If you haven’t started, now is the time to plan this year’s effective marketing strategy. Will direct mail marketing automation make the cut?
Many marketers will surely focus on personalized social, paid media and email efforts this year. But while robust online marketing campaigns are increasingly important, you can overcome digital shortcomings with direct mail automation. Consumers can easily miss, ignore and delete emails, but they must interact in some way with the mail sent to their homes.
Direct mail campaigns continue to outperform email, even in the era of highly targeted digital marketing channels. According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), direct mail campaigns generate 10 percent more customers than email, despite the growing popularity of automated online promotions.
Pro tip: Automation can be also applied to direct mail marketing campaigns, though. In fact, it is a highly popular trend. And if you’ve decided to use automation in your direct mail marketing efforts, your next step is to carefully consider the automation software on the market in order to choose the most suitable direct direct mail automation vendor.
With direct mail automation you will be able to integrate lists from your CRM, design your mail pieces, personalize and print your direct mail and ship – all in a couple of clicks. A good direct mail automation provider, like Inkit, will also provide a 24/7 customer support advising on best strategy to achieve your specific marketing campaign goals, as well as integrations with the most popular CRMs.
In this post, we look at five ways you can enhance your marketing campaigns and marketing automation with direct mail this year.
1. Combine existing email marketing campaigns with direct mail automation.
Syncing automated email with direct mail is one of the easiest ways to increase an existing marketing campaign’s response rate. In general, direct mail campaigns have a much higher open rate than email, and DMA reports customers spend an average of 25 percent more when companies send a mix of email and direct mail.
Rest assured you don’t need to have a huge mailing list to send a marketing postcard anymore. Inkit’s software makes it easy for you to automatically mail postcards in small batches and even individually as consumers reach triggers in your digital campaigns.
Inkit is integrated with Hubspot, Sailthru, Iterable and rip, allowing you to send targeted mailers straight from those platforms. If you use another automation platform, simply upload your list to send a postcard through Inkit. Reach and retain your customers across all marketing channels, and segment your target audiences based on demographics or customer data to reach more customers.

Pro tip: Review your existing marketing campaigns and add direct mail automation where you need to overcome low email open rates or “banner blindness.”
2. Test your postcard automation campaigns and pivot.
With the advances in marketing automation, you have no excuse to let data guide your decision-making both online and offline. Adding a piece of direct mail to automated campaigns gives you powerful data points.
Do you have a seemingly well-designed marketing campaign that just isn’t getting results? Run an a/b test by sending out the same offer via different types of direct mail to see whether the redemption rate goes up. With direct mail’s higher open rates, the response should improve as long as the targeting and the offer are solid.
Another way to test your mailers is to send different versions to different segments of your target list, collect data, and pivot quickly. Compare different postcard designs, offers, and segments, and identify the ones that yield the best results. With direct mail A/B testing, though, you’ll have to create randomized test groups in advance. Learn how to run additional direct mail tests here.
Pro tip: Before you run the test, think about the response rate you’re hoping to see for your direct mail marketing campaign. Then, you’ll have an easy benchmark for success when it’s time to add up the results.