It’s no secret that screens have become a part of daily life. However, when it comes to enticing your audience with an attention-grabbing advertisement, tablets and smartphones aren’t always the best way to spur your customers to take action.
In fact, direct mail marketing still serves as one of the most effective marketing techniques for the simple fact that it adds a physical element to your business’s advertising campaign, something that digital advertisements just can’t provide.
Of course, the reason for direct mail’s success lies in a few key differences it holds over its modern marketing counterparts. Ready to learn more? The marketing experts at Aspen Automotive are here to help you find out more about direct mail marketing vs. modern marketing. Let’s get started!
Direct Mail vs Modern Marketing: What’s the Difference
Before we can talk about why direct mail continues to succeed in comparison to modern marketing, we first have to talk about what each type of marketing entails and how they differ.
As their names imply, direct mail marketing entails sending physical mail to a client, whereas modern marketing takes advantage of the digital world as its platform for advertisements and other types of marketing. Direct mail, in simplest term, uses physical advertisements to speak to clients.
Modern marketing, on the other hand, uses primarily digital advertisements through social media, email, or online ads to reach its targeted audience. In addition to ads a client may see on their phone or laptop while scrolling, modern marketing also includes radio ads, magazine or newspaper ads, and other outdoor ads on billboards or at bus stops.
This integration of advertising media is why modern marketing may also be referred to as omnichannel marketing or even integrated marketing.
While the format in which these two types of marketing are presented to its target audience differs, they’re similar in the sense that analytics are at the core of the strategy. Without tracking analytics, particularly in the sense of ROIs (returns on investments), you’ll never know how effective your campaign was.
Now that you have a better understanding of these types of marketing, let’s jump right in and see why direct mail marketing still prevails.
Less is More
The average person sees thousands of digital advertisements per day through their smartphones, tablets, and other devices, not to mention when flipping through magazines at the doctor’s office or billboards on their way home from work. Due to the sheer number of ads your audience passes over within 24 hours, it takes something eye-catching and tangible to capture their curiosity.
Well, that’s where direct mail marketing outranks digital promotions. Thanks to the added tangibility of direct mailers, your targeted customer has to physically hold your advertisement once it arrives in their mailbox.
So, instead of just clicking out of a pop-up ad on the Internet or deleting one of the estimated 107 marketing emails received per day, your audience will be faced with a physical advertisement.
Not only does this make your promotion more memorable, but also increases the overall impact your dealership has with one advertisement. The takeaway? In a world of endless digital ads, direct mailers are more effective in driving your potential customers to your business.
Direct Mail Marketing vs Modern Marketing: The Spam Filter
To compare apples to apples, let’s take a moment to think about the differences between direct mail and email marketing and how it can be filtered out. With direct mail, there’s no possibility of your advertisement being automatically sorted into an individual’s spam box.
Sure, your audience could flip through their mail and choose to not engage with your offer, but they have to view your mailer to do that. There’s simply no way around that.
By putting your message directly in front of your customers’ eyes, your business has a chance of piquing the interest of someone who could benefit from the program or promotion your dealership is offering. As a result, you’re more likely to see a solid ROI by using direct mail.
The same cannot always be true about modern marketing.
Ease of Understanding
A recent study revealed that direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to process than digital media.1 On top of that, customers who received direct mailers could recall the brand 75% of the time, while those same individuals could only remember the brand of a digital advertisement 44% of the time.
What does that mean? If you’re looking to stay top-of-mind with your targeted audience, direct mail marketing is the way to go.
For the most part, tangible mail requires less mental processing simply because it’s placed directly into your customer’s hands rather than being engaged with through a screen.
With a few seconds of reading or a quick glance, your ideal consumer can grasp the message of your advertisement. From there, all your audience has to do is follow the simple instructions on your direct mailer to opt into your dealership’s program.
Once they’ve taken action, your business will start seeing a profitable return on investment from your direct mail marketing campaign.
Direct Mail for Dealerships: Standing out From the Crowd
With the amount of advertisements that your consumers are exposed to on a daily basis, standing out is essential. Due to the fact that digital media marketing is becoming increasingly more common, automotive direct mail now has an advantage.
Rather than being met by yet another email or banner ad on their smartphones, tablets, or computers, your customers have a way to connect with your dealership that doesn’t involve a screen.
Now that fewer businesses are crowding the direct mail sector, your dealership has the perfect opportunity to make itself known with physical mailers. In fact, it’s estimated that each person receives just two pieces of mail per day in comparison to the hundreds of modern marketing ads seen on a daily basis. By utilizing physical mailers, your consumers more easily recognize your brand and view your business as a thought leader in the industry.
Moreover, the tangible nature of automotive direct mail makes it more difficult to ignore. Think about it: when you receive a direct mailer, it occupies space in your home which automatically acts as a reminder of your dealership to your targeted audience.
Conversely, digital advertisements tend to remain memorable for as long as the ad is pulled up on your consumers’ screens. For this reason, auto direct mail offers more longevity and memorability for your buyers, both of which increase lead generation.
Direct Mail vs Digital: Spurring Your Customer into Action
Ultimately, the goal of your dealership’s automotive direct mail campaign is to drive your consumers toward a specific action. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to which advertising methods are most likely to motivate a customer to buy. When it comes to direct mail vs. digital marketing, which one takes the cake for pushing consumers to your showroom? You guessed it: direct mail.
In fact, the same study that produced the cognitive effort results listed above also looked at the motivation-to-cognitive load ratio scores of individuals who read direct mailers.
Their findings revealed that, while digital channels scored a 0.87 in this realm, direct mail garnered a 1.31 score, which exceeds the threshold score needed to indicate that an advertisement can achieve in-market success.1
As if that weren’t enough, direct mail pushed past the 1.0 threshold score and digital marketing’s score in all three of the tested age groups, including 18- to 29-year-olds, 30- to 49-year-olds, and 50- to 64-year-olds.1
What does this mean for dealership direct mail? No matter what demographic your targeted audience may fall into, they’re more likely to be motivated into action by direct mail marketing than digital marketing.
Connecting with Millennials
Despite millennials’ fondness for all things digital, 47 percent of them look forward to checking their mail every day.2 Furthermore, 82 percent of millennials sort through the mail themselves and determine which mailers to keep.2
These statistics prove that young people are even more likely to find value in receiving direct mail—so much so that they’ll go out of their way to flip through the advertisements that land in their mailboxes.
To put this into perspective, millennials still look forward to opening their mail despite the fact that they’re more likely to own and use a smartphone or other mobile device than older generations.
That’s why it’s essential to target millennial audiences with a relevant automotive direct mail campaign. By doing so, you’ll see a boost in your direct mail marketing response rates and your overall ROI.
Direct Mail Marketing vs Modern Marketing: The Takeaway
When it comes down to the differences of digital mail marketing vs. modern marketing, there’s a clear answer as to which strategy is more likely to drive traffic to your automotive business.
As a time-tested advertising option, direct mail provides your business with a host of benefits that’ll not only turn strangers into leads, but also keep your customers coming back to your showroom for years.
Ready to get started on your company’s direct mail marketing campaign? All you have to do is consult the team of marketing masters at Aspen Automotive. Send us an email or give us a call today!
1 https://www.canadapost.ca/assets/pdf/blogs/CPC_Neuroscience_EN_150717.pdf
2 https://tensionenvelope.com/sites/default/files/2016_mail_moments_report_may_160504_1400.pdf
