Whether you’re sending a postcard, newsletter, or magazine, direct mail certainly has its advantages. However, what many inexperienced marketers don’t fully realize is that there’s more, a lot more, to direct mail marketing than dropping something off at the post office. To optimize your direct mail marketing and garner the most results, there are a few additional steps that need to be considered.

1. Direct prospects to a landing a page

Your main goal is to capture leads, so sending them to your homepage won’t cut it. Each of your print pieces should have a unique URL (www.yourwebsite.com/postcardpromotion) that directs prospects to a landing page. Building a specific landing page will not only help you capture their contact information behind a lead form, but ultimately, determine who is the most interested in your marketing efforts. (Use our postcards and we’ll give you a free landing page to capture leads.) 

2. Create a retargeting campaign

If you can’t capture prospects’ contact information from your landing page, you can still retarget them. To many, retargeting may seem like a beast that can’t be tamed, but with a little knowledge and assistance from your web master, it can be an extremely effective tool. In layman’s terms, retargeting is a way to continue advertising to people that visited your website even when they are on other sites. If you’ve ever seen an ad on Facebook for shoes right after you searched for them on Amazon, you’ve been retargeted.

To get started, you’ll first want to choose your ad platform. Common options are Facebook ads, Google’s display network, or AdRoll. Each platform will have its own tracking code, so focusing on one to start is best.

Once you’ve signed up for one of those services, you’ll want your web master to install a tracking code that’s placed into the header file of your website—these are “cookies” that will follow visitors around on the web.

Once the code is installed, you can begin to set up a retargeting campaign on your end. You can now build an audience of prospects who have visited your landing page in the last “X” number of days, and determine how long you want to hit them with your messaging.

But if this all seems too much to handle, we can run entire Facebook ad campaigns for you—we’ll do everything. You can start to get leads as soon as tomorrow; all you need to do is follow up with your leads! Learn more here.

3. Keep your design consistent

While the technical side of retargeting is important, determining what type of creative to incorporate into the messaging can ultimately make or break your campaign. The good news is that you know what appealed to the prospect in the first place. Whether it was a catchy phrase or compelling image, it’s best that your campaign is a continuation of your original design. This is going to continue the buyer’s journey for prospects, and ultimately help them take the next step.

At the end of the day, direct mail is a great way to get your prospects interested in your services because mail still stands out more than most advertising online. However, to grow your pipeline, your efforts must extend further than the mailbox.

To learn more about print media, download our free e-book here.