Direct Mail Marketing: The Revenue Stream Your Agency Has Been Missing

Despite suffering a setback during the pandemic, statistics show that advertising and marketing agencies in the U.S. still saw a 13.5% increase in revenues in 2021 compared to the previous year.

But, with a thriving market comes increased competition, and to continue bringing in new customers and growing revenue, agencies need to diversify their portfolio and add more services. 

One such service is direct mail marketing, which brings a Return On Interest (ROI) of 112% across all mediums. The best part? Many agencies have missed this revenue stream, so you could be among the first to capitalize on this space.

As a leading direct mail automation platform, we’ll discuss different revenue streams and why you should focus on diversification.

Types of revenue streams

There are two types of revenue streams: operating revenues (revenue from the sale of goods and services) and non-operating revenues (revenue from unrelated core business objectives like interest accrued on bank accounts or rent on a building).

For agencies, the top five revenue streams are:

1. Revenue from goods sales and services

Often referred to as service or sales revenue, this is the core operating revenue stream for any agency, and it comes from the core activities that an agency runs. For example, a digital marketing firm’s revenue from goods sales and services would come from SEO contracts, ebook or whitepaper sales, PPC contracts, etc.

2. Revenue from advertising

This can be a varying revenue stream from one-time or frequent campaigns crafted to meet the client’s goal. It’s important to note that this stream relies on the search and promotion of the campaign as well as the inclusion of paid ad returns.

3. Revenue from projects

You may offer services for different projects, and each project will have a different fee depending on the client’s requests. This revenue stream benefits both agencies and customers as there is a lot of flexibility and customization.

4. Revenue from inbound marketing

You can generate revenue from leads that discover your brand through various inbound marketing initiatives. For example, leads that subscribe to your services through your blog or clients that opt for an additional buy like your ebook or a whitepaper.

5. Revenue from partnerships

With partnerships that help you provide more services to your clients, you can generate significant revenue. For example, you could partner with an agency that provides different services than yours. Combined together, you could offer a complete package to your clients.

Why are diversified revenue streams important?

All agencies want one thing: growth in revenue every year.

It helps agencies determine the health of their business and allows them to invest in additional resources to deliver better services to their clients.

One way to maintain this growth is by diversifying your revenue streams. Focusing on a single stream may work in the short term, but you might suffer a drop in revenue if it staggers.

Depending on your customer’s needs and reviews, you can choose the revenue streams you can diversify.

What is your agency missing to boost its revenue?

While most of the above services are offered by marketing agencies, there is one revenue stream that will become highly competitive in the future.

Direct Mail for Additional Agency Revenue

Direct mail involves sending physical correspondence like postcards, letters, and catalogs to your customers or prospects to generate a response or encourage them to act.

With 71% of consumers stating that direct mail feels more personal than online digital communication, combining direct mail services with your existing services can help you cut through the noise and offer better results to your clients.

You can simplify the direct mail process by introducing Postalytics white label direct mail automation service in your tool stack.

Here’s how Rise Marketing has implemented this service for its clients.

And here’s why white-labeling direct mail automation software can increase revenue at your agency:

• Diversify service offerings: Offering direct mail marketing services alongside your existing digital services allows your agency to cater to a wider range of client needs, expanding your target market and attracting new clients.
• Personalized customer experience: Direct mail is perceived as more personal than digital communication. By using Postalytics white-label software to automate and customize direct mail campaigns, agencies can deliver highly targeted and personalized experiences, resulting in improved client satisfaction and increased customer retention.
• Higher ROI for clients: Direct mail campaigns have proven to generate higher response rates and ROI compared to digital marketing channels. By integrating Postalytics software, agencies can help clients achieve better results, which in turn leads to increased client retention and recommendations, boosting overall revenue.
• Streamlined operations: Postalytics automation simplifies the direct mail process, reducing the time and resources required to manage campaigns. This efficiency allows agencies to handle more clients and campaigns, increasing productivity and revenue.
• Upselling and cross-selling opportunities: White-labeling Postalytics software enables agencies to bundle direct mail marketing with other services, creating attractive packages for clients. This can lead to upselling existing clients or attracting new ones with comprehensive marketing solutions.
• Competitive advantage: Adopting direct mail marketing and automation using Postalytics sets your agency apart from competitors who only focus on digital marketing. This differentiation can help you win new clients and retain existing ones.

By incorporating direct mail marketing and automation with white-labeling Postalytics software, agencies can diversify their service offerings, deliver better results to clients, and ultimately increase revenue. 

This approach allows agencies to combine the personal touch of direct mail with the efficiency of automation, creating a powerful marketing strategy that drives success for both the agency and its clients.

Whitelabel Knowledge Base for Direct Mail Marketing

A white-label knowledge base is a customizable and brandable version of a software provider’s knowledge base. It allows agencies to provide their clients with a comprehensive library of support articles, tutorials, and FAQs tailored to the agency’s branding without any reference to the original software provider. This helps create a seamless and professional experience for the clients.

Agencies can increase revenue and benefit from using a white-label knowledge base in several ways:

• Enhanced brand image: By providing a consistent and branded user experience, the agency appears more professional and competent, strengthening its reputation and potentially attracting more clients.
• Increased client satisfaction: Clients have access to a comprehensive library of support materials that are tailored to their specific needs, resulting in improved satisfaction and trust in the agency.
• Reduced support burden: With a white-label knowledge base, agencies can minimize the time and resources spent on customer support, as clients can find answers to their questions through self-service. This enables the agency to focus on other high-value tasks and services.
• Upselling opportunities: Offering a branded knowledge base can be used as a value-added service or part of a premium package, providing an opportunity to upsell existing clients or attract new ones with a higher-tier offering.
• Improved client retention: A well-maintained and branded knowledge base can lead to better client satisfaction and loyalty, reducing the likelihood of them seeking services elsewhere.

By implementing a white-label knowledge base, agencies can enhance their brand image, streamline customer support, and ultimately boost revenue by attracting and retaining more clients.

Please check the full breakdown of the Agency White Label Knowledgebase and how to leverage it to boost your agency’s revenue. 

Other marketing agency revenue streams

When it comes to agencies, there are seven common revenue streams from marketing strategies that you can capitalize on to boost revenue and retain clients.

1.  Social media marketing

Businesses can’t overlook social media. It is a great way to reach customers, engage with them, and nurture them for future conversions.

As a marketing agency, you can provide social media advertising and marketing services to your clients and generate revenue. You can offer channel-specific services, social media strategy planning, account creation and branding, social content creation, content publishing, research and analysis, and consultations.

You can even create branded exclusive content around social media and cross-sell these ebooks and tutorials to your clients.

2.  Brand development and services

To create strong brand associations and recall, businesses must focus on brand development.

With the brand development vertical in your agency, you’ll have to undertake activities like defining brand objectives, brand goals, brand value, brand differentiators, brand proposition, outlining the look, feel, language, and tone for a cohesive brand identity, etc.

You’ll have to hire experts who have created brands or assisted people who have done the work. Your team must also specialize in competitor research and strategy to offer services that bring in a sizable revenue for the agency.

3.  Full-service digital marketing

Many marketing agencies offer full-service digital marketing services to their clients. They portray themselves as a one-stop destination for all marketing campaigns.

These services include SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Click ads), email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, website design & development, video marketing, conversion optimization, etc. You can even create packages or have customizations that offer a combination of these services so businesses can select those they require. 

If you have just started, it’d be a good idea to start gradually and keep adding services as you recruit more experts and gain more experience.

4.  Marketing automation

Marketing automation has become quite popular today as it helps teams cut down on manual tasks.

You can automate many client activities and workflows, from lead management and email automation to social media automation. You’ll also have to use marketing automation tools to finish work quickly and easily. These tools also help discover the areas of your client’s marketing workflows where automation can be applied.

This field will get more interesting and popular in the days to come as businesses are constantly looking for ways to reduce manual work and engage their personnel in activities that actually matter. 

5.  Website design and development

Ever heard of the quote, “First impression is the last impression”?

This couldn’t be any more true for businesses in the digital age. A poorly functioning or badly designed website can limit conversions and lead valuable prospects away from competitors.

Adding website design and development to your services list can bring more clients and increase revenue for your agency. You can offer many services like building responsive designs, creating blueprints, UI and UX design, etc.

6.  Paid search marketing

Paid search marketing helps businesses get on the first SERP (Search Engine Results Page) by paying a certain amount. As it often brings immediate results, it’s a go-to marketing strategy for many businesses.

The most common form of these advertisements is Google ads. These services often include social ads like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram to target certain audiences.

For paid search marketing, you’ll also need keyword experts and SEO experts to understand the client’s requirements and how they can build ads with relevant keywords and content that draw targeted leads that can be easily converted.

7.  Organic search engine optimization

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is how you help businesses rank on the top SERPs for relevant keywords. This is one of the most important revenue streams for many traditional marketing agencies.

The various SEO activities involved are keyword research & strategy, link-building, technical SEO, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, local SEO, CRO, content writing, etc. You can even combine these services to offer a full-service SEO plan to your clients.

You may even offer an SEO audit service that helps businesses know where they stand and how your services can help them scale. 

Final Thoughts

Agencies need to leverage the power of different revenue streams to keep growing.

While marketing agencies already offer SEO and content services, direct mail marketing can be a powerful differentiator and an additional revenue source that you can implement with your current services.

With the different features and tools in Postalytics, you can automate many direct mail tasks to save time and deploy campaigns within a few days.

Get started with the free trial today!