In my last post, Direct Mail Should Be Like Social Media — Yes or No?, I raised the question of whether marketers should be adding some of social media’s innovative aspects to direct mail in order to increase response rates and better engage prospects.
In this post, I cover some practical tips for incorporating social into your direct mail pieces. The first three of these tips are fairly simple. The last two, augmented reality and “checking in,” are to inspire your creativity.
1. Add social media calls-to-action.
According to a 2010 DMA research study that quoted Nielsen findings, consumers are spending 43% more time on social media than they did in 2009, with social media and blogs topping online games and email.
In addition, the research study points out that marketers are spending more on social media to help increase brand loyalty and brand awareness.
Whether you’re doing postcards or traditional direct response letters, you can easily add “Like Us on Facebook” or “Follow Us on Twitter” calls-to-action to your outer envelopes, the letters themselves, lift notes, and even statements and other “official” mail. According to Jay Baer, publisher of the Convince and Convert blog, you’ll get more traction if you tell people why they should “like” your page, e.g., to receive discounts, etc.
If your budget allows, consider giving people an incentive to “like” your page the way BankAtlantic does. For each “like,” the bank gives $1 to that person’s favorite local charity. (To read the full story, download our free special report, “Attract and Retain Customers with Content Marketing.”)
2. Add QR codes.
I covered QR codes a few weeks ago in my post, “Use QR Codes to Boost Business Response.” As with adding social media calls-to-action, adding a QR code to any of your direct mail pieces is relatively simple:
- Create the offer or piece of content — You’ll need to create something that people can download, whether it’s a landing page for a free report or a video.
- Produce the QR code — A simple iPhone app, such as quiQR, will allow you to quickly generate a simple QR code. For more complex codes, or to create thousands of individual codes for PURLs, you’ll need a more robust application.
- Add the QR code to your printed piece — I’ve seen QR codes on everything from catalogs and postcards to credit card offers and even mortgage statements!
3. Create offers based on what people are talking about on social media.
Many social media gurus advocate that you “listen in” on social media conversations. What this means is that if you’re on Twitter, use hashtags to follow discussions in your industry, including those that revolve around a conference or workshop or specific topic (e.g., #dma, #direct mail, #b2b). Listen to the questions people are asking. Can you use this information to create content, such as an e-book or report, that you can then offer via a direct mail lead generation campaign?
Ditto for Facebook. If your company has an active Facebook page, analyze which posts elicit comments and pay attention to what people are talking about to see if any ideas jump out at you for creating content offers.
4. Consider the future opportunities of augmented reality.
A very new and very cool technology, augmented reality (AR) apps add a virtual object into the real world. You view the “real world” through your smartphone camera, and the AR application adds virtual objects to what you see.
Although it might sound like a “so what” application, the implications are huge for marketers. A new iPad AR app, Magic Mirror, for example, scans your head and face and then adds virtual objects, such as a wig or a mask, to make it look like you’re actually wearing the item!
Total Immersion, developers of the app, is “a company known for the way it incorporates AR into online and print ads,” according to The Wall Street Journal article, “Why Smart Phones Can See More Than We Can”:
One online ad includes an interactive driving game that made users feel like they were driving the Volvo S60 through whatever their iPhone or Android camera displayed as AR obstacles fell into the road. In another campaign, people printed out a PDF of the Olympus PEN digital camera, held it to a webcam and saw animated demonstrations of the camera’s features, as if the camera — not a piece of paper — was in their hands.
Although a new and unproven application, augmented reality, if it plays out, could add tremendous innovation to your direct mail campaigns.
5. Let people “check in.”
The media world is abuzz that Pepsi let TV viewers check into its TV commercial — and win a free Diet Pepsi — using the new IntoNow app. (See the Ad Age article, “On TV Now: Watch an Ad, Get a Free Pepsi,” for details on how this works.)
Although relatively new, “checking in” has reached the tipping point. All kinds of companies here in the Denver area, including banks, let customers check in via Foursquare. And of course, you can let your friends know where you are with Facebook’s Places feature.
If people can check into TV commercials, why not your direct mail piece? You can easily encourage people to use Foursquare or Facebook Places in your direct mail. Going even further, you could find a way to literally let people check into your direct mail campaign — the same way Pepsi let people check into its TV commercial.
As with augmented reality, this tactic is sophisticated and requires some real research and planning. But the implications for direct mail are huge and bear watching.
As you can see, adding some of social media’s creativity and innovation to direct mail is fairly easy, and you don’t have to worry about displacing proven formats and formulas. Adding “Like” buttons, calls-to-action and QR codes can potentially increase engagement with your brand as consumers connect with you online.
If you test these ideas, let me know your results. I’d love to feature your campaign here on the Heinrich Report blog.