Education Marketing

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Why You Need Education Marketing And The Top Trends To Watch Out For in 2022

Did you know that the global E-learning market is projected to reach $457.8 billion by 2026?

There is no question that the global E-learning market is booming, especially since the pandemic drastically changed our lives.

But is your educational organization or institution ready for the cut-throat competition that comes with the booming market?

Do you have a comprehensive education marketing plan in place to beat the competition?

Educational institutions need to implement specialized marketing strategies to attract new talent and elevate their standards. Hence, we will help you understand education marketing and explain how it is different from standard marketing strategies.

Additionally, you will also find a list of education marketing strategies that you can use to scale your brand and reach a wider audience.

What is Education Marketing?

Education marketing is any marketing campaign that promotes educational content or helps educational institutions. Your educational content can be in any form, including

• Courses
• Books
• How-to videos
• Research papers
• Software applications

Educational content sells like hot cake, as long as you implement the right marketing strategies. Furthermore, the pandemic has accelerated the need for educational content worldwide. As a result, there are numerous learning solutions released in the market every day.

Educational apps and other distance learning tools are helping students all over the world continue their education. More and more companies are entering the academic industry, especially with new valuable learning content.

Hence, quality education marketing is the only way for educational organizations or institutions to get ahead of the competition.

Why Do We Need Education Marketing?

There are over 500,000 educational apps currently on the App Store, Google Playstore, and other platforms. However, this number is increasing every day, which signifies the growth of the educational industry.

It is also worth noting that the e-learning market is not just limited to educational apps. Other popular educational solutions or products include eBooks, videos, online courses, educational websites, and more. With so much competition in the e-learning market, it is not easy to get noticed without an education marketing plan.

Education marketing uses various strategies to promote helpful learning content. You could even say that it is the only way for educational institutions or organizations to ensure that their content reaches students.

Education Marketing vs. Education-Based Marketing

One of the most common misconceptions about education marketing is that most people think it is the same as education-based marketing. The latter is a marketing strategy that focuses on educating the prospects rather than pitching them with a sales offer. On the other hand, education marketing is all about marketing activities in the industry.

Major Marketing Activities In Education Marketing

Education marketing includes all marketing activities in the education sector. Some of the significant marketing activities in the education sector are listed below.

School Marketing

Until a few years ago, schools didn’t need any marketing activities as they relied entirely on their reputation and word of mouth. However, that time has long gone, and millennial parents are super picky about their children’s education.

Almost every parent goes online and reads reviews of schools before making a decision. So, schools that do not have a significant presence online or an active education marketing strategy in place go ignored.

Higher Education Marketing

Higher education marketing holds a special place when it comes to marketing for the education industry. Colleges and universities often use marketing for higher education to attract new and promising talents.

Marketing higher education helps educational institutions to establish their brand and drive more enrollments. Furthermore, the students also benefit from these marketing efforts as it helps them pick the right path.

Educational Sector Digital Marketing

Although educational institutions still employ several traditional marketing techniques, it is not enough to survive in today’s highly competitive market. Like every other industry vertical, the education industry too must embrace digital channels for conveying their message to a large target audience.

Furthermore, digital channels are often cost-effective. It enables you to target a much broader audience than traditional marketing methods without burning a hole in your pocket. Some of the common digital marketing channels educational institutions can use include email, social media, web content, and more.

Educational Sector Social Media Marketing

As you know, social media is now more than just about connecting with people online. Social media marketing has become a fully operational marketing tool that can target both parents and students alike. Hence, educational organizations must make it a point to have an active presence on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

You can use social media sites to engage with your target audience and understand their needs and expectations. However, there is one thing that educational institutions need to remember. The content that you post on social media should always be bite-sized and captivating. Long-form content does not work on social media sites.

Educational App Promotions

As you know, the prevailing educational app market is highly competitive. Even if you have a great product or app, it may still fail to succeed in the market. With proper planning and perfect implementation of education marketing, you can get ahead of the competition.

Top 6 Education Marketing Strategies For 2022

In recent times, the best-performing marketing strategies in the educational industry use advanced automation for enhanced convenience. Automation reduces the chance of an error significantly and helps to ensure the best possible outcome for your marketing efforts.

However, traditional marketing methods are still employed by educational institutions because of their promising results. Below, we list some of the most promising education marketing plans you need to watch out for in 2022.

#1 Connect With Your Audience On Social Media Platforms

Did you know that roughly 42 per cent of our population are social media users? Millennials are regular users of social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc. However, the same social media networks are also used by Gen Z, Gen X, and baby boomers.

Establishing Meaning Connections

Over the years, many social media platforms have come and gone. The ones that have survived have matured to accommodate a myriad of ways for promoting a business or its products. However, your goal should always be to create meaningful connections with the customer through engaging content regardless of the social media platform.

Social Media Marketing or SMM Persona

Create a social media marketing (SMM) persona that accurately represents your target audience. Some of the details of the persona you should consider are:

• Age
• Gender
• Education
• Goals
• Primary values

Make sure that every post you create on social media for your educational business aligns with the interest of the SMM persona. You can even try testing different social media marketing strategies.

Tweak Your Promotional Efforts

Unlike several other marketing channels, social media platforms provide you with loads of information for optimizing your marketing campaigns. Even if your business grows gradually where your social media content interactions reach over a million, you still get accurate insights from social media. It shows you exactly who’s sharing your brand’s content.

#2 Incorporate Digital Advertising in Education Marketing

Digital advertising is an effective and convenient form of marketing educational services and products. Precise targeting is the most significant advantage digital advertising has over traditional ads. It means you can target your audience based on various factors such as:

• Demographics
• Intent to buy
• Engagement patterns

Digital Advertising Channels

There are several digital advertising channels that offer great results to your education marketing plan. Some of the most popular and effective digital advertising channels include

• Social media ads
• Search engine ads
• Display or banner ads
• Videos ads

None of the solutions listed below is perfect because each has its flaws and advantages. Hence, quality education marketing strategies should generally use a combination of different channels.

Gather As Much As Data As Possible

When it comes to digital marketing, ensure that you gather as much data as possible. Collecting this data enables you to monitor the effectiveness of your existing campaigns. As a result, educational institutions can make well-informed decisions for their campaigns.

#3 Build A Mobile-Friendly Website And Optimized Landing Page

Another unavoidable component of education marketing campaigns is a mobile-friendly website and optimized landing pages. There are almost 2.87 billion people in the world! It means that you can’t succeed in the market without a mobile-friendly website or a dedicated app.

The mobile-friendly website or app should include links and navigation elements that ensure a fluid user experience. Furthermore, the links and navigation elements must be easily clickable. Finally, you must ensure that the loading time of the mobile website or app does not exceed three seconds.

Consider Using AMP Or Accelerated Mobile Pages

AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages is a web component framework developed by none other than Google. It is a website publishing tech that gives you the ability to create web pages that prioritize user experience over anything else. Furthermore, it is fast and ensures smooth-loading of the website.

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test

Website development is often expensive, and it might take educational institutions time to implement these changes. However, educational organizations can ensure their existing website passes Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Doing so enables you to ensure that your website is ready for education marketing.

#4 Encourage Students To Leave Online Reviews

The majority of the customers read reviews online before they decide to visit a business or pay for a service/product. Hence, online reviews should be an integral part of your education marketing plan. Make the review process as easy and convenient as possible to encourage the students to submit their reviews.

Make It Fun

Submitting reviews is not necessarily fun for everyone. However, you can eliminate lengthy review forms and replace them with a star-based rating system. Additionally, you can make the verbal feedback entirely optional to further enhance user convenience.

Quick Response To Reviews 

Ensure that you respond to the review as fast as possible whenever you get an online review. It doesn’t matter if the reviews are good or bad. You still need to reply to all of them. Look at negative reviews as scopes for improvements and work to rectify the issues for the students. 

#5 Use Engaging Video Content

Educators have often used engaging videos for teaching. And now they can use exciting video content for education marketing purposes. Videos are often easily consumed by the masses. It is relatively easy to get the point across to the target audience via video. 

Transform Existing Products/Services

Videos are among the most popular educational content you can find. Hence, you can always repurpose your existing educational video content for your marketing purposes. It saves you valuable time and effort and brings down the cost of video content marketing for you.

Use Different Forms of Video Content

There are different types or forms of video content an educational institution can use, and some of them are:

• Demo videos
• Expert interviews
• Brand/event videos
• VR or virtual reality videos
• Explainer videos
• Case studies
• Customer testimonial videos

Let your audience decide which type of video content you need to produce. You can understand this by keeping track of different metrics like time, average view duration, click-through rates, etc.

#6 Use Automated Direct Mail

Direct mail is still one of the best ways to reach out to prospective students or parents. However, sending direct mail for higher education marketing can be time-consuming and hard to manage, especially when you do it in bulk.

You can add a modern spin to your direct mail campaign by automating the whole process. Several advanced direct mail automation tools are available in the market, such as PostGrid. It allows you to automate your entire direct mail campaign saving you the trouble of printing and delivering the mailers.

Personalized Mailers 

You can integrate systems like PostGrid with your CRM software, and you can easily personalize your mailers. It enables you to send personalized postcards or letters to the students or parents. Instead of taking hours to write or print the mailers manually, you can use PostGrid’s system to do it for you in a matter of seconds.

Specialized Education Direct Mail Service 

Advanced systems like PostGrid offer specialized direct mail services for the educational industry. PostGrid for education enables educational institutions to run marketing in the education sector and much more. With a specialized service, you can use the automated direct mail system for sending materials such as:

• Student reports
• Certificates
• Program information
• Acceptance letters
• Fee invoices and receipts

Combine Online and Offline Marketing Channels

With an advanced system like PostGrid, you can easily combine your online and offline marketing efforts. You can include a simple QR code inside the mailer. The recipient can conveniently scan it and navigate to your website. You can even use it to implement omnichannel marketing campaigns for your institution.

Conclusion

Education marketing is becoming more and more competitive every day. Technology-based educational solutions are hype today, and new companies are swarming to take the leading position. Effective education marketing is the only way educational institutions can get ahead of their competitors.

Educational institutions must employ new and innovative marketing strategies to reach prospective students. Advanced direct mail automation is an excellent example of how educational institutions can innovatively market their business.

Using a tool like PostGrid, you can easily automate your direct mail marketing. It means you can send personalized postcards, brochures, flyers, and more delivered to the target audience with the click of a button.

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The post Education Marketing appeared first on PostGrid UK.

source https://www.postgrid.co.uk/education-marketing/

Door to Door Mail Delivery

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How Does Door-to-Door Mail Delivery Work and What Are Its Benefits?

Here’s an interesting fact for you- 83% of door drop items get opened, filed, or read by their recipients! We can’t deny that it is a highly compelling figure showing that direct mail marketing is still going strong.

Thousands of marketers across the United Kingdom use door drop delivery as their top marketing strategy. They use it to target customers and prospects in specific areas and communicate with them personally.

No other channel can work as well as direct mail marketing! The amount of emotional touch, nostalgic effect, and effectiveness that this channel offers are unbeatable!

But, probably, you aren’t fully aware of door-to-door mail delivery. Well, you must know that it is a game-changer for your marketing mix!

Today’s article will walk you through the basics of the door drop program and how you can benefit from it!

Let’s dive in!

What is Royal Mail Door Drop?

Door drops go by many names, such as door-drop marketing, door-to-door distribution, etc. They are a high-volume offline marketing form that targets potential customers by sending them unaddressed direct mail items.

Basically, you print and mail mass marketing materials, like flyers, postcards, and leaflets to specific localities. You can choose between different postcodes and neighbourhoods to target as per the requirements of your campaign or objectives.

Royal Mail door-to-door campaigns enable you to reach out to nearly 30 million households in the country. The best part is that you don’t need to have their mailing addresses or names to mail them. Just create, print, and mail items to specific areas where you are likely to get the most prospects.

For example, you can deliver flyers door to door to all the households on Regent Street as you are launching a new store in that area. Or, you may want to promote an upcoming offer to areas surrounding your business.

What Are the Benefits of Door Drop Distribution?

There are many benefits of using door drop campaigns, like better reach and increased visibility. Below, we cover some more benefits to help you understand the concept better:

Low Costs

Door drop marketing plans are highly affordable and suitable for all types and sizes of companies. Since door drop items are unaddressed, you don’t pay extra to personalise anything. Plus, you no longer need to rent or purchase mailing lists.

If you are working on a tight budget, all you need to do is choose a cost-effective direct mail format like postcards and get started with a small locality.

Long-Lasting

Door-to-door leaflet distribution helps you become a topic of discussion in households. On average, door drop items stay in homes for about 5.4 days. Thus, you get enough exposure to create brand recognition and increase awareness.

Want to know more about leaflet marketing? Read here. 

Tap Into New Markets

A door drop delivery campaign is an excellent option for your brand if you want to explore new markets. You can practically select any locality across the country and target it as part of your campaign. It enables you to reach new prospects and generate fresh leads in your pipeline.

Drive Engagement

As said in the beginning, 83% of door drop pieces are engaged by the recipients. Hence, it is safe to say that door-to-door delivery UK is the best way to grab your audience’s attention and drive more engagement.

Things to Consider While Launching Door-to-Door Mail Delivery

Marketers must map out several things before launching a marketing program, and a door drop campaign is no different. Here are some crucial considerations to make while sending door-to-door mail items to prospects:

What Are Your Campaign Goals?

It is important to note your marketing motives before every door drop delivery campaign. Your goals may include:

• Advertising new products and services
• Driving web or retail traffic
• Promoting season sales and discount offers
• Inviting people to an upcoming trade event
• Building brand awareness and reputation
• Generating sales and expanding customer databases

Automated print and mail drop companies like PostGrid can help you conduct successful campaigns, fulfilling all your plans.

Whom Do You Want to Target?

A door-to-door campaign lets you choose from millions of localities that you can reach out to. Thus, select your target audience wisely based on your customer profile.

PostGrid’s direct mail API lets you send mail drops to people that match your buyer persona. This way, you can optimise your campaigns and connect with relevant customers.

When Should Your Campaign Be Scheduled?

Ever thought of the right time to deliver your door drop pieces? If not, you must start thinking of your campaign timing now. Even the right message to the right person at the wrong time can negatively affect your delivery to the door campaigns.

Thus, consider your messaging and offers and plan on your schedule accordingly. If you want a customer to redeem an offer during the weekend, send your mail items by Friday. Similarly, you can send January mailings for promoting local gym memberships. Such impeccable timing can drive more responses than usual and help you get an improved ROI.

Read more: How Can PostGrid Help Your Marketing Teams Succeed?

Different Factors of Your Royal Mail Door-to-Door Campaign

Conducting a campaign needs you to undertake several steps like creating artwork, printing items, tracking responses, etc. We have discussed each of these factors below to help you out:

Design

Naturally, the first thing you should work on is your mail format and design after you book a courier door-to-door UK service. Your items should look appealing and eye-catching. Also, they should motivate the recipients to look inside the envelope and read your message.

Here are some tips that can allow you to design better door drop mail pieces:

• Use different colours, layouts, and mail sizes to impress your audience
• Include relevant imagery to add life to your items
• Portray a single message to make it easier for your audience to understand and respond to it
• Add your brand logo and contact details
• Engage with your recipient’s senses—for example, using embossed envelopes to make them look and feel good

PostGrid’s direct mail API offers tons of ready-to-use design templates to help you save on design costs. You can take your pick and customise them according to your likes and requirements. Here’s our template gallery for you to have a quick look!

Copy

Door-to-door parcel delivery campaigns are effective due to their simplicity and cost-efficiency. But, you must focus on your messaging for your campaign to produce excellent results.

We have compiled a copy checklist for you to follow and draft compelling messages:

• Make your headline the best: Headlines are the first thing people read, so make them a compelling and result-driving part of your copy. Use short headlines with power words, like ‘free,’ you,’ ‘discount,’ ‘new,’ etc. You can also add questions that depict the customers’ problems and offer a solution.
• Customise your copy: Yes, door-to-door same-day delivery does not let you personalise items. They are unaddressed and talk about the general needs of a collective group. But that doesn’t mean you cannot add some customisations. For example, if you want to announce a discount sale in an area, the least you can do is add the address of your nearest store.
• Focus on benefits: Refrain from getting into too many details and talking about your product features while writing your door drop copy. Instead, try adding the benefits your customers get on buying from you.
• Highlight the critical details: Try adding bold formatting, bullet points, and bigger font sizes to highlight crucial information.
• Add postscripts: Consider adding postscripts if using letters for your Post Office Door-to-Door Delivery Campaigns. Most recipients read P.S. lines more enthusiastically than the body. Hence, you can score well by adding them to your copy.

Use Compelling Offers and CTA

Generally, offers and calls to action are part of your Royal Mail door drop copy. But, they are so crucial that we had to list them as another factor altogether.

Your offer can either drive responses or lead to your campaign failure, so be careful with this part. You need something to spark interest among your audience and encourage them to respond. Offers like a 10% discount or buy 1 get 1 free can help increase conversion rates significantly.

Also, remember to add an upfront CTA that can guide customers further. For example, add phrases, such as:

• Call us now
• Book an appointment today
• Sign up on our website
• Walk into your nearest branch, etc.

Tracking Modes

You need to add trackable features, like coupon codes, Quick Response codes, pURLs, etc., to measure the success of your domestic door-to-door delivery plans. These elements help you track every response and follow-up on time—increasing your door drop campaign’s conversion ratios.

Also, they form a part of your CTA where you can ask your customers to do something in exchange for an offer. For example- scan the QR code below to get a 5% discount on your next purchase.

Testing

Testing your door-to-door flyer delivery strategies can help you determine your easy wins. You can find out the answers to significant questions, such as which offers do my prospects respond to the most? Or what type of direct mail format fetches more engagement?

When you test your items, you get to know the finer details, like your audience’s preferences and needs. They help you design more relevant door drop items to produce better results.

You can use several different KPIs to test your door-to-door delivery Edinburgh campaigns. Open rates, response ratios, and conversions are the most popular types of KPIs you can use to measure your campaign results.

How Can PostGrid’s Direct Mail Services Assist You In Conducting Door Drop Distribution Campaigns?

PostGrid’s direct mail services can help you create, print, and distribute door drops effortlessly. You don’t need to do anything manually or invest loads of time and money in a campaign. Simply integrate our print and mail API into your CRM and start launching door-to-door campaigns automatedly.

Our delivery door-to-door service helps you target the right audience and increase your ROI. We can help you in the following ways:

• Design and print your items within two business days
• Offer real-time mail tracking
• Provide access to campaign analytics and insights
• Validate your existing mailing lists
• Send items via Royal Mail without you going to the Post Office

To Conclude

Door-to-door mail delivery is an excellent way to conduct mass marketing and connect with thousands of prospects in one go. Also, it is cost-effective, simple to launch, and result-bearing. 

However, you need to take care of a few things, like printing high-quality items and mailing them on time. If that is too much work for you, try PostGrid’s print and mail services. They can assist you from start to finish of your campaign and make your job a breeze. 

Interested in conducting a door drop delivery campaign? Read our e-books below to know more:

• Direct Mail Automation.
• Direct Mail for Healthcare Industry.

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The post Door to Door Mail Delivery appeared first on PostGrid UK.

source https://www.postgrid.co.uk/door-to-door-mail-delivery/

How to Send a Postcard Internationally

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Sending Postcards Abroad is Easy: Connect to The World Successfully

Most companies are now running to implement direct mail for efficiently delivering their marketing message. Unfortunately, most businesses do not know how to send a postcard internationally as modern businesses never use direct mail as a communication or marketing channel. But, the rising popularity of direct mail is undeniable, and postcards are the most effective direct mail for business communication.

Postcards often connect with people like no other communications channel. Furthermore, personalised postcards are more likely to strike an emotional chord in the recipients. Despite all the advantages of postcards, marketers still can’t employ them to the fullest extent.

Hence, we have created a quick guide to help you understand how to send an international postcard for your business. The guide takes you through the essential aspects of international postcards, including the address format, its cost, and delivery duration. You will also learn about a new and advanced way of conveniently sending international postcards with zero error.

Sending A Card Internationally

Sending international postcards is always confusing for individuals as well as business organisations. For example, the address format is one of the things that is confusing about international postcards. Do you use the address format defined by the Royal Mail or the postal service provider of the recipient’s country?

Similarly, many more questions come to the sender’s mind when sending a postcard internationally. Yet, when sending postal mail for businesses internationally, postcards are preferred over any other postal mail format.

Most companies send postal mail in bulk, which can be somewhat expensive, especially to international addresses. Using postcards instead of any other postal mail format enables businesses to minimise their net expenditure. Furthermore, it is easier to print, store, and transport in bulk than other formats.

Letter vs Postcard

One of the biggest questions about sending international mail for business organisations is whether to use letters or postcards. As you may already know, a standard letter includes an envelope. But, when it comes to postcards, you don’t need an envelope.

Hence sending postcards is less expensive than letters as it does not require envelopes. However, on the other hand, letters offer a certain amount of privacy to the mail’s content. Another note about letters is that their postage is based on weight and size.

Even though postcards come in different sizes, most businesses use the standard postcard format for their direct mail communications. Hence, the cost of sending a card internationally remains relatively low.

Don’t know how to create a business postcard? Take a look at our previous blog, “Business Postcard Ideas & Examples,” to learn how you can use Postcards for your business.

Universal Postal Union's Standard Postcard

The Universal Postal Union specifies a standard size for postcards so that the sender can qualify for the standard rate. The following table shows the standard size specified for international postcards. 

Postcard Shape	Minimum Length	Maximum Length	Minimum Height	Maximum Height
Rectangle	140mm	235mm	90mm	120mm

Additionally, the Universal Postal Union also suggests that you ensure the material used for the postcard is stiff. The stiffness will help the postcard survive the long journey to its destination. Businesses should also be careful not to make their postcards too small, minimising the net cost.

If the postcard is too small, the postal service providers, including the Royal Mail, will not mail it. On the other hand, if the postcard is too large, it usually gets classified as a letter, and your business will end up paying higher postage.

How To Address An International Postcard?

Addressing an international Postcard is relatively easy. You can start by writing the address on the right side of the postcard. It should be easy to locate the position of the address because there are usually three or four horizontal lines provided on the postcards.

You can either write the address by hand or print them. The only thing is that the address must be easily readable. When sending postcards abroad, it is usually preferred to use the standard address format of the recipient’s country. So, if you are sending a postcard to the USA, use the standard address format specified by the USPS. 

Use The Left Side For Correspondence

We know that the right side of the postcard is reserved for the address. But the left side of the postcard is for you to write the correspondence. The correspondence can be anything from pitching a new product/offer to inviting the recipient to an exclusive event when it comes to business mail.

Include The Return Mailing Address

You may also include your business’s return mailing address on the left side of the postcard. However, make sure to position the return mailing address to the upper left corner of the postcard. Businesses also write the return mail address vertically To get more space for their message. Apart from providing the return address, it also serves as the separation between the address part and the correspondence part of the postcard.  

Keep The Bottom Edge Of The Postcard Clean

Although it is not always the case, many postal service providers, including USPS of the US, use the bottom edge for affixing labels. There is also the chance that postal service providers use the bottom edge for printing when they process the mailer. Hence, it is best to avoid writing or printing anything on the postcard’s bottom edge.

Address Format For Sending International Postcards To The US

Many businesses in the UK have international clients from all over the world. Hence, US addresses are common for the bulk international mail companies send. Furthermore, it will give you a broad idea of how to send a postcard from UK to USA. The address format for sending international postcards to the USA is as follows.

Recipient Name
Street Address (With the apartment/suite number)
City, State, ZIP code
USA (country name)

For US addresses, the postal code is called the ZIP code. Instead of an alphanumeric one we use in the UK, the US uses a numeric code. The ZIP code is often prone to more error than any other part of the postal mail address. Even getting a single digit wrong can cause your postcard to get returned.

Hence, most businesses prefer to use an advanced direct mail system like PostGrid for printing and delivering their international bulk mail. PostGrid uses an automated system for printing and delivering direct mail, ensuring no error in the postal code or the address.

What Is The Cost Of Sending An International Postcard?

The cost of sending postcards abroad via Royal Mail is the same as sending letters internationally. However, the rate of sending international mail changes depending on the mailing service your business uses. 

Some popular Royal Mail postal services companies send their business postcards as 1st and 2nd class mail. The postal service each company needs depends upon how fast they want the mail delivered and how much they are willing to pay for it. 

How Long Does It Take To Send A Postcard Internationally?

The delivery period for international postcards can vary depending on the mailer’s destination. For most European countries, it takes only three to five working days.

However, sending postcards anywhere else in the world can take anywhere from six to seven days. It is also worth noting that the Royal Mail provides a compensation cover-up worth up to £20 and free returns for undelivered items.

Why Use PostGrid To Automate Postcard Delivery?

Most businesses use an automated direct mail solution like PostGrid for sending a card internationally. There are numerous advantages of using an automated system like PostGrid for sending postcards. One of the most significant advantages of an automated system like PostGrid is its accuracy.

PostGrid ensures that all your international addresses are standardised and there is zero chance for an error. Hence, you can ensure that your postcards are printed with the correct address down to the numeric/alphanumeric postal code.

Additionally, service providers like PostGrid use quality printers and papers for your postcards. It ensures that the postal service can quickly sort and deliver your postcards. Hence, you can minimise the return rate of your direct mail and get maximum reach for your direct mail communications.

Perhaps the best thing about postcards is that they can be used by pretty much any industry vertical. For example, in the real estate industry, they can use postcards to pitch listed homes to their target audience, along with pictures of the property. PostGrid even offers specialised direct mail services for the real estate industry.

Conclusion

Sending postcards abroad, especially in bulk, is not easy, and there are a lot of challenges that modern marketers can’t overcome. Using an automated direct mail tool like PostGrid for sending international postcards can take the burden off businesses.

PostGrid is a holistic direct mail solution that takes care of everything related to international postcards. You can personalise your business postcards, print them as per the standards of postal authorities and deliver them. 

The automated system ensures zero error and maximum convenience for companies that send postcards internationally to their customers. Furthermore, PostGrid even gives you access to its template gallery to easily create postcards for your company.

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The post How to Send a Postcard Internationally appeared first on PostGrid UK.

source https://www.postgrid.co.uk/sending-postcards-internationally/

Automated Direct Mail: What is it and How it Works?

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Automated Direct Mail

Traditionally, direct mail has been viewed as time-consuming, cumbersome, expensive, untrackable, poorly targeted, and manual. However, modern direct mail is none of that. Automated direct mail removes these unpleasant factors and replaces them with modern features like automated printing and mailing, real-time tracking, accessible campaign insights, and so much more.

Let us have a quick look at some statistics that show how direct mail is profitable.

• 87% of people are influenced to purchase something online
• 75% of businesses that use direct mail marketing agree that this marketing medium offers a positive ROI

These results are possible only through the modern way of conducting direct mail campaigns, and there is no other way of doing so than using direct mail automation.

So what is automated direct mail? It is nothing but switching to the online and automated way of handling direct mail, where you don’t have to do anything manually.

An automated direct mail API like PostGrid can integrate with your CRM or a marketing tool to help you print and mail directly from there. It can help you draft, print, and ship in an automated way altogether without wastage of time and effort.

Direct mail automation allows marketers to save time they would otherwise spend on transmitting information into usable spreadsheets, contacting printers, comparing quotes, hiring a designer, managing logistics, or guessing and analyzing campaign results manually.

Businesses need a marketing medium that can be tracked and measured. Direct mail automation allows your direct mail marketing efforts to be targeted, well-crafted, relevant, and automated.

Features of Automated Direct Mail

1. Address Verification and Data Management

PostGrid’s direct mail API can help you autocomplete, standardize, correct, validate, and verify addresses. No more guesswork or sending mail to the wrong addresses.

Traditionally, there are very limited options to collect addresses and check whether they are deliverable. Your employees probably have to call up every customer and cross-check the address to see whether it is correct. But, this process can be extremely time-consuming and hectic. Moreover, with modern solutions being easily available, manually doing these things makes no point.

Automated direct mail can help you verify all your addresses instantly and offers peace of mind that your mail items will be rightly delivered. Moreover, it enables you to manage your data efficiently and build new mailing lists. Targeting and mailing lists segmentation is also possible through PostGrid’s print and mail automation API.

2. Scalable Solutions

On-demand and bulk printing and mailing are both possible with the help of direct mail automation. PostGrid’s API is scalable and can grow with your growing needs. It is an ever-expanding solution for all your direct mail marketing requirements, which means that you can add an unlimited number of locations, users, templates, campaigns, mailing lists, integrated campaigns, messages, designs, and contacts.

Furthermore, it has the ability to process thousands of API calls in one go, without any slowdowns or crashes. Hence, you can rely on an automated direct mail solution to accommodate your print and mail needs to any extent.

3. Campaign Reports and Analytics

Determining your campaign budget and ROI needs some considerations and a lot of planning. However, you need some statistics and details that can act as a base to make such considerations.

Direct mail automation enables you to access your campaign analytics which contains all facts, numbers, and other details that you need to know. It also gives you insights into various things and tells you what works and what doesn’t work. You can collect all this information and make reports that act as an informatory and advisory base to make informed decisions about your upcoming campaigns.

4. Integration

An automated direct mail API can seamlessly integrate with your CRM, accounting software, human resource management software, and more platforms that you use for managing your daily operations. By integrating them, you allow quick import and export of data and avoid manual input of information. For example, you don’t need to enter all your customers’ names and addresses for conducting a direct mail campaign.

The API allows you to import the details from your CRM and automatically uses the information for designing your direct mail campaigns. Similarly, for sending paychecks to your employees, you don’t have to enter employee details all over again. Simply integrate and start mailing.

5. Variable Data Printing

Variable data printing is more than a feature. It is the need of the hour. Basically, it allows you to print different colours, texts, links, and graphics on every mail item. The basic format remains the same, but certain elements keep changing.

For example, if you are sending out invoices to your clients, it is obvious that you aren’t going to send the same invoice to everyone. The date, bill amount, client name, and payment terms are all different in every invoice. Variable data printing allows companies to print personalized mail items without undergoing any cumbersome methods. You can even personalize your postcards, letters, cheques, and other documents easily. Direct mail automation makes variable data printing possible and simplifies personalization.

Businesses can add personalized URLs, coupon codes, and other trackable features that are unique for every customer. Such personalization makes the customer feel special and makes it easy for you to track responses and engagements.

6. Omni-Channel Marketing

Omni-channel marketing is when you combine several marketing campaigns, for instance, combining direct mail campaigns with social media marketing or email advertising. These campaigns work in unison to reach out to a wider audience and yield better results. They work in an integrated manner to showcase your brand consistently across several marketing channels.

If a person misses your email, your direct mail can help get their attention and vice versa. Moreover, if a person views your advertisement on social media and receives a personalized letter from you on the same day or week, getting a response becomes easy as they remember your brand well. Constantly advertising your brand across more than one channel is an effective strategy to capture more markets and boost up brand awareness drastically. Automated direct mail can help you conduct omnichannel marketing easily.

Types of Automated Direct Mail

1. Letters

Letters are the most personalized type of direct mail. You can change your entire text for every letter as per the needs of your customers. Letters offer companies a chance to establish a one-to-one connection with their audience. You can opt for single-page, dual-page, or multiple-page letters depending on your content and required space.

Direct mail automation can help you with the letter templates and enable you to choose from different letter sizes. Oversize envelopes are known to perform well. Again, with direct mail automation, you can design professional and personalized letters in oversize dimensions.

2. Self-Mailers

Self-mailers are basically letters that can be folded into an envelope. They don’t require a separate envelope and can do the function on their own. Hence, you can save the money spent on envelopes, and people don’t have to tear open anything to view your mail, which boosts up open rates. You can make use of unique folds like roll fold, z-fold, booklet fold, or the multi-panel gatefold. These types of folds are attractive and make your customer pay more attention to your self-mailers. Automated direct mail can help you design and send out attention-grabbing self-mailers in no time. Include a perforated coupon or return card as part of the self-mailer design to persuade customers to reply.

3. Postcards

Postcards are cost-effective, eye-catching, pleasing, and capable of driving conversions. Even after being the cheapest option, many large corporations use postcards for their direct mail marketing campaigns. It is because postcards create a nostalgic feeling among people and mark the beginning of a special bond between a brand and its customers.

Sending postcards with beautiful background images can induce people to store them or probably attach them to their refrigerators. Postcards communicate your message in simple words and perhaps offer the most exposure compared to other direct mail types. Some popular sizes include:

• A5 postcards
• A6 postcards
• 148 mm x 25 5mm postcards

4. Bills or Invoices

Invoices are timely documents that need to be delivered to your clients on time. A payment collection system can work smoothly and efficiently only by having a proper invoice print and mail solution in place. If your company sends invoices after weeks of a transaction, getting a payment against your invoice can likely be tricky. Similarly, you might also have to send follow-up letters and duplicate invoices as payment reminders – only then will your company’s revenue stream flow continuously. PostGrid’s print and mail solutions can help you send invoices on time without you having to do anything manually.

5. Statements

Banks send bank statements to their customers, hospitals send medical reports or statements to their patients, and retail businesses send transaction statements to their clients. In short, all businesses of all sectors need to mail statements to their customers or clients. Drafting, printing, and mailing statements is not a one-time job. Companies need to do these tasks on a regular basis, and having an automated direct mail solution in place can come in handy.

PostGrid’s direct mail automation API can help you draft statements speedily and effortlessly. You can then get them printed and mailed altogether with a few clicks. You can track your statements in real-time and see them moving through the postal organization’s system. This way, you are better informed about your mail’s whereabouts and can make any follow-ups accordingly.

6. Cheques

Gone are the days when writing cheques had to be old-fashioned. In the olden days, companies waited for their banks to mail them chequebooks. They entered amounts, signatures, and client details into cheques manually, stuffed them into envelopes, sealed them, affixed postage, and took them to a nearby post office. Yes, some companies still go by this traditional method which is extremely time-consuming and boring. It can affect the morale of your employees and also lead to certain mistakes.

Automated direct mail allows you to autofill cheques with the correct details pulled from your CRM. The printing and mailing are done in an automated manner, so naturally, you don’t have to worry about any inventory stocking. Sending cheques as direct mail can save time, effort, and money. Plus, it allows accurate and safe mailing.

Benefits of Using Direct Mail Automation

Why use direct mail automation? If you still aren’t convinced that direct mail automation can do wonders for your company, read the benefits below and know what you can do with it.

1. Build Brand Image

Mouth publicity is really impactful, and you can create a spark with your well-designed and accurate direct mail campaigns – which is now possible due to marketing automation. Maintaining your brand reputation is likely to result in better responses and increased sales. Furthermore, you get an edge over your competitors by connecting emotionally with people and having a personal bond with them. Prospects are likely to favour your brand over others if they have seen, felt, and heard about your brand first-hand.

2. Re-Engage Old Customers

Customer retention is equally important as acquiring new customers. You need to keep in touch with your old customers and persuade them to continue using your products and services. New customers may bring you business, but old customers bring you reputation and stability, along with the business.

Move onto the next level of gaining customer loyalty with automated direct mail. By integrating an automation API into your marketing tool, you can send the right type of mail to the relevant audience at the right time. Regularly sending direct mail to your prospects and customers according to their life stages can induce them to buy your products or services and remember and talk about your brand. You can even run customer reward programs through direct mail easily using automation.

3. Facilitate Ongoing Revenue Flow

If you send a postcard at the right time, like during the last week of your customer’s subscription plan – there are high chances that your customer or subscriber will renew the plan for yet another year. It is called taking advantage of an opportunity or an event to create a flow of ongoing income. Direct mail marketing is the best way to bring this plan to life.

Using automation, you can set up reminders, and the API can enable you to send direct mail at regular intervals without your intervention. Hence, you don’t have to plan and send direct mail every now and then. Just feed in the dates, draft a relevant mail item and leave it on the API to get it printed and mailed on the right date.

4. Eliminate Manual Intervention

How much time do your employees spend in loading and unloading papers in the printer, stuffing letters in envelopes, sealing them, sticking address labels, affixing postage stamps, and taking them to the post office? As said before, all these steps are involved in printing and mailing envelopes or anything else like invoices and cheques. We haven’t even included many other steps like purchasing ink cartridges, calculating postage, and making space in your office to store all your direct mail pieces.

Bearing these things in mind, any company would like to get rid of all these manual steps and switch to the smart way of doing things. Automated direct mail campaigns do not demand hours of your time or effort. You simply need to make some selections and launch a campaign – all using a few minutes of your time and a few clicks. Your mail items will be printed and mailed through Royal Post in just two days.

5. Track Mail in Real-Time

Tracking is a very useful feature of automated direct mail, and it has more than one benefit. It enables you to know about your direct mail items’ progress, which in turn allows you to follow up at the right time. For example, your company plans an omnichannel marketing campaign wherein email alerts are supposed to be sent to every customer immediately after receiving your direct mail. In such a case, real-time tracking is a blessing. You don’t have to keep wondering whether your mail has reached the recipient.

Furthermore, you don’t even have to manually enter long tracking numbers on the Royal Mail’s website every time you want to track your mail. Just go on the API dashboard and see all your mail pieces’ status in a single view.

6. Save on Designing Costs

Designing can be expensive as some designers even charge up to $100 per hour. Moreover, companies also pay a lot for making edits, and these steps can take up a lot of your precious time. There’s no spontaneousness in the manual mailing. Everything demands time and effort. Automated direct mail, on the other hand, is instant – if you want to make any changes like changing the tagline, you can simply open your direct mail artwork and make the edit yourself.

All of this is possible with PostGrid’s in-built templates that are professionally built to suit your marketing needs. There are many portrait and landscape templates available. You can select one that best suits your message and offer. Apparently, you save on design costs, make edits speedily, and form the base of an efficient and cost-effective campaign.

7. No More Lost or Delayed Deliveries

As discussed earlier, PostGrid’s print and mail API allows you to verify and validate addresses. Hence, you don’t have to worry about sending mail to the wrong people at the wrong addresses.

With PostGrid, all addresses are automatically standardized according to Royal Mail’s database – speeding up deliveries. Since the addresses are exactly as per the postal provider’s database, it is very easy for them to process, sort, and deliver. These things enable you to replace your incomplete, incorrect, and unverified data with the deliverable validated and verified mailing addresses that can be a valuable asset for your business.

8. Test and Measure

With the help of automated direct mail, you can design various types of direct mail speedily for testing. Make small batches of different direct mail items and send them out in order to test the effectiveness of each type. See what works best for your brand and use the same in your upcoming campaigns. Testing is essential; you should know what appeals to your audience and can gather more responses.

Simple testing techniques include adding different offers or different designs in your mail pieces. The test can therefore show you which particular offer induces people to complete the desired CTA. You can include expedited shipping vs. free shipping, free trial vs. 20% discount, or free gift card vs. store credit. There are many different types of offers that you can include for testing.

Similarly, you can plan two different campaigns simultaneously. For instance, you print and mail postcards to a random group of people. On the other side, you print and mail out letters to another random group of people. This way, you can check whether postcards work for you or letters. You can also add other variations like pairing with social media campaigns, sending back-to-back direct mail over a few weeks, and more. Once the testing campaigns are completed, you can track the performance of every campaign to compare results. Be sure to include trackable features in all your direct mail items like pURLs and dedicated phone numbers. Direct mail automation can assist you in doing all these things without any worry.

Industries That Benefit From Automated Direct Mail

1. Healthcare

All healthcare institutions have to manage and deal with many medical documents like invoices, diagnostic test results, medical statements, consent forms, progress notes, patient instructions, prescriptions, and more. It is not easy to handle the printing and mailing of all these documents on-time to their respective patients. Hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare institutions have to keep up with their primary operations and cannot afford to spend so much time on such tasks. An easy way out? Use an automated direct mail API. It can help them draft all the documents quickly and order for them to get printed and mailed.

2. Finance

Banks and other financial institutions also mail out credit card bills, banking statements, policy changes, and other such letters and documents to their customers. Using an automated direct mail API like PostGrid, they can send out these timely documents accurately and efficiently, without any delays or troubles.

3. Non-Profit Organizations

As we already know, nonprofit and charitable organizations need contributions and help from donors and volunteers. They require these things on a continual basis, which is why direct mail marketing becomes a must. Direct mail helps them connect with people and calls them out to help the needy. Since they need to conduct direct mail marketing campaigns frequently, direct mail automation is smart. It enables them to focus on other areas of their work while handling the print and mail jobs.

4. Ecommerce

E-commerce businesses operate online, which makes people think that they advertise only on online platforms. In reality, many eCommerce websites use direct mail to reach out to their customers, induce them to complete checkouts, or simply connect with new customers and induce them to visit their website and purchase something. Direct mail is absolutely capable of driving online traffic. Therefore, eCommerce businesses also use this medium regularly. Automated direct mail can help them to design various types of direct mail items and connect with their offline audience.

5. Restaurants

From medium-sized food joints to huge chains of restaurants, direct mail is effective. Food joints can send out small, pretty postcards with their menu on the back, whereas large restaurants can go for something more creative and eye-catching. Restaurants can send out mail pieces with new dish launches, discounts, special holiday offers, dates of non-operation, new branch openings, and more. Automated direct mail can help them print phenomenal mail pieces that inform and advertise both at the same time.

6. Educational Institutions

Schools, colleges, and universities send out student reports, admission forms, policy notices, prospectus, and more such documents to students and their parents. Print and mail is part of their regular job, which is one of the main reasons why automated direct mail can benefit them greatly. They can save a lot of time and money while also having an efficient print and mail system in operation.

7. Others

Public relation companies, magazine publishers, gyms, social clubs, real estate, and many other businesses can use automated direct mail to send out marketing postcards, letters, and other transactional and compliance documents. All medium and large-scale companies who use direct mail advertising as part of their marketing activities can benefit from automated direct mail.

Automated direct mail integrates with your marketing tools or software programs to help you print and mail in an automated manner. There is no manual intervention or inventory stocking needed. You don’t have to purchase a printer or look for a designer. With in-built templates, outsourced printing, and speedy mailing – companies can really look forward to conducting direct mail campaigns effortlessly. Test, track, measure performance, compare results; direct mail automation makes these complicated tasks simple and easy to accomplish.

PostGrid’s direct mail automation API can help you integrate with your marketing tool and easily send postcards, letters, and cheques.

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The post Automated Direct Mail: What is it and How it Works? appeared first on PostGrid UK.

source https://www.postgrid.co.uk/automated-direct-mail/