As a marketer, you’re an expert in the customer journey. You know what message to send, how and when to send it, and how your message will affect your brand’s bottom line. You’re used to getting your message across via email, and for good reason -- it works! Emails are highly customizable, can be triggered by specific actions taken by each customer, and are cost effective. You can easily test, optimize, and analyze results. And yet, even the most well thought out email campaigns aren’t driving conversions the way they used to.
You might be surprised to learn that incorporating direct mail into your mix can greatly improve your marketing metrics and it’s similar to manage in more ways than one to what you already know: email.
If you’re currently using email to run a retargeting campaign, trigger messages based on CRM and lifecycle workflows, or send one-off campaigns, you’ll be glad to know you can build similar direct mail campaigns to supplement your email efforts on the Poplar platform.
Poplar allows you to integrate directly with our API or with your CRM or ESP to trigger a mailer based on workflows you already have set up. You can even send a mailer to potential customers who have only given you an email address using Poplar’s Address Enrichment feature. By passing Poplar a list of customer emails, the platform will match the email addresses to a physical location and send a direct mail piece, with a match rate of up to 70%.
If you’ve seen success with one-time batch email sends, upload the customer segment(s) of your choice to the platform and schedule a bulk send. You can promote store or product launches, big sales, and any other initiative you can think of (or click here for some use case inspiration)!
HTML designs similar to what you use for email can be uploaded into the platform, allowing you to send personalized mailers with customer-specific information.
Include each recipient’s first name, birthday, nearest store location, or any other data point you have access to.
You can even pull in different images or design elements for each mailer depending on your customer’s preferences or past purchases.
Poplar was designed to look and act like the digital platforms you’re already familiar with, with many of the same features you use when designing email campaigns.
If you want to find out which format, postage speed, content, or images drive responses, run an A/B test and let the data tell you what works best! If you’re interested in prospecting, use Poplar’s lookalike modeling feature to find new customers who share traits and purchasing behavior with current customers. You’re also able to target customers who live close to your stores, or suppress those who live in areas your company doesn’t serve.
Once your mailers have been delivered and your tests have been run, pass or upload transactional data into the platform to get detailed attribution reporting and see how your campaign performed. You have the option to set a holdout (control group) to measure the incremental impact your mailers had on customers.
Poplar has straight-forward pricing, with no SaaS fees, startup fees, or surprise costs. You can also set a daily or weekly budget to make sure you don’t send more triggered mailers than you’ve budgeted for, and you’ll always be prompted to approve the cost of batch mailings before hitting “send”. Bottom line is you have control over how much you spend.
According to Campaign Monitor, the average person receives 121 emails every day, which can cause anyone to feel overwhelmed. They’re more likely than ever to unsubscribe from your email list even if your brand is one of their favorites. As a result, email marketing campaign response rates have fallen to an average of .12%. By contrast, customers don’t mind receiving physical mail -- 77% of people will sort through it as soon as they get it. Email marketing has become oversaturated, and email campaigns just aren’t as effective as they used to be.
If you’re familiar with email, you’re familiar with direct mail marketing. Email and direct mail share similar use cases, are highly customizable, testable, and cost effective. Poplar’s self-serve platform will enable you to quickly and easily send mailers to new and existing customers, and they might actually be excited to receive your piece in the mail!
Want to learn more about direct mail use cases with Poplar? Check out some of our most popular use cases here. You’ll also find case studies that show the incremental impact direct mail campaigns can have on your bottom line.
