GET READY FOR A SIZZLING SUMMER – The Citipost Mail Guide to Planning and Running a Successful Summer Direct Mail Campaign

Summertime is just around the corner. Consumer thoughts are now turning to warmer days and seasonal buys, which means that it’s time to plan your direct mailing campaign ready for the summer sales season.

Whether it’s garden furniture, holidays or beachwear, with a 95% engagement rate and a 6.5% of mail prompting an online purchase, mail is a marketing must this summer (JIC Mail Q4 2023 results).

As experts in direct mail marketing, here are our Citipost Mail Top Tips to ensure your ROI is sizzling this summer.

STEP 1 – PURPOSE

The best campaigns start with a clear purpose. The first step, before you even think about designs, offers, or target audience, is to identify exactly what you want from your direct mail campaign.

• Are you looking to provide information, for example about events or holiday opening hours?
• Do you want to drive traffic to your website, or footfall to your premises?
• Are you aiming for more orders?
• Do you want to reward loyalty or thank your customers for their business?

It may be that you want to do all these things this summer season, but if that’s the case, we would advise splitting your mail marketing up over staged campaigns to make sure you’re targeting the right messages to the right people, at the right time.

STEP 2 – DESIGN

Direct mail can be so much more than a letter through the door with the customer’s name on the front. Crafting the perfect design for your mail will capture your consumer’s attention (WARC 2023).

Brand:

Brand is King. Your design needs to be on-brand and deliver a very clear message.

In your mail marketing, ensure that your brand guidelines are employed when crafting your design. Tailor your messaging and visuals to resonate with your target audience, while staying true to your brand’s personality and values.

Colour:

This year, the summer colour palette is shaking things up. No more predictable sunshine yellows or sky-blue hues. Pay attention to colour experts and the colours circulating popular culture; world-leading colour expert Pantone has launched a colour palette for Summer 2024, which could help to keep your mail on trend and get your marketing noticed.

Our expert design team at Citicreative can ensure your mail campaign is a scorching success this summer – we offer a range of services from ideation and creation, to supporting with excess design work and amendments with a quick turnaround.

Call to Action:

A direct mail call to action is one of the most crucial parts of your campaign. This should be clear and prominent in your design. What do you want the customer to do now your direct mail is in their hand? Let’s revert to our earlier questions:

• Are you looking to provide information, for example about events or holiday opening hours? Make your information clear and appealing so it is displayed in the home by your consumers to be referred back to.
• Do you want to drive traffic to your website, or footfall to your premises? Create a sense of excitement and urgency by including time-sensitive pricing or product ranges.
• Are you aiming for orders? Add a QR code to drive your target audience online.
• Do you want to reward loyalty or thank your customers for their business? Include a voucher code to offer a discounted service or a freebie.

Omnichannel Marketing – URLs, Augmented Reality and QR Codes.

Integrating your marketing across all platforms provides a seamless journey for your consumers and shows them that your brand voice is consistent, developing consumer loyalty and trust.

With this in mind, depending on the purpose and campaign goals, try to include the following in your design (but not all at once, of course!):

Unique URLs serve several purposes. Firstly, they offer that extra touch of personalisation. A unique URL with the consumer’s name included makes the click-through unique and relevant to the individual.

The other benefit delivered by URLs is the data they provide to marketers. Through the URL you can track when each URL has been visited, giving you a clear insight into who has engaged with your offer, and how.

QR codes are hot this year! Adding a QR code will make your direct mail more engaging; the QR code can simply direct consumers to your website, or allow your customers to access a new video game, a selfie filter or even download your brand-new app.

Through clever digital layering, augmented reality (AR) changes your customer’s surroundings when they activate it through their smartphone camera. Augmented Reality can capture people’s attention for up to 85 seconds, increase interaction rate by 20% and improve click-through rates to purchase by a third (The Drum)!

Take a look at the AR covers of the American magazine, The New Yorker,

Personalisation

66% of consumers expressed the want for marketing messaging to be tailored to their needs (WARC 2023) and, assuming your data set is clean (which we discuss later), you should have plenty of relevant data about customers or target audience.

Try personalising your summer campaign to connect with your customers and make them feel valued. You could add references to their Gender and age; Birthday recognition, treats or offers; references or offers linked specifically to the consumer’s Purchase history; customer Location or Lifestyle; and consumer Interests.

STEP 3 – CHOOSE YOUR FORMAT

Direct mail doesn’t have to be a plain white envelope addressed to the homeowner. For your mail piece to stand out, experiment with innovative designs (this could also earn you postal credits through a Royal Mail Testing and Innovation Scheme). Think about special folds, scents, 3D effects, die cuts and even the size of your mail piece. It all contributes to the impact and the message you’re trying to convey to your customers.

A different format builds curiosity as well as engagement. Stuck for ideas? As specialists in the direct mail field, our Citicreative team and Print Services team can support you on this creative journey, offering expert advice to help you design and print an innovative, attention-grabbing piece of mail.

STEP 4 – GETTING THE TIMING RIGHT

Technically, direct mail campaigns can be turned around in under 24 hours, but save that for response marketing.

The ROI from advertising mail means you’ll need to make sure you have enough stock or availability to hand (if applicable) to meet the sales season demand, so you’ll need to factor this into your timings. In addition, you may want to send out a reminder before the launch of your campaign, or even a follow-up to your campaign as the repetition will help jog memories and make it more likely that people will respond, so allow time for this too.

If you send your summer DM campaign out too late, there’s also the danger that people will have already finished their summer shopping and the excitement around summer holidays, summer savings and summer campaigns has been and gone! To avoid this, it’s better to get your campaign out there as early as you can.

STEP 5 – DON’T WASTE YOUR BUDGET – SEND YOUR MAIL TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE

You can design the best summer campaign ever, complete with fascinating interactive elements, great offers and all the information a customer could ever need but if it’s not going out to the right people, your campaign is never going to succeed. This is where making sure your data mailing lists are clean comes in. That means getting rid of any old, duplicated, or deceased records.

STEP 6 – PRINTING AND POSTING YOUR DIRECT MAIL

When printing and posting, it pays to do your research and shop around for the best price. Outsourcing the production of your direct mail campaign to a dedicated print and mailing house can save you money, so it’s worth bearing this in mind. It’ll take some of the pressure off you too!

There are many ways you can save on postage, including bulk mail discounts and taking advantage of a range of tariffs and incentives. These can be accessed through Downstream Access (DSA) providers, such as Citipost Mail, who collect and distribute your mail and can help you identify large bulk mail savings.

It’s not too late to put together a sizzling summer direct mail campaign with all the emerging trends of 2024. While this may sound like a lot, realistically, there is still time to design and post a scorcher. If you’ve followed the steps above, your summer campaign is sure to be a winner!