographics?
• How many real estate marketing flyers should I send out to get the optimum results?
• Is my goal to push prospects ahead in the marketing funnel or retain existing customers?

With the help of these answers, you can execute a marketing flyer campaign that brings you closer to your objectives.

Focus On Crucial Points and Add Value to Your Marketing Flyer

As said earlier, flyers are compact and can only carry a few sentences. Thus, you cannot afford to insert too many details and confuse the readers.

It is advisable to only focus on one key topic, like the launch of a new product or an upcoming event. Also, keep your words simple and sentences short to enhance readability.

It is best to use bullet points and small tables for using flyers to promote your business. They segregate your messages systematically and give readers a clear idea of what you are trying to communicate.

Additionally, you may add customer reviews, statistics, and testimonials to boost credibility. It showcases your brand as authentic and increases your prospects’ confidence in your products and services.

Select an Interactive Headline

Your marketing flyer headline is the first thing that your prospects read. Thus, make your headline engaging and interactive. It should give readers a glimpse into your business offerings. Also, the headline should make readers want to read the whole thing. Here are some examples for your reference:

• Are you tired of wall-stains? If yes, try out our new stain-resistant paint collection at a flat 10% discount!
• Why settle for a dull 9-5 job when you can join us and get paid for travelling! Call us now to learn how!

Our first example for a marketing flyer headline lets readers know that you are a paint manufacturing company. Furthermore, it also promotes your new range of products and allures prospects with a discount.

In our second example, you reach out to people with an exciting offer and give them an idea of your services. The headline contains an upfront CTA to encourage them to take action right away and not let the opportunity slip from their hands.

Using powerful headlines for your marketing flyer helps you win half the race. Now, your goal is to keep your readers hooked and take them further in their customer journeys.

Target Relevant Prospects

Your target audience may be vast and spread out among different demographics. Suppose you run a tea-powder manufacturing company and plan on using flyers to promote your business. In this case, it is hard to zero in on your prospects and choose an ideal audience for your campaign. So, what can you do to solve this dilemma?

There are two ways to deal with this issue:

• Make a list of customer-dense cities or localities
• Conduct generic marketing campaigns at random places

In this case, your best bet is to use letterbox advertising to cover specific neighbourhoods and generate brand awareness. Hence, knowing your target audience helps you understand what type of campaign will work best for your brand.

It is easier for businesses catering to niche markets, like B2B magazine publishers, Saas companies, luxury furniture brands, etc., to choose a target audience. Instead of conducting a generic advertising program, they can compile a segmented mailing list for their marketing flyer campaign.

Luckily, PostGrid’s print and mail API helps you launch effective targeted and generic campaigns with assured results.

Automate the Process

Automation can help you streamline your activities and save tons of manual effort. It also offers several features, like triggering campaigns, tracking, API integrations, etc. An effective online direct mailing company like PostGrid can help you avail of all the advantages of using flyers to promote your business using automated solutions.

How to Design a Marketing Flyer?

Designing flyers is not rocket science, but you still need to take care of a few things to make your campaign a success. You may have limited space for your artwork, but you can design an excellent artwork using the following points:

Incorporate Icons and Custom Illustrations

Find ways to replace elaborate sentences with icons whenever you need to create a marketing flyer or postcard marketing campaign. They are vector graphics that come in handy while designing small-sized direct mail formats.

Also, they are attention-grabbing because of their simplicity and recognisability. For example, if you want to promote your house-cleaning services, you can use custom icons of a vacuum cleaner or broom.

Similarly, restaurants can add food icons to their marketing flyer to represent different dishes and drinks.

You can also create illustrations that depict your products using these icons. They take less space and make your flyers more visually appealing.

Use Colours That Represent Your Brand

Using your brand colours in your marketing flyer design is one of the best ways to increase recognition rates. This practice also helps keep your branding consistent across offline and online marketing platforms.

Ensure that your flyers have the colours present in your logo. If your logo is green like Starbucks, let this colour dominate your design. So, your audience will start recalling your brand every time you send a green-themed flyer to them.

You can use your brand colours for your CTA, header, and icons. Or you may use the colours as your background for a more subtle effect.

Mix and Match Fonts

Fonts can bring dramatic differences to your marketing flyer. Sending out flyers with a single font may look professional but boring. On the contrary, adding more than two fonts can disrupt your artwork by making it look too busy.

Hence, the ideal way is to use two different fonts at the most. It allows you to give a creative edge to your flyers while making them more skimmable.

Also, take care to use fonts that match your brand’s personality. Tech industries might use standard fonts, but media companies opt for more decorative styles. Thus, determine your business type closely before settling on your marketing flyer fonts.

Include Large Images

Adding relevant imagery can also be a game-changer for your campaigns. Try adding larger images to make your flyers more impactful and persuasive. Here’s an example:

In the above marketing flyer, Domino’s decided to stick with large imagery and limit words—making recipients drool and take action right away.

However, an edtech firm may want to do the opposite and use a small image. Or a travel and tours company may plan on using a series of small pictures.

Either way, ensure that you use imagery that depicts your products and services in a relevant manner.

Add Interesting Design Elements

There is no limit to the level of creativity you can tap into while designing your marketing flyer. You can use different shapes or unique graphics to make your design stand out.

Also, it is smart to make your flyers thematic. For instance, you can use a Christmas theme while mailing flyers during November and December. There are many more theme options, like:

• Weekends
• Mother’s Day
• Halloween
• Valentine’s Day, etc.

Insert QR Codes and Personalised URLs

Always insert QR codes and pURls in your design while using flyers to promote your business. It acts as a CTA for your recipients and allows you to track your campaign performance.

All your prospects need to do is pull out their phones and scan the code. You can redirect them to any page you want based on your goals.

Even pURLs do the same job, but recipients are required to enter the link manually. Therefore, remember to keep pURLs short. You can also add the person’s name to the link to tempt them to visit your landing page.

Use Borders

Designers often use borders to finish off their artwork. However, you can change their usage and make it your design’s focal aspect.

Here are a few ideas:

• You can use them to separate the different sections of your marketing flyer
• Borders can take several shapes like circles and rectangles to add a creative change
• You can incorporate multiple colours in your borders to make them less conventional

Emphasise Your Event Details

Some businesses start using flyers to promote their business events, like press meets, trade fair participation, product launches, etc. It is an excellent way to make more and more people RSVP to your event and increase foot traffic.

You must emphasise the date and time of your event in your design. Make these aspects pop by differentiating them from the rest of the information. Also, don’t forget to add the different ways to register for the event.

Include Your Brand Logo and Contact Details

It isn’t enough to use your company name in your real estate marketing flyers. You should also add your brand logo on every offline and digital marketing artwork to increase brand awareness.

Another crucial factor to include is your contact information because it helps recipients get in touch with you. You may also add your social media handles to drive online traffic.

Leave Blank Spaces

Avoid overusing design elements in your marketing flyer. Instead, use simple and creative layouts that let you, leave enough negative space. This way, you can ensure that your flyers do not look cluttered, distracting your audience from the prime message.

Make Your Numbers Visible

Most people are not going to read every single word on your flyer. They might only look for how much discount you are willing to offer or what is the last date of the sale. Hence, take care to make these numbers huge and visible.

Why Should You Use PostGrid’s Print and Mail Services to Conduct Marketing Flyer Campaigns?

PostGrid allows you to plan and execute your direct mailing campaigns affordably and speedily. Our two-business days SLA saves you the trouble and time of spending weeks producing your items.

We have a vast range of reputed printers that print your marketing flyer in high-quality and complete other tasks, like:

• Adding tracking barcodes
• Printing postage imprints on items
• Presorting
• Assembling, etc.

Then, Australia Post takes over and assists you in delivering your mail to their intended recipients. You can track your sent items by logging into your PostGrid dashboard. It lets you check your mail status and monitor your campaigns in real-time.

PostGrid’s automated direct mail services offer several more features that aid your marketing flyer campaign performance, like:

• Address verification: It helps you standardise and validate your mailing lists before mailing
• Flexible pricing: You can select from our various membership plans according to your budget and needs
• Zapier integration: Integrate with Zapier to connect with over 1600 apps and expand your database

To Summarise

Now that you know how effective is flyer marketing, it is high time to recognise the significance of multi-channel marketing strategies. Conducting SEO campaigns is as essential as using flyers to promote your business. It helps you reach out to a broader audience and get more responses.

Also, sending out a marketing flyer to your prospects is simple and quick, especially using automated solutions like PostGrid. Our print and mail API ensures that you need not do anything manually. Also, it enhances your mailing efficiency and makes the process 50% faster.

Ready to conduct a marketing flyer campaign using PostGrid to invest less and get more? Request a demo now!

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Effective Healthcare Communication

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Top 10 Healthcare Communication Strategies to Improve Hospital-Patient Relationships

In a survey, 13.1% of patients stated that there were several issues because of a lack of proper healthcare communication between professionals. Unfortunately, communication problems that lead to the degradation of healthcare services to patients have been prevalent for a long time!

It can be stressful for a patient to seek care as it is hard to share one’s details with another person. Hence, they try contacting a medical professional that makes them comfortable and provides them with the necessary treatment. It is the need of the hour that hospitals, dental clinics, physician offices, etc., understand the importance of communication in healthcare.

There are three crucial stages when a clinic or hospital needs to focus on their healthcare communication plans the most:

• During the first patient interactions
• While transferring medical data to another institution
• During patient discharge

None of the patient transactions happens in isolation, and there is a strong interdependence among all departments. Also, you may need to interact with other organisations in case of data transfers. Hence, effective communication in healthcare is no longer just a patient retention strategy but a need.

This article discusses the characteristics of communication in the healthcare sector and how providers can work on strategies to increase overall efficiency. It also reveals the challenges of implementing a functional program that addresses the needs of the patients.

Let’s begin!

What Is Effective Patient Communication in Healthcare?

Effective patient communication is exchanging crucial information between patients and their healthcare providers. It also includes correspondence with family members and carers of the patients regarding the ongoing treatment.

Hospitals should prioritise effective clinical communication that promotes two-way conversations in all forms (non-verbal, written, and spoken). It should engage patients in care planning and decision-making at all stages. Also, it should be transparent, friendly, and respectful and allow patients to offer feedback.

Now, physicians have also tapped into the potential of telemedicine via video conferencing. The Australian Government funded the GP (general practitioner) video telehealth services with $49.5 million. Hence, patients can consult doctors by phone, video call, etc., and get the necessary care from the comfort of their homes.

Also, effective communication with patients deals with the transfer of medical data between healthcare providers. The transmission could occur between two or more physicians, clinics, hospitals, or different care levels within the same organisation.

Why is Patient Communication Significant For Healthcare Providers?

There are several features of patient correspondence that make it significant for the hospital’s survival and growth. It enables healthcare providers to comply with the necessary laws and treat their patients correctly.

Below, we have discussed some primary aspects of communication in healthcare that all providers should work upon:

Diagnostic Precision

Doctors depend on patient stories to make diagnostic decisions. Therefore, providers should give patients a comfortable environment to open up and share every detail. Instead, they face interruptions from the hospital staff and physicians that compromise the quality of healthcare communication.

As a result, many physicians make incorrect clinical diagnoses, affecting the patient’s care plan. Thus, healthcare providers must:

• Focus on diagnostic accuracy by encouraging patients to share their medical history
• Get in touch with their previous caregivers to collect relevant information
• Promote patient-centred healthcare communication wherein patients are free to offer their views

Discipline In Filling Prescriptions

More than half a million Australians didn’t fill their prescriptions because of high costs in 2020-21. However, the increasing healthcare prices are only one factor that refrains patients from filling prescriptions and adhering to their GP’s instructions.

The prime reason for ineffective healthcare communication is that doctors fail to discuss the treatment details, medications, associated costs, etc., with patients. Thus, patients are left to follow the prescriptions as they see fit, without proper guidance.

Also, as said above, diagnostic inaccuracies can prevent patients from getting proper treatment. Therefore, they might stop adhering to the prescriptions or change their provider after seeing no positive changes. Proper healthcare communication is the key to the patient’s good health, helping providers boost retention rates.

Patient Satisfaction

Patient satisfaction depends on their interactions with their physician and the provider’s whole staff. It makes a broad difference to a hospital’s brand awareness and reputation.

For example, a satisfied patient who is happy with your treatment (both clinical and personal) is likely to give referrals. On the other hand, poor communication in healthcare leads to negative publicity, which can eventually hurt your business.

Therefore, always consider patient satisfaction as the core objective of your healthcare communication strategies.

Health Outcomes and Patient Safety

Outstanding health outcomes reflect the importance of good communication between patients and health professionals. There are always positive associations between a patient’s health and improved communication skills in the following areas:

• Health status- Depression, headache, low patient distress, etc.
• Physiologic measures- glucose level, blood pressure, etc.

The health of your patients speaks volumes about your services in the short and long term. It showcases your expertise in the most indirect yet significant form. Thus, try making arrangements for better environments for patient interviews and offering them the care they need.

Also, remember that failing to do so while communicating with patients can lead to severe consequences. A report shows that 50,000 patients suffer permanent injury because of clinical negligence. Hence, ensure that you pay adequate attention to your patients and channel all your efforts towards positive outcomes.

Team Satisfaction

It is also crucial to keep your staff content along with patient satisfaction. Why? It is because they are the backbone of all healthcare services. Your staff coordinates everything from managing a patient’s reports to scheduling appointments. They are the bridge between you and your patients. Hence, they form a vital aspect of effective clinical communication.

• Fair delegation of responsibilities and effective healthcare communication can reduce nurse turnover rates and improve job satisfaction. It also facilitates a cooperative and mutually supportive work environment.
• There is a direct relationship between team satisfaction and patient communication. Hence, you must treat your staff members with dignity and provide them with an excellent working atmosphere.
• Encourage your team members to voice their opinions and participate in the caregiving plan.

Malpractice Reports

The prime cause of increasing healthcare malpractice reports is a communication barrier between patients and doctors. Most patients perceive their physicians as uncaring and irresponsible when they don’t hear them closely and discuss their treatment plans.

Poor listening and improper delivery of clinical details pose severe threats to your healthcare communication plans. Also, dealing with malpractice claims can be expensive in terms of money and reputation.

Therefore, draft healthcare communication strategies and guidelines that eradicate any possibilities of malpractices within your organisation.

Barriers to Effective Patient Communication

Many aspects of your day-to-day operations might restrict you from improving your communication with patients and other parties. Below, we have enlisted some common barriers that most providers face:

Doctors Rushing from One Appointment to Another

Often, we see physicians rushing from one patient to another on a busy day. Though it may seem right to do when you have hundreds of patients lined up, it hampers your healthcare communication.

Skilful communication is about establishing a personal rapport with your patients and soliciting crucial information effectively. However, most doctors barely give their patients more than a few minutes, and it’s not enough! Such doctors and other healthcare workers come across as unprofessional and aloof, damaging the hospital-patient relationship.

Fortunately, you can rectify these situations by giving every patient a few minutes more. You may not be able to take in as many patients as before. But, this added time helps increase the quality of your healthcare communication plans.

Language Problems

Another challenge you may face is conversing with patients whose first language isn’t English. They might find it hard to share any details with you, making it almost impossible for you to make a diagnosis. So, many hospitals have started providing culturally competent care as part of patient communication in healthcare.

Patient Distrust

You cannot expect your patients to trust you blindly and spill their medical history soon after they walk in. They must first become comfortable in your presence, primarily patients facing problems like substance abuse. Your healthcare communication policies should address these things and prepare you to deal with all patients.

Patients withhold crucial clinical details for many reasons, including:

• They are struggling with psychological or physical trauma
• They don’t feel that the physician can help them
• They feel ashamed or disrespected
• They think that the provider isn’t interested in hearing them

Though most of these reasons come from the patient’s pre-judgement, you can reverse their reactions with effective clinical communication.

Mismanagement of Healthcare Files

Healthcare providers have an abundance of patient data to capture and store. All doctors, nurses, and other staff members of your hospital or clinic may have access to the patient files, making it hard to keep them secure and confidential. But, you need to restrict access and keep your healthcare communication details private.

This practice can help you prevent data breaches and limit the breakdowns in communication with patients.

Strategies to Improve Your Patient Communication Skills

It is not rocket science to treat your patients with respect and empathy. Yet, many providers fail to do so because of increasing pressure and demand in the healthcare industry.

Hence, we have mentioned a few strategies you can implement to level up your healthcare communication without spending much.

Avoid Medical Jargon

Speaking in plain, understandable language helps you get the attention of your patients. Otherwise, they would not follow anything, leading to ineffective healthcare communication and poor health outcomes.

Instead of speaking continuously, pause and let the patients sink in the details you deliver. Encourage them to ask questions if they don’t understand something.

If you need to use complicated terminology, ensure that you break them down in layman’s terms. Thus, the patients can understand their diagnosis better and continue with their care plan correctly. Also, this best practice for patient-centred communication helps you increase patient retention.

Ask Questions to Make Your Patient Communication Two-Sided

Most doctors rely on the patients to gather the information they need to make a diagnosis. However, you must understand that your patients might not know what information is relevant and what isn’t. Also, they might not feel comfortable sharing some sensitive details if not asked.

The best way to break the ice and get your patients talking is by asking questions. It is one of the most effective communication techniques with patients. And, remember to ask open-ended questions instead of the yes or no ones. It gives people a better opportunity to explain what they have been experiencing, further helping you draft a proper treatment plan.

Respond to Your Patient’s Emotions

Try exploring your patient’s feelings and thoughts about their medical condition. They might be dealing with a lot, which is both physically and mentally challenging. Hence, respond to their expectations, worries, and enquiries with empathy and kindness. It is one of the best practices for patient-centred communication.

You can start by asking how they feel and how they have been holding up about their problem. It works well for all patients, irrespective of the seriousness of their medical situation.

Another strategy for effective communication in healthcare is asking the patients if they are comfortable involving their families in their treatments. Avoid reaching out to family members without consent, thus, creating a safe zone for your patients.

Seek Common Ground and Value Their Preferences

Naturally, you cannot order your patients to follow a specific care program. You need to partner up with them and agree on the goals and priorities of the treatment. Your healthcare communication plans should include discussing the treatment’s duration, costs, medication options, etc.

Consider the patient’s insurance coverage and lay down a health program that fits into their budget. Agreeing on these things before moving ahead with health care communication and treatment helps you not lose your patients to other providers who are prepared to do so.

Monitor Your Body Language

Body language speaks volumes while communicating with patients. It can make or break your image within a few seconds. For example, not being seated while talking to a patient sets a terrible precedent. You should be at the same level as your patients and face them during the conversation.

Also, try talking softly and humbly. Instruct your staff not to interrupt your consultation sessions because it can create patient discomfort. It is best to keep your mobile phones away and give complete attention to your patients. These simple yet effective communication techniques with patients can do wonders for your organisation.

You can try following the AIDET tool for communicating with patients:

• Acknowledge: Greet your patients with a smile and casual hello. Make them feel that they matter to you
• Introduce yourself: Describe your position and how you can help them. Explain your part in the treatment process
• Duration: Provide patients with an estimate of how long their treatment can take and update them if there are any time changes
• Explain: As said earlier, your patients should be aware of how the medication can benefit them. They should agree to your treatment plans and be ready to follow them.
• Thank: It is a best practice for patient-centred communication to thank patients for their cooperation or involvement

Hold Frequent Staff Meetings and Invest In Training Programs

Conducting weekly meetings can let you and your staff members remain on the same page to maintain effective clinical communication. It allows everyone in the organisation to work towards the same motives and strive to provide top-notch quality services to patients.

Furthermore, try investing in your staff’s training that can help them add to your patient communication strategies. Another thing you can do is automate most of your tasks, like appointment scheduling, sending follow-up reminders, direct mailing medical documents, etc.

Automated direct mail services like PostGrid can help your organisation print and mail numerous types of letters, reports, etc. Hence, you can save your team’s time and channel their efforts elsewhere.

Hire Interpreters

If you get a lot of patients that don’t speak your language, try hiring interpreters to help you out. It enhances your healthcare communication and broadens your target audience. Also, it makes your organisation more accepting and supportive of different communities.

Remember, healthcare settings must provide safe spaces for all patients and not give in to classism, racism, sexism, etc. Thus, ensure to hire staff members that make all your patients feel comfortable, irrespective of who they are or where they come from.

Keep Patient Communication Confidential

The whole hospital staff can access patient data, so you need to employ some restrictions and limit access. It allows you to keep your healthcare communication data safe and confidential, limiting the risk of a data breach that can cost you millions of dollars.

Moreover, avoid indulging in casual gossip about a patient’s health with your colleagues if they aren’t a part of their care team. It violates patient privacy and can lead to broader issues.

How Can PostGrid’s Direct Mail Solutions Aid Your Healthcare Communication?

You may need to interact with many parties throughout the patient communication process. For instance, you may need to contact their insurance agency for claims settlement or transfer their files to another professional for further treatment.

Either way, it is helpful to have a direct mail API like PostGrid in handy to draft, print, and ship documents quickly.

You can send the following documents using PostGrid:

• Explanation of Benefits (EOB)
• Patient billing statements
• Hospital and lab invoices
• Appointment reminders
• Medical statement inserts
• Diagnostic reports
• Mental and physical health records
• Discharge summaries
• Explanation of Coverage (EOC)
• Consent forms
• Marketing or patient acquisition letters
• Survey forms to existing and old patients, etc.

You can integrate our API into your existing CRM and start mailing items directly from your system. Our helpful API docs make it easy and quick for you to set everything up in a few minutes. PostGrid allows you to boost your healthcare communication strategies effortlessly and without burning a hole in your pockets.

You can customise your documents with your logo, contact information, etc., to improve your communication in healthcare further. Also, PostGrid offers several pre-built templates to help you save time drafting documents. However, our list of features does not stop here and also includes:

• Per-piece tracking
• Variable data printing
• Data privacy and security
• Wide range of direct mail types
• Address verification
• List compilation
• Bulk mailing
• Campaign monitoring
• Various pricing plans, etc.

Wrapping Up

Because of the ever-increasing competition, healthcare providers must focus on patient communication policies and strategies. They should prioritise the patient’s preferences and concerns at every organisation level.

Another crucial aspect of communication in healthcare is following the proper rules while transmitting files from one provider to another. Take care to follow the necessary laws and prevent data breaches.

PostGrid’s print and mail API is PCI DSS Level 1, SOC 2 – IRAP (Australia), ISAE 3402, ISO 9001, and ISO 27001 certified. Also, it complies with the Privacy Act 1988 to help you send out your documents legally.

Are you interested in learning further how PostGrid direct mail API can assist you in your healthcare communication strategies? Request a demo now to cut costs and save manual effort!

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Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy

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7 Tips to Get the Best Out of Your Multi-Channel Marketing Campaign

Are you planning your next marketing campaign? This time, consider combining your channel and creating a multi-channel marketing strategy to boost results even more!

Nowadays, almost all companies have started integrating online and offline marketing channels to increase visibility and generate more leads. Some popular communication channels that you can use for your multi-channel campaign are:

• Physical stores
• Websites
• Blogging
• Text messages
• Social media
• Email
• Direct mail
• Billboards
• Newspapers, etc. 

You can mix and match the above marketing forms according to your budget or requirements because integrated marketing plans are more flexible and cost-effective. Some marketers focus more on digital marketing channels. But, they should also include offline channels, especially traditional mail. 

There are several reasons for direct mail to work. It is personal, emotional, and response-driving. 65% of Australian recipients read every mail piece they get. Also, 81% of Australians open and read snail mail items immediately, proving that people love mail. 

Keep reading further to understand what is a multi-channel marketing strategy. We will also discuss ways to boost your campaign performance and increase brand awareness via a multi-channel approach.

What Does Multi-channel Marketing Mean?

Multi-channel marketing is the process of blending several marketing forms to reach out to more people and drive sales. It helps marketers conduct numerous marketing activities simultaneously.

The idea is to give customers a choice—to respond to the brand’s offers. For example, you may conduct an integrated campaign including email and direct mail. Thus, your target audience has a choice to reply either via mail or email.

Why Is Multi-channel Marketing Important?

The concept of hybrid channels and multi-channel marketing is pretty straightforward—become visible wherever your prospects are present. With the growing number of marketing channels, customers have more control over their buying decisions as they have more options now.

Let’s imagine a scenario wherein your prospects are hyperactive on Facebook. Now, if you do not advertise on this channel, you may never be able to get in touch with them. Your potential customers might encounter several ads by other brands—your competitors. Thus, it is easy to lose customers to your competition by not being present on a channel that your target audience uses.

The same goes for every other marketing channel. Customers are everywhere. And you can increase your odds of getting more conversions by reaching out to as many of them as possible. Thus, multi-channel marketing is becoming more of a necessity than an option, making it highly significant. 

Benefits of Multi-Channel Marketing Strategies

Adopting a multi-channel approach lets marketers customise their plans according to their current goals. For instance, imagine they want to target a specific locality to promote their new store. In this case, they can opt for newspaper marketing, direct mail, and geotargeting. Similarly, they can choose to conduct an Instagram and Facebook campaign to target social media users of a specific age group.

The point is that multi-channel marketing is ideal for all companies, irrespective of their size and industry. Thus, the benefits of a multi-channel marketing system are universal. However, there are several more advantages that it offers apart from universality and customisation, like:

Get More Attention

Typically, brands active on more than one channel get more attention. Customers remember a business when they see it everywhere and tend to buy from it at some point in time.

Increase the Number of Touchpoints

Brands need to connect with prospects at least eight times before they convert them, and multi-channel marketing can help you do exactly that. Remember, the more touchpoints you use, the higher are your chances of generating sales.

Connect With Your Prospects Via Their Preferred Channels

Using multi-channel marketing, you can communicate with prospects on a channel they like. Thus, you can ensure that you don’t leave any stone unturned and miss out on valuable customers.

Improve Your Marketing ROI

50% of marketers who conduct a multi-channel marketing campaign are able to meet their financial goals. Hence, it is evident that this marketing method accelerates your campaign performance and helps you get a positive ROI.

Retain More Customers

Some marketers forget that customer retention is equally crucial as customer acquisition. Luckily, integrated marketing campaigns help companies attract more leads and re-engage existing customers altogether.

Challenges of Using a Multi-Channel Approach Towards Marketing

It is not a simple task to plan and execute a vast multi-channel marketing campaign, but it’s worth it. Marketers need to know about the challenges to make an informed decision. Knowing the potential problems beforehand also helps them prepare in advance. Let’s see what the challenges are and how to overcome them:

Complicated Management

As said above, running a successful integrated campaign is not an overnight task. It takes weeks of your time and effort—to plan every detail in-depth and launch a campaign that guarantees results. The key is automation; you can automate most of your marketing tasks and cut manual effort dramatically. Also, often, automation helps you save a lot of money.

For example, using PostGrid for direct mail automation allows you to execute highly-efficient and productive campaigns affordably. Click here to know more about how PostGrid helps marketing teams achieve their goals.

Targeting and Personalisation

Using multi-channel marketing to reach your audience is no longer enough—thanks to the ever-increasing competition. Thus, you need to target the right people and deliver personalised messages to them. Generic marketing can help you increase your awareness to some extent; personalised marketing is what gets people to respond to you.

Marketing Attribution

You may find it confusing to select the ideal mix of marketing channels to appeal to your prospects. After all, there are a plethora of options available—each having its own pros and cons. Thus, sometimes, marketers cannot find the correct formula to conduct a successful multi-channel campaign and end up not getting the desired results. So, what can you do to solve this issue? The best way to find out which channels work for you is to test them. We will cover more about that in a little bit.

Keeping Up With the Latest Trends

Until a few years back, companies were working on their Facebook ads and how to optimise this channel. But, soon, they felt the urgency to master other platforms, like Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. They need to upgrade their knowledge and update their plans constantly. Thus, multi-channel marketing needs marketers to do a lot of research and devise strategies around trending marketing channels.

7 Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Multi-Channel Marketing Plans

Below are some most popular and effective ways to make your multi-channel campaign a huge success:

Understand Your Customer Persona

Knowing who to target is the first step while planning a multi-channel marketing campaign. Try to identify and list the common characteristics of your audience to define customer persona accurately. You can find the answers to the following questions to do so:

• Where do most of my existing customers reside? Are there any customer-dense neighbourhoods in particular?
• What is the age of my customers? Is it possible to club them into specific age groups?
• Do my prospects have a similar taste in (your product or service type)? What are some more preferences or buying habits that are common among them?
• How well does my audience respond to my messages?
• Is there a pattern in the buying process of my customers? For example, some companies witness high sales levels in spring, whereas others get more engagement during the holidays.

Follow-Up On Every Response

You may get hundreds of replies from every channel under your multi-channel campaign. And sometimes, keeping track and following up on each of them is overwhelming. However, you cannot afford to miss out on any respondents as they may turn out to be genuine, valuable, and long-term customers.

Also, not getting in touch with your campaign respondents may present your brand in a negative light and tarnish your reputation. These unattended respondents might feel ignored and buy from your competitors. Hence, develop a robust follow-up mechanism that pays adequate attention to every respondent, solves their queries, and takes them ahead of their customer journey. Only then can you fulfil the purpose of your campaign, recover campaign costs, and generate impressive results.

Measure Campaign Results and Draw Up Precise Reports

A multi-channel marketing strategy involves the execution of several types of campaigns, often at the same time. However, don’t let this stop you from keeping an eye on every channel accurately. Just like you need to pay heed to every respondent, you also need to ensure that you utilise every channel properly.

Thus, measure your multi-channel campaign results as soon as you can to make the necessary changes on time. Also, it helps you draft reports and analytics helpful in shaping your future campaigns and assuring better results.

PostGrid’s direct mail API enables you to access timely campaign insights and reports to keep you informed.

Employ a Multi-Channel Marketing Platform

Now that you know what is a multi-channel strategy- consider leveraging an automation platform to help you with it. Such a platform can help you complete tasks like launching campaigns, tracking performance, sending automated messages to respondents, automatic sales manager assignments, etc.

It can also help you save a lot of time and effort, which are also significant assets for a company. For instance, PostGrid helps businesses automate their offline mailing campaigns and allows them to focus on other operational areas of their company.

Select the Right Combination of Marketing Channels

As said earlier, choosing the right marketing channel combination is a must. A channel may work great for one company but lead to opposite results for another. Thus, you must test a specific set of channels and check if they work for your brand. If yes, you can go ahead with them. But, if they don’t, you would have saved yourselves tons of effort and investment.

Multi-channel marketing can be tricky, but proper testing can help you significantly. Start with small samples and move ahead based on the conclusions. The popular combinations are:

• Newspaper, direct mail, and digital marketing
• Direct mail and email marketing
• Email, social media, billboards, direct mail advertising
• Direct mail, email, social media marketing, etc.

You can create your own set of channels after testing and gaining knowledge of your audience. However, ensure that you integrate offline and online channels both, and preferably include direct mail. With excellent results that supersede other platforms and an ROI of 29%, it is naturally hard to say no to snail mail.

You may integrate direct mail with your online channels via the use of:

• QR codes
• Personalised URLs
• Redeemable coupon codes
• Hashtags, etc.

Choose An Appealing Artwork and Copy

No matter which channel you choose, marketing campaigns always need design and copy. You must try to use consistent artwork throughout your multi-channel marketing campaign to increase brand recognition.

Use a copy that best describes your products and services and compels readers to take action. Try to excite them about your business and get them on board immediately. The best technique is to open with a confident and head-turning line. It should either be a question about the reader’s needs or a bold statement offering a solution.

There are several design elements you need to focus on for the success of your multi-channel campaign, like layout, colours, imagery, etc. Ensure that these aspects match your campaign objectives and can drive responses. You can use the same copy and design across all channels, but don’t make them too monotonous. Your content should be consistent; it doesn’t have to be the same.

Select an Actionable Offer and CTA

40% of your multi-channel marketing campaign’s success depends on your offer. Even a simple offer like a 10% discount can make a big difference to your campaign results. Again, remember to add the same offer everywhere to amplify the effect. Also, use an upfront CTA that allows your target audience to move ahead of the sales funnel.

Multi-Channel Marketing Campaign Examples

Although a multi-channel campaign is relative, we have mentioned some top-notch examples below that you can use:

Direct Mail Featuring QR Codes

Combining QR codes with direct mail is one of the most innovative ideas for multi-channel marketing. Printing personalised QR codes on your mail items helps you direct the recipients anywhere you want. From your website and social media pages to the recipient’s abandoned cart, you can teleport your prospects to a page where they are most likely to complete the CTA. 

Email and Direct Mail

Most people are sceptical about replying to marketing emails, but you can convince them to do so by running simultaneous direct mail campaigns. This way, people know your brand better and are confident to reply to your offers. 

 Also Read: Direct Mail Marketing Guide

Social Media Hashtags

Hashtags are one of the trendiest marketing devices in today’s time. You may have noticed several global brands posting online and asking their followers to use a specific hashtag. And not surprisingly, they do! Evidently, you can engage thousands of people online via hashtags, so why not use it as part of your multi-channel marketing campaign?

Furthermore, you can also ask your direct recipients to use a specific hashtag and post pictures of the mail item. This way, you can blend the power of direct mail with the magic of social media. 

How Can PostGrid Help You Plan and Launch a Profitable Multi-Channel Marketing Campaign?

PostGrid’s automated direct mail services help you execute effective direct mail marketing campaigns. Just integrate our API with your CRM and get started. Our API is integrable into several popular platforms, like Salesforce, Hubspot, Marketo, Zapier, etc., making it easy for you to conduct multi-channel marketing. Here, we have stated some of our best features that will help you understand how PostGrid works:

• Print and mail fulfilment
• PDF and HTML design templates
• List compilation
• Address verification
• Per-piece tracking
• Analytics and reporting
• Dedicated customer onboarding
• 24 x 7 technical assistance
• API documentation
• Triggered campaigns
• Variety of direct mail formats- postcards, letters, flyers, etc.
• Variable data printing (VDP), etc.

Click here so we can get in touch with you and discuss how you can multiply the results of your multi-channel campaign with direct mail!

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