Top 5 Direct Marketing Trends in 2016

If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you’ll know that direct marketing is far from dead. It can be combined with your digital marketing campaign to promote your product, and is robust enough to stand on its own and lead your company into a new era of success. That said, just because it’s a tried and tested form of promotion, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a constant need to innovate. Check out the latest direct marketing trends in 2016.

Top 5 Direct Mail Trends

1. Engage the Senses

One of the most basic decisions you’ll have to make when you’re planning your promotional campaign is what kind of paper you’d like to have the design printed on. It can be tempting to try cut back on costs here. After all, so long as it looks good, that’s all that matters, right? Wrong. If there’s one thing we’ll say again and again in our direct marketing trends 2016 guide, it’s that getting your head above the crowd matters. A person’s touch is one of their most refined senses, so when you pick a paper stock that feels different to all the other envelopes, your potential customers are going to notice.

2. Multiplatform Promotion

As a creative agency, design is our passion. We love being able to make finely crafted designs to promote all kinds of products. But we’ll never be short on examples in direct marketing trends that point to just how powerful digital can be. People are constantly glued to screens, whether it be their televisions or their phones. However, we have never believed that print is in competition with the digital format, and one of the biggest direct marketing trends in 2016 only continues to prove us right. Use your print campaign to funnel people to your digital material. You can do this with vouchers and QR codes, and reap the benefit of having grabbed their attention with print.

3. Surprise Them

Sometimes the best way to get noticed is to do something totally unexpected. Often, when a person receives a direct marketing letter, they give it a quick scan to see whether they’re being asked to sign up for anything and if they should throw it away. Take this mundane moment in their day to surprise them. A simple letter with a friendly message could make your brand linger in memory a lot longer than a standard 25% discount voucher.

4. Hit Your Target with Direct Marketing Trends

As ever, targeting your prospective customers is one of the biggest ongoing direct marketing trends, and as technology continues to make this more of a science, you’re able to get more and more precise with who exactly you’re aiming your promotion at. This both reduces costs and assures that you’ll get a healthy response to your campaign.

5. Go Big or Go Home

The most important thing you need to do with your mail campaign is get noticed. People don’t get as many letters as they used to, so you have that advantage, but what they do get is often your direct competition and you need to do everything you can to stand out from the crowd. One of the simplest ways to do this is to increase the size of your campaign – literally! When it comes to direct marketing trends for 2016, size matters. Yes, you have to make sure the design can fit in the average person’s letterbox, but when you talk to the direct marketing services team at Stray Dog, you’ll be amazed at the creative fold out options there are to get around this obstacle. Find out more about these direct marketing trends when you get in touch today!