Healthcare Direct Mail: Best Practices for Medical Mailing Services

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8 Healthcare Direct Mail Best Practices to Boost Patient Responses

The healthcare industry is booming and rapidly growing worldwide. The number of private hospitals in Australia alone is 601, and there are also 746 public hospitals! Moreover, numerous other healthcare institutions are available, including nursing homes, dental offices, pharmacies, testing centres, etc. 

So, how can you differentiate yourself from the competition and increase patient acquisition? Perhaps, healthcare direct mail can get you there, but you need to be creative and strategic to get the best out of it.

Direct mail is no longer traditional or outdated; it is data-driven, effective, and measurable. Also, you can automate the whole process using online healthcare mailing services like PostGrid.

You may employ several ways to improve your direct mailing efforts and get prospects to respond. This blog discussed these methods to help healthcare providers grow and achieve their marketing goals.

We will also discuss why medical direct mail marketing is still prevalent and how automation transforms this channel. Let’s begin!

What is Healthcare Direct Mail?

Direct mail is an offline marketing strategy that involves sending items, like postcards, letters, flyers, etc., to prospects. Though digital marketing is gaining more popularity, direct mail continues to thrive with up to an open rate of 66%.

It helps healthcare providers advertise their services to patients and form strong relationships. Moreover, healthcare direct mail improves brand images and boosts visibility.

Industries, like pharmaceuticals, healthcare technology, medical devices, etc., use direct mail to reach doctors and other crucial decision-makers in the healthcare field.

Why Should You Use Healthcare Direct Mail Marketing?

Offline mail is advantageous to your business in several ways, like:

People Trust Direct Mail

Many patients trust traditional marketing forms like mail the most to make their healthcare decisions. Naturally, selecting a physician is personal, and most people are anxious about making the right choice.

You connect with them emotionally and calm their fears using healthcare direct mail. Also, several data privacy issues have made people think online marketing channels are intrusive. Hence, they see direct mail as a simple and secure way to know brands and make informed decisions.

Healthcare Direct Mail Is Attention-Grabbing

74% of Australians pay full attention to direct mail. Thus, it has high open and read rates, making mail a crucial tool in your marketing kit.

You can communicate your offers, new services, latest accomplishments, announcements, etc., via medical direct mail. And there is a good chance that more than half of your recipients would read your message, increasing your conversion ratio.

You Can Narrow Down Your Audience

Direct mail marketing makes it possible to use data-driven demographics to reach out to relevant audiences. It allows you to cut costs and only connect with prospects most likely interested in your services.

Luckily, automated medical mailing services like PostGrid makes data segmentation and laser-focused targeting a breeze. You can compile top-quality lists focused on the following factors:

• Demographic: Gender, profession, annual income, age, number of children, etc.
• Geographic: Place of residence (to determine the medical situation in their locality and conduct location-based marketing)
• Psychographic: Lifestyle, habits, etc. (for example, are they smokers or have a specific medical treatment going on)
• Behavioural: Needs, preferences, and attitudes regarding healthcare services

Such targeted healthcare direct mail plans enable medical providers to generate awareness about their treatment plans and services among the intended groups of people. 

Direct Mail Is Highly Trackable

You can add trackable features, like pURLs and QR codes for your mail healthcare items. Thus, you may track every respondent’s actions and measure your campaign performance.

Fortunately, direct mailing services like PostGrid make it quick and painless to work with such elements.

You Can Get More Responses With Healthcare Direct Mail

Direct mail has a response rate of up to 9% for house lists and 4.9% for prospect lists. This figure is much higher than email, paid search, social media, and other digital marketing channels.

Hence, investing in medical mailing services helps you attract the most responses.

Direct Mail Is Tangible and Memorable

It is a physical reminder of your business to patients. They can stick your postcards to their refrigerators or pin them on boards. Thus, direct mail is also long-lasting and shareable.

You can make it memorable by personalising your content and adding eye-catching graphics. There is no need to do something extravagant; even a few minor details that are out of the box can help you increase engagement.

Top 8 Healthcare Direct Mail Best Practices

Below, we have enlisted the best and most effective ways to increase your direct mailing effectiveness:

Choose the Ideal Format For Your Messaging

It is advisable to select mail types depending on your offer and message. Many medical direct mail formats fulfil different objectives, like:

• Postcards: They are small and intact, making them apt to deliver short messages
• Letters: Letters are your best choice if you want to send personalised and confidential mail
• Flyers: Flyers are excellent for increasing foot traffic to your clinic or hospital. But, ensure that you include your location details accurately
• Self-mailers: These items are foldable healthcare direct mail pieces you can mail without an envelope. Hence, they are affordable yet look attractive enough to entice your recipients

Focus On Your Copy and Design

Your headline is the first thing people read when they get your mail healthcare. Hence, make it responsive, attention-grabbing, and exciting. Further, ensure to use bullet points and short, skimmable paragraphs if your message is lengthy.

Along with your copy, also try making your design unique. These aspects make your mail more interactive, helping you boost engagement levels.

You may use images that reflect your message and match your healthcare direct mail colours with your logo. They allow you to increase brand recall and recognition.

Add Patient Testimonials and Reviews

Inserting reviews from your existing and long-term patients allows you to add a credible effect to your items. Hence, instead of making claims, you can produce a trustworthy portfolio of your services.

You can also add links to video testimonials in your medical direct mail items, increasing online traffic. Hence, you can increase engagement on all channels simultaneously.

Thank Your Current Patients

Sending thank-you letters and cards to your existing patients is always beneficial to healthcare providers. It strengthens the provider-patient relationship and opens new opportunities for patient retention.

Thus, it is better to use this practice regularly to help reduce patient churn every year. The best way of doing that is by using PostGrid’s medical mailing services to trigger campaigns. You can set specific dates or events when you want to launch a campaign and send items to a relevant audience.

Always Add Your Location and Contact Information

Adding the location details helps patients locate your hospital or place of practice effortlessly. People are more likely to visit a healthcare provider who is not hard to reach. Thus, try adding Google Maps links and other details to allow patients to find your location quickly.

Another thing you should add to your healthcare direct mail items is your contact information. You may add your phone number, email address, website link, social media handles, etc.

Showcase Your Industry Knowledge

Direct mail is an excellent channel to showcase your expertise in the industry. You can also share helpful lifestyle tips to keep your audience hooked. The trick is to find topics that interest your patients the most and talk about them via healthcare direct mail.

A good idea to start is sending out weekly or monthly newsletters. However, avoid jargon and break down healthcare terminology into simple words that anyone can understand.

Use Healthcare Direct Mail to Send Appointment Reminders

Along with marketing, you can do so much more with direct mail, like sending:

• Appointment reminders to remind patients to visit you
• Patient statements, bills, invoices, etc.
• Test reports
• Mental and physical health records
• Insurance claim letters to agencies
• Discharge summaries, etc. 

Luckily, PostGrid’s automated healthcare mailing services help providers send all types of medical documents and letters easily. 

Use a Compelling Offer and CTA

Using a CTA and offer for your medical direct mail is a standard practice all providers should employ. You can add sentences, like:

• Scan the QR code below and get 10% off your first appointment
• Click the link below to book a free consultation
• Pay for your invoice today to get 5% off your next visit, etc.

Make your CTA up front to help people complete it instantly. Also, insert your offer and CTA in bold letters to make them visible to the recipients. Hence, they can make a decision even if they don’t read your whole message.

Automation in the Medical Direct Mail Industry

Today, marketers use direct mail at par with digital channels. CRM integrations, cloud-based software, event triggers, and Restful APIs like PostGrid have given a technological twist to mail. 

Healthcare marketers can now create medical direct mail in minutes by importing data directly from their CRM. They can automate everything from design and printing to mailing and tracking.

Hence, sending direct mail is as simple as conducting an email marketing campaign. You can complete all the steps online, and there is no need to drain your budget! However, healthcare direct mail automation is also helpful in other ways and helps you improve your ROI. 

Let us see how online direct mail services like PostGrid can be advantageous to healthcare organisations:

Data Management and Address Verification

Address verification allows you to mail to standardised, correct delivery addresses. Hence, you don’t need to deal with lost mail or returns. 

You may have thousands of prospect records in your database. But, it would be hard to use because it is incomplete or outdated. In these cases, medical mailing services like PostGrid help cleanse and update your data to increase the accuracy of your campaigns.

Design Templates

PostGrid also offers many professionally-built templates that you can use to design your mailers. You don’t need to hire a designer and pay extra for edits because you can do everything online.

Also, you can add customisations to your healthcare direct mail, like your brand logo, contact details, etc.

Variable Data Printing

VDP is a prime aspect of medical direct mail because you cannot mail the same pieces to everyone. For instance, you may need to discuss a person’s medical history to promote your services. Printing and sending highly-personalised mailers to recipients help catch their attention and get them talking to you. 

Print and Mail Fulfilment

Most automated medical mailing services, including PostGrid, provide complete direct mail fulfilment. Hence, you can skip contacting different vendors for every step and get your work done under one roof.

Mail Tracking and Monitoring 

You can also track your mail in real-time and see it moving toward your recipients. PostGrid helps you access your mail progress by logging into your account and navigating through your dashboard.

Furthermore, you may access the healthcare direct mail campaign analytics and insights to check the results. These reports are helpful to know what works best for your brand and plan the upcoming campaigns accordingly. 

Wrapping Up

Healthcare providers may need to get in touch with patients to promote their brand and improve brand reputation. With increasing competition in this sector, medical direct mail helps hospitals, clinics, etc., set themselves apart and prove their credibility.

There are several marketing channels to fulfil these objectives. But, healthcare direct mail is the most cost-effective and result-driving form. Also, people like getting mail and are responsive to it, making it the first choice for most marketers.

PostGrid’s direct mail API makes it simpler and faster for healthcare providers to conduct a mailing campaign. They can integrate the API into their CRM and start sending out items directly from their system.

Also, PostGrid is compliant with the Privacy Act 1988 and certified by PCI DSS Level 1, SOC 2 – IRAP (Australia), ISAE 3402, ISO 9001, and ISO 27001. Therefore, you need not worry about your data security and confidentiality.

Also, our healthcare mailing services offer flexible pricing plans and 24 x 7 technical support. Thus, you can print and mail transactional and marketing items to patients affordably and conveniently.

Request a demo to understand more about how PostGrid can help you draft, print, and send healthcare direct mail in one go!

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The post Healthcare Direct Mail: Best Practices for Medical Mailing Services appeared first on PostGrid.

Via https://www.postgrid.com.au/healthcare-direct-mail-best-practices/

source https://postgridaustralia.weebly.com/blog/healthcare-direct-mail-best-practices-for-medical-mailing-services9730806

Letterbox Advertising

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Letterbox Advertising: How to Conduct a Successful Campaign to Increase Brand Awareness

74% of Australians give direct mail their complete attention! Moreover, customers tend to read all the promotional materials they receive in their mailboxes. Hence, we can say that direct mail marketing is still performing great, and people look forward to getting mail.

Direct mail can influence all stages of your prospects’ buying journeys. It enables you to develop new connections and drive more responses. To help you optimise your direct mailing activities, Australia Post offers an excellent option—letterbox advertising!

It is an offline mailing service that allows companies to reach out to their target audience at affordable rates. You can choose any locality or neighbourhood to cover under letterbox drop advertising. Australia Post helps you send your advertising mail to every address in these areas—without you having to compile a mailing list.

Therefore, it is also known as Unaddressed Mail. Unlike personalised targeting, letterbox advertising is a generic type of promoting your products and services.

You may also call it blanketing or mass mailing, wherein you cover the entire locality at once. It is an apt choice for location-based businesses, like retail stores, restaurants, dental clinics, etc. However, letterbox delivery can be employed by other companies as well for specific purposes, like:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Generate new leads
• Promoting seasonal and discount offers, etc.

In this blog, we will cover more features of letterbox advertising and how to get the best out of it. Let’s get started!

Do Letterbox Drops Work?

In short- yes, letterbox drops work very well and help businesses achieve their marketing objectives! Here’s why:

Broaden Your Reach

Australia Post lets companies connect with 11.6 million letterboxes across the country. Thus, you can select several areas to target under your mail marketing campaign and expand your reach.

Depending on your goals and budget, letterbox advertising gives you the freedom to reach out to any number of prospects you want.

Enjoy Higher Deliverability Rates

In the case of personalised mailing, you may face issues of delivery failures. But, mailbox advertising ensures that your mail pieces are delivered effectively.

Hence, there are fewer wastages leading to an improved return on investment. Moreover, as the number of prospects receiving your mail increases, there are higher chances of you getting more engagement.

Increase Brand Visibility

You may have seen people sharing posts on social media all the time. Luckily, direct mail also has this feature because most letterbox drop recipients share these items with other household members. They might also pass on your mail to their relatives and friends, boosting brand visibility.

These factors make letterbox advertising one of the most effective marketing tools. It helps your brand create a buzz and connect with more people than you actually mailed.

Try creating and shipping handy items, like letters, postcards, flyers, etc. These items get saved by recipients for a longer time—hence, you get many chances to grab your audience’s attention and push them to complete the CTA.

Better Customer Relationships

Using Australia Post letterbox drop, you can strengthen your customer relationships. Direct mail is personal and emotional, enabling you to stay ahead of your competitors and convert valuable prospects.

Type of Mail Items to Send for Your Letterbox Advertising Campaign

You can use Unaddressed Mail to ship any of the following direct mail items:

Envelopes

Envelopes are the most standard form of mailbox advertising. They give you ample space to discuss your offerings in-depth. Thus, you can select this option if your message is too long for a postcard or flyer.

Plain, white-coloured envelopes might not attract many leads as recipients might consider them spam mail. But, you can add some customisations, use bright colours, and include teasers to make them exciting.

If you need assistance printing and mailing your letters, try PostGrid’s direct mail API. It can help you automate all the steps and accelerate your campaign.

Postcards

Postcards are small, intact, and affordable. But, people like them because postcards create a nostalgic effect. Also, almost all recipients save postcards consisting of a relevant offer. They might pin them on a wall or stick them on a refrigerator. Either way, their small size makes them an ideal choice as a mailbox drop.

Here are a few postcard marketing ideas and examples:

• Promoting local events that you are participating in or hosting
• Introducing new business offerings, like a new range of products or added features
• Increasing sales levels by sending discount coupons.*

*Some businesses may attach a perforated coupon to their postcards, whereas others simply incorporate a coupon code into them.

Letterbox Flyers

Flyers are two-sided, coloured items, usually distributed as hand-outs. However, they are also popular direct mail materials for letterbox advertising.

There are various flyer sizes you can experiment with, depending on the length of your message and design. Flyers have the same use cases as postcards, but they are considered more informal.

Remember, postcards and flyers don’t need an envelope for mailing. Hence, you can save costs on additional printing. If you wish, you can also send flyers as self-mailers with a wide variety of folds.

Newsletters

These items are often overlooked as letterbox drops because many marketers think they can only send them via email. Yes, e-newsletters are more common, but their printed version can help increase the read rates significantly.

Your target audience may ignore your emails or move them to the spam folder. Also, you cannot continue to send newsletters or other marketing emails to recipients if they unsubscribe to them.

Under these circumstances, it is better to use letterbox drop advertising to send newsletters offline and get more responses. You can choose from various topics to draft informative and engaging newsletters, like:

• Add your latest achievements, new additions, plans, etc.
• Share educational industry news
• Include short guides that explain your products and services
• Talk about your company history, vision, etc.

Such a mailbox drop is more likely to generate a valuable readership base and fetch you more leads.

Please note: All items prepared for letterbox drop advertising should not weigh more than 100 grams. Every batch must comprise mail pieces of the same size and weight.

How to Design a Letterbox Drop?

Your mail item may be the first thing a prospect gets from your brand, so ensure that it is of top-notch quality. Even if you are engaging old customers, it is crucial to follow your brand standards.

Paper

While planning a letterbox advertising campaign, don’t forget to select a thicker and heavier paper stock than your competitors. It helps your mail stand out from the crowd and makes an excellent impression. Some businesses also use various finishing touches, like embossing, glossy coating, etc.

Layout

Select a layout that best fits your messaging and mail format—for example, you can select a landscape layout with different sections for postcards. On the contrary, a portrait layout is a preferable choice for flyers.

Artwork

Use eye-catching and appealing visuals for your letterbox advertising strategy. Since a mailbox drop is not personalised, recipients might not think of replying to it. But, you can change that by creating a unique artwork that resonates with your message precisely.

One of the most crucial aspects of your artwork is the imagery. You must use relevant images based on the products or services you are trying to sell. For instance, an auto insurance company may use pictures of a person riding their car happily. Similarly, a fruit juice manufacturing business can add images of people drinking their juice at a party.

Your letterbox advertising audience should be able to relate to your mailpiece and push them to make a decision. Also, use the right combination of colours to make your artwork look balanced. Leave enough white space to help recipients see all the sections of your item.

Offer

Always add an offer to incentivise your audience and push them ahead of the sales funnel. It can be anything from a small discount to free shipping.

You can add value to your mail by adding an offer in your letterbox drops. Make a reasonable deal with your prospects that helps them trust your brand and take action.

Call to Action

Don’t forget to add an upfront CTA to guide recipients about what to do next. Sending a mailbox drop without a CTA may not help you fulfil your letterbox advertising goals because the recipients are left clueless. They might still contact you using your phone number or email, but your response rates are likely to be very low.

You can add your offer and CTA in the same sentence. Here are a few examples:

• Get a 20% discount now by visiting the link below
• Walk into our store with this item to avail of our buy one get one offer
• Scan the QR code below and get 5% cashback on your first purchase

Headline

Another crucial element is your mail copy. Ensure to use grabby headlines that solve the reader’s problem, create excitement, or generate curiosity.

Along with the headline, also focus on the rest of your copy and try dividing it into small sections. Add bullet points, statistics, customer testimonials, etc., to make your letterbox drops more authentic and engaging.

Steps to Conduct a Letterbox Drop Advertising Campaign

targeted strategies. But, there are a few steps you need to take care of for its smooth execution, and they are:

Planning Your Campaign

First, complete the planning regarding the time frame of your campaign—the booking date, delivery date, etc. You need to book a mailing with Australia Post at least ten days in advance if you intend to conduct a mailbox advertising campaign. However, Australia Post also allows you to make bookings up to three months before to help you get everything done on time.

The time durations for lodging articles are:

• Seven days for interstate delivery
• Five days for intrastate delivery

If you need shorter lodging and booking time frames, you can pay extra and choose the premium service.

The next thing you must plan is the locality you want to cover. You can select your target area by postcode, suburb, or state. Also, you must decide if you need to send your letterbox drop to businesses, residences, or both.

Typically, you should list down the following things before making a booking:

• Your item specifications (size, weight, and thickness)
• Your choice of address types and target area
• The postal office where you are going to lodge your articles
• Delivery dates

Preparing Your Mailbox Drop

Once printed, you need to bundle and label your items. Take care to fix the labels on the front side of every tray and front bundle. Check the Australia Post’s Mail Preparation Advice to understand the requirements in-depth.

Then, sort the letterbox drops into bundles and trays, depending on the delivery office as mentioned by Australia Post. You can get the trays for free at your lodgement office after booking.

Lodging

Remember to lodge your articles at the postal office mentioned in your Booking Confirmation Advice on the specified lodgement date. It allows you to give a head start to your campaign before Australia Post takes over and initiates the delivery process.

You can make the payment for your letterbox advertising campaign using any of the following methods:

• Debit card, credit card, or cash
• Pre-approved cheque
• Australia Post business credit account

If you are a regular mailer, try opening a business credit account by completing the necessary documentation. This account helps you make payments flexibly and have better records of all your campaigns.

Letterbox Advertising Cost and Delivery Period

Australia Post offers two service options under letterbox advertising: standard and premium. As discussed above, the premium service helps you avail of a shorter lodging and booking time frame. Also, the deliveries are completed in just seven days. Therefore, if you need to conduct a campaign urgently, this option is the way to go.

However, the premium service is only available for deliveries within the same state. For interstate deliveries, you need to stick with Australia Post’s standard service- wherein your letterbox drops are delivered within 15 days.

Please note that your articles are delivered only between Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays. Also, larger lodgements may take longer delivery times.

The Australia Post letterbox drop cost varies according to the destination, service type, volume of articles, size, and weight. Here are the rates:

Standard Service:

Size	Weight	Same State (Regular and Select)	Other State (Regular and Select)
Small letter	Up to 50 grams	$0.215	$0.255
	Over 50 – 100 grams	$0.325	$0.370
Large letter	Up to 50 grams	$0.340	$0.385
	Over 50 – 100 grams	$0.435	$0.480

Premium Service:

Size	Weight	Same State Regular	Same State Select
Small letter	Up to 50 grams	$0.275	$0.275
	Over 50 – 100 grams	$0.415	$0.415
Large letter	Up to 50 grams	$0.435	$0.435
	Over 50- 100 grams	$0.555	$0.555

Premium Short Week Service:

Size	Weight	Same State Regular	Same State Select
Small letter	Up to 50 grams	$0.325	$0.325
	Over 50 – 100 grams	$0.490	$0.490
Large letter	Up to 50 grams	$0.512	$0.512
	Over 50- 100 grams	$0.653	$0.653

If your articles measure over 100 grams, you need to dial 1300 223 571 and connect with Australia Post’s letterbox advertising booking team. You can also contact them for bulk mailing rates if you need to conduct a large-scale campaign.

No Show Fees

If you need to cancel your letterbox drop advertising campaign, you must do so in advance to avoid paying the no-show fees. Australia Post has specified the cancellation instructions as follows:

Booking Type	Lodgment Date and Time	Cancellation Window
Standard- for same-state deliveries	Day: Five working days in advance before the delivery week starts.  Time: By noon.	At least one business date prior to your lodgment date.
Standard- for interstate deliveries	Day: Seven working days in advance before the delivery week starts.  Time: By noon.
Premium	Day: One working day in advance before the delivery week starts.  Time: By noon.

Also, the no-show fee for your mailbox advertising campaigns varies based on the number of items mentioned in your Booking Confirmation Advice. 

Number of articles	No show fee
Up to 5,000	$100
More than 5,000 up to 50,000	$600
More than 50,000 up to 100,000	$1,600
More than 100,000	$3,600

Thus, it is better to cancel your booking via call, email, or the online booking tool and skip paying the no-show fees.

How to Ensure the Success of Your Letterbox Advertising Campaign?

There are several ways to boost the efficiency of your campaign to guarantee better positive results. From planning to lodgement, here are a few tips to help you conduct more successful campaigns:

Target the Right Audience

You cannot segment your letterbox drop mailing list according to advanced demographics, like age, gender, preferences, etc. But, it doesn’t restrict you from targeting a relevant audience. For example, if you are a luxury goods seller, you should only target high-income localities. Similarly, imagine if you plan on launching a new store in an area. In that case, it is best to send your letterbox drops to all the people residing in the vicinity.

Hence, it is advisable to conduct enough market research before selecting your target area. You may also choose customer-dense neighbourhoods where you are likely to find more prospects.

Test Your Campaigns

Before launching a large-scale mailbox advertising campaign, you can conduct a few small ones to test your items. Try sending out a few sample articles and measuring their performance. There are always some areas to improve upon, like your copy, offer, etc.

You can ensure that your letterbox drop can appeal to more people and produce better results with a few minor tweaks.

Testing also enables you to understand which localities are more responsive to your campaign and which are not.

PostGrid’s direct mail API can help you launch measurable campaigns effortlessly. It allows you to access timely reports and analytics for your reference.

Integrate Your Letterbox Advertising Activities Into a Multi-Channel Strategy

In today’s time, a multi-channel marketing strategy works way better than a standalone program. Hence, consider combining your direct mail and online advertising plans to reach a broader audience. 

Marketers can schedule their email, social media, PPC campaigns, etc., post your letterbox drop advertising efforts are completed. It helps reinstate the message, again and again, to garner more attention from the prospects. 

Automate Your Campaigns

Automation is taking over every industry, from healthcare to real estate. Now, all companies are automating as many activities as possible to save costs, manual labour, and money.

Thus, you can also automate your letterbox advertising campaigns using a direct mail solution provider like PostGrid. Our services are crafted to help you design, print, prepare, and mail your items without you having to do anything!

Pros and Cons of Letterbox Advertising

Before making your final decision, you should know the advantages and disadvantages of sending our letterbox drops. Below, we have compiled a list to help you:

Pros

Tangible and Emotional

Direct mail is a tangible reminder of your products and services. If your prospects need something similar to your offerings, they can pick up your mail and learn more about them.

If your item has an offer, recipients are also more likely to complete the CTA and make a purchase. The tangible nature of a mailbox drop helps people value it more than an email or social media post.

Also, it feels more emotional because it reaches people directly in their homes. These characteristics are more than enough for your letterbox advertising campaign to succeed!

Less Competition

While more and more marketers promote their brands online, you have very few companies to compete with direct mail. This channel allows you to cut through the noise and make your message heard by your target audience.

Long-Lasting

It is easy to delete an email or scroll through a display ad. But, it is relatively difficult to get rid of a letterbox drop item. Most people keep your mail until they redeem the discount or other offers.

But, some of your recipients might forget to reply even if they wanted to. Hence, make sure to add a deadline to accelerate your response levels.

Appealing to All Age Groups

Direct mail is the best way to communicate with people of older age groups. Though teenagers and millennials might enjoy spending hours online, senior citizens pay more attention to offline correspondence.

However, letterbox drops are known to be appealing to all age groups for the past few years. Thus, you can connect with almost everyone via this channel.

Cons:

Not Targeted

Some marketers hesitate to employ letterbox advertising due to a lack of targeting. All the mail items are generic and do not consist of personalised details. Hence, they believe that this marketing method may not produce positive results.

Therefore, you must launch a letterbox drop campaign only when you are sure of its performance. It may not work in some cases but perform excellently in others.

Expensive

Another disadvantage of letterbox advertising is its costs. However, it is more of a myth because you can grab very affordable rates by contacting Australia Post. Also, you can get further discounts by sending larger volumes.

Companies can also use PostGrid’s automated direct mail services to reduce costs significantly. PostGrid allows them to launch both targeted and generic marketing campaigns at 75% cheaper rates.

Along with enabling you to conduct mailing campaigns affordably, PostGrid also has several other use cases, like:

• Minimise human error using automation
• Send invoices, cheques, statements, and other transactional mail
• Get paid faster by sending payment due to letters to clients
• Conduct print and mail campaigns with the highest levels of security and confidentiality
• Mail event invitations, announcements, notices, coupons, samples, etc.
• Strengthen employer-employee relationships by sending appreciation letters, thank-you cards, anniversary wishes, etc.

Thus, Postgrid’s automated services for letterbox advertising help you eliminate the cons and optimise the benefits.

How Can PostGrid’s Direct Mail API Help You Conduct an Effective Letterbox Advertising Campaign?

Here are some more ways in which PostGrid can back up your mail marketing efforts:

Mail Preparation

Our solutions are built-in to help you design and prepare your letterbox drops without any manual effort. PostGrid offers several professionally-built templates for you to select from and customise according to your needs. 

As discussed earlier, there are several specifications you need to follow to send mailbox drop items. Luckily, our API can handle everything automatically and smoothly. Hence, you need not read any instructions and struggle with getting everything right. 

Print and Mail Fulfilment

Along with preparation, PostGrid also provides print and mail fulfilment. Your items are printed through our extensive network of printers and lodged automatedly. 

You can place your orders and track the progress of your campaigns by logging into your PostGrid account. Sign up here if you don’t already have one!

Bulk Mailing

PostGrid assists you in launching on-demand and bulk letterbox advertising campaigns. It doesn’t make a difference if you want to send a couple of items or millions of them. Our services are scalable and can accommodate all your requirements.

Our other features include:

• Two-business day SLA
• Per-piece tracking
• Data privacy and security
• Zapier integration
• Flexible pricing
• Helpful API docs
• Address verification
• Reports and insights
• Wide range of collaterals, etc.

Conclusion

Australia Post’s letterbox advertising is the most affordable way of sending direct mail to your prospects. You can plan your campaigns in advance and ensure everything falls into place on time.

There are several things to take care of while conducting mailbox advertising, like the lodgement dates, size, costs, etc. But, using PostGrid, you can skip all the legwork and sit back as our API does everything on your behalf.

Ready to save your precious time and money while conducting an effective letterbox advertising campaign with PostGrid? Request a demo now!

Ready to Get Started?

Start transforming and automating your offline communications with PostGrid

SIGN UPREQUEST A DEMO

The post Letterbox Advertising appeared first on PostGrid.

Via https://www.postgrid.com.au/letterbox-advertising/

source https://postgridaustralia.weebly.com/blog/letterbox-advertising3739254

Financial Services Marketing and Advertising Tips & Strategies

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Top 7 Financial Services Marketing and Advertising Tips & Strategies

The financial industry is not a glamorous one. Many may even find it somewhat dull. Hence, it is not the easiest of tasks to execute a successful marketing plan for financial services. Marketing a financial institution, product, or service is not easy unless you have the right marketing strategy.

So, the question here becomes how you can create successful marketing campaigns for financial products or services. There is no one one-step trick that can magically give you the desired results. However, the proper marketing and advertising tips and strategies can bring you closer to your goals.

Hence, today, we will discuss some tips and strategies on how you can optimise your marketing. We will also elaborate on the significance of advertising in financial services and why your financial business needs it. 

Why Do You Need A Marketing Plan For Financial Services?

The financial industry is vast, encompassing a wide variety of businesses that deals with:

• Money lending
• Money management
• Investing  
• Insuring

A few years ago, every financial institution used to offer the same services to everyone. However, digital disruption has long since changed the financial industry forever. Furthermore, a 2017 research by Accenture found that 17% of financial service providers entered the industry over the past 13 years.

With more and more players entering the financial industry, it is becoming incredibly competitive. Marketing strategies for financial services are crucial for any business that wants to make it in the financial sector.

New Players, New Changes, And New Technology

Whenever new players start to enter an industry, they bring in new products or services to make themselves stand out. These new products or services are technology-driven to make the customer experience smooth and streamlined.

The use of new technology-driven financial products and services often leads to radical changes. It may even redefine how you do business. With so many options available, the marketing of financial services has become a necessity for financial service providers.

Automated Marketing Tools

Just like technology helped financial services optimise their operations and services, it can also help you optimise your marketing efforts. With advanced automated marketing tools like PostGrid, you can even automate offline marketing strategies like direct mail.

Financial institutions should use automated marketing tools whenever possible to save valuable time and money. Furthermore, automation also takes away the risk of manual error from your advertising in financial services. Some automation tools like PostGrid even offer specialised marketing services for the finance industry.

7 Most Effective Marketing Strategies For Financial Services

Acknowledging that your financial institution or organisation needs advanced marketing strategies is the first step to reaching your revenue goals. But, how do you make sure that your advertising in financial services yields the desired results?

The most convenient and logical step would be to use tried and proven methods for marketing your financial business. Here is a list of some of the most effective marketing strategies for financial services to get the desired results or ROI.

#1 Automated Direct Mail Campaign

Did you know that direct mail campaigns offer a higher response rate and ROI (Return On Investment) than most online marketing strategies? Companies have long used direct mail for the marketing of financial services. However, the growing customer database made it increasingly challenging to run direct mail campaigns.

Are you wondering how good the response rate for direct mail campaigns is? Read our blog, “Direct Mail Response Rate“, to find out!

Unlike other online marketing methods like email campaigns, making the target read your direct mail is not that difficult using direct mail. A feasible mailer is not so easy to ignore compared to an unopened email that can remain unread until eternity.

Carefully Choose Your Direct Mail Automation Tool   

There are several direct mail automation tools available today, making choosing the right tool even more difficult. One thing you should look for in a direct mail automation tool is full automation capability.

It means the tool you choose should be able to personalise, print, and deliver your direct mail to the target audience. Tools like PostGrid offer full automation capability to customers and take care of all aspects of your direct mail advertising in financial services.

Advanced Targeting And Tracking Features

Direct mail tools like PostGrid come equipped with several additional features and capabilities that make marketing easier for businesses. You can even use PostGrid’s address validation tool to validate the addresses of your target audience. 

It ensures that your advertising in financial services using mailers reaches its destination without fail. Furthermore, you also get access to advanced features like geocoding, which enables you to map the location of your target audience. You can even track the deliverability of your mailers and optimise your campaign based on the insights.

#2 Create Trust

In the financial industry, there isn’t anything more important than trust. However, it is also the hardest thing to come by, regardless of how hard you work for it. Consumer behaviour has come to the point where they even check out the reviews of grocery stores online before using them.

Hence, you can imagine how hard it is to convince customers, especially millennials, to trust your brand when it comes to matters concerning money. The back-to-back news or stories on financial crises, misdeeds, data breaches, etc., do not comfort the customers either.

Build Social Proof And Promote Values

Building social proof is an effective way to build trust among your target audience. However, merely making social proof is not enough to gain your customer’s confidence. To ensure your advertising in financial services works and garners the trust of your customers, you need to promote values that your prospects hold dear.

For example, you can try implementing special events to help the elderly or homeless. You can then talk about the event on your social media handles and share pictures and videos. The more aligned you are with customer values, the more trusting they become of your brand.

Personalisation

Personalisation is another way to build trust with your prospects through advertising in financial services. The first thing you need to understand is that financial services are very personal to people. For most people, their dreams depend on the financial assistance you provide.

Hence, your marketing approach needs to have a personal touch regarding financial services marketing. Personalising your financial marketing strategies is more manageable by using advanced automation tools like PostGrid. 

For example, you can easily connect PostGrid’s advanced direct mail system with your CRM. You can print personalised adverse action letters, privacy notices, etc. and mail them with just a button click. Similarly, you can use tools with such capabilities for all your marketing channels, online and offline.

Leverage Existing Customers

Leveraging your existing customers is an excellent way for financial institutions to establish trust among their target audience. Use your loyal clients for generating positive reviews and referrals for marketing financial products in Australia. 

Think back to all the times you looked up a brand, product, or service online before purchasing. Financial services are no exception to this. If anything, generating positive reviews and referrals is crucial in the financial industry.

You can increase your odds of success by publishing reviews on multiple websites or platforms. Social media and review websites are excellent places for you to start implementing advertising in financial services via reviews.

#3 Prioritise Mobile As Your Marketing Channel

Did you know that an average Aussie spends 5.5 hours per day on their phone? In other words, a person spends almost 1/3rd of their awake time staring at their phone. At this point, it is not enough to have a mobile-friendly approach for your business and marketing operations. 

Adopt A Mobile-First Approach 

You need a mobile-first approach to help you get ahead of your competition. Even Google now uses a mobile-first approach in ranking sites. So, you can guess how effective and urgent it is to have mobile-first marketing strategies for financial services. 

The ideal place for you to start to ensure a mobile-first approach is to create a mobile-first website. A mobile-first website will enable you to provide easy and convenient access to all your customers. It is especially true for the younger audience, including the Millennials and Gen Z. However, as we said, the mobile-first website is only the beginning. 

Some essential tips for creating an app for financial services are:

• Never forget to SEO optimise your website
• Ensure that the site loads within 3 seconds

Create A Mobile App

The only thing better than a mobile-first website for your financial business is a dedicated mobile app. Does that mean you can have a non-mobile-friendly website as long as you have a dedicated mobile app? NO! A mobile-first website is a must for your marketing plan for financial services.

It is also worth noting that most people don’t even go to their financial institutions if they can meet their needs online. In most cases, the customer only visits the physical location of their financial institution once or twice a year. 

When building a financial service app, you must allow the customer to manage their accounts. It should also have features so the customer can easily access all essential financial services, including statement access.

#4 Use Social Media Platforms  

The marketing plan for financial services is incomplete without a good social media campaign to support it. Almost every prospective customer of your financial services is on one social media platform. Some are active on Facebook, some on Instagram, and others on LinkedIn.

Furthermore, it’s not just individual customers you can target through social media advertising in financial services. You can also target companies across all industries through social media because every top company has a noticeable social media presence.

Use Meaningful Content

The content on social media is different from your website content. It needs to be gripping and often short. However, social media content/posts also require enough information to grab the customer’s attention and interest.

Your advertising in financial services also needs to be consistent and provide value to the customers. Consider using a storytelling approach for your content, as it tends to resonate well with the audience. 

You can even use humour in your social media content and become a part of the infamous meme culture. But, no matter what you do, always ensure that you maintain a positive attitude toward your content. 

Educate Your Prospective Customers

Social media advertising in financial services is the best way for your financial business when you need to educate your prospects on products and services. It also lets you plant ideas in your prospective customers and introduce them to services they were unaware of.

Collect Information From The Customers 

Social media offers more opportunities to interact with your customers than any other marketing channel. Additionally, social media lets you convey information to customers and enables you to collect data from customers.

Social media polls and quizzes are great examples of how you can collect valuable information from customers. The social media polls are so engaging that people rarely ever skip them. You can use the polls to ask questions, engage with customers, and generate leads. 

Use Video Content

We can not ignore video content when it comes to financial services marketing. With the ever-growing popularity of video content, including on Instagram Reels and TikTok, partnering with relevant influencers can be surprisingly effective.

Video content lets you tell a story and appeal to your audience on an emotional level. Another advantage of using videos for marketing of financial services is that you can choose an individual/influencer. The influencer who speaks your target audience’s language and appeals to their genuine interests.

#5 Content is (Still) King 

The catchphrase “content is king” is relatively old in digital marketing, but it remains true even in 2023. Every successful marketing campaign needs to have quality content to back it up, including for marketing plan for financial services. 

However, financial institutions need to understand their audience better and develop high-quality content for their marketing campaigns. You can not create high-quality content that resonates with the audience if you do not know how to make an impactful engagement.

Use Content Across All Channels

Choosing the channel for delivering your content is crucial to ensuring your marketing of financial services is effective. You can capture key audiences by pitching relevant and attractive content in your blogs, social media channels, and your financial services app. Furthermore, your content can come in all forms, including extended features, interviews, etc.  

Regularly Publish New Content  

Content marketing is not a one-time process. Much like SEO, you need to optimise your content regularly. By regularly publishing new content, you can keep your customers coming back to your website and boost organic traffic. 

Provide Value To Prospective And Current Customers

When we say you need to use high-quality content for your marketing of financial services, we do not mean using eloquent words and stunning images. Quality content provides value to prospective and existing customers. 

The type of content you use decides what you are as a brand and what values you represent. Hence, it would be best for your financial service company to carefully establish these values with a combined effort from the sales and marketing team. 

Use Relatable Content

Your content for marketing of financial services can hardly help your business if it is irrelevant to the audience. Take Millennials, for instance. You first need to understand what type of financial product or services Millennials want and then offer them that. 

One of the popular online finance services preferred by millennials is online credit cards. You can pitch them with relevant content after finding a product or service your target audience is interested in. 

#6 Use Social Media Influencers

We briefly talked about how social media influencers can be a part of your marketing plan for financial services when we talked about video content. Many people suspected that influencer marketing would never really take off. 

But, influencer marketing is now one of the most effective marketing strategies for all businesses, including financial organisations. Your younger audience is more likely to listen to their peers than big brands and their ambassadors with whom they can’t connect.  

Use Influencers For Building Awareness

Most millennials don’t even know about basic financial concepts. The younger audience does not hesitate to take financial advice from an influencer they follow on social media platforms. Several influencers specialise in providing financial advice to young people.

Such influencers are great for building awareness around your brand and its products/services. It is relatively easier for the audience to trust an influencer they follow. On top of it all, influencers use their unique presentation style, such as satire, comedy, etc., for the marketing of financial services.

Choose The Right Influencer For The Job

The success of your influencer marketing campaign depends upon the influencer you choose for the campaign. You don’t always need an influencer that creates financial content. Instead, you can pick an influencer most relevant to the financial product or service you want to sell.

For instance, your financial organisation offers financial assistance to people who want to buy a superbike. In this case, the ideal influencer is someone who creates their content on superbikes. It could be a bike stunt person or racer or something similar. 

#7 Use Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay-per-click advertising or PPC campaigns are an integral part of advertising in financial services. The best thing about PPC campaigns is their micro-targeting compatibility. It enables financial institutions to boost their website’s visibility, promote new products/services and raise brand awareness.

Use Multiple Platforms

When employing PPC campaigns for your financial organisation, you need to use multiple platforms. Don’t limit yourself to popular channels like Google Ads alone. Diversify your PPC platforms by using PPC platforms such as Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, etc.

Furthermore, advertising in financial services needs to target specific market segments you are trying to reach. Using more than one platform for running PPC campaigns can help you reach diverse audiences and optimise your marketing efforts.

Types Of Paid Ads

There are mainly five different types of paid ads you can use for PPC campaigns, and they are:

• Display Ads
• Social Media Ads
• Native Ads
• Search Engine Ads
• Video Ads

Display ads include the banner and image ads that we often see appear on websites. Social media ads include paid advertisements and sponsored posts on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. 

Native ads are the recommendations you get on your feeds on different websites and apps. Search engine ads usually refer to Google ads due to their significant dominance. However, Bing also provides a reliable platform for search engine PPC campaigns. Video ads are content-rich and highly informative, ideal for advertising in financial services.

Conclusion

Marketing strategies for financial services are constantly changing and evolving. In 2023, you can no longer afford to neglect new and technology-driven solutions. It is high time financial organisations expand their marketing efforts to online and offline marketing channels.

Automation is a must for streamlining your marketing plan for financial services. With advanced automation tools like PostGrid, you can easily optimise your direct mail marketing campaigns. You can personalise, print, and deliver marketing mailers to your prospects.

Advanced automation tools like PostGrid can also help you streamline your communication with customers. Financial organisations can personalise and send important documents like adverse action letters, collection letters, etc., to their customers.

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