Of course, classic advertising mail is sometimes quickly discarded from the mailbox. But the individual customer approach and graphic design often have their appeal. That's why print mailings with clever eye-catching offers are readily opened.
My drugstore manages to do it time and again: I pick up its conveniently perforable 10-percent vouchers – from a direct mail piece that is not addressed. And I use them, because I really enjoy shopping at this store, as it's right around the corner from me. While I leave digital traces in the drugstore at most when I pay by card, my favorite online wine merchant should probably know me, because as a result of my planned and impulse purchases on the Internet, he has registered my ordering behavior – over years.
Twice a year, the wine merchant sends out a small stapled coupon booklet in DIN-long format with special offers. However, before I buy anything (which is always the case for me with other Internet suppliers as well), I pay attention to a lot of things in advance. Will I really be sure that I can save something? Is the offer only about mass or quantity? When applying the voucher, are special offers already marked in the webshop out of the question? What is the minimum order value? Is there a nice give-away in addition? When do I have to redeem the coupon? Even a discount coupon must offer a certain degree of honesty and transparency. I'm sure my personal opinion is the same as that of most consumers.
Generate sustainable sales
By means of the "CMC Print Mailing Study 2022", the
Collaborative Marketing Club in cooperation with
Deutsche Post analyzed the influence of coupons on the conversion rate of printed advertising mail. This refers to the ratio of the number of (face-to-face or online) customer visits and the orders and sales achieved in the retail store or web store. According to the study, print mailings to existing customers of online stores have a convincing average conversion rate of 4.7 percent this year.
Every second order triggered by classic advertising letters is received by the web store five weeks or more after they have been sent. Central repositories for sales letters (with coupons, for example) such as bulletin boards have their advantages. E-commerce providers succeed in increasing shopping cart sales by an average of 6.4 percent with print mailings to existing customers. If online stores enclose a recommendation voucher with their sales letter, such vouchers are often shared with family and friends and 15 percent of them are used. In purely mathematical terms, every euro spent on a printed sales letter would generate sales of 7.34 euros, explain CMC and Deutsche Post.
Retaining (regular) customers for the long term
Vouchers reinforce the effect of print mailings: however, percentage vouchers generate an average 23 percent higher conversion rate than euro vouchers. In addition to customer selection, the success aspect is the monetary value of the voucher. According to the study, the increase in the conversion rate between the lowest and highest vouchers used in the test was +61 percent on average.
Today, print mailings to existing customers create a special effect, as they reach customers shortly after their last purchase and activate them to make the next purchase. Very good customers also play a major role. Compared to first-time buyers of printed advertising mailings, this group has a conversion rate that is up to three times higher.
Ultimately, the principle applies: the more frequently a customer triggers an order, the greater the effect of activating print mailings.
Your
Frank Baier
Editor-in-Chief "Bindereport"