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A Brief History of Direct Mail

Think back to the days before the internet was around. How did you learn about a product release or see the latest fashion trends from your favorite store? You read about it in a catalog or newsletter. This is direct mail marketing.

Direct mail marketing consists of sending a physical letter or piece of mailer directly to the recipient. This type of marketing is used to drive sales, provide updates, and increase brand awareness.

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Why Direct Mail Still Works

In simplest terms, direct mail works because of the lack of competition when it comes to recipients seeing your mailers. Many other businesses have abandoned their direct mail strategy for digital marketing, making it difficult to be noticed in the noisy digital world.

That’s because it’s estimated that individuals receive over 100 emails and view more than 60 ads each day. Compare this to the approximately two pieces of mail per day that individuals receive, and it’s clear that direct mail works because of less competition.

In addition to less competition, direct mail works because of its tangible, interactive capabilities. Not only will your recipients physically interact with your mailers, but this mail is also a constant reminder of your dealership. This is because it takes up space in their home. This constant reminder of your dealership helps you see results.

According to the U.S. Postal Service, direct mailers generate 57 percent of campaign responses, with emails lagging at only 6.2 percent.

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Direct Mail vs Digital Marketing: Direct Mail in a Digital Era

With the spur of the digital era in recent years, you may be wondering how direct mail still works as a marketing strategy compared to social media and other digital forms of marketing. With individuals spending an estimated 6 hours and 42 minutes online per day, why not turn your strategy to where the people are going?

The reason is because there are many things that direct mail can do that are nearly impossible with digital marketing. Just a few of the direct mail-exclusive capabilities include:

• It elicits emotion: Getting a letter in the mail is like time traveling to simpler times. It makes people remember the good old days. Due to the nostalgic feeling direct mail provides, an estimated 73 percent of people said they prefer direct mail over other types of marketing.
• It’s highly creative: When creating a direct mail campaign, the creative possibilities are seemingly endless. With the option to send anything from a postcard to a three-dimensional mailer, the possibilities are sky high.
• It uses senses: If done properly, direct mail can include all five senses. Digital marketing, on the other hand, can only use up to two senses: sight and hearing.

There are many reasons direct mail marketing prevails in the digital world, thanks to its exclusive capabilities. Now, let’s take a closer look at direct mail and examples of automotive mailers that still work!

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Effective Direct Mailers: Things to Consider

The purpose of direct mail is to create brand awareness, provide information, and to have an overall effective marketing campaign. In order to do that, you need to grab the attention of your recipients. In order to do so, you’ll want to utilize the help of professional designers who are experts in color theory and design techniques.

Did you know that 84.7 percent of buyers say that color is what draws them to an object?

This means you’ll want to take full advantage of color theory when sending information to your clients. Here are some colors and ways they can influence your client’s mood and/or beliefs:

• Red: Encourages appetite and creates a sense of urgency, excitement, or passion
• Orange/Yellow: Increases cheerfulness and is often used to encourage impulse buys
• Green: Associated with health and wealth while balancing body and brain to lead to decisiveness
• Black: Oftentimes associated with power and authority

After choosing your main color, look to the color wheel to build an appealing contrast. Some of the most frequently used types of contrast include monochromatic, complementary, and triple color scheme. Choosing the right contrast or color scheme is just as important as your main color, as each type of color scheme induces different feelings.

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Direct Mail Finance Programs

When it comes to purchasing a vehicle, financing is top-of-mind for most buyers. By providing your audience with direct mailers that outline your dealership’s lease and finance programs, you’ll tap into leads that are looking for a special offer on their next vehicle.

Thanks to the incentive included in your advertisement, your potential and existing customers will learn more about the ever-changing deals your automotive business provides, which increases the likelihood of them visiting your dealership.

Plus, our loan and finance direct mailers use real-time credit score data to target your recipients based on the credit score you’re looking to pursue. From there, you can use our Autoproval tool to send Pre-Qualified Auto Loan offers.

In addition to targeting based on credit score, you can also send direct mail based on the recipient’s loan amount. Using the Lease/Loan Enders tool, you’ll receive information on the percentage of loan remaining, how many months are left in the loan, and more.

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The Best of Both Worlds: Direct Mail & Digital Marketing with Personal URLs

These days, adding a personal touch to your direct mailers is crucial to the overall success of your marketing strategy. That’s why Personal URLs (PURLs) have earned a place on our list of automotive mailers that still work.

PURLs are a form of direct mail that includes a specific URL—often including their name—that directs them to their own specific landing page. This personalized link grabs the attention of the recipient and then strikes their curiosity.

So, why are personal URLs so effective? Using PURLs are a great way to blend direct mail and digital marketing into one effective plan. Plus, the recipient is more likely to participate because of their piqued attention and curiosity.

So, regardless of if you’re providing your audience with more information on their car’s maintenance needs or presenting them with an opportunity to send feedback to your team, PURLs are a great way to encourage your customers to take action.

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Direct Mail Booklets

Think about it: when you receive a large piece of mail, you’re more likely to flip through it to see what’s contained inside. Well, booklet-style automotive mailers continue to provide dealerships with solid ROIs (returns on investment) for that very reason.

For the most part, model release information and booklets attract the eye with flashy graphics and bold photography, thereby encouraging the reader to flip through the pages.

Not only does this type of direct mail motivate buyers to visit your dealership, but it also presents them with a sneak peek at the models found in your showroom. As a result, the odds of your targeted audience visiting your dealership drastically improve.

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Direct Mail Interactive Mailers

Above all else, it’s essential to design an automotive direct mailer that engages as many of your customers’ senses as possible.

In fact, the tangibility of direct mail leaves a more significant impact on our brains, especially when combined with features that encourage your targeted audience to interact with your advertisement.

According to a study performed by Millward Brown and Bangor University, “Tangible materials leave a deeper footprint in the brain… This suggests that physical material is more ‘real’ to the brain. It has a meaning, and a place. It is better connected to memory because it engages with its spatial memory networks.”¹

With these results in mind, it follows that adding interactive components to direct mailers can only increase the positive effects this medium has on your audience’s brains.

Plus, modern advancements allow for more in-depth interactive features, like virtual and augmented reality. For instance, scannable QR codes open a gateway of capabilities for your dealership to tap into.

All your customers would need to do is scan the code with their smartphone or tablet and enjoy a virtual tour or another form of augmented reality.

As a result of your dealership’s efforts to produce interactive direct mailers, you’ll see improved buyer engagement and more positive feedback to your automotive marketing campaigns.

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3D Objects/Free Merchandise

Let’s face it: Every customer loves a free gift, and this just so happens to be a proven automotive marketing tactic as well. What could possibly be more exciting for your consumers than receiving a free keychain, bumper sticker, or some other type of gift from your dealership?

Not only does this make your brand memorable for your buyers, but it also gives them a reason to look forward to receiving other advertisements from you. From calendars or pens to product samples and more, mailers with 3D objects and useful promotional items are more likely to hold your customers’ attentions for a longer period of time.

Due to your campaign’s attention-grabbing abilities, the chances of your leads taking action on your dealership’s offer increase tenfold. All in all, automotive mailers that include free merchandise and 3D objects still work by keeping your brand at the top of your customers’ minds.

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Make Receiving Direct Mail an Experience: Using Your Senses

We experience the world through our senses. Give your target audience an experience they’ll never forget by adding as many of the five senses—sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste—to your direct mail campaign as possible. Here are some ways you can incorporate senses into your campaigns!

Sight

Get the most out of your marketing campaign by utilizing bright colors, changing up the size of your mailer, using cut-outs, and experimenting with fold-out or pop-up mailers. All of these are sure to excite the recipient.

Sound

Blasting tunes and singing out of key are some of the best times spent inside a car. Use a scannable QR code to create a custom playlist for a car in your inventory. This gives the recipient something fun to listen to on their way home from the dealership. This highly unique idea is sure to help you stand out.

Smell

There’s nothing quite like a new-car smell. Bottle it up and send it to recipients in the form of a car freshener. Not only will this use a sense that’s highly underused in marketing, but it might remind them how nice that smell is and encourage them to buy a new car.

Touch

One of the benefits to direct mail is that it forces interaction. Experiment with paper types and font textures to mix up the feeling of your mailer. You can also include something extra that the recipient can touch, like a keychain for their new car keys or a mini version of a vehicle in your inventory.

Taste

What’s better than enjoying ice cream on a hot summer’s day? Snacks and road trips go hand-in-hand, right? Elicit the sense of taste by incorporating food into your direct mail marketing campaign.

Perhaps a family SUV in your inventory comes with stain-resistant or easy-clean material. Maybe your off-roading SUV has plenty of room for coolers of snacks. Use the sense of taste to show the recipient the food-filled options a vehicle offers.

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Direct Mail Service Promotions

Keeping your customers informed about programs and specials they care about is part of what turns leads into lifelong patrons.

Luckily, direct mailers that feature information about your service promotions help your audience stay updated on all the benefits of shopping at your dealership.

Plus, advertising these service specials using direct mailer techniques like POP cards makes your offer stand out from the other items in your customers’ mailboxes.

With the dramatic presentation of your service promotion POP cards, your ideal client is more likely to remember your company when it’s time for them to visit an automotive service center.

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¹https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58ee4bac414fb53d228c3532/t/5d30cff8e172f9000121e612/1563480057602/MillwardBrown_CaseStudy_Neuroscience.pdf