Business mail continues to play an important role in building and maintaining customer relationships in the digital age. Though email and social media are ubiquitous, physical mail still offers unique benefits for connecting with customers and prospects, which is why many businesses still use it to send out direct mailings and important documents such as contracts and legal letters.
Personal Touch of Physical Mail
Receiving a professionally printed, high-quality piece of mail feels more personal and noteworthy than an email. The recipient knows the business made an effort and invested resources. Holding and reviewing a physical mail piece leads to longer engagement than glancing at an email. The tangible mail piece can be saved, displayed, shared, and returned to, while emails are easily deleted and forgotten.
Building Trust and Credibility
A customer receiving personalized mail feels valued by the business. Physical mail conveys trust and stability. Unlike digital channels which can feel cold, business mail creates a warm, human connection. The look and feel of quality stationery or packaging projects an air of credibility and class. Following up with physical mail after an online purchase helps build brand loyalty.
Standing Out from Digital Noise
Customers are bombarded with digital communications every day. Business mail offers a way to cut through the noise, capture attention, and convey importance. Recipients are more likely to open and read physical mail versus ignore another digital message. The novelty of receiving personal mail makes customers feel special and appreciated.
Generating Recipient Response
Thoughtfully designed mail encourages desired actions like visiting a website, making a purchase, or scheduling an appointment. Tactile mail pieces allow inclusion of compelling materials like samples, coupons, promotions, and response devices. Mail facilitates two-way dialogue through response cards, surveys, and prepaid return envelopes.
Services like Certified Mail Label tracking give senders visibility into the delivery journey and recipient engagement. Tracking confirms when the mail piece enters the mail stream, reaches key transit points, gets delivered, or gets returned. This data helps assess delivery speeds, identify bottlenecks, and optimize send times. Tracking shows if recipients opened the mail or interacted with response elements, indicating engagement. These insights help gauge campaign effectiveness and guide creation of future mail pieces to improve results. Mail tracking brings accountability and metrics to an otherwise opaque process.
Reinforcing and Unifying Other Media
Business mail strengthens overall marketing strategy and brand identity when coordinated with digital and other channels. A unified visual style across direct mail, website, email, and social media extends brand recognition. Mail campaigns can drive traffic to digital platforms through QR codes and short URLs. Digital ads and social media posts can build interest leading up to the mail delivery.
Analytics and Continual Optimization
Companies should track response rates, redemption of offers, and overall return on investment of mail campaigns. Testing different formats, offers, and target segments informs future efforts. Personalization with variable data helps tailor messages to customers. Ongoing analysis and refinement are key to continual optimization.
Despite the digital age, business mail retains unique advantages for humanizing communication, building trust, creating dialogue, and strengthening customer relationships. Pairing physical mail with digital initiatives and continually optimizing based on data will drive engagement and business success.
