Essential Considerations When Crafting Your Mail Marketing – 2024 Data Informed Trends

With the positive impact of marketing mail being proven time and time again, now is the time to review your mail designs in line with the latest mail marketing trends or consider adding mail marketing to your campaigns.

Getting in front of the trends will make your marketing mail stand out and grab the attention of consumers as soon as it lands on their doormat.

Data Informed Trends for 2024:

1. Sustainable Practises: With 4 out of 5 people describing themselves as more likely to engage with businesses that have a positive approach to environmental sustainability (Marketreach 2024), promoting your businesses’ sustainable practises is a fantastic way of capturing your target market. Adding relevant sustainability symbols to your marketing mail, or including sustainability statements is a great way to promote your efforts to target audiences.

2. Personalised marketing: With email marketing’s ability to be deeply personalised, consumers are judging brands on their ability to deliver individualised experiences more than ever (WARC 2023).

67% of consumers expressed the want for relevant product and service information when receiving marketing mail, with 66% wanting messaging to be tailored to their needs. Whether through full data-driven personalisation or geographic / demographic targeting, mail can be highly relevant to individuals’ needs and buying contexts, an essential trend to note in 2024. Being easy to keep, mail can be retained until such time as the information and services are required meaning it cuts through the noise of digital marketing.

Image 1* – Featured in WARC – 2023 – The Attention Advantage: Exploring the Impact of Mail in an Attention-Scarce World.

1. Mail Formats: Postcards are in throughout 2024!

Attention of consumers is a hot topic in recent years, and we now know how people read and internalise information has changed this century. It therefore makes sense that post cards remain a popular format choice for marketing mail, hosting less words, more images and increased online call to actions.

Image 2 – WARC – 2023 – The Attention Advantage: Exploring the Impact of Mail in an Attention-Scarce World.

In saying that, envelopes continue to remain prevalent this year as they work well for large verticals, charities and educational mail pieces, with many companies using envelopes to showcase eye-catching visuals or to capture a range of consumer senses.

Case study:  ‘Sunlife Insurance created ‘smelly mailpacks’ that pets – and therefore their owners – would find unignorable. After testing, peppermint emerged as the most stimulating scent for cats. For dogs, bacon proved the winning aroma’ – WARC 2023.

Including innovative aspects in your direct mail can also help you qualify for a Royal Mail incentive too! Saving you money on your marketing through acquiring postal credits for future marketing campaigns. Contact us to find out how. 

1. QR Codes: Including a QR code in your direct mail marketing is an easy and effective way to convert users to your website, an important attribute of marketing mail to consumers this year (see image 1*). Going one step further and including augmented reality encourages recipients to scan a mail piece with their smartphone which triggers an interactive, internet-driven experience. AR is said to capture the recipient’s attention for as long as 85 seconds and increase the interaction rate by 20% (The Drum 2022).

The interaction rate isn’t the only benefit of augmented reality; these interactive elements are easily trackable, especially when they’re activated for the first time. When a recipient scans a QR code, or activates a digital reality, companies are able to find out who the individual was and collect extra valuable data for their website.

 

1. Building Trust: In the world around us, it feels like ‘there’s just one thing after another’ with large world events filling our TV screens on a daily basis – this has made consumers feel vulnerable and nervous around change; understanding this in 2024 is essential for marketers when planning their campaigns.

50% of consumers report that receiving a piece of mail from a brand has a positive impact on their perception of the company (Market Reach, in WARC 2023), helping to build brand trust and drive sales. Sending direct mail as part of your marketing mix has never been more important to build customers understanding and trust around your brand, helping remove uncertainty and vulnerabilities consumers may face when they are exposed to companies for the very first time.

Image 3 – WARC – 2023 – The Attention Advantage: Exploring the Impact of Mail in an Attention-Scarce World.

We know have more data in our hands than ever to ensure we can stay on top of mail marketing trends, allowing us to reap the benefits of using direct mail in our marketing mix. Using this information and quickly adapting is essential to ensure our marketing is ‘on point’ and effective in driving sales.  Speak to our team today for expert advice on starting your journey with direct mail, or to refresh your marketing creative content.

 

References:

Marketreach – 2024 –  USING MAIL MORE SUSTAINABLY 

WARC – 2023- The attention advantage: Exploring the impact of mail in an attention-scarce world

The Drum – 2022 – Attention metrics are the new marketing ‘must’ – here’s why