How to Avoid The Direct Mail Prospecting Gifts Budget Fail

By Mary Matton on March 12, 2020

Ever returned back to the office after being OOO or working remotely for a bit? Or maybe you work remotely full-time and are never in the office? Or maybe you’ve been under a state-mandated quarantine and haven’t been to your office in months? All of that direct mail sent to you was left to collect dust in the mailroom. It’s because of scenarios like these that the attempts of “cutting through the noise” with direct mail are starting to become a #directfail.

Parched succulents. Moldy cupcakes. Partially melted chocolates. In addition, those goodies contain a message that probably made sense weeks ago when they were initially sent. All of that left to rot alone and lonely on empty desks.

Over the last 5 years, there has been a 44% increase in remote work. Companies are shifting their perspective on encouraging and supporting a workforce that isn’t in the office from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. They have empowered their employees to work where and when they do their best work. As a result, employees are opting to skip the commute to redistribute that time to their #5to9™.

In other words, with fewer and fewer people sitting in offices, your direct mail strategy may be becoming a #directfail.

Why Direct Mail is Becoming a Direct Fail

Traditional direct mail has three basic flaws:

1. Employees Aren’t In the Office: With fewer employees physically going to the office, sending mail to a corporate address means fewer employees will actually receive your package.

2. One-sized Doesn’t Fit All:  While we’ve begun to move marketing channels towards personalization, we haven’t made the same adjustments to direct mail. Similarly, while there is a difference between personalization and being personal, sending the same gift to 100s of recipients doesn’t move the needle on engagement.

3. Tracking is Impossible: Even if mail tracking has indicated your package made its final destination, traditional direct mail provides no visibility into if someone actually received your gift, let alone opened it – or even liked it.

If you can’t measure the full ROI of your direct mail spend, you’re wasting budget on a campaign that would otherwise be best spent on channels you can actually monitor and measure.

We call that wasted budget: #directfail.

Want to hit the mark every time with your gifts? Read our resource on How to Select the Perfect Gift Every Time.

Avoiding the Dreaded #DirectFail

For the record: the concept of direct mail is not broken. Most importantly, it’s the approach to traditional direct mail that needs reinventing.

We call that new approach, personal gifting. Personal gifting is about creating memorable one-to-one moments with your prospects and customer throughout their customers’ journey. The purpose of that one-to-one moment is to create a lasting bond with your recipient. Your gifting should be all about the recipient not about you. Here are two things to consider when making your gifting recipient-centric: address validation and gift relevancy.

Recipient Address Validation

To avoid sending gifts to an empty office – thus avoiding lost budget – make sure your personal gifting platform allows your gift recipients to provide their address during the gifting redemption process. Address validation ensures your gift arrives where it’s intended and that the safety of your prospect’s personal data is protected.

In the era of “opt-in,” it’s not only respectful – it’s required – to give someone the ability to share with you their personal identification information ( PII ). An individual’s preferred mailing address is considered PII. Personal gifting platforms that allow the gift recipient to manually enter their own preferred mailing address is not only the ideal recipient experience, it also ensures you’re not jeopardizing your company’s compliance with GDPR.

During your gift recipient’s gift redemption process your company should offer them an option to enter their mailing address and opt into the gifting experience. Without this step, you’re missing a way to provide a secure and safe experience to your gift recipient.

Pro tip: If your current direct mail solution is offering to research your gift recipient’s personal mailing address for you, you too are liable for any non-compliance issues that may arise.

Prioritize Gift Relevancy

Nothing is more of a budgetary waste than a gift that is both unused and unappreciated. For example, sending cupcakes to someone who is on a keto diet or a bottle of wine to someone in recovery will create a memorable moment, just not a favorable memory.

The key to creating a favorable memory is to select something that compliments your recipient’s #5to9™. For instance, spend time researching and understanding what motivates your gift recipient outside of their accomplishments in the workplace. Or, save some time and use Alyce’s AI-powered research.

Drive Higher ROI with Personal Gifting

Take more control over your wasted budget with direct mail by switching to personal gifting. Have more prospecting gifts hit their intended recipient and leave recipients with an experience that feels personal and memorable.