How to Leverage CRM for Effective Direct Mail Automation

If you’ve ever felt lost in the crowd, confounded by the impersonal messages arriving in your postal mailbox that seem to ignore your unique needs and behaviors, you are not alone.

This is a common phenomenon in traditional mass media communications where marketers treat everyone alike. Though plenty of companies continue with this dated direct mail approach, the one-size-fits-all method is no longer effective–or necessary.

With the right tools, marketers can produce direct mail that connects personally with customers and prospects. You can associate your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system with modern, automated direct mail and send messages tailored to match your customer’s specific wants and actions. 

Marketers can set up auto-generated, perfectly timed postal mail based on unique customer actions like product interactions, shopping cart abandonments, milestone birthdays, or nearly anything you track to distinguish one customer from another.

Table of Contents

• Use That Data!
• Triggered Mail or Bulk Personalization?
• CRM Data Drives Multi-Channel Personalization
• Digital to Physical – And Back
• Morphing Direct Mail from Broad-Spectrum to Laser-Focused
• Cost Effectiveness of CRM Personalization
• Connect Your CRM Now

Use That Data!

The CRM is your company’s compass, accurately leading you to your customer’s needs, interests, and timelines. Why not use it to inform your direct mail outreach efforts?

With the vast amounts of customer data at your fingertips through a CRM, your direct mail speaks directly to your customers’ individual needs and circumstances. This connection can be a powerful advantage. Heightened personalization ensures customers don’t see your communications as just another piece of bulk mail but as a message crafted specifically for them. 

You can act upon any customer data to trigger personalized mailpieces that meet your objectives. You might send mail congratulating a customer on their child’s graduation or acknowledging the purchase of a new home. These are emotionally resonant moments that, when acknowledged, can create a deeper sense of connection with your brand. On a more immediate example, send a physical mailpiece to reinforce messaging or product information the customer recently viewed on your website. Or welcome them after they follow your brand on social media. The possibilities are nearly limitless.

Triggered Mail or Bulk Personalization?

Boost the power of traditional bulk direct mail campaigns using CRM data. Instead of random bulk mail, your communications can speak to customers about subjects that interest them. Use information stored in your connected CRM to personalize the mail based on information customers provide or you deduce based on third-party data, past purchases, or the customer’s online behavior. This is where the Postalytics term ‘Smart Sends’ truly comes into play. 

With platforms like Postalytics, you can easily design mailpiece variations based on the customer’s age, gender, geographic location, estimated income, or more. Forget about the old mass-produced “personalized” letters that peppered the text with awkward explicit data like the customer’s name. Today’s tools allow you to vary the images, offers, and text to match the demographics of each customer in your CRM.

Printing technology has advanced along with the software advances. With digital presses, printing companies incur no extra production costs to print personalized versions of direct mailpieces containing variable data. Most of the pre-press expenses that used to discourage marketers from highly personalized direct mail because of the cost, no longer apply.

CRM Data Drives Multi-Channel Personalization

It’s worthwhile to note that direct mail holds its ground in the digital age. Despite the upsurge of online marketing methods, direct mail continues to flourish. In fact, statistics show the vast number of Americans check their mail daily, and many have tried a new product after receiving a direct mail advertisement. Today’s direct mail is part of an integrated communication strategy. Postal mail is no longer a stand-alone effort.

Direct mail communicates with customers on a tangible and personal level that grabs customer attention–a rarity in the age of digital dominance. By leveraging CRM capabilities and the power of trigger-based actions, it’s possible to transform your direct mail strategies. You can deploy the same engaging, precise, and highly efficient techniques you use in digital channels to resonate with your customers and foster lasting connections.

Digital to Physical – And Back

What if a customer breaks the digital connection you have with them? Your CRM can identify customers who have stopped opening your marketing emails and it can flag customers when one of your emails bounces. These conditions should trigger the production of a direct mailpiece that overcomes the problem of digital overload or abandoned email accounts. Don’t lose touch with a customer just because they changed email addresses!

Other techniques that connect your digital channels to the physical world include postal re-targeting. Here, marketers use information gained via online interactions to send relevant direct mail to website visitors. You may also send postal mail to customers for whom you have no digital relationship. Establish digital connections with them via printed QR codes or pURLs.

CRM data for direct mailing can have ripple effects on your overall digital marketing strategy. Insights gleaned from trigger-based direct mail efforts can inform social media ads, targeted posts, and more. When you connect all your channels, you can mount a consistent, cohesive brand experience across all platforms.

Leverage your CRM system to maintain and enhance customer engagement throughout their digital/physical customer journey. That way, your direct mail becomes more than just marketing medium but part of a conversation.

Morphing Direct Mail from Broad-Spectrum to Laser-Focused 

ntegrating your CRM system with an automated direct mail platform is a worthwhile venture, transforming a mass communication strategy into a personalized approach aimed at each customer. In a marketplace where emotions and experiences carry substantial weight, CRM-driven direct mail makes a difference.

If all you’ve ever done with direct mail is mass-mailing, you may be wondering how to transition to the targeted, personalized approach we’ve described. It’s not that difficult.

To generate triggered, personalized direct mail, you will need two (and sometimes three) critical pieces of software:

1. A CRM system that stores customer details, tracks customer activity, and can trigger actions. Postalytics customers use a wide variety of solutions. Some of the most popular are HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, and Salesforce.
2. An automated direct mail system like Postalytics. With our platform, you can connect to your CRM via built-in integrations or through a connector like Zapier. This allows your CRM to tell Postalytics when to send pre-defined direct mail to selected customers, feeds customer-specific variable data to the mailpieces, and allows Postalytics to communicate delivery data back to the CRM.

You perform most of the work regarding triggered or personalized mailings on the CRM side. Postalytics makes it easy to design mailings that incorporate variable text, images, and offers. Once you set up the CRM/Postalytics connection, you can easily create the mailpieces.

Here’s a detailed article that explains how to insert variable data into direct mail templates.

Cost Effectiveness of CRM Personalization 

With the rise of digital ad-blockers, the competition for inbox visibility, and the alarming costs of mass-market advertising, CRM-triggered direct mail campaigns are cost-effective and compelling solutions. Triggers based on the actions and behaviors of your customers can precision-time your communications, ensuring the right message lands in the right mailbox at the right time. This enables your business to get the most bang for your marketing buck while also keeping your brand top of mind. 

Personalization through your CRM isn’t just an added strength; it’s rapidly becoming an essential component of any marketing strategy applied in the modern business landscape. It makes your brand more engaging, reliable, and customer-centric, while simultaneously raising the ROI of your campaigns. You reduce the volume of outbound direct mail to save money and boost results at the same time.

Connect Your CRM Now

A CRM system that drives mailed communications isn’t just another tool in your marketer’s toolkit. It is a strategic approach that enables companies to deliver personalized and timely messages that truly resonate with your target audience. By leveraging CRM data, you can offer an experience that keeps your brand in the minds of consumers while improving engagement and conversions.

With trigger-based direct mail or personalized Smart Sends, you can deliver prompt and relevant communications, consequently nurturing leads from the first touchpoint until conversion. Mailed communications, while a traditional approach, remains resilient and effective in our digital age, with vast numbers of individuals checking their mail regularly. This old school method, combined with more advanced CRM personalization strategies and integrated digital campaigns, can achieve impressive results, driving your brand to new levels of success.