Top 5 Trends in Direct Marketing

1. Hyper-local and hyper-targeted marketing The use of Smartphones and Tablets has redefined direct marketing. Now you can target ads to the consumers most likely to respond to the offer based on their age and proximity to your location. Not only does SMS (short messaging service, or text messaging) offer hyper-targeting, it also enables you to create time-sensitive offers and announcements – giving you the best possible response and ROI.

2. Direct mail Old school tools re-emerge with better direct marking applications. With the price of digital printing rapidly declining, postal drops return as an inexpensive way to reach customers and encourage them to interact with your brand. Using a tie in to your website or Facebook page can energize your campaign and engage both potential and existing customers. Putting something in someone’s hands can be extremely powerful, and the use of clever creative coupled with dimensional mailers are still powerful tools.

3. Targeted digital couponing As with hyper-local and hyper-targeted marketing, brands are able to target coupons directly to consumers most likely to redeem them – as quickly as real time. Direct marketers are able to target shoppers with new products in the store, offers over and above shelf tag discounts, or when they are at the point of purchase to encourage them to spend more.

4. Big Data It seems to be on every direct marketing professional’s lips – Big Data, and when you think big, you should think FAST, too. With all the hyper-personalization of information being received, the direct marketing trend is to make sense of it quickly and segment it into groups. With information being collected from online and brick and mortar transactions, social media, and mobile devices, providers are in a hurry to package the data and get it to direct marketers to use it ASAP.

5. Retargeted Ads What better way to hit your target than to advertise to someone who has already visited your site? With retargeted ads, when someone visits your site and then leaves, they get a retargeted ad the next time they surf the web. By using retargeted ads, your message can be a subtle, “hey, come back and see us sometime” to a hard-hitting, “act today and you’ll get the best deal available”. Either way it encourages others to interact with your brand and revisit your site!