Let’s face it: daily life looks much different today than it did 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. Amidst the constant noise of buzzing smartphones, social media feeds, and endless apps, your dealership is tasked with cutting through the clamor and grabbing your audience’s attention.
Well, automotive direct mail marketing helps your team skip the spam box and get your message directly into the hands of your prospective buyers. Beyond that, though, it serves as a springboard for lasting customer relationships and brand authority.
Need some more proof as to why the direct mail market is going to be booming? The automotive marketing experts at Aspen Automotive are here to show you. Let’s get started!
Direct Mail Offers High ROI
The more tangible an advertisement is, the more impact it has on its recipients. In fact, the increased tangibility and personalization that automotive direct mail offers are main reasons why this marketing technique provides high returns on investment (ROIs).
To put that into perspective, direct mail marketing earns a 29 percent median ROI, making it the third-highest ranking marketing technique in regard to ROI.1 Ultimately, a higher return on investment indicates that direct mail is one of the most profitable forms of advertising in today’s modern world.
Direct Mail Is Rare
In a world where everything is digital, physical communication leaves an indelible mark on its recipients. Why does it make such an impact?
Well, when the average person sees anywhere between 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements in one day, customers are bound to absorb and remember only a fraction of what they see.2 That’s why it’s crucial that your dealership stands out from the crowd with a more unique approach: direct mail.
Direct mail’s rarity and novelty alone make it an attention-grabbing marketing method, but combined with its physical presence, it stands as a more memorable way of connecting with your targeted audience.
Not only does it appeal to your buyers’ senses, but it also elicits emotion more effectively than its digital counterparts. In fact, direct mail can elicit nostalgia. It can make the recipient think of friends and family sending letters and postcards in the mail over the years.
Direct mail also gives you the opportunity to evoke even more emotion by personalizing the mail to the recipient. Simply sending a handwritten note, handwriting the envelope, or adding your signature to the mailer goes a long way in eliciting emotion.
As a result, your consumers will remember your brand when it’s time for them to purchase a new car.
Direct Mail Is Creative
Creating a direct mail campaign gives you the freedom to send just about anything. Thanks to its creative flexibility, you could send anything from a postcard or letter to a 3D interactive mailer. If you wanted, you could even send branded materials—like a keychain to match their new set of car keys—for an even more unique approach.
Direct mail also allows you to customize every aspect of the mail. You can choose the font size and design, color options, and much more, giving you complete creative freedom when it comes to direct mail.
For a truly creative campaign, factor in the five senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. Direct mail can include some or all of these senses, which is something that can’t be said about digital marketing.
Play around with the type of paper the mailer is sent on, change up the texture of the font, or add a new-car-smell air freshener to the mailer. These seemingly small details go a long way with direct mail.
Direct Mail Is Flexible
Just because you’re running a direct mail campaign, it doesn’t mean you can’t play around with digital features too. In fact, direct mail is extremely flexible and works well with digital features, such as email, websites, and more.
A perfect example of this is quick response (QR) codes.
QR codes are a way for the recipient to use the camera of their smartphone to gain more information from a postcard they received. To us, QR codes look like a mishmash of random black lines and boxes, but to your phone, it looks like a visual representation of a URL, camera filter, and much more.
Your dealership can add a QR code to your mailer that directs them to a page on your website that correlates to your mailer. For example, if your mailer talks about the new vehicles that just arrived, the QR code could link directly to your new vehicle inventory—or it could go to a unique landing page known as a personal URL (PURL).
These pages are usually personalized for each viewer and contain information like their name, vehicle make and model, and maintenance plan. In adding a QR code, you’re sharing more information about your dealership and services without having to upgrade your postage size.
Plus, QR codes and PURLs are extremely trackable. You can see how many mailers you sent out and compare that to the number of times the QR code or PURL was accessed. This information can later be used to fine-tune your direct mail campaign for greater success down the road.
Direct Mail Gets Response
Of all the different ways to connect with your dealership’s targeted audience, direct mail gets the highest response rate, totaling a 5.1 percent household response rate.1
Furthermore, that number greatly outperforms the response rates of other marketing mediums, including a 0.6 percent email response rate, 0.6 percent paid search response rate, and 0.4 percent social media response rate.1
By encouraging more consumers to respond to your advertisements—whether they’re opting into an upcoming promotion or subscribing to your newsletter—you improve the chances that they’ll eventually make a purchase from your dealership.
Direct Mail Is Accessible to All Ages
Despite the millennial generation’s tendency to favor digital content over print content, direct mail still makes a significant impact. According to the United States Postal Service, 62 percent of millennials read the advertising mail that they receive instead of discarding it.3
Thanks to the time they spend absorbing your dealership’s message, you can trust that your direct mail campaign is spurring younger audiences into action.
Alternatively, it’s important to keep in mind that about 59 percent of senior citizens don’t have access to the internet, which renders your digital advertising efforts ineffective for a large portion of that particular audience.4
By incorporating direct mail into your dealership’s advertising efforts, you’ll be sure to reach potential buyers of different demographics, no matter what their information consumption habits may be.
Direct Mail Is Always Evolving
Everything changes, even how direct mail is distributed and delivered. Because of its flexibility, direct mail is always evolving to best complement daily life. For starters, Informed Delivery is a newer digital feature that lets users get a preview of their mail before it arrives in their mailbox.
This is a great feature, especially for time-sensitive materials. Say you have a limited-time sale on select vehicles or services. Recipients who use Informed Delivery can view this information at the start of the day and take advantage of this sale sooner than others.
It’s also great for individuals who aren’t home. They can view the information for your sale and take advantage of any online offers, even when they’re in another state!
Another evolving direct mail to consider for your next campaign is triggered direct mail.
This type of direct mail is an automatic response to an event, like someone clicking your dealership’s pre-approval form. When this occurs, a request for personalized direct mail is sent to that individual in little to no time.
So, using the example of clicking on your pre-approval application, a piece of mail with congratulations and their pre-approved interest rate is sent to the recipient. Likewise, if they click to learn more about a vehicle in your inventory, this could trigger a piece of direct mail that includes vehicle information, pre-approved financing information, and similar models to encourage them to buy.
Thanks to these ever-evolving features, you can always keep your direct mail campaign current.
Find Out Why the Direct Mail Market Is Going to Be Booming in Chicago, IL Today!
At Aspen Automotive, we have our finger on the pulse of the direct mail industry and all the ways it can get more buyers into your showroom.
So, if you’re curious to know more about why the direct mail market is going to be booming and how it can help your dealership reach its sales goals, it’s time for you to get in touch with us.
Reach your targeted audience and nurture your leads by giving us a call or sending us an email today!
