Special Delivery

Why direct mail is more important than ever for your marketing strategy.

BY RICK HYNUM

Everyone loves a special offer on a pizza. You don’t need PMQ to tell you that. But, with inflation driving up prices and whittling away at discretionary income, consumers today are hungrier than ever for a good deal. And Bluedot’s September 2022 “State of What Feeds Us” report found that 43% of consumers these days are checking their mail for restaurant coupons and similar offers—their snail-mail, that is.

“As effective as online marketing can be, the fact remains that it can be a very crowded space with a constant stream of ads that are competing, most of which you don’t stop to see as you scroll by,” says Josh Davis, chief revenue officer for Mail Shark, headquartered in Mohnton, Pennsylvania. “The mailbox is much less cluttered and guarantees that your prospect sees your marketing. You must look at your mail to decide whether to keep it or not, which guarantees your ad is seen by the intended prospect, providing the highest read rate of any marketing channel.”

“There is absolutely a place for direct mail as part of any marketing campaign for any business, particularly pizza,” Steve Heaney, president of Minuteman Press in Toledo, Ohio, told PMQ back in 2020. “Direct mail is a hunting trap—you are trying to get to a very particular demographic.”

Davis notes that direct mail is “hypertargeted to the exact neighborhoods you want to penetrate. Social media can be hyper-targeted as well. The difference is, not everyone is online to see your advertisements. Direct mail ensures that you touch the exact prospects you’re targeting.”

That doesn’t mean you should abandon digital marketing. On the contrary, Davis says. “Direct mail is a great way to convert prospective customers to go online. With a strong call to action—to order online, download an app or join a loyalty plan with some incentive—it’s a great way to get consumers to act and go online while allowing you to capture customer data, giving you the ability to remarket to those customers again.”

Choosing Your Piece

What’s the most effective direct mail piece? Start with a 10.5”-by-17” tri-fold menu, Davis recommends. “With this large format, you get more marketing space than almost any other direct mail piece. It gives you ample space to really tell your restaurant’s story with menu items, pictures, etc., and show your customers exactly what you have to offer.”

Davis points to other strong performers, like postcard magnets— they’ll automatically go on the customer’s fridge—and scratch-off postcards that give the recipient a chance to win something. “For example, one of the most popular is ‘Scratch to win free pizza for a year!’ There is typically one grand-prize winner, and the rest are given some type of discount or special offer that makes them feel like they have won something. You