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B2B Direct Mail

Despite the explosive growth of the Web and concerns about increasing postal rates, direct mail is still the centerpiece of most direct response campaigns.

Direct mail (get USPS stat) is a highly personal and flexible medium that is used by 77 percent of U.S. companies.1 Direct mail offers a number of functions that other media are hard-pressed to deliver such as tangibility, versatile formats and personalization opportunities. When employed as part of an integrated campaign, particularly in conjunction online strategies, its ability to heighten response is unsurpassed.

Mail is also the preferred medium when communications with top level executives. According the United States Post Office, 75% of business executives read mail as soon as it received and 65% strongly feel that letters are important when conducting business. Yet a major challenge for marketers targeting these executives is the presence of gatekeepers whose job is to screen out irrelevant contacts.

The choice between a standard direct mail package and a less expensive self-mailer depends upon the marketer’s budget and goals.

As a general rule, the direct mail package will generate a higher gross response. However, the lift in response may not be enough to pay for the additional postage and production costs. In scenarios where there is concern about the ratio of sales made to dollars spent, the self-mailer might be a more economical choice.

The classic direct mail package includes four elements: outer envelope, sales letter, brochure and a reply device.

Marketers enjoy considerable freedom and control over the dimensions, materials and components of a direct mail package. The format selected for any direct mail sales presentation, like the marketing strategy itself, should be based on what is known about the target market, the company’s image, competitive offerings and the marketing budget.

Just as the function of the direct mail offer is to overcome inertia, the job of a direct mail format is to stimulate action on the part of the prospect.

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Integrated B2B Marketing: Selecting the MArketing Media: Merchandise Catalogs

Merchandise Catalogs

Catalogs have long been a staple of business-to-business marketing, particularly in broad selections of repeat-purchase, low-margin product categories such as office and maintenance supplies.

Due to the high investment costs required to print and ship a sizable catalog, a trend is to move catalogs to the Web in the form of e-catalogs.

Regardless of this trend toward e-catalogs, marketers can take advantage of both print and online catalogs through paid participation in other companies’ catalogs. This cooperative marketing tactic takes the form of bind-ins or blow-ins for print catalogs and graphical ads placed adjacent to e-catalogs.

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Integrated B2B Media: Email and Internet Marketing

E-mail and Internet Marketing

The use of e-mail and Internet marketing have grown significantly within B2B markets and are expected to continue to grow in terms of budget share and influence.

New, innovative and interactive media options now include media-rich email, keyword ads delivered via search engine marketing, geographically targeted ads, contextual ads targeted by Web page content, behaviorally targeted ads, Flash ads and streaming audio/video ads.

E-mail marketing is still the most popular form of inline marketing because of its immediacy, measurability and targeting capabilities, but security and privacy concerns and combined with its perception as spam and competitive clutter has had an impact on response rates.

Internet ads targeting business markets tend to deliver significantly higher click through and lead generation rates than in consumer markets. In general this can be attributed to the business and industry specific portals like business.com which offer narrower and vertically targeted audiences to advertisers.

When it comes to search engine marketing via keywords, the precise targeting afforded by technical terms and industry specific jargon coupled with the comparatively low demand for these search terms makes Internet ads a strong media option. Furthermore, the geographic targeting now available for many online ads formats makes Internet advertising a viable option for many B2B Marketers with a regional focus.

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Integrated B2B Marketing: Selecting the Marketing Media: Direct Mail

Direct Mail

Direct mail including solo packages, flat and dimensional mail is a highly versatile medium for business-to-business marketing.

It can be employed as a single-shot mailing, lead generator or follow up vehicle with practically limitless variations in terms of size, shape and composition (as long as it complies with postal regulations).

It can be highly targeted and deliver customized messages, offers and samples to individual recipients. With no real space or length limitations it can easily accommodate detailed product and technical information when needed.

On the downside, producing a direct mail can be expensive and requires more preparation time than other print media. Unique to direct mail in the business-to-business context, there are several gatekeepers the mail package must pass through before it reaches the intended recipient, notably corporate mailrooms and administrative assistants.
And the package arrival date is not exactly known. Also unknown are other competitive direct mail packages which could arrive at the prospect’s inbox at the same time.

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Integrated B2B Marketing: Selecting the Marketing Media: Direct Response Print Advertising

Magazines, including both general business publications and trade journals, afford marketers the benefits of a longer shelf life, high rate of pass-along readership and a variety of ad sizes and positions.

Trade magazines provide sharper focus on a particular industry or segment; with some being so specialized they have a circulation of only a few thousand.

On the downside, both general business publications and trade journals require a rather long lead time with closing dates up to two months prior to publication and it can be difficult to control the position of an ad outside one of the four cover positions. And the longer shelf life of magazines also lengthens the response curve making it difficult to quickly assess response.

The subscriber lists of trade publications also provide a database of highly desirable targeted prospects. They are distributed by complimentary controlled circulation, requiring potential recipients to qualify for the publication by supplying information such as industry, job title, line of business, size of firm and decision-making authority. It is these subscriber lists that are rented for integrated direct mail promotions. (Ads allow you to reach pass along reader not on subscriber list.)

Two cost-effective ways of using subscriber lists without bearing the full production and postage expense associated with a solo mailing are cards decks and co-op mailings. Publication sponsored card decks are essentially a stack of 30 to 100 business-reply postcards, each carrying a separate product offering and mailed in a plastic wrapper. A note from the publication typically introduces the enclosed product and service offers as specially selected for subscribers of that publication.

Co-op mailings combine two non-competitive offers in a direct mail package targeting the same subscriber list. Costs for the participating marketers are offset by sharing the cost of the list, production and postage.

Other related magazine options, often used in conjunction with space ads, include bingo cards, bind-ins, blow-ins and ride-alongs.

Bingo cars or reader response cards are business reply cards included in many publications allowing the reader to request more information from specific advertisers appearing in that publication by circling a number corresponding to the advertisement.

Bind-ins are postage-paid reader response cards printed on heavy stock and positioned adjacent to the ad causing the magazine to break open to the page containing the advertisement. Because of the physical advantages and additional response mechanism afforded by bind-in cards, they can produce up to three times the response of an ad alone.

Blow-ins are postage-paid response cards that are literally blown loosely and randomly into the magazine and can utilized with or without a corresponding space ad appearing the publication.

Ride-alongs take a variety of forms but are essentially independently produced marketing pieces such as brochures, flyers or small product samples that are polybagged on top of the publication itself.

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