Key Drivers of Direct Mail Success: Artificial Intelligence

Let’s do a Direct Mail reality check:

Not only is Direct Mail not going away, it’s stronger than ever, pulling a higher response rate than any digital marketing medium. Its response rate ranges from about five to nine times greater than that of email, paid search, or social media. In 2018, the direct mail response rate for house lists was an incredible 9%. At the same time, the prospect list response rate was 4.9%, blowing the doors off most other campaigns. (ANA/DMA Response Rate Report 2018)

At a time when marketers are surrounded by so many ultimately-disappointing new promises, numbers like these get C-level attention. In addition, Direct Mail delivers these kinds of numbers despite carrying the weight of antiquated processes that put a dent in ROI. What if that could be fixed? This is where digital transformation has emerged to streamline and optimize the Direct Mail process, using one of its crown jewels: Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence removes the obstacles that limit what Direct Marketers can accomplish with their Direct Mail channel and transforms the way they plan, execute and optimize Direct Marketing programs.

Using digital technology that features Artificial Intelligence, Direct Marketing organizations can streamline processes, implement highly personalized campaigns, and capture and analyze real-time data. To make this happen for your organization, consider these three key points:

Artificial Intelligence Platforms: Identifying Opportunity with Unified Data

Direct Mail teams have traditionally been limited to looking at past data and spending months trying to understand what worked and why. While they are stuck manually combing through spreadsheets and reports to find and interpret trends, Artificial Intelligence platforms can easily identify themes and trends across massive data sets, letting marketers incorporate them into targeted campaigns in real-time and reach their target audience in the most relevant way.

According to Forrester and EverString, brands that use predictive analytics are 2.9x more likely to report revenue growth, 2.1x more likely to be leaders in their industries, and 1.8x more likely to consistently exceed goals when tracking marketing’s contribution.

In one survey, 88% of CMOs reported that they did not have access to unified customer data across transactional, social and marketing data. And, nearly 65% of marketers admit that silos make it difficult to have a clear view of initiatives and campaigns. (RedPoint Global)

Not only can Artificial Intelligence knock down these walls to gather a comprehensive view, AI can identify and action key campaign data in minutes, not months.

Artificial Intelligence: Game-Changing Abilities

With the help of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence, Direct Mail teams can now:

• Cut to the Chase by merging multiple data sets into one campaign-ready file.
  
  

• Get Smart Fast by identifying campaigns, creative offers and messaging that drive top-line results that can be delivered on-demand moving forward.
  
  

• Act on Insights by gathering learned intelligence from each campaign launch and using that insight to make future interactions much more powerful and revenue-producing.
  
  

• Get Personal by deploying relevant, personalized Direct Mail without increasing time-to-market or distracting teams with proofing, data reviews and quality control.
  
  

• Get Complex, as AI lets marketers add complex personalization to campaigns without worrying about downstream quality control/proofing complications with vendors.
  
  
• Save Time because AI Proofing significantly reduces the labor associated with Direct Mail proofing. Marketers can version content based on any piece of data that has been historically associated with campaigns. AI then takes over to generate previews in minutes vs. hours or days.

Artificial Intelligence: What the Experts Say

“Early investment in the technologies that power machine learning and Artificial Intelligence will offer marketers the chance to test on smaller groups, to use the insight from those early tests to pivot where necessary and continue to grow where it makes sense, and to progress steadily down the road towards full and powerful AI implementations that can offer not just high-level information but personalized, contextualized results — for themselves and for the customers they’re connecting with.” — Jason Cottrell, CEO, Myplanet

 “Artificial intelligence has many applications throughout marketing automation. The most common today are helping to select personalized messages for individual customers and prospects. We are seeing AI used to select the best timing for messages and the best channels, again on an individual basis. This points to a movement away from conventional campaigns, where the marketer decides at the start to select a group of people who meet specified criteria, to a journey management approach where the system will assess the current stage of each customer and automatically send messages appropriate to that stage. This will free the marketer from much laborious campaign design and instead allow her to focus on creating better offers and products to optimize long-term customer value." — David Raab, Raab Associates, Marketing Technology and Analytics Expert

Direct Marketers don’t need an expert to tell them that traditional Direct Mail processes are hanging them up in too many ways. They are learning fast that there is a quicker, more cost-efficient way to obtain powerful Direct Mail results — digital transformation and the power of Artificial Intelligence.

Interested in leveraging the impact of Artificial Intelligence to streamline Direct Marketing operations and improve Direct Mail results? Submit a Request for Consultation and a KleerMail Solutions Specialist will contact you.