When you think of omnichannel marketing, you often think of consistent messaging and connected touch points across all your digital channels.
In this article, we'll share five omnichannel marketing examples that prove just how critical direct mail is in an omnichannel strategy. Read on to discover how these five companies increased retention, compliance, and more — after using direct mail alongside digital channels.
CPH is an insurance company that provides malpractice and professional liability insurance for small events and mental health practitioners.
The company handles most of its operations online, from policy issuance to rate calculations, but it also has a unique need for direct mail communications. As a managing general underwriter (MGU), CPH is obligated to let policyholders choose their correspondence channel — and many opt for direct mail. Beyond staying compliant, CPH also needs direct mail to encourage renewals.
“We’ve decided not to go completely electronic, as having a multi-channel engagement strategy increases our retention rates,” says Ameet Shahani, CPH’s Director of Technology. "For example, some people will take that postcard and hold onto it until they are ready to renew...And everybody has enough email.”
The problem: sending reminder notices via direct mail to CPH’s 130,000 customers took the work of three full-time employees, which drastically slowed down the company’s workflows. To take advantage of direct mail, CPH needed to scale its process with an automated platform.
After partnering with Lob, CPH was able to ramp up its direct mailing operations. The company was able to reduce its lead time on its campaigns by as much as 98% — turning a two-week turnaround into a less-than-one-hour event. By speeding up the direct mail process, CPH is now in a better position to retain customers.
Resistbot is an intelligent message router, a service that autonomously takes the text messages sent to it, transcribes them into physical letters, and mails them to politicians to create change.
The organization relies on a number of digital channels — including its app, Instagram account, and blog — to generate interest in its service. But ultimately, the critical outlet in Resistbot’s omnichannel strategy is direct mail.
Why? Because it’s how Resistbot reaches government officials. Politicians receive hundreds — if not thousands — of emails, phone calls, and social media messages every day. Direct mail is a less common channel, so letters are more likely to stand out to politicians — helping Resistbot users get their message across.
To send so much direct mail, Resistbot uses Lob’s Print & Mail API. Thanks to our automation platform, Resistbot can handle huge spikes in messages. For example, the nonprofit was able to send 100,000 letters to a single Texas politician after the official unplugged his fax machines. And in 2018, Lob helped Resistbot send 10,000 voter registration forms.
Realeflow is an integrated SaaS marketing platform built specifically for real estate investors. Its users rely on the platform to use digital marketing channels, like building search-optimized websites and email marketing. But historically, direct mail is one of the best channels for real estate investors to generate leads.
Realeflow offered direct mail marketing campaign features, but they weren’t fully developed. It took the company a considerable amount of time to design, copyedit, and send mail to printers. Typically, Realeflow users couldn’t gauge the effectiveness of their mail campaigns for two to three weeks.
The company integrated its tool with Lob, so its users could easily use Realeflow’s direct mail features for prospecting and acquisitions. Realeflow users could now use a library of direct mail templates, choose from a variety of letter sizes, upload large sets of images, and even connect with the company’s developers for assistance.
After expanding Realeflow’s direct mail features, the company saw a significant boost in product usage. There was a 200% increase in accounts using Realeflow’s Direct Mail tool and a 300% increase in created direct mail campaigns on the platform.
The business intelligence and data analytics company MeridianLink, formerly Saylent, provides financial companies with first-party customer data to help them reach their audiences.
MeridianLink’s clients use digital channels to connect with their customers, but they rely on direct mail to maintain regulatory compliance. However, MeridianLink struggled with manually creating direct mail campaigns for its clients. Its customer experience team spent six weeks per quarter handling direct mail for 250 to 300 clients. If a campaign needed any regulatory adjustment, the edit would add days or weeks to the process.
The company partnered with Lob and reduced the majority of their manual direct mail work. MeridianLink’s team can now automatically collect and execute clients’ direct mail campaigns. And if any last-minute edits are needed, its team can quickly edit Lob’s templates and send the campaign out for review.
Thanks to MeridianLink’s partnership with Lob, the company’s clients can now rely on direct mail as a fast, straightforward channel for maintaining compliance.
“Lob created a more efficient process with more flexibility and saves everyone time and resources,” says Laura Costello, MeridianLink’s Product Marketing Director.
These four companies didn’t just adopt direct mail to bolster their omnichannel strategy. They also took advantage of an automation platform to reduce the manual work that typically comes with direct mail.
Follow the example of these companies by investing in direct mail automation. Wondering where to begin? Start a free trial of Lob today.
