We all know that lead nurturing is a marketing best practice, but what are your plans to step up your lead nurturing activities over the next year? Better segmentation? Check. More targeted content? Check. Interactive content? Check. Those are the standard answers.
How about taking your customer journey to a whole other level? Today, we’ll dive into a strategy that creates a true multichannel conversation to drive results—the integration of direct mail and physical gifting into your lead nurturing process.
Engaging consumers through email is essential to driving success. However, breaking through the clutter is sometimes next to impossible with email. Hundreds of emails fill the inbox. People go on vacation. Spam blockers filter out messages. Recipients unsubscribe.
Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20 percent increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. - DemandGen Report
Try adding automated direct mail into the mix, which adds a second dimension to your nurture efforts. If someone isn’t responding electronically, automated direct mail lets marketers reach them in another fashion. For example, if a target account is blocking your company’s emails or if the recipient receives 1,000 messages a day, automated direct mail gets the message through a lot more effectively.
On the other hand, if the recipient is engaging with your emails, automated direct mail reinforces the message to optimize the overall results of your campaign. The dual email and direct mail approach creates a true multi-channel process to your automated marketing campaigns.
Automated direct mail is the integration of direct mail and physical gifting into your marketing automation platform.
For example, five years ago, you would have had to painfully send your list to the direct mail company to deliver the gift in a batch-n-blast approach. Or, you would have your marketing intern collect names of important leads and ship out gifts from the tchotchke closet.
Today, the sending of physical gifts is as automated as the sending of an email—trackable, measurable and automated within your marketing automation platform. Information on the item also feeds into your CRM to provide additional intelligence to your sales team.
For the techie Marketo readers, this direct mail integration is performed via a webhook that triggers the direct mail and brings back delivery information when available.
“Sixty-two percent of customers are more likely to do business with brands after receiving a promotional item.”
- The Advertising Specialty Institute
Although you can still use the traditional method, I am not talking about old school direct mail pieces like postcards. I’m talking about physical gifts that make an impact when sent in conjunction with your standard nurturing emails.
Let’s dive into a few examples:
How much is your top account worth? Whether you are looking for a door opener or a deeper penetration into an account, the Account Igniter is a high-value, low-risk, high-reward automated direct mail program. This campaign is ideal for any Account Based Marketing strategy.
In this program, identify the top 5-10 contacts in your top 100 accounts.
“How do we get more meetings?” is a common request in many organizations. If your organization is trying to boost meetings, The Meeting Grabber is a good template to start with.
The goal is to leverage automated direct mail along with email to generate a meeting for sales. The Meeting Grabber is an integral piece of the puzzle and allows for marketing to confidently hand-off qualified MQLs to Sales.
Offer example:
Already have a lead nurturing campaign in place? Improve the conversion by seamlessly adding in automated direct mail. Build the direct mail right into existing nurture tracks to add a new dynamic to the conversation. The big benefit here is the automated direct mail is created in a “set-and-forget” process to deliver the right content at the right time.
If your company has a lead lifecycle process, you are most likely measuring conversion rates between all of your major stages. If you find leads getting stuck at certain stages, try unclogging the funnel by sending automated direct mail.
When a prospect becomes a customer, it’s time to begin the process of turning that customer into an advocate.
Best practice organizations measure the effectiveness of their marketing programs, including automated direct mail. Ensure that every automated direct mail piece contains a call-to-action that drives the recipient to a website or phone number for further action. This will serve as your initial success metric.
Going one step further, track if that automated direct mail leads to a high-level lifecycle success. Answer questions like:
At the 2015 Marketo Summit, PrintingForLess.com won the The LaunchPoint Innovator award for its automated direct mail technology it calls Tactile Marketing™. PFL offers full integration with Marketo and Eloqua for marketers who wish to take the next step with automated direct mail.
At RevEngine Marketing, we are pretty excited about the next dimension in engagement marketing. If you have Marketo and are looking to get started with your campaign, give us a shout. As a PFL partner, we can help set you up for success.
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