Once upon a time, direct mail went something like this: Create a single marketing message, slap it on a postcard with your business’s phone number, and send it to as many addresses as the budget allows. Then wait and see if you get a bump in calls. Those are probably conversions, right?
The good news is, it’s 2015. We’ve learned a lot about marketing in the twenty-first century, thanks in large part to the explosion of online tools. Now Lob is bringing that same innovation to direct mail. The trackability of email. The A/B testing of banner ads. The easy setup of social media. You can get it all with print.
In other words, if you’re still sending direct mail the old way—stop! Get more out of your investment with high-tech upgrades to this classic format:
OLD SCHOOL: Print minimum: hundreds (if you're willing to pay a premium for small runs, that is).
NEW SCHOOL: Print one or one million—it's your campaign! Instantly send us your job, on demand. There's no monthly fee or volume commitment. Or, with Lob’s reserve pricing, enjoy savings based on what you print per month or year, regardless of individual job size.
OLD SCHOOL: It’s the end of the month—time to pull lists and send out those welcome letters/thank you postcards/etc.
NEW SCHOOL: If someone signs up on the first, do you want to wait more than a month to welcome them? Lob’s API allows for total automation, so you can trigger physical mail based on user actions, events, or anniversaries. Customers don’t come in batches, and now you don’t have to treat them like they do.
OLD SCHOOL: Take your best guess about what will pique customers’ interest, then hope you’re right. Want to try multiple versions? You'll have to send the printer a new file for each one.
NEW SCHOOL: When it comes to customization, the sky’s the limit. Craft content that will captivate—you can even personalize it for each recipient (see also: no print minimums!). Just create a single HTML/CSS template, and we'll generate multiple versions in no time.
Realtors, show your neighbors the latest home you sold on their block. Peer-to-peer lenders, send a personal letter to customers who register and then promptly drop out of the funnel. With Lob, you can also easily include distinct offer codes or URLs on every piece you send, maximizing tracking opportunities.
OLD SCHOOL: One headline. One CTA. Zero insight.
NEW SCHOOL: You wouldn’t send out an email without A/B testing subject lines—and you don’t need to send print mail untested, either. Send as many versions of your job as you’d like. With HTML/CSS templates, it's fast and easy to create tests. And Lob’s API lets you make changes to your creative instantly, so you can apply what you learn in real time.
OLD SCHOOL: Build your CSV file, clean it up, upload it to the FTP, and, after dozens of calls and emails to your third-party vendors, you should be ready to go.
NEW SCHOOL: Lob’s cutting-edge API technology quickly integrates with any internal application. Set it up once, and you’re ready to manage all your jobs in-house. Simply send us a template and an address, and we’ll take care of printing and mailing on demand.
OLD SCHOOL: The job’s at the printer. That should put it in mailboxes…soonish?
NEW SCHOOL: This is your investment; you should know where it stands. With Lob’s intelligent mail tracking, you can follow each piece through the mailstream so you’ll know when it lands (and better understand your customer’s response).
The bottom line is that, done right, direct mail offers personalization that even the newest formats can’t. But you don’t have to give up the benefits of twenty-first-century marketing technology to get it. After all, Lob is the brainchild of a team of engineers. Do you think we’d be this excited about mail if we couldn’t measure it, iterate it, and make a data-driven case for sending it?
