Direct mail is here to give digital marketing a run for its money. But to really get the most out of it, your data needs to be on point.
The success of your campaigns hinges on clean and accurate data. Think about it. If you’re wasting money sending artfully bespoke mail to the wrong recipient, or reaching people outside of your target audience because you haven’t got a handle on their preferences or profile, you’re not going to see any meaningful ROI.
On the flip side, accurate and reliable data allows you to really understand your customers, make data-driven decisions, and ensure that your marketing campaigns deliver on ROI.
Let’s take a look at why multichannel marketing is big news for modern businesses, and how data profiling and segmentation can help you to see more bang for your buck.
The Resurgence of Direct Mail in a Digital World
In an age dominated by digital marketing, direct mail might seem like a relic of the past. Yet savvy marketers are rediscovering the power of print – particularly when it’s combined with the precision of data-driven strategies.
While many younger digital marketers (especially young Millennials) may not be versed in the use of direct mail for their marketing campaigns, the medium is far from old-fashioned. In fact, print marketing is making a real comeback as an effective, sophisticated, and highly targeted marketing channel – fuelled by the growing problem of digital overload.
The sheer volume of online ads, emails, and social media posts can be overwhelming, leading to the very real phenomenon of digital fatigue. Surprisingly, it’s the younger generations—Millennials and Gen Z—who are showing a preference for physical mail. A study by the Royal Mail found that 65% of 18-24 year olds are likely to give mail their full attention, compared to 35% who said the same about email.
So, how do you make mail work for you?
Direct Mail: Data-Driven and Highly Targeted
Contrary to the belief that direct mail is an outdated, one-size-fits-all approach, modern direct mail is incredibly sophisticated. Just like digital campaigns, direct mail can be data-driven, allowing for precise targeting and tracking.
According to the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), response rates for direct mail are significantly higher than for digital channels, with a response rate of 9%, compared to 1% for email and 0.6% for social media. This is largely due to mail’s ability to tailor messages to specific segments – ensuring the right message reaches the right person at the right time.
If your data is clean, that is.
What is Data Cleansing and What Are the Benefits?
One of the most in-demand services we offer at KPM is data cleansing. Or, the process of identifying and correcting inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and errors within a dataset.
Common issues like duplicate entries, outdated addresses, and incomplete information can waste resources and reduce the effectiveness of your campaign. By cleansing your data, you improve the accuracy of your targeting, reduce costs, and enhance your ROI. In fact, a study from Experian found that 75% of businesses who improved their data quality actually exceeded their annual objectives.
What is Data Profiling and What Are the Benefits?
Data profiling (another service in high demand at KPM) goes beyond cleansing to analyse the structure, content, and relationships within your data. This allows you to build detailed customer profiles based on behaviours, preferences, and demographics. By understanding who your customers are and what they want, you can create highly targeted direct mail campaigns that resonate with people on a personal level.
Data profiling also enables the creation of lookalike audiences, similar to those used in digital marketing platforms like Facebook. By identifying the characteristics of your best customers, you can effortlessly target others who share similar traits – expanding your reach and improving your chances of success.
Data Security and GDPR Compliance
Clean data ensures compliance with data protection regulations, reducing the risk of fines and reputational damage. But before you get started with data profiling, you need to be certain you’re not breaching GDPR.
As with any marketing activity involving personal data, security and compliance are critical. When conducting data profiling and segmentation for direct mail, it’s essential to ensure your processes are fully compliant with UK GDPR. This means obtaining explicit consent from individuals before processing their data, providing clear and transparent information about how their data will be used, and implementing robust security measures to protect that data from breaches.
You should also regularly audit your data processing activities to ensure ongoing compliance. This not only protects your business but also builds trust with your customers, who are increasingly concerned about how their data is being used.
If that all sounds like a lot of hard work, why not trust your data to the experts?
Keeping Your Data Safe, Clean, and Actionable
There is a very clear line between good, relevant data that’s profiled against existing records, and direct mail success.
As print and mail specialists, secure data processes are at the very heart of our business; that’s why we go above and beyond the demands of GDPR. As holders of the GDPR Management Standard from QG, we have strict permissions-based access, deliver extensive staff training, and are proudly ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 accredited.
Our expert team can help you with all areas of data processing, cleansing and management, including:
- Data capture
- Data cleansing, including duplicates, deceased and gone aways
- Profiling
- Address validating
- Data quality evaluating
- Mail sorting
- Customer segmentation
And with access to over 35 million people across 18 million UK households, your data profiling needs couldn’t be in safer hands.
Need more guidance? Talk to our data profiling experts. Get in touch to speak to our team.
Book a Free Data Health Check
Discover how effective your mailing data is with our free report and recommendations. You’ll gain insights into the quality of your data and see how much of your data is healthy. Plus, we’ll include recommendations for improvement and next steps.
To book your Free Data Health Check please fill in the form: Contact Us
