7 Direct Mail Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign

Like the combination of digital channels in use today, there once was a time when direct mail was the primary advertising channel for many small and mid-sized companies. Companies would move to new channels in an effort to stand out. Today, we find that the opposite is true. With everyone using digital channels to get in front of their target audiences, more companies small and large alike, are turning toward direct mail in an effort to stand out from their competition and capture attention from their target market with creative campaigns.

In this article, we’ll go over innovative direct mail examples and the results they were able to deliver to the companies that launched them. Being able to grab a prospect’s attention with a creative mailer that touches on their most important needs is a difficult but extremely lucrative endeavor. The companies that we touch on in this article did a great job of thinking outside of the box and using the channel to their own benefit.

Before you begin your next campaign, take a look at these direct mail examples for inspiration:

WorkFront Target’s the Competition’s Customers

WorkFront (@workfront) is a management software company that recently launched a very innovative direct mail campaign that produced huge results for the company. The idea first came to their marketing team after a competitor of the company announced that it would no longer be investing in their competing product and would simply allow it to exist as-is. They issued a press release stating that they would no longer support the software and were exploring opportunities to sell the business software side of their business.

WorkFront jumped at the opportunity. They started by using a telemarketing company to find users of the competitor’s product. During this stage, they asked a series of questions about what the users liked and disliked about the product and then used that information to tailor the messaging in their direct mail campaign.

Eventually, the marketing team landed on messaging surrounding the customer’s inevitable “break up” with the competitor’s product. They send a bouquet of flowers to all of the top 500 prospects that they were able to identify through their research, along with a handwritten card that included a personalized URL. They also sent more than 1,500 Valentine’s cards to the prospects’ work, directing them toward the personalized landing page.

The response was amazing. The campaign was able to generate more than 465 responses, seven qualified sales opportunities, and more than $370,000 in new business for the company.

RCI Uses Personalization to Grow Their User Base

RCI Financial Services (@RCIBS) is a partner finance company of huge brands like Renault, Nissan, and Infiniti. They rolled out a recent direct mail campaign in an effort to grow their number of online users. They had recently rolled out an online portal that contained valuable information like FAQs and wanted to ensure that their customers were using the solution to their advantage.

RCI enlisted the help of an integrated marketing agency named JJ Marketing. The goal was to help give their existing customers a clear understanding of what the online portal was and why activating their online account would be to their benefit.

JJ Marketing and RCI worked together to design an eye-popping four-page brochure that was sent directly to the customers. They pulled a lot of customer data to include deep personalization including things like customer name, where they lived, and the make of their vehicle. The brochure directed customers to the online portal and explained how it could be of help to them.

The campaign was a huge success. It was sent to more than 70,000 of the company’s existing customers and achieved a click-through-rate of 9.51%. In total, the company was able to activate nearly 7,000 new users.

Tetra Pack Wins Customers By Showing Off Their Packaging

Another great example of an innovative direct mail campaign comes from Tetra Pack (@tetrapak), a food packaging company that is responsible for the packaging on some of the world’s largest beverage brands. They were able to identify a simple but effective way to show customers how great their packaging could look if they opted to work with them — by directly mailing their new packaging to prospects.

The company wanted to show off their new carton packaging for beverages, known as their Prisma Aspetic line. The line featured cartons that allows companies to print packaging on the complete surface of the outside of the carton, giving companies the ability to easily upgrade their packaging to something new and eye-catching. Check out these amazing direct mail examples.

The campaign was a huge success and generated a 53% response rate for the company, resulting in hundreds of thousands in new business. The simple tactic of mailing their new packaging directly to prospects proved to be a great way to raise awareness.

O2’s Digital Dave Hologram Wows Recipients

O2 (@O2) had a problem. Their customers were frustrated because many felt like they didn’t have a single consistent point of contact within their organization whenever they had questions, feedback, or complaints. With their average revenue per user declining, the company needed a new campaign that would awe their customers and get them back on the right track.

They started by identifying the top 50 key accounts that they wanted to improve relationships with. They created personalized messages for each of those accounts in an effort to open up conversations with and secure more sales meetings.

This is where things get creative — O2 created a personalized digital hologram adviser known as “Digital Dave” to catch their attention and kick off those conversations. They sent a package to those 50 accounts that included a box that produced a hologram that spoke directly to prospects and delivered the case for switching providers.

Prospects and customers raved about the mailing. The entire process took a total of 17 weeks and the company was able to generate 13 sales meetings that resulted in more than $2 million in total sales.

NetNames Wins Big With MultiChannel Approach

As far as direct mail examples go, NetNames (@NetNamesDomains) sets a great example that all companies should follow.  Here at Vintory, we are big advocates of making direct mail a piece of a broader multichannel approach to marketing. NetNames employed that approach in a recent direct mail campaign as well. The company made waves by sending out a mailer that promoted their ability to “unmask” cybercriminals. Their tagline for the campaign was “Search. Find. Stop.”

NetNames worked with an agency to deliver an integrated direct mail campaign that personalized content for each of the prospects the campaign was delivered to. The campaign interacted with customers through multiple channels including social media, micro site content, and, of course, the direct mail campaign that drove the strategy.

They launched a two-tiered approach. For lower value clients, they delivered an interactive lenticular postcard with animation that delivered the companies message along with personalization for the recipient, industry, and company that was receiving the message. High-value targets received a plush box that contained a personalized art gadget that dealt directly with the threat of cybercrime.

In total, the campaign was able to generate more than 72 new meetings for the company and generated million in new revenue.

Direct Mail Examples & Inspiration

The direct mail examples in this article are excellent examples of thinking outside the box and maximizing direct mail as a marketing channel. Use the examples in this article for inspiration, and consider how you could launch your own direct mail campaigns that deliver similar results.

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