While email inboxes are clogged with promotions that are easily ignored, smart marketers resort to direct mail strategies – a marketing strategy that has always been around but not always used to its fullest.
Direct mail has proven to be more effective in capturing attention. Just imagine your potential customer taking their mail and looking at each letter or brochure received. Touching the leaflet and reading through it creates a powerful experience that isn’t easily erased like an email. Direct mail is memorable, tangible, and effective when executed properly.
Additionally, direct mail is a versatile strategy, benefiting all niches alike, especially the healthcare industry. The US healthcare system is rapidly expanding, leading to an increase in budget for the year 2023. Thus, the competition is growing, making it tough to be seen and heard. This has become one of the main reasons for marketers to invest in direct mail for healthcare and medical practices.
Keep reading to discover other fruitful benefits you can achieve with direct mail.
A direct mail strategy is based on sending physical mail to a target audience. Physical mail can be in the form of a letter, brochure, leaflet, catalog, postcard, flyer, and more. This type of paper mail contains brief information about your company and an ad promoting your store, product, or service.
Direct mail marketing resembles email marketing, where you send a message - tangible items, in this case - directly to the potential customer and encourage them to interact with it.
Integrating direct mail in the healthcare industry has been tested and improved over the past years. Although traditional, the strategy excels in the industry, allowing healthcare providers to approach marketing in a highly personal and appealing manner.
In a highly competitive and heavily regulated market like healthcare, enormous efforts are required to earn the trust of prospects, not to mention the time needed to turn them into loyal customers. However, this doesn’t mean there aren’t any effective strategies that can overcome such challenges. Some of them just take longer to yield results. Fortunately, this is not the case with direct marketing.
A powerful direct mail healthcare campaign is capable of capturing attention by sending targeted messages. With the help of direct marketing, healthcare providers can target their audience accurately and generate high ROI fast.
To support this claim, have a look at the statistics:
Let’s look past statistics and discuss more reasons why it is time to integrate direct mail into your healthcare campaign.
One of the biggest mistakes healthcare companies make is to deem direct marketing as an outdated strategy that is not worth exploring. Their loss can easily become the card up your sleeve.
When a potential buyer receives a hundred emails daily and only ten by post, naturally, most of the unopened emails will be sent to the trash while physical mail will be carefully investigated one by one.
Your medical practice has a higher chance of conveying the marketing message by post rather than by email.
The advantage of direct mail over email is that leaflets and brochures can be touched. The tangible aspect of mail helps recipients process the information faster.
As an extra bonus, if you create an attractive offer or a mouth-watering menu, your potential buyers are likely to pin the mail to the board and stick it to the fridge.
Direct mail healthcare marketing isn’t as old-fashioned as some think. On the contrary, your audience can easily connect with you using PURLs (personal links), one-time-use codes, or QR codes.
Direct healthcare mail goes hand-in-hand with technology, allowing you to reach people in the target area and encourage them to interact with you through the internet.
By integrating your direct mail, you launch a campaign that isn’t limited to one channel but entails both traditional and modern practices.
Taradel is here to assist you in automation and tracking. Automation will help you to lower the workload that has already crossed the limit. You can use our interactive map to narrow the area of a neighborhood and order a handful of printed materials to be distributed around.
As for tracking, Taradel equips you with an intuitive tool. You won’t have to worry about any paperwork or running to the post office. All the data you will need will be available to you in the Taradel’s interface.
You can set a detailed targeted search when launching a campaign on any social media platform, be it Facebook or Instagram. The same can be said about direct mail campaigns. Sending brochures to the whole neighborhood won’t yield the desired result unless you take a data-driven approach.
Your business may skyrocket faster than you anticipate with direct marketing. At Taradel, you can design attractive brochures or postcards to send to your target leads. And you don’t need to pay for anything: the stock photos are free of charge, and our platform is available to all Taradel clients.
Soon after you launch your direct mail healthcare campaign, the benefits will not take long to be noticed.
Phishing and data breaches have tainted the reputation of digital ads. Consumers sometimes approach email advertisements with suspicion in fear of sharing private information that could be used against them.
Printed ads, on the other hand, are considered to have more value. Therefore, leads are more prone to trust direct mail than email ads. There are no links to click, and no information has to be shared. Consumers decide for themselves whether to give the service a try whenever they want.
This approach to marketing can be a suitable one for healthcare providers as they’re obliged to protect patients’ information at all costs.
One study done by Marketing Sherpa shows that 82% of Americans trust printed ads over email advertisements. So, if you haven’t incorporated direct mail into your campaign, it’s high time you did it.
Email marketing is aimed at thousands of people, but only a small percentage of them respond positively. Direct mailing is more inclusive, targeting only those people who fit your narrow criteria.
Taradel helps you identify your target audience with an interactive map. You start by setting a budget you are willing to invest in and then continue with filtering your search.
Some factors that will determine your target audience are:
You will end up with a map and a summary of how many mailboxes can be reached. If there is an area that you think is worth adding, you can do so by clicking on the map.
Thanks to Taradel, you can save money and time by targeting potential customers that are relevant to your practice.
As you may know, older generations may struggle with modern technology, especially when it comes to receiving emails and booking a doctor’s visit online.
A direct mail healthcare campaign is the means that is effective across ages. Your postcard may contain a QR code or a PURL for the younger generation while keeping the address and phone number for less tech-savvy people.
People aged 18-24 claim they prefer paper-based communication over email. This can be caused by overflowing emails full of advertisements. In fact, 59% of Millennials say the information received via direct mail has more value to them compared to digital ads.
It’s easier to sell a healthcare product or service when meeting face-to-face with a client. However, the clients’ journeys often start at home when they receive an ad. The way you present your offer and company will be reflected in the clients’ further actions and their perception of you.
Direct mail assists many healthcare professionals in adding physical pain points and supporting contactless communication with their clients and new leads. The more your customers receive promotional materials from you, the more interest they will accumulate to use the offer eventually.
As you manage your campaign, you will be tracking the progress of how many new clients you’ve gained, calls received, and emails sent to you. You will notice that some leads need more encouragement to try your services. And that’s alright because the direct mail strategy exploits a technique called triggered mail.
Similarly to email, where a customer is given a discount, you can personalize the offer to a number of leads with a discount, free-of-charge service, or consultation with a physician. Triggered mail prompts potential customers to take action.
What’s more, triggered mail can be used as a follow-up or a reminder about the appointment. You can effortlessly integrate this strategy with any CRM system to automate the process.
If you are looking for ways to launch your direct mail marketing campaign, Taradel has established a proven way to skyrocket your healthcare business. Your medical practice can use secure, effective, and affordable ways of reaching a target audience. Moreover, you can integrate traditional and digital marketing to reap the most benefits.